Bahama Crisis

"Robinson is trying to sabotage the economy of the Bahamas." Perigord regarded me expressionlessly, and I said, "How many tourists have we lost since all this began? Ask Butler, and I guarantee the answer will startle you. And it's not long since Billy Cunningham warned me that if this series of disasters continued the Cunningham Corporation would think seriously of pulling out. The company which runs the Parkway in Nassau is already nearly bankrupt."

"It's all too thin," complained Perigord.

"Too speculative. The only hard evidence we have is the glass tube you found, and that won't be evidence if it's clean. How long will it take you to make the tests, Dr. Bosworth?"

"The hospital in Nassau is doing the testing, and it will take four days."

"Not sooner?"

"This bacterium is very elusive," said Tony.

"The samples have to go through a guinea pig and then be cultured on an agar medium supplemented by cysteine and iron. Then ' Perigord flapped his hand.

"Spare me the technical details," he said irritably.

"All right four days."

"I'll tell you something, Commissioner," said Tony.

"If that capsule gives a positive result it means someone has found a way of culturing Legionella pneumophila in quantity, and that implies a well-equipped biological laboratory. It's not something you can whip up in a-kitchen."

Perigord absorbed that in silence. Walker stirred and said, "There's something you ought to know. This morning one of my guys found Carrasco in a place he shouldn't be on one of the back stairs used by the cleaning staff. He said he'd got lost; taken a wrong turning and gone through the wrong door."

I slapped the desk with the flat of my hand.

"Perigord, what more do you want?" I turned on Walker.

"So Carrasco has given you the slip before. I hope to God he didn't doctor the water tanks here."

"No way," said W^alker, stung.

"And he didn't give us the slip. He dropped out of sight and my guy went looking for him. He wasn't out of sight for more than three minutes."

"I could bear to know a lot about who and why," said Perigord.

"There's a proverb to the effect that fishing is best done in troubled waters," I said.

"The CIA know it as destabilization.

They've been pretty good at it in the past. "

He looked startled.

"You're not suggesting the CIA is behind this?"

"I don't know who is behind it I didn't say it was the CIA. It's not in the American interest to destabilize a sound capitalist economy in this part of the world. Others do come to mind, though."

"Five will get you ten that Carrasco is a Cuban," said Walker.

"Venezuelan my ass." The telephone rang and he picked it up.

"I'm expecting this." He held a short conversation his end of it consisting of monosyllables. As he laid down the handset he said, "You were right; Carrasco went out in a boat. He's just come back and he's in the Buccaneer Club now, having a drink. We have a picture of him landing on the beach."

"Taken at night," I said scornfully.

"A fat lot of good that will be.

And what good is a picture? We already know what he looks like. "

"There was another guy in the boat," said Walker reasonably.

"We might like to know who he is. As for picture quality, if anyone can come up with something good it's Rodriguez; he has some kind of gismo on his camera. That guy is gadget-happy. He says Carrasco came back in a small boat that's probably a tender to a big yacht. After landing Carrasco, the boat went out to sea again."

"A night rendezvous," said Perigord.

"I'll have a police boat take a look at Deadman Reef." He reached for the telephone.

When he had finished we continued to kick the problerp around for quite a while. No, Perigord had not investigated the catastrophe of the airport carousel; it had not been considered a police matter at the time. He would look into it next day. The fire at the Fun Palace in Nassau had been investigated for arson, but no firm evidence had come up. It might be possible to borrow a deep-diving submersible from the Americans to look for the remains of Finder's Navajo in Exuma Sound. Evidence of sabotage would be useful.

"Useful for what?" I asked.

"That's in the past and I'm worried about the future. I'm wondering what Robinson's department of dirty tricks will come up with next."

It was agreed that Carrasco was our only lead and that he would be closely watched. 1 looked hard at Walker.

"And don't lose him again ' " I'll assign some of my own men to him," said Perigord.

"There are too many whites watching him now. My blacks will blend into the background better." He looked at his watch.

"Nearly midnight. I suggest that Dr. Bosworth will sleep better in a bed than in that chair. And I'm for bed, too." | I turned and found Tony asleep. I woke him up.

"I'll find you a room. Come on."