Wyatt's Hurricane / Bahama Crisis

by Desmond Bagley

  I saw no reason not to answer, but I was becoming increasingly chilled. If Robinson saw no reason not to gossip about three murders then it meant that he thought he was talking to a dead man, or a man as good as dead. I said, ‘I had a photograph of him,’ and explained how it had come about.

  ‘Ah!’ said Robinson. ‘So it was the little girl’s camera. That really worried Kayles. He was pretty sure she had taken his photograph, but he couldn’t find the camera on your boat. Of course, it was a big boat and he couldn’t search every nook and cranny, but it still worried him. So he solved his problem—as he thought—by sinking your boat, camera and all. But it wasn’t there, was it? You had it. I suppose you gave the photograph to the police.’

  ‘There’ll be a copy of it in every police office in the Bahamas,’ I said grimly.

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Robinson. ‘That’s bad, very bad. Isn’t it, Leroy?’

  Leroy grunted, but said nothing. The shotgun aimed at me had not quivered by as much as a millimetre.

  Robinson took his hands from his pockets and clasped them in front of him. ‘Well, to return to the main thrust of our conversation. You tracked Kayles to the Jumentos. How did you do that? I must know.’

  ‘By his boat.’

  ‘But it was disguised.’

  ‘Not well enough.’

  ‘I see. I told you the man is an idiot. Well, the idiot escaped and reported back to me. He told me a strange story which I found hard to credit. He told me that you knew all my plans. Now, isn’t that odd?’

  ‘Remarkable, considering that I don’t know who the hell you are.’

  ‘I thought so, too, but Kayles was most circumstantial. Out it all came, information which even he was not supposed to know about—and all quite accurate.’

  ‘And I told him all this?’ I said blankly.

  ‘Not quite. He eavesdropped while you were talking to the man, Ford. I must say I was quite perturbed; so much so that I acted hastily, which is uncharacteristic of me. I ordered your death, Mr Mangan, but you fortuitously escaped.’ Robinson shrugged. ‘However, the four Americans were quite a bonus—I believe the Securities and Exchange Commission is causing quite a stir on Wall Street.’

  ‘The four Am…’ I broke off. ‘You caused that crash? You killed Bill Pinder?’

  Robinson raised an eyebrow. ‘Pinder?’ he enquired.

  ‘The pilot, damn you!’

  ‘Oh, the pilot,’ he said uninterestedly. ‘Well, by then I had time to think more clearly. I needed to interrogate you in a place of my own choosing—and so here you are. It would have been difficult getting near to you on Grand Bahama; for one thing, you were tending to live in Commissioner Perigord’s pocket. But that worried me for other reasons; I want to know how much information you have passed on to him. I must know, because that will influence my future actions.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said, wishing I did.

  ‘I will give you time to think about it; to think and remember. But first I will do you a favour.’ He turned and opened the door, saying to Leroy, ‘Watch him.’

  A couple of minutes later the pistol carrier came in. He jerked his head at Leroy. ‘He wants you.’ Leroy went out and I was left facing the muzzle of a pistol instead of a shotgun. Not a great improvement.

  Presently Robinson came back. He looked at me sitting on the bed, and said, ‘Come to the window and see what I have for you.’

  ‘The only favour I want from you is to release my wife.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘Not for the moment. But come here, Mangan, and watch.’

  I joined him at the window and the man with the pistol moved directly behind me, standing about six feet away. There was nothing to be seen outside that was new, just the trees and hot sunlight. Then Leroy came into view with another man. They were both laughing.

  ‘Kayles!’ I said hoarsely.

  ‘Yes, Kayles,’ said Robinson.

  Leroy was still carrying the shotgun. He stooped to tie the lace of his shoe, gesturing for Kayles to carry on. He let Kayles get ten feet ahead and then shot him in the back from his kneeling position. He shot again, the two reports coming so closely together that they sounded as one, and Kayles pitched forward violently to lie in a crumpled heap.

  ‘There,’ said Robinson. ‘The murderer of your family has been executed.’

