by Jack Higgins
Ferguson and Dillon parked the jeep in the car park at Mongoose Junction and walked along to Jenny’s Place. In blazer and Guards tie, the Panama at a suitable angle, the Brigadier looked extremely impressive. Dillon wore a navy blue silk suit, a white cotton shirt buttoned at the neck. When they entered Jenny’s Place the bar was already half-full with the early evening trade. Bob Carney leaned on the bar wearing white linen slacks and a blue shirt, a blazer on the stool beside him.
He turned and whistled. “A regular fashion parade. Thank God I dressed.”
“Well, we are meeting the Devil face to face, in a manner of speaking.” Ferguson laid his Malacca cane on the bar. “Under the circumstances I think one should make an effort. Champagne, innkeeper,” he said to Billy.
“I thought that might be what you’d want. I got a bottle of Pol Roget on ice right here.” Billy produced it from beneath the bar and thumbed out the cork. “Now the surprise I’ve been saving.”
“And what’s that?” Carney asked.
“Miss Jenny was on the phone from Paris, France. She’s coming home. Should be here right about this time tomorrow.”
“That’s wonderful,” Carney said.
Billy filled three glasses. “And she gave me a special message for you, Mr. Dillon.”
“Oh, and what would that be?” Dillon inquired.
“She said it was important. She said to tell you she’s coming back because she thinks she might know where it is. Does that make any kind of sense to you, because it sure as hell doesn’t to me?”
“All the sense in the world.” Ferguson raised his glass and toasted the others. “To women in general, gentlemen, and Jenny Grant in particular. Bloody marvelous.” He emptied his glass. “Good, into battle,” and he turned and led the way out.
Behind them, the bearded fisherman who had been sitting at the end of the bar listening, got up and left. He walked to a public phone just along the waterfront, took out the piece of paper Serra had given him and rang the Maria Blanco. Santiago was in his cabin getting ready for the evening when Serra hurried in carrying the phone.
“What on earth is it?” Santiago demanded.
“My informant in St. John. He just heard Dillon and his friends talking to Jones, the bartender at Jenny’s Place. Apparently she was on the phone from Paris, will be in St. John tomorrow evening.”
“Interesting,” Santiago said.
“That’s not all, Señor, she sent a message to Dillon to say she was coming back because she thinks she might know where it is.”
Santiago’s face was very pale and he snatched the phone. “Santiago here. Now repeat your story to me.” He listened and finally said, “You’ve done well, my friend, you’ll be taken care of. Continue to keep your eyes open.”
He handed the portable phone to Serra. “You see, everything comes to he who waits,” and he turned back to the mirror.
Ferguson, Dillon and Carney crossed from Mongoose and followed the trail to Lind Point toward the seaplane ramp. Ferguson said, “Rather convenient having a ramp here and so on.”
“Actually we do have a regular seaplane service some of the time,” Carney said. “When it’s operating, you can fly to St. Thomas or St. Croix, even direct to San Juan on Puerto Rico.”
They reached the Cessna and Dillon walked round checking it generally, then pulled the blocks away from the wheels. He opened the rear door. “Okay, my friends, in you go.”
Ferguson went first, followed by Carney. Dillon opened the other door, climbed into the pilot’s seat, slammed and locked the door behind him, strapping himself in. He released the brakes and the plane rolled down the ramp into the water and drifted outwards on the current.
Ferguson looked across the bay in the fading light. “Beautiful evening, but I’ve been thinking. We’ll be flying back in darkness.”
“No, it’s a full moon tonight, Brigadier,” Carney told him.
“I checked the weather forecast,” Dillon added. “Clear, crisp night, perfect conditions. The flight shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes. Seat belts fastened, life jackets under the seat.”
