'Which means the English assume the Halidon know a great deal,' added Whitehall pensively. 'I wonder if that is so.'
'They have their reasons,' said Alex cautiously. 'There was a previous survey team.'
The Jamaicans knew of it. Its disappearance was either proof of the Halidon's opposition or an isolated act of theft and murder by a roving band of primitive hill people in the Cock Pit.
There was no way to tell.
Circles within circles.
What of the Marquis de Chatellerault? Why had he insisted upon meeting with Whitehall in Savanna-la-Mar?
'The marquis is a nervous man,' said Whitehall. 'He claims to have widespread interests on the island. He smells bad fish with this survey.'
'Has it occurred to you that Chatellerault is himself involved?' McAuliff spoke directly to the black scholar. 'MI5 thinks so. Tallon told me that this afternoon.'
'If so, the marquis does not trust his colleagues.'
'Did Chatellerault mention anyone else on the team?' asked Alex, afraid of the answer.
Whitehall looked at McAuliff and replied simply. 'He made several allusions, and I told him that I wasn't interested in side issues. They were not pertinent; I made that clear.'
'Thank you.'
'You're welcome.'
Sam Tucker raised his scraggy eyebrows, his expression dubious. 'What the hell was pertinent? What did he want?'
'To be kept informed of the survey's progress. Report all developments.'
'Why did he think you'd do that?' Sam leaned forward in the chair.
'I would be paid handsomely, to begin with. And there could be other areas of interest, which, frankly, there are not.'
'Ha, mon!' interjected Moore. 'You see, they believe Charley-mon can be bought! They know better with Barak Moore!'
Whitehall looked at the revolutionary, dismissing him. There is little to pay you for.' He opened his silver cigarette case; Moore grinned at the sight of it. Whitehall closed it slowly, placed it at his right, and lighted his cigarette with a match. 'Let's get on. I'd rather not be here all night.'
'Okay, mon.' Barak glanced at each man quickly. 'We want the same as the English. To reach the Halidon.' Moore pronounced the word in the Jamaican dialect: hollydawn. 'But the Halidon must come to us. There must be a strong reason. We cannot cry out for them. They will not come into the open.'
'I don't understand a damn thing about any of this,' said Tucker, lighting a thin cigar, 'but if you wait for them, you could be sitting on your asses a long goddamn time.'
'We think there is a way. We think Dr Piersall provided it.' Moore hunched his shoulders, conveying a sense of uncertainty, as if he was not sure how to choose his words. 'For months Dr Piersall tried to... define the Halidon. To seek it out, to understand. He went back into Caribe history, to the Arawak, to Africa. To find meaning.' Moore paused and looked at Whitehall. 'He read your books, Charley-mon. I told him you were a bad liar, a diseased goat. He said you did not lie in your books... From many small things, Dr Piersall put together pieces of the puzzle, he called it. His papers are in Carrick Foyle.'
'Just a minute.' Sam Tucker was irritated. 'Walter talked a goddamned streak for two days. On the Martha Brae, in the plane, at the Sheraton. He never mentioned any of this. Why didn't he?' Tucker looked over at the Jamaicans against the wall, at the two who had been with him since Montego Bay.
The black who had spoken in the Chevrolet replied. 'He would have, mon. It was agreed to wait until McAuliff was with you. It is not a story one repeats often.'
'What did the puzzle tell him?' asked Alex.
'Only part, mon,' said Barak Moore. 'Only part of the puzzle was complete. But Dr Piersall arrived at several theories. To begin with, Halidon is an offshoot from the Coromanteen tribe. They isolated themselves after the Maroon wars, for they would not agree to the treaties that called upon the Maroon nation - the Coromantees - to run down and capture runaway slaves for the English. The Halidon would not become bounty hunters of brother Africans. For decades they were nomadic. Then, perhaps two hundred, two hundred and fifty years ago, they settled in one location. Unknown, inaccessible to the outside world. But they did not divorce themselves from the outside world. Selected males were sent out to accomplish what the elders believed should be accomplished. To this day it is so. Women are brought in to bear children so that the pains