  I looked at Kayles and saw that Robinson was right—buckshot does terrible things to a man’s body. Kayles had been ripped open and his spine blown out. A pool of blood was soaking into the sandy earth.

  It had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly that I was numbed. Leroy walked to Kayles’s body and stirred it with his foot, then he reloaded the shotgun and walked back the way he had come and so out of sight.

  ‘It was not done entirely for your benefit,’ said Robinson. ‘From being an asset Kayles had become a liability. Anyone connected with me who has his photograph on the walls of police stations is dangerous.’ He paused. ‘Of course, in a sense the demonstration was for your benefit. An example—it could happen to you.’

  I looked out at the body of Kayles and said, ‘I think you’re quite mad.’

  ‘Not mad—just careful. Now you are going to tell me what I want to know. How did you get wind of what I am up to, and how much have you told Perigord?’

  ‘I’ve told the police nothing, except about Kayles,’ I said. ‘I know nothing at all about what other crazy ideas you might have. I know nothing about you, and I wish I knew less.’

  ‘So do I believe you?’ he mused. ‘I think not. I can’t trust you to be honest with me. So what to do about it? I could operate on you with a blunt knife, but you could be stubborn. You could even know nothing, as you say, so the exercise would be futile. Even if your wife saw the operation with the blunt knife there would be no profit in it. You see, I believe she knows nothing and so torturing you could not induce her to speak the truth. In fact, anything she might say I would discount as a lie to save you.’

  I said nothing. My mouth was dry and parched because I knew what was coming and dreaded it.

  Robinson spoke in tones of remote objectivity, building up his ramshackle structure of crazy logic. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We can discard that, so what is left? Mrs Mangan is left, of course. Judging from the touching scene of reconciliation this morning it is quite possible that you still have an attachment for her. So, we operate on Mrs Mangan with a blunt knife—or its equivalent. Women have soft bodies, Mr Mangan. I think you will speak truly of what you know.’

  I nearly went for him then and there, but the gunman said sharply, ‘Don’t!’ and I recoiled from the gun.

  ‘You son of a bitch!’ I said, raging. ‘You utter bastard!’

  Robinson waved his hand. ‘No compliments, I beg of you. You will have time to think of this—to sleep on it. I regret we can waste no more good food on you. But that is all for the best—the digestion of food draws blood from the brain and impedes the thought processes. I want you in a condition in which you think hard and straight, Mr Mangan. I will ask you more questions tomorrow.’

  He went out, followed by the gunman, and the door closed and clicked locked, leaving me in such despair as I had never known in my life.

  SIXTEEN

  The first thing I did when I had recovered the power of purposive thought was to find and rip out that damned microphone. A futile gesture, of course, because it had already fulfilled Robinson’s purpose. It was not even very well hidden, not nearly as subtle as any of Rodriguez’s gadgets. It was an ordinary microphone such as comes with any standard tape recorder and was up in the rafters taped to a tie-beam, and the wire led through a small hole in the roof. Not much sense in it, but it gave me savage satisfaction in the smashing of it.

  As I hung from the tie-beam, my feet dangling above the floor preparatory to dropping, I looked at the door at the end of the room and then at the roof above it. My first thought was that if I was up in the roof when Leroy came in I might drop something on to hi
s head. That idea was discarded quickly because I had seen that every time he entered he had swung the door wide so that it lay against the wall. That way he made sure that, if I was not in sight, then I would not be hiding behind the door. If he did not see me in that bare room he would know that the only place I could be was up in the roof, and he would take the appropriate nasty action.

  If there was anyone watching what I did next he would have thought I had gone around the bend. I stood with my back to the door, imitating the action of a tiger—the tiger being Leroy. I had no illusions about him; he was as deadly as any tiger—possibly more dangerous than Robinson. I do not think that Robinson was the quintessential man of action; he was more the cerebral type and thought too much about his actions. Leroy, however vacant in the head, would act automatically on the necessity for action.

