The Cry of the Halidon (25 page)

His enemy now was not the enemy—enemies—he had waited ten years to fight: the rulers in Kingston; worse, perhaps, the radicals like Barak Moore. It was a new enemy, every bit as despicable, and infinitely more powerful, because it had the means to control his beloved Jamaica.

Control by corruption; ultimately own … by possession.

He had lied to Alexander McAuliff. In Savanna-la-Mar, Chatellerault openly admitted that he was part of the Trelawny Parish conspiracy. British Intelligence was right. The marquis’s wealth was intrinsic to the development of the raw acreage on the north coast and in the Cock Pit, and he intended to see that his investment was protected. Charles Whitehall was his first line of protection, and if Charles Whitehall failed, he would be destroyed. It was as simple as that. Chatellerault was not the least obscure about it. He had sat opposite him and smiled his thin Gallic smile and recited the facts—and names of the covert network Whitehall had developed on the island over the past decade.

He had capped his narrative with the most damaging information of all: the timetable and the methods Charles and his political party expected to follow on their road to power in Kingston.

The establishment of a military dictatorship with one, nonmilitary leader to whom all were subservient—the Praetorian of Jamaica was the title, Charles Whitehall the man.

If Kingston knew these things … well, Kingston would react.

But Chatellerault made it clear that their individual objectives
were not necessarily in conflict. There were areas—philosophical, political, financial—in which their interests might easily be merged. But first came the activity on the north coast. That was immediate; it was the springboard to everything else.

The marquis did not name his partners—Whitehall got the distinct impression that Chatellerault was not entirely sure who they all were—but it was manifestly clear that he did not trust them. On one level he seemed to question motives, on another it was a matter of abilities. He spoke briefly about previous interference and/or bungling, but did not dwell on the facts.

The facts obviously concerned the first survey.

What had happened?

Was the Halidon responsible?

Was the Halidon
capable
of interference?

Did the Halidon really exist?

The Halidon.

He would have to analyze the anthropologist Piersall’s papers; separate a foreigner’s exotic fantasies from island reality. There was a time, many years ago, when the Rastafarians were symbols of African terror, before they were revealed to be children stoned on grass with mud-caked hair and a collective desire to avoid work. And there were the Pocomanians, with their bearded high priests inserting the sexual orgy into the abstract generosities of the Christian ethic: a socioreligious excuse for promiscuity. Or the Anansi sects—inheritors of the long-forgotten Ashanti belief in the cunning of the spider, on which all progress in life was patterned.

There were so many. So often metaphysically paranoid; so fragmented, so obscure.

Was the Halidon—Hollydawn—any different?

At this juncture, for Charles Whitehall it didn’t really matter. What mattered was his own survival and the survival of his plans. His aims would be accomplished by keeping Chatellerault at bay and infiltrating the structure of Chatellerault’s financial hierarchy.

And working with his first enemy, Barak Moore.

Working with both enemies.

Jamaica’s enemies.

James Ferguson fumbled for the light switch on the bedside lamp. His thrusts caused an. ashtray and a glass to collide, sending both crashing to the floor. Light was coming through the drawn curtains; he was conscious of it in spite of the terrible pain in his eyes and through his head, from temple to temple. Pain that caused flashes of darkness to envelop his inner eye. He looked at his watch as he shaded his face from the dim spill of the lamp. It was 6:15.

Oh, Christ! His head hurt so, tears welled in the far corners of his eyes. Shafts of pain—sharp, immobilizing—shot down into his neck and seemed to constrict his shoulders, even his arms. His stomach was in a state of tense, muscular suspension; if he thought about it, he knew he would be sick and vomit.

There was no pretense regarding the amount of alcohol he had consumed last night. McAuliff could not accuse him of play-acting now. He had gotten drunk. Very drunk. And with damn good reason.

He had been elated.

Arthur Craft had telephoned him in panic. In
panic
!

Craft the Younger had been caught. McAuliff had found the room where the taping was being done and beaten someone up,
physically beaten
him
up
! Craft had yelled over the telephone, demanding where McAuliff had gotten his name.

