"If it would not be a great imposition," Whitney said in Spanish as they picked their way through the mess, "could you perhaps keep a few of your men here until the investigators from the airline arrive? In these matters there is much that trained eyes can see to help discover why it happened, and it is better if nothing is disturbed."
"Certainly," Ortega replied. "As you can see, I have men here now, to prevent the curious from interfering." Three men in the gray-green uniform of the Guardia stood together off to one side, weapons slung over their shoulders. "There will be no meddling. Nothing has been moved, except for a few little things that were scattered about. They are safe in my office, and I will give them to you."
Whitney's stomach turned at the sight of several charred fragments of bodies, and he looked away. He asked if any attempt at identification had been made. Ortega shrugged and said it was impossible, except for the recognizable bodies of three crew members found in the cockpit wreckage.
They walked together down the slope again, climbed into Whitney's car and drove into town. In his office Ortega ordered one of his men to bring sherry, then hauled an old wooden ammunition box out of a corner and set it on the desk.
"This is all, senor," he said. "As you saw, there was a great fire."
It wasn't much. Whitney picked gingerly at two scorched books, a single earring, a ripped flight bag reeking of brandy from the broken little souvenir bottle of Fundador inside, a man's hat, a woman's torn purse, half of a flight steward's cap, and a crumpled cigarette case, its silver cover jammed shut.
Whitney, reluctantly looking at all that remained of forty-eight human beings, felt hot and sickened in the musty office. Dammit, I'm too old for this kind of thing, he thought, that's what the young guys are for. But he sipped the sherry, forcing himself to appear unhurried and unruffled.
"Many thanks," he said when both glasses were empty. "Now I must go. With your permission, I will take the box with me."
"Of course," the officer replied. He rose with his visitor. "I hope I may have the good fortune to meet you again, senor, on a more pleasant occasion."
Whitney walked out of the building. The fresh evening air tasted good. He opened the trunk of the Mercedes, lifted the box in, slammed the lid and locked it. What I need is a slug of good whisky and a quiet meal, he thought. I can go over that stuff later. What I really ought to do is dump it on Archie's desk just as it is.
Thursday Evening
Hank Picot first heard the outboard motor coming around the island while he was cleaning a mess of fish down on the big flat rock just beyond the dock. Although the motor was running so slowly that the noise was muffled, he recognized it by its deep-throated tone as one of those big rental rigs from Edwards' place over at the landing.
Goddam, he thought, here it is only the middle of May and already the sports are beginning to show up. Pretty soon a man won't have this place to himself even in the winter, and it'll be all fished out too.
He watched the boat out of the corner of his eye as it slid around into view. In the fading daylight, he could see that it was one of Edwards' boats, all right, bigger than it needed to be and pushed by a 40-horse motor that was a lot more than enough for this little lake. The three men in the boat were not fishing at all, but were studying the island as they chugged along.
Then he remembered Jordan Lyman's call. Oh, those magazine people. Always wanting more pictures. You'd think they would have got enough last summer to last all the magazines in the country for a lifetime.
Picot had just finished gutting the last fish when the man in the bow of the boat pointed to him and spoke to the others. The man in the stern, who was running the engine, swung the boat toward the dock.
Picot stood up as they cut the motor and eased alongside the dock. They don't look like city fellows, he thought, at least not like any I've seen around Blue Lake before. Those three live outdoors somewhere, from their looks, and they're in good shape. Sure look like they can take care of themselves.
And only one small camera. Funny-looking crew for photographers. Picot swished his knife in the lake, dried it on his pants and slipped it back in its belt sheath. Then he washed his hands in the cold water. He said nothing.
"You take care of this place?" The speaker was the one in the bow, a black-haired man with heavy eyebrows and a scar along his jaw.
"That's about it," said Picot. "Something I can do for you?"
"Secret Service," said the black-haired one. "Just checking things out for the President's next trip, just checking things out."
Oh, is that so? thought Picot. Never seen them before, and when it's Secret Service it's always the same bunch. Besides, Lyman's already been here twice this year, and he didn't say anything on the phone about another check. Maybe they don't figure a Canuck fishing guide knows the difference.
The man who had spoken to him ran the bow line through one of the rings on the dock, and started to step out.
"Just a minute there," Picot said, moving from the flat rock onto the dock himself. "This here's private property."
The big man heaved himself onto the dock anyway and stood facing Picot. "Take it easy, friend, take it easy. We're just the advance men from Washington. We want to check out the island and run over the communications, the radio and stuff. They come through the winter all right?"
Picot took time to pull a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket, light it, and rebutton the pocket. This fellow, he thought, is as ugly as a porcupine-and not a whole lot smarter. If he really was Secret Service he'd know all that from two weeks ago, and the Signal Corps men okayed the generators and transmitters a month before that.
"You got some kind of identification?" he asked.
The black-haired man stared at him. The one sitting in the middle of the boat tugged at his companion's trouser leg to get his attention, then clenched his fist in an unspoken question. The black-haired one, obviously in charge, shrugged but shook his head. He untied the line from the dock and got back into the boat.
"Well, I guess we don't need to go over everything," he said, "if you say it's all in good shape."
I didn't say no such a damn thing, Picot thought, but he said nothing.
The black-haired man signaled his assistant in the stern. He started the motor and the boat swung away from the dock and headed slowly toward the far end of the island.
Picot collected his fish and walked up to the house along the pine-needle path from the dock. He threw the fish in the refrigerator and then went out onto the porch. Although the house stood at the highest point on the small island, the trees around it hid much of the shoreline from view. But he could follow the boat's course by the sound of the outboard as it slowly went around. Once it stopped briefly at the far end, where the radio mast was set up and the telephone cable came out of the water, but it started up again in a minute and finally droned off at full throttle in the direction of the landing.
Well, Lyman had it figured right about visitors, thought Picot, but they didn't look like they worked for any magazine. They were up to something else, and whatever it was it wasn't good. Fact is, they looked more like they might have been figuring to steal something.
A loon broke the stillness with its rattling call. Picot shivered as he looked out across the lake, dead calm now in the final windless moments of twilight. Damn, he thought, it still gets cold at night. He turned and went inside the house to call Jordan Lyman.
When the phone rang in President Lyman's second-floor study, four men were sitting amid the litter of dinner dishes. Lyman, Christopher Todd, Art Corwin and Jiggs Casey had eaten at the long coffee table. The President's food was almost untouched; he had drunk two cups of coffee and tried vainly to keep his pipe lighted while the others ate.