The Cry of the Halidon (35 page)

“Yes … well, that’s splendid. One last item, Mr. Tucker.”

“Yes, Mr. Latham?”

“We want Mr. McAuliff to use all the resources provided
him. He’s not to stint in an effort to save money; the survey’s too important for that.”

Tucker again translated Latham’s code easily:
Alex was to maintain contact with British Intelligence liaisons. If he avoided them, suspicions would be aroused
.

“I’ll tell him that, Mr. Latham, but I’m sure he’s aware of it. These past two weeks have been very routine, very dull—simple coastline geodometrics. Not much call for equipment. Or resources.”

“As long as he knows our feelings,” said Latham rapidly, now anxious to terminate the conversation. “Good-bye, Mr. Tucker.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Latham.” Sam held his finger down on the telephone button for several moments, then released it and waited for the switchboard. When the operator came on the line, Tucker asked for the front desk.

“Bengal Court, good afternoon.”

“This is Mr. Tucker, west wing six, Royal Society survey.”

“Yes, Mr. Tucker?”

“Mr. McAuliff asked me to make arrangements for tonight. He didn’t have time this morning; besides, it was awkward; Mrs. Booth was with him.” Sam paused, letting his words register.

The clerk automatically responded. “Yes, Mr. Tucker. What can we do for you?”

“It’s Mrs. Booth’s birthday. Do you think the kitchen could whip up a little cake? Nothing elaborate, you understand.”

“Of course! We’d be
delighted
, sir.” The clerk was effusive. “Our pleasure, Mr. Tucker.”

“Fine. That’s very kind of you. Just put it on Mr. McAuliff’s bill—”

“There’ll be no charge,” interjected the clerk, fluidly subservient.

“Very kind indeed. We’ll be dining around eight-thirty, I guess. Our usual table.”

“We’ll take care of everything.”

“That is, it’ll be eight-thirty,” continued Sam, “if Mr.
McAuliff finds his way back in time.…” Tucker paused again, listening for the clerk’s appropriate response.

“Oh? Is there a problem, Mr. Tucker?”

“Well, the damn fool drove south of Ocho Rios, around Fern Gully, I think, to locate some stalactite sculpture. He told me there were natives who did that sort of thing down there.”

“That’s true, Mr. Tucker. There are a number of stalactite craftsmen in the Gully. However, there are government restrictions—”

“Oh Lord, son!” interrupted Sam defensively. “He’s just going to find Mrs. Booth a little present, that’s all.”

The clerk laughed, softly and obsequiously. “Please don’t mistake me, Mr. Tucker. Government interference is often most unwarranted. I only meant that I hope Mr. McAuliff is successful. When he asked for the petrol map, he should have mentioned where he was going. I might have helped him.”

“Well …” drawled Sam conspiratorially, “he was probably embarrassed, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t mention it; he’d be mad as hell at me.”

“Of course.”

“And thanks for the cake tonight. That’s really very nice of you, son.”

“Not at all, sir.”

The good-byes were rapid, more so on the clerk’s part. Sam replaced the telephone and walked back out onto the terrace. Lawrence turned from peering over the wall and sat on the flagstone deck, his back against the sea wall, his body hidden from the beach.

“Mrs. Booth and Jimbo-mon are out of water,” said the black revolutionary. “They are in chairs again.”

“Latham called. The runners will be here this afternoon.… And I talked with the front desk. Let’s see if our information gets transmitted properly.” Tucker lowered himself on the chair slowly and reached for the binoculars on the table. He picked up the newspaper and held it next to the binoculars as he focused on the swimming-pool patio fronting the central beach of Bengal Court.

Within ten seconds he saw the figure of a man dressed in a coat and tie come out of the rear entrance of the pool, past a group of wooden, padded sun chairs, nodding to guests, chatting with several. He reached the stone steps leading to the sand and stood there several moments, surveying the beach. Then he started down the steps and across the white, soft sand. He walked diagonally to the right, to the row of sunfish sailboats.

Sam watched as the clerk approached the digger-policeman in the sloppy baseball cap and the
cocoruru
peddler. The
cocoruru
man saw him coming, picked up the handles of his wheelbarrow, and rolled it on the hard sand near the water to get away. The digger-policeman stayed where he was and acknowledged the clerk.

