Wyatt's Hurricane / Bahama Crisis

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘Bullshit!’ said Billy. He did not believe it, and neither did I. It made no sense.

  ‘Show him the ransom note,’ said Frank.

  Jack took a folded letter and tossed it on to the table. I grabbed it and read it with Billy peering over my shoulder. It was in typescript, addressed to Mr John D. Cunningham, and written with a stilted formality which contrasted oddly with the rawness of the contents.

  ‘Dear Mr Cunningham,

  You will have difficulty in believing this but we have in our possession the person of your daughter, Deborah Mangan. In short, we have kidnapped her. In the belief that you will want her back unharmed we now give you our terms. They are not subject to negotiation.

  You will cause your son-in-law, Thomas Mangan, to travel to Houston. How you do this is your concern. We will know when he has arrived. Our price for your daughter’s safety and, possibly, her life is the person of Thomas Mangan delivered to us intact and unhurt. Your daughter will then be returned in fair exchange. You will be notified as to the manner of this transaction upon the arrival of Mr Mangan in Texas.

  It goes without saying that the police should not be informed of these arrangements nor should any of those steps be taken which might seem obvious in such a dramatic situation as this.

  You will understand my motives in not signing this communication.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Billy. He looked at me with a baffled expression. ‘Who’d…’ He stopped and shook his head in wonder.

  ‘I don’t know.’ What I did know was the reason for Jack Cunningham’s peremptory summons to Houston.

  ‘You must be quite a guy,’ said Frank, his tone belying his words. He looked around the table. ‘Any hoodlum knows a Cunningham woman is worth hard cash money. How much? Quarter of a million dollars? Half a million? A million? Christ, we’d pay five million if we had to. Course, any hoodlum with sense would know he wouldn’t live long enough to spend it, no matter which way the ball bounced. But this guy would rather have Mangan than the dough.’ He eyed me challengingly. ‘So what the hell makes you so valuable?’

  ‘Cut it out,’ said Billy.

  Billy One said pointedly, ‘We want to make friends and influence people.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Billy. ‘Tom hasn’t said much yet. He hasn’t said he wants any part of this.’

  ‘He’s not a man if he runs out,’ said Frank hotly.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Billy in a detached voice. ‘How much would you do for a wife who’s run out on you?’

  For some reason that seemed to hit Frank where it hurt. He flushed and was about to say something, but thought better of it and sat back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the table. From which I gathered that Frank had marital troubles of his own.

  There was a long silence. Jack Cunningham sat at the head of the table, looking along its length with dead eyes; Billy pulled the letter closer and read it again; Frank fidgeted while Billy One studied him with watchful eyes. The rest, the family underlings, said nothing.

  Billy One sat upright, apparently satisfied that Frank had shot his bolt, at least temporarily. ‘Okay, Tom.’ His voice was neutral but not unfriendly. ‘Frank has a point, you know. What makes you so valuable that someone would kidnap a Cunningham to get you?’

  That was a good question and I did not have an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ I said flatly. ‘You know who I am and what I do. Jack had me thoroughly investigated, didn’t he? Twice. Once before the merger and again before the wedding. You don’t think I can’t recognize private detectives when they’re floating around my hotels?’

  Billy One smiled slightly. ‘You checked out fine,’ he said. ‘Both times.’

  ‘It wasn’t necessary,’ I said. ‘All you had to do was to come to me and ask. My life is a pretty open book. But I thought that if that’s the way you operate, then that’s the way you operate, and there was nothing I could do about it. Which isn’t to say I liked it.’

  ‘We didn’t give a damn if you liked it or not,’ said Frank.

  Jack said, ‘That will be enough, Frank.’

  ‘Jack was dead against the marriage,’ said Billy One. ‘He had his reasons. Frank was, too; but Billy was for it—he thought you were a right guy. Me, I had no druthers either way. As it turned out, what we all thought didn’t matter a damn because Debbie got her own way, as always.’

  He reached out and poured a measure of whisky into a glass. ‘Now, we’ve gotten two things here, both separate—I think. Debbie left you, and she’s been kidnapped. Can you think of any connection?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘As you know, I’ve had my hands full lately—you’ve read the reports—and perhaps I couldn’t, or didn’t, give Debbie enough of my time. That’s what she thought, anyway, so she quit. But I don’t know why she should be kidnapped with me as ransom. That fits nowhere.’

