Bahama Crisis

The breeze which blew through the unglazed window was warm and smelled of damp and rotting vegetation. Even so, I shivered as I made my way back to the bed, and I was glad to lie down again. That brief journey had taken the strength out of me; maybe I could have lasted two seconds with Mohammed All, but I doubted it. I pulled the sheet over my body and went back to sleep.

When next I woke I felt better. Perhaps it was because of the sunlight slanting through the room, making a yellow patch at the bottom of the bed. The window was now uncurtained and next to the bed a tray was laid on a table which contained a pitcher of orange juice, an empty glass, a pile of thick-cut bread slices, a pot of butter and a crude wooden spatula with which to spread it.

The orange juice went down well and my spirits rose when I saw the pot of honey which had been hidden behind the pitcher. I breakfasted stickily, sitting on the edge of the bed with the sheet draped around me, and doing an inventory of the room. Against one wall was another table holding a basin and a water jug together with a piece of kitchen soap. And there was a chair with clothing draped over it not mine. And that, apart from the bed and the bedside table, was all.

After breakfast I washed, but first looked through the uncurtained window. There was nothing much to see just trees baking under a hot sun. The air was humid and dank and smelled of vegetable corruption.

After washing I turned to the clothing a pair of jeans, a tee-shirt with the words HOUSTON COUGARS emblazoned across the chest, and a pair of dirty white sneakers. As I was putting on the jeans I examined the bruise on the outside of my thigh; it was livid and there seemed to be a small pin hole in the middle of it. It did not hurt much so I put on the jeans, then the shirt, and sat on the bed to put on the shoes. And there I was dressed and almost in my right mind.

I might have hammered on the door then, demanding in highfalutin terms to be released, and what the devil is the meaning of this, sir?

I refrained. My captors would see me in their own time and I needed to think. There is a manoeuvre in rugby football known as 'selling the dummy', a feint in which the ball goes in an unexpected direction. The Cunningham family had been sold the dummy and I would bet that Billy Cunningham would be spitting bullets.

I mentally reviewed the contents of the first and second ransom letters. The object of the first was to get me to Houston. The second was so detailed and elaborate that no one thought it would be the dummy we were being sold. It was a fake all the way through.

One thing was certain: the Cunninghams would be incensed beyond measure. To kidnap a Cunningham was bad enough, but to add a double-cross was to add insult to injury. Right at that moment the Cunningham Building i45 I would be like a nest of disturbed rattlesnakes; all hell would be breaking loose and, perhaps, this time they would bring in the police. Not that it would help me, I thought glumly, or Debbie.

Which brought me to Debbie. Was she here or not? And where the devil was here? There was a frustrating lack of information. I went to the window again and looked out through the bars and again saw nothing but trees. I tested the bars; steel set firmly in concrete, and immoveable.

I turned at a metallic noise at the door. The first man to enter held a shotgun pointing at my belly. He was dressed in jeans and a checkered shirt open almost to the waist, and had a lined grim face.

He took one pace inside the room and then stepped sideways, keeping the gun on me.

"On the bed." The barrel of the gun jerked fractionally.

I backed away and sidled sideways like a crab to the bed. The muzzle of that gun looked like an army cannon.

Another man came into the room and closed the door behind him. He was dressed in a lightweight business suit and could have been anybody.

He had hair, two eyes and a mouth, with a nose in the middle a face-shaped face. He was nobody I had seen before or, if I had, I had not noticed him. He was my most forgettable character.

"Good morning, Mr. Mangan. I hope you had a quiet night and slept well."

English not American, I thought. I said, "Where's my wife?"

"First things first." He gestured sideways.

"This man is armed with an automatic shotgun loaded with buckshot. Anything that will kill a deer will kill a man men die more easily. At ten feet he couldn't miss; he could put five rounds into you in five seconds. I think you'd be chopped in half."

"Two seconds," said the shot gunner flatly and objectively.

I was wrong about him being English; at the back of those perfectly modulated tones was the flavour of something I could not pin down. I repeated, "Where's my wife?"

"She's quite safe," he said reassuringly.

"Where? Here?"

He shrugged.

"No harm in you knowing. Yes, she's here."

"Prove it. I want to see her."

He laughed.

"My dear Mr. Mangan, you are in no position to make demands. Although…" He was pensive for a moment.