* Set in New Zealand that has no nuclear reactors
CHAPTER 1
Guthrie Marks worked alone repairing small boats Monday to Friday, usually from 7:00 till 4:00, and then would go to one of his favorite bars in the prosperous seaside town of Townsend that looked out to Okahu Island and, like everyone else in that locality, he was unaware the island soon would become the center of huge controversy over a proposal to establish a nuclear power plant on the island.
The 21,870-acre island was accessible by foot across a fairly stable sandbank for up to two hours on both sides of low tide.
A two-hourly regular ferry service ran to accommodate those who avoided walking along the half-mile sandbank either because they didn't like risking a race against the incoming tide, or were pregnant mothers, mothers with infants or mothers lugging shopping. Others who always took the ferry included debt collectors, tax inspectors, the infirm, ferry rider fanatics and near-paralytic drunks.
Foreign tourists and people from cities on the mainland within fifty miles of Okahu Island were drawn there because artists and crafts people, many of whom were nationally acclaimed, festooned Artisan's Village and its immediate surrounds around picturesque Gunship Bay. The beach there had been a hauling out area for naval vessels in the age of sail.
Guthrie, known to everyone locally as Gus, owned five of the more up-market houses in that village, inherited from his late maternal grandmother who survived all of her children including Gus's mother who was caught by the tide one night because she was drunk and had misjudged the safe-to-cross timing. Gus, who was eleven at the time and was with his mother, managed to swim to a shallow water warning buoy where four hours after the tragedy he was found clinging to the buoy.
Tourists and holidaymakers from the region stayed at Gus's houses paying big rentals, making him quite wealthy but he considered at thirty-six he was too young to retire and kept on with his boat repair business, purchased from his father. This part of the coast was rocky with many reefs and submerged hazards and, as a consequence, boating mishaps were quite frequent. Local people requiring boat repairs or refits kept Gus's order book full because was first-choice repairer, being a master craftsman.
Gus would return from the bar of that afternoon's choice around 6:00 each evening to his home over the boatshed practically on Sandy Beach, the only premises permitted that close to the sea. That privilege was secured because his boat-building grandfather had secured inalienable title to that piece of land through proven long-standing occupancy of family succession in the 1950s when extensive reforms were introduced throughout the country to control land use and provide tighter protection of natural resources.
Usually when Gus arrived home his dinner would be almost ready, prepared by a kindly widow, wife or a comely single woman whenever Gus's schoolteacher girlfriend was unavailable. In most instances, once Gus had eaten, the cook would enjoy robust sex with him, usually up to two hours if she had the stamina and inclination and a good excuse to explain her flushed cheeks and lateness home if she were answerable to a partner or father/mother.
It was a beautiful arrangement for Gus because he had no inclination to pay for sex. What the women got out of it he wasn't sure but most of them kept on the roster managed by his girlfriend Kitty. Gus and Kitty were both very popular residents in Townsend and people in the town and on the island enjoyed seeing the attractive couple together. None of them including Gus knew that Kitty (31) intended to marry Gus as soon as he got her pregnant.
It appeared to be a life of bliss for the people of the town and island, although it's well known that people enjoying the best of life often foul up or have it fouled up for them.
Totally unexpected came a bombshell, the Government announcing Okahu Island had been chosen as proposed site for a nuclear power plant and a site exploratory team would arrive on the island shortly to being test drillings on behalf of the Government's electricity authority.
Local people were horrified on the day of that shock announcement. Many people failed to show up for work, calling in that they were sick, as they probably were... sick to the stomach.
The first spontaneous neighborhood meetings began forming within minutes of the news breaking
Angry citizens calling Townsend Talkback Radio ranted on the airwaves, being bleeped numerous times for bad language but were allowed to make defamatory remarks against the Government because the station manager deemed it was impossible to libel a Government.
Kitty called Gus and wept, "Oh darling this is terrible for our baby."
Caught by surprised Gus said, "What baby?"
"Um did I say baby?"
"You did. Are you pregnant?"
"No," she sobbed. "I was thinking the nuclear pollution would be really damaging to babies. What are you going to do about it darling?"
"Declare war on the bastards who invade our island."
"What?"
"Oh bugger. Forget I ever said that darling."
"Very well."
He said promise him she'd never repeat what he'd just said and she promised 'hand on heart'.
