by Cave, Hugh
"Thursday, then."
"Thursday, Mr. President." Dawson rose to leave. "You know, I've never been to Cape Canaveral. Only seen these things on TV. I'm really looking forward to being there."
Chapter Thirty-eight
"Where are we, Jumel?"
"At the Sebastian River, m'sieu."
"It's damned dark."
"But there will soon be moonlight, and for that I will be grateful. I have only this." The Haitian tapped a long flashlight hanging from his belt. "As you see, there is no light on my poor boat."
They had left the car and were standing on a small, rude pier. Ken frowned at the boat tied to one of its pilings. All through the thirty-minute ride from Gifford he had felt uneasy.
For one thing, he had studied a road map of the area long enough to know that the shortest route from Gifford to Sebastian was along U.S. 1, a divided four-lane highway. Yet this mousy man who called himself Jumel, giving directions from the rear seat, had sent him along narrow back roads most of the way.
Why? To reduce the risk of meeting a police car they might flag down for added help?
Jumel wouldn't welcome that, would he? The fact that he was taking them to Merry—if indeed he was—wouldn't wipe the slate clean for him. He was involved in a kidnapping.
Maybe his awareness of that explained his offering only evasive answers to questions.
Most of the questions had been anxiously put to him by Sandy, of course, and concerned her daughter. But there was one still to be asked before they stepped into the fellow's boat.
"Jumel, tell me something: How do you know where the child is?"
Was there a hesitation? "Because I took her there, m'sieu."
"You?"
"This is my boat. But I was only doing what he told me to, you understand. At that time I was afraid not to."
"Merry and the Haitian woman—you took them both?"
"Yes."
"How long is this river?"
The south branch, where they are, is about five miles long, I think."
"How far must we go?"
"Almost the whole way."
Again Ken had a mental picture of the map. This was a region of country roads, not a wilderness. "It doesn't go near any road up there? We can't go by car to save time?"
"No, m'sieu. I know this river. I take this boat upstream every Sunday to attend to my crab traps."
"Attend to what?"
"My traps, m'sieu—for blue crabs. People pay good money for crabs. You understand?"
"I guess so." What else was there to say?
Flashlight in hand, Jumel crouched in the stern of the boat and steadied it by holding on to the pier. He looked up at Sandy. "You are ready, Madame?"
Standing there with Ken's arm around her, Sandy replied eagerly, "Yes, of course!"
She was too eager, Ken decided, remembering how she had left him standing by the road while she drove off with the TV man. "Easy now, hon." His arm tightened around her and he spoke in a whisper, with his lips touching her ear. "I know you think we can trust him, but we aren't sure."
Her murmured "I know" was only to humor him, he was certain. She felt she was now only a few moments away from finding her daughter. Reluctantly he let her go and watched her step down into the boat. Then he followed, knowing he was committed.
A few minutes later a moon appeared, as Jumel had predicted. It was not full, but when its light touched the river a kind of magic took place, and some of Ken's doubts were washed away. No matter what this Sebastian River might be in daylight, it became a fairyland stream at night.
They had embarked upon the stream just above a railroad bridge that now in the moonlight seemed etched against the sky in black ink. Leaving it behind, the boat moved slowly upstream, its engine purring more smoothly than Ken had expected. Then the river forked.
Crouching over the tiller like a gnome in an eerie world of his own, Jumel took the south fork.
Lights glowed in windows on the left shore at first. But the homes were not close together and the stretches of darkness between them became longer.
To Ken's surprise, small, wooded islands began to loom up in the moon glow. He would have blundered into some of the many false channels or cul-de-sacs if trying to pick his way among them, he was sure. Jumel made no such mistakes; in fact, he did not even reduce speed.
Was the tale of the crab traps true, then? No man could navigate this stream at night unless he had been here often.
The Haitian had been playing his flashlight's beam over the water, seemingly in search of something. Now it picked up a white, floating object the size and shape of a bowling ball.
"One of my traps."
Was that a note of pride in his voice?
The moving light produced something else: a rustling, scratchy noise in a band of blackness even closer to shore than the trap marker. Jumel ran the light beam along there and it showed them an ungainly brown water bird with a long, curved neck, squatting on a cypress root.
"Snakebird," he said. "Lots of them here. They come for the fish."
Half an hour passed. The river remained a tunnel of dark, still water between high walls of even darker trees. No longer were there lights on its shores. Even the moonlight filtering down through laced treetops failed to provide much illumination. The Haitian used his flashlight constantly. At one point its beam touched a pair of wide-apart eyes that appeared to be golden hued, then reddish
'Gator," Jumel said. "A big one. I see them here in the upper river lots of times."
The River Styx, Ken thought. And you could be the Boatman. What the hell do we know about you, really? Only that you're Haitian, and as such you're not very bloody likely to be trying to double-cross your country's most feared bocor. So what are you up to, bringing us to a place like this?
If there were any houses here, they were in darkness and the powerful beam of Jumel's flashlight failed to disclose them. The light revealed only more trees, some with roots resembling tangles of serpents, and stretches of swampy shore choked with high grass. The stream had narrowed to twenty feet or so.
