CHAPTER TWENTYFOUR – FINALE
The battle of King Cay will rank as a triumph in Bahamian police history one day, but in the event it proved rather an anti-climax. Commissioner Hayes commandeered one of Collier’s planes, an Aerocommander that he used for travel between the island and Nassau, and two of Collier’s big black shiny cars, and the smart Bahamian Regiment detachment, who thought they had only come to the island to look good and enjoy rum punches. A radio call to police headquarters in Nassau roused a second detachment, which scrambled into full combat gear. The Aerocommander took off heading north, to land two minutes later at Altenburg’s airstrip, and the two cars raced to Altenburg’s perimeter. The men in combat gear raced to Nassau airport in a commandeered police truck, to find one of Collier’s Convairs quietly refuelling. Seconds later the Convair was in the air, heading north on a military mission.
Men faced each other with guns on Altenburg’s airstrip. The Aerocommander swept in to see a DC-4 parked at one end, with men in green fatigues already loading boxes of papers. The men stared at the Aerocommander in astonishment as the pilot positioned it to block in the DC-4. The door in the Aerocommander’s side opened and Hayes leaped out, brandishing a handgun. Two black men followed, standing just behind him. One of them was in police uniform, the other wore a bright beach shirt and white jeans cut off on his calves. Both also held guns. The men in green fatigues milled about for a moment, like ants disturbed at their nest, and then they were also armed, and they were all carrying FLN rifles.
Meanwhile the two big black cars reached Altenburg’s perimeter fence. The gate was locked, but a policeman shot it out, and burly Bahamian policemen moved it aside. The Convair carrying the men of the Bahamas Regiment touched down on Collier’s airstrip, and a Parisian bus stood waiting with its engine running.
Hayes took a few steps forward. ‘Lay down your arms.’ He shouted his words, but the men in green fatigues watched him impassively. A couple moved to take cover, and held him in their sights.
Delia was supervising two Bahamian maids packing her clothes when she heard an aircraft circle the villa and land at the airstrip. She wondered whether her father had finished talking to Lindsay. He had told her to leave them in peace for at least an hour, and he was not a man to brook disturbance. She decided to take a discreet look, because the maids were both making good progress.
She explored the villa’s big drawingroom first, but the room was empty. She opened the door to the corridor running along the spine of the villa, to be nearly knocked flying by a man in green fatigues bearing a pile of cardboard files. A second man followed, and his face was intent.
She stepped out in front of him, because she could see that he had no intention of slowing, let alone halting. ‘Have you seen my father?’
The man stopped, and she repeated her question in German. He hesitated, but she blocked his way.
‘Es ist am Landestreifen. Da ist Unruhe.’
She stepped back, and the man hurried on. She felt bewildered. The man had talked of trouble at the airstrip, and it was something she had to know about. Her jeep was still parked outside the villa. She jumped in, racing the few hundred metres to the airstrip. Then she stopped in amazement. Her father and one of his men were busily setting up a machinegun.
‘Vati, what are you doing?’
Altenburg paused for a moment, motioning her to retreat. She could see that a plane was blocking the villa’s airstrip, with three men standing in front of it holding handguns. One of them was a European in Bahamian police uniform.
Her father had returned to his machinegun, and was now loading it with a belt of ammunition. Delia was wholly bewildered. It was as though the world had taken leave of its senses. She stepped forward to snatch the belt of ammunition from her father’s hands, dragging the machinegun over on its side. Guns were not toys for grown men to play with.
Altenburg stared at her with a blank expression. But she could see fury as well, bubbling up inside him, and it was the same fury she had seen in men who had thought to take advantage of her, and she knew only one way to best it. She stepped forward, a matching fury rising in her, to slap him hard across the face, and she was screaming at him. ‘Stop, stop this madness, right now.’
Altenburg looked at her, and blinked, and raised his hand to touch his cheek, where she had struck him, and then he seemed to deflate, crumpling in on himself. He took a deep breath, and nodded, and turned to face the Aerocommander, holding his hands wide out to either side of him, to show that they were empty, and it was a surrender.