  ‘Has anything out of the ordinary happened lately?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Billy. ‘Tell him about Kayles.’

  So I told the story of me and Kayles. When I had finished Frank said, ‘And this guy is still loose?’

  ‘Yes—so far.’

  ‘That’s it, then,’ he said. ‘There’s your answer.’

  ‘What would Kayles want with me?’ I demanded, and prodded at the ransom demand on the table. ‘I’ve met and talked with Kayles—he wouldn’t and couldn’t write a thing like this. It’s way above his head—he’s not that much educated.’

  Billy One said, ‘And where does that leave us? What makes you so goddamn valuable, Tom?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said tiredly. ‘And does it matter? The point at issue here is what to do about Debbie.’

  ‘Mangan, I’d say you lose wives awful easy,’ said Frank nastily.

  ‘That does it,’ said Billy, and hit Frank before I could get my own hands on him. It was a backhander across the jaw which caught Frank by surprise. He went over backwards and his chair went with him, and he sprawled on the floor with Billy standing over him. He looked up, rubbing his jaw, and Billy said, Cousin Frank, I’ve always been able to whip your ass, and if you don’t stay off Tom’s back I’m ready to do it again right now.’

  Billy One glanced at Jack who was silent. He said, ‘That was uncalled for, Frank. Now, you’ll stand up and apologize to Tom or you leave this room right now, and maybe you won’t be back—ever. Understand? Help him up, Billy.’

  Billy hoisted Frank to his feet. Frank rubbed his mouth and looked at the blood on the back of his hand. ‘I guess I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, then looked at me directly. ‘But what are you going to do about my sister?’

  ‘I’m going to make the exchange.’ I looked at the expression on his face, and then at Billy One. ‘Did you have any doubt I would?’

  A suppressed chuckle came from Billy. ‘You’re damn right they had doubts.’

  Billy One exhaled a long sigh. ‘Maybe I misjudged you, Tom,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Well, now we can plan,’ said Billy. He sat down and picked up the letter. ‘Frank was talking about hoodlums, but Tom’s right; this wasn’t written by any illiterate jerk. But he used a typewriter—they can be traced.’

  ‘Typewriters are cheap,’ said Frank as he picked up his chair. ‘That one is probably at the bottom of Galveston Bay by now.’ He sat down. ‘And what’s to plan? This guy is doing the planning. We can’t do a goddamn thing until we get instructions on how we do the deal.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said Billy. ‘What’s the use of having a security section in the Corporation if we don’t use it? Those guys know all about bugs.’

  Billy One lifted a shaggy eyebrow. ‘So?’

  ‘So we bug Tom. A transmitter in the heel of a shoe, maybe. In a ballpoint pen or sewn into his pants. We bug him until he’s crawling.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we…’

  Billy One had a sudden thought. He held up his hand and looked about the table. ‘Hold it! There are too many damn people in here. Let’s do some pruning. Tom stays, of co
urse—and Billy. Jack stays, too, if he wants.’ He peered at the far end of the table. ‘Jim, you stay. The rest of you clear out.’

  There was a general murmur of disapproval but no one objected overtly except Frank. ‘What the hell!’ he said tightly. ‘We’re talking about my sister. I’m staying.’

  Billy One scowled at him. ‘Okay. But quit riding Tom; we’re talking about his wife and that’s a closer relationship.’ He turned to Jack. ‘It’s after four in the morning and you look beat. You sure you want to stay? You’ve been grinding at this all night.’

  ‘So has Frank. So have you.’

  ‘Yeah, but Frank is a young guy—and I’m not as close to it as you. I’m more objective. Why don’t you catch some sleep and come up tomorrow full of the old moxie?’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Jack. His face was grey with fatigue as he stood up slowly. ‘Frank, fill me in tomorrow morning. Hear?’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ A frown creased Frank’s forehead as he watched his father walk to the door.

