The Deceiver (50 page)

The generous ocean provided most of the food, along with fruit from the forests and gardens tended along the slopes of Sunshine’s two hills, Spyglass and Sawbones.

Then in early 1989, someone in the Foreign Office decided that the Barclays were ripe for independence. The first “position paper” became a “submission” and went on to become policy. The British Cabinet that year was wrestling with a huge trade deficit, slumping popularity polls, and restiveness over a divided mood on European policy. The bagatelle of an obscure island group in the Caribbean going independent passed without debate.

The then Governor objected, however, and was duly recalled and replaced by Sir Marston Moberley. A tall, vain man who prided himself on his resemblance to the late actor George Sanders, he had been sent to Sunshine with a single brief, carefully spelled out to him by an Assistant Principal Secretary in the Caribbean Department. The Barclays were to accept their independence. Candidates for Prime Minister would be invited, and a general election day was set. After the democratic election of the Barclays’ first Prime Minister, a decent interval (say, three months) would be agreed to by him and his Cabinet, after which full independence would be granted—nay, insisted upon.

Sir Marston was to ensure that the program went through and another burden removed from Britain’s exchequer. He and Lady Moberley had arrived on Sunshine in late July. Sir Marston had set about his duties with a will.

Two potential candidates had soon presented themselves for the office of Prime-Minister-to-be. Mr. Marcus Johnson, a wealthy local businessman and philanthropist, had returned to the islands of his birth after making a fortune in Central America. He now resided on a fine estate the other side of Sawbones Hill and had formed the Barclays Prosperity Alliance, pledged to develop the islands and bring wealth to the people. The more rough-hewn but populist Mr. Horatio Livingstone, who lived down in Shantytown, of which he owned a substantial part, had formed the Barclays Independence Front. The elections were but three weeks away, scheduled for January 5. Sir Marston was pleased to see that vigorous electioneering campaigns were under way, with both candidates earnestly canvassing the islanders for support with speeches, pamphlets, and posters on every wall and tree.

There was but one fly in Sir Marston’s ointment: the CCC, or Committee for Concerned Citizens, which was opposed to independence. It was led by that tiresome man Reverend Walter Drake, the local Baptist minister. Sir Marston had agreed to receive a delegation from the CCC at nine that morning.

There were eight of them. The Anglican vicar—a pale, washed-out, and ineffectual Englishman—he knew he could deal with. Six were local worthies—the doctor, two shopkeepers, a farmer, a bar owner, and a boarding-house keeper called Mr. Macdonald. They were all elderly and of rudimentary education. They could not match Sir Marston for fluency in English or persuasiveness in argument. For each one of them, he could find a dozen who were in favor of independence.

Marcus Johnson, the “prosperity” candidate, was supported by the airport manager, the owners of dockside property (Johnson had promised to build a thriving international marina in its place), and most of the business community, who would become richer with development. Livingstone was securing backing from the proletariat, the have-nots, to whom he had promised a miraculous rise in living standards based on the nationalization of property and assets.

The problem was the CCC delegation leader, Reverend Drake, a big black bull of a man in a black suit who now wiped perspiration from his face. He was a compulsive preacher, lucid and loud, who had secured an education on the American mainland. He wore the small sign of a fish in his lapel, a born-again Christian. Sir Marston wondered idly from what previous state he had been born again, but it never occurred to him to ask. Reverend Drake thumped a pile of paper on the Governor’s desk.

Sir Marston had ensured there were not enough seats for all, so they had to stand. He stood himself—it would make the meeting shorter. He glanced at the pile of paper.

“That, Governor,” boomed Reverend Drake, “is a petition. Yes, sir, a petition. Signed by more than one thousand of our citizens. We want this petition conveyed to London and put before Mrs. Thatcher herself. Or even the Queen. We believe these ladies will listen to us, even if you will not.”

Sir Marston sighed. It was all going to be—he searched for his favorite adjective—more tiresome than he had expected.

“I see,” he said. “And what does your petition require?”

