There were six of them. Jefferson had served coffee and left. He did not inquire what they were doing there. It was not his business.
The two SAS sergeants, Newson and Sinclair, stood by the wall. They were in cream tracksuits and shod in cleated training shoes. Each had a pouch around the waist, held by a strap, the same as those favored by tourists for storing their cigarettes and sun oil on the beach. These pouches did not contain sun oil.
Lieutenant Haverstock had not changed into his dress uniform. He sat on one of the brocaded chairs, his long legs elegantly crossed. Reverend Drake was on the settee beside Eddie Favaro. Chief Inspector Jones, in his dark-blue tunic, silver buttons, and insignia, shorts, stockings, and shoes, stood by the door.
McCready took the warrant and offered it to Haverstock. “This arrived from London at dawn,” he said. “Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.”
Haverstock read the warrant.
“Well, that’s all right then,” he said, and passed it on. Inspector Jones read it, stiffened to attention, and said, “Yes, sir.” He passed it to the sergeants. Newson said: “All right by me,” and Sinclair read it and said, “No problem.”
He passed it to Favaro, who read it and muttered, “Jeez,” getting a warning glance from Reverend Drake, who took the document, read it, and growled, “Lord be praised.”
“My first act,” said McCready, “is to empower you all—excepting Chief Inspector Jones, of course—with the authority of Special Constables. You are hereby deputized. Secondly, I’d better explain what we are going to do.”
He talked for thirty minutes. No one disagreed. Then he summoned Haverstock, and they left to change. Lady Moberley was still in bed enjoying a liquid breakfast. It made no matter. She and Sir Marston had had separate bedrooms, and the late Governor’s dressing room was unoccupied. Haverstock showed McCready where it was and left. McCready found what he wanted right at the back of the wardrobe; the full dress uniform of a British colonial Governor, albeit two sizes too large.
When he re-entered the sitting room, the rumpled tourist in the creased jacket from the terrace bar of the Quarter Deck Hotel was gone. On his feet the George boots with their boxed spurs gleamed. The tight trousers were white, as was the tunic jacket, which buttoned to the throat. The gold buttons and gilt aiguillettes from the left breast pocket glittered in the sunlight, as did the slanting chain and spike on his Wolsey helmet. The sash around his waist was blue.
Haverstock was also in white, but his flat officer’s cap was in dark blue with a black peak. The double-headed eagle of the Queen’s Dragoon Guards was above the peak. His aiguillettes were also gilded, as were the patches of chain-mail covering each shoulder. A gleaming black leather strap lay slantwise across his chest and back, at the rear supporting a slim ammunition pouch, also in black leather. He wore his two service medals.
“Right, Mr. Jones. Let us go.” said McCready. “We must be about the Queen’s business.”
Chief Inspector Jones swelled. No one had ever asked him to be about the Queen’s business before. When the cavalcade left the front forecourt, it was led by the official Jaguar. Oscar drove, with a policeman beside him. McCready and Haverstock sat in the back, helmets on. Behind them came the Land-Rover, driven by a second constable with Jones beside him. Favaro and Reverend Drake sat in the back.
Before leaving Government House, Sergeant Sinclair had quietly slipped Favaro a loaded Colt Cobra, which now nestled in the American detective’s waistband beneath his loose shirt. The sergeant had also offered one to Reverend Drake, who had shaken his head.
The two vans were driven by the remaining two constables. Newson and Sinclair crouched by their open side doors. The police sergeants were in the last van.
At a sedate pace, the Jaguar rolled into Shantytown. Down the long main street people stopped and stared. The two figures in the back sat up straight and looked ahead.
At the gates to the walled compound of Mr. Horatio Livingstone, McCready ordered the car to stop. He descended. So did Lieutenant Haverstock. A crowd of several hundred Barclayans emerged from the surrounding alleys and watched them, mouths agape. McCready did not ask for admission; he just stood in front of the double gate.
Sergeants Newson and Sinclair jogged up to the wall. Newson cupped his hands, Sinclair put a heel in them, and Newson heaved. The lighter man went over the wall without touching the shards of glass along its top. The gates were unlocked from the inside. Sinclair stood back as McCready entered with Haverstock at his side. The vehicles rolled after them at a walking pace.
Three men in gray safari suits were halfway across the compound, running for the gate, when McCready appeared. They stopped and stared at the two white-uniformed figures walking purposefully toward the front door. Sinclair disappeared. Newson darted through the open gates and did the same.
