The overriding generalization was shared by everyone: the Cock Pit was an extraordinarily fruitful landmass with abundant reserves of rich soil, available water, and unbelievable deposits of gases and ores.
All this was accepted as fact before morning of the third day. McAuliff listened as Peter Jensen summed it up with frightening clarity.
“It’s inconceivable that no one’s gone in and developed. I daresay Brasilia couldn’t hold a candle! Three-quarters of the life force is right here, waiting to be used!”
The reference to the city carved out of the Brazilian jungles made Alex swallow and stare at the enthusiastic, middle-aged, pipe-smoking minerals expert.
We’re going to build a city.… Julian Warfield’s words.
Unbelievable. And viable.
It did not take great imagination to understand Dunstone, Limited, now. The project was sound, taking only gigantic sums of capital to set it in motion; sums available to Dunstone. And once set in motion, the entire island could be tied to the incredible development. Armies of workers, communities, one source.
Ultimately, the government.
Kingston could not, would not turn it off. Once in motion—one source—the benefits would be overwhelming and undeniable. The enormity of the cash flow alone could subvert the parliament. Slices of the gigantic pie.
Economically and psychologically, Kingston would become dependent on Dunstone, Limited.
So complicated, yet so basically, ingeniously simple.
Once they have Kingston, they have the laws of the land in their vaults. To shape as they will. Dunstone will own a nation.… R. C. Hammond’s words.
It was nearly midnight; the carriers were banking the fires under the scrutiny of the two runners, Marcus and Justice Hedrik. The black revolutionary, Lawrence, was playing his role as one of the crew, subservient and pleasant, but forever scanning the forests beyond, never allowing himself to be too far away from Alison Booth.
The Jensens and Ferguson had gone to their tents. McAuliff, Sam Tucker, and Alison sat around a small bivouac table, the light of the dying fires flickering across their faces as they talked quietly.
“Jensen’s right, Alexander,” said Tucker, lighting a thin cigar. “Those behind this know exactly what they’re doing. I’m no expert, but one strike, one hint of a mother lode, and you couldn’t stop the speculation money.”
“It’s a company named Dunstone.”
“What is?”
“Those behind … the company’s called Dunstone; the man’s name is Warfield. Julian Warfield. Alison knows.”
Sam held the cigar between his fingers and looked at McAuliff. “They hired you.” Tucker’s statement was spoken slowly, a touch gruffly.
“He did,” replied Alex. “Warfield did.”
“Then this Royal Society grant … the Ministry, and the Institute, are covers.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew it from the beginning.”
“So does British Intelligence. I wasn’t just acting as an informer, Sam. They trained me … as best they could over a couple of weeks.”
“Was there any particular reason why you kept it a secret, Alexander?” Tucker’s voice—especially as capped with McAuliff’s name—was not comforting. “I think you should have told me. Especially after that meeting in the hills. We’ve been together a long time, boy.… No, I don’t think you acted properly.”
“He was generously proper, Sam,” said Alison, with a combination of precision and warmth. “For your benefit. I speak from experience. The less you’re aware of, the better your prospects. Take my word for it.”
“Why should I?” asked Tucker.
“Because I’ve been there. And because I was there, I’m here now.”
“She tied in against Chatellerault. That’s what I couldn’t tell you. She worked for Interpol. A data bank picked out her name; it was made to look so completely logical. She wanted to get out of England—”
“Had to get out, my darling.… Do you see, Sam? The computer was Interpol’s; all the intelligence services are first cousins, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. M.I. Five ran a cross-reference, and here I am. Valuable bait, another complication … Don’t be anxious to learn too much. Alex was right.”
The ensuing silence was artificial. Tucker inhaled on his thin cigar, the unasked questions more pronounced by their absence. Alison whisked strands of hair, let down for the evening, off her forehead. McAuliff poured himself a small quantity of Scotch. Finally Sam Tucker spoke.
