«Who do you convince?» asked Alex.
«Someone must travel to Maroon Town, on the border of the Cock Pit. This person should ask for an audience with the Colonel of the Maroon people, offer to pay much, much money. It was Dr. Piersall’s belief that this man, whose title is passed from one generation to the next within the same tribal family, is the only link to the Halidon.»
«The story is told to him, then?»
«No, McAuliff, mon! Not even the Colonel of the Maroons is to be so trusted. At any rate, it would be meaningless to him. Dr. Piersall’s studies hinted that the Halidon kept open one perpetual line to the African brothers. It was called nagarro—»
«The Akwamu tongue,» broke in Whitehall. «The language is extinct, but derivations exist in the Ashanti and Mossai-Grusso dialects. Nagarro is an abstraction, best translated to mean ‘a spirit materialized.’»
«A spirit …» Alex began to repeat the phrase, then stopped. «Proof … proof of something real.»
«Yes,» replied Whitehall.
«Where is it?» asked McAuliff.
«The proof is in the meaning of another word,» said Barak Moore. «The meaning of the word ‘Halidon.’»
«What is it?»
«I do not know—»
«Goddamn!» Sam Tucker exploded. Barak Moore held up his hand, silencing him.
«Piersall found it. It is to be delivered to the Colonel of the Maroon people. For him to take up into the mountains.»
McAuliff’s jaws were tense; he controlled himself as best he could. «We can’t deliver what we don’t have.»
«You will have it, mon.» Barak settled his gaze on Alexander. «A month ago Dr. Piersall brought me to his home in Carrick Foyle. He gave me my instructions. Should anything happen to him, I was to go to a place in the forests of his property. I have committed this place to memory, mon. There, deep under the ground, is an oilcloth packet. Inside the packet is a paper; on it is written the meaning of ‘Halidon.’»
The driver on the ride back to Kingston was the Jamaican who was obviously Barak Moore’s second-in-command, the man who had done the talking on the trip out to the airfield. His name was Floyd. Charles Whitehall sat in the front seat with him; Alex and Sam Tucker sat in back.
«If you need stories to say where you were,» said Floyd to all of them, «there was a long equipment meeting at a Ministry warehouse. On Crawford Street, near the docks. It can be verified.»
«Who were we meeting with?» asked Sam.
«A man named Latham. He is in charge—»
«Latham?» broke in Alex, recalling all too vividly his telephone conversation with the Ministry man that afternoon. «He’s the one—»
«We know,» interrupted Floyd, grinning in the rearview mirror at McAuliff. «He’s one of us, mon.»
He let himself into the room as quietly as possible. It was nearly 3:30; Courtleigh Manor was quiet, the nocturnal games concluded. He closed the door silently and started across the soft carpet. A light was on in Alison’s room, the door open perhaps a foot. His own room was dark. Alison had turned off all the lamps; they had been on when he left her five hours ago.
Why had she done that?
He approached the slightly open door, removing his jacket as he did so.
There was a click behind him. He turned. A second later, the bedside lamp was snapped on, flooding the room with its dim light, harsh only at the source.
Alison was sitting up in his bed. He could see that her right hand gripped the small deadly weapon «issued by the London police»; she was placing it at her side, obscuring it with the covers.
«Hello, Alex.»
«Hello.» It was an awkward moment.
«I stayed here because I thought your friend Tucker might call. I wouldn’t have heard the telephone.»
«I could think of better reasons.» He smiled and approached the bed. She picked up the cylinder and twisted it. There was the same click he had heard seconds ago. She placed the strange weapon on the night table.
«Also, I wanted to talk.»
«You sound ominous.» He sat down. «I wasn’t able to call you … everything happened so fast. Sam showed up; he just walked through the goddamn lobby doors and wondered why I was so upset … then, as he was registering, the call came from Latham. He was really in a hurry. I think I threw him with Ocho Rios tomorrow. There was a lot of equipment that hadn’t been shipped to Boscobel—»
«Your phone didn’t ring,» interrupted Alison quietly.
«What?»
«Mr. Latham didn’t ring through to your room.»
McAuliff was prepared; he had remembered a little thing. «Because I’d left word we were having dinner. They were sending a page to the dining room.»
«That’s very good, Alex.»
«What’s the matter with you? I told the clerk to call you and explain. We were in a hurry; Latham said we had to get to the warehouse … down on Crawford Street, by the docks … before they closed the check-in books for the night.»
«That’s not very good. You can do better.»
McAuliff saw that Alison was deadly serious. And angry. «Why do you say that?»
«The front desk did not call me; there was no explaining clerk.» Alison pronounced the word «clerk» in the American fashion, exaggerating the difference from English speech. It was insulting. «An ‘assistant’ of Mr. Latham’s telephoned. He wasn’t very good, either. He didn’t know what to say when I asked to speak to Latham; he didn’t expect that. Did you know that Gerald Latham lives in the Barbican district of Kingston? He’s listed right in the telephone book.»
Alison stopped; the silence was strained. Alex spoke softly as he made the statement. «He was home.»
«He was home,» replied Alison. «Don’t worry. He didn’t know who called him. I spoke to a woman first, and when he got on the phone I hung up.»
McAuliff inhaled a deep breath and reached into his shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He wasn’t sure there was anything to say. «I’m sorry.»
«So am I,» she said quietly. «I’ll write you out a proper letter of resignation in the morning. You’ll have to accept a promissory note for the airfare and whatever other expenses I’m liable for. I’ll need what money I have for a while. I’m sure I’ll find a situation.»
«You can’t do that.» McAuliff found himself saying the words with strength, in utter conviction. And he knew why. Alison was perfectly willing to leave the survey; she was going to leave it. If her motive—or motives—for coming to Jamaica were not what she had said they were, she would not do that. «For Christ’s sake, you can’t resign because I lied about a few hours! Damn it, Alison, I’m not accountable to you!»
«Oh, stop behaving like a pompous, wounded ass! You don’t do that very well, either. I will not go through the labyrinth again; I’m sick to death of it. No more, do you hear!» Suddenly her voice fell and she caught her breath—and the fear was in her eyes. «I can’t stand it any longer.»
He stared at her. «What do you mean?»
«You elaborately described a long interview with the Jamaican police this afternoon. The station, the district, the officers … very detailed, Alex. I called them after I hung up on Latham. They’d never heard of you.»
16
He knew he had to go back to the beginning—to the very beginning of the insanity. He had to tell her the truth. There was relief in sharing it.
All of it. So it made sense, what sense there was to make.
He did.
And as he told the story, he found himself trying to understand all over again. He spoke slowly, in a monotone actually; it was the drone of a man speaking through the mists of confusion.