McCready walked up the steps of the verandah and into the house. Behind him, Haverstock stood on the verandah and stared at the three gray safari suits. They kept their distance. Favaro and Drake, Jones, the two police sergeants, and three constables left their vehicles and came after them. One constable remained with the cars and vans. Haverstock then joined the group inside. There were now ten of them and one outside.
In the big reception room the policemen took positions by the doors and windows. A door opened, and Horatio Livingstone emerged. He surveyed the invasion with ill-concealed rage.
“You can’t come in here! What is the meaning of this?” he shouted.
McCready held out his warrant. “Would you please read this?” he said.
Livingstone read it and tossed it contemptuously to the floor. Jones retrieved it and handed it back to McCready, who restored it to his pocket.
“I would like you to summon all your Bahamian staff here—all seven of them—with their passports, if you please, Mr. Livingstone.”
“By whose authority?” snapped Livingstone.
“I am the supreme authority,” said McCready.
“Imperialist!” shouted Livingstone. “In fifteen days I will be the authority here, and then—”
“If you decline,” said McCready calmly, “I will ask Chief Inspector Jones here to arrest you for attempting to subvert the course of justice. Mr. Jones, are you ready to carry out your duty?”
“Yes, sir.”
Livingstone glowered at them all. He called one of his aides from a side room and gave the order. One by one the men in safari suits appeared. Favaro circulated, collecting their Bahamian passports. He handed them to McCready.
McCready went through them one by one, handing each to Haverstock. The lieutenant glanced at them and tut-tutted.
“These passports are all false,” said McCready. “They are good, but they are forgeries.”
“That’s not true!” screamed Livingstone. “They are perfectly valid!”
He was right. They were not forged. They had been purchased with a very substantial bribe.
“No,” said McCready, “these men are not Bahamians. Nor are you a democratic socialist. You are, in fact, a dedicated Communist who has worked for years for Fidel Castro, and these men around you are Cuban officers. Mr. Brown over there is, in fact, Captain Hernan Moreno of the Direccion General de Informacion, the Cuban equivalent of the KGB. The others, picked for their pure Negroid appearance and fluent English, are also Cubans from the DGI. I am arresting them all for illegal entry into the Barclays, and you for aiding and abetting.”
It was Moreno who went for his gun first. It was tucked in his waistband at the back, hidden by the safari jacket, as were all the guns. He was very fast, and his hand was behind his back reaching for the Makarov before anyone in the reception area could move.
The Cuban was stopped by a sharp shout from the top of the stairs that led to the upper floors: “Fuera la mano, o seras fiambre.”
Hernan Moreno got the message just in time. His hand stopped moving. He froze. So did the six others, who were in the act of following his example.
Sinclair’s Spanish was fluent and colloquial. Fiambre is a collation of cold meats, and in Spanish slang, a stiff, or corpse.
The two sergeants were at the top of the stairs, side by side, having entered through upper windows. Their touristic pouches were empty, but their hands were not. Each held a small but reliable Heckler and Koch MP5 machine pistol.
“These men,” said McCready mildly, “are not accustomed to missing. Now, please ask your men to put their hands above their heads.”
Livingstone remained silent.
Favaro slipped up behind him, slid his arm around the man’s chest, and eased the barrel of his Colt Cobra into his right nostril. “Three seconds,” he whispered. “Then I have an awful accident.”
“Do it,” rasped Livingstone.
Fourteen hands went upward and stayed there. The three police constables went around collecting the seven handguns.
“Frisk,” said McCready. The police sergeants frisked each Cuban. Two knives in calf-sheaths were discovered.
“Search the house,” said McCready.
The seven Cubans were lined up, facing the sitting-room wall, hands on top of heads. Livingstone sat in his club chair, covered by Favaro. The SAS men stayed on the stairs in case of an attempt at mass breakout. There was none. The five local police officers searched the house.
They discovered a variety of extra weapons, a large sum of American dollars, further sums of Barclayan pounds, and a powerful short-wave radio with encrypter.
“Mr. Livingstone,” said McCready, “I could ask Mr. Jones to charge your associates with a variety of offenses under British law—false passports, illegal entry, carrying of unlicensed guns—it’s a long list. Instead, I am going to expel them all as undesirable aliens. Now—within the hour. You may, if you wish, stay on here alone. You are, after all, a Barclayan by birth. But you would still be open to charges of aiding and abetting, and frankly you might feel safer back where you belong, on Cuba.”
“I’ll second that,” growled Reverend Drake.