“It’s fortunate I trust you, Alexander.”
“I know that. I counted on it.”
“But why?” continued Sam quietly. “Why in hell did you do it? You’re not that hungry. Why did you work for them?”
“For whom? Or which? Dunstone or British Intelligence?”
Tucker paused, staring at Alex before he replied. “Jesus, I don’t know. Both, I guess, boy.”
“I accepted the first before the second showed up. It was a good contract, the best I’d ever been offered. Before I realized it, I was locked in. I was convinced I couldn’t get out … by both sides. At one point, it was as simple as staying alive. Then there were guarantees and promises … and more guarantees and more promises.” McAuliff stared across the clearing; it was strange. Lawrence was crouched over the embers of a fire, looking at them. “Before you know it, you’re in some kind of crazy cell block, hurtling around the confining space, bouncing off the walls … that’s not a very sane picture.”
“Move and countermove, Sam,” interrupted Alison. “They’re experts.”
“Who? Which?” Tucker leaned forward in his chair, holding Alison with his old eyes.
“Both,” answered the girl firmly. “I saw what Chatellerault did to my husband. I know what Interpol did to me.”
The silence returned once more, less strained than before. And once again, Sam Tucker broke it softly.
“You’ve got to define your enemies, Alexander. I get the feeling you haven’t done that … present company expected as allies, I sincerely hope.”
“I’ve defined them as best I can. I’m not sure those definitions will hold. It’s complicated, at least for me.”
“Then simplify, boy. When you’re finished, who wants you hanged the quickest?”
McAuliff looked at Alison. “Again, both. Dunstone literally; M.I. Five and Six figuratively. One dead, the other dependent—subject to recall. A name in a data bank. That’s very real.”
“I agree,” said Tucker, relighting his thin cigar. “Now, let’s reverse the process. Who can you hang the quickest? The surest?”
Alex laughed quietly, joined by Alison. The girl spoke. “My Lord, you do think alike.”
“That doesn’t answer the question. Who the quickest?”
“Dunstone, I imagine. At the moment, it’s more vulnerable. Warfield made a mistake; he thinks I’m really hungry. He thinks he bought me because he made me a part of them. They fall, I fall … I’d have to say Dunstone.”
“All right,” replied Sam, assuming the mantle of a soft-spoken attorney. “Enemy number one defined as Dunstone. You can extricate yourself by simple blackmail: third-person knowledge, documents tucked away in lawyers’ offices. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“That leaves enemy number two: Her Majesty’s Intelligence boys. Let’s define them. What’s their hook into you?”
“Protection. It’s supposed to be protection.”
“Not noticeably successful, would you say, son?”
“Not noticeably successful,” said Alex in agreement. “But we’re not finished yet.”
“We’ll get to that; don’t rush. What’s your hook into them?”
McAuliff paused in thought. “Their methods … and their contacts, I think. Exposing their covert operations.”
“Really the same as with Dunstone, isn’t it?” Tucker was zeroing in on his target.
“Again, yes.”
“Let’s go back a second. What does Dunst
one offer?”
“Money. A great deal of money. They need this survey.”
“Are you prepared to lose it?”
“Hell, yes! But I may not have to—”
“That’s immaterial. I assume that’s part of the ‘guarantees and promises.’ ”
“That’s right.”
“But it’s not a factor. You haven’t stolen from the thieves. In any way can they get you indicted as one of them?”
“Christ, no! They may think so, but they’re wrong.”
“Then there are your answers. Your definitions. Eliminate the hooks and the offers. Theirs. The money and the protection. Lose one—the money; make the other unnecessary—the protection. You’re dealing from strength, with your own hooks. You make whatever offers you wish.”
“You jumped, Sam,” said McAuliff slowly. “Or you forgot. We’re not finished; we may need the protection. If we take it, we can’t deny it. We’d be a joke. The Iran-Contra syndrome. Worms crawling over each other.”
