The Adventurers (57 page)

"Dax has been in Paris all this week."

"In Paris?" Caroline was surprised. "But there's been no word of him. He hasn't been to any of the regular places. He hasn't even called."

Her father nodded. "That's what leads me to the conclusion that Dax does understand. He's remained in the consulate all week without even putting his head out. And there is only one reason why he would do that. To keep from embarrassing you." The baron came toward her and took her hand. "Indirectly, that's why I called you."

Caroline looked puzzled.

"Dax is planning to leave early tomorrow morning for Corteguay. I thought you two should see each other before he went away. He's waiting in the drawing room."

Dax was already on his feet when Caroline entered. She came directly across the room. His smile of greeting was warm and genuine. "Dax, I've been a child. I've never been a wife to you."

He took her hand. "Sit down."

She sank into a chair. "I don't know what to say. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. I haven't been that good a husband that you should feel you owe me apologies."

Caroline looked up at him. "Then what does one say at a time like this?"

Dax took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. He waited until she brushed the tears away. "Let us say this. Because of circumstances there were two friends who found themselves married to one another, and they were true friends because when their marriage was over they found that it had not destroyed their friendship."

"Is such a thing possible?"

"It is, if it is the truth."

A weight seemed to lift from Caroline's heart. She smiled for the first time. "You are a strange man, Dax. So many people think they know you and yet they don't. They see only what they want to see. Even I was that way. Now I realize

that I was just as stupid as the others. I, too, saw only what I wanted to see."

Dax looked at her. "And what do you see now?" Caroline leaned forward and took his hand. "I see a very kind and gentle man, and a very, very true friend."

CHAPTER 13

The wheels of the huge airplane touched the ground, and Dax turned to Fat Cat in the seat next to him. "Well, we're home."

Fat Cat looked past him through the window. The plane was taxiing toward the new airport building. "I do not like it. I prefer to come by sea."

"Why?"

"By sea you are approaching a large country; from the air one sees how truly small we are."

Dax laughed. "We are not a large country."

"Si, I know. But I do not feel this. I like to think we are big, important."

The plane came to a stop, and Dax began to unfasten his seat belt. "We are. But only to ourselves."

The hot Corteguayan sun pained their eyes as they came off the plane. At the foot of the landing stairs an officer moved forward in a smart salute. "Senor Xenos?"

"Si."

"Capitan Maroz, a su servicio. El Presidente has asked that I bring you to him immediately."

"Gracias, Capitan."

"I have a limousine waiting," Captain Maroz said, leading them through the airport doors. "Arrangements have already been made for your luggage."

With a wave of his hand Maroz passed them through customs, and they emerged into a large waiting area. He noticed Dax's eyes taking in the elaborate decorations, the large mosaic murals. "It is beautiful, no?"

Dax nodded. "Very impressive."

The captain smiled. "El Presidente says it is important for the turistas. They must first be impressed by the airport."

Dax looked down the long waiting area. There weren't many people in evidence, and most of them were in uniform. "How many planes land here in a day?"

Captain Maroz looked embarrassed. "There are but two international flights a week, one from the United States, another from Mexico. They pause here on their way south. But soon there will be more. And el Presidente plans to have our own airline operating by next year. Our people are most enthusiastic."

Dax imagined they would be, since it provided work for them. By now they had reached the limousine. Captain Maroz opened the door. Dax got into the car, and the captain climbed in beside him. Fat Cat got into the front with the driver.

The automobile swung around and came out onto a huge six-lane highway. Over their heads was a mammoth sign— boulevard del presidente. Dax glanced at his companion.

"It is also new," Captain Maroz said. "Of what use is an airport if there is no access to it?"

"Where does it go?"

"To the city, and then on to el Presidente's new winter palace in the mountains." Captain Maroz looked out the window of the car. "It is very impressive. El Presidente imported a group of gringo engineers to build it."

The horn blasted and the big car swerved to pass a mule-drawn cart loaded with manure. Dax turned in his seat to glance back. The campesino dozing in his seat had not even looked up as they passed. Dax could see all the way back to the airport. There was not another car in sight.

The captain's voice came over his shoulder. "Actually the campesinos are forbidden to use this road, but it is impossible to keep the stupid fools off."

Dax leaned back in the seat silently. In the fields they passed, some of the campesinos looked up as the car sped by but most simply ignored it. Abruptly the car began to slow down. Dax looked up. They were approaching the city.

"I know exactly what those Texans think," el Presidente said. "They think we are stupid, that we are children to be led around by our noses." He got up from behind the desk. "In time they shall learn differently."

Dax looked across the huge desk, el Presidente seemed hardly to have changed. If anything his hair seemed darker. A vague suspicion flashed through Dax's mind; there used to be a hint of gray in el Presidente's hair. Could it be that the old man was dyeing it?

"They are fools," el Presidente continued, "they think there is oil there. Well, let them think so. It will be five to seven years before they discover otherwise."

Dax looked at him in surprise. "But what about the surveys?"

El Presidente grinned. "Geologists, too, can be bought."

"But—"

El Presidente smiled. "Oh, they are right, the shelf does continue all along our coast. But it is more than three hundred miles out and almost two miles down. I doubt that even their Yankee ingenuity will find a way to make it practical for them to drill at that depth." He looked at Dax. "But in those five years they will spend many dollars here. It will be a big boost to our economy. It will also help make the American turistas aware of us."

He crossed to a window and looked out. Then he turned and beckoned to Dax. "Over there on the Hill of the Lovers— it will be a good place to build a hotel, no?"

"But there are no tourists yet."

