Frederick Forsyth - The Deceiver

Having lunched on the terrace, McCready went to see the Reverend Walter Drake. He found the Baptist minister at his small house, resting his still bruised body. He introduced himself and asked how the pastor was feeling.

“Are you with Mr. Hannah?” asked Drake.

“Not exactly with him,” said McCready. “More ... keeping an eye on things while he gets on with his murder investigation. My concern is more the political side of things.”

“You with the Foreign Office?” persisted Drake.

“In a way,” said McCready. “Why do you ask?”

“I do not like your Foreign Office,” said Drake. “You are selling my people down the river.”

“Ah, now that might just be about to change,” said Mc­Cready, and told the preacher what he wished of him.

Reverend Drake shook his head. “I am a man of God,” he said. “You want different people for that sort of thing.”

“Mr. Drake, yesterday I called Washington. Someone there told me that only seven Barclayans had ever served in the United States armed forces. One of them was listed as Drake W.”

“Another man,” growled Reverend Drake.

“This man said,” pursued McCready quietly, “that the Drake W. they had listed had been a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Served two tours in Vietnam. Came back with a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. I wonder what hap­pened to him?”

The big pastor lumbered to his feet, crossed the room, and stared out at the clapboard houses up and down the street where he lived.

“Another man,” he growled, “another time, another place. I do only God’s work now.”

“Don’t you think what I ask of you might qualify?”

The big man considered, then nodded. “Possibly.”

“I think so, too,” said McCready. “I hope I’ll see you there. I need all the help I can get. Ten o’clock, tomorrow morning, Government House.”

He left and strolled down through the town to the harbor. Jimmy Dobbs was working on the Gulf Lady . McCready spent thirty minutes with him, and they agreed on a charter voyage for the following day.

He was hot and sticky when he arrived at Government House just before five that afternoon. Jefferson served him an iced tea while he waited for Lieutenant Jeremy Haverstock to return. The young officer had been playing tennis with some other expatriates at a villa in the hills.

McCready’s question to him was simple: “Will you be here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

Haverstock thought it over. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said.

“Good,” said McCready. “Do you have your full tropical dress uniform with you?”

“Yes,” said the cavalryman. “Only got to wear it once. A state ball in Nassau six months ago.”

“Excellent,” said McCready. “Ask Jefferson to press it and polish up the leather and brasses.”

A mystified Haverstock escorted him to the front hall. “I suppose you’ve heard the good news?” he asked. “That detective chappie from Scotland Yard. Found the bullet yes­terday in the garden. Absolutely intact. Parker’s on his way to London with it.”

“Good show,” said McCready. “Spiffing news.”

He had dinner with Eddie Favaro at the hotel at eight. Over coffee he asked, “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Going home,” said Favaro. “I only took a week off. Have to be back on the job Tuesday morning.”

“Ah, yes. What time’s your plane?”

“Booked an air taxi for midday.”

“Couldn’t delay it until four o’clock, could you?”

“I suppose so. Why?”

“Because I could do with your help. Say, Government House, ten o’clock? Thanks, see you then. Don’t be late. Monday is going to be a very busy day.”

McCready rose at six. A pink dawn, herald of another balmy day, was touching the tips of the palm trees out in Parliament Square. It was delightfully cool. He washed and shaved and went out into the square, where the taxi he had ordered awaited him. His first duty was to say good-bye to an old lady.

He spent an hour with her, between seven and eight, took coffee and hot rolls, and made his farewells.

“Now, don’t forget, Lady Coltrane,” he said as he rose to leave.

“Don’t worry, I won’t. And it’s Missy.”

She held out her hand. He stooped to take it.

At half-past eight, he was back in Parliament Square and dropped in on Chief Inspector Jones. He showed the chief of police his Foreign Office letter.

“Please be at Government House at ten o’clock,” he said. “Bring with you your two sergeants, four constables, your personal Land-Rover, and two plain vans. Do you have a service revolver?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please bring that too.”

At the same moment, it was half-past one in London. But in the Ballistics Department of the Home Office forensic labora­tory in Lambeth, Mr. Alan Mitchell was not thinking of lunch. He was staring into a microscope.

Beneath the lens, held at each end in a gentle clamp, was a bullet. Mitchell stared at the striation marks that ran the length of the lead slug, curving around the metal as they went. They were the marks left by the rifling in the barrel that had fired the bullet. For the fifth time that day, he gently turned the bullet under the lens, picking out the other scratches—the “lands”—that were as individual to a gun barrel as a finger­print to a human hand.

Finally he was satisfied. He whistled in surprise and went for one of his manuals. He had a whole library of them, for Alan Mitchell was widely regarded as the most knowledgeable weapons expert in Europe.

There were still other tests to be carried out. He knew that somewhere four thousand miles across the sea, a detective waited impatiently for his findings, but he would not be hurried. He had to be sure, absolutely sure. Too many cases in court had been lost because experts produced by the defense had flawed the evidence presented by the forensic scientists for the prosecution.

There were tests to be carried out on the minuscule frag­ments of burnt powder that still adhered to the blunt end of the slug. Tests on the manufacture and composition of the lead, which he had already carried out on the twisted bullet he had had for two days, would have to be repeated on the newly arrived one. The spectroscope would plunge its rays deep into the metal itself, betraying the very molecular struc­ture of the lead, identifying its approximate age and some­times even the factory that had produced it. Alan Mitchell took the manual he sought from his shelves, sat down and began to read.

McCready dismissed his taxi at the gate of Government house and rang the bell. Jefferson recognized him and let him in. McCready explained he had to make another phone call on the international line that had been installed by Bannister, and that he had Mr. Hannah’s permission. Jefferson showed him into the private study and left him.

McCready ignored the telephone and addressed himself to the desk. In the early stages of the investigation, Hannah had been through the drawers, using the dead Governor’s keys, and after assuring himself there were no clues to the murder therein, he had relocked them all.

McCready had no keys, but he did not need them. He had picked the locks the previous day and found what he wanted. They were in the bottom left-hand drawer. There were two of them, but he needed only one.

It was an imposing sheet of paper, crisp to the touch and creamy like parchment. In the center at the top, raised and embossed in gold, was the royal coat-of-arms: the lion and the unicorn supporting the shield emblazoned in its four quarters with the heraldic emblems of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

Beneath, in bold black lettering, were the words:

WE, ELIZABETH THE SECOND, OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, AND OF ALL HER TERRITORIES AND DEPENDENCIES BEYOND THE SEAS, BY THE GRACE OF GOD QUEEN, DO HEREBY APPOINT ... (here there was a gap) TO BE OUR ... (another gap) IN THE TERRITORY OF ... (a third gap).