Suddenly, incongruously, the purr of the boat's small outboard seemed to produce an echo overhead. Startled, Ken looked up and saw the lights of a small plane low enough in the sky to indicate that it was climbing from an airfield.
"You have an airport around here?"
Jumel pointed to the left shore. "Over there two or three miles. Lots of small planes in the sky here."
"Even at night?"
"Well, I haven't been here at night before."
And wouldn't admit if it you had, Ken thought. But the Haitian was not likely to answer more questions just now. Leaning on the tiller, he had swung the boat's nose toward the right bank, where his flashlight's beam revealed a small, very old dock.
Whether he intended the beam to show them an equally old cabin in a clearing beyond, Ken could not be sure. For a few seconds it did. The cabin itself was dark.
"This is it, Jumel?"
"Yes, m'sieu." Jumel cut the engine, and the boat glided to the dock in silence. "Please to make the bow fast for me, if you will."
As Ken did so, a turtle the size of a dinner plate flopped off the bank into the black water.
With the craft secure, Jumel scrambled onto the pier and waited for them to join him. Ken helped Sandy up and followed her. Except for the creak of rotting planks under their feet, the stillness was eerie. If there was a moon, it was veiled here by trees.
"Now if you will excuse me . . ." Jumel began walking.
Sandy eagerly followed. As Ken brought up the rear, a sixth sense tingled to warn him of danger.
From the pier a narrow footpath snaked up the bank. Climbing it, the Haitian used his flashlight. With Sandy almost at his heels he crossed the clearing. At the cabin door he turned.
His left hand, holding the flashlight, swung the door open. In the process the light flicked inside like a snake's tongue to reveal a single room, empty except for a few sticks of furnitu
re. At the same time his right hand darted into his shirtfront just above his belt and reappeared gripping a flat black automatic.
Sandy halted, gasping in dismay. Ken froze with a fury of self-condemnation exploding inside him.
"Be good enough to enter," Jumel said in a totally controlled voice. "You, m'sieu, light the lamp on the table."
Sandy stared at the weapon in his hand and began to sob. Ken looked at it with eyes narrowed in hate. Through his teeth he snarled, "You son of a bitch, I knew it!"
"The lamp," Jumel repeated calmly. "And don't force me to use this. Because I know how to, believe me, and I've been instructed to kill you if I must." He motioned with the gun. "Be warned, m'sieu, I am not alone here."
Startled for a second time, Ken peered into the surrounding darkness.
"You misunderstand," Jumel said. "I meant he is with me. In here." He tapped his forehead. "Now, if you please, the lamp."
Like a sleepwalker, Sandy went past him into the cabin. Ken followed, muttering profanities to mask his true intentions. Seeming to stare straight ahead, he used a corner-eye glance to measure the distance between himself and the Haitian. Then, when close enough to the cabin for Jumel to feel safe from attack but still a step short of having his movements restricted by the doorway, he whirled and left his feet.
Left them in a headlong dive like the one he had used to save Sandy from walking off the edge at the Citadelle. And the dive should have taken him under the gun and the blazing eye of Jumel's flashlight, to let him slam the Haitian to the ground.
Should have—but didn't. For like a startled goat, Jumel leaped aside in time to avoid contact, and then let out a yell that tore the forest stillness to shreds.
"Master!"
Ken hit the ground horizontally, plowing the soft earth with face and out flung hands. Stunned by the impact, he scrambled to hands and knees, and then lurched off balance to his feet.
Rage possessed him now. Too much had happened that was unacceptable. This time the profanities he voiced were not muttered but snarled, and had nothing to do with hiding his intentions.
He was furious enough to hurl himself at the gun, no matter what the consequences.
But he could not.
Instead, while the Haitian stood there watching him, weapon ready if needed, Ken suddenly heard and felt cannons thundering in his skull, wiping out his awareness of where he was. For seconds the barrage filled his head with agony. Then it passed and left him feeling only sick and stupid.
Staring at the flashlight's eye, he struggled to bring Jumel's face into focus. "What—what—"
"Go inside, m'sieu. Light the lamp as I told you to."
"But—"
"M'sieu, my master is not a patient man! If you are able to reason, ask yourself why he should care at this moment whether you live or die!" Apparently unafraid now of being attacked, Jumel stepped forward, aiming the light beam at Ken's face. "Do as I say, foolish man, before he orders me to kill you!"
Ken looked down at the palms of his hands, which were covered with black dirt and decayed vegetation. He rubbed them on his slacks, and then used them to wipe some of the dirt from his face. "All right." His voice sounded like that of someone drunk or drugged. A stranger. "All right," he mumbled again. Lurching about, he stumbled toward the cabin.
Jumel followed, lighting the way for him.
Inside, the Haitian shut the door and leaned against it. His flashlight yellowed two rickety chairs, a small plank table, a cot black with mildew. Next to a cardboard carton on the table stood an oil lamp With the words BLESS OUR HOME etched on its greasy globe.
"Light the lamp."
Fumbling a book of matches from the table, Ken succeeded after several tries. Then he became aware of Sandy.
