«Oh, quite naturally.»
«Yes, well, two years ago I met an American fellow who knows more about the islands than I ever did or ever will. He charters his two yachts out of various marinas from Charlotte Amalie to Antigua. He knows every harbor, every cove and inlet throughout the chain; he has to.»
«Those are fine credentials, Geoffrey, but hardly the sort—»
«Please,» interrupted Cooke. «I haven’t finished. To anticipate your objection, he’s a retired officer of U.S. Naval Intelligence. He’s relatively young, early to mid-forties, I’d say, and I’ve no real knowledge of why he left the service, but I gather the circumstances weren’t very pleasant. Still, he could be an asset on this assignment.»
The chairman of MI-6 leaned forward over his desk, his rigid right hand lagging behind his left. «His name is Tyrell Nathaniel Hawthorne the Third. He’s the son of a professor of American literature at the University of Oregon, and the circumstances of his separation from naval intelligence were very unpleasant, indeed. And, yes, he’d be an enormous asset, but no one in Washington’s intelligence circles can recruit him. They’ve tried strenuously, giving him a lot of background, hoping to change his mind; they can’t move him. He has very little regard for such people, believing as he does that they don’t know the difference between the truth and a lie. He’s told them all to go to hell.»
«Good Lord!» cried Geoffrey Cooke. «You knew about my holidays, you knew all along. You even knew I’d met him.»
«A pleasant three-day sail through the Leewards, along with your friend Ardisonne, code name Richelieu.»
«You bastard.»
«Come now, Officer Cooke, how can you? Incidentally, former Lieutenant Commander Hawthorne is on his way to the marina in British Gorda, where I suspect he’ll have trouble with his auxiliary engine. Your plane leaves for Anguilla at five o’clock, plenty of time to pack. From there, you and your friend Ardisonne will take a small private aircraft to Virgin Gorda.» The chairman of MI-6, Special Branch, flashed a brilliant smile. «It should be a splendid reunion.»
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Seated around the table in the continuously swept conference room were the secretaries of state and defense, the directors of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the chiefs of Army and Navy Intelligence, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. To the left of each man was his selected aide, a high-level subordinate beyond security reproach. Chairing the meeting was the secretary of state. He spoke.
«You’ve all gotten the same information I have, so we can dispense with extraneous introductions. There’ll be some of you here who think we’re overreacting, and until this morning, I must admit I would have been counted among you. A lone female terrorist with an obsession to assassinate the President, and thereby trigger the assassinations of the political leaders of Great Britain, France, and Israel, seemed just too farfetched. However, at six o’clock this morning I received a call from our director of the CIA, and then at eleven he called me again, and I began to change my mind. Would you please clarify, Mr. Gillette?»
«I’ll do my best, Mr. Secretary,» said the portly DCI. «Yesterday our source in Bahrain who monitors the financial transactions from the Baaka Valley was killed an hour after he alerted our undercover contact that a half million dollars had been transferred to Zurich’s Crédit Suisse. The amount wasn’t startling, but when our asset in Zurich tried to reach his own source at the bank, an off-the-books, highly paid source, he couldn’t get anywhere. When later he pressed—anonymously, of course, merely an old friend—he was told that the man had flown to London on business. Later still, our asset returned to his apartment, where there was a message on his answering machine. It was from his source, who certainly wasn’t in London, because he asked, apparently rather desperately, that our man meet him at a café in Dudendorf, a city twenty-odd miles north of Zurich. Our asset drove there but his source never showed up.»
«What do you make of it?» asked the chief of Army G-2.
«He was taken out to eliminate the money trail,» answered a burly man with thinning red hair who was seated at the DCI’s left. «That’s a projection, not confirmed,» he added.
«Based on what?» questioned the secretary of defense.
«On logic,» the Agency aide continued curtly. «First Bahrain’s killed for passing the initial information, then Zurich builds a London cover so he can get to our asset in Dudendorf away from his usual environs. The Baaka found him and wants to cut off the trail, which it did.»
«Over a six-figure transfer?» asked the chief of naval intelligence. «That’s a lot of trouble over a minor amount, isn’t it?»
«Because the amount doesn’t mean doodly,» said the heavyset aide with the puffed face. «It’s who’s on the receiving end, and the whereabouts of whoever that person is; that’s what they’re covering. Also, once the transfer is established as clean, the money could escalate a hundred times over.»
«Bajaratt,» said the secretary of state. «So she’s begun her journey… All right, this is the way we’re going to operate, and maximum security is the key. With the exception of the Agency’s radio traffic people, we at this table, and only we, will exchange information as our departments pick it up. Put all your personal office faxes into confidential modes, all telephone calls between ourselves on secure lines. Nothing goes out beyond this circle unless approved by me or the DCI. Even the rumors of such an operation could backfire and create a confusion we don’t need.» There was a hum; it came from the red telephone in front of the secretary of state. He picked it up. «Yes?… It’s for you,» he said, looking at the Agency’s director. Gillette rose from his chair and went to the head of the table; he took the phone and identified himself.
«I understand,» he said after listening for nearly a minute. He replaced the telephone and stared at his heavyset aide with the thinning red hair. «You’ve got your confirmation, O’Ryan. Our man in Zurich was found in the Spitzplatz, shot twice through the head.»
«They’re making sure that bitch’s ass is covered,» said the CIA analyst named O’Ryan.
2
The tall, unshaven man in white sailing shorts and black tank shirt, his skin burned to a deep bronze by the tropic sun, raced across the walkway and up the pier containing slips for the powerboats. He reached the end of the wooden planks and shouted at the two men on an incoming skiff.
«What the hell do you mean, I’ve got a leak in the auxiliary? I used it in dead air and it was perfectly fine!»
«Look, mate,» replied a British mechanic, his voice weary as Tyrell Hawthorne grabbed the rope thrown at him. «I don’t give a shit if it’s a newborn babe of a motor. You ain’t got an ounce of oil in your crankcase; it’s all soiling our lovely little refuge here. Now, if you want to take that mother out, and you hit some more deaders, go right ahead and blow the engine. But I’m sure as hell gonna make my report. I ain’t gonna be responsible for your stupidity.»
«All right, all right,» said Hawthorne, grabbing the man’s hand as he climbed up the ladder to the dock. «What do you figure?»
«Rotted gaskets and two ruined cylinders, Tye.» The mechanic turned and secured the second line around a pylon so his companion could climb up on the dock. «How many times have I told you, laddie, you’re too good with the clouds and the windies. You’ve got to use your metals more; they dry out in this fuckin’ sun! Now, haven’t I told you that a couple of dozen times?»