Livingstone nodded.
In single file, the Cubans were marched out to the second of the two vans waiting in the courtyard. Only one tried violence. Attempting to run, he was blocked by a local constable and threw the officer to the ground.
Inspector Jones acted with remarkable speed. He produced from his belt the short holly-wood truncheon known to generations of British policeman as “the holly.” There was a loud pok as the timber bounced off the Cuban’s head. The man sank to his knees, feeling quite unwell.
“Don’t do that,” Chief Inspector Jones advised him.
The Cubans and Horatio Livingstone sat on the floor of the van, hands on heads, while Sergeant Newson leaned over from the front seat, covering them with his machine pistol. The cavalcade formed up again and trundled slowly out of Shantytown to the fishing quay in Port Plaisance. McCready kept the pace slow so that hundreds of Barclayans could see what was going on.
At the fishing quay, the Gulf Lady waited, her engine idling. Behind her, she towed a garbage scow newly fitted with two pairs of oars.
“Mr. Dobbs,” said McCready, “please tow these gentleman as far as the start of Cuban territorial waters, or until a Cuban patrol boat starts to cruise in your direction. Then cast them loose. They can be pulled home by their fellow countrymen, or row home with the onshore breeze.”
Jimmy Dobbs looked askance at the Cubans. There were seven of them, plus Livingstone.
“Lieutenant Haverstock here will accompany you,” said McCready. “He will, of course, be armed.”
Sergeant Sinclair gave Haverstock the Colt Cobra that the Reverend Drake had declined to use. Haverstock stepped onto the Gulf Lady and took position sitting on the cabin roof, facing aft.
“Don’t worry, old boy,” he said to Dobbs. “If one of them moves, I’ll just blow his nuts off.”
“Mr. Livingstone,” said McCready, looking down at the eight men in the scow, “one last thing. When you reach Cuba, you may tell Señor Castro that taking over the Barclays through a stooge candidate in the elections, and then perhaps annexing the islands to Cuba, or turning them into an international revolutionary training camp, was a wonderful idea. But you might also tell him that it ain’t going to work. Not now, not ever. He’ll have to salvage his political career some other way. Good-bye, Mr. Livingstone. Don’t come back.”
More than a thousand Barclayans thronged the quay as the Gulf Lady turned away from the jetty and headed for the open sea.
“One more chore, I believe, gentlemen,” said McCready, and strode back down the jetty toward the Jaguar, his gleaming white uniform cutting a swath through the crowd of onlookers.
The wrought-iron gates to the estate of Marcus Johnson were locked. Newson and Sinclair stepped out of the side door of their van and went straight over the wall without touching the top. Minutes later, from inside the estate, there came a soft thunk, as of the edge of a hard hand coming into contact with the human frame. The electric motor hummed, and the gates swung open.
Inside, and to the right, was a small hut with a control panel and telephone. Slumped on the floor was a man in bright beach shirt, his dark glasses crushed on the floor beside him. He was thrown into the last van with the two police sergeants. Newson and Sinclair slipped away across the lawns and were lost to view among the bushes.
Marcus Johnson was descending the tiled staircase toward the open-plan reception area when McCready strode in. He was pulling a silk bathrobe around himself.
“May I ask what the hell this means?” he demanded.
“Certainly,” said McCready. “Please read this.”
Johnson handed the warrant back.
“So? I have committed no offense. You break into my house—London will hear of this, Mr. Dillon. You will regret this morning’s work. I have lawyers.”
“Good,” said McCready. “You may well need them. Now, I want to interview your staff, Mr. Johnson—your election assistants, your associates. One has been kind enough to escort us to the door. Please bring him in.”
The two police sergeants picked up the gatekeeper, whom they had been supporting between them, and dropped him on a sofa.
“The other seven, if you please, Mr. Johnson, with their passports.”
Johnson crossed to an onyx telephone and picked it up. The line was dead. He put it down.
“I intend to summon the police,” he said.
“I am the police,” retorted Chief Inspector Jones. “Please do as the Governor asks.”
Johnson thought it over, then called upstairs. A head appeared at the upper banister. Johnson gave the order.
Two men in bright shirts emerged from the verandah and stood beside their master. Five more came down from the upper rooms. Several muffled female squeals were heard. There had apparently been a party going on.
Inspector Jones went around collecting their passports. The man on the sofa had his own removed from his back pocket.
McCready examined them all, one by one, shaking his head as he did so.
