Then McAuliff saw it; barely saw it, as it was concealed behind a profusion of tall trees, immense giant fern, and hundreds of flowering vines at the base of the mountain.
It was a wooden structure. A large cabinlike dwelling whose base straddled the channel, the water rushing out from under the huge pilings that supported the hidden edifice. On each side of the pilings were steps—again in stone, again placed generations ago—that led up to a wide catwalk fronting the building. In the center of the planked catwalk was a door. It was closed.
From any distance—certainly from the air—the building was completely concealed.
Its length was perhaps thirty feet, its width impossible to determine, as it seemed to disappear into the jungle and the crashing waterfall.
As they approached the stone steps, McAuliff saw something else, which so startled him that he had to stop and stare.
On the west side of the building, emerging from within and scaling upward into the tangling mass of foliage, were thick black cables.
Malcolm turned and smiled at Alex’s astonishment. «Our contact with the outside, McAuliff. Radio signals that are piped into telephone trunk lines throughout the island. Not unlike cellular phones, but generally much clearer than the usual telephone service. All untraceable, of course. Now let us see Daniel.»
«Who is Daniel?»
«He is our Minister of Council. He is an elective office. Except that his term is not guided by the calendar.»
«Who elects him?»
The Halidonite’s smile faded somewhat. «The council.»
«Who elects it?»
«The tribe.»
«Sounds like regular politics.»
«Not exactly,» said Malcolm enigmatically. «Come. Daniel’s waiting.»
The Halidonite opened the door, and McAuliff walked into a large high-ceilinged room with windows all around the upper wall. The sounds of the waterfall could be heard; these were mingled with the myriad noises of the jungle outside.
There were wooden chairs—chairs fashioned by hand, not machinery. In the center of the back wall, in front of a second, very large, thick door was a table, at which sat a black girl in her late twenties. On her «desk» were papers, and at her left was a word processor on a white computer table. The incongruity of such equipment in such a place caused Alex to stare.
And then he swallowed as he saw a telephone—a sophisticated, push-button console—on a stand to the girl’s right.
«This is Jeanine, Dr. McAuliff. She works for Daniel.»
The girl stood, her smile brief and tenuous. She acknowledged Alex with a hesitant nod; her eyes were concerned as she spoke to Malcolm. «Was the trip all right?»
«Since I brought back our guest, I cannot say it was wildly successful.»
«Yes,» replied Jeanine, her expression of concern now turned to fear. «Daniel wants to see you right away. This way … Dr. McAuliff.»
The girl crossed to the door and rapped twice. Without waiting for a reply, she twisted the knob and opened it. Malcolm came alongside Alex and gestured him inside. McAuliff walked hesitantly through the door frame and into the office of the Halidon’s Minister of Council.
The room was large, with a single, enormous leaded-glass window taking up most of the rear wall. The view was both strange and awesome. Twenty feet beyond the glass was the midsection of the waterfall; it took up the entire area; there was nothing but endless tons of crashing water, its sound muted but discernible. In front of the window was a long, thick hatch table, its dark wood glistening. Behind it stood the man named Daniel, Minister of Council.
He was a Jamaican with sharp Afro-European features, slightly more than medium height and quite slender. His shoulders were broad, however; his body tapered like that of a long-distance runner. He was in his early forties, perhaps. It was difficult to telclass="underline" his face had lean youth, but his eyes were not young.
He smiled—briefly, cordially, but not enthusiastically—at McAuliff and came around the table, his hand extended.
As he did so, Alex saw that Daniel wore white casual slacks and a dark blue shirt open at the neck. Around his throat was a white silk kerchief, held together by a gold ring. It was a kind of uniform, thought Alex. As Malcolm’s robes were a uniform.
«Welcome, Doctor. I will not ask you about your trip. I have made it too many times myself. It’s a bitch.»
Daniel shook McAuliff’s hand. «It’s a bitch,» said Alex warily.
The minister abruptly turned to Malcolm. «What’s the report? I can’t think of any reason to give it privately. Or is there?»
«No … Piersall’s documents are valid. They’re sealed, and McAuliff has them ready to fly out from a location within a twenty-five-mile radius of the Martha Brae base camp. Even he doesn’t know where. We have three days, Daniel.»
The minister stared at the priest figure. Then he walked slowly back to his chair behind the hatch table without speaking. He stood immobile, his hands on the surface of the wood, and looked up at Alex.
«So by the brilliant persistence of an expatriate island fanatic we face … castration. Exposure renders us impotent, you know, Dr. McAuliff. We will be plundered. Stripped of our possessions. And the responsibility is yours … you. A geologist in the employ of Dunstone, Limited. And a most unlikely recruit in the service of British Intelligence.» Daniel looked over at Malcolm. «Leave us alone, please. And be ready to start out for Montego.»
«When?»
«That will depend on our visitor. He will be accompanying you.»
«I will?»
«Yes, Dr. McAuliff. If you are alive.»
28
«There is but a single threat one human being can make against another that must be listened to. That threat is obviously the taking of life.» Daniel had walked to the enormous window framing the cascading, unending columns of water. «In the absence of overriding ideological issues, usually associated with religion or national causes, I think you will agree.»
«And because I’m not motivated religiously or nationally, you expect the threat to succeed.» McAuliff remained standing in front of the long, glistening hatch table. He had not been offered a chair.
«Yes,» replied the Halidon’s Minister of Council, turning from the window. «I am sure it has been said to you before that Jamaica’s concerns are not your concerns.»
«It’s … ‘not my war’ is the way it was phrased.»
«Who said that to you? Charles Whitehall or Barak Moore?»
«Barak Moore is dead,» said Alex.
The minister was obviously surprised. His reaction, however, was a brief moment of thoughtful silence. Then he spoke quietly. «I am sorry. His was a necessary check to Whitehall’s thrust. His faction has no one else, really. Someone will have to be brought up to take his place…» Daniel walked to the table, reached down for a pencil, and wrote a note on a small pad. He tore off the page and put it to the side.
McAuliff saw without difficulty the words the minister had written. They were: «Replace Barak Moore.» In this day of astonishments, the implication of the message was not inconsiderable.
«Just like that?» asked Alex, nodding his head in the direction of the page of notepaper.
«It will not be simple, if that is what you mean,» replied Daniel. «Sit down, Dr. McAuliff. I think it is time you understood. Before we go further …»
Alexander Tarquin McAuliff, geologist, with a company on 38th Street in New York City, United States of America, sat down in a native-made chair in an office room high in the inaccessible mountains of the Flagstaff range, deep within the core of the impenetrable Cock Pit country on the island of Jamaica, and listened to a man called Daniel, Minister of Council for a covert sect with the name Halidon.