Sam Tucker put down his thin cigar in the ashtray on the table and reached for the bottle of Scotch. He was about to speak, but was interrupted by the sight of Charles Whitehall walking out of a jungle path into the clearing. Whitehall looked around, then crossed rapidly to Lawrence, who was still over the coals of the banked fire, the orange glow coloring his skin a bronzed black. The two men spoke. Lawrence stood up, nodded once, and started toward the jungle path. Whitehall watched him briefly, then turned and looked over at McAuliff, Sam, and Alison.
With urgency, he began walking across the clearing to them.
“There’s your protection, Alexander,” said Sam quietly as Whitehall approached. “The two of them. They may despise each other, but they’ve got a common hate that works out fine for you. For all of us, goddammit … Bless their beautiful hides.”
“The courier has returned.” Charles Whitehall adjusted the light of the Coleman lantern in his tent. McAuliff stood inside the canvas flap of the doorway—Whitehall had insisted that Alex come with him; he did not wish to speak in front of Alison and Sam Tucker.
“You could have told the others.”
“That will be a … multilateral decision. Personally, I would not subscribe to it.”
“Why not?”
“We must be extremely careful. The less that is known by them, the better.”
McAuliff pulled out a pack of cigarettes and walked to the single nylon-strapped chair in the center of the tent. He sat down, knowing that Charley-mon would not; the man was too agitated, trying almost comically to remain calm. “That’s funny. Alison used the same words a little while ago. For different reasons … What’s the message from Maroon Town?”
“Affirmative! The colonel will meet with us. What’s more important—so much more important—is that his reply was in units of four!”
Whitehall approached the chair, his eyes filled with that messianic anxiety Alex had seen in Drax Hall. “He made a counterproposal for our meeting. Unless he hears otherwise, he will assume it is acceptable. He asks for eight days. And rather than four hours after sundown, he requests the same four hours after two in the morning. Two in the morning! Diagrammatically to the right of the setting sun. Don’t you see? He understands, McAuliff. He understands! Piersall’s first step is confirmed!”
“I thought it would be,” replied Alex lamely, not quite sure how to handle Whitehall’s agitation.
“It doesn’t matter to you, does it?” The Jamaican stared at McAuliff incredulously. “A scholar made an extraordinary discovery. He’d followed elusive threads in the archives going back over two hundred years. His work proved out; it could have enormous academic impact. The story of Jamaica might well have to be rewritten.… Can’t you see?”
“I can see you’re excited, and I can understand that. You should be. But right now, I’m concerned with a less erudite problem. I don’t like the delay.”
Whitehall silently exploded in exasperation. He looked up at the canvas ceiling, inhaled deeply, and quickly regained his composure. The judgment he conveyed was obvious: the blunt mind in front of him was incapable of being reached. He spoke with condescending resignation. “It’s good. It indicates progress.”
“Why?”
“I did not tell you, but I included a message with our request for a meeting. It was admittedly a risk but I felt—unilaterally—that it was worth taking. It could expedite our objective with greater speed. I told the courier to say the request came from … new believers of Acquaba.”
McAuliff tensed; he was suddenly angry with Whitehall, but had the presence to minimize his anger. The horrible memory of the fate of the first Dunstone survey came to mind. “For such a brilliant guy, I think that was pretty stupid, Charley-mon.”
“Not stupid. A calculated risk. If the Halidon decides to make contact on the strength of Piersall’s code, it will arrive at that decision only after it learns more about us. It will send out for information; it will see that I am part of the unit. The elders of the Halidon will know of my credentials, my scholarship, my contributions to the Jamaican story. These will be in our favor.”
Alex leaped out of the chair and spoke quietly, viciously. “You egomaniacal son of a bitch! Has it occurred to you that your … other credentials may not be favorable? You could be the one piece of rotten meat!”
“Impossible!”