Hayes lowered his own gun, and signed to the two men with him to follow suit, and the men in green fatigues matched them. He pushed the gun back into its holster, and walked up to Delia, and he was holding out his hand.
‘I think, Miss Altenburg, you have just defused a nasty misunderstanding.’ He held her hand firm, and he had the same look as her father when he resolved difficult problems.
Delia realised that she was weeping. She was making no sound, but tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she could not control them.
Hayes pulled a handkerchief from the right hand pocket of his shorts. It had already seen service, but he did not suppose that would matter. He waited for Delia to mop at her eyes, and then took it back to push into his pocket. He would keep it as a mememnto and a trophy. He patted her shoulder. ‘I think we better go into the house sand have a nice refreshing cup of tea.’
He sign to the man in the bright beach shirt as Delia got back into her jeep. ‘You go with Mr. Altenburg and find Lindsay.’
The policeman nodded, and Altenburg gestured to him to follow as he began to walk towards the nearest green hut. Everything was collapsing around him, and he no longer greatly cared what happened.
Two policemen carried Lindsay back to the house on a stretcher. The doctor at the CIA training camp spoke good English.
‘He will sleep for maybe twelve-fifteen hours, and he will wake with a headache.’ He smiled a wintry smile. He had drugged Lindsay for a transatlantic flight. Perhaps he should have used something stronger.
Hayes and Delia sat in the villa’s drawingroom. Altenburg sat on his own, paying no attention to them. Hayes eyed Delia thoughtfully.
‘I think the best thing now, seeing what has happened, is for you to pack your father and his men up, and get them off the island as fast as you can.’
Delia did not look at him. ‘He made a fool of himself.’
‘Yes, you can say that.’ Hayes looked at Altenburg quickly, but he showed no reaction. ‘But nobody has been hurt. Out of sight will be out of mind.’
Delia brushed at her eyes. ‘I will never be able to thank you enough.’
Hayes put down his cup and got to his feet. ‘You saved my life.’
Lindsay had a filthy headache when he woke. He was back in his room at the British Colonial, and his first reaction was to look for his wallet, but it seemed to be untouched. He stretched, and yawned.
‘Good afternoon.’ It was a male voice.
He rolled over. A man was seated in an armchair by the window, reading a book. Lindsay frowned. The man was familiar, despite the pain in his head. He levered himself clumsily up into a sitting position. ‘You’re Major Jones.’
Major Jones beamed. All this King Cay business had forced a decision. Ostensibly he was on a flying visit to the Bahamas to find out as much as he could about Altenburg’s CIA training camp, but in fact he had already made up his mind. He was getting old, and Molly had been complaining again about her arthritis. They had talked the matter over as she drove him to Heathrow, and she was wholly confident that Annabel was old enough, and sensible enough, to hold her own. The CIA camp at Altenburg’s villa would make a nice lever to force the Americans into being more co-operative here and there, and Spary had been champing long enough for a chance to run Berlin. He had already lunched with Molly and Jack Hayes, and Jack had a home waiting for him. It was time for him to take life a little more easy. ‘I’ve come to have a look at King Cay.’
Lindsay rubbed the back of his head. He felt as though he had been hit with a sandbag. ‘I don’t think I ever want to go there again.’
They talked for a while. Lindsay learned about Altenburg’s connection with the Teutonic Knights, and told Major Jones about Bailey and Valucetti and Victoria. A waiter brought coffee for them both.
Major Jones poured two cups, both strong and black, and handed one to Lindsay. ‘We’re thinking of spiriting you away.’
Lindsay looked at him in alarm.
‘The Bahamians want to hush all this up. They’d prefer you to be as far from here as possible.’
‘But I’m supposed to be writing about the island.’
‘I don’t think Mr. Collier will fret much about that.’ Major Jones was avuncular. ‘He’s got everything he wants. Simon Swann will explain to everyone that you had to rush off in a hurry, a dying relative, something like that. Nobody will be any the wiser.’
He beamed. His first task on landing in the Bahamas after a tiring flight from London via New York had been to sit with Collier, Hayes, and Collier’s PR man to hammer out a schedule for shipping Lindsay out of the Bahamas as quietly as possible. Either Collier, or the Bahamian government, or a combination of the two, would fund a ticket for Lindsay to anywhere in the world, providing he was on a plane before nightfall, and it was now early afternoon.