Not from him! Certainly not from Jimbo-mon. He had said nothing.

Craft had roared, swearing at the “goddamned nigger on the tape machine,” convinced the “black fucker” had confessed to McAuliff, adding that the bastard would never get near a courtroom. “If it came to that.”

If it came to that
.

“You never
saw
me,” Craft the Younger had screamed.
“We never talked! We didn’t meet! You get that absolutely clear, you shaky son of a bitch!”

“Of course … of course, Mr. Craft,” he had replied. “But then, sir … we
did
talk, didn’t we? This doesn’t have to change anything.”

He had been petrified, but he had said the words. Quietly, with no great emphasis. But his message had been clear.

Arthur Craft Junior was in an awkward position. Craft the Younger should not be yelling; he should be’polite. Perhaps even solicitous.

After all, they
had
talked.…

Craft understood. The understanding was first indicated by his silence, then confirmed by his next statement.

“We’ll be in touch.”

It had been so simple. And if Craft the Younger wanted it different, wanted things as they were not, Craft controlled an enormously wealthy foundation. Certainly he could find something for a very,
very
talented botanist.

When he hung up the telephone last night, James had felt a wave of calm come over him. The sort of quiet confidence in a laboratory, where his eye and mind were very sure indeed.

He would have to be cautious, but he could do it.

He had gotten drunk when he realized that.

And now his head and stomach were in pain. But he could stand them; they were bearable now. Things were going to be different.

He looked at his watch. His goddamn Timex. It was 6:25. A cheap watch but accurate.

Instead of a Timex there might be a Breitling chronometer in his future. And new, very expensive camera equipment. And a real bank balance.

And a new life.

If he was cautious.

The telephone rang on Peter Jensen’s side of the bed, but his wife heard it first.

“Peter … Peter! For heaven’s sake, the
phone
.”

“What? What, old girl?” Peter Jensen blinked his eyes; the room was dark, but there was daylight beyond the drawn curtains.

The telephone rang again. Short bursts of bell; the kind of rapid blasts hotel switchboards practice. Nimble fingers, irritated guests.

Peter Jensen reached over and switched on the light. The traveling clock read ten minutes to eight. Again the shrill bell, now steady.

“Damn!” sputtered Peter as he realized the instrument was beyond the lamp, requiring him to reach farther. “Yes,
yes
? Hello?”

“Mr. Peter Jensen, please?” said the unfamiliar male voice.

“Yes. What is it? This is Jensen.”

“Cable International, Mr. Jensen. A wire arrived for you several minutes ago. From London. Shall I read it? It’s marked urgent, sir.”

“No!” replied Peter quickly, firmly. “No, don’t do that. I’ve been expecting it; it’s rather long, I should think.”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“Just send it over right away, if you please. Can you do that? Courtleigh Manor. Room four-oh-one. It won’t be necessary to stop at the desk.”

“I understand, Mr. Jensen. Right away. There’ll be a charge for an unscheduled—”

“Of course, of course,” interrupted Peter. “Just send it over, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Twenty-five minutes later, the messenger from Cable International arrived. Moments before, room service had wheeled in a breakfast of melon, tea, and scones. Peter Jensen opened the two-page cablegram and spread it over the linen cloth on his side of the table. There was a pencil in his hand.

Across from him, Ruth held up a page of paper, scanning it over the rim of her cup. She, too, had a pencil, at the side of the saucer.

“The company name is Parkhurst,” said Peter.

“Check,” said Ruth, putting down her tea. She placed the paper alongside, picked up the pencil, and made a mark on the page.

“The address is Sheffield by the Glen.” Peter looked over at her.

“Go ahead,” replied Ruth, making a second notation.

“The equipment to be inspected is microscopes.”

“Very well.” Ruth made a third mark on the left of the page, went back to her previous notes, and then darted her eyes to the bottom right. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Ruth Wells Jensen, paleontologist, proceeded to recite a series of numbers. Her husband started at the top of the body of the cablegram and began circling words with his pencil. Several times he asked his wife to repeat a number. As she did so, he counted from the previous circle and circled another word.

