The Cry of the Halidon (22 page)

“He was worried, not mad. It was quite a disappearing act.”

“He should know better. I have friends on this island, not enemies. At least, none either of us knows about.”

“What happened? Where did you go?”

Tucker told him.

When Sam arrived in Montego Bay, there was a message from Piersall at the Arrivals desk. He was to call the anthropologist in Carrick Foyle after he was settled. He did, but was told by a servant in Carrick Foyle that Piersall might not return until late that night.

Tucker then phoned his old friend Hanley, and the two men got drunk, as was their established custom at reunions.

In the morning, while Hanley was still sleeping, Sam left the hotel to pick up cigars.

“It’s not the sort of place that’s large on room service, boy.”

“I gathered that,” said Alex.

“Out on the street, our friends here”—Tucker gestured toward the front seat—“were waiting in a station wagon—”

“Mr. Tucker was being followed,” interrupted the Jamaican by the window. “Word of this reached Dr. Piersall. He sent us to Mo’Bay to look after his friend. Mr. Tucker gets up early.”

Sam grinned. “You know me. Even with the juice, I can’t sleep long.”

“I know,” said Alex, remembering too many hotel rooms and survey campsites in which Tucker had wandered about at the first light of dawn.

“There was a little misunderstanding,” continued Sam. “The boys here said Piersall was waiting for me. I figured, what the hell, the lads thought enough of me to stick out the night, I’d go with ’em straight off. Old Hanley wouldn’t be up for an hour or so … I’d call him from Piersall’s house. But, goddammit, we didn’t go to Carrick Foyle. We headed
for a bamboo camp down the Martha Brae. It took us damn near two hours to get there, a godforsaken place, Alexander.”

When they arrived at the bamboo camp, Walter Piersall greeted Sam warmly. But within minutes Tucker realized that something had happened to the man. He was not the same person that Sam had known a year ago. There was a zealousness, an intensity not in evidence twelve months before.

Walter Piersall was caught up in things Jamaican. The quiet anthropologist had become a fierce partisan in the battles being waged between social and political factions within Jamaica. He was suddenly a jealous guardian of the islanders’ rights, an enemy of the outside exploiters.

“I’ve seen it happen dozens of times, Alexander,” said Sam. “From the Tasman to the Caribbean; it’s a kind of island fever. Possession … oneness, I think. Men migrate for taxes or climate or whatever the hell and they turn into self-proclaimed protectors of their sanctuaries … the Catholic convert telling the pope he’s not with it …”

In his cross-island proselytizing, Piersall began to hear whispers of an enormous land conspiracy. In his own backyard in the parish of Trelawny. At first he dismissed them; they involved men with whom one might disagree, but whose integrity was not debated. Men of extraordinary stature.

The conspiratorial syndrome was an ever-present nuisance in any growing government; Piersall understood that. In Jamaica it was given credence by the influx of foreign capital looking for tax havens, by a parliament ordering more reform programs than it could possibly control, and by a small, wealthy island aristocracy trying to protect itself—the bribe was an all-too-prevalent way of life.

Piersall had decided, once and for all, to put the whispered rumors to rest. Four months ago he’d gone to the Ministry of Territories and filed a resolution of intent to purchase by way of syndication twenty square miles of land on the north border of the Cock Pit. It was a harmless gesture, really. Such a purchase would take years in the courts
and involve the satisfactory settling of historic island treaties; his point was merely to prove Kingston’s willingness to accept the filing. That the land was not controlled by outsiders.

“Since that day, Alexander, Piersall’s life was made a hell.” Sam Tucker lit a thin native cigar; the aromatic smoke whipped out the open window into the onrushing darkness. “He was harassed by the police, pulled into the parish courts dozens of times for nonsense; his lectures were canceled at the university and the Institute; his telephone tapped—conversations repeated by government attorneys … Finally, the whispers he tried to silence killed him.”

McAuliff said nothing for several moments. “Why was Piersall so anxious to contact you?” he asked Tucker.

“In my cable I told him I was doing a big survey in Trelawny. A project out of London by way of Kingston. I didn’t want him to think I was traveling six thousand miles to be his guest; he was a busy man, Alexander.”

