Whitehall blinked slowly, as if patiently explaining to an inept
pupil-which, obviously, he felt was the case. “In the primitive
intelligence, hostility is usually preceded by an overt, blunt
curiosity.”
“Thank you, Dr. Strangelove.” Alex did not hide his irritation. “Let’s
get off this. What happened over in the hill community?”
“I sent a messenger to the Maroon Town. I asked for a very private
meeting with the Colonel of the Maroons. He will listen; he will
accept.”
“I wasn’t ‘aware a meeting was that tough to get. If I remember what
Barak said, and I do, we just offer money.”
“We do not want a tourist audience, McAuliff. No tribal artifacts or
Afro-Carib beads bought for an extra two dollah-Jamaican. Our business
is more serious than tourist trade. I want to prepare the colonel
psychologically; make him think.”
Alex paused; Whitehall was probably right. If what Barak Moore had said
had validity. If the Colonel of the Maroons was the sole contact with
the Halidon, the decision to make that contact would not be lightly
arrived at; a degree of psychological preparation would be preferable to
none at all. But not so much as to make him run, avoid the decision.
“How do you think you accomplished that?” asked McAuliff, “I hired the
leader of the community to act as courier. I gave him a hundred
dollars, which is like offering either of us roughly a quarter of a
million. The message requests a meeting in four days, four hours after
the sun descends over the mountains—2’
he Arawak symbols?” interrupted Alex.
“Precisely. Completed by specifying that the meeting should take place
to the right of the Coromanteen crescent, which I would presume to be
the colonel’s residence. The colonel was to send back the exact
location with our courier…. Remember, the Colonel of the Maroon
Tribes is an ancestral position; he is a descendant and, like all
princes of the realm, schooled in its traditions. We shall know soon
enough if he perceives us to be quite out of the ordinary.”
“How?”
“If the location he chooses is in some unit of four.
Obviously.”
“Obviously…. So for the next few days we wait.”
“Not just wait, McAuliff. We will be watched, observed very closely. We
must take extreme care that we do not appear as a threat. We must go
about our business quite professionally.”
“I’m glad to hear that. We’re being paid to make a geological survey.”
“with the first penetration into the Cock Pit, the work of the survey
consumed each member of the team.
Whatever their private fears or foreign objectives, they were
professionals, and the incredible laboratory that was the Cock Pit
demanded their professional attentions.
Portable tables, elaborately cased microscopes, geoscopes, platinum
drills, sediment prisms, and depository vials were transported by
scientist and carrier alike into the barely penetrable jungles and into
the grasslands. The four-hour field sessions were more honored in the
breach; none cared to interrupt his experiments or analyses for such
inconveniences as meals or routine communications.
The disciplines of basic precautions were swiftly consigned to
aggravating nuisances. It took less than a full working day for the
novelty of the ever-humming, everirritating walkie-talkies to wear off.
McAuliff found it necessary to remind Peter Jensen and James Ferguson
angrily that it was mandatory to leave the radio receiving switches on,
regardless of the intermittent chatter between stations.
The first evenings lent credence to the wisdom of Charles Whitehall’s
purchases at Harrod’s Safari Shop. The team sat around the fires in
canvas chairs, as though recuperating from the day’s hunt. But instead
of talk of cat, horn, spore, and bird, other words flew around, spoken
with no less enthusiasm. Zinc, manganese, and bauxite; ochers, gypsum,
andphosphate … Cretaceous, Eocene, shale, and igneous; Wynne grass,
tamarind, bloodwood; guano, gros-michel, and woman’s tongue … and and
acid and peripatus; water runoffs, gas pockets, and layers of vesicular
lava honeycombs of limestone.
The overriding generalization was shared by everyone: the Cock Pit was
an extraordinarily fruitful landmass with abundant reserves of rich
soil, available water, and unbelievable deposits of gases and ores.
All this was accepted as fact before morning of the third day. McAuliff
listened as Peter Jensen summed it up with frightening clarity.
“It’s inconceivable that no one’s gone in and developed. I daresay
Brasilia couldn’t hold a candle! Three-quarters of the life force is
right here, waiting to be used!”
The reference to the city carved out of the Brazilian jungles made Alex
swallow and stare at the enthusiastic, middleaged, pipe-smoking minerals
expert.
