Bahama Crisis

Thirteen

Tuesday morning, early but not very bright. I had had about three hours’ sleep and my body felt as heavy as my spirits, and even the forceful shower in the guest bathroom did not help. Knowing Houston I dressed lightly; it’s like living in a permanent sauna and it was fairly steamy even so early in the morning.

Breakfast was on the patio outside the house, a low rambling structure of stone, timber and glass. I do not know if Billy’s wife, Barbara, knew anything about the kidnapping of Debbie; she made no reference to it as she served breakfast so I concluded that probably Billy had not told her. It is a characteristic of Texans, and Cunninghams in particular, not to involve their womenfolk.

Over breakfast we talked of the weather, of baseball, and other mundane matters. A couple of times I caught Barbara giving me a sidelong glance and I knew what she was thinking — why was I there and not at Jack’s place with Debbie? The gossiping close-knit Cunningham women would know, of course, that the marriage was in trouble, but Barbara was too disciplined to refer to it and hid her curiosity well if not entirely.

After breakfast I went with Billy to his study where he picked up a red telephone and depressed a button. ‘Hi, Jo-Ann; anything I ought to know?’ I realized he had a direct line to his office in the Cunningham Building. He listened for a while then said abruptly. ‘Cancel all that.’ Standing ten feet away I was able to hear the cry of expostulation which came from the earphone.

‘No, I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘But it’ll be a week. Damn it, don’t argue with me, Jo-Ann. Here’s what you do. I want to see Harry Pearson of Texas Aviation and Charlie Alvarez of the Gulf Fishing Corporation — both this morning — not at the Cunningham Building, some place else. Sure, the Petroleum Club will do fine. You can tell me when you see me — half an hour.’

He put down the telephone and grinned. ‘I have a strong-minded secretary — but efficient.’ He became serious. ‘If we want helicopters and fast boats to be used in the way we want them used I’ll have to tell Harry and Charlie the reason. No chopper jockey or boat skipper will do what we want without their bosses’ say-so — we may have to skirt the law. So Harry and Charlie have to know. They’ll keep their mouths shut, I promise.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘It’s my skin you’re protecting. Just so you don’t take action before you have Debbie safe.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Have you got the clothing Jim wants?’

‘All packed.’

‘Then let’s go downtown.’

Houston.

Not so much a city as a frame of mind — a tribute to the dynamism of American technology. Too far from the sea? Bring the sea fifty miles to the city and make Houston the third biggest port in the United States. Want to produce gasoline? Build seven refineries and produce a flood of fifteen billion gallons a year. Want to go to the moon? Spend ten years, forty billion dollars, and make Houston the nerve centre of the operation. Want to play baseball when it is too hot and steamy to move? Put a roof over a stadium which holds 52,000 people and cool it to a constant 74° F. — cool for Houston — using 7000 tons of air-conditioning machinery. The grass in the stadium won’t grow? For Christ’s sake, man; design a special plastic grass.

The latest proposal was to roof over the entire business quarter of the city — much simpler than to air-condition individual buildings.

Houston — Baghdad-on-the-Bayou. I hated the place.

We went downtown in Billy’s car which he drove with the casual ease which comes to Americans by second nature, through the air they breathe — conditioned, of course. We went from his house to his office in the Cunningham Building without once taking a breath of the nasty, polluted, natural stuff outside. Billy’s secretary, I was interested to note, was a middle-aged lady with a face like a prune. As we passed through the outer office she said quickly, ‘Mr Pearson and Mr Alvarez — eleven o’clock — Petroleum Club.’

Without breaking stride Billy said, ‘Right. Find Cousin Jim — might be in security.’ We went into his office and he picked up a telephone and stabbed a button. ‘Pop, we’re in and ready to go.’ He listened for a moment and his expression changed. ‘Oh, God, no!’ Pause. ‘Yeah, I guess so. Okay.’

He put down the telephone. ‘Jack had a heart attack an hour ago. He’s being taken to the Texas Medical Center. Frank is with him and Pop is going there now. Of all the times...’