“But you were in Kingston tonight. Not in a bamboo camp on the Martha Brae. Two of these men”—McAuliff gestured front—“followed me this afternoon. In this car.”

“Let me answer you, Mr. McAuliff,” said the Jamaican by the window, turning and placing his arm over the seat. “Kingston intercepted Mr. Tuck’s cable; they made kling-kling addition, mon. They thought Mr. Tuck was mixed up with Dr. Piersall in bad ways. Bad ways for them, mon. They sent dangerous men to Mo’Bay. To find out what Tuck was doing—”

“How do you know this?” broke in Alex.

For the briefest instant, the man by the window glanced at the driver. It was difficult to tell in the dim light and rushing shadows, but McAuliff thought the driver nodded imperceptibly.

“We took the men who came to Mo’bay after Mr. Tuck. That is all you need to know, mon. What was learned caused Dr. Piersall much concern. So much, mon, that we flew to Kingston. To reach you, mon … Dr. Piersall was killed for that.”

“Who killed him?”

“If we knew that there would be dead men hanging in Victoria Park.”

“What did you learn … from the men in Montego?”

Again, the man who spoke seemed to glance at the driver. In seconds he replied, “That people in Kingston believed Dr. Piersall would interfere further. When he went to find you, mon, it was their proof. By killing him they took a big sea urchin out of their foot.”

“And you don’t know who did it—”

“Hired niggers, mon,” interrupted the black man.

“It’s insane!” McAuliff spoke to himself as much as to Sam Tucker. “People killing people … men following other men. It’s goddamn crazy!”

“Why is it crazy to a man who visits Tallon’s fish market?” asked the Jamaican suddenly.

“How did—” McAuliff stopped. He was confused; he had been so careful. “How did you know that? I lost you at the racetrack!”

The Jamaican smiled, his bright teeth catching the light from the careening reflections through the windshield. “Ocean trout is not really preferable to the freshwater variety,
mon
.”

The counterman! The nonchalant counterman in the striped linen apron. “The man behind the counter is one of you. That’s pretty good,” said McAuliff quietly.

“We’re very good. Westmore Tallon is a British agent. So like the English: enlist the clandestine help of the vested interests. And so fundamentally stupid. Tallon’s senile Etonian classmates might trust him; his countrymen do not.”

The Jamaican removed his arm from the seat and turned front. The answer was over.

Sam Tucker spoke pensively, openly. “Alexander … now tell me what the hell is going on. What have you done, boy?”

McAuliff turned to Sam. The huge, vital, capable old friend was staring at him through the darkness, the rapid flashes of light bouncing across his face. Tucker’s eyes held confusion and hurt. And anger.

What in hell
had
he done, thought Alex.

“Here we are, mon,” said the driver in the baseball cap, who had not spoken throughout the trip.

McAuliff looked out the windows. The ground was flat now, but high in the hills and surrounded by them. Everything was sporadically illuminated by a Jamaican moon filtering through the low-flying clouds of the Blue Mountains. They were on a dirt road; in the distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, was a structure, a small cabinlike building. A dim light could be seen through a single window. On the right were two other … structures. Not buildings, not houses or cabins, nothing really definable; just free-form, sagging silhouettes … translucent? Yes … wires, cloth. Or netting … They were large tentlike covers, supported by numerous poles. And then Alex understood: beyond the tents the ground was matted flat, and along the border, spaced every thirty or forty feet apart, were unlit cradle torches. The tents were camouflaged hangars; the ground was a landing strip.

They were at an unmarked airfield in the mountains.

The Chevrolet slowed down as it approached what turned out to be a small farmhouse. There was an ancient tractor beyond the edge of the building; field tools—plows, shoulder yokes, pitchforks—were scattered about carelessly. In the moonlight the equipment looked like stationary relics. Unused, dead remembrances only.

Camouflage.

As the hangars were camouflaged.

An airfield no map would indicate.

“Mr. McAuliff? Mr. Tucker? If you would come with me, please.” The black spokesman by the window opened the door and stepped out. Sam and Alex did the same. The driver and the third Jamaican remained inside, and when the disembarked passengers stepped away from the car, the driver accelerated and sped off down the dirt road.

“Where are they going?” asked McAuliff anxiously.

