Stuart Woods - Shoot Him If He Runs

“What?”

“All three phone extensions had been bugged.”

“ Bugged ?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing happening in St. Marks. You’re sure about this?”

“Go down to the cottage, unscrew the mouthpiece on any phone, and you’ll see the device.”

“But who would do such a thing?”

“I was hoping you might have a suggestion.”

“Surely you don’t think that I…”

“No, of course not, Thomas; I apologize if I gave that impression. Our best guesses are Teddy Fay or Sir Winston Sutherland.”

“Well, I don’t know about Mr. Fay, but certainly Sir Winston would do such a thing, if he thought it in his interest.”

“But what could he possibly hope to learn by bugging our quarters?”

Thomas shrugged. “Perhaps you could better tell me. Is there something about your visit to St. Marks that you haven’t told me?”

Stone shook his head. “No, there isn’t; I’ve told you everything.”

“Let’s start with Teddy Fay, then. Is there some reason, assuming he’s on the island, that he would bug the premises?”

“I suppose he might want to learn if our presence here has anything to do with looking for him.”

“You say the choices of culprit are Fay and Sir Winston; has it occurred to you that they might be combining their efforts?”

“Combining? How?”

“Well, if I were a fugitive living on the island