The Cry of the Halidon (41 page)

“You think you have any say about anything now, McAuliff?”

“Yes, I do. They’re as much afraid of me as I am of them. Just don’t try to upset the balance, either of you. I buried a
man on an Alaskan job a number of years ago. Sam will tell you, I know the standard prayers.”

Alison stood on the riverbank, looking down at the water. The heat of the early sun was awakening the late sleepers of the forest. The sounds were those of combative foraging; flyer against flyer, crawler fighting crawler. The green vines dangling from the tall macca-fat palms glistened with the moisture rising from below; fern and moss and matted cabbage growth bordered the slowly flowing currents of the Martha Brae offshoot. The water was morning-clear, bluish-green.

“I went to your tent,” said McAuliff, walking up to her. “Sam said you were out here.”

She turned and smiled. “I wasn’t really disobeying, my darling. I’m not running anywhere.”

“Nowhere to go. You’ll be all right.… The runner’s waiting for me.”

Alison took two steps and stood in front of him. She spoke quietly, barely above a whisper. “I want to tell you something, Alexander T. McAuliff. And I refuse to be dramatic or tearful or anything remotely theatrical because those are crutches and both of us can walk without them. Six weeks ago I was running. Quite desperately, trying my goddamnedest to convince myself that by running I was escaping—which I knew underneath was absurd. In Kingston I told you how absurd it was. They can find you. Anywhere. The computers, the data banks, the horrid, complicated tracers they have in their cellars and in their hidden rooms are too real now. Too thorough. And there is no life underground, in remote places, always wondering. I don’t expect you to understand this, and, in a way, it’s why what you’re doing is right.… ‘Do unto others
before
they do unto you.’ That’s what you said. I believe that’s a terrible way to think. And I also believe it’s the only way we’re going to have a life of our own.”

McAuliff touched her face with his fingers. Her eyes were bluer than he had ever seen them. “That sounds dangerously like a proposal.”

“My wants are simple, my expressions uncomplicated. And, as you said once, I’m a damned fine professional.”

“ ‘McAuliff and Booth. Surveyors. Offices: London and New York.’ That’d look good on the letterhead.”

“You wouldn’t consider ‘Booth and McAuliff’? I mean, alphabetically—”

“No, I wouldn’t,” he interrupted gently as he put his arms around her.

“Do people always say silly things when they’re afraid?” she asked, her face buried in his chest.

“I think so,” he replied.

Peter Jensen reached down into the full pack and felt his way among the soft articles of clothing. The canvas was stuffed. Jensen winced as he slid the object of his search up the sides of the cloth.

It was the Luger. It was wrapped in plastic, the silencer detached, tied to the barrel in plastic also.

His wife stood by the entrance flap of their tent, the slit folded back just sufficiently for her to look outside. Peter unwrapped both sections of the weapon and put the silencer in the pocket of his field jacket. He pressed the release, slid out the magazine, and reached into his other pocket for a box of cartridges. Methodically he inserted the magazine until the spring was taut, the top bullet ready for chamber insertion. He slid the magazine back into the handle slot and cracked it into position.

Ruth heard the metallic click and turned around. “Do you have to do this?”

“Yes. Julian was very clear. McAuliff was my selection, his concurrence a result of that choice. McAuliff’s made contact. With whom? With what? I must find out.” Peter pulled open his jacket and shoved the Luger down between a triangle of leather straps sewn into the lining. He buttoned the field jacket and stood up straight. “Any bulges, old girl? Does it show?”

“No.”

“Good. Hardly the fit of Whitehall’s uniform, but I dare say a bit more comfortable.”

“You will be careful? It’s so dreadful out there.”

“All that camping you dragged me on had a purpose. I see that now, my dear.” Peter smiled and returned to his pack, pushing down the contents, pulling the straps into buckling position. He inserted the prongs, tugged once more, and slapped the bulging outsides. He lifted the canvas sack by the shoulder harness and let it fall to the dirt. “There! I’m set for a fortnight if need be.”

“How will I know?”

“When I don’t come back with my carrier. If I pull it off right, he might even be too petrified to return himself.” Peter saw the tremble on his wife’s lips, the terrible fear in her eyes. He motioned for her to come to him, which she did. Rushing into his arms.

“Oh, God,
Peter
—”

“Please, Ruth.
Shhh
. You mustn’t,” he said, stroking her hair. “Julian has been everything to us. We both know that. And Julian thinks we’d be very happy at Peale Court. Dunstone will need many people in Jamaica, he said. Why not us?”

When the unknown carrier came into camp, James Ferguson could see that the runner he knew as Marcus Hedrik was as angry as he was curious. They were all curious. McAuliff had left early that morning for the coast; it seemed strange that the carrier had not met him on the river. The carrier insisted he had seen no one but wandering hill people, some fishing, some hunting—no white man.

The carrier had been sent by the Government Employment Office, a branch in Falmouth that knew the survey was looking for additional hands. The carrier was familiar with the river offshoot, having grown up in Weston Favel, and was anxious for work. Naturally, he had the proper papers, signed by some obscure functionary at G.E.O., Falmouth.

At 2:30 in the afternoon, James Ferguson, having rested
after lunch, sat on the edge of his cot, prepared to gather up his equipment and head back into the field. There was a rustling outside his tent. He looked up, and the new carrier suddenly slapped open the flap and walked in. He was carrying a plastic tray.

“I say—”

“I pick up dishes, mon,” said the carrier rapidly. “Alla time be very neat.”

