recess and pulled it out of the water, hiding it under cascading umbrellas of full-leaved mangroves and maiden palms.
They were the raiding party: Barak, Alex, Floyd and Whitehall. Sam Tucker and Lawrence had stayed at Bengal Court to protect Alison.
They crept up the slope through the dense, ensnaring foliage. The slope was steep, the travelling slow and painfully difficult. The distance to the High Hill property was no more than a mile - perhaps a mile and a quarter - but it took the four of them nearly an hour to reach it. Charles Whitehall thought the route was foolish. If there was one guard and one dog, why not drive to the road below the winding, half-mile entrance and simply walk up to the outer gates?
Barak's reasoning held more sophistication than Whitehall conceded to the Trelawny police. Moore thought it possible that the parish authorities had set up electronic tripwires along the entrance drive. Barak knew that such instruments had been in use in Montego Bay, Kingston, and Port Antonio hotels for months. They could not take the chance of setting one off.
Breathing heavily, they stood at the southern border of Piersall's sloping lawn and looked up at the house called 'High Hill'. The moon's illumination on the white stone made the house stand out like an alabaster monument, still, peaceful, graceful, and solid. Light spilled out of the teak shutters in two areas of the house: the downstairs back room opening onto the lawn and the centre bedroom on the second floor. All else was in darkness.
Except the underwater spotlights in the pool. A slight breeze caused ripples on the water; the bluish light danced from underneath.
'We must draw him out,' said Barak. 'Him and the dog, mon.'
'Why? What's the point?' asked McAuliff, the sweat from the climb rolling down into his eyes. 'He's one, we're four.'
'Moore is right,' answered Charles Whitehall. 'If there are electronic devices outside, then certainly he has the equivalent within.'
'He would have a police radio, at any rate, mon,' interjected Floyd. 'I know those doors; by the time we broke one down, he would have time - easy to reach others'
'It's a half hour from Falmouth; the police are in Falmouth,' pressed Alex. 'We'd be in and out by then.'
'Not so, mon,' argued Barak. 'It will take us a while to select and pry loose the cistern stones... We'll dig up the oilcloth packet first. Come!'
Barak Moore led them around the edge of wooded property, to the opposite side, into the old grazing field. He shielded the glass of his flashlight with his fingers and raced to a cluster of breadfruit trees at the northern end of the rock-strewn pasture. He crouched at the trunk of the farthest tree; the others did the same. Barak spoke - whispered.
'Talk quietly. These hill-winds carry voices. The packet is buried in the earth forty-four paces to the right of the fourth large rock on a northwest diagonal from this tree.'
'He was a man who knew Jamaica,' said Whitehall softly.
'How do you mean?' McAuliff saw the grim smile on the scholar's face in the moonlight.
'The Arawak symbols for a warrior's death march were in units of four, always to the right of the setting sun.'
'That's not very comforting,' said Alex.
'Like your American Indians,' replied Whitehall, 'the Arawaks were not comforted by the white man.'
'Neither were the Africans, Charley-mon.' Barak locked eyes with Whitehall in the moonlight. 'Sometimes I think you forget that.' He addressed McAuliff and Floyd. 'Follow me. In a line.'
They ran in crouched positions through the tall grass behind the black revolutionary, each man slapping a large prominent rock as he came upon it. One, two, three, four.
At the fourth rock, roughly a hundred and fifty yards from the base of the breadfruit tree, they knelt around the stone. Barak cupped his flashlight and shone it on the top. There was a chiselled marking, barely visible. Whitehall bent over it.
'Your Dr Piersall had a progressive imagination; progressive in the historical sense. He's jumped from Arawak to Coromantee. See?' Whitehall traced his index finger over the marking under the beam of the flashlight and continued softly. 'This twisted crescent is an Ashanti moon the Coromantees used to leave a trail for members of the tribe perhaps two or three days behind in a hunt. The chips on the convex side of the crescent determine the direction: one - to the left; two - to the right. Their placement on the rim shows the angle. Here: two