“You arrogant prick! I won’t have the lives of this team jeopardized by your inflated opinion of yourself! I want protection, and I’m going to get it!”
There was a rustling outside the tent. Both men whipped around toward the canvas flap of the entrance. The canvas parted, and the black revolutionary, Lawrence, walked in slowly, his hands in front of him, bound by rope. Behind Lawrence was another man. In the shadowed darkness it appeared to be the runner Marcus Hedrik. In his hand was a gun. It was jabbed into the flash of his prisoner.
The captor spoke quietly. “Do not go for your weapons. Don’t make noise. Just stay exactly where you are.”
“Who are you?” asked McAuliff, amazed that Hedrik’s voice had lost the hesitant, dull tones he had heard for the better part of a week. “You’re not Marcus!”
“For the moment, that is not important.”
“Garvey!” whispered Alex. “Garvey said it! He said there were others … he didn’t know who. You’re with British Intelligence!”
“No,” replied the large man softly, even politely. “Two of your carriers were English agents. They’re dead. And the obese Garvey had an accident on the road to Port Maria. He is dead also.”
“Then—”
“It is not you who will ask the questions, Mr. McAuliff. It is I. You will tell me … you new believers … what you know of Acquaba.”
25
They talked for several hours, and McAuliff knew that for the time being he had saved their lives. At one point Sam Tucker interrupted, only to receive and acknowledge the plea in Alexander’s eyes: Sam had to leave them alone. Tucker left, making it clear that he would be with Alison. He expected Alex to speak with them before retiring. Sam did not notice the ropes on Lawrence’s hands in the shadowed corner, and McAuliff was grateful that he did not.
Marcus Hedrik was not the runner’s name. Marcus and Justice Hedrik had been replaced: where they were was of no consequence, insisted this unnamed member of the Halidon. What was of paramount consequence was the whereabouts of the Piersall documents.
Always leave something to trade off … in the last extremity. The words of R. C. Hammond.
The documents.
McAuliff’s ploy.
The Halidonite probed with infinite care every aspect of Piersall’s conclusions as related by Charles Whitehall. The black scholar traced the history of the Acquaba sect, but he would not reveal the nagarro, the meaning of the Halidon. The “runner” neither agreed nor disagreed; he was simply an interrogator. He was also a perceptive and cautious man.
Once satisfied that Charles Whitehall would tell him no more, he ordered him to rema
in inside his tent with Lawrence. They were not to leave; they would be shot if they tried. His fellow “runner” would stay on guard.
The Halidonite recognized the intransigence of McAuliff’s position. Alex would tell him nothing. Faced with that, he ordered Alex under gunpoint to walk out of the campsite. As they proceeded up a path toward the grasslands, McAuliff began to understand the thoroughness of the Halidon—that small part of it to which he was exposed.
Twice along the alley of dense foliage, the man with the weapon commanded him to stop. There followed a brief series of guttural parrot calls, responded to in kind. Alex heard the softly spoken words of the man with the gun.
“The bivouac is surrounded, Mr. McAuliff. I’m quite sure Whitehall and Tucker, as well as your couriers, know that now. The birds we imitate do not sing at night.”
“Where are we going?”
“To meet with someone. My superior, in fact. Continue, please.”
They climbed for another twenty minutes; a long jungle hill suddenly became an open grassland, a field that seemed extracted from some other terrain, imposed on a foreign land surrounded by wet forests and steep mountains.
The moonlight was unimpeded by clouds; the field was washed with dull yellow. And in the center of the wild grass stood two men. As they approached, McAuliff saw that one of the men was perhaps ten feet behind the first, his back to them. The first man faced them.
The Halidonite facing them was dressed in what appeared to be ragged clothes, but with a loose field jacket and boots. The combined effect was a strange, unkempt paramilitary appearance. Around his waist was a pistol belt and holster. The man ten feet away and staring off in the opposite direction was in a caftan held together in the middle by a single thick rope.