“I have no dishes here. There’s a glass or two need washing.…”

The carrier lowered his voice. “I got message for Fergomon. I give it to you. You read it quick.” The runner reached into his pocket and withdrew a sealed envelope. He handed it to Ferguson.

James ripped the back and pulled out a single page of stationery. It was the stationery of The Craft Foundation, and Ferguson’s eyes were immediately pulled to the signature. It was known throughout Jamaica—the scrawl of Arthur Craft Senior, the semiretired but all-powerful head of the Craft enterprises.

James Ferguson held his breath in astonishment as he reread the letter.

He had done it.

He had really done it.

Everything
.

He looked up at the carrier, who smiled and spoke softly.

“We leave late afternoon, mon. Before dark. Come back early from your work. I will meet you on the riverbank and we will go.”

T
he priest figure identified himself by the single name of Malcolm. They traveled south on hidden routes that alternated between steep rocky climbs, winding grottoes, and dense jungle. The Halidonite in the ragged clothes and the field jacket led the way, effortlessly finding concealed paths in the forests and covered openings that led through long dark tunnels of ancient stone—the dank smell of deep grotto waters ever present, the bright reflection of stalactites, suspended in alabaster isolation, caught in the beams of flashlights.

It seemed to McAuliff that at times they were descending into the cellars of the earth, only to emerge from the darkness of a grotto onto higher ground. A geological phenomenon, tunneled caves that inexorably progressed upward, evidence of oceanic-terrestrial upheavals that bespoke an epoch of incredible geophysical combustion. The cores of mountains rising out of the faults and trenches, doing infinite battle to reach the heat of the sun.

Twice they passed hill communities by circling above them on ridges at the edge of the forest. Malcolm both times identified the sects, telling of their particular beliefs and the religious justification for their withdrawal from the outside world. He explained that there were approximately twenty-three Cock Pit communities dedicated to isolation. The figure had to be approximate, for there was ever present the rebellion of youth who found in their intermittent journeys to the marketplace temptations outweighing the threats of Obeah. Strangely enough, as one community, or two or
three, disintegrated, there were always others that sprang up to take their places … and often their small villages.

“The ‘opiate of the people’ is often an escape from simple hardship and the agonizing pointlessness of the coastal towns.”

“Then eliminate the pointlessness.” Alex remembered the sights of Old Kingston, the corrugated tin shacks across from the abandoned, filthy barges peopled by outcasts; the emaciated dogs, the bone-thin cats, the eyes of numbed futility on the young-old women. The man with no teeth praying for the price of a pint of wine, defecating in the shadows of dark alleys.

And three blocks above, the shining, immaculate banks with their shining, tinted windows. Shining, immaculate, and obscene in their choice of location.

“Yes, you are right,” replied Malcolm the Halidonite. “It is the pointlessness that erodes the people most rapidly. It is so easy to say ‘give meaning.’ And so difficult to know how. So many complications.”

They continued their journey for eight hours, resting after difficult sections of jungle and steep clifflike inclines and endless caves. McAuliff judged that they had gone no further than seventeen, perhaps eighteen miles into the Cock Pit country, each mile more treacherous and enervating than the last.

Shortly after five in the afternoon, while high in the Flagstaff range, they came to the end of a mountain pass. Suddenly in front of them was a plateau of grassland about a half mile long and no more than five hundred yards wide. The plateau fronted the banks of a mountain cliff, at three-quarters altitude. Malcolm led them to the right, to the western edge. The slope of the plateau descended into thick jungle, as dense and forbidding as any McAuliff had ever seen.

“That is called the Maze of Acquaba,” said Malcolm, seeing the look of astonishment on Alex’s face. “We have borrowed a custom from ancient Sparta. Each male child, on his eleventh birthday, is taken into the core and must remain for a period of four days and nights.”

“Units of four …” McAuliff spoke as much to himself as to Malcolm as he stared down at the unbelievably cruel density of jungle beneath. “The Odyssey of death.”

“We’re neither that Spartan nor Arawak,” said Malcolm, laughing softly. “The children do not realize it, but there are others with them.… Come.”

The two Halidonites turned and started toward the opposite ledge of the plateau. Alex took a last look at the Maze of Acquaba and joined them.

At the eastern edge, the contradictory effect was immediate.

Below was a valley no more than a half a mile in length, perhaps a mile wide, in the center of which was a quiet lake. The valley itself was enclosed by hills that were the first inclines of the mountains beyond. On the north side were mountain streams converging into a high waterfall that cascaded down into a relatively wide, defined avenue of water.

On the far side of the lake were fields—pastures, for there were cattle grazing lazily. Cows, goats, a few burros, and several horses. This area had been cleared and seeded—generations ago, thought Alex.

On the near side of the lake, below them, were thatched huts, protected by tall ceiba trees. At first glance, there seemed to be seventy or eighty such dwellings. They were barely visible because of the trees and arcing vines and dense tropical foliage that filled whatever spaces might have been empty with the bright colors of the Caribbean. A community roofed by nature, thought Alex.

Then he pictured the sight from the air. Not as he was seeing it, on a vertical-diagonal, but from above, from a plane. The village—and it was a village—would look like any number of isolated hill communities with thatched roofs and nearby grazing fields. But the difference was in the surrounding mountains. The plateau was an indentation formed at high altitude. This section of the Flagstaff range was filled with harsh updrafts and uncontrollable wind variants; jets would remain at a twelve-thousand-foot minimum, light aircraft would avoid direct overhead. The first would have no place to land, the second would undoubtedly crash if it attempted to do so.

The community was protected by natural phenomena above it and by a tortuous passage on the ground that could never be defined on a map.