once the keys were inserted and turned, air was allowed in, and after a
period of minutes the box could be forced open. It was the sort of
repository used in the most heavily endowed libraries to house old
manuscripts, manuscripts that were studied by scholars no more than once
every five years or so and thus preserved with great care. The name
“archive case” was well suited for documents in archives for a
millennium.
“Give me the keys!” whispered Charles urgently to Barak.
“I have no keys, mon. Piersall said nothing about keys.”
“Damn! ”
“Keep quiet!” ordered McAuliff.
“Push that dirt back,” said Moore to Floyd. “So it is not obvious, mon.
Push back the ferns.”
Floyd did as he was told; McAuliff helped him. Whitehall stared at the
rectangular box in his hands; he was furious.
“He was paranoid!” whispered the scholar, turning to Barak. “You said
it was a packet. An oilcloth packet! Not this. This will take a
blowtorch to open!”
“Charley’s got a point,” said Alex, shoveling in dirt with his hands,
realizing that he had just called Whitehall “Charley.”
“Why did he go to this trouble? Why’didn’t he just put the box with the
rest of the papers in the cistern?”
“You ask questions I cannot answer, mon. He was very concerned, that’s
all I can tell you.”
The dirt was back in the hole. Floyd smoothed out the surface and
pushed the roots of the mollusk ferns into the soft earth. “That will
do, I think, mon,” he said, folding the stem of the shovel and replacing
it in his belt.
” How are we going to get inside?” asked McAuliff. “Or get the guard
outside?”
I have thought of this for several hours,” replied Barak.
Wild pigs, I think.”
“Very good, mon!” interrupted Floyd.
. ‘In the pool?” added Whitehall knowingly.
“Yes.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Alex watched the faces of the
three black men in the moonlight.
Barak answered. “In the Cock Pit there are many wild pigs. They are
vicious and troublesome. We are perhaps ten miles from the Cock Pit’s
borders. It is not unusual for pigs to stray this far. Floyd and I
will imitate the sounds. You and Charley-mon throw rocks into the
pool.”
“What about the dog?” asked Whitehall. “You’d better shoot it.”
“No shooting, mon! Gunfire would be heard for miles. I will take care
of the dog.” Moore withdrew a small anesthetizing dart gun from his
pocket. “Our arsenal contains many of these. Come.”
Five minutes later McAuliff thought he was part of some demonic
children’s charade. Barak and Floyd had crept to the edge of the tall
grass bordering the elegant lawn. On the assumption that the Doberman
would head directly to the first human smell, Alex and Whitehall were in
parallel positions ten feet to the right of the revolutionaries, a pile
of stones between them. They were to throw the rocks as accurately as
possible into the lighted pool sixty feet away at the first sounds
emanating from Moore and his comrade.
It began.
The shrieks intruded on the stillness of the night with terrible
authenticity. They were the bellows of panicked beasts, shrill and
somehow horrible.
“Eeewahhee . . . gnnrahha, nggrahhaaa … eeaww, eeaww …
eeeowahhee. . .”
McAuliff and Whitehall lobbed rocks into the pool; the splashes were
interspersed with the monstrous shrieks. A weird cacophony filled the
air.
The shutters from the first floor were thrown open. The guard could be
seen behind the grillwork, a rifle in his hand.
Suddenly a stone hit Alex’s cheek. The blow was gentle, not stunning.
He whipped his head toward the direction of the throw. Floyd was waving
his arm in the tall grass, commanding McAuliff to stop hurling the
rocks. Alex grabbed Whitehall’s hand. They stopped.
The shrieks then became louder, accompanied by blunt thuds of pounding
earth. Alex could see Barak and Floyd in the moonlight. They were
slapping the ground like crazed animals; the horrible noises coming from
their shaking heads reached a crescendo.
Wild pigs fighting in the high grass.
The door of Piersall’s house crashed open. The guard, rifle in hand,
released the dog at his side. The animal lurched out onto the lawn and
raced toward the hysterical sounds and all-too-human odors.
McAuliff knelt, hypnotized by what followed in the Jamaican moonlight.
Barak and Floyd scrambled back into the field without raising their
bodies above the grass and without diminishing the pitch of their animal
screams. The Doberman streaked across the lawn and sprang headlong over
the border of the field and into the tall grass.