“They are not forgeries,” Johnson said with quiet assurance, “and as you see, all my associates entered Sunshine Island legally. The fact that they are of Jamaican nationality is irrelevant.”
“Not quite,” said McCready, “since all of them failed to declare that they have criminal records, contrary to Section Four, Subsection B-1, of the Immigration Act.”
Johnson looked dumbfounded, as well he might. McCready had just invented the whole thing.
“In fact,” he said evenly, “all these men are members of a criminal conspiracy known as the Yardbirds.”
The Yardbirds had started as street gangs in the slums of Kingston, taking their name from the backyard where they held sway. They began in protection racketeering and earned a reputation for vicious violence. Later, they developed into purveyors of hemp and the cocaine-derivative crack and went international. For short, they are known as Yardies.
One of the Jamaicans was standing near a wall against which a baseball bat was leaning. His hand slowly crept nearer to the bat.
Reverend Drake caught the movement. “Hallelujah, brother,” he said quietly, and hit him. Just once. Very hard. They teach many things in Baptist colleges, but the short-arm jab as a means of converting the ungodly is not one of them. The Jamaican rolled up his eyes and slid to the floor.
The incident acted as a signal. Four of the six remaining Yardies went for their waistbands beneath their beach shirts.
“Freeze! Hold it!”
Newson and Sinclair had waited until the upper floor was vacated, except for the girls, before coming in through the windows. Now they were on the upper landing, machine pistols covering the open area below. Hands froze in mid-movement.
“They daren’t fire,” snarled Johnson. “They’d hit you all.”
Favaro came across the marble floor in a roll and rose behind Marcus Johnson. He slid his left hand under the man’s throat and dug the barrel of the Colt into his kidneys.
“Maybe,” he said, “but you go first.”
“Your hands above your heads, if you please,” said McCready.
Johnson swallowed and nodded. The six Yardies raised their hands. They were ordered to walk to the wall and lean against it, hands high. The two police sergeants relieved them of their guns.
“I suppose,” snapped Johnson, “you will be calling me a Yardbird. I am a citizen of these islands, a respectable businessman.”
“No,” said McCready reasonably, “you’re not. You’re a cocaine dealer. That’s how you made your fortune. Running dope for the Medellin cartel. Since leaving these islands as a poor teenager, you’ve spent most of your time in Colombia, or setting up dummy companies in Europe and North America to launder cocaine money. And now, if you please, I would like to meet your Colombian chief executive, Señor Mendes.”
“Never heard of him. No such man,” said Johnson.
McCready thrust a photograph under his nose.
Johnson’s eyes nickered.
“This Señor Mendes, or whatever he is calling himself now.”
Johnson remained silent. McCready looked up and nodded to Newson and Sinclair. They had already seen the photograph. The soldiers disappeared. Minutes later, there were two short, rapid bursts of fire from the upper floor and a series of female screams.
Three Latin-looking women appeared at the top of the stairs and ran down. McCready ordered two of the constables to take them out to the lawn and guard them. Sinclair and Newson appeared, pushing a man in front of them. He was thin and sallow, with straight black hair. The sergeants pushed him down the stairs but stayed at the top.
“I could charge your Jamaicans with a variety of offenses under the law here,” McCready said to Johnson, “but in fact I have reserved nine seats on the afternoon plane to Nassau. I think you will find the Bahamian Police more than happy to escort you all to the Kingston flight. In Kingston you are expected. Search the house.”
The remaining local police did the search. They found two more prostitutes hiding under beds, further weapons, and a large amount of American dollars in an attaché case. In Johnson’s bedroom were a few ounces of white powder.
“Half a million dollars,” hissed Johnson to McCready. “Let me go, and it’s yours.”
McCready handed the attaché case to Reverend Drake. “Distribute it among the island’s charities,” he said. Drake nodded. “Burn the cocaine.”
One of the policemen took the packets and went outside to start a bonfire.
“Let’s go,” said McCready.
At four that afternoon the short-haul carrier from Nassau stood on the grass strip, its propellers whirling. The eight Yardbirds, all cuffed, were escorted aboard by two Bahamian Police sergeants, who had come to collect them. Marcus Johnson, his hands cuffed behind him, stood waiting to board.
“You may, after Kingston has extradited you to Miami, be able to get a message to Señor Ochoa, or Señor Escobar, or whoever it is for whom you work,” said McCready.
