Wyatt's Hurricane / Bahama Crisis

by Desmond Bagley

  As I rang off Bethel came in. ‘Nothing in Harry’s work sheets, Mr Mangan.’

  ‘I know. He didn’t do it. Do you know Bobby Bowen, my pilot?’ Bethel nodded. ‘Chase him up, will you? Tell him we’ll be flying to Freeport. Oh, and tell Dr Bosworth he’ll be coming with me. Mackay can take the samples to the hospital.’ Bethel turned to go, and I added, ‘And thanks. You’ve been a great help.’

  When he had gone I rang Perigord. He was not in his office, not entirely unnaturally considering the time of day, but neither was he at home. The telephone was answered by his daughter who told me in a piping voice that Mummy and Daddy were out. Where were they? She was vague about that. They had gone out to dinner. Could be the Stoned Crab or the Captain’s Charthouse or possibly the Japanese Steak House in the International Bazaar or the Lobster House in the Mall. Or was it the Lucayan Country Club? I sighed and thanked her, then reached for the Grand Bahama telephone directory.

  I found him in none of those places but finally ran him to earth in the Mai Tai. It took me some time to convince him of my sanity and even longer to move him to action. I think I ruined his dinner.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Tony Bosworth and I walked into the lobby of the Royal Palm and I noticed immediately the two uniformed policemen, one standing by the elevators, the other at the foot of the staircase. I crossed to the desk. ‘Is Commissioner Perigord here?’

  ‘In the manager’s office.’

  I jerked my head at Tony and we went in. Perigord, in plain clothes, was talking on the telephone, and Walker sat on a settee. Perigord said into the mouthpiece, ‘I quite agree; I’ll check it out thoroughly. I can expect you tomorrow, then.’ He looked up. ‘He’s here now; I’ll have it in more detail by then. Yes, I’ll meet you. Goodbye.’ He put down the telephone. ‘Now, Mangan, you’ll have to explain—’

  I cut him short. ‘First things first. I’d like you to get those coppers out of the lobby and out of sight. I don’t want Carrasco scared off.’

  He leaned forward. ’If your story is correct then Carrasco is the most dangerous man in the Bahamas.’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ I contradicted. ‘Robinson is, and he’s the joker I want. He’s the boss.’ I pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Besides, you can’t charge Carrasco with anything. You need hard proof and you’ve got none. But scare him and he’ll skip, and Robinson will send someone else in his place—someone we don’t know. Besides, I don’t like uniformed policemen cluttering up the public rooms in my hotels. It lowers the tone.’

  Perigord nodded and stood up. ‘We may be guarding an empty stable,’ he said sourly. ‘Carrasco may not be back. Your men have lost him.’ He walked out.

  I turned on Walker. ‘For God’s sake! Is that true?’

  He said heavily, ‘He went into the john at the Buccaneer Club and didn’t come out. Rodriguez thinks he left by the window. His car is still there but no Carrasco.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Maybe he’s in Harry’s Bar; that’s not far from the Buccaneer.’

  ‘No—Palmer checked that out.’

  I thought of the topography of Deadman Reef. ‘A boat,’ I said. ‘He’s meeting a boat. Have your men thought of that?’

  Walker said nothing but reached for the telephone as Perigord came back. He glanced at Tony. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Dr Bosworth. He identified the disease and has been of great help.’

  Perigord nodded briefly and sat down. ‘Are you really trying to tell me that Carrasco is a maniac—the stereotyped mad doctor of the “B” movies—who is poisoning the water in hotels in these islands?’

  ‘I don’t believe him to be mad, but that’s what he’s doing. And Robinson is directing him.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I’ve had a few thoughts in that direction which I’ll come to in a minute. Let’s look at the evidence.’

  ‘That I’d be pleased to do,’ said Perigord sardonically.

  ‘I know it’s all circumstantial, but so is most evidence of murder. When I found that glass tube it all came together suddenly. One, I’d seen others like it on Kayles’s boat. Two, I remembered what Kayles must have heard me saying to Sam Ford.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘I was blowing my top about the chain of disasters which had hit the Bahamas. Rioting in the streets of Nassau, Legionnaires’ disease at the Parkway, the burning of the Fun Palace, even the shredding of the luggage at the airport. Now, I’d knocked Kayles cold and he was just coming to his senses. He must have been muzzy—dislocated enough in his mind to think I was actually describing Robinson’s doings to Sam. So when he escaped he reported to Robinson that I knew all.’

