Robert Ludlum
Naples, Florida
January 1996
ONE
PORT ANTONIO/LONDON
1
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; guesthouses 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 the adjoining territory of Port Antonio.
Durell was the young English manager of Trident Villas, a graduate of London’s College of Hotel Management, with a series of letters after his name indicating more knowledge and experience than his youthful appearance would seem to support. But Durell was good; he knew it, the Trident’s owners knew it. He never stopped looking for the unexpected—that, along with routine smoothness, was the essence of superior management.
He had found the unexpected now. And it troubled him.
It was a mathematical impossibility. Or, if not impossible, certainly improbable in the extreme.
It simply did not make sense.
«Mr. Durell?»
He turned. His Jamaican secretary, her brown skin and features bespeaking the age-old coalition of Africa and Empire, had walked out on the deck with a message.
«Yes?»
«Lufthansa flight sixteen from Munich will be late getting into Montego.»
«That’s the Keppler reservation, isn’t it?»
«Yes. They’ll miss the in-island connection.»
«They should have come into Kingston.»
«They didn’t,» said the girl, her voice carrying the same disapproval as Durell’s statement, but not so sternly. «They obviously don’t wish to spend the night in Montego; they had Lufthansa radio ahead. You’re to get them a charter—»
«On three hours’ notice? Let the Germans do it! It’s their equipment that’s late.»
«They tried. None available in Mo’Bay.»
«Of course, there isn’t… I’ll ask Hanley. He’ll be back from Kingston with the Warfields by five o’clock.»
«He may not wish to…»
«He will. We’re in a spot. I trust it’s not indicative of the week.»
«Why do you say that? What bothers you?»
Durell turned back to the railing overlooking the fields and cliffs of coral. He lighted a cigarette, cupping the flame against the bursts of warm breeze. «Several things. I’m not sure I can put my finger on them all. One I do know.» He looked at the girl, but his eyes were remembering. «A little over twelve months ago, the reservations for this particular week began coming in. Eleven months ago they were complete. All the villas were booked … for this particular week.»
«Trident’s popular. What is so unusual?»
«You don’t understand. Since eleven months ago, every one of those reservations has stood firm. Not a single cancellation, or even a minor change of date. Not even a day.»
«Less bother for you. I’d think you’d be pleased.»
«Don’t you see? It’s a mathematical imp—well, inconsistency, to say the least. Twenty villas. Assuming couples, that is forty families, really—mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins … For eleven months nothing has happened to change anyone’s plans. None of the principals died—and at our rates we don’t cater exclusively to the young. No misfortunes of consequence, no simple business interferences, or measles or mumps or weddings or funerals or lingering illness. Yet we’re not the Queen’s coronation; we’re just a week-in-Jamaica.»
The girl laughed. «You’re playing with numbers, Mr. Durell. You’re put out because your well-organized waiting list hasn’t been used.»
«And by the way, they’re all arriving,» continued the young manager, his words coming faster. «This Keppler, he’s the only one with a problem, and how does he solve it? Having an aircraft radio ahead from somewhere over the Atlantic. Now, you’ll grant that’s a bit much. The others? No one asks for a car to meet them, no in-island confirmations required, no concerns about luggage or distances. Or anything. They’ll just be here.»
«Not the Warfields. Captain Hanley flew his plane to Kingston for the Warfields.»
«But we didn’t know that. Hanley assumed that we did, but we didn’t. The arrangements were made privately from London. He thought we’d given them his name; we hadn’t. I hadn’t.»
«No one else would …» The girl stopped. «But everyone’s … from all over.»
«Yes. Almost evenly divided. The States, England, France, Germany, and … Haiti.»
«What’s your point?» asked the girl, seeing the concern on Durell’s face.
«I have a strange feeling that all our guests for the week are acquainted. But they don’t want us to know it.»
LONDON, ENGLAND
The tall, light-haired American in the unbuttoned Burberry trench coat walked out the Strand entrance of the Savoy Hotel. He stopped for an instant and looked up at the English sky between the buildings in the court. It was a perfectly normal thing to do—to observe the sky, to check the elements after emerging from shelter—but this man did not give the normally cursory glance and form a judgment based primarily on the chill factor.
He looked.
Any geologist who made his living developing geophysical surveys for governments, companies, and foundations knew that the weather was income; it connoted progress or delay.
Habit.
His clear gray eyes were deeply set beneath wide eyebrows, darker than the light brown hair that fell with irritating regularity over his forehead. His face was the color of a man’s exposed to the weather, the tone permanently stained by the sun, but not burned. The lines beside and below his eyes seemed stamped more from his work than from age, again a face in constant conflict with the elements. The cheekbones were high, the mouth full, the jaw casually slack, for there was a softness also about the man … in abstract contrast to the hard, professional look.
This softness, too, was in his eyes. Not weak, but inquisitive; the eyes of a man who probed—perhaps because he had not probed sufficiently in the past.
Things … things … had happened to this man.
The instant of observation over, he greeted the uniformed doorman with a smile and a brief shake of his head, indicating a negative.
«No taxi, Mr. McAuliff?»
«Thanks, no, Jack. I’ll walk.»
«A bit nippy, sir.»
«It’s refreshing—only going a few blocks.»
The doorman tipped his cap and turned his attention to an incoming Jaguar sedan. Alexander McAuliff continued down the Savoy Court, past the theater and the American Express office to the Strand. He crossed the pavement and entered the flow of human traffic heading north toward Waterloo Bridge. He buttoned his raincoat, pulling the lapels up to ward off London’s February chill.
It was nearly one o’clock; he was to be at the Waterloo intersection by one. He would make it with only minutes to spare.