We’re going to build a city…. Julian Warfield’s words.
Unbelievable. And viable.
It did not take great imagination to understand Dunstone, Limited, now.
The project was sound, taking only gigantic sums of capital to set it in
motion; sums available to Dunstone. And once set in motion, the entire
island could be tied to the incredible development. Armies of workers,
communities, one source.
Ultimately, the government.
Kingston could not, would not turn it off. Once in motion-one
source-the benefits would be overwhelming and undeniable. The enormity
of the cash flow alone could subvert the parliament. Slices of the
gigantic pie.
Economically and psychologically, Kingston would become dependent on
Dunstone, Limited.
So complicated, yet so basically, ingeniously simple.
Once they have Kingston, they have the laws of the land in their vaults.
To shape as they will. Dunstone will own a nation…. R. C. Hammond’s
words.
It was nearly midnight; the carriers were banking the fires under the
scrutiny of the two runners, Marcus and Justice Hedrik. The black
revolutionary, Lawrence, was playing his role as one of the crew,
subservient and pleasant, but for ever scanning the forests beyond,
never allowing himself to be too far away from Alison Booth.
The Jensens and Ferguson had gone to their tents.
McAuliff, Sam Tucker, and Alison sat around a small bivouac table; the
light of the dying fires flickering across their faces as they talked
quietly.
“Jensen’s right, Alexander,” said Tucker, lighting a thin cigar. “Those
behind this know exactly what they’re doing.
I’m no expert, but one strike, one hint of a mother lode, and you
couldn’t stop the speculation money.”
“It’s a company named Dunstone.”
“What is?”
“Those behind … the company’s called Dunstone; the man’s name is
Warfield. Julian Warfield. Alison knows.”
Sam held the cigar between his fingers and looked at McAuliff. “They
hired you.” Tucker’s statement was spoken slowly, a touch gruffly.
“He did,” replied Alex. “Warfield did.”
“Then this Royal Society grant … the Ministry, and the Institute, are
covers.”
“Yes.
“And you knew it from the beginning.”
“So does British Intelligence. I wasn’t just acting as an informer,
Sam. They trained me … as best they could over a couple of weeks.”
“Was there any particular reason why you kept it a secret, Alexander?”
Tucker’s voice–especially as capped with McAuliff’s name-was not
comforting. “I think you should have told me. Especially after that
meeting in the hills.
We’ve been together a long time, boy…. No, I don’t think you acted
properly.”
“He was generously proper, Sam,” said Alison, with a combination of
precision and warmth. “For your benefit. I speak from experience. The
less you’re aware of, the better your prospects. Take my word for it.”
“Why should I?” asked Tucker.
“Because I’ve been there. And because I was there, I’m here now.”
“She tied in against Chatellerault. That’s what I couldn’t tell you.
She worked for Interpol. A data bank picked out her name; it was made
to look so completely logical. She wanted to get out of England-”
“Had to get out, my darling…. Do you see, Sam? The computer was
Interpol’s; all the intelligence services are first cousins, and don’t
let anyone tell you otherwise. MI-5 ran a cross-reference, and here I
am. Valuable bait, another complication … Don’t be anxious to learn
too .much. Alex was right.”
The ensuing silence was artificial. Tucker inhaled on his thin cigar,
the unasked questions more pronounced by their absence. Alison whisked
strands of hair, let down for the evening, off her forehead. McAuliff
poured himself a small quantity of Scotch. Finally Sam Tucker spoke.
“It’s fortunate I trust you, Alexander.”
“I know that. I counted on it.”
“But why?” continued Sam quietly. “Why in hell did you do it? You’re
not that hungry. Why did you work for them?”
“For whom? Or which? Dunstone or British Intelligence?”
Tucker paused, staring at Alex before he replied. “Jesus, I don’t know.
Both, I guess, boy.”
“I accepted the first before the second showed up. It was a good
contract, the best I’d ever been offered. Before I realized it, I was
locked in. I was convinced I couldn’t get out … by both sides. At
one point, it was as simple as staying alive. Then there were
guarantees and promises …
and more guarantees and more promises.” McAuliff stared across the
clearing; it was strange. Lawrence was crouched over the embers of a
fire, looking at them. “Before you know it, you’re in some kind of