Acquaba.”
They talked for several hours, and McAuliff knew that for the time being
he had saved their lives. At one Tpoint Sam Tucker interrupted, only to
receive and acknowledge the plea in Alexander’s eyes: Sam had to leave
them alone. Tucker left, making it clear that he would be with Alison.
He expected Alex to speak with them before retiring. Sam did not notice
the ropes on Lawrence’s hands in the shadowed corner, and McAuliff was
grateful that he did not.
Marcus Hedrik was not the runner’s name. Marcus and Justice Hedrik had
been replaced: where they were was of no consequence, insisted this
unnamed member of the Halidon. What was of paramount consequence was
the whereabouts of the Piersall documents.
Always leave something to trade off … in the last extremity. The
words of R. C. Hammond.
The documents.
McAuliff s ploy.
The Halidonite probed with infinite care every aspect of Piersall’s
conclusions as related by Charles Whitehall. The black scholar traced
the history of the Acquaba sect, but he would not reveal the nagarro,
the meaning of the Halidon.
The “runner” neither agreed nor disagreed; he was simply an
interrogator. He was also a perceptive and cautious man.
Once satisfied that Charles Whitehall would tell him no more, he ordered
him to remain inside his tent with Lawrence. They were not to leave;
they would be shot if they tried. His fellow “runner” would stay on
guard.
The Halidonite recognized the intransigence of McAuliff’s position. Alex
would tell him nothing. Faced with that, he ordered Alex under gunpoint
to walk out of the campsite. As they proceeded up a path toward the
grasslands, McAuliff began to understand the thoroughness of the
Halidon-that small part of it to which he was exposed.
Twice along the alley of dense foliage, the man with the weapon
commanded him to stop. There followed a brief series of guttural parrot
calls, responded to in kind. Alex heard the softly spoken words of the
man with the gun.
“The bivouac is surrounded, Mr. McAuliff. I’m quite sure Whitehall and
Tucker, as well as your couriers, know that now. The birds we imitate
do not sing at night.”
“Where are we going?”
“To meet with someone. My superior, in fact. Continue, please.”
They climbed for another twenty minutes; a long jungle hill suddenly
became an open grassland, a field that seemed extracted from some other
terrain, imposed on a foreign land surrounded by wet forests and steep
mountains.
The moonlight was unimpeded by clouds; the field was washed with dull
yellow. And in the center of the wild grass stood two men. As they
approached, McAuliff saw that one of the men was perhaps ten feet behind
the first, his back to them. The first man faced them.
The Halidonite facing them was dressed in what appeared to be ragged
clothes, but with a loose field jacket and boots.
The combined effect was a strange, unkempt paramilitary appearance.
Around his waist was a pistol belt and holster.
The man ten feet away and staring off in the opposite direction was in a
caftan held together in the middle by a single thick rope.
Priestlike. Immobile.
“Sit on the ground, Dr. McAuliff,” instructed, the strangely ragged
paramilitary man, in clipped tones used to command.
Alex did so. The use of the title “Doctor” told him the unfamiliarity
was more his than theirs.
The subordinate who had marched him up from the camp approached the
priest figure. The two men fell into quiet conversation, walking slowly
into the grass while talking.
The two figures receded over a hundred yards into the dull yellow field.
They stopped.
“Turn around, Dr. McAuliff.” The order was abrupt; the black man above
him had his hand on his holster. Alex pivoted in his sitting position
and faced the descending forest from which he and the runner had
emerged.
The waiting was long and tense. Yet McAuliff understood that his
strongest weapon-perhaps his only viable strength-was calm
determination. He was determined; he was not calm.
He was frightened in the same way he had experienced fear before. In
the Vietnam jungles; alone, no Matter the number of troops. Waiting to
witness his own single annihilation.
Pockets of fear.
“It is an extraordinary story, is it not, Dr. McAuliff?”
That voice. My God! He knew that voice.
He pressed his affris against the ground and started to whip his head
and body around.
His temple crashed into the hard steel of a pistol; the agonizing pain
shot through his face and chest. There was a series of bright flashes
in front of his eyes as the pain reached a sensory crescendo. It
subsided to a numbing ache, and he could feel a trickle of blood on his
neck.
“You will remain the way you are while we talk,” said the familiar
voice.
Where had he heard it before?
:’I know you.”
“You don’t know me, Dr. McAuliff.”
“I’ve heard your voice … somewhere.”
” Then you have remarkable recall. So much has happened…. I shall
not waste words. Where are Piersall’s documents? I am sure it is
unnecessary to tell you that your life and the lives of those you
brought to Jamaica depend on our having them.”
“How do you know they’d do you any good? What if I told you I had
copies made?”
“TOO “I would say you were lying. We know the placement of every Xerox
machine, every photostat copier, every store, hotel, and individual that
does much work along the coast.
Including Bueno, the Bays, and Ocho Rios. You have had no copies made.”
“You’re not very bright, Mr. Halidon…. It is Mr. Halidon, isn’t it?”
There was no response, so Alex continued. “We photographed them.”
“Then the films are not developed. And the only member of your team
possessing a camera is the boy, Ferguson. He is hardly a confidant….
But this is immaterial, Dr. McAuliff. When we say documents, we assume
any and all reproductions thereof. Should any surface …
ever … there will be, to put it bluntly, a massacre of innocents.
Your survey team, their families, children … all those held dear by
everyone. A cruel and unnecessary prospect.”
… to the last extremity. R. C. Hammond.
“It would be the Halidon’s last action, wouldn’t it?”
McAuliff spoke slowly but sharply, stunned by his own calm. “A kind of
final … beau geste before extinction. If you want it that way, I
don’t give a damn.”
“Stop it, McAuliffl.” The voice suddenly screamed, a piercing shriek
over the blades of wild grass, its echo muted by the surrounding
jungles.
Those words… they were the words he had heard before!
stop it. stop it… stop it …
Where? For God’s sake, where had he heard them?
His mind raced; images were bluffed with blinding colored lights, but he
could not focus.
A man. A black man-tall and lithe and muscular … a man following
orders. A man commanding but not with his own commands. The voice that
had just roared was the same voice from the past … following orders.
In panic …
as before.
Something …
“You said we would talk. Threats are one-sided conversations; you take
turns, you don’t talk. I’m not on anybody’s side. I want your …
superiors to know that.” Alex held his breath during the silence that
followed.
The quiet reply came with measure authority … and a small but
recognizable trace of fear. “There are no superiors as far as you are
concerned. My temper is short. These have been difficult days. You
should realize that you are very close to losing your life.”
The man with the pistol had moved slightly; Alex could see him now out
of the corner of his eye. And what he saw convinced him he was on the
track of an immediate truth.
The man’s head had snapped up at the priest figure; the man with the
weapon dangling was questioning the priest figure’s words.
“If you kill me … or any member of the team, the Halidon will be
exposed in a matter of hours.”
Again silence. Again the measured authority; again the now unmistakable
undertone of fear. “And how is this remarkable exposure going to take
place, Dr. McAuliffl” Alex drew a deep breath silently. His right hand
was clasping his left wrist; he pressed his fingers into his own flesh
as he replied.
“In my equipment there is a radio signaling device. It is standard and
operates on a frequency that rides above interference. It’s functional
within a radius of twenty-five miles.
Every twelve hours I send out one of two codes; a light on the miniature
panel confirms reception and pinpoints location-identification. The
first code says everything’s normal, no problems. The second says
something else. It instructs the man on the receiving end to implement
two specific orders: fly the documents out and send help in. The
absence of transmissions is the equivalent of the second code, only more