«To repeat the bulletin. Savanna-la-Mar. Shooting broke out at the private Negril airfield. A band of identified men ambushed a party of Europeans as they were boarding a small plane for Weston Favel.
«The French industrialist Henri Salanne, the Marquis de Chatellerault, was killed along with three men said to be in his employ. No motive is known. The marquis was the houseguest of the Wakefield family. The pilot, a Wakefield employee, reported that his final instructions from the marquis were to fly south of Weston Favel at low altitude toward the interior grasslands. The parish police are questioning …»
Alex walked over to the set and switched it off. He turned to Hammond; there was very little to say, and he wondered if the Intelligence man would understand.
«That was a priority you forgot about, wasn’t it, Hammond? Alison Booth. Your filthy link to Chatellerault. The expendable Mrs. Booth, the bait from Interpol… Well, you’re here, agent-mon, and Chatellerault is dead. You’re in a hotel room in Montego Bay. Not in the Cock Pit. Don’t talk to me about resources, you son of a bitch. You’ve only got one. And it’s me.»
The telephone rang. McAuliff reached it first.
«Yes?»
«Don’t interrupt me; there is no time,» came the agitated words from Malcolm. «Do as I say. I have been spotted. M. I. Six … a Jamaican. One I knew in London. We realized they would fan out; we did not think they would reach Montego so quickly—»
«Stop running,» broke in Alex, looking at Hammond. «M. I. Six will cooperate. They have no choice—»
«You damn fool, I said listen! There are two men in the corridor. Go out and tell them I called. Say the word ‘Ashanti.’ Have you got that, mon? ‘Ashantee.’»
Alex had not heard the Anglicized Malcolm use «mon» before. Malcolm was in a state of panic. «I’ve got it.»
«Tell them I said to get out! Now! The hotels will be watched. You will all have to move fast—»
«Goddammit!» interrupted Alex again. «Now you listen to me. Hammond’s right here and—»
«McAuliff.» The sound of Malcolm’s voice was low, cutting, demanding attention. «British Intelligence, Caribbean Operations, has a total of fifteen West Indian specialists. That is the budget. Of those fifteen, seven have been bought by Dunstone, Limited.»
The silence was immediate, the implication clear. «Where are you?»
«In a pay phone outside McNab’s. It is a crowded street; I will do my best to melt.»
«Be careful in crowded streets. I’ve been listening to the news.»
«Listen well, my friend. That is what this is all about.»
«You said they spotted you. Are they there now?»
«It is difficult to tell. We are dealing with Dunstone now. Even we do not know everyone on its payroll. But they will not want to kill me. Any more than I want to be taken alive… Good luck, McAuliff. We are doing the right thing.»
With these words, Malcolm hung up the telephone. Alexander instantly recalled a dark field at night on the outskirts of London, near the banks of the river Thames. And the sight of two dead West Indians in a government automobile.
Any more than I want to be taken alive …
Cyanide.
We are doing the right thing …
Death.
Unbelievable. Yet very, very real.
McAuliff gently replaced the telephone in its cradle. As he did, he had the fleeting thought that his gesture was funereal.
This was no time to think of funerals.
«Who was that?» asked Hammond.
«A fanatic who, in my opinion, is worth a dozen men like you. You see, he doesn’t lie.»
«I’ve had enough of your sanctimonious claptrap, McAuliff!» The Englishman spat out his words in indignation. «Your fanatic doesn’t pay two million dollars, either. Nor, I suspect, does he jeopardize his own interests for your well-being, as we have done constantly. Furthermore—»
«He just did,» interrupted Alex as he crossed the room. «And if I’m a target, so are you.»
McAuliff reached the door, opened it swiftly, and ran out into the corridor toward the bank of elevators. He stopped.
There was no one there.
31
It was a race in blinding sunlight, somehow macabre because of the eye-jolting reflections from the glass and chrome and brightly colored metals on the Montego streets. And the profusion of people. Crowded, jostling, black and white; thin men and fat women—the former with the goddamned cameras, the latter in foolish-looking rhinestone sunglasses. Why did he notice these things? Why did they irritate him? There were fat men, too. Always with angry faces; silently, stoically reacting to the vacuous-looking thin women at their sides.
And the hostile black eyes staring out from wave after wave of black skin. Thin, black faces—somehow always thin—on top of bony, black bodies—angular, beaten, slow.
These then were the blurred, repeating images imprinted on the racing pages of his mind.
Everything … everyone was instantly categorized in the frantic, immediate search for an enemy.
The enemy was surely there.
It had been there … minutes ago.
McAuliff had rushed back into the room. There was no time to explain to the furious Hammond; it was only necessary to make the angry Britisher obey. Alex did so by asking him if he had a gun, then pulling out his own, furnished him by Malcolm on the night before.
The sight of McAuliff’s weapon caused the agent to accept the moment. He removed a small, inconspicuous Rycee automatic from a belt holster under his jacket.
Alexander had grabbed the seersucker coat—this too furnished by Malcolm on the previous night—and thrown it over his arm, concealing his revolver.
Together the two men had slipped out of the room and run down the corridor to the staircase beyond the bank of elevators. On the concrete landing they had found the first of the Halidonites.
He was dead. A thin line of blood formed a perfect circle around his neck below the swollen skin of his face and the extended tongue of blank, dead, bulging eyes. He had been garroted swiftly, professionally.
Hammond had bent down; Alexander was too repelled by the sight to get closer. The Englishman had summarized.
Professionally.
«They know we’re on this floor. They don’t know which rooms. The other poor bastard’s probably with them.»
«That’s impossible. There wasn’t time. Nobody knew where we were.»
Hammond had stared at the lifeless black man, and when he spoke, McAuliff recognized the profound shock of the Intelligence’s man’s anger.
«Oh, God, I’ve been blind!»
In that instant, Alexander, too, understood.
British Intelligence, Caribbean Operations, has a total of fifteen West Indian specialists. That’s the budget. Of those fifteen, seven have been bought by Dunstone, Limited.
The words of Malcolm the Halidonite.
And Hammond the manipulator had just figured it out.
The two men raced down the staircase. When they reached the lobby floor, the Englishman stopped and did a strange thing. He removed his belt, slipping the holster off and placing it in his pocket. He then wound the belt in a tight circle, bent down, and placed it in a corner. He stood up, looked around, and crossed to a cigarette-butt receptacle and moved it in front of the belt.
«It’s a signaling device, isn’t it?» McAuliff had said.
«Yes. Long-range. External scanner reception; works on vertical arcs. No damn good inside a structure. Too much interference … thank heaven.»