“Tell him that the taking-over of the Barclays through a proxy was a brilliant idea. To own the coast guards, customs, and police of the new state, to issue diplomatic passports at will, to have diplomatic luggage sent to the States, to build refineries and store depots here in complete freedom, to set up laundering banks with impunity—all extremely ingenious. And profitable, with the casinos for the high rollers, the bordellos ...
“But if you can get the message through, tell him from me, it ain’t going to work. Not in these islands.”
Five minutes later, the boxlike frame of the short-haul lifted off, tilted its wings, and headed away toward the coast of Andros.
McCready walked over to a six-seat Cessna parked behind the hangar. Sergeants Newson and Sinclair were aboard, in the back row, their bag of “goodies” stashed by their feet, on their way back to Fort Bragg. In front of them sat Francisco Mendes, whose real Colombian name had turned out to be something else. His wrists were tied to the frame of his seat. He leaned out of the open door and spat onto the ground.
“You cannot extradite me,” he said in very good English. “You can arrest me and wait for the Americans to ask for extradition. That is all.”
“And that would take months,” said McCready. “My dear chap, you’re not being arrested, just expelled.” He turned to Eddie Favaro. “I hope you don’t mind giving his fellow a lift to Miami,” he said. “Of course, it could be that as you touch down, you will suddenly recognize him as someone wanted by the Metro-Dade force. After that, it’s up to Uncle Sam.”
They shook hands, and the Cessna ran up the grass strip, turned, paused, and put on full power. Seconds later it was out over the sea, turning northwest toward Florida.
McCready walked slowly back to the Jaguar, where Oscar waited. Time to go back to Government House, change, and hang the white uniform of Governor back in the wardrobe.
When he arrived, Detective Chief Superintendent Hannah was in Sir Marston Moberley’s office taking a call from London. McCready slipped upstairs and came down in his rumpled tropical suit. Hannah was hurrying out of the office, calling for Oscar and the Jaguar.
Alan Mitchell had worked until nine that Monday evening before he put through the call to Sunshine Island, where it was only four in the afternoon. Hannah took the call eagerly. He had spent the whole afternoon in the office waiting for the call.
“It’s remarkable,” said the ballistics expert. “One of the most extraordinary bullets I’ve ever examined. Certainly never seen one like it used in a murder before.”
“What’s odd about it?” asked Hannah.
“Well, the lead, to start with. It’s extremely old. Seventy years, at least. They haven’t made lead of that molecular consistency since the early 1920s. The same applies to the powder. Some tiny traces of it remained on the bullet. It was a chemical type introduced in 1912 and discontinued in the early 1920s.”
“But what about the gun?” insisted Hannah.
“That’s the point,” said the scientist in London. “The gun matches the ammunition used. The bullet has an absolutely unmistakable signature, like a fingerprint. Unique. It has exactly seven grooves, with a right-hand twist, left by the barrel of the revolver. No other handgun ever left those seven right-hand grooves. Remarkable, what?”
“Wonderful,” said Hannah. “Just one gun could have fired that shot? Excellent. Now, Alan, which gun?”
“Why, the Webley 4.55, of course. Nothing like it.”
Hannah was not an expert in handguns. He would not have known, at a glance, a Webley 4.55 from a Colt .44 Magnum. Not to look at, that is.
“Fine, Alan. Now tell me, what is so special about the Webley 4.55?”
“Its age. It’s a bloody antique. It was first issued in 1912, discontinued about 1920. It’s a revolver with an extremely long barrel, quite distinctive. They were never very popular because that extra-long barrel kept getting in the way. Accurate though, for the same reason. They were issued as service revolvers to British officers in the trenches in the First World War. Have you ever seen one?”
Hannah thanked him and replaced the receiver.
“Oh yes,” he breathed, “I’ve seen one.”
He was rushing across the hall when he saw that strange man Dillon from the Foreign Office.
“Use the phone if you like. It’s free,” he called, and climbed into the Jaguar.
When he was shown in, Missy Coltrane was in her wheelchair in the sitting room. She greeted him with a welcoming smile.
“Why, Mr. Hannah, how nice to see you again,” she said. “Won’t you sit down and take some tea?”
“Thank you, Lady Coltrane, I think I prefer to stand. I’m afraid I have some questions to ask you. Have you ever seen a handgun known as a Webley 4.55?”
“Why now, I don’t think I have,” she said meekly.
“I take leave to doubt that, ma’am. You have in fact got one. Your late husband’s old service revolver. In that trophy case over there. And I’m afraid I must take possession of it as vital evidence.”