The magnified features in the glass conveyed all that was necessary to Sam Tucker. The policeman’s features contorted with irritation. The man was apparently lamenting his waste of time and effort, commodities not easily expended on such a hot day.

The clerk turned and started back across the sand toward the patio. The digger-policeman began walking west, near the water’s edge. His gait was swifter now; gone was the stooped posture indigenous to a scavenger of the beach.

He wasn’t much of an undercover man, thought Sam Tucker as he watched the man’s progress toward the woods of Bengal Court’s west property. On his way to his shoes and the egress to the shore road, he never once looked down at the sand for tourist leave-behinds.

McAuliff stood looking over Charles Whitehall’s left shoulder as the black scholar ridged the flame of the acetylene torch across the seamed edge of the archive case. The hot point of flame bordered no more than an eighth of an inch behind the seam, at the end of the case.

The top edge of the archive case cracked. Charles extinguished the flame quickly and thrust the end of the case under the faucet in the sink. The thin stream of water sizzled into vapor as it touched the hot steel. Whitehall removed his
tinted goggles, picked up a miniature hammer, and tapped the steaming end.

It fell off, cracking and sizzling, into the metal sink. Within the case could be seen the oilcloth of a packet. His hands trembling slightly, Charles Whitehall pulled it out. He got off the stool, carrying the rolled-up oilcloth to a deserted area of the bench, and untied the nylon laces. He unwound the packet until it was flat, unzipped the inner lining, and withdrew two sheets of single-spaced typing. As he reached for the bench lamp, he looked at McAuliff.

Alex was fascinated by what he saw. Whitehall’s eyes shone with a strange intensity. It was a fever. A messianic fever. A kind of victory rooted in the absolute.

A fanatic’s victory, thought McAuliff.

Without speaking, Whitehall began to read. As he finished the first page, he slid it across the bench to Alex.

The word “Halidon” was in reality three words—or sounds—from the African Ashanti, so corrupted by later phonetics as to be hardly traceable. (Here Piersall included hieroglyphs that were meaningless to Alex.) The root word, again a hieroglyph, was in the sound
leedaw
, translated to convey the picture of a hollowed-out piece of wood that could be held in the hand. The
leedaw
was a primitive instrument of sound, a means of communication over distances in the jungles and hills. The pitch of its wail was controlled by the breath of the blower and the placement of his hand over slits carved through the surface—the basic principle of the woodwind.

The historical parallel had been obvious to Walter Piersall. Whereas the Maroon tribes, living in settlements, used an
abeng
—a type of bugle made from the horns of cattle—to signal their warriors or spread the alarm of an approaching white enemy, the followers of Acquaba were nomadic and could not rely on animal products with any certainty. They returned to the African custom of utilizing the most prolific material of their surroundings: wood.

Once having established the root symbol as the primitive horn, it remained for Piersall to specify the modification of the accompanying sounds. He went back to the Ashanti-Coromanteen
studies to extract compatible noun roots. He found the final syllable, or sound, first. It was in the hieroglyph depicting a deep river current, or undertow, that periled man or animal in the water. Its sonic equivalent was a bass-toned wail or cry. The phonetic spelling was
nwa
.

The pieces of the primitive puzzle were nearly joined.

The initial sound was the symbol
hayee
, the Coromanteen word meaning the council of their tribal gods.

Hayee-leedaw-nwa
.

The low cry of a jungle horn signifying a peril, a supplication to the council of the gods.

Acquaba’s code. The hidden key that would admit an outsider into the primitive tribal sect.

Primitive and not primitive at all.

Halidon. Hollydawn
. A wailing instrument whose cry was carried by the wind to the gods.

This, then, was Dr. Walter Piersall’s last gift to his island sanctuary. The means to reach, enlist, and release a powerful force for the good of Jamaica. To convince “it” to accept its responsibility.

There remained only to determine which of the isolated communities in the Cock Pit mountains was the Halidon. Which would respond to the code of the Acquaba?

Finally, the basic skepticism of the scholar inserted itself into Piersall’s document. He did not question the existence of the Halidon; what he did speculate on was its rumored wealth and commitment. Were these more myth than current fact? Had the myth grown out of proportion to the conceivably diminished resources?