"I should be touching that breast."
"What, oh god Gus how could you be thinking sex at a time like this?"
Gus wondered was there really a time not to think of sex?
"Listen very carefully baby, my strategy will be to take a passive role and argue it's only an investigation and the drillers will probably find the composition of island ground is too unstable to take the weight of a nuclear power station."
"But if you take a passive stand you would be harshly criticized."
"Oh in that case I just better shrug and say I want nothing to do with it."
"You'll be called a coward."
Gus said provided people still came to him to repair their boats and paid their accounts by due date he could live with being called a coward.
"Will you let your houses on the island to the investigating team?"
"Gee I could hike up prices."
"Gus!"
"Um no, no way could they occupy my houses. Let the bastards haul across RVs, caravans and tents to the island."
"Good boy. I was about to warn you I could withhold sex."
"Oh that would have been an enormous loss."
Kitty released her cute giggle he found so adorable. "Oh darling. You can say just the sweetest things to me. I trust you will avoid coming to harm if you indulge in your know what?"
"What having sex with you?"
"No you fool. If you indulge in what I'm forbidden to talk about."
"Oh that. Everything will be Jake. I'll count on you to be courageous and keep your mouth shut if things begin looking dicey for me."
"I will. You know I'm not a wimp otherwise you would have had nothing to do with me."
"Agreed," said Gus. "Now listen carefully. From now on be aware of anyone coming snooping. If I'm away say I'm touring the country studying boat-repair trends and then probably will visit France, Japan and Norway."
"What?"
"That would explain my absence darling. You wouldn't like me being accused of civil disobedience on the island would you? I'd need sex before I disappeared so you will know by the depth of my interest and affection that I'm about to go away."
"Oooh, when will that be? The bell is going, I better go. Our school principal is hunched over his laptop looking up how to defend populations against nuclear radiation leaks."
"Tell him he could be retired before any plant goes operational."
"Is that the truth?"
"Yes honey that island is honeycombed with caves and fissures. I can't see them building a power station on it and then running the giant electricity transmission pylons over the sandbank."
"Omigod that would be desecrating our walkway making people too scared to walk under those huge power lines."
"Yeah the developers could use huge under-sea cables but the cost of that would frighten the Government because it's Energy Commission will be footing the bills through Government guaranteed loans. Don't tell anyone about what I've just said because having these guys here on their misguided investigation will boost the economies of the town and the island."
"Oh yes, good thinking. Bye darling. Mae Partridge is cooking your dinner tonight because I have a school committee meeting. Mae is the big screamer, remember?"
"Yeah and damn, that's not the only thing big about Mae."
Kitty giggled and cut the call.
* * *
Gus went to the back of the boatshed and moved odd lengths of surplus planks and unlocked the heavy steel cover set into the concrete floor and gently lifted out the WW2 sniper's rifle in its carry bag an old guy had given his dad in the 1960s and put that on the bench. Gus' father Cliff and his 39-year old second wife now lived in Florida.
There was a good supply of ammo for the gun and it wasn't registered so any forensic work on recovered bullets could not be traced back to the weapon's owner. His father had not intended being that deceitful; he just liked to have a couple of guns handy and didn't believe it was the police's business to know what weapons he possessed and to have to pay fees for the privilege of the police to hold and update that information.
Gus spent most of the morning doing regular maintenance on the rifle and checking it out thoroughly. Instead of going to a bar that afternoon he went around to the west side of the island on his 10 ft 6 in inflatable boat with a rigid aluminum hull and powered by a 15 hp Honda motor, very similar to many such boats running about in the area. On this occasion he wished to remain inconspicuous and dressed as a fisherman complete with sunhat and dirty clothes and drank beer as he cruised.
Nearing the western side of the uninhabited Government-owned northern area of the island that was used for grazing stock and horse-riding, Gus went very close inshore to be hidden from any nature walkers observing sea life from the towering cliffs and went into what he knew as Sea Cave 34. As a boy Gus had explored many of the island's sea caves, but not all of them, because he estimated there were at least 150 of them. He used to camp in this cave when young and first had sex in this very cave, with Maggie Westwood who now was a divorcee with three kids. Maggie worked as a successful potter working from home in the Artisan's Village she shared with a sexy female artist who also had totally lost interest in males.