Three minutes later, they had finished the exercise. Peter Jensen swallowed some tea and reread the cablegram to himself. His wife spread jam on two scones and covered the teapot with the cozy.

“Warfield is flying over next week. He agrees. McAuliff has been reached.”

H
ammond’s words kept coming back to McAuliff:
You’ll find it quite acceptable to operate on different levels. Actually, it evolves rather naturally, even instinctively. You’ll discover that you tend to separate your concentrations
.

The British Intelligence agent had been right. The survey was in its ninth day, and Alex found that for hours at a time he had no other thoughts but the immediate work at hand.

The equipment had been trucked from Boscobel Airfield straight through to Puerto Seco, on Discovery Bay. Alex, Sam Tucker, and Alison Booth flew into Ocho Rios ahead of the others and allowed themselves three days of luxury at the Sans Souci while McAuliff ostensibly hired a crew—two of the five of which had been agreed upon in an isolated farmhouse high in the hills of the Blue Mountains. Alex found—as he’d expected—that Sam and Alison got along extremely well. Neither was difficult to like; each possessed an easy humor, both were professionals. And there was no reason to conceal from Sam the fact that they were lovers. As Tucker phrased it: “I’d be shocked if you weren’t, Alexander.”

Sam’s approval was important to McAuliff. For at no time was Alison to be left alone when he was away. Under no circumstances. Ever.

Sam Tucker was the ideal protective escort. Far superior to himself, Alex realized. Tuck was the most resourceful man he had ever known, and just about the hardest. He had within him an aggressiveness that when called upon was
savage. He was not a man to have as an enemy. In his care, Alison was as safe as a human being could be.

The fourth day had been the first day of the survey work. The team was housed halfway between Puerto Seco and Rio Bueno Harbour, in a pleasant beach motel called Bengal Court. Work began shortly after six in the morning. The initial objective of the survey was to plot the coastline definitively. Alex and Sam Tucker operated the equipment. Azimuths were shot along the shoreline, recorded by transit cameras. The angular-degree demarcations were correlated with the coastal charts provided by the Jamaican Institute. By and large, these charts were sectional and imperfect, acceptable for the details of road maps and small-craft navigation, but inadequate for geophysical purposes. To set up accurate perimeters, McAuliff employed sonic geodometers which bounced sound waves back and forth between instruments, giving what amounted to perfect bearings. Each contour, each elevation was recorded on both sonic graphs and transit cameras.

These chores were dull, laborious, and sweat-provoking under the hot sun. The single relief was the constant presence of Alison, as much as she herself objected to it. Alex was adamant, however. He instructed Barak Moore’s two men to stay within a hundred feet of her at all times, and then commanded Alison not to stroll out of his sight.

It was an impossible demand, and McAuliff realized he could not prolong it more than a few days. Alison had work to do; minor over the coastal area, a great, deal once they started inland. But all beginnings were awkward under pressure; he could not separate this particular concentration that easily, nor did he wish to.

Very rapidly your own personal antennae will be activated automatically. Their function will be second nature, as it were. You will fall into a rhythm, actually. It is the connecting link between your divided objectives. You will recognize it and build a degree of confidence in the process
.

Hammond.

But not during the first few days; there was no confidence to speak of. He did grant, however, that the fear was lessening
 … partially, imperceptibly. He thought this was due to the constant physical activity and the fact that he
could
require such men as Sam and Barak Moore’s “special forces” to take up posts around Alison. And at any given moment he could turn his head and there she was—on the beach, in a small boat—chipping rocks, instructing one of the crew in the manipulation of a drill bore.

But, again, were not all these his antennae? And was not the lessening of fear the beginnings of confidence?
R. C. Hammond. Supercilious son of a bitch. Manipulator. Speaker of truths
.

But not the whole truth.

The areas bordering Braco Beach were hazardous. Sheets of coral overlay extended hundreds of yards out into the surf. McAuliff and Sam Tucker crawled over the razor-sharp miniature hills of ocean polyps and set up their geodometers and cameras. Both men incurred scores of minor cuts, sore muscles, and sorer backs.