‘Because of the times,’ I said. ‘It probably wouldn’t have happened if Debbie hadn’t been kidnapped. He wasn’t looking too good last night.’

He nodded. ‘That leaves you, me and Jim to plan and execute this operation. Not enough — I’ll draft a couple more.’

Jim came in and Billy told him about Jack. ‘Tough,’ said Jim. ‘Poor old guy.’

‘Well, let’s get to it,’ said Billy. ‘Tom’s outfit is in that grip there.’

‘Fine.’ Jim frowned. ‘I’ve been worrying about something. What happens if they strip Tom? His bugged clothes might be going one way and Tom in another direction.’

‘That’s a chance we have to take,’ said Billy.

Jim smiled. ‘Not so. I’ve got something, if Tom will go for it.’ He produced a capsule of plastic, about an inch long, three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and with rounded ends. ‘You have to swallow it.’

‘What!’

‘It’s a transponder — it returns a signal when interrogated by a pulsed transmitter; not a powerful signal but good enough to get a direction finder on it. It goes into action when the gastric juices work on it, so you swallow it at the last minute.’

Billy inspected it critically. ‘Looks like one of those pills they blow down a horse’s throat through a tube.’

Jim laughed. ‘That’s all right if the horse doesn’t blow first. How about it, Tom?’

I looked at it distastefully. ‘All right — if I have to. Where did you get it?’

‘I have a pipeline into the CIA. I borrowed it.’

‘Borrowed!’ said Billy, grimacing. ‘Anyone going to use it afterwards?’

Jim said, ‘It’s good for thirty-six to forty-eight hours before peristalsis gets rid of it.’

‘Just don’t crap too much, that’s all,’ said Billy. ‘Anything else?’

‘I had the contents of the second letter checked for fingerprints. Result negative. No dice, Billy.’

‘Okay,’ said Billy. ‘I have things to do. Tom, why don’t you go along with Jim and watch him ruin your coat and pants? I’m going out to round up some transport.’

So I went with Jim to the security section in the Cunningham Building which meant having my photograph taken in colour by a Polaroid camera and wearing a plastic lapel badge with my name, signature and aforesaid photograph. Jim wore one too, as did everybody else.

I was introduced to an electronics genius called Ramon Rodriguez who displayed and discussed his wares, all miracles of micro-miniaturization. ‘Do you wear dentures, Mr Mangan?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘A pity.’ He opened a box and displayed a fine set of false gnashers. ‘These are good; they’ll transmit anything you sayrange over a mile. If you keep your mouth a little open they’ll also catch what the guy you’re talking to is saying — those two front top incisors are microphones.’ He put them away.

‘We’ll put a bug in the car you’ll be driving,’ said Jim.

‘Two,’ said Rodriguez. ‘Know anything about bugs, Mr Mangan?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘There are many kinds. Most fall into one of two categories — active and passive. The active bugs are working all the time, sending out a signal saying, “Here I am! Here I am!” The passive bugs only transmit when asked by a coded impulse, like the dohickey Mr Cunningham showed me this morning.’

Jim chuckled. ‘The pill.’

‘That’s to economize on power where space is limited. Those bugs send out an unmodulated signal, either steady or pulsed. When it comes to modulation, a voice transmission, it becomes a little harder. You’ll be wired up with every kind of bug we have.’

Rodriguez put a familiar-looking box on the bench. ‘Pack of cigarettes; genuine except for those two in the back right corner. Don’t try to light those or the sparks will fly.’ Something metallic went next to the cigarette pack. ‘Stick-pin for your necktie — will pick up a conversation and transmit it a quarter-mile. Belt to hold up your pants — bug in buckle, but will transmit a mile because we have more room to play with. Try to face the man you’re talking with, Mr Mangan.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

Two identical objects joined the growing heaps. ‘These go in the heels of your shoes. This one sends a steady signal so we can get a direction finder on it. But this one has a pressure transducer — every time you take a pace it sends out a beep. If you’re being hustled along on foot we’ll know it — we might even be able to calculate how fast. And if it stops we know you’re static — if you’re not in an automobile, that is. Now, this is important. You know the rhythm of shave-and-a-haircut?’