El Presidente smiled. "There will be. Already Pan American Airlines has approached me about the location. They think the view will be magnifico."

"And they will supply the financing?"

El Presidente nodded. "Of course."

"And who will supply the land?"

El Presidente shrugged, and went back to his desk. "First the land must be acquired, then we will lease it to them."

"Who owns the land?"

El Presidente looked at Dax and smiled. "Amparo."

Dax returned to his chair and sat down. "Your excellency has thought of everything. I can't see why you sent for me."

"You are very important to our plans. You are the only one of us known outside this country. You are hereby appointed head of the Tourist Planning Commission."

Dax was silent.

El Presidente looked at him. "I know what you are thinking —that I am a dishonest, unscrupulous old man. And perhaps you are right. But everything I have done brings us more money, and helps raise the standard of living in Corteguay."

Dax got to his feet. He smiled to himself at the thought of all the clever men this old bandolero had hoodwinked. The rich greedy Texans. Marcel. Yet in the end what difference would it make?

For the Texans it would merely be another field that didn't come in; they would continue to make it from their other wells. And Marcel would have his fleet of ships. They would fly the flag of Corteguay and bring in taxes. So Corteguay and el Presidente would benefit no matter what happened.

"Your excellency, you never cease to amaze me."

El Presidente smiled. "Now we must think of a way to attract the American turista, something that will establish in his mind that Corteguay is an attractive and romantic place."

"There are companies in the United States that specialize in such matters. They are called public relations firms. I shall get in touch with several of them and we'll see what they come up with."

"An excellent idea." El Presidente pressed a buzzer on his desk. The meeting was over. "I shall expect you for dinner tonight. We can talk more then."

Captain Maroz was waiting in the antechamber. "I have another invitation for you, excellency," he said respectfully.

"Yes?"

"It is from her excellency, the daughter of el Presidente. She wishes you to join her for tea at five in her apartment."

Dax looked at his watch. It was a little after three. More than time for a siesta and to shower and change his clothes. "Tell her excellency I look forward with pleasure to seeing her again."

CHAPTER 14

Jeremy Hadley pushed the accelerator down to the floor, and with a surge of power the big car abruptly crested the hill. For a moment it seemed suspended breathlessly, with the entire Riviera spread out below, from Monte Carlo to Antibes, then it hurtled down toward the blue waters of the Mediterranean.

The girl moved closer and suddenly he felt her hand at the inside of his thigh. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Her lips were partly open, almost as if she were in the throes of sexual excitement. "You Americans and your automobiles!" she shouted over the roar of the wind and the motor.

He grinned. It worked every time. No matter how sophisticated they were, no matter how snide about things American. All you had to do was get them beside you on that front seat. Whatever it was—the speed, the sense of power, the masculine smell of new leather—it never missed.

He looked at her again. There was a place just off the road around the next turn, and there was no doubt about her being ready. She fell on him almost before he had time to cut the motor, her fingers frantically tearing at the nonexistent buttons. He pulled down his zipper, and she gasped as his youth and life sprang free. Then her hot moist mouth covered him.

The sun was beginning to fall beyond Antibes when the big car nosed its way out onto the road once more. She had pulled the visor down and was repairing her makeup in the mirror clipped to its underside. She caught his eyes as she finished with her lipstick. She snapped the visor up and leaned back in the seat. "I don't expect you to believe me but that was the first time I have ever been unfaithful to my husband."

Jeremy didn't answer. There was no need for a reply. If it was the first time, he was certain from the way she had acted that it would not be the last.

"You do not believe me?"

He smiled. "I believe you."

She pulled the cigarette from his mouth and dragged on it. Then she gave it back to him and let the smoke out slowly. "I don't understand myself. I don't know what got into me."

He laughed aloud. "I do. Me."

In spite of herself she laughed. "Don't joke, this is serious."

"I'm not joking."

She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "How long will it take us to get there?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "It depends on how long we're held up at customs. Perhaps two hours."

"Two hours?" There was a note of dismay in her voice.

"What difference does it make? Nobody's going to question it."

"My husband will. He didn't like the idea of my driving alone with you."

"I asked him to come. He preferred going on the yacht with the others."

"That doesn't matter," she said, "he'll still want to know what took us so long."

"Tell him we ran out of gas."

He turned on the car radio, and music from an Italian station swelled up. That should stop the conversation, he thought. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

She was leaning back against the seat, her eyes half closed. He wondered what she was thinking. German girls were very strange. And Marlene Von Kuppen was stranger than most.

But perhaps the oddest thing about her was her husband. Fritz Von Kuppen was the second son of the old baron. Tall and blond, an officer in the German Air Corps during the war, he had been shot down early and discharged almost before the war had really begun. When they had first met, Jeremy had been almost certain that Von Kuppen was a homosexual. There was something about the way the man moved on a tennis court. It was almost too classic. He had beaten Jeremy easily, and afterward had invited him back to the clubhouse for a drink.

It was there that he had met Marlene. She had been seated at a table on the terrace talking to another woman.

"My wife, Mr. Hadley," Von Kuppen said. "Mr. Hadley plays a very hard game of tennis, Marlene."

Jeremy had smiled and taken her outstretched hand. "But not hard enough. Your husband took me quite easily."

Marlene smiled. "Tennis is the only thing in the world that Fritz is really serious about."

He had cocked his ear. He wondered whether there was something hidden in that statement. But she had quickly introduced her companion, and a moment later the waiter had come with drinks. In the course of their conversation he had learned that the Von Kuppens had stopped off in Italy on their way to the French Riviera, and planned to go on sometime within the next few days.