  So I imitated Leroy coming in. He booted the door wide open; I had to imagine that bit. The door swung and slammed against the wall. Leroy looked inside and made sure I was on the bed. Satisfied he stepped inside, fixing me with the shotgun. I stood, cradling an imaginary shotgun, looking at an imaginary me on the bed.

  Immediately behind came Robinson. In order that he could enter I had to cease blocking the doorway, so I took a step sideways, still holding the gun on the bed. That was what Leroy had done every time—the perfect bodyguard. I looked above my head towards the roof and was perfectly satisfied with what I saw.

  Then I studied the water pitcher and basin. I had seen a piece of a similar basin before. As part of my education I had studied the English legal system and, on one Long Vacation, I had taken the opportunity of attending a Crown Court to see what went on. There had been a case of a brawl in a sea-men’s hostel, the charge being attempted murder. I could still visualize the notes I took. A doctor was giving evidence:

  Prosecutor: Now, Doctor, tell me; how many pints of blood did you transfuse into this young man?

  Doctor: Nine pints in the course of thirty hours.

  Prosecutor: Is that not a great quantity of blood?

  Doctor: Indeed, it is.

  Judge (breaking in): How many pints of blood are there in a man?

  Doctor: I would say that this man, taking into account his weight and build, would have eight pints of blood in him.

  Judge: And you say you transfused nine pints. Surely, the blood must have been coming out of him faster than you were putting it in?

  Doctor (laconically): It was.

  The weapon used had been a pie-shaped fragment of such a basin as this, broken in the course of the brawl, picked up at random, and used viciously. It had been as sharp as a razor.

  I next turned my attention to the window curtain, a mere flap of sackcloth. I felt the coarse weave and decided it would serve well. It was held in place by thumb tacks which would also be useful, so I ripped it away and spent the rest of the daylight hours separating the fibres rather like a nineteenth-century convict picking oakum.

  While I worked I thought of what Robinson wanted. Whatever Kayles had told him was a mystery to me. I went back over the time I had spent with Kayles, trying to remember every word and analysing every nuance. I got nowhere at all and began to worry very much about Debbie.

  I slept a little that night, but not much, and what sleep I had was shot with violent dreams which brought me up wide awake and sweating. I was frightened of over-sleeping into the daylight hours because my preparations were not yet complete and I needed at least an hour of light, but I need not have worried—I was open-eyed and alert as the sun rose.

  An hour later I was ready—as much as I could be. Balanced on a tie-beam in the roof was the pitcher full of water, held only in place by the spatula with which I had spread my butter. I had greased it liberally so that it would slide away easily at the tug of the string I had made from the sackcloth. The string ran across the roof space, hanging loosely on the beams to a point in the corner above my bed where it dropped close to hand. Lacking a pulley wheel to take care of the right-angle bend I had used two thumb tacks and I hoped they, would hold under the strain when I pulled on the string.

  The pitcher was just above the place where Leroy usually stood, and I reckoned that a weight of twenty-five pounds dropping six feet vertically on to his head would not do him much good. With Leroy out of action I was fairly confident I could take care of Robinson, especially if I could get hold of the shotgun.

  Making my hand weapon had been tricky but fortunately I was aided by an existing crack in the thick pottery of the basin. Afraid of making a noise, and thankful that I had destroyed the microphone, I wrapped the basin in the bed sheet and whacked it hard with a leg I had taken from the table. It had not been difficult to dismantle the table; the wooden pegs were loose with age.

  It took six blows to break that damned basin and after each one I paused to listen because I was making a considerable row. On the sixth blow I felt it go and unwrapped the bed sheet to find I had done exactly what I wanted. I had broken a wedge-shaped segment from the basin, exactly like the fortuitous weapon I had seen in that distant courtroom in England. The rim fitted snugly into the palm of my hand and the pointed end projected forward when my arm was by my side. The natural form of use would be an upward and thrusting slash.

  Then, after gently pulling on the string to take up the slack I sat on the bed to wait. And wait. And wait.

  The psychologists say that time is subjective, which is why watched pots never boil. I now believe them. I do not know whether it would have been better to have had a watch; all I know is that I counted time by the pace of shadows creeping across the floor infinitesimally slowly and by the measured beat of my heart.

