I flipped a few switches, and a lightbulb glowed overhead. The power plant hummed as the set came to life. But the only sound that came through was the crackle of static. Too much electricity from the storm to let anything else through. I shut it down.
The gun ports in the radio room were boarded shut. We couldn’t see out, but the howl of wind and the roar of torrential rain told us the hurricane was back in full force. Judging by the length of the first half, this storm would blow over before we found our way back to the others.
I locked the grille on our way back. I’d be damned if I was going to let on to Noah that I’d discovered his game. An hour later, when I walked past the wily old man on my way up to check on the chopper, I kept a straight face. But it wasn’t easy.
The worst of the storm was over. But the helicopter was gone! At least it wasn’t where we had left it. I went out to look around, squinting against the rain that filled my eyes. The chopper lay smashed up against the wall, the long prop blades broken, the engine splintered by a giant tree trunk felled by the wind.
Now the radio was our only link to the outside. But we wouldn’t be able to get through for the next couple of hours. The sky grew even blacker with the coming night. Even if I could have gotten through to Hawk, he wouldn’t have been able to get a chopper through the storm. So the hell with it till morning.
I had a picture of what the island must look like — just a tangle of trees blocking the roads. Jerome couldn’t send any vehicles over them, and he wouldn’t try an air attack at night. His boats couldn’t make it, either, till the raging sea subsided.
I went down to break the news.
Fifteen
We were eating a glum supper of Noah’s rations when the unflappable old giant raised his head, listening. I heard it then — the sound of jubilant voices shouting outside. Noah beat me to the stairs by two jumps. He was halfway across the parade when I went through the upper door.
The tribe was back. Noah threw the gate wide, and they streamed in. The tall man translated as the story was told. They had hidden in caves across the island till the hurricane subsided. Then they heard the drums from Port of Spain — the capital was wrecked, the army in disarray. And Jerome was dead!
They were dismayed at the condition of the fortress, but they could make repairs now that they were safe. As they settled in for a night of celebration, Mitzy and I settled in for the night too.
I would have to wait for morning to find proof that my mission was accomplished. I had to see the colonel’s body with my own eyes, take fingerprints for AXE. The tribe had heard his body was still in the Sawyer Hotel, so that was where I’d have to go as soon as I could figure a way to get there. If the truck was in working condition, I might be able to drive. I’d take a machete crew along to clear a path. It would be faster than hiking — if the truck hadn’t gone the way of the boats and planes.
Sometime after midnight we finally got to sleep.
In the morning I decided against calling Hawk for help. I don’t like to give up on an assignment. Hawk said it was imperative for me to go it alone, and there was still a chance I could put Fleming into office by myself.
The doctor was all for hopping on his white charger and rushing to the rescue of the battered island. But Noah prevailed again. Jungle drums were all well in their way, but he hadn’t yet heard any hard news on the radio. Of course, he didn’t mention that. He just delegated a group of sturdy young men to clear the road, and we trooped over to the truck.
It looked all right, sitting under an arch of half-toppled trees. I put the rotor in, cleaned the water out of the carburator, pumped in new gas, and got out from under the hood. Mitzy Gardner was in the front seat, spreading leaves over the soggy upholstery, her machine gun resting on the dashboard.
I didn’t argue. She had earned the right to sit in at the finish. The whole tribe pitched in and hauled debris out of the ruts. They cleared the way to the shore road and a mile beyond. We were on our own, with only the crew in the truck to help us. It could have been worse. The trees that blocked the highway were small and easy enough to move. The road had been washed out where it ran close to the sea. But the crew used fallen branches to fill in the depressions. Then I shoved the gear into low as they heaved against the tailgate, and we wallowed on through.
The day was bright, the sky an innocent blue, and the sea calm. But the beaches were like graveyards of little boats, and the pretty ranch houses had been destroyed. Walls were down; roofs lay tom and twisted many yards away; and furniture littered lawns. The first building we passed at close range, the old Poinciana resort, was nothing more than a collapsed heap of timber. Noah’s boys dropped off there to root in the wreckage. Beyond it, the native village was a mess — empty-eyed people wandered around, picking up a scrap of something, dropping it, then going to another.
The ancient fort on the hill, which had weathered many other blows over the last couple of hundred years, had survived this one.
Government Plaza was in fairly good shape, but the glass was gone from the windows and the grounds were covered with fallen trees and litter. The soldiers in the area were unarmed and dazed, moving around like zombies in a feeble effort to clean up the grounds. There were other soldiers in the business section, working under junior officers. They glanced at us as we rolled by but made no move to stop us. With their colonel gone, they were in limbo, without authority to send down orders.
At the Sawyer Grand LaClare all the landscaping was uprooted, large trees strewn around like so many twigs. The late afternoon sun glittered red on the piles of splintered glass that surrounded the building. Beyond it, the oily harbor was nearly empty. Only a few small boats floated, hull up, on the long, smooth swells. The water was an ugly, dirty color, heavy with sand. A boom off some wreckage drifted up against the shore, and more rigging fouled the white beach. There were no guards anywhere around.
I pulled up in front of the main entrance, and we got down with our guns. Jerome, I assumed, would be laid out in state in the lobby or casino, with an honor guard watching over him. I would have to get rid of them. But I was wrong. Our feet crunched across the broken glass, and we walked right on in without being stopped.
The lobby was empty, and so was the casino. The entire hotel was a shambles.
“Chip’s office maybe?” Mitzy suggested.
We went that way. The black hall attendant was not behind the cashier’s desk. To my surprise the electric lock worked, and we went through to the hall. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The button controlling Capolla’s door opened it. Jerome was not laid out there, either, but the money he had looted was. I heard a deep sigh of relief beside me. When I looked at Mitzy her red tongue was slowly circling her lips.
“The Miami boys will be glad to know this, at least,” she said. “I expect Sawyer will reopen.”
“But where is Jerome’s body?” I wondered aloud. Mitzy thought it might have been taken to Capolla’s penthouse.
“You go find out, Nick. I’d better hang around in here. This town is going to begin coming to sometime soon, and I wouldn’t want this bundle to disappear now.”
“I don’t like to leave you alone,” I told her. “There could be a mob.”
Her lips curled. “The door locks from the inside, and it can’t be opened from the hall. This place is a vault. You know how to use the remote control on the elevator?”
I did. I had watched when we first used it. She closed and locked the sliding panel after me, and I hit the button, got into the cage, and tapped the “up” switch. The elevator started to climb. I didn’t even feel the car stop. But the door opened silently, and I stepped out onto the deep carpet.