The Cry of the Halidon (39 page)

“For the moment, that is not important.”

“Garvey!”
whispered Alex. “Garvey said it! He said there were others … he didn’t know who. You’re with British Intelligence!”

“No,” replied the large man softly, even politely. “Two of your carriers were English agents. They’re dead. And the obese Garvey had an accident on the road to Port Maria. He is dead also.”

“Then—”

“It is not you who will ask the questions, Mr. McAuliff. It is I. You will tell me … you new believers … what you know of Acquaba.”

T
hey talked for several hours, and McAuliff knew that for the time being he had saved their lives. At one point 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 arms 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?”

“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, McAuliff!”
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 blurred 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 measured 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 bead 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. McAuliff?”

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 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. Arms 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—”