were professionals. And there was no reason to conceal from Sam the fact that they were lovers. As Tucker phrased it: 'I'd be shocked if you weren't, Alexander.'
Sam's approval was important to McAuliff. For at no time was Alison to be left alone when he was away. Under no circumstances. Ever.
Sam Tucker was the ideal protective escort. Far superior to himself, Alex realized. Tuck was the most resourceful man he had ever known, and just about the hardest. He had within him an aggressiveness that when called upon was savage. He was not a man to have as an enemy. Alison was as safe as a human being could be in his care.
The fourth day had been the first day of the survey work. The team was housed halfway between Puerto Seco and Rio Bueno Harbour, in a pleasant beach motel called Bengal Court. Work began shortly after six in the morning.
The initial objective of the survey was to plot the coastline definitely. Alex and Sam Tucker operated the equipment.
Azimuths were shot along the shoreline, recorded by transit cameras. The angular degree demarcations were correlated with the coastal charts provided by the Jamaican Institute. By and large, these charts were sectional and imperfect, acceptable for the details of road maps and small-craft navigation, but inadequate for geophysical purposes. To set up accurate perimeters, McAuliff employed sonic geodometers which bounced sound waves back and forth between instruments, giving what amounted to perfect bearings. Each contour, each elevation was recorded on both sonic graphs and transit cameras.
These chores were dull, laborious, and sweat-provoking under the hot sun. The single relief was the constant presence of Alison, as much as she herself objected to it. Alex was adamant, however. He instructed Barak Moore's two men to stay within a hundred yards of her at all times, and then commanded Alison not to stroll out of his sight.
It was an impossible demand, and McAuliff realized he could not prolong it more than a few days. Alison had work to do; minor over the coastal area, a great deal once they started inland. But all beginnings were awkward under pressure; he could not separate this particular concentration that easily, nor did he wish to.
Very rapidly your own personal antennae will be activated automatically. Their function will be second nature, as it were. You will fall into a rhythm, actually. It is the connecting link between your divided objectives. You will recognize it and build a degree of confidence in the process.
Holcroft.
But not during the first few days; there was no confidence to speak of. He did grant, however, that the fear was lessening... partially, imperceptibly. He thought this was due to the constant physical activity and the fact that he could require such men as Sam and Barak Moore's 'special forces' to take up posts around Alison. And at any given moment he could turn his head and there she was - on the beach, in a small boat - chipping rocks, instructing one of the crew in the manipulation of a drill bore.
But, again, were not all these his antennae? And was not the lessening of fear the beginnings of confidence?
R. C. Holcroft. Supercilious son of a bitch. Manipulator. Speaker of truths.
But not the whole truth.
The areas bordering Braco Beach were hazardous. Sheets of coral overlay extended hundreds of yards out into the surf. McAuliff and Sam Tucker crawled over the razor-sharp miniature hills of ocean polyps and set up their geodometers and cameras. Both men incurred scores of minor cuts, sore muscles, and sorer backs.
That was the third day, marked by the special relief of Alison's somehow commandeering a fisherman's flat-bottom boat and, with her two 'escorts,' bringing a picnic lunch of cold chicken out to the reef.
It was a comfortable hour on the most uncomfortable picnic grounds imaginable.
The black revolutionary, Floyd, who had guided the boat into its precarious coral mooring, succinctly observed that the beach was flatter and far less wet.
'But then they'd have to crawl all the way out here again,' Alison had replied, holding onto her wide-brimmed cloth sun hat.
'Mon, you have a good woman!' This observation came from Floyd's companion, the huge, quiet Negro named Lawrence...
The five of them perched - there was no other description - on the highest ridges of the coral jetty, the spray cascading up from the base of the reef, creating faint rainbow prisms of colour in its mist. Far out on the water two freighters were passing each other, one heading