The Cry of the Halidon (6 page)

“You read my thoughts.”

“Not necessarily. I’m used to the reaction,” replied Whitehall, sitting down, smoothing his expensive blazer, and crossing his legs, which were encased in pinstriped trousers.

“Since you don’t waste words, Dr. Whitehall, neither will I. Why are you interested in this survey? As I gather, you can make a great deal more money on the lecture circuit. A geophysical survey isn’t the most lucrative employment.”

“Let’s say the financial aspects are secondary; one of the few times in my life that they will be, perhaps.” Whitehall spoke while removing a silver cigarette case from his pocket. “To tell you the truth, Mr. McAuliff, there’s a certain ego fulfillment in returning to one’s country as an expert under the aegis of the Royal Historical Society. It’s really as simple as that.”

Alex believed the man. For, as he read him, Whitehall was a scholar far more honored abroad than at home. It seemed that Charles Whitehall wanted to achieve an acceptance commensurate with his scholarship that had been denied him in the intellectual—or was it social?—houses of Kingston.

“Are you familiar with the Cock Pit country?”

“As much as anyone who isn’t a runner. Historically and culturally, much more so, of course.”

“What’s a runner?”

“Runners are hill people. From the mountain communities. They hire out as guides, when you can find one.
They’re primitives, really. Who have you hired for the survey?”

“What?” Alex’s thoughts were on runners.

“I asked who was going with you. On the survey team. I’d be interested.”

“Well … not all the posts have been filled. There’s a couple named Jensen—ores and paleo; a young botanist, Ferguson. An American friend of mine, a soil analyst, name of Sam Tucker.”

“I’ve heard of Jensen, I believe. I’m not sure, but I think so. I don’t know the others.”

“Did you expect to?”

“Frankly, yes. Royal Society projects generally attract very high-caliber people.” Whitehall delicately tapped his cigarette on the rim of an ashtray.

“Such as yourself?” asked McAuliff, smiling.

“I’m not modest,” replied the black scholar, returning Alex’s smile with an open grin. “And I’m very much interested. I think I could be of service to you.”

So did McAuliff.

The second shale-bedrock analyst was listed as A. Gerrard Booth. Booth was a university applicant personally recommended by Ralston in the following manner:

“I promised Booth I’d bring these papers and articles to your attention. I do believe Booth would be a fine asset to the survey.”

Professor Ralston had given McAuliff a folder filled with A. Gerrard Booth’s studies of sheet strata in such diverse locations as Turkey, Corsica, Zaire, and Australia. Alex recalling having read several of the articles in
National Geologist
, and remembered them as lucid and professional. Booth was good; Booth was better than good.

Booth was also a woman. A. Gerrard Booth was known to her colleagues as Alison; no one bothered with the middle name.

She had one of the most genuine smiles McAuliff had ever seen. It was more a half laugh—one might even say masculine, but the word was contradicted by her complete femininity. Her eyes were blue and alive and level, the eyes
of a professional. Her handshake was firm, again professional. Her light brown hair was long and soft and slightly waved—brushed repeatedly, thought Alex, for the interview. Her age was anywhere from late twenties to middle thirties; there was no way to tell by observation, except that there were laugh lines at the corners of her eyes.

Alison Booth was not only good and a woman; she was also, at least on first meeting, a very attractive, outgoing person. The term “professional” kept recurring to McAuliff as they spoke.

“I made Roily—Dr. Ralston—promise to omit the fact that I was a woman. Don’t hold him responsible.”

“Were you so convinced I was antifeminist?”

She raised her hand and brushed her long, soft hair away from the side of her lovely face. “No preformed hostility, Dr. McAuliff. I just understand the practical obstacles. It’s part of my job to convince you I’m qualified.” And then, as if she were aware of the possible double entendre, Alison Booth stopped smiling and smoothed her skirt … professionally.

“In fieldwork and the laboratory, I’m sure you
are
qualified.”

“Any other considerations would be extraneous, I should think,” said the woman, with a slight trace of English aloofness.

“Not necessarily. There are environmental problems, degrees of physical discomfort, if not hardship.”

