so. It alerts all the factions in Kingston, including British
Intelligence. They’ll be forced in; they’ll start with our last
location and fan out. The Cock Pit will be swarming with planes and
troops…. I’d better transmit the code, Mr. Halidon. And even when I
do, you won’t know which one I’m sending, will you?” McAuliff stopped
for precisely three seconds. And then he said quietly, “Checkmate, Mr.
Bones.”
A macaw’s screech could be heard in the distance. From somewhere in the
wet forests a pride of wild pigs was disturbed. The warm breeze bent
the reeds of the tall grass ever so slightly; cicadas were everywhere.
All these were absorbed by Alex’s senses. And he understood, too, the
audible, trembling intake of breath from the darkness behind him. He
could feel the mounting, uncontrollable pitch of anger.
“No, mon! ” The man with the pistol cried out, lunging forward.
Simultaneously, McAuliff felt the rush of air and heard the rustle of
cloth that precedes the instant of impact from behind. Too late to
turn; defense only in crouching, hugging the earth.
One man tried to stop the priest figure as he lunged forward; the weight
of two furious bodies descended on Alex’s shoulders and back. Hanns
were thrashing, fingers spastically clutched; hard steel and soft cloth
and warm flesh enveloped him. He reached above and grasped the first
objects his hands touched, yanked with all his strength, and rolled
forward.
The priest figure somersaulted over his back; Alex crashed his shoulders
downward, rising on one knee for greater weight, and threw himself on
the coarse cloth of the caftan. As he pinned the priest, he felt
himself instantly pulled backward, with such force that the small of his
back arched in pain.
The two Halidonites locked his arms, stretching his chest to the
breaking point; the man with the pistol held the barrel to his temple,
digging it into his skin.
“That will be enough, mon.”
Below him on the ground, the yellow moonlight illuminating a face
creased with fury, was the priest figure.
McAuliff instantly understood the bewildering, unfocused images of
blinding, colored lights his mind had associated with the panicked words
stop it, stop it.
He had last seen this “priest” of the Halidon in London’s Soho. During
the psychedelic madness that was The Owl of Saint George. The man lying
on the ground in a caftan had been dressed in a dark suit then, gyrating
on the crowded dance floor. He had screamed at McAuliff, Stop … stop
it! He had delivered a crushing fist into Alex’s midsection; he had
disappeared into the crowds, only to show up an hour later in a
government car on the street by a public telephone.
This “priest” of the Halidon was an agent of British Intelligence.
“You said your name was Tallon.” McAuliff strained his speech through
the pain, the words interrupted by his lack of breath. “In the car that
night you said your name was Tallon. And … when I called you on it,
you said you were … testing me.”
The priest figure rolled over and slowly began to rise. He nodded to
the two Halidonites to relax their grips and addressed them. “I would
not have killed him. You know that.”
“You were angry, mon,” said the man who had taken Alex out of the camp.
“Forgive us,” added the man who had cried out and lunged at the priest
figure. “It was necessary.”
The “priest” smoothed his cassock and tugged at the thick rope around
his waist. He looked down at McAuliff. “Your recollection is sharp,
Doctor. I sincerely hope your ability to think is equally acute.”
“Does that mean we talk?”
“We talk.”
“My arms hurt like hell. Will you tell your sergeants to let go of me?”
The “priest” nodded once again, and flicked his wrist in accord. Alex’s
arms were released; he shook them.
“My sergeants, as you call them, are more temperate men than I. You
should be grateful to them.”
The man with the pistol belt demurred, his voice respectful. “Not so,
mon. When did you last sleep?”
“That does not matter. I should have more control….
My friend refers to a hectic several weeks, McAuliff. Not only did I
have to get myself out of England, avoiding Her Majesty’s Service, but
also a colleague who had disappeared in a Bentley around a Soho corner.
A West Indian in London has a thousand hiding places.”
Alex remembered vividly. “That Bentley tried to run me down. The
driver wanted to kill me. Only someone else was killed … because of
a neon light.”