The continuing shrieks and guttural roars were joined by the savage
barking of the vicious dog. And, amid the terrible sounds, Alex could
distinguish a series of spits; the dart gun was being fired repeatedly.
A yelping howl suddenly drowned out the man-mad bellowing; the guard ran
to the edge of the lawn, his rifle raised to fire. And before McAuliff
could absorb or understand the action, Charles Whitehall grabbed a
handful of rocks and threw them toward the lighted pool. And then a
second handful hard upon the first.
The guard spun around to the water; Whitehall slammed Alex out of the
way, raced along the edge of the grass, and suddenly leaped out on the
lawn at the patrolman.
McAuliff watched, stunned.
Whitehall, the elegant academic-the delicately boned Charley-mon-lashed
his arm out into the base of the guard’s neck, crashed his foot savagely
into the man’s midsection, and seized a wrist, twisting it violently so
that the rifle flew out of the guard’s hands; the man jerked off his
feet, spun into the air, and whipped to the ground. As the guard
vibrated off the grass, Whitehall took swift aim and crashed his heel
into the man’s skull below his forehead.
The body contorted, then lay still.
The shrieking stopped; all was silent.
It was over.
Barak and Floyd raced out from the high grass onto the lawn. Barak
spoke. “Thank you, Charley-mon. Indiscriminate gunfire might have
found us.”
“It was necessary,” replied Whitehall simply. “I must see those
papers.”
“Then let us go,” said Barak Moore. “Floyd, take this real pig inside;
tie him up somewhere.”
“Don’t waste time,” countered Whitehall, starting for the house, the
receptacle under his arm. “Just throw him into the grass. He’s dead.”
Inside, Floyd led them to the cellar stairs and down into Piersall’s
basement. The cistern was in the west section, about six feet deep and
five wide. The walls were dry; cobwebs laced the sides and the top.
Barak brushed aside the filmy obstructions and lowered himself into the
pit.
“How do you know which are the blocks?” asked Whitehall urgently, the
black rectangular box clasped in his hand.
There is a way; the Doctor explained,” replied Moore, taking out a small
box of safety matches. He struck one and stared at the north center
line, revolving slowly clockwise, holding the lighted match against the
cracks in the blocks on the lower half of the pit.
“Ground phosphorus,” stated Whitehall quietly. “Packed into the
concrete edges.”
“Yes, mon. Not much; enough to give a little flame, or a sputter,
perhaps.”
“You’re wasting time!” Whitehall spat out the words.
“Swing to your left, toward the northwest point! Not to your right.”
The three men looked abruptly at the scholar. “What, Charley-mon?”
Barak was bewildered.
“Do as I say! … Please.”
“The Arawak symbols?” asked McAuliff. “The …
odyssey to death, or whatever you called it? To the right of the
setting sun?”
“I’m glad you find it amusing.”
“I don’t, Charley. Not one goddamn bit,” answered Alex softly.
“Ayee . . .” Barak whistled softly as tiny spits of flame burst out of
the cistern’s cracks. “Charley, you got brains, mon! Here they are.
Floyd, mon, give me the tools.”
Floyd reached into his field jacket and produced a five inch stone
chisel and an all-metal folding hammer. He handed them down to his
superior. “You want help?” he asked.
“There is not room for two,” replied Barak as he started hammering along
the cracks.
Three minutes later Moore had managed to dislodge the first block from
its surrounding adhesive; he tugged at it, pulling it slowly out of the
cistern wall. Whitehall held the flashlight now, his eyes intent on
Moore’s manipulations.
The block came loose; Floyd reached down and took it from Barak’s hands.
“What’s behind?” Whitehall pierced the beam of light into the gaping
hole.
“Space, mon. Red dirt and space,” said Moore. “And I think the top of
another box. A larger box.”
“For God’s sake, hurry!”
“Okay, Charley-mon. There is no dinner engagement at the Mo’Bay Hilton,
mon.” Barak chuckled. “Nothing will be rewritten by a hidden mongoose.”
“Relax.” McAuliff did not look at Whitehall when he spoke. He did not
want to. “We have all night, don’t we?
You killed a man out there. He was the only one who could have