“I can’t conceive of Jamaica being in that league with Zaire or the Aussie Outback. I’ve surveyed in those places.”

“I know—”

“Roily told me,” interrupted Alison Booth, “that you would not accept tour references until you had interviewed us.”

“Group isolation tends to create fallible judgments. Insupportable relationships. I’ve lost good men in the past because other good men reacted negatively to them for the wrong reasons.”

“What about women?”

“I used the term inclusively, not exclusively.”

“I have very good references, Dr. McAuliff. For the right reasons.”

“I’ll request them.”

“I have them with me.” Alison unbuckled the large leather purse on her lap, extracted two business envelopes, and placed them on the edge of McAuliff’s desk. “My references, Dr. McAuliff.”

Alex laughed as he reached for the envelopes. He looked over at the woman; her eyes locked with his. There was both a good-humored challenge and a degree of supplication in her expression. “Why is this survey so important to you, Miss Booth?”

“Because I’m good and I can do the job,” she answered simply.

“You’re employed by the university, aren’t you?”

“On a part-time basis, lecture and laboratory. I’m not permanent … by choice, incidentally.”

“Then it’s not money.” McAuliff made a statement.

“I could use it; I’m not desperate, however.”

“I can’t imagine your being desperate anywhere,” he said, with a partial smile. And then Alex saw—or thought he saw—a trace of a cloud across her eyes, an instant of concern that left as rapidly as it had come. He instinctively pressed further. “But why
this
tour? With your qualifications, I’m sure there are others. Probably more interesting, certainly more money.”

“The timing is propitious,” she replied softly, with precise hesitation. “For personal reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with my qualifications.”

“Are there reasons why you want to spend a prolonged period in Jamaica?”

“Jamaica has nothing to do with it. You could be surveying Outer Mongolia for all that it matters.”

“I see.” Alex replaced the two envelopes on the desk. He intentionally conveyed a trace of indifference. She reacted.

“Very well, Dr. McAuliff. It’s no secret among my friends.” The woman held her purse on her lap. She did not grip it; there was no intensity about her whatsoever. When she spoke, her voice was steady, as were here eyes. She was
the total professional again. “You called me Miss Booth; that’s incorrect. Booth is my married name. I regret to say the marriage was not successful; it was terminated recently. The solicitousness of well-meaning people during such times can be boring. I’d prefer to be out of touch.”

McAuliff returned her steady gaze, trying to evoke something beyond her words. There
was
something, but she would not allow his prying further; her expression told him that … professionally.

“It’s not relevant. I apologize. But I appreciate your telling me.”

“Is your … responsibility satisfied?”

“Well, my curiosity, at any rate.” Alex leaned forward, elbows on the desk, his hands folded under his chin. “Beyond that, and I hope that it’s not improper, you’ve made it possible for me to ask you to have dinner with me.”

“I think that would depend on the degree of relevance you ascribed to my acceptance.” Alison’s voice was polite, but not cold. And there was that lovely humor in her eyes.

“In all honesty, I do make it a point to have dinner or a long lunch, even a fair amount of drinks, with those I’m thinking about hiring. But right now, I’m reluctant to admit it.”

“That’s a very disarming reply, Dr. McAuliff,” she said, her lips parted, laughing her half laugh. “I’d be delighted to have dinner with you.”

“I’ll do my damnedest not to be solicitous. I don’t think it’s necessary at all.”

“And I’m sure you’re never boring.”

“Not relevantly.”

M
cAuliff stood on the corner of High Holborn and Chancery and looked at his watch. The numbers glowed in the mist-laden London darkness; it was 11:40. Preston’s Rolls-Royce was ten minutes late. Or perhaps it would not appear at all. His instructions were that if the car did not arrive by midnight, he was to return to the Savoy. Another meeting would be scheduled.

There were times when he had to remind himself whose furtive commands he was following, wondering whether he in turn was being followed. It was a degrading way to live, he reflected: the constant awareness that locked a man into a pocket of fear. All the fiction about the shadow world of conspiracy omitted the fundamental indignity intrinsic to that world. There was no essential independence; it was strangling.

