THE CRY OF THE HALIDON ROBERT LUDLUM
INTRODUCTION
A number of years ago-a quarter of a century to be precise-an author
barely in his forties was so exuberant over the fact that he had
actually published two novels that, like an addict, he relentlessly
pursued the source of his addiction. Fortunately, it was the narcotic
of writing, chemically not dangerous, mentally an obsession. That
obsessed author, me, is now far older and only slightly wiser, and I was
exhilarated until I was given a gentle lecture by a cadre of
well-meaning publishing executives. I was stunned walleyed and
speechless.
Apparently, it was the conventional wisdom of the time that no author
who sold more than a dozen or so books to his immediate family and very
close friends should write more than one novel a year! If he did, he
would automatically be considered a “hack” by “readers and critics
alike.” (I loved this last dual-persona, as expressed.) Such writing
giants of the past came to mind, like Dickens, Trollope, and Thackeray,
fellows who thought nothing of filling up reams of copy for monthly and
weekly magazines, much of said copy excerpts from their novels in
progress. Perhaps, I thought silently, “hack” had a different meaning
then, like in “he can’t hack it,” which implies that to “hack” is good,
as opposed to “he’s a hack,” obviously pejorative. It was all too
confusing, and, as I mentioned, I was speechless anyway. So I said
nothing.
Nevertheless, I was the new kid on the block, more precisely on
Publishers Row. I listened to my more experienced betters and submitted
The Cry of the Halidon as written by someone called “Jonathan Ryder,”
actually the first name of one of our sons and a contraction of my
wife’s stage name when she was a popular actress in New York and its
environs.
I’d be foolish to deny the influence this novel had on subsequent books,
for it was the first time I actively forced myself to research obscure
history along with the I roots of myth as opposed to well-documented, if
difficult to unearth, historical records. For me, it was terrific.
My wife, Mary, and I flew to Jamaica, where most of the novel was to
take place. I was like a kid in a giant toy store. There was so much
to absorb, to study! I even stole real names before I learned you
weren’t supposed to do that without permission. For example, “Timothy
Durell,” the first character we meet in the book, actually was the
youngest and brightest manager of a large international resort that I’d
ever met; “Robert Hanley” is a pilot in the novel and was, as well, in
everyday life. Among other detours, Bob ferried Howard Hughes around
the Caribbean, and was on Errol Flynn’s payroll as his private pilot
when the motion-picture star lived in Jamaica.
(Other liberties I really should not reveal–on advice of counsel.)
Of course, research is the dessert before an entree, or conversely, the
succulent shrimp cocktail before the hearty prime rib, the appetizer
leading to serious dining. It is also both a trap and a springboard. A
trap for it ensnares one in a world of geometric probabilities that an
author resists leaving, and a springboard for it fires one’s imagination
to get on with the infinite possibilities a writer finds irresistible.
The first inkling I had regarding the crosscurrents of deeply felt
Jamaican religiosity and myth came when MY wife and I took our daughter,
along with the regal lady who ran the kitchen at our rented house, to a
native village market in Port Antonio. Our young daughter was a very
blond child and very beautiful (still is). She became the instant
center of attention, for this was, indeed, a remote thoroughfare and the
inhabitants were not used to the sight of a very blond white child. The
natives were delightful, as most Jamaicans are; they’re gentle, filled
with laughter and kindness and intelligent concern for the guests on
their island. One man, however, was none of these. He was large,
abusive, and kept making remarks that any parent would find revolting.
The people around him admonished him; many shouted, but he simply became
more abusive, bordering on the physical. I’d had enough.
Having been trained as a marine-and far younger than I am now-I
approached this offensive individual, spun him around, hammerlocked his
right arm, and marched him across the dirt road to the edge of a ravine.
I sat him down on a rock, and vented my parental spleen.
Suddenly, he became docile, trancelike, then started to chant in a
singsong manner words to the effect of “The Hollydawn, the Hollydawn,
all is for the Hollydawn!” I asked him what he was talking about. “You
can never know, mon! It is not for you to know. It is the holy church
of the Hollydawn! Obeah, Obeah. Give me money for the magic of the
Hollydawn!”
I realized he was high on something-grass, alcohol, who knows? I gave
him a few dollars and sent him on his way.
An elderly Jamaican subsequently came up to me, his dark eyes sad,
knowing. “I’m sorry, young man,” he said. “We watched closely and
would have rushed to your assistance should you have been in danger.”
“You mean he might have had a gun, a weapon?”
“No, never a gun, no one allows those people to have guns, but a weapon,
yes. He frequently carries a machete in his trousers.”
I swallowed several times, and no doubt turned considerably paler than I
had been. But the episode did ignite the fuses of my imagination. From
there, and courtesy of Bob Hanley and his plane, I crisscrossed the
infamous Cock Pit jungles, flying low and seeing things no one in a
commercial airliner could ever see. I traveled to Kingston, to
waterfronts Bob thought I was nuts to visit. (Remember, I was much,
much younger.) I explored the coves, the bays, and the harbors of the
north coast, questioning, always questioning, frequently met by laughter
and dancing eyes, but never once hostility. I even went so far as to
initiate negotiations to purchase Errol Flynn’s old estate, when, as I
recall, Hanley hammerlocked me and dragged me back to the plane under
sentence of bodily harm. (Much younger!) I was having so much fun that
one evening, while sipping cocktails in the glorious glow of a Jamaican
sunset, Mary turned to me and, in her delightfully understated way,
said, “You were actually going to buy the Flynn estate?”
“Well, there is a series of natural waterfalls leading to a pool,
and—-@’ “Bob Hanley has my permission to severely wound you.
Your right hand excepted.” (I write in longhand.) “Do you think you’ll
ever start the novel?”
“What novel?”
“I rest my case. I think it’s time we go home.”
“What home ..?”
“The other children, our sons.”
“I know them! Big fellas! ” Do you get the picture? Call it island
fever, a mad dog in the noonday sun, or a mentally impaired author
obsessed with research. But my bride was right. It was time to go home
and begin the hearty prime rib.
While rereading this novel for editorial considerations, I was struck by
how much I’d forgotten, and the memories came flooding back over me. Not
regarding the quality of the book-that’s for others to comment on one
way or another-but the things I experienced that gave rise to whole
scenes, composite characters, backcountry roads dotted with the great
houses and their skeletons of bygone eras, the cocoruru peddlers on the
white sandy beaches with their machetes decapitating the fruit into
which was poured the rum … above all the countless hundreds of large
dark eyes that held the secrets of centuries.
It was a beautiful time, and I thank all those who made it possible. I
hope you enjoy the novel for I truly enjoyed working on it.
Robert Ludlum
Naples, Florida January 1996
PORT ANTONIo/LONDON
PORT ANTONIO, JAMAICA
The white sheet of ocean spray burst up from the coral rock and appeared
suspended, the pitch-blue waters of the Caribbean serving as a backdrop.
The spray cascaded forward and downward and asserted itself over
thousands of tiny, sharp, ragged crevices that were the coral overlay.
It became ocean again, at one with its source.
Timothy Durell walked out on the far edge of the huge free-form pool
deck, imposed over the surrounding coral, and watched the increasing
combat between water and rock.
This isolated section of the Jamaican north coast was a compromise
between man and natural phenomenon. Trident Villas were built on top of
a coral sheet, surrounded by it on three sides, with a single drive that
led to the roads in front.
The villas were miniature replicas of their names; guest houses that
fronted the sea and the fields of coral. Each an entity in itself, each
isolated from the others, as the entire resort complex was isolated from