He turned and walked to the glass-fronted trophy case. They were all there—the medals, the insignia, the citations, the cap badges. But they were rearranged. Behind some of them could be dimly discerned some oil smudges on the hessian, where another trophy had once hung.
Hannah turned back. “Where has it gone, Lady Coltrane?” he asked tightly.
“Dear Mr. Hannah, I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about.”
He hated to lose a case, but he could feel this one slipping slowly away. The gun or a witness—he needed one or the other. Beyond the windows the blue sea was darkling in the fading light. Somewhere out there, deep in its unquestioning embrace, he knew lay a Webley 4.55. Oil smudges do not make a court case.
“It was there, Lady Coltrane. On Thursday, when I came to see you. It was there in the cabinet.”
“Why, Mr. Hannah, you must be mistaken. I have never seen any .. . Wembley.”
“Webley, Lady Coltrane. Wembley is where they play football.” He felt he was losing this match six-nil.
“Mr. Hannah, what exactly is it you suspect of me?” she asked.
“I don’t suspect, ma’am, I know. I know what happened. Proof is another matter. Last Tuesday, at about this hour, Firestone picked you and your chair up with those huge arms of his and placed you in the back of your van, as he did on Saturday for your shopping expedition. I had thought perhaps you never left this house, but with his help, of course, you can.
“He drove you down to the alley behind the Governor’s residence, set you down, and with his own hands tore the lock off the steel gate. I thought it might take a Land-Rover and chain to pull that lock off, but of course he could do it. I should have seen that when I met him. I missed it. Mea culpa.
“He pushed you through the open gate and left you. I believe you had the Webley in your lap. Antique it may have been, but it had been kept oiled over the years, and the ammunition was still inside it. With a short barrel you’d never have hit Sir Moberley, not even firing two-handed. But this Webley had a very long barrel, very accurate.
“And you were not quite new to guns. You met your husband in the war, as you said. He was wounded, and you nursed him. But it was in a maquis hospital in Nazi-occupied France. He was with the British Special Operations Executive, and you, I believe, were with the American equivalent, the Office of Strategic Services.
“The first shot missed and hit the wall. The second did the job and lodged in a flower-basket full of loam. That’s where I found it. London identified it today. It’s quite distinctive. No gun ever fired that bullet but a Webley 4.55, such as you had in that case.”
“Oh dear, poor Mr. Hannah. It’s a wonderful story, but can you prove it?”
“No, Lady Coltrane, I can’t. I needed the gun, or a witness. I’ll bet a dozen people saw you and Firestone in that alley, but none of them will ever testify. Not against Missy Coltrane. Not on Sunshine. But there are two things that puzzle me. Why? Why kill that unlovable Governor? Did you want the police here?”
She smiled and shook her head. “The press, Mr. Hannah. Always snooping about, always asking questions, always investigating backgrounds. Always so suspicious of everyone in politics.”
“Yes, of course. The ferrets of the press.”
“And the other puzzle, Mr. Hannah?”
“Who warned you, Lady Coltrane? On Tuesday evening you put the gun back in the case. It was there on Thursday. Now it is gone. Who warned you?”
“Mr. Hannah, give my love to London when you get back. I haven’t seen it since the Blitz, you know. And now I never shall.”
Desmond Hannah had Oscar drive him back to Parliament Square. He dismissed Oscar by the police station; Oscar would have to polish up the Jaguar in time for the new Governor’s arrival the next day. It was about time Whitehall reacted, he thought. He began to cross the square to the hotel.
“Evening, Mistah Hannah.”
He turned. A complete stranger, smiling and greeting him.
“Er ... good evening.”
Two youths in front of the hotel were dancing in the dust. One had a cassette player around his neck. The tape was playing a calypso number. Hannah did not recognize it. It was “Freedom Come, Freedom Go.” He recognized “Yellow Bird,” however—it was coming from the Quarter Deck bar. He recalled that in five days he had not heard a steel band or a calypso.
The doors of the Anglican church were open; Reverend Quince was giving forth on his small organ. He was playing “Gaudeamus Igitur.”
By the time Hannah strode up the steps of the hotel, he realized there was an air of levity about the streets. It did not match his own mood. He had some serious report-writing to do. After a late-night call to London, he would go home in the morning. There was nothing more he could do. He hated to lose a case, but he knew this one would remain on the file. He could return to Nassau on the plane that brought in the new Governor, and fly on to London.
