Big red lights blinked at one-second intervals on the plane's wings and tail. The red lights reflected beautifully off the dark blue sea.
Hidden in blackness beside a filling station near runway two, Damian Rose watched the pretty landing with considerable interest. He ran through his final plan one more time.
Meanwhile, out on runway one, the tires of the 727 were already touching down with the slightest bump and grind. A half-stoned calypso band began to play up near the main terminal.
The airplane's wheels screeched as its brakes and thrust-reversal system took hold.
As the plane reached a point halfway to its landing mark, Damian Rose was forced to make a decision. Raising an expensive German-made rifle to his cheek, he got a small dark box on the runway into the clear greenish light of his nightscope. He fired three times.
The unsophisticated bomb on the runway went off, drowning out the rifle explosions, and blew away a large section of the airplane's belly.
As the 727 rolled to a stop, flames burst from its midsection, then out the windows over its wings. Doors flew open, and emergency escape equipment tumbled outside. Screaming passengers started to come out of the airplane, some of them on fire.
The airport's two emergency trucks headed out toward the burning plane, slowly at first, their inexperienced drivers not believing what they were seeing.
A person's burning head was in one of the plane's tiny windows.
A white woman on fire ran across the dark tarmac, looking like a burning cross.
A stewardess stood at one door with her fingers buried in her frosted blond hair, screaming for help. Four hours later-when the fire was finally out six people from the 727 were dead, more than fifty others had been burned, and nobody on the island had a clue why it happened.
The next day the puzzle seemed to become a bit clearer.
April 25,, 1979,
Couple Slain On Beach
CHAPTER FOUR
In 1967, when we were selling fifty- and hundred-milligram bags of heroin, Damian told me that he aspired to be the greatest criminal mind in the world. He said that the world was ripe for a criminal hero: brilliant. with a little raffish touch of William Henry Bonney-a little Butch Cassidy gilding.... I liked that idea very much. I got to be Katharine Ross in the fantasy.
The Rose Diary
April 25, 1979; Turtle Bay, San Dominica
Wednesday Afternoon. The Second Day of the Season On the macadam highway that sliced through Turtle Bay, Peter Macdonald-a young man who was to play a large part in things to come-made his daily bicycle ride through the lush, sun-streaked paradise.
As he pedaled a ten-speed Peugeot, Macdonald was enjoying the extra luxury of recalling several foolish glories out of his past.
Nearly twenty-nine years old, Peter rode well enough. He looked healthy. Physically he was an attention getter. A pleasantly muscular six feet one, he rode in holey gray gym shorts with Property of USMA West Point printed in gold on one leg.
He wore ragged Converse All-Star sneakers from Herman Spiegel's Sportin' Supplies in Grand Rapids, Michigan... gray-and-red SnoWhird socks that made his feet peel their yellowing calluses... a bent, dusty Detroit Tigers souvenir hat that looked as if it had been worn every day of his life. And nearly had been.
Underneath the baseball hat, his chestnut-colored hair was cut short, very high up on the sides. It was a real throWhack haircut-a cut they used to call a 'West Pointer.'
Nearly everything about Peter Macdonald was throWhack: his young lumbedack's good looks; his high Episcopal morals, philosophies; Midwestern fanner stubbornness. Everything except for the last four months, anyway-the times he'd spent on San Dominica-the four months he'd been a lackey bartender, a beachcomber, a fornicator. Quite frankly, a nothing.
As he passed through the island hills, gnats began to swim in the sweat on his strong back.
Peter the Ridiculous, his girlfriend, Jane Cooke, Red to say in private places.
Once upon a time Peter had run around Michigan like that: quietly, desperately, ridiculously... in winter... in ten-pound black rubber sea boots.
Once upon a time he'd been an army brat-the last of the six Macdonald brothers, the last of the Super Six; then he'd been a West Point cadet; then a Special Forces sergeant in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Old foolish glories.
When the high weeds and banana plants started to get too thick-buggy, disturbingly itchy-Peter rode closer to the sea, on the wrong side of the twolane Shore Highway. He was getting tired now. Rhythm going all to hell. Breaking down. Paradise Lost.
He looked down on the starry Caribbean-Turtle Bay-and thought that he would take a swim after his ride. Find Jane and take a dip with her... maybe talk her into spending the afternoon in bed.
He was very, very tired now, though. Knees threatened to wipe out his chin. Pedals fell flat as pancakes.
Stik-shhh, stik-shhh, stik-shhh, stik-shhh...
Shiny with sweat, Peter came around a sharp bend in the highway... and saw Damian Rose... thirty yards ahead of him on the road.