  I frowned. ‘And what convinced Robinson was that there was at least one item on that list that Kayles wasn’t privy to. That indicated to Robinson that I did indeed know about his plans—he told me so—and he was as worried as hell because I might have told you.’

  Perigord said, ‘Are you telling me that Robinson burned down the Fun Palace? And sabotaged the carousel at the airport?’

  ‘Yes, I think he did—but not personally. Another thing: when Robinson admitted to trying to have me killed in an air crash he made a curious remark. He said the death of the Americans was an unexpected bonus, and he went on to say that Wall Street was a bit rocky about it. The idea seemed to please him.’

  ‘Come to the point you are so circuitously making.’

  ‘It was all pulled into place by a remark made by Billy Cunningham,’ I said. ‘When we put together the Theta Corporation Billy did some research in the course of which he talked to Butler of the Ministry of Tourism. He learned that eighty per cent of the economy and two-thirds of the population are supported by tourism. Billy said to me that it was too many eggs in one basket, and it worried him a little. And that’s your answer.’

  ‘Spell it out,’ said Perigord.

  ‘Robinson is trying to sabotage the economy of the Bahamas.’ Perigord regarded me expressionlessly, and I said, ‘How many tourists have we lost since all this began? Ask Butler, and I guarantee the answer will startle you. And it’s not long since Billy Cunningham warned me that if this series of disasters continued the Cunningham Corporation would think seriously of pulling out. The company which runs the Parkway in Nassau is already nearly bankrupt.’

  ‘It’s all too thin,’ complained Perigord. ‘Too speculative. The only hard evidence we have is the glass tube you found, and that won’t be evidence if it’s clean. How long will it take you to make the tests, Dr Bosworth?’

  ‘The hospital in Nassau is doing the testing, and it will take four days.’

  ‘Not sooner?’

  ‘This bacterium is very elusive,’ said Tony. ‘The samples have to go through a guinea pig and then be cultured on an agar medium supplemented by cysteine and iron. Then—’

  Perigord flapped his hand. ‘Spare me the technical details,’ he said irritably. ‘All right—four days.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something, Commissioner,’ said Tony. ‘If that capsule gives a positive result it means someone has found a way of culturing Legionella pneumophila in quantity, and that implies a well-equipped biological laboratory. It’s not something you can whip up in a kitchen.’

  Perigord absorbed that in silence. Walker stirred and said, ‘There’s something you ought to know. This morning one of my guys found Carrasco in a place he shouldn’t be—on one of the back stairs used by the cleaning staff. He said he’d got lost; taken a wrong turning and gone through the wrong door.’

  I slapped the desk with the flat of my hand. ‘Perigord, what more do you want?’ I turned on Walker. ‘So Carrasco has given you the slip before. I hope to God he didn’t doctor the water tanks here.’

  ‘No way,’ said Walker, stung. ‘And he didn’t give us the slip. He dropped out of sight and my guy went looking for him. He wasn’t out of sight for more than three minutes.’

  ‘I could bear to know a lot about who and why,’ said Perigord. ‘There’s a proverb to the effect
that fishing is best done in troubled waters,’ I said. ‘The CIA know it as destabilization. They’ve been pretty good at it in the past.’

  He looked startled. ‘You’re not suggesting the CIA is behind this?’

  ‘I don’t know who is behind it—I didn’t say it was the CIA. It’s not in the American interest to destabilize a sound capitalist economy in this part of the world. Others do come to mind, though.’

  ‘Five will get you ten that Carrasco is a Cuban,’ said Walker. ‘Venezuelan my ass.’ The telephone rang and he picked it up. ‘I’m expecting this.’ He held a short conversation, his end of it consisting of monosyllables. As he laid down the handset he said, ’You were right; Carrasco went out in a boat. He’s just comeback and he’s in the Buccaneer Club now, having a drink. We have a picture of him landing on the beach.’

