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“Oh, certainly,” said the vicar. “He has said he will.”
“Yes, by surface mail,” growled the Reverend Drake. “It should arrive in London around mid-January. We have to get rid of that Governor and get ourselves a new one.”
“No chance, I’m afraid,” said the vicar. “Sir Marston will not resign.”
In its continuing war against the narcotics invasion of its own southern coast, the American government has resorted to using some expensive and ingenious surveillance techniques. Among these is a series of covert balloons, tethered in out-of-the-way places, owned, bought, or leased by Washington.
Suspended in the gondolas beneath these balloons are an array of extra-high-technology radar scanners and radio monitors. They cover the entire Caribbean basin, from Yucatan in the west to Anegada in the east, from Florida in the north to the Venezuelan coast. Every airplane, however big or small, that takes off within this bowl is spotted at once. Its course, height, and speed are monitored and reported back. Every yacht, cruiser, freighter, or liner that leaves port is picked up and tailed by unseen eyes and ears high in the sky and far away. The technology in these gondolas is mainly made by Westinghouse.
When it lifted from Sunshine Island, the Piper Navajo Chief was picked up by Westinghouse 404. It was routinely tracked across the ocean toward Key West on its course of 310 degrees, which, with the wind drift from the south, would have brought it right over Key West’s approach beacon. Fifty miles short of Key West, it disintegrated in midair and disappeared from the screens. A U.S. Coast Guard vessel was sent to the spot, but it found no wreckage.
On Monday, Julio Gomez, a detective on the force of the Metro-Dade Police Department, did not show up for work. His partner, Detective Eddie Favaro, was extremely annoyed. They were due in court together that morning, and now Favaro had to go alone. The judge was scathing, and it was Favaro who had to bear her sarcasm. In the late morning he got back to the MDPD headquarters building at 1320 Northwest Fourteenth Street (the force was then on the threshold of moving to its new complex in the Doral District) and checked with his superior officer, Lieutenant Broderick.
“What’s with Julio?” asked Favaro. “He never showed up at court.”
“You’re asking me? He’s your partner,” replied Broderick.
“He didn’t check in?”
“Not to me,” said Broderick. “Can’t you get by without him?”
“No way. We’re handling two cases, and neither defendant speaks anything but Spanish.”
Mirroring its own local population, the Metro-Dade Police Department, which covers most of what people know as Greater Miami, employs a wide racial mix. Half the population of Metro-Dade is of Hispanic origin, some with a very halting command of English. Julio Gomez had been of Puerto Rican parentage and raised in New York, where he had joined the police. A decade ago, he had re-migrated south to join Metro-Dade. Here nobody referred to him as a “spick.” In this area, that was not wise. His fluent Spanish was invaluable.
His partner of nine years, Eddie Favaro, was an It
alian-American, his grandparents having emigrated from Catania as young newly weds seeking a better life. Lieutenant Clay Broderick was black. Now he shrugged. He was overworked and understaffed, with a backlog of cases he could have done without.
“Find him,” he said. “You know the rules.”
Favaro did indeed. In Metro-Bade, if you are three days late back from a vacation without adequate good reason and without checking in, you are deemed to have dismissed yourself.
Favaro checked his partner’s apartment, but there was no sign that anyone had returned from vacation. He knew where Gomez had gone—he always went to Sunshine—so he checked the passenger lists on the previous evening’s flights from Nassau. The airline computer revealed the flight reservation and prepaid ticket, but it also showed the ticket had not been taken up. Favaro went back to Broderick.
“He could have had an accident,” he urged. “Game fishing can be dangerous.”
“There are phones,” said Broderick. “He has our number.”
“He could be in a coma. Maybe in a hospital. Maybe he asked someone else to phone in, and they didn’t bother. They’re pretty laid back in those islands. We could at least check it out.”
Broderick sighed. Missing detectives he could also do without.
“Okay,” he said. “Get me the number of the police department for this island—what do you call it? Sunshine? Jeez, what a name. Get me the local police chief, and I’ll make the call.”
Favaro had it for him in half an hour. It was so obscure, it was not even listed in International Directory Inquiries. He got it from the British Consulate, who rang Government House on Sunshine, and they passed it on. It took another thirty minutes for Lieutenant Broderick to get his connection.
He was lucky—he found Chief Inspector Jones in his office. It was midday.
“Chief Inspector Jones, this is Lieutenant of Detectives Clay Broderick, speaking from Miami. Hallo? Can you hear me? ... Look, as a colleague, I wonder if you could do me a favor. One of my men was on vacation on Sunshine, and he hasn’t showed up here. We hope there hasn’t been an accident. ... Yes, an American. Name, Julio Gomez. No, I don’t know where he was staying. He was down there for the game fishing.”
Chief Inspector Jones took this call seriously. His was a tiny force, and Metro-Dade’s was enormous. But he would show the Americans that Chief Inspector Jones was not half-asleep. He decided to handle the case himself and summoned a constable and a Land-Rover.
Quite rightly, he started with the Quarter Deck Hotel, but there he drew a blank. He went on to the fishing quay and found Jimmy Dobbs working on his boat, having no charter that day. Dobbs related that Gomez had not shown up for their Friday charter, which was odd, and that he had been staying with Mrs. Macdonald.
The landlady reported that Julio Gomez had left in a hurry on Friday morning for the airport. Jones went there and spoke to the airport manager. He summoned the passport officer, who confirmed that Mr. Gomez had taken a lift with Mr. Klinger to Key West on Friday morning. He gave Inspector Jones the aircraft registration. Jones telephoned Broderick back at four P.M.
Lieutenant Broderick took time out to phone the Key West police, who checked with their own airport. The lieutenant summoned Eddie Favaro just after six. His face was grave.