This particular evening’s rendezvous with Warfield had necessitated a near-panic call to Hammond, for the British agent had scheduled a meeting himself, for one in the morning. That is, McAuliff had requested it, and Hammond had set the time and the place. And at 10:20 that night the call had come from Dunstone: Be at High Holborn and Chancery at 11:30, an hour and ten minutes from then.

Hammond could not, at first, be found. His highly secret, private telephone at M.I.5 simply did not answer. Alex had been given no other number, and Hammond had told him repeatedly never to call the office and leave his name. Nor was he ever to place a call to the agent from his rooms at the Savoy. Hammond did not trust the switchboards at
either establishment. Nor the open frequencies of cellular phones.

So Alex had to go out onto the Strand, into succeeding pubs and chemists’ shops to public telephones until Hammond’s line answered. He was sure he was being observed—by someone—and thus he had to pretend annoyance each time he hung up after an unanswered call. He found that he had built the fabric of a lie, should Warfield question him. His lie was that he was trying to reach Alison Booth and cancel a lunch date they had for the following day. They did have a lunch date, which he had no intention of canceling, but the story possessed sufficient truth to be valid.

Build on part of the truth
. Attitude and reaction. M.I.5.

Finally, Hammond’s telephone was answered, by a man who stated casually that he had gone out for a late supper.

A late supper! Good God!… Global cartels, international collusion in the highest places, financial conspiracies, and a late supper.

In reasoned tones, as opposed to McAuliff’s anxiety, the man told him that Hammond would be alerted. Alex was not satisfied; he insisted that Hammond be at his telephone—if he had to wait all night—until he, Alex, made contact after the Warfield appointment.

It was 11:45. Still no St. James Rolls-Royce. He looked around at the few pedestrians on High Holborn, walking through the heavy mist. He wondered which, if any, was concerned with him.

The pocket of fear.

He wondered, too, about Alison. They had had dinner for the third night in succession; she had claimed she had a lecture to prepare, and so the evening was cut short. Considering the complications that followed, it was a good thing.

Alison was a strange girl. The professional who covered her vulnerability well; who never strayed far from that circle of quiet humor that protected her. The half laugh, the warm blue eyes, the slow, graceful movement of her hands … these were her shields, somehow.

There was no problem in selecting her as his first choice … professionally. She was far and away the best applicant for the team. Alex considered himself one of the finest rock-strata specialists on both continents, yet he wasn’t sure he wanted to pit his expertise against hers. Alison Gerrard Booth was really good.

And lovely.

And he wanted her in Jamaica.

He had prepared an argument for Warfield, should Dunstone’s goddamn security computers reject her. The final clearance of his selections was the object of the night’s conference.

Where
was
the goddamned black ship of an automobile? It was ten minutes to midnight.

“Excuse me, sir,” said a deep, almost guttural voice behind McAuliff.

He turned, and saw a man about his own age, in a brown mackinaw; he looked like a longshoreman or a construction worker.

“Yes?”

“It’s m’ first time in London, sir, and I thinks I’m lost.”

The man then pointed up at the street sign, barely visible in the spill of the lamp through the mist. “This says Chancery Lane, which is
supposed
to be near a place called Hatton, which is where I’m supposed to meet m’ friends. I can’t
find
it, sir.”

Alex gestured to his left. “It’s up there two or three blocks.”

The man pointed again, as a simpleton might point, in the direction of McAuliff’s gesture. “Up there, sir?”

“That’s right.”

The man shook his arm several times, as if emphasizing. “You’re sure, sir?” And then the man lowered his voice and spoke rapidly. “Please don’t react, Mr. McAuliff. Continue as though you are explaining. Mr. Hammond will meet you in Soho; there’s an all-night club called The Owl of Saint George. He’ll be waiting. Stay at the bar, he’ll reach you. Don’t worry about the time. He doesn’t
want you to make any more telephone calls. You’re being watched.”

McAuliff swallowed, blanched, and waved his hand—a little too obviously, he felt—in the direction of Hatton Garden. He, too, spoke quietly, rapidly, “
Jesus
! If
I’m
being watched, so are
you
!”

“We calculate these things—”

“I don’t like your addition! What am I supposed to tell Warfield? To let me off in
Soho
?”