  ‘Taken at night,’ I said scornfully. ‘A fat lot of good that will be. And what good is a picture? We already know what he looks like.’

  ‘There was another guy in the boat,’ said Walker reasonably. ‘We might like to know who he is. As for picture quality, if anyone can come up with something good it’s Rodriguez; he has some kind of gismo on his camera. That guy is gadget-happy. He says Carrasco came back in a small boat that’s probably a tender to a big yacht. After landing Carrasco, the boat went out to sea again.’

  ‘A night rendezvous,’ said Perigord. ‘I’ll have a police boat take a look at Deadman Reef.’ He reached for the telephone.

  When he had finished we continued to kick the problem around for quite a while. No, Perigord had not investigated the catastrophe of the airport carousel; it had not been considered a police matter at the time. He would look into it next day. The fire at the Fun Palace in Nassau had been investigated for arson, but no firm evidence had come up. It might be possible to borrow a deep-diving submersible from the Americans to look for the remains of Pinder’s Navajo in Exuma Sound. Evidence of sabotage would be useful.

  ‘Useful for what?’ I asked. ‘That’s in the past and I’m worried about the future. I’m wondering what Robinson’s department of dirty tricks will come up with next.’

  It was agreed that Carrasco was our only lead and that he would be closely watched. I looked hard at Walker. ‘And don’t lose him again.’

  ‘I’ll assign some of my own men to him,’ said Perigord. ‘There are too many whites watching him now. My blacks will blend into the background better.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Nearly midnight. I suggest that Dr Bosworth will sleep better in a bed than in that chair. And I’m for bed, too.’

  I turned and found Tony asleep. I woke him up. ‘I’ll find you a room. Come on.’

  We went into the lobby, but Walker stayed behind to wait for the call which would tell us that Carrasco had left the Buccaneer. He would not have long to wait because the Buccaneer closes at midnight. There were quite a few returning revellers in the lobby and I waited at the desk for a few moments while they collected their keys.

  Perigord walked towards the entrance, but turned and came back. ‘I forgot to tell you that I have informed Commissioner Deane in Nassau of these developments, and he is flying across to see me tomorrow. He will certainly want to see you. Shall we say my office at ten tomorrow morning?’

  Perigord may have been the top copper on Grand Bahama, but there was a bigger gun in Nassau. I said, ‘That will be okay.’

  The man next to me asked for his key. ‘Room two-three-five.’

  Carrasco!

  I should not have looked at him but I did, in an involuntary movement. He picked up his key and turned towards me. He certainly recognized me because I saw the fractional change in his expression, and he must have seen the recognition in my eyes because he dropped the key, whirled, and ran for the entrance.

  ‘Stop him!’ I yelled. ‘Stop that man!’

  Carrasco turned on me and there was a gun in his hand. He levelled it at me and I flung myself sideways as he fired. Then there was another shot from behind me, and another. When I next looked, Carrasco was pitching forward to fall on the floor. I looked back and saw Perigord in the classic stance—legs apart with knees bent, and his arms straight out with both hands clasped on the butt of the revolver he held.

  I picked myself up shakily and found I was trembling all over, and my legs were as limp as sticks of cooked celery and about as much use in holding me up. Perigord came forward and put his hand under my elbow in support. ‘Are you all right? Did he hit you?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t feel anything. He threw a bloody scare into me, though.’

  Somewhere in the middle of all that I had heard a woman scream and now there was a babble of excited voices. Perigord’s uniformed men appeared from where he had hidden them, and he motioned them forward to break up the mob which was surrounding Carrasco’s body. He raised his voice. ‘All right, everybody; it’s all over. Please clear the lobby and go to your rooms. There’s nothing more to see.’

  I beckoned to the nearest bellboy. ‘Get something to cover the body—a tablecloth or a blanket.’ I saw Walker standing in the doorway of the manager’s office, and strode over to him. ‘What the hell happened?’ I was as mad as a hornet. ‘How did he get here without warning?’ Walker was bewildered. ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out. There’s Rodriguez.’ He ran towards the entrance of the lobby where Rodriguez had just appeared.