“We want a referendum, just like the British people had over the Common Market. We
demand
a referendum. We do not want to be forced into independence. We want to go on as we are, as we have always been. We do not want to be ruled by Mr. Johnson or Mr. Livingstone. We appeal to London.”

Down at the airstrip, a taxi arrived, and Mr. Barney Klinger stepped out. He was a short, rotund man who lived in a substantial Spanish-style property in Coral Gables, next to Miami. The chorus girl who accompanied him was neither short nor rotund; she was stunning, and young enough to be his daughter. Mr. Klinger kept a cottage on the slopes of Spyglass Hill, which he used occasionally for discreet vacations away from Mrs. Klinger.

He intended to fly to Key West, put his girlfriend on a scheduled flight to Miami, then proceed home in his own plane, clearly alone, a tired businessman returning from a commercial visit to discuss a boring old contract. Mrs. Klinger would meet him at Miami Airport and note that he was alone. One could not be too careful. Mrs. Klinger knew some very fine lawyers.

Julio Gomez heaved himself to his feet and approached.

“Mr. Klinger, sir?”

Klinger’s heart jumped. A private detective? “Who wants to know?”

“Look, I have a problem, sir. I was vacationing down here, and I just got a call from my wife. Our kid’s had an accident back home. I have to get back, I really do. There are no flights today. None. Not even for charter. I was wondering, could you give me a lift to Key West? I’d be forever in your debt.”

Klinger hesitated. The man could still be a private eye hired by Mrs. Klinger. He handed his grip to a baggage porter, who began to load it and the rest of his valises into the hold of the Navajo.

“Well,” said Klinger, “I don’t know.”

There were six people grouped around: the passport officer, the baggage porter, Gomez, Klinger, his girlfriend, and another man who was helping with the luggage. The porter assumed this man was from the Klinger party, and the Klinger party assumed he belonged to the airstrip. The pilot was out of earshot inside his cabin, and the taxi driver was relieving himself in the vegetation twenty yards away.

“Gee, honey, that’s dreadful. We’ve got to help him,” said the chorus girl.

“Okay,” said Klinger. “So long as we take off on time.”

The passport officer quickly stamped the three passports, the baggage locker was closed, the three passengers boarded, the pilot revved up both engines, and three minutes later the Navajo lifted off Sunshine with a filed flight plan for Key West, seventy minutes’ cruising time away.

“My dear friends, and I do hope I may call you friends,” said Sir Marston Moberley. “Please try to understand the position of Her Majesty’s government. At this juncture a referendum would be quite inappropriate. It would be administratively complex to an impossible degree.”

He had not become a senior diplomat with a series of Commonwealth postings behind him without learning to patronize.

“Please explain,” rumbled Reverend Drake, “why a referendum is more complex than a general election. We want the right to decide whether to have an election at all.”

The explanation was simple enough, but it was not to be mentioned here. The British government would have to pay for a referendum; but in the election, the candidates were paying for their own campaigns though exactly how, Sir Marston had not inquired. He changed the subject.

“Tell me, if you feel this way, why not stand for the post of Prime Minister yourself? According to your view, you would have to win.”

Seven of the delegation looked baffled. But the Reverend Drake stabbed a sausagelike finger in his direction. “You know why, Governor. These candidates are using printing presses, public address systems, even campaign managers brought in from outside. And they’re offering a lot of cash around among the people.”

“I have no evidence of that—none at all,” interrupted the Governor, now a shade of pink.

“Because you won’t go outside and see what’s going on!” roared the Baptist minister. “But
we
know. It happens on every streetcorner. And intimidation of those who oppose them.”

“When I receive a report from Chief Inspector Jones to that effect, I will take action,” snapped Sir Marston.

“Surely we need not quarrel,” pleaded the Anglican vicar. “The point is, will you send our petition to London, Sir Marston?”

“Certainly I will,” said the Governor. “It is the least I can do for you. But it is also, I fear, the
only
thing I can do. My hands, alas, are tied. And now, if you will excuse me.”

They trooped out, having done what they came for. As they left the building, the doctor, who happened to be the uncle of the police chief, asked, “Do you think he really will?”

“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 Italian-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.