Helen Walsh stared through the window of her spacious villa, absently watching the gulls weave and turn in the sky above Freeport Harbour. The air conditioning hummed quietly behind her to combat the day’s high temperatures. In the garden below her, a gecko lizard scampered across the green lawn and disappeared into the undergrowth beneath the wild jasmine and pink orchids.
Helen was an attractive woman, and the sadness in her face did little to hide her beauty. The peace and tranquillity of the scene that lay spread out before her offered no comfort. In her hand she was holding a copy of the Freeport News. It was folded at the article now uppermost in her mind.
Sitting in the room behind her was Inspector Horatio Bain of the Bahamian C.I.D. It was he who had brought the news to her a couple of days earlier of Greg’s death. The newspaper had lain on her table since that visit and she had not been able to read it. The inspector had picked the paper up and read the article out loud.
“Wreckage has been sighted believed to be the missing yacht Ocean Quest, which sailed out of Freeport a few days ago. On board were the two well known, local oceanographers, Greg Walsh and his partner Harry Marsham, owners of the underwater exploration company, Ocean Quest. Harry Marsham was picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard and is recovering in hospital at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. Hope for Walsh is fading fast although his wife, Helen Walsh refuses to believe anything has happened to him.” He handed the paper to her. She took it and turned away from the window.
“There must be some word, Inspector,” she pleaded. “I can’t believe Greg has not been found. He must have been picked up.”
The inspector sighed. “I wish there was something I could say which might possibly give you hope. But there has been no report of any ship picking up your husband. Whatever happened must have happened very quickly.” He held his hands out. Like his wishes, they were empty.
“What have you tried?” she demanded to know. “Perhaps he is already in some hospital somewhere. Maybe he is suffering from amnesia.” She sounded desperate; clutching at unlikely straws.
Despite her anguish there was still an unaffected sexual attractiveness in her which the inspector found impossible to deny and, in the circumstances, totally shameful.
“We have contacted all the countries bordering the Caribbean,” he assured her. “No-one answering your husband’s description, or suffering his demise has turned up in any medical institution, believe me.” He stood up, anxious now to get away. “I am sorry Mrs. Walsh, but you have to prepare yourself for the worse.”
Helen’s shoulders dropped. She laid the paper back on the table without looking at it. “Of course Inspector, but I can’t give up hope.” She looked up, hopefully. “You won’t give up trying though, will you?”
He smiled. “Of course not,” he answered. “But it would have been helpful if we had known their plans. As it is, we’re guessing.”
“I don’t think they intended going anywhere in particular,” she muttered.
“I know, you told us that when you heard the dreadful news.” He was glad to talk; to avoid the more constraining atmosphere.
“And you have checked, haven’t you?”
The question was unnecessary, and she had already asked it.
He nodded. “Of course. There is still a search going on but we have received no further reports. The Americans are still searching.” He left it at that. There was really nothing more he could say.
Helen knew it too and it was pointless talking it round. She saved him further embarrassment by releasing him from his self-imposed obligation.
“Well, thank you Inspector Bain. I know you will keep looking. And I’m sure you will let me know as soon as you have anything positive.”
She walked to the door with him. Outside in the bright sunshine he paused on the front porch and offered Helen his sympathies. She thanked him and closed the door.
Admiral Starling glowered across his desk at Francesini. His mood was best described as ‘concerned’. And when Starling was concerned about something, being close to him was not the most sensible place to be. Francesini was glad that he had the desk between himself and his boss.
“So we’ve lost it,” Francesini said.
Starling peered at him from beneath dark eyebrows. “Our intelligence on the ground in Iran insists the bomb was transferred from the helicopter, just inside the border and taken down to the coast.”
“Which means the Iranians probably knew about it?”
“Exactly, but why take it down to the coast?”
“To ship it out.”
Francesini’s concern about nuclear devices was always the nightmare scenario that one would be smuggled into the United States and be detonated with all the horrendous consequences. But the best brains in the C.I.A. played their own war games and were always able to offer up their best guess at how the terrorists would penetrate American security and get a nuclear bomb into the United States. And he was reasonably confident that every angle had been covered. Reasonably confident.
But this wasn’t one of the C.I.A.’s ‘best guess’ scenarios; Iran was not about to export nuclear bombs to commit a terrorist act. In her present state, she had too much to lose.
“Our human intelligence on the ground in Iran,” Starling told him, “is spread fairly thin south of the Straits of Hormuz, which is where we believe the device ended up.” He drummed his fingers on the table.
“Remo, this one bothers me. And I’m not getting the right signals from you. If you have anything I should know about, no matter how flimsy, I want to know. Understand? We’ve got to know where that nuke is heading.”
Francesini nodded. “Anything that crosses my desk that might be worth you looking at, sir, I’ll let you know.”
Starling leaned threateningly across the desk. “I said ‘anything however flimsy’, Remo, not ‘anything that might cross your desk’.” He paused. “I’ve known you a long time Remo, and I know how you work. Don’t mess me around. Don’t play your silly little games where you keep your cards close to your chest. If I thought you were shafting me for some petty, selfish reason, afraid that some other department might get a look at the deck you’re holding, so help me Remo I’d run you through myself. And I mean it. Do I make myself clear?”
So Francesini told him. And as he opened up on the flimsiest of detail, of how Walsh first came to him, how Walsh eventually agreed to work for him and why a man named Harry Marsham was being kept in hospital in Guantanamo, Starling’s expression changed from one of utter astonishment to menacing and threatening intensity.
Marsh felt well enough to go home now. When he had asked the doctor how long he would be kept in, the doctor said that he didn’t know. Marsh decided the only way he could leave would be to discharge himself, but he was aware that he was more or less in military custody, which meant leaving the hospital would mean breaking the law; whatever law on Guantanamo Bay Naval Station he would be breaking. And where would he go if he walked out of the hospital?
Marsh was fast coming to the conclusion that there was no legal reason for keeping him there and was determined to leave as soon as he possibly could, but he needed the willing cooperation of the Americans. Just then the door opened and Francesini walked in with another man.
Francesini greeted him cheerfully. “Good morning, Marsh. How are you this morning? I’ve brought a colleague with me. James Starling.”
Marsh was surprised at seeing a second man with the so called man from the immigration department. It was definitely becoming intriguing.
“And what do I call you?” Marsh asked, holding out his hand to the admiral.