The answer was in the Cock Pit.

McAuliff finished the second page and looked over at Charles Whitehall. The black fascist had walked from the workbench to the small window overlooking the Drax Hall fields. Without turning, he spoke quietly, as though he knew Alex was staring at him, expecting him to speak.

“Now we know what must be done. But we must proceed cautiously, sure of every step. A wrong move on our part and the cry of the Halidon will vanish with the wind.”

T
he Caravel prop plane descended on its western approach to the small Boscobel airfield in Oracabessa. The motors revved in short bursts to counteract the harsh wind and rain of the sudden downpour, forcing the aircraft to enter the strip cleanly. It taxied to the far end, turned awkwardly, and rolled back toward the small, one-lever concrete passenger terminal.

Two Jamaican porters ran through the low gates to the aircraft, both holding umbrellas. Together they pushed the metal step unit to the side of the plane, under the door; the man on the left then knocked rapidly on the fuselage.

The door was slapped open by a large white man who immediately stepped out, waving aside the offer of the two umbrellas. He jumped from the top level to the ground and looked around in the rain.

His right hand was in his jacket pocket.

He turned up to the aircraft door and nodded. A second large white man disembarked and ran across the muddy space toward the concrete terminal. His right hand, too, was in his pocket. He entered the building, glanced around, and proceeded out of the exit to the parking area.

Sixty seconds later the gate by the luggage depot was swung open by the second man and a Mercedes 660 limousine drove through toward the Caravel, its wheels spinning frequently in the drenched earth.

The two Jamaicans remained by the step unit, their umbrellas waiting.

The Mercedes pulled alongside the plane, and the tiny, ancient figure of Julian Warfield was helped down the steps,
his head and body shielded by the black aides. The second white man held the door of the Mercedes; his large companion was in front of the automobile, scanning the distance and the few passengers who had come out of the terminal.

When Warfield was enclosed in the backseat, the Jamaican driver stepped out and the second white man got behind the wheel. He honked the horn once; his companion turned and raced around to the left front door and climbed in.

The Mercedes’s deep-throated engine roared as the limousine backed up beyond the tail assembly of the Caravel, then belched forward and sped through the gate.

With Julian Warfield in the backseat were Peter Jensen and his wife, Ruth.

“We’ll drive to Peale Court, it’s not far from here,” said the small, gaunt financier, his eyes alive and controlled. “How long do you have? With reasonable caution.”

“We rented a car for a trip to Dunn’s Falls,” replied Peter. “We left it in the lot and met the Mercedes outside. Several hours, at least.”

“Did you make it clear you were going to the Falls?”

“Yes, I invited McAuliff.”

Warfield smiled. “Nicely done, Peter.”

The car raced over the Oracabessa road for several miles and turned into a gravel drive flanked by two white stone posts. On both were identical plaques reading PEALE COURT. They were polished to a high gloss, a rich mixture of gold and black.

At the end of the drive was a long parking area in front of a longer, one-story white stucco house with expensive wood in the doors, and many windows. It was perched on top of a steep incline above the beach.

Warfield and the Jensens were admitted by a passive, elderly black woman in a white uniform, and Julian led the way to a veranda overlooking the waters of Golden Head Bay.

The three of them settled in chairs, and Warfield politely
asked the Jamaican servant to bring refreshments. Perhaps a light rum punch.

The rain was letting up; streaks of yellow and orange could be seen beyond the gray sheets in the sky.

“I’ve always been fond of Peale Court,” said Warfield. “It’s so peaceful.”

“The view is breathtaking,” added Ruth. “Do you own it, Julian?”

“No, my dear. But I don’t believe it would be difficult to acquire. Look around, if you like. Perhaps you and Peter might be interested.”

Ruth smiled and, as if on cue, rose from her chair. “I think I shall.”

She walked back through the veranda doors into the larger living room with the light brown marble floor. Peter watched her, then looked over at Julian. “Are things that serious?”

“I don’t want her upset,” replied Warfield.

“Which, of course, gives me my answer.”

“Possibly. Not necessarily. We’ve come upon disturbing news. M.I. Five, and over here its brother, M.I. Six.”