Lindsay stretched. The coffee was strong, and he already felt better. ‘I would have liked to have said goodbye to Delia.’
‘She’s gone.’
‘And Sylvia. She must have saved my life.’
‘You’ll probably fly out with her.’
Lindsay stared.
Major Jones chuckled. ‘The government feels she knows more than was good for her, so they’re paying for her to fly to Los Angeles.’ He did not mention that Collier had also agreed to make a generous cash donation to Sylvia’s plans to take Hollywood by storm. He was impressed by the openhandedness that appeared to rule the Bahamas – people only had to open their purses to see them filled.
Lindsay hauled himself out of bed, covering himself decorously with a towel. ‘I’d better get ready.’ He remembered his envelope in the British Colonial safe. He was not sure he would be safe on a plane with Sylvia and a fat wallet. ‘I just need to get to a bank, and you can fly me away.’
Two hours later he was back at Nassau airport. He had checked all his cash, bar a thousand bucks, into a brand new account with Chase Manhattan, and signed up for a new credit card. He was prosperous, even rich, and he planned to head for Hawaii, and then back to Puerto Rico, though with a promise that he would stay well clear of the Bahamas. Peter Lester, Interglobal’s PR man, was due for a surprise.
Major Jones accompanied him to the Pan Am check-in desk, because the Bahamian government wanted him escorted out of the islands, and then went off to make a phone call. He heard a sudden noise, and a small white whirlwind hurtled across the passenger hall.
‘Querido, mi querido, my love, my soul.’ It was Sylvia, laughing and crying all at the same time, and attempting to cover his face with kisses. ‘You have come back to me, my angel.’
Lindsay looked down at her, and his heart warmed. But he made sure that her hands did not stray too close to his wallet, safely tucked in his hip pocket.
‘I was afraid, so afraid. I think that tall, bad girl take you from me. The police tell me her father was very bad man, they throw him out of the Bahamas.’
Lindsay grinned. ‘Me too.’
‘And me. But they give me a plane ticket to Hollywood.’ Sylvia kissed him again, and wondered whether Collier had also lined Lindsay’s pocket with living expenses. ‘Come with me, we will make much love in California.’
She was still hanging from Lindsay’s neck when a silver voice called the Miami flight and Major Jones returned.
The plane was only half full and Major Jones sat several discreet rows behind them. Lindsay was a lucky young devil. He seemed to have a way with women. Roswirtha, Aileen, and now this sparky young South American – and Major Jones had also heard much about Cordelia Altenburg, for Jack Hayes had been full of the way she disarmed her father. He settled in for a quiet nap as the plane took off. Girls were for younger men. He would fly to Miami, and catch the next plane back, and then he would catch up on his sleeping, for travel could really take it out of a man.
He woke as the aircraft circled to land. But something was strange, because he could see no airport lights below, only a single runway. The plane touched down, and there were no airport buildings, and the other passengers were all talking busily amongst themselves, and craning out to look along the passageway down the centre of the aircraft.
A stewardess looked down at him, and she seemed flustered. ‘I’m sorry, sir. We have been diverted.’
Major Jones was bewildered. ‘Diverted? Where are we?’
‘I don’t know, sir. An armed man has taken control of the aircraft.’
A man emerged from the flight cabin, with a gun in his hand. Stairs pushed up to the plane, and the door opened, and several men in olive green uniforms came into the plane. They looked along the plane as though they were searching, and Major Jones had a feeling that he recognised one of them.
Then Lindsay and Sylvia were standing, and Lindsay was beaming, and pointing towards him, and Major Jones had a flash of recognition.
‘Delahaye?’
Delahaye’s silver hair was unmistakeable. He pumped Major Jones’ hand, and he was beaming like a cheshire cat. ‘We had a report that Altenburg had kidnapped a friend of mine, and I could not let it happen. So I sent one of my men to Nassau. But it seems we were mistaken.’ He looked Major Jones up and down, and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Welcome to Cuba.’
The end