many spoke twice, but always with different information. Nothing was repeated.
Finally there was silence.
A long period of silence. And then Alexander felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, and Daniel's eyes bore in on him.
'Do you understand?'
'Yes, I understand,' McAuliff said.
They walked across the field towards the lake. The sounds of the forest mingled with the hum of the mountains and the crashing of the waterfall nearly a mile to the north.
They stood on the embankment, and Alex bent down, picked up a small stone, and threw it into the black, shining lake that reflected the light of the moon. He looked at Daniel.
'In a way, you're as dangerous as the rest of them. One man... with so much... operating beyond reach. No checks, no balances. It would be so simple for good to become evil, evil good. Malcolm said your... term isn't guided by a calendar.'
'It is not. I am elected for life. Only I can terminate my office.'
'And pick your successor?'
'I have influence. The council, of course, has the final disposition.'
'Then I think you're more dangerous.'
'I do not deny it.'
Chapter Thirty
THIRTY
The trip to Montego was far easier than the circuitous march from the Martha Brae. To begin with, most of the journey was by vehicle.
Malcolm, his robes replaced by Savile Row clothing, led Alexander around the lake to the southeast, where they were met by a runner who took them to the base of a mountain cliff, hidden by jungle. A steel lift, whose thick chains were concealed by mountain rocks, carried them up the enormous precipice to a second runner, who placed them in a small tram, which was transported by cable on a path below the skyline of the forest.
At the end of the cable ride, a third runner took them through a series of deep caves, identified by Malcolm as the Quick Step Grotto. He told Alex that the Quick Step was named for seventeenth-century buccaneers who raced from Bluefield's Bay overland to bury treasure at the bottom of the deep pools within the caves. The other derivation - the one many believed more appropriate - was that if a traveller did not watch his feet, he could easily slip and plummet into a crevice. Injury was certain, death not impossible.
McAuliff stayed close to the runner, his flashlight beamed at the rocky darkness in front of him.
Out of the caves, they proceeded through a short stretch of jungle to the first definable road they had seen. The runner activated a portable radio; ten minutes later a 'desert jeep' came out of the pitch-black hollows from the west and the runner bid them good-bye.
The crude-looking vehicle travelled over a criss-cross pattern of back-country roads, the driver keeping his engine as quiet as possible, coasting on descending hills, shutting off his headlights whenever they approached a populated area. The drive lasted a half-hour. They passed through the Maroon village of Accompong and swung south several miles to a flat stretch of grassland.
In the darkness, on the field's edge, a small aeroplane was rolled out from under a camouflage of fern and acacia. It was a two-seater Comanche; they climbed in, and Malcolm took the controls.
'This is the only difficult leg of the trip,' he said as they taxied for takeoff. 'We must fly close to the ground to avoid interior radar. Unfortunately, so do the ganga aircraft, the drug smugglers. But we will worry less about the authorities than we will about collision.'
Without incident, but not without signalling several ganga planes, they landed on the grounds of an outlying farm, southwest of Unity Hall. From there it was a fifteen-minute ride into Montego Bay.
'It would arouse suspicions for us to stay in the exclusively black section of the town. You, for your skin, me, for my speech and my clothes. And tomorrow we must have mobility in the white areas.'
They drove to the Cornwall Beach Hotel and registered ten minutes apart. Reservations had been made for adjoining but not connecting rooms.
It was two o'clock in the morning, and McAuliff fell into bed exhausted. He had not slept in nearly forty-eight hours. And yet, for a very long time, sleep did not come.
He thought about so many things. The brilliant, lonely, awkward James Ferguson and his sudden departure to the Craft Foundation. Defection, really. Without explanation. Alex hoped Craft was Jimbo-mon's solution. For he would never be trusted again.
And of the sweetly charming Jensens... up to their so-respectable chins in the manipulations of Dunstone, Limited.