I smiled and knocked it out with my knuckles on the bench.

‘Good. If you’re being taken for a ride tap it out once for a car, twice for a boat, three times for an airplane. Repeat at five minute intervals. Got that?’

I repeated his instructions. ‘Just tap it out with my heel? Which one?’

‘The right heel.’ Rodriguez picked up my jacket and trousers. ‘I’m giving you two antennae — one in your coat sewn into the back seam, the other in your pants. Don’t worry; they won’t show. And there’ll be a few other things — I’ll give you a new billfold and there’ll be the coins in your pockets — anything I can cook up between now and Thursday. You don’t have to know about them, just be glad they’re there.’

The Cunninghams were going to a great deal of trouble and it occurred to me that if they had all this stuff ready to hand then they were probably up to their necks in industrial espionage. I wondered if they had used it on me in the course of their admitted investigations.

Rodriguez looked at his watch. ‘I have to make a phone call. I won’t be long, Mr Cunningham.’ He walked away into his office.

Jim said, ‘That man once said he could make a working microphone out of three carpenter’s nails, a foot of copper wire, and a power cell. I bet he couldn’t. I lost.‘ He laughed. ‘He even made his own power cell from a stack of pennies and nickels, a piece of blotting paper and some vinegar.’

‘He seems a good man.’

‘The best,’ said Jim, and added casually, ‘Ex-CIA.’

I looked longingly at the packet of cigarettes on the bench. I had run out and I knew Jim did not smoke. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I said. I remembered there was a stand in the lobby of the Cunningham Building which sold cigarettes among other things, so I went down in the elevator to street level.

There was a short line waiting for service but I bought two packets of cigarettes within minutes. As I turned, opening one of them, I bumped heavily into a man. ‘Watch it, buster!’ he said nastily, and walked past me.

I shrugged and headed towards the elevator. In a climate like that of Houston anyone was entitled to be short-tempered. I stood waiting for the elevator and looked at the half-opened packet in my hand while absently rubbing my thigh. The health warning on the side of the packet shimmered strangely.

‘You okay, mister?’ The elevator starter was looking at me oddly.

I said distinctly, ‘I’m perfectly all right.’

‘Hey!’ He grabbed my arm as I swayed. Everything was swimming and my legs felt like putty. Slowly and majestically I toppled forward like a falling tree, and yelled ‘Timber!’ at the top of my voice. Oddly enough, not a sound passed my lips.

The next thing I knew was that I was being turned over. I looked at the ceiling and heard someone say, ‘Just fell down right there.’ Someone else said, ‘A drunk, I guess.’ And again: ‘At this time of day!’

I tried to speak. My brain worked all right in a somewhat crazy manner — but there seemed to be interference with the connection to my voice box. I experimented with ‘Mary had a little lamb’, but nothing came through. It was weird.

From a distance a man said, ‘I’m a doctor — let me through.’ He bent over me and I stared up at him, past a big nose and into his eyes, yellow flecks in green irises. He felt my pulse then put his hand over my heart. ‘This man is having a heart attack,’ he said. ‘He must be taken to hospital immediately.’ He looked up. ‘Someone help me — my car is outside.’

I was lifted bodily and carried to the entrance, shouting loudly that this was no bloody heart attack and this was no bloody doctor, either. My brain told me I was shouting loudly but not a sound did I hear from my lips, and neither could I move a muscle. They put me on the back seat of a limousine and off we went. The man in the front passenger seat twisted around and took my limp arm. I saw the flash of glass and felt the prick of a needle, and soon the bright world began to go grey.

Just before I passed out I reflected that all the Cunninghams’ organization and the painstaking work of Ramon Rodriguez was going for nothing. The kidnappers had jumped the gun.