approximate thickness. It was a miniaturized radio-signal transmitter, set to a specific frequency. There were three thick, tiny glass lights across the top of the small panel. The first, explained Garvey, was a white light that indicated sufficient power for sending when turned on - not unlike the illuminated filigree of a strobe light. The second, a red light, informed the operator that his signal was being transmitted. The third, a green light, confirmed the reception of the signal by a corresponding device within a radius of twenty-five miles. There would be two simple codes, one for normal conditions, one for emergency. Code One was to be transmitted twice daily, once every twelve hours. Code Two, when aid was needed.
The receiving set, said Garvey, was capable of defining the signal within a diameter of one thousand yards by means of an attached radarscope with terrain coordinates. Nothing was left to chance.
Unbelievable.
The incredible assumption, therefore, was that the Intelligence men would never be more than twenty-five miles away, and Holcroft's 'guaranteed' safety factor was the even more ridiculous assumption that the jungle distance could be traversed and the exact location pinpointed within a time period that precluded danger.
R. C. Holcroft was a winner, thought McAuliff.
'Is this everything?' McAuliff asked the sweating Garvey. 'This goddamn metal box is our protection?'
'There are additional precautions,' Garvey replied enigmatically. 'I told you, nothing is left to chance - '
'What the hell does that mean?'
'It means you are protected. I am not authorized to speak further. As a matter of fact, mon, I do not know anything further. I am, like you, merely an employee. I do what I am told to do, say what I am told to say... And now I have said enough. I have an uncomfortable drive back to Port Maria.'
The man named Garvey rose from the table, picked up his tattered briefcase, and waddled towards the door of the dimly lit room. Before leaving, however, he could not help himself. He stopped at the bar, where one of the motel's managers was standing, and solicited an order of liquor.
McAuliff shook his thoughts loose as he heard the voices of Ruth and Peter Jensen behind him. He was sitting on a dried mud flat above the river bank; the Jensens were talking as they walked across the clearing from their bivouac tent. It amazed Alex - they amazed him. They walked so casually, so normally, over the chopped Cock Pit ground cover; one might think they had entered Regent's Park for a stroll.
'Majestic place in its way, rather,' said Peter, removing the ever-present pipe from between his teeth.
'It is the odd combination of colour and substance, don't you think, Alex?' Ruth had her arm linked through her husband's. A noonday walk down the Strand. 'One is so very sensuous, the other so massive and intricate.'
'You make the terms sound contradictory, darling. They're not, you know.' Peter chuckled as his wife feigned minor exasperation.
'He has an incorrigibly pornographic mind, Alex. Pay no attention. Still, he's right. It is majestic. And positively dense. Where's Alison?'
'With Ferguson and Sam. They're testing the water.'
'Jimbo-mon's going to use up all of his film, I dare say,' muttered Peter as he helped his wife to sit down next to McAuliff. 'That new camera he brought back from Montego has consumed him.'
'Frightfully expensive, I should think.' Ruth smoothed the un-smoothable cloth of her bivouac slacks, like a woman not used to being without a skirt. Or a woman who was nervous. 'For a boy who's always saying he's bone-stony, quite an extravagance.'
'He didn't buy it; he borrowed it,' said Alex. 'From a friend he knew last year in Port Antonio.'
'That's right, I forgot.' Peter relit his pipe as he spoke. 'You were all here last year, weren't you?'
'Not all, Peter. Just Sam and me; we worked for Kaiser. And Ferguson. He was with the Craft Foundation. No one else.'
'Well, Charles is Jamaican,' intruded Ruth nervously. 'Surely he flies back and forth. Heaven knows, he must be rich enough.'
'That's a rather brass speculation, luv.'
'Oh, come off it, Peter. Alex knows what I mean.'
McAuliff laughed. 'I don't think he worries about money. He's yet to submit his bills for the survey outfits. I have an idea they're the most expensive in Harrod's Safari Shop.'
'Perhaps he's embarrassed,' said Peter, smiling. 'He looks as though he had jumped right off the cinema screen. The black hunter; very impressive image, if somewhat contrived.'
'Now you're the one who's talking brass, luv. Charles is impressive.' Ruth