Bahama Crisis

by Desmond Bagley

  "I'll find you a room. Come on."

  We went into the lobby, but W'alker 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 iiHl 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 the 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. T 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.

  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 w as 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.

  The bad news came with the second item on the radio. An oil tanker had blown up in Exuma Sound; an air reconnaissance found an oil slick already twenty miles long, and the betting was even on whether the oil would foul the beaches of Eleuthera or the Exuma Cays, depending on which way it drifted.

  The Bahamas do not have much going for them. We have
no minerals, poor agriculture because of the thin soil, and little industry. But what we do have we have made the most of in building a great tourist industry. We have the sea and sun and beaches with sand as white as snow so we developed water sports; swimming, scuba-diving, sailing – and we needed oiled water and beaches as much as we needed Legionella pneumophila.

  I could not understand what an oil tanker was doing in Exuma Sound, especially a 30,000 tonner. A ship that size could not possibly put into any port in any of the surrounding islands she would draw far too much water. I detected the hand of Robinson somewhere; an unfounded notion to be sure, but this was another hammer blow to tourism in the Bahamas.

  I dressed and breakfasted, kissed Debbie goodbye, and checked into my office before going on to see Perigord. Walker, my constant companion, had not much to say, being conscious of the fiasco of the previous night, and so he was as morose as I was depressed. At the office I gave him a job to do in order to take his mind off his supposed shortcomings.

  "Ring the Port Authority and find out all you can about the tanker that blew up last night. Say you're enquiring on my behalf." Then I got down to looking at the morning mail.

  At half past nine Billy Cunningham unexpectedly appeared.

  "What's all this about a shoot-out at the OK Cori-al?" he demanded without preamble.

  "How do you know about it?"

  "Steve Walker works for me," he said tersely.

  "He keeps me informed.

  Was Debbie involved in any way? "

  "Didn't Walker tell you she wasn't?"

  "I forgot to ask when he rang last night." Billy blew out his cheeks and sat down.

  "I haven't told Jack about this, but he's sure to find out. He's not in good shape and bad news won't do him any good. We've got to get this mess cleared up, Tom. What's the pitch?"

  "If you've talked to Walker you know as much as I do. We've lost our only lead to Robinson." I held his eye.

  "Have you flown a thousand miles just to hold my hand?"

  He shrugged.

  "Billy One is worried. He reckons we should get Debbie out of here, both for her own sake and Jack's."

  "She's well enough protected," I said.

  "Protected!" Billy snorted.

  "Sieve Walker is pissed off with your cops; he tells me they've taken his guns. How can he protect her if his guys are unarmed?"

  "Perigord seems to be doing all right," I said.

  "And there's an armed police officer at the house."

  "Oh!" said Billy.

  "I didn't know that." He was silent for a moment.

  "How will you find Robinson now?"

  "I don't know," I said, and we discussed the problem for a few minutes, then I checked the time.

  "I have an appointment with Perigord and his boss. Maybe they'll come up with something."

  It was then that Rodriguez and the good news came in.

  "I've got something for you," he said, and skimmed a black- and-white photograph across the desk.

  It was a good photograph, a damned good photograph. It showed Carrasco hopping over the bows of a dory which had its prow dug into a sandy beach. The picture was as sharp as a pin and his features showed up clearly. In the stern of the dory, holding on to the tiller bar of an outboard motor, was another man who was equally sharply delineated. I did not know him.

  "You took this last night?" Rodriguez nodded.

  "You were crazy to use a flash. What did Carrasco do?"

  "He did nothing. And who said anything about a flash? That crazy I'm not."

  I stared at him then looked at the picture.

  "Then how…?"

  He laughed and explained. The 'gismo' mentioned by Walker was a light amplifier, originally developed by the military for gun sights used at night but now much used by naturalists and others who wished to observe animals.

  "And for security operations," Rodriguez added.

  "You can take a pretty good picture using only starlight, but last night there was a new moon."

  I looked at the photograph again, then handed it to Billy.

  "All very nice, but it doesn't get us very far. All that shows is Carrasco climbing from a boat on to a beach. We might get somewhere by looking for the man in the stern, but I doubt it. Anyway, I'll give it to Perigord; maybe he can make something of it."

  "I took more than one picture," said Rodriguez.

  "Take a look at this one especially at the stern." Another photograph skimmed across the desk.

  This picture showed the dory again which had turned and was heading out to sea. And it was a jackpot because, lettered across the stern, were the words: "Tender to Capistrano'.

  "Bingo!" I said.

  "You might have made up for losing Carrasco last night." I looked at Billy.

  "That's something for you to do while I'm with Perigord. Ring around the marinas and try to trace Capistrano."

  Five minutes later I was in Perigord's office. Also present was Commissioner Deane, a big, white Bahamian with a face the colour of mahogany, and the authority he radiated was like a blow in the face.

  I knew him, but not too well. We had been at school together in Nassau, but I had been a new boy when he was in his last year. I had followed him to Cambridge and he had gone on to the Middle Temple.

  Returning to the Bahamas he had joined the Police Force, an odd thing for a Bahamian barrister to do, because mostly they enter politics with the House of Assembly as prime target. He was reputed to be tough and abrasive.

  Now he said raspily, "This is a very strange business you've come up with, Mangan."

  "We'd better discuss it later." I tossed the pictures before Perigord.

  "Carrasco probably made a rendezvous with a boat called Capistrano. Rodriguez took those last night."

  A little time was wasted while we discussed how Rodriguez could possibly have taken photographs at night without a flash, then Perigord twitched an eyebrow at Deane.

  "With your permission?"

  "Yes," said Deane.

  "Get busy But you have a watching brief, that's all."

  Perigord left, and Deane said, "As I started to say, you have come up with an oddity. You have suggested a crime, or a series of crimes, with no hard evidence merely a chain oi suppositions."

  "No evidence! What about the ampoules taken from Carrasco?"

  "Those won't be evidence until we find what is in them, and Perigord tells me that will take four days. We flew an ampoule to Nassau during the night. So far the whole affair is very misty. A lot of strange things have been happening around you, and don't think my deputy has not kept me informed. Now, these events are subject to many interpretations, as all subjective evidence is."

  "Subjective!" I said incredulously.

  "My first wife disappeared and my daughter was found dead; there's nothing bloody subjective about that. My second wife and I were kidnapped; I suppose we dreamed it up. There have been two cases of disease in hotels and that's fact.

  Commissioner, bloody hard fact. "

  "What is subjective is your interpretation of these events," said Deane.

  "You have brought in a number of events the breakdown of a baggage carousel at the airport, a fire, an air crash, and a number of other things, and the only connection you can offer is your interpretation. Just give me one piece of hard evidence, something I can put before a court that's all I ask."

  "You've got it the ampoules."

  "I've got nothing, until four days from now. And what's in the ampoules might prove to be a cough cure."

  "You can prove it right now," I said.

  "Just take one of those ampoules, break it, and inhale deeply. But don't ask me to be in the same room when you do it."

  Deane smiled unexpectedly.

  "You're a stubborn man. No, I won't do that because you may be right. In fact, I think you are right." He stood up and began to pace the room.

  "Your interpretation of events dovetails with a number of mysteries which have been occupying
my mind lately."

  I sighed.

  "I'm glad to hear it."

  "A lot of telephoning was done during the night. We now know that Dr. Luis Carrasco is unknown at 226 Avenida Bolivar in Caracas."

  That was disappointing.

  "Another lead gone," I said dejectedly.

  "Negative findings can be useful," observed Deane.

  "It tells us, for instance, that he was bent, that he had something to hide." He added casually, "Of course, now we know his real name all becomes clear."

  I sat up. You know who he is? "

  "When you sealed his hotel room you did well. We could make nothing of the fingerprints so we passed them on to the Americans, and their report came on that telephone just before you arrived here. Carrasco turns out to be one Serafin Perez."

  That meant nothing to me.

  "Never heard of him."

  "Not many people have," said Deane.

  "He liked his anonymity. Perez is – was a Cuban, a hard line communist and Moscow-trained. He was with Che Guevara when Guevara tried to export the revolution, but he broke with Guevara because he thought Guevara was mishandling the business. As it turned out Perez proved to be right and Guevara wrong. Since then he's been busy and a damn sight more successful than Che. He's been pitching up all over the place Grenada, Nicaragua, Martinique, Jamaica. Notice anything about that list?"

  "The hot spots," I said.

  "Grenada has gone left, so has Nicaragua.

  Jamaica is going, and the French are holding on to Martinique with their finger tips. "

  "I believe Perez was here during the riots in Nassau. There was a certain amount of justification for that trouble, but not to the length of riot. Many of the rioters had no direct connection and I smelled a rent-a-mob. Now I know who rented it."

  "So much for Carrasco-Perez," I said "A white ant." Deane looked puzzled.

  "What do you mean?"

  "When I was at Cambridge I knew a South African. He once said something which had me baffled and I asked him to explain it. He said he had been white-anted; apparently it's a common South African idiom. A white ant is what we would call a termite, Commissioner."

  Deane grunted.

  "Don't talk to me about termites," he said sourly.