She stood in a corner where Jumel's flash had not sought her out. Her staring eyes reflected the lamplight. She took two faltering steps toward him before the Haitian's voice stopped her.
"Go to the cot, Madame."
She looked at Jumel with no expression on her face, not even fear. Was she in some kind of trance? Or just in shock?
Either way, she was not about to give the Haitian any argument. Meekly, she walked to the cot and sat down.
"Stay there, please," the Haitian ordered. "And you may sit also, m'sieu. Use one of the chairs."
With only dullness in his head Ken had no desire to resist. It was almost a relief to let himself go limp at last, with his chin on his chest and his arms dangling.
Stepping to his side, Jumel laid the flashlight and gun on the table, making sure both were within swift reach. Sliding the carton toward him, he took from it a bottle of water that he opened and tipped to his lips. Then he took out a coil of rope and a fisherman's knife.
"Put your hands behind you, m'sieu, through the rungs of the chair back."
Ken obeyed without protest.
Kneeling on the grimy floor behind him, Jumel bound his wrists to the chair and to each other in such a way that he knew he could not get loose without help. The Haitian then cut two more lengths of rope, knelt in front of him, and tied his ankles to the chair legs. There was now no way he could walk, even if willing to drag the chair along with him. Or, for that matter, even stand up.
Rising, Jumel hung the flashlight on his belt, pocketed the automatic, and walked over to the cot where Sandy sat.
"Lie down, Madame. On your back."
She obeyed as though hypnotized, and he bound her, too, fastening her wrists together and her ankles to each other, evidently considering it unnecessary to secure her to the cot itself. Finished at last, he moved the one empty chair to the cabin door and sat on it.
"Now we wait."
Ken's mind was beginning to clear, and the words had an ominous ring that chilled him. "Wait for what?"
"For the master, to complete what he is doing, and tell me what I must do with you."
"How long will that be?"
A shrug. "Qui moun connais. Do you know what that means, man from Haiti?"
Ken knew. It meant "Who knows?"
Chapter Thirty-nine
JOHN KLOBEK'S WASHINGTON FILE
The President let it be known today that he will be among those present when Thursday's rocket flames into space at Cape Canaveral, in Florida.
This came as a surprise to most of us who follow the chief executive's day-by-day activities. First, we had not been advised that Thursday's launch was anything more than routine. An ever-reliable Delta rocket is to push yet another communications satellite into orbit; that's all. Why is this one so important that it requires the President's presence at a time when his calendar appears to be more than usually full? Is this "communications satellite" really something else?
No one seems eager to provide an answer. All we can be sure of is that Rutherford Franklin Dawson, the number-one man on the President's staff, left unexpectedly for Florida yesterday to prepare for his chief's visit. Taking with him, of course, the usual aides and security people.
However, we have learned from usually reliable White House sources that the President seems unusually keen on being there in Florida on Thursday, and may we hazard an informed guess as to why this may be so? Certain Florida politicians have also declared it their intention to be present at Canaveral when the countdown occurs. And perhaps they will be there not so much to watch the launch as to discuss their need for White House support in their efforts to be reelected in November.
Can anything less than that explain why the President would even think of leaving Washington at this time when so much of importance is happening or about to happen? The latest Middle East flare-up has reached a most critical stage, and the President was to host a dinner Thursday night for the ruler of one of the few states in that area who is still friendly to us.
Of course, the President won't be gone long. With the launch set for 3:15 P.M., he may well be back in Washington in time for the dinner. But why is he going to Florida at all? Is there something about this particular probe that we haven't been
told?
REPORT FROM THE CAPITAL
by Vernon Vedder
To stand by with an eye on the Old North Church tower
Listen, my children, and you'll be told
A puzzling story about to unfold.
That man in the White House on Thursday will leave
On a trip that has all of us on the qui vive.
He's going, he says, to Canaveral's Cape
Where with hundreds of tourists he simply will gape
At the latest space rocket about which we've heard
So little to date that the trip seems absurd.
All over this city good people are asking
If those at Canaveral may not be masking
As merely routine and of no great import
A shot that with top-secret meaning is fraught.
For why at this time when the Arabs are here
For talks that would seem to demand Paul Revere
To stand by with an eye on the Old North Church tower
(Expecting a signal that this is the hour
To ride through the country and spread an alarm!)
Why, why should our chief without even a qualm
Depart from the White House to watch a mere rocket
Unless it's enormously high on his docket?
We haven't the answer, dear children, as yet,
But kindly be patient and we'll try to get
A little bit more than we already know
While the President's down there enjoying the show.
Chapter Forty
The cabin was a steam bath. When Ken awoke and looked around, sweat trickled into his eyes and blurred his sight.
It misted the outlines of the weathered pine walls, the single door, the two small windows. It veiled the rickety table on which stood the plastic bottle of drinking water and the carton of food. It did peculiar things to the chair near the door and the man who slouched on it, seemingly asleep.
Experimentally, Ken moved. Elie Jumel awoke with the quickness of a cat whose captive mouse had stirred. But at least that other captor, the one whom Jumel served, had not reacted. Nothing happened inside Ken's head.