  I had a sudden insight into the workings of the Cunningham Corporation. It operated remarkably like the Kremlin—collective leadership. Everybody had a vote but some votes were heavier than others. Every so often the old bulls at the top would do battle over some issue and the weaker would be tossed out. I had the idea that this was happening now; that Billy One was in the process of tossing out Jack, just as Brezhnev had got rid of Podgorny.

  Billy and Frank were fighting for second place. Where Jim Cunningham came into this I did not know; probably Billy One was sealing an alliance with a faction of the clan. Jim was lucky—he had been promoted to top table.

  This was confirmed when, as the door closed, Billy One called, ‘Jim, come sit up here.’ He glowered at us under white eyebrows. ‘From now on we operate on “need to know”, and what they don’t know won’t hurt us, or Debbie. Hell, it only needs Joe to drop a loose word at home and Linda would spread it over half Houston. She’s a gossip.’

  Frank said, ‘If she shoots her mouth off about what’s happened to Debbie she’ll wish she never married a Cunningham. I’ll see to it if Joe doesn’t.’

  Billy One nodded. ‘Jim, you know more about the security angle than any of us. Got any ideas on this?’

  Jim was a young chap of about twenty-five, dressed casually in jeans. He had a sleepy look about him which was deceptive because he was as sharp as a tack. He said, ‘Billy is right.’ He turned to me. ‘I’ll need your clothes—coat, pants, everything you wear down to socks and underwear. The outfit you’ll use when you go to make this lousy deal. We’ll have you radiating right through the electromagnetic spectrum.’ To Billy One he said, ‘We’ll need cars, light airplanes and maybe choppers. Better lay on a couple of fast boats, too; Tom might be taken out to sea.’

  ‘We’ll use my boat,’ said Frank. ‘Nothing faster in Texas.’

  ‘No!’ said Jim quickly. ‘We use nothing Cunningham. We rent everything.’

  ‘My job,’ said Billy.

  I said, ‘But no one makes a move until Debbie’s safe.’

  ‘That’s understood,’ said Billy One. ‘What about a gun?’

  I shook my head. ‘No gun. I don’t want to kill anybody.’

  He looked disappointed; my way was not the Texan way. ‘You might need a gun to stop someone killing you.’

  ‘A gun wouldn’t stop them—not the way I use one,’ I said dryly. ‘Anyway, they’ll search me. The joker who wrote this ransom note doesn’t sound like a damn fool.’

  Jim agreed. ‘Finding a gun might make him nervous; nervous guys are dangerous.’

  A telephone beeped discreetly in a corner of the room. Billy One jerked his head and Jim got up to answer it. Even though he had got to the inner cabinet he knew his place on the totem pole; he was still a messenger boy. Presently he said, ‘It’s the Security Officer speaking from the lobby. He says an envelope has been handed in addressed to Jack.’

  Billy One grunted. ‘Have him bring it up.’

  ‘Our security force might need beefing up,’ said Billy. ‘The way this is turning out we might be spread thin. What about a detective agency?’

  ‘I’ll fix that,’ said Billy One. ‘I know a good one.’

  Frank said, ‘We might not have time for all that. I have a gut feeling trouble is coming up in the elevator right now.’

  Billy One looked at his watch. ‘If you’re right, it’s bad news.’ He picked up the ransom letter. ‘I know this guy said he’d know when Tom arrives, but Tom’s been here not much over an hour.’

  ‘Good intelligence service,’ said Billy.

  ‘Too goddamn good.’ Frank frowned. ‘Inside information? From this building, maybe?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Billy One irritably threw down the sheet of paper. ‘We’ll wait and see.’

  If the information of my arrival had come from the inside of the building then it was bad news indeed, because we were sitting in the penthouse of the slab-sided glass tower that was the Cunningham Building, the latest addition to the Houston skyline. It would mean the Cunningham Corporation itself had been penetrated.

  The long moments dragged by. Billy One must have parallelled my train of thought because he ceased his finger-tapping and said, ‘Jim, have security check this room for bugs first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Will do.’

  There was a discreet tap at the door and Jim got up. After a brief colloquy he came back carrying a large envelope which he laid on the table. Billy One bent forward to read the superscription, then pulled the ransom letter towards him and compared. ‘Could be the same typewriter. Probably is.’

  ‘The guy has confidence,’ said Billy with a sideways glance at Frank.

