the midsection of a waterfall; it took up the entire area; there was nothing but endless tons of crashing water, its sound muted but discernible. In front of the window was a long, thick hatch table, its dark wood glistening. Behind it stood the man named Daniel, Minister of Council.
He was a black Jamaican with sharp Afro-European features, slightly more than medium height and quite slender. His shoulders were broad, however; his body tapered like that of a long-distance runner. He was in his early forties, perhaps. It was difficult to tell; his face had lean youth, but his eyes were not young.
He smiled - briefly, cordially, but not enthusiastically - at McAuliff and came around the table, his hand extended.
As he did so, Alex saw that Daniel wore white casual slacks and a dark blue shirt open at the neck. Around his throat was a white silk kerchief, held together by a gold ring. It was a kind of uniform, thought Alex. As Malcolm's robes were a uniform.
'Welcome, Doctor. I will not ask you about your trip, I have made it too many times myself. It is a bitch.'
Daniel shook McAuliff's hand. 'It is a bitch,' said Alex warily.
The minister abruptly turned to Malcolm. 'What's the report? I can't think of any reason to give it privately. Or is there?'
'No... Piersall's documents are valid. They're sealed, and McAuliff has them ready to fly out from a location within a twenty-five-mile radius of the Martha Brae base camp. Even he doesn't know where... We have three days, Daniel.'
The minister stared at the priest figure. Then he walked slowly back to his chair behind the hatch table without speaking. He stood immobile, his hands on the surface of the wood, and looked up at Alex.
'So by the brilliant persistence of an expatriate island fanatic we face... castration. Exposure renders us impotent, you know, Dr McAuliff. We will be plundered. Stripped of our possessions. And the responsibility is yours... You. A geologist in the employ of Dunstone, Limited. And a most unlikely recruit in the service of British Intelligence.' Daniel looked over at Malcolm. 'Leave us alone, please. And be ready to start out for Montego.'
'When?' asked Malcolm.
'That will depend on our visitor. He will be accompanying you.'
'I will?
'Yes, Dr McAuliff. If you are alive.'
Chapter Twenty-Eight
TWENTY EIGHT
'There is but a single threat one human being can make against another that must be listened to. That threat is obviously the taking of life.' Daniel had walked to the enormous window framing the cascading, unending columns of water. 'In the absence of overriding ideological issues, usually associated with religion or national causes, I think you will agree.'
'And because I'm not motivated religiously or nationally, you expect the threat to succeed.' McAuliff remained standing in front of the long, glistening hatch table. He had not been offered a chair.
'Yes,' replied the Halidon's Minister of Council, turning from the window. 'I am sure it has been said to you before that Jamaica's concerns are not your concerns.'
'It's... "not my war" is the way it was phrased.'
'Who said that to you? Charles Whitehall or Barak Moore?'
'Barak Moore is dead,' said Alex.
The minister was obviously surprised. His reaction, however, was a brief moment of thoughtful silence. Then he spoke quietly. 'I am sorry. His was a necessary check to Whitehall's thrust. His faction has no one else, really. Someone will have to be brought up to take his place...' Daniel walked to the table, reached down for a pencil, and wrote a note on a small pad. He tore off the page and put it to the side.
McAuliff saw without difficulty the words the minister had written. They were: 'Replace Barak Moore.' In this day of astonishments, the implication of the message was not inconsiderable.
'Just like that?' asked Alex, nodding his head in the direction of the page of notepaper.
'It will not be simple, if that is what you mean,' replied Daniel. 'Sit down, Dr McAuliff. I think it is time you understood. Before we go further.
Alexander Tarquin McAuliff, geologist, with a company on 38th Street in New York City, United States of America, sat down in a native-made chair in an office room high in the inaccessible mountains of the Flagstaff Range, deep within the core of the impenetrable Cock Pit country on the island of Jamaica, and listened to a man called Daniel, Minister of Council for a covert sect with the name of Halidon.
He could not think any longer. He could only listen.