“To conceal the automobile,” answered the black man. “Kingston sends out ganja air patrols at night, hoping to find
such fields as these. With luck to spot light aircraft on narcotics runs.”

“This ganja country? I thought it was north,” said Tucker.

The Jamaican laughed. “Ganja, weed, poppy … north, west, east. It is a healthy export industry, mon. But not ours. Come, let us go inside.”

The door of the miniature farmhouse opened as the three of them approached. In the frame stood the light-skinned man whom Alex had first seen in a striped apron behind the counter at Tallon’s.

The interior of the small house was primitive: wooden chairs, a thick round table in the center of the single room, an army cot against the wall. The jarring contradiction was a complicated radio set on a table to the right of the door. The light in the window was far from the shaded lamp in front of the machinery; a generator could be heard providing what electricity was necessary.

All this McAuliff observed within seconds of entering. Then he saw a second man, standing in shadows across the room, his back toward the others. The body—the cut of the coat, the shoulders, the tapered waist, the tailored trousers—was familiar.

The man turned around; the light from the table illuminated his features.

Charles Whitehall stared at McAuliff and then nodded once, slowly.

The door opened, and the driver of the Chevrolet entered with the third Jamaican. He walked to the round table in the center of the room and sat down. He removed his baseball cap, revealing a large shaved head.

“My name is Moore. Barak Moore, Mr. McAuliff. To ease your concerns, the woman, Alison Booth, has been called. She was told that you went down to the Ministry for a conference.”

“She won’t believe that,” replied Alex.

“If she cares to check further, she will be informed that
you are with Latham at a warehouse. There is nothing to worry about, mon.”

Sam Tucker stood by the door; he was relaxed but curious. And strong; his thick arms were folded across his chest, his lined features—tanned by the California sun—showed his age and accentuated his leather strength. Charles Whitehall stood by the window in the left wall, his elegant, arrogant face exuding contempt.

The light-skinned black attendant from Tallon’s fish market and the two Jamaican “guerrillas” had pulled their chairs back against the far right wall, away from the center of attention. They were telegraphing the fact that Barak Moore was their superior.

“Please, sit down.” Barak Moore indicated the chairs around the table. There were three. Tucker and McAuliff looked at each other; there was no point in refusing. They walked to the table and sat down. Charles Whitehall remained standing by the window. Moore glanced up at him. “Will you join us?”

“If I feel like sitting,” answered Whitehall.

Moore smiled and spoke while looking at Whitehall. “Charley-mon finds it difficult to be in the same room with me, much less at the same table.”

“Then why is he here?” asked Sam Tucker.

“He had no idea he was going to be until a few minutes before landing. We switched pilots in Savanna-la-Mar.”

“His name is Charles Whitehall,” said Alex, speaking to Sam. “He’s part of the survey. I didn’t know he was going to be here either.”

“What’s your field, boy?” Tucker leaned back in his chair and spoke to Whitehall.

“Jamaica … 
boy
.”

“I meant no offense, son.”

“You are offensive,” was Whitehall’s simple reply.

“Charley and me,” continued Barak Moore, “we are at the opposite poles of the politic. In your country, you have the term ‘white trash’; he considers me ‘black garbage.’ For roughly the same reason. He thinks I’m too crude, too loud, too unwashed. I am an uncouth revolutionary in Charley-mon’s
eyes … he is a graceful rebel, you see.” Moore swept his hand in front of him, balletically, insultingly. “But our rebellions are different,
very
different, mon. I want Jamaica for
all
the people. He wants it for only a few.”

Whitehall stood motionless as he replied. “You are as blind now as you were a decade ago. The only thing that has changed is your name, Bramwell Moore.” Whitehall sneered vocally as he continued. “
Barak
 … as childish and meaningless as the social philosophy you espouse; the sound of a jungle toad.”

Moore swallowed before he answered. “I’d as soon kill you, I think you know that. But it would be as counterproductive as the solutions you seek to impose on our homeland. We have a common enemy, you and I. Make the best of it,
fascisti-mon
.”

“The vocabulary of your mentors. Did you learn it by rote, or did they make you read?”

“Look!”
McAuliff interrupted angrily. “You can fight or call names, or kill each other for all I give a damn, but I want to get back to the hotel!” He turned to Barak Moore. “Whatever you have to say, get it over with.”