  ‘Lot of stuff in here,’ said Billy One, hefting the envelope. ‘Who delivered it?’

  ‘A guy who said he’d been given five bucks in a bar.’ As Billy One picked up a paper-knife Jim said sharply, ‘Let’s do this right. Let’s not get our fingers all over what’s in there.’

  ‘You do it.’

  Jim slit open the envelope and shook its contents on to the table. Most of it appeared to be eight-by-ten glossy black-and-white photographs, but there were also a couple of sheets of paper covered with typescript, single-spaced. Jim took a ballpoint pen and separated it all out, being careful not to touch anything with his fingers. He said, ‘I’ll have these put in glassine envelopes later. You can look at them now, but don’t touch.’

  The two pages of typescript were complicated instructions of what to do and when to do it. The photographs were of places where certain actions had to be done, and had been annotated with a red fibre pen. On one, for instance, were the instructions, ‘Wait here exactly four minutes. Flash headlamps twice at end of each minute.’ There were eleven photographs, each numbered, and the eleventh showed the edge of a road with open country beyond and trees in the distance. A red dashed line traced a path from the road to the trees, and an inscription read, ‘Mangan goes this way alone. Deborah Mangan comes out same way ten minutes later. No tricks, please.’

  It was all very complicated.

  Billy was studying the first typed page. ‘What a nerve! This one begins: “Mr Thomas Mangan, welcome to Houston, the fastest growing city in America”.’

  Frank said, ‘Well, he gives us until Thursday—three days. Enough time to get ready for the son of a bitch.’

  Billy One grunted, but said nothing.

  Jim looked down at the photographs. ‘I don’t think this guy is American. Look here, Billy.’ His finger hovered an inch over the table. ‘An American wouldn’t refer to headlamps—he’d say headlights.’

  ‘Yeah, could be. European usage, maybe.’

  ‘Why not come right out and say British?’ Frank looked at me unsmilingly. ‘What do you say in the Bahamas, Mangan? Headlamps or headlights?’ He could not resist needling me.

  I shrugged. ‘I use them interchangeably. Both usages are valid. We’re being penetrated by the American language because most of our t
ourists are American.’

  Billy One yawned. ‘Since we have time to spare I’m going home to bed. I want y’all in my office downstairs at ten a.m. Jim, don’t forget to have this room debugged. Where are you sleeping tonight, Tom? I don’t believe Jack made arrangements.’

  ‘Come home with me,’ said Billy. He rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘Jesus, but I’m tired.’

  THIRTEEN

  Tuesday morning, early but not very bright. I had had about three hours’ sleep and my body felt as heavy as my spirits, and even the forceful shower in the guest bathroom did not help. Knowing Houston I dressed lightly; it’s like living in a permanent sauna and it was fairly steamy even so early in the morning.

  Breakfast was on the patio outside the house, a low rambling structure of stone, timber and glass. I do not know if Billy’s wife, Barbara, knew anything about the kidnapping of Debbie; she made no reference to it as she served breakfast so I concluded that probably Billy had not told her. It is a characteristic of Texans, and Cunninghams in particular, not to involve their womenfolk.

  Over breakfast we talked of the weather, of baseball, and other mundane matters. A couple of times I caught Barbara giving me a sidelong glance and I knew what she was thinking—why was I there and not at Jack’s place with Debbie? The gossiping close-knit Cunningham women would know, of course, that the marriage was in trouble, but Barbara was too disciplined to refer to it and hid her curiosity well if not entirely.

  After breakfast I went with Billy to his study where he picked up a red telephone and depressed a button. ‘Hi, Jo-Ann; anything I ought to know?’ I realized he had a direct line to his office in the Cunningham Building. He listened for a while then said abruptly. ‘Cancel all that.’ Standing ten feet away I was able to hear the cry of expostulation which came from the earphone.

  ‘No, I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘But it’ll be a week. Damn it, don’t argue with me, Jo-Ann. Here’s what you do. I want to see Harry Pearson of Texas Aviation and Charlie Alvarez of the Gulf Fishing Corporation—both this morning—not at the Cunningham Building, some place else. Sure, the Petroleum Club will do fine. You can tell me when you see me—half an hour.’