  Debbie had said there were four of them. That would be Leroy, Robinson, Kayles and the man with the pistol—I did not think Debbie had counted Belle. Kayles was now dead and I reckoned that if the pitcher took care of Leroy and I tackled Robinson I would have a chance. I would have the shotgun by then and only one man to fight—I did not expect trouble from Belle. The only thing which worried me was Leroy’s trigger finger; if he was hit on the head very hard there might be a sudden muscular contraction, and I wanted to be out of the way when that shotgun fired.

  Time went by. I looked up at the pitcher poised on the beam and worked equations in my head. Accelerating under the force of gravity it would take nearly two-thirds of a second to fall six feet, by which time it would be moving at twenty-two feet a second—say, fifteen miles an hour. It might seem silly but that is what I did—I worked out the damned equations. There was nothing else to do.

  The door opened with a bang and the man who came in was not Leroy but the other man. He had the shotgun, though. He stood in the doorway and just looked at me, the gun at the ready. Robinson was behind him but did not come into the room. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What did you tell Perigord?’

  ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’m not going to argue,’ he said. ‘I’m done with that. Watch him, Earl. If you have to shoot, make sure it’s at his legs.’

  He went away. Earl closed the door and leaned his back against it, covering me with the shotgun. It was all going wrong—he was in the wrong place. A break in the pattern was ruining the plan.

  I said, ‘What did he say your name was?’ My mouth was dry.

  ‘Earl.’ The barrel of the shotgun lowered a fraction.

  I slid sideways on the bed about a foot, going towards him. ‘How much is he paying you?’

  ‘None of your damn business.’

  Another foot. ‘I think it is. Maybe I could pay better.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘I know.’ I moved up again, nearly to the end of the bed. ‘Let’s talk about it.’

  I was getting too close. He stepped sideways. ‘Get back or I’ll blow yo’ haid off.’

  ‘Sure.’ I retreated up the bed to my original position. ‘I’m certain I could pay better.’ I was cheering silently because friend Earl had been manoeuvred into the right place. I leaned back cas
ually against the wall and felt behind me for the string. ‘Like to talk about it?’

  ‘Nope.’

  I groped and could not find the bloody string. The pottery knife was hidden by my body ready to be grasped by my right hand, but the string had to be tugged with my left hand, and not too obviously, either. I had to be casual and in an apparently easy posture, an appearance hard to maintain as I groped behind me.

  As my fingertips touched the string there came a scream from outside, full-throated and ending in a bubbling wail. All my nerves jumped convulsively and Earl jerked the gun warningly. ‘Steady, mister!’ He grinned, showing brown teeth. ‘Just Leroy havin’ his fun. My turn next.’

  Debbie screamed again, a cry full of agony. ‘Christ damn you!’ I whispered and got my index finger hooked around the string.

  ‘Let’s have your hands in sight,’ said Earl. ‘Both of ‘em.’

  ‘Sure.’ I put my left hand forward, showing it to him empty—but I had tugged that string.

  I dived forward just as the shotgun blasted. I think Earl had expected me to move up the bed as I had before, but I went at right-angles to that expectation. My shoulder hit the ground with a hell of a thump and I rolled over, struggling to get up before he could get in a second shot. There was no second shot. As I scooped up the fallen shotgun I saw that nearly 600 foot-pounds of kinetic energy had cracked his skull as you would crack an egg with a spoon. A fleeting backward glimpse showed the mattress of the bed ripped to pieces by the buckshot.

  I had no time for sightseeing. From outside Debbie screamed again in a way that raised the hair on my neck, and there was a shout. I opened the door and nearly ran into a man I had not seen before. He looked at me in astonishment and began to raise the pistol in his right hand. I lashed out at him with my home-made knife and ripped upwards. A peculiar sound came from him as the breath was forcibly ejected from his lungs. He gagged for air and looked down at himself, then dropped the pistol and clapped both hands to his belly to stop his entrails falling out.