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Whittaker reported stories and took his own pictures as well. A long-lens Yashica hung around his neck.
“Would you,” asked McCready, “like a story that would blow your rivals out of the water?”
Whittaker turned and cocked an eyebrow. “What do you know that nobody else does?”
“Since the speech is a bore, why not come with me and find out?”
The two men proceeded across the square, into the hotel, and up to McCready’s second-floor room. From the balcony, they could see the whole square below them.
“The minders, the men in multicolored beach shirts and dark glasses,” said McCready. “Can you get full-face close-ups of them from here?”
“Sure,” said Whittaker. “Why?”
“Do it, and I’ll tell you.”
Whittaker shrugged. He was an old hand; he had had tips in his time from the most unlikely sources. Some worked out, some did not. He adjusted his zoom lens and ran off two rolls of color prints and two of black-and-white.
McCready took him down to the bar, stood him a beer, and talked for thirty minutes.
Whittaker whistled. “Is this on the level?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you prove it?” Running this sort of story was going to need some hard-sourced quotes, or Robin Esser, the editor in London, would not use it.
“Not here,” said McCready. “The proof lies in Kingston. You could get back tonight, finalize it tomorrow morning, and file by four P.M. Nine o’clock in London—just in time.”
Whittaker shook his head. “Too late. The last Miami-Kingston flight is at seven-thirty. I’d need to be in Miami by six o’clock. Via Nassau, I’d never make it.”
“As a matter of fact, I have my own plane leaving for Miami at four—in seventy minutes’ time. I’d be happy to offer you a lift.”
Whittaker rose to go and pack his suitcase. “Who the hell are you Mr. Dillon?” he asked.
“Oh, just someone who knows these islands, and this part of the world. Almost as well as you.”
“Better,” growled Whittaker, and left.
* * *
At four o’clock, Sabrina Tennant arrived at the airstrip with her cameraman. McCready and Whittaker were already there. The air taxi from Miami drifted down at ten past the hour.
When it was about to take off, McCready explained, “I’m afraid I can’t make it. A last-minute phone call at the hotel. Such a pity, but the air taxi is paid for, and I can’t get a rebate. It’s too late. So please be my guests. Good-bye, and good luck.”
Whittaker and Sabrina Tennant eyed each other suspiciously throughout the flight. Neither of them mentioned to the other what they had or where they were going. At Miami the television team headed into town; Whittaker transferred to the last flight to Kingston.
McCready returned to the Quarter Deck, extracted his portable phone, programmed it to a secure mode, and made a series of calls. One was to the British High Commission in Kingston, where he spoke to a colleague who promised to use his contacts to secure the appropriate interviews. Another was to the headquarters of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, in Miami, where he had a contact of long standing since the international drug trade has links with international terrorism. His third call was to the head of the CIA office in Miami. By the time he had finished, he had reason to hope his new-found friends of the press would be accorded every facility.
Just before six, the orange globe of the sun dropped toward the Dry Tortugas in the west, and darkness, as always in the tropics, came with remarkable speed. True dusk lasted only fifteen minutes. At six, Dr. West called from Nassau. Desmond Hannah took the call in the Governor’s private office, where Bannister had set up the secure link to the High Commission across the water.
“You’ve got the bullet?” Hannah asked eagerly. Without forensic backup, his inquiry was running dry. He had several possible suspects but no eyewitnesses, no clearly guilty party, no confession.
“No bullet,” said the distant voice from Nassau.
“What?”
“It went clean through him,” said the forensic pathologist. He had finished his work at the mortuary half an hour earlier and had gone straight to the High Commission to make the call. “Do you want the medical jargon or the basics?”
“The basics will do,” said Hannah. “What happened?”