The priest figure stared at McAuliff. He, too, seemed to recall the
evening vividly. “It was a tragedy born of the instant. We thought a
trap had been set, the spring caught at the last moment.”
“Three lives were lost that night. Two with cyanide—–”
“We are committed,” interrupted the Halidonite, who looked at his two
companions and spoke gently. “Leave us alone, please.”
in warning, both men removed the weapons from their belts as they pulled
Alex to his feet. As ordered, they retreated into the field. McAuliff
watched them. A raggedclothed twosome with the unlikely jackets and
pistol belts.
“They not only do as you say, they protect you from yourself.”
The priest figure also looked at his retreating subordinates. “When we
are in our formative years, we are all given batteries of tests. Each
is assigned areas of instruction and future responsibility from the
results. I often think grave errors are made.” The man tugged at his
caftan and turned to McAuliff. “We must deal now with each other, must
we not? As I am sure you have surmised, I was an important member of
M.I. Five.”
“An ‘infiltrator’ is the word that comes to mind.”
“A very successful one, Doctor. Hammond himself twice recommended me
for citations. I was one of the best West Indian specialists. I was
reluctant to leave. You-and those maneuvering you–created the
necessity.”
“How?”
“Your survey suddenly contained too many dangerous components. We could
live with several, but when we found out that your closest associate on
the geological team-Mr. Tucker-was apparently a friend of Walter
Piersall, we knew we had to keep you under a microscope.”.. .
Obviously, we were too late.”
“What were the other components?”
The priest figure hesitated. He touched his forehead, where a grass
burn had developed from his fall to the ground. “Do you have a
cigarette? This very comfortable sheet has one disadvantage: there are
no pockets.”
“Why do you wear it?”
“It is a symbol of authority, nothing more.”
McAuliff reached into his pocket, withdrew a pack of cigarettes, and
shook one up for the Halidonite. As he lighted it for him, he saw that
the black hollows in the very black skin beneath the eyes were stretched
in exhaustion.
“What were the dangerous components?”
“Oh, come, Doctor, you know them as well as I do.”
“Maybe I don’t; enlighten me. Or is that too dangerous, too?”
“Not now. Not at this point. The reality is the danger.
Piersall’s documents are the reality. The … components are
inconsequential.”
“Then tell me.”
The priest figure inhaled on his cigarette and blew the smoke into the
soft breeze of the dull yellow light. “The woman you know about. There
are many who fear her on the Continent. Among those, one of the
Dunstone hierarchy … the Marquis de Chatellerault. Where she is, so
is an arm of the Intelligence service. The boy, Ferguson, is deep with
the Craft interests; actually, they fear him. Or did.
And rightly so. He never understood the calamitous economic potential
of his fiber work.”
” I think he did,” interrupted Alex. “And he does. He expects to make
money out of Craft.”
The Halidonite laughed quietly. “They will never let him.
But he is a component. Where does Craft stand? Is he part of Dunstone?
Nothing happens in Jamaica that the soiled hand of Craft has not
touched…. Samuel Tucker I have told you about: his association with
the suddenly vital Walter Piersall. Whose summons did he answer? Is he
on the island because of his old friend McAulifV Or his new friend,
Piersall? Or is it coincidence?”
“It’s coincidence,” said Alex. “You’d have to know Sam to understand
that.”
“But we do not, you see. We only understand that among the first
telephone calls he made was one to a man who was disturbing us
profoundly. Who was walking around Kingston with the secrets of two
hundred years in his brain … and somewhere on paper.” The priest
figure looked at McAuliff-stared at him, really. His eyes in the
moonlight conveyed a supplication for Alex to understand. He looked
away and continued. “Then there is Charles Whitehall. A very … very
dangerous and unpredictable component. You must know his background;
Hammond certainly did. Whitehall feels his time on the island has come.
His is the hot mysticism of the fanatic. The black Caesar come to ride