He switched on, the engine coughed into life, the propeller turned. He taxied out of harbor, checked to make sure there was no boat traffic and turned into the wind. They drifted up into the air and started to climb, leveling out at a thousand feet. They passed over part of the southern edge of St. John, then Reef Bay and finally Ram Head before striking out to sea toward Norman Island, Samson Cay perhaps four miles south of it. It was a flight totally without incident, and exactly fifteen minutes after leaving Cruz Bay he was making his first pass over the island. The Maria Blanco was lying in the harbor below, three hundred yards off-shore, and there were a number of yachts, still a few people on the beach in the fading light.
“A real rich folks’ hideaway,” Bob Carney said.
“Is that so?” Ferguson said, unimpressed. “Well I hope they do a decent meal, that’s all I’m interested in.”
Carlos Prieto came out of the entrance to reception and looked up as the Cessna passed overhead. There was an ancient Ford station wagon parked at the bottom of the steps, an ageing black man leaning against it.
Prieto said, “There they are, Joseph, get up to the airstrip and bring them in.”
“Right away, sir.” Joseph got behind the wheel and drove off.
As Prieto turned to go inside, Algaro emerged. “Ah, there you are, I’ve been looking for you. Do we have an old black somewhere around called Jackson, Joseph Jackson?”
“We certainly do. He was the driver of that station wagon that just drove off. He’s gone to the airstrip to pick up Brigadier Ferguson and the others. Do you need him for anything important?”
“It can wait,” Algaro told him and went back inside.
Dillon put the Cessna down for a perfect landing, taxied toward the other end of the airstrip, turning into the wind, and switched off. “Not bad, Dillon,” Ferguson told him. “You can fly a plane, I’ll grant you that.”
“You’ve no idea how good that makes me feel,” Dillon said.
They all got out and Joseph Jackson came to meet them. “Car waiting right over here, gents. I’ll take you down to the restaurant. Joseph’s the name, Joseph Jackson. Anything you want, just let me know. I’ve been around this island longer than anybody.”
“Indeed?” Ferguson said. “I don’t suppose you were here in the War? I understand it was unoccupied?”
“That ain’t so,” Jackson said. “There was an old hotel here, belonged to an American family, the Herberts. The hotel was unoccupied during the War, but me and my wife, May, we came over from Tortola to look after things.”
They had reached the station wagon and Ferguson said, “Herbert, you say, they were the owners?”
“Miss Herbert’s father, he gave it to her as a wedding present, then she married a Mr. Vail.” Jackson opened the rear door for Ferguson to get in. “Then she had a daughter.”
Dillon sat beside Ferguson and Carney took the front seat beside Jackson. The old boy was obviously enjoying himself.
“So, Miss Herbert became Mrs. Vail, who had a daughter called Miss Vail?” Dillon said.
Jackson started the engine and cackled out loud. “Only Miss Vail then became Lady Pamer, what do you think of that? A real English lady, just like the movies.”
“Switch off that engine!” Ferguson ordered.
Jackson looked bewildered. “Did I say something?”
Bob Carney reached over and turned the key. Ferguson said, “Miss Vail became Lady Pamer, you’re sure?”
“I knew her, didn’t I? She came here at the end of the War with her baby, little Francis. That must have been in April forty-five.”
There was a heavy silence. Dillon said, “Was anyone else here at the time?”
“German gent named Strasser. He just turned up one night. I think he got a fishing boat to drop him off from Tortola, but Lady Pamer, she was expecting him…”
“And Sir Joseph?”
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p; “He came over from England in June. Mr. Strasser, he moved on. The Pamers left and went back to England after that. Sir Joseph, he used to come back, but that was years ago when the resort was first built.”
“And Sir Francis Pamer?” Ferguson asked.
“Little Francis?” Jackson laughed. “He growed up real fine. I’ve seen him here many times. Can we go now, gents?”
“Of course,” Ferguson said.
Jackson drove away, Dillon took out a cigarette and no one said a word until they reached the front entrance. Ferguson produced his wallet, extracted a ten-pound note and passed it to Jackson. “My thanks.”
“And I thank you,” Jackson told him. “I’ll be ready for you gents when you want to go back.”
The three of them paused at the bottom of the steps. Dillon said, “So now we know how Santiago comes to be so well informed.”
