By 2:30 Carrie Rose was on a Pan Am flight out of the Caribbean.
When the three o'clock news from Puerto Rico came on the brassy transistor radio nearby, Damian started to gather up his clothes. The tall blond man put on dark sunglasses, a white deckhand's hat, a white cotton-madras shirt.
At 3: 1 0 he walked into a shabby open-air cafe. The outdoor restaurant ran the length of Cape John Beach on thin, crusty gray pilings-pelican's legs.
From the cafe pay phone, Rose called the American embassy. Receptionist. Male secretary. Put on hold. Three-seventeen. Three twenty-one. Getting slightly humorous. Brooks Campbell finally spoke. 'Hello, this is Campbell.
Damian said, 'Listen very carefully and don't say a fucking word until I'm finished.... In fiftyfour minutes, at four-fifteen, Colonel Dred is going to comniit his first major act of violence. This will be the final act we've planned for you.
'Rose!... '
'Shut the fuck up!... We expect you to try to stop us from leaving San Dominica after this. But if you do, I'm going to kill you. I promise you, Campbell. Here's to poor Nickie Handy, chump.
'Rose.
Click.
'Goddammit, stop playing games!' Brooks Campbell screamed into the loud buzzing of the telephone.
Shortly after Rose's call, Campbell contacted Harold Hill in Washington.
'AU heff is about to break loose here. I'm going to need a lot of help now. But I'm going to get them, Harry.' f
'I think you will. I really do,' said Harry the Hack.
Click.
At 5:30, feeling desperate and confused, Peter Macdonald telephoned Campbell at the U.S. embassy. He was informed by a very official-sounding American man that Mr. Campbell had left for the day. Peter was then told that all Americans were being asked to stay off the streets.
'Mere'd been a massacre.
Click.
EWAbeth's Fancy, San Do'minica
Tyndall's Goat Highway goes nowhere except to a restored nineteenth-century sugar-cane plantation.
alled Elizabeth's Fancy-and when Elizabeth's Fancy closes at four each afternoon, the Goat Highway goes nowhere.
The last bus from the plantation carried the final tour groups back to their hotels. It also brought back a woman ticket taker, a forty-two-year-old bartender-manager from Liverpool, England, and three security guards from Tanner Men.
The bus was a tongue-red-and-black doubledecker manufactured by Rolls-Royce in 1953. Its nickname was Grasshopper.
Grasshopper had a maximum speed of forty-four MPH and misaligned springs that made it appear to hop down the bumpy Goat Highway. Because its second deck was so much higher than the jungle brush, Grasshopper could be seen from five miles away.
In this case, however, the red top half of the bus was being observed from just two miles off.
The three black men standing at the edge of the Goat Highway all held high-powered M-16 rifles manufactured in Detroit, Michigan. Just behind them stood a line of teenage boys. Each boy held a sharp machete knife.
'How'd you compaare dis M-16 an th' old M14?' Colonel Dred was saying to the African.
Kingfish Toone's eyes didn't move away from the dirt road. Right beside him, the Cuban was toeing dust like a stubborn or angry horse. He was looking forward to shooting Dred very much now.
'There is no comparison.' The African's deep voice finally came. 'The M-16 will strike any target with three times the impact of a conventional rifle. It would shoot straight through a line of five men.' The mercenary took a silver bullet out of his shirt pocket. He held the bullet lengthwise between thick, coal-black fingers.
'Still another war toy. Invented by the Americans, I suppose. The shell is coated with plastic. It leaves no stains. Impossible to find with a medical X-ray. Quite diabolical, really. think about it, Colonel Dred.
'Dey cost?' the guerrilla asked. 'Th' guns, nah dose bullet. Diabolik bullet you have.'
'I don't follow costs very closely. ' Toone shrugged. 'Perhaps five hundred apiece for the rifles.
'Hyiuuu. ' The guerrilla chief shrieked and laughed. Then Dred walked away to make a last check on his soldiers.
In the back of his mind was the delicious thought that within hours he would be more important dm Che, maybe even than Fidel Castro. Something like a black Arafat... holding the sun for ransom instead of oil.
The driver of the red bus, forty-nine-year-old Franklin James, was feeling sweaty and itchy and st of all malcontent, this particularly sweaty afternoon. As the antique double-decker bumped along, he could feel the whole Goat Highway in the palm of his hand. In the shivering black knob of the stick shift.
Jus' what is th' problem now? James talked to himself. Tired of drivin' dis funny-time bus. Eamin' yo' money too easy, hey, mon? What to break yo' ass for it lak nigger? Admit it, mon, yo' got it easy. Admit to yo'self, truth, Franklin....