  Perigord was standing over the body and Tony Bosworth was on his knees beside it. Tony looked up and said something and Perigord nodded, then came over to me. ‘He’s dead,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to kill him but I had no option. There were too many innocent bystanders around to have bullets flying. Where can we put him?’

  ‘In the office will be best.’

  The policemen carried the body into the office and we followed.

  ‘Where did his bullet go?’ I asked. ‘Anyone hurt?’

  ‘You’ll probably find a hole in the reception desk,’ said Perigord.

  ‘Well, thanks. That was good shooting.’ Walker returned and I stuck my finger under his nose. ‘What happened? He damn near killed me.’

  Walker spread his hands. ‘The damnedest thing. Rodriguez was in the bar watching Carrasco, and Palmer was in the car outside with the engine running. When Carrasco made his move to go, Rodriguez went to the public phone to make his call and found that some drunken joker had cut the cord. It had been working earlier because I’d talked to him about a possible boat. He didn’t have much time because Carrasco was already outside, in his car, and on the move. So he made a judgement—he went after Carrasco.’

  Perigord said, ‘Perhaps Carrasco knew he was being watched. Perhaps he cut the telephone cord.’

  ‘No way,’ said Walker. ‘Rodriguez said that Carrasco never went near the public phone when he came back from his sea trip. It was just plain dumb luck.’

  ‘There was no reason for Carrasco to cut the cord,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t going anywhere mysterious; he was coming back here. And now he’s dead, and we’ve lost our lead, to Robinson.’

  ‘Well, let’s have a look at him,’ said Perigord. He stripped away the tablecloth which covered the body, knelt beside it, and began going through the pockets, starting with the inner breast pocket. ‘Passport—Venezuelan.’ He opened it. ‘Dr Luis Carrasco.’ He laid it aside. ‘Wallet with visiting cards in the name of Dr Luis Carrasco; address—Avenida Bolivar, 226, Caracas. And money, more than a man should decently carry; there must be 4000 dollars here.’

  There were several other items: a billfold containing a few dollars in both American and Bahamian currency, coins, a pen knife, a cigar case containing three Havana cigars—all the junk a man usually carries in his pockets.

  From a side pocket of the jacket Perigord took a flat aluminium box. He opened it and there, nestling in cotton wool, were three glass ampoules filled with a yellowish liquid. He held it up. ‘Recognize them?’

  ‘They’re exactly like those I saw in Kayles’s boat,’ I said. ‘And like the broken one I found on th
e roof of the Sea Gardens Hotel. My bet is that he picked them up tonight when he went on his little sea trip. He wouldn’t want to carry those about too long, and they weren’t in his room when we searched it.’

  He closed the box and stood up. ‘I think you’re beginning to make your case. Commissioner Deane will definitely want to see you tomorrow morning.’

  I glanced at the clock. ‘This morning.’ I was feeling depressed. Later, when the body was removed on a stretcher I reflected gloomily that Carrasco had advanced his bloody cause as much in the manner of his death as in life. A shootout in the lobby of a hotel could scarcely be called an added attraction.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The morning brought news—bad and good.

  When I got home I told Debbie what had happened because there was no way of keeping it from her; it was certain to be on the front page of the Freeport News and on the radio. She said incredulously, ‘Shot him!’

  ‘That’s right. Perigord shot him right there in the lobby of the Royal Palm. A hell of a way to impress the guests.’

  ‘And after he shot at you. Tom, you could have been killed.’

  ‘I haven’t a scratch on me.’ I said that lightly enough, but secretly I was pleased by Debbie’s solicitude which was more than she had shown after my encounter with Kayles in the Jumentos.

  She was pale. ‘When will all this stop?’ Her voice trembled.

  ‘When we’ve caught up with Robinson. We’ll get there.’ I hoped I put enough conviction into my voice because right then I could not see a snowball’s chance in hell of doing it.

  So I slept on it, but did not dream up any good ideas. In the morning, while shaving, I switched on the radio to listen to the news. As might have been predicted the big news was of the shooting of an unnamed man in the lobby of the Royal Palm by the gallant and heroic Deputy-Commissioner Perigord. It was intelligent of Perigord to keep Carrasco’s name out of it, but also futile; if Robinson was around to hear the story he would be shrewd enough to know who had been killed.