“God in heaven,” Ferguson said. “A Minister of the Crown and one of the oldest families in England.”
“A lot of those people thought Hitler had the right ideas during the nineteen-thirties,” Dillon said. “It fits, Brigadier, it all fits. What about Carter?”
“The British Secret Service was unfortunate enough to employ dear old Kim Philby, Burgess, MacLean, all of whom also worked for the KGB and sold us down the river to Communism without a moment’s hesitation. Since then, there was Blunt, rumours of a fifth man, a sixth.” Ferguson sighed. “In spite of the fact that I don’t care a jot for Simon Carter, I must tell you that I believe he’s an old-fashioned patriot and honest as the day is long.”
Carlos Prieto appeared at the top of the steps. “Brigadier Ferguson, what a pleasure. Señor Santiago is waiting for you in the bar. He’s just come over from the Maria Blanco. He prefers to stay on board while he’s here.”
The lounge bar was busy with the rich and the good as one would expect in such a place. People tended to be older rather than younger, the men especially, mostly American, being rather obviously close to the end of their working lives. There was a preponderance of trousers in fake Scottish plaid swelling over ample bellies, white tuxedos.
“God save me,” Dillon said, “I’ve never seen so many men who resembled dance-band leaders in their prime.”
Ferguson laughed out loud and Santiago, who was seated in a booth by the bar, Algaro bending over him, turned to look at them. He stood up and reached out a hand urbanely. “My dear Brigadier Ferguson, such a pleasure.”
“Señor Santiago,” Ferguson said formally. “I’ve long looked forward to this meeting.” He pointed briefly at Algaro with his Malacca cane. “But do we really have to have this creature present? I mean couldn’t he go and feed the fish or something?”
Algaro looked as if he would have liked to kill him on the spot, but Santiago laughed out loud. “Poor Algaro, an acquired taste, I fear.”
“The little devil.” Dillon wagged a finger at Algaro.
“Now go and chew a bone or something, there’s a good boy.”
Santiago turned and said to Algaro in Spanish, “Your turn will come, go and do as I have told you.”
Algaro went out and Ferguson said, “So, here we are. What now?”
“A little champagne perhaps, a pleasant dinner?” Santiago waved to Prieto, who snapped his fingers at a waiter and escorted him with a bottle of Krug in an ice bucket. “One can be civilized, can’t one?”
“Isn’t that a fact?” Dillon checked the label. “Eighty-three. Not bad, Señor.”
“I bow to your judgment.” The waiter filled the glasses and Santiago raised his. “To you, Brigadier Ferguson, to the playing fields of Eton and the continued success of Group Four.”
“You are well informed,” the Brigadier said.
“And you, Captain Carney, what a truly remarkable fellow you are. War hero, sea captain, diver of legendary proportions. Who on earth could they get to play you in the movie?”
“I suppose I’d just have to do it myself,” Carney told him.
“And Mr. Dillon. What can I say to a man whose only rival in his chosen profession has been Carlos.”
“So you know all about us,” Ferguson said. “Very impressive. You must need what’s in that U-boat very badly indeed.”
“Let’s lay our cards on the table, Brigadier. You want what should still be in the captain’s quarters, Bormann’s briefcase containing his personal authorization from the Führer, the Blue Book and the Windsor Protocol.”
There was a pause and it was Carney who said, “Interesting, you didn’t call him Hitler, you said the Führer.”
Santiago’s face was hard. “A great man, a very great man who had a vision of the world as it should be, not as it has turned out.”
“Really?” Ferguson commented. “I’d always understood that if you counted Jews, Gypsies, Russians and war dead from various countries, around twenty-five million people died to prove him wrong.”
“We both want the same thing, you and I,” Santiago said. “The contents of that case. You don’t want them to fall into the wrong hands. The old scandal affecting so many people, the Duke of Windsor, putting the Royal Family in the eye of the storm again. The media would have a field day. As I say, we both want the same thing. I don’t want all that to come out either.”
“So the work continues,” Ferguson said. “The Kamaraden? How many names are on that list, famous names, old names who have prospered since the War in industry and business, all on the back of Nazi money?”
“Jesus,” Dillon said. “It makes the Mafia look like small beer.”
“Come now,” Santiago told him. “Is any of this important after all these years?”
“It sure as hell must be, either to you or close friends,” Carney said, “otherwise why would you go to such trouble?”
“But it is important, Mr. Carney,” Ferguson said. “That’s the point. If the network continues over the years, if sons become involved, grandsons, people in higher places, politicians, for example.” He drank some more champagne. “Imagine, as I say, just for example, having someone high in Government. How useful that would be and then, after so many years, the kind of scandal that could bring everything down around your ears.”
Santiago waved for the waiter to pour more champagne. “I thought you might be sensible, but I see not. I don’t need you, Brigadier, or you, Mr. Carney. I have my own divers.”
“Finding it is not enough,” Carney said. “You’ve got to get into that tin can and that requires expertise.”
“I have divers, Mr. Carney, an ample supply of C4, is that the name of the explosive? I only employ people who know what they are doing.” He smiled. “But this is not getting us anywhere.” He stood up. “At least we can eat like civilized men. Please, gentlemen, join me.”
The Ford station wagon slowed to a halt at the side of the air strip, Algaro sitting in the rear behind Joseph Jackson. “Is this where you wanted, mister?”
“I guess so,” Algaro said. “Those people you brought in from the plane, what were they like?”
“Nice gentlemen,” Jackson said.
“No, what I mean is, were they curious? Did they ask questions?”
Jackson began to feel uncomfortable. “What kind of questions you mean, mister?”
“Let’s put it this way,” Algaro told him. “They talked and you talked. Now what about?”
“Well the English gentleman, he was interested in the old days. I told him how I was caretaker here in the Herbert place during the big War with my wife.”
“And what else did you tell him?”
“Nothing, mister, I swear.” Jackson was frightened now.
Algaro put a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed. “Tell me, damn you!”
“It was nothing much, mister.” Jackson struggled to get away. “About the Pamers.”
“The Pamers?”
“Yes, Lady Pamer and how she came here at the end of the War.”
“Tell me,” Algaro said. “Tell me everything.” He patted him on the side of the face. “
It’s all right, just tell the truth.”
Which Jackson did and when he was finished, Algaro said, “There, that wasn’t too bad, was it?”
He slid an arm across Jackson’s throat, put his other hand on top of his head and twisted, breaking the neck so cleanly that the old man was dead in a second. He went round, opened the door and pulled the body out. He positioned it with the head just under the car by the rear wheel, took out a flick knife, sprung it and stabbed the point into the rear offside tire so that it deflated. He got the tool kit out, raised the car on the hydraulic jack, whistling as he pumped it up.
Very quickly, he undid the bolts and removed the tire. He stood back and kicked at the jack and the rear of the station wagon lurched to one side and descended on Jackson. He took out the spare tire and laid it beside the other one, then walked across to the Cessna and stood looking at it for quite some time.
The meal was excellent. West Indian chicken wings with blue cheese, conch chowder followed by baked red snapper. No one opted for dessert and Santiago said, “Coffee?”
“I’d prefer tea,” Dillon told him.
“How very Irish of you.”
“All I could afford as a boy.”
“I’ll join you,” Ferguson said and at that moment Algaro appeared in the doorway.
“You must excuse me, gentlemen.” Santiago got up and went and joined Algaro. “What is it?”
“I found out who the Jackson man was, the old fool driving that Ford taxi.”
“So what happened?”
Algaro told him briefly and Santiago listened intently, watching as the waiter took tea and coffee to the table.
“But it means our friends now know that Sir Francis is involved in this business.”
“It doesn’t make any difference, Señor. We know the girl is returning tomorrow, we know she thinks she knows where the U-boat is. Who needs these people any more?”
“Algaro,” Santiago said. “What have you done?”
As Santiago returned to the table, Ferguson finished his tea and stood up. “Excellent dinner, Santiago, but we really must be going.”