He crossed the terrace bar toward the staircase. There was that man Dillon again, sitting on a stool nursing a beer. Strange fellow, he thought as he went up the stairs. Always sitting around waiting for something. Never actually seemed to do anything.
* * *
On Tuesday morning, a de Havilland Devon droned in toward Sunshine from Nassau and deposited the new Governor, Sir Crispian Rattray. From the shade of the hangar McCready watched the elderly diplomat, crisp in cream linen with wings of silver hair flying from beneath his white panama hat, descend from the aircraft to meet the welcoming committee.
Lieutenant Haverstock, back from his marine odyssey, introduced him to various notables from the town, including Dr. Caractacus Jones and his nephew, Chief Inspector Jones. Oscar was there with the newly polished Jaguar, and after the introductions the small cavalcade drove off toward Port Plaisance.
Sir Rattray would discover that he had little to do. The two candidates appeared to have withdrawn their candidacies and gone on vacation. He would appeal for other candidates. None would come forward—Reverend Drake would see to that.
With the January elections postponed, the British Parliament would reconvene and, under pressure from the opposition, the government would concede that a referendum in March might well be appropriate. But that was all in the future.
Desmond Hannah boarded the empty Devon for the journey to Nassau. From the top of the steps he had a last look around. That strange fellow Dillon seemed to be sitting with his suitcase and attaché case again, waiting for something. Hannah did not wave. He intended to mention Mr. Dillon when he got back to London.
Ten minutes after the Devon left, McCready’s air taxi from Miami arrived. He had to return his portable telephone to the Miami CIA office and say a few thank-yous to friends in Florida before flying on to London. He would be home in time for Christmas. He would spend it alone in his flat in Kensington. Perhaps he would go down to the Special Forces Club for a drink with some old mates.
The Piper took off, and McCready had a last look at the drowsy town of Port Plaisance, going about its business in the morning sun. He saw Spyglass Hill drift by, and a pink villa on its peak.
The pilot turned once more for his course to Miami. The wing dipped, and McCready looked down at the interior of the island. On a dusty track a small brown child looked up and waved. McCready waved back. With luck, and for the moment, he thought, the boy could grow up without ever having to live under the red flag or to sniff cocaine.
“I am sure we are all deeply grateful,” said Timothy Edwards, “to Denis for his excellent presentation. I would suggest that as the hour is late, my colleagues and I mull the matter over between ourselves, to see if there is room for a variation of the Service policy in this matter, and deliver our view in the morning.”
Denis Gaunt had to return his file to the clerk from Records. When he turned around, Sam McCready was gone. He had slipped away almost as Edwards finished speaking. Gaunt traced him ten minutes later to his office.
McCready was still in shirt-sleeves, his creased cotton jacket over a chair, puttering about. Two cardboard wine crates stood on the floor.
“What are you doing?” asked Gaunt.
“Clearing out my bits and bobs.”
There were only two photographs, and he kept them in a drawer, not ostentatiously propped on the desk. One was of May, the other of his son on his graduation day, smiling diffidently in a black academic’s gown. McCready put them into one of the boxes.
“You’re crazy,” said Gaunt. “I think we may have cracked it. Not Edwards, of course, but the two Controllers. I think they may change their minds. We know they both like you, want you to stay.”
McCready took his compact disk player and put it in the other box. Sometimes he liked to play soft classical music when he was deep in thought. There was hardly enough bric-a-brac to fill both the boxes, though. Certainly there were no me-shaking-hands-with-a-celebrity photos on his walls; the few Impressionist prints were service-issue. He straightened up and looked at the two boxes.
“Not a lot, really, for thirty years,” he murmured.
“Sam, for God’s sake, it’s not over yet. They could change their minds.”
McCready turned and gripped Gaunt by his upper arms. “Denis, you’re a great guy. You did a good job in there. You gave it your best shot. And I’m going to ask the Chief to let you take over the desk. But you have to learn on which side of the sky the sun rises. It’s over. Verdict and sentence were handed down weeks ago, in another office, by another man.”
Denis Gaunt sat down miserably in his boss’s chair. “Then what the hell was it all for?”
“The hell it was for was this: Because I care about this fucking Service, and because they’re getting it wrong. Because there’s a bloody dangerous world out there, and it’s not getting less dangerous, but more so. And because dickheads like Edwards are going to be left looking after the security of this old country that I happen to love, and that frightens the shit out of me. I knew I couldn’t change anything in that hearing, but I wanted to make the bastards squirm. Sorry, Denis, I should have told you. Will you have my boxes run over to my flat sometime?”
“You could still take one of the jobs they’ve offered you. Just to spite them,” suggested Gaunt.
“Denis, as the poet said, ‘One wild, sweet hour of glorious life is worth a world without a name.’ For me, sitting down there in the archive library or approving expense accounts would be a world without a name. I’ve had my hour, done my best—it’s over. I’m off. There’s a whole sunny world out there, Denis. I’m going out there, and I’m going to enjoy myself.”
Denis Gaunt looked as if he were attending a funeral. “They’ll see you again around here,” he said.
“No, they won’t.”
“The Chief will give you a farewell party.”
“No party. I can’t stand cheap sparkling wine. Plays merry hell with my gut. So does Edwards being nice to me. Walk me down to the main door?”
Century House is a village, a tiny parish. Down the corridor to the lift, on the ride to the ground floor, across the tiled lobby, colleagues and secretaries called, “Hi, Sam—hallo, Sam.” They did not say, “Bye-bye, Sam,” but it was what they meant. A few of the secretaries paused as if they would like to straighten his tie one last time. He nodded and smiled and walked on.
The main door stood at the end of the tiled hall, beyond it the street. McCready wondered whether he should use his compensation to buy a cottage in the country, grow roses and marrows, attend church on Sunday mornings, become a pillar of the community. But how to fill the days?
He regretted that he had never developed any absorbing hobbies, like his colleagues who bred tropical fish or collected stamps or walked up and down mountains in Wales. And what could he say to the neighbors? “Good morning, my name’s Sam, I’ve retired from the Foreign Office, and no, I can’t tell you a damned thing I did there.” Old soldiers are allowed to write their memoirs and bore tourists in the snug bar. But not those who have spent their lives in the shadowed places. They must remain silent forever.
Mrs. Foy from Travel Documents was crossing the lobby, her high heels clacking on the tiles, a statuesque widow in her late thirties. Quite a number of denizens of Century House had tried their luck with Suzanne Foy, but she was not known as the Fortress for nothing.
Their paths crossed. She stopped and turned. Somehow, McCready’s tie-knot had arrived at the area of the middle of his chest. She reached out, tightened it, and slid it back toward the top shirt button. Gaunt watched. He was too young to remember Jane Russell, so he could not make the obvious comparison.
“Sam, you should have someone take you home for something nourishing,” she said.
Denis Gaunt watched her hips sway across the lobby to the lift doors. He wondered what it would be like to be given something nourishing by Mrs. Foy. Or vice versa.
Sam McCready pushed open the plate-glass door to the street. A wave of hot summer air blew in. He turned, reached into his breast pocket, and brought out an envelope.
“Give it to them, Denis. Tomorrow morning. It’s what they want, after all.”
Denis took it and stared at it.
“You had it all the time,” he said. “You wrote it days ago. You cunning old bastard!”
But he was talking to the closing door.
McCready turned right and ambled toward Westminster Bridge half a mile away, his jacket over his shoulder. He loosened his tie back down to the third shirt button. It was a hot June afternoon, one of those that made up the great heat wave of the summer of 1990. The early commuter traffic poured past him toward the Old Kent Road.
It would be nice out at sea today, he thought, with the Channel bobbing bright and blue under the sun. Perhaps he should take that cottage in Devon, with his own boat in the harbor, after all. He could even invite Mrs. Foy down there. For something nourishing.
Westminster Bridge rose before him. Across it the House of Parliament, whose freedoms and occasional foolishness he had spent thirty years trying to protect, towered against the blue sky. The newly cleaned tower of Big Ben glowed gold in the sunlight beside the sluggish Thames.
Halfway across the bridge, a news vendor stood beside his stand with a pile of copies of the Evening Standard. At his feet stood a placard. It bore the words; BUSH-GORBY—COLD WAR OVER—OFFICIAL. McCready stopped to buy a paper.
“Thank you, guv,” said the news vendor. He gestured toward his placard. “All over, then, eh?”
“Over?” asked McCready.
“Yeah. All them international crises. Thing of the past.”
“What a lovely idea,” agreed McCready, and strolled on.
Four weeks later, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Sam McCready heard the radio bulletin while fishing two miles off the Devon coast. He considered the newsflash, then decided it was time to change his bait.
FREDERICK FORSYTH is the author of eight best-selling novels: The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The Devil’s Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver, and The Fist of God. He has also written an acclaimed collection of short fiction, No Comebacks. He lives outside London.