central altar. The boxes contained bodies still unclaimed after the Elizabeth's Fancy mas- sacre. they held the two dead agents from Mandeville Hospital. One of the temporary Red Cross coffins held Jane.
'I know how you feel, Peter. But you're showing disrespect for Our Lord in this way.'
'I doubt it means diddly-shit one way or the other to Our Lord. If it does, I don't buy his act, either.
Finally Father Brennan pointed to a particular coffin to the right of the bright gold-and-red altar.
Peter stopped in front of a coffin with a place card: JANE FRANCES COOKE.
He looked down the line of U. S. embassy and police officials. Praying? Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance?... The scene reminded him of the aftermath of some large tragedy he'd seen in some news clip. Hundreds of bodies laid out in a grammar school cafeteria. Mourners searching for friends and relatives. Violated in their grief by television cameras.
'Aren't you going to open it?' he finally said to the priest. 'I'd like to see her once more, please.'
'We haven't been doing that,' the priest said in a whisper. 'These aren't the best conditions, Peter. '
'I'd like to see her. I think we can all take it.'
'Will you take off your hat?' the priest asked again.
Peter took off the baseball hat, and the oblate consented to lift the lid for a brief viewing. It wasn't what he thought best-but the police chief said yes; the American ambassador said yes; and the young American man seemed to know what he wanted....
With a loud tearing noise, the lid came off.
Peter looked down and saw a young-looking woman, only vaguely recognizable, surprisingly small now.... Jane had been prepared with what looked like an old lady's face powder and rouge. Her long blond curls looked brittle and stiff, like the artificial hair on a child's doll. they hadn't even used one of her own dresses.... Oh, my God, no, Peter said over and over to himself. Oh, God, Jesus. Goddammit. Goddammit. If all those bastards hadn't been watching him, he would have let himself cry.
At the same time, Damian was watching the English killer, high up in the church's choir loft. He was just three aisles behind Clive Lawson. No more than twelve feet away.
The expensive killer had had one opportunity, but he'd resisted it. Basically a good decision, Rose was thinking, calculating. This church was an interesting place for a shot, spectacular and unexpected-a thrill kill-but maybe it wasn't the best place. Nonetheless, I would have done it here, Damian thought. Maybe on the way out....
He studied Peter Macdonald standing in front of his girlfriend's coffin; he watched Brooks Campbell, Hill-ducks on a pond.
Soon, however, he saw Clive Lawson quietly leave the choir loft, then the church altogether. The English killer had on a dark, contemporary rug that made him look like many of the news reporters. Like the Secret Service men, for that matter. Not bad for a traveling disguise.
It appeared that the grand finale, the coup de grace, was going to have to wait just a little bit longer.
Damian left the Church of Angels with the main body of the crowd. He was an odd-looking sight with his baggy yellow trousers; his parasol; his jester's cap held respectfully in one hand.
Almost instantly he was accosted by a mob of kids who wanted to play with Basil, the Children's Minstrel.
Thursday Evening.
All Thursday, San Dominica had been overturned and researched as desperately as it should have been the very night of the Elizabeth's Fancy massa cre.
Owners of stores, cafes, taverns, and private homes were badgered by agents with the photokit drawing made from Peter's description.
Each and every motel, hotel, inn, chalet, haci enda, villa, lodge, casa, caravansary-black or white in clientele-all were assaulted by marauding teams of local police and U.S. federal marshals. Rude Boys were hired to go out and mine for information in the larger city underworlds; among the cocaine and ganja dealers. Thousands of ordinary people were held up at the airports and boat docks, as well as at the major roadblocks set all over the island.
Neither Damian Rose nor Clive Lawson turned UP in any of the searches, however. Like a Martin Bormann, a Mengele-they were simply not the type offish that wind up in a police dragnet.
Bay of Pigs II was fast becoming Bay of Panic.
At 7:00 P. M. that night, a communications expert-, Harvey Epstein, thought that he'd lucked into the first gold strike of the entire manhunt.
At the time of the discovery, Epstein was playing Canfield solitaire on the floor of a VW van. The van was parked about three hundred yards behind a large villa owned by the Charles Forlenza Family (Sunasta Hotels) on San Dominica. Inside the van, Epstein was illegally bugging the Forlenza phones.
For two straight days now the only thing he'd heard was the Forlenza cook calling in her giggly orders for groceries at a place called the Coastown Gourmet Market. When the phone rang at seven, Harvey had a hunger attack.
He pressed his earphones to one ear only, uncovered a club ace. Listened.
'Hello. '
The first voice he recorded was a hood named Duane Nicholson. Nicholson was the man Isadore Goldman had brought with him to Government House on May 6.
Epstein assumed that the second voice was that of Damian Rose.
'I'm going to need those favors done for me,' Rose said. 'Put your part of things into operation.
