the island... but probably you'd get thrown into the can first. You wouldn't last fifteen minutes with those social rejects, you know what I mean? They'd peel your white skin, babe, layer by layer... Now, you be a good boy, Fergy. Arthur says for you to keep the thousand. You'll probably earn it.' The man held up the empty envelope. 'Two sets of prints on this. Yours and mine... Ciao, baby. I've got to get out of here and back to non-extradition country.'
The driver gunned the engine twice and slapped the gearshift effortlessly. He swung the Triumph expertly in a semicircle and roared off into the darkness of Harbour Street.
Julian Warfield was in Kingston now. He had flown in three days ago and used all of Dunstone's resources to uncover the strange activities of Alexander McAuliff. Peter Jensen had followed instructions to the letter; he had kept McAuliff under the closest scrutiny, paying desk clerks and doormen and taxi drivers to keep him informed of the American's every move.
And always he and his wife were out of sight, in no way associated with that scrutiny.
It was the least he could do for Julian Warfield... He would do anything Julian asked, anything Dunstone, Limited, demanded. He would deliver nothing but his best to the man and the organization that had taken him and his wife out of the valley of despair and given them a world with which they could cope and in which they could function.
Work they loved, money and security beyond the reach of most academic couples. Enough to forget.
Julian had found them nearly twenty years ago, beaten, finished, destroyed by events... impoverished, with nowhere and no one to return to. He and Ruth had been caught; it was a time of madness, of Klaus Fuchs and Guy Burgess and convictions born of misplaced zeal. He and his wife had supplemented their academic income by working for the government on covert geological operations - oil, gold, minerals of value. And they had willingly turned over everything in the classified files to a contact at the Soviet Embassy.
Another blow for equality and justice.
And they were caught.
But Julian Warfield came to see them.
Julian Warfield offered them their lives again... in exchange for certain assignments he might find for them. Inside the government and out; on the temporary staffs of companies... within England and without; always in the highest professional capacities, pursuing their professional labours.
All charges were dropped by the Crown. Terrible mistakes had been made against most respected members of the academic community. Scotland Yard had apologized. Actually apologized.
Peter and Ruth never refused Julian; their loyalty was unquestioned.
Which was why Peter was now on his stomach in the cold, damp sand while the light of a Caribbean dawn broke over the eastern horizon. He was behind a mound of coral rock with a perfect view of McAuliff's oceanside terrace. Julian's last instructions had been specific.
Find out who comes to see him. Who's important to him. Get identities, if you can. But for God's sake, stay in the background. We'll need you both in the interior.
Julian had agreed that McAuliff's disappearances - into Kingston, into taxis, into an unknown car at the gates of the Courtleigh Manor - all meant that he had interests in Jamaica other than Dunstone, Limited.
It had to be assumed that he had broken the primary article of faith. Secrecy.
If so, McAuliff could be transferred... forgotten without difficulty. But before that happened, it was essential to discover the identity of Dunstone's island enemy.
Or enemies.
In a very real sense, the survey itself was secondary to that objective. Definitely secondary. If it came down to it, the survey could be sacrificed if, by that sacrifice, identities were revealed.
And Peter knew he was nearer those identities now... in this early dawn on the beach of Bengal Court.
It had begun three hours ago.
Peter and Ruth had retired a little past midnight. Their room was in the east wing of the motel, along with Ferguson's and Charles Whitehall's. McAuliff, Alison, and Sam Tucker were in the west wing, the division signifying only old friends, new lovers, and late drinkers.
They heard it around one o'clock: an automobile swerving into the front drive, its wheels screeching, then silent, as if the driver had heard the noise and suddenly become alarmed by it.
It had been strange. Bengal Court was no kind of nightclub, no 'drum-drum' watering hole that catered to the swinging and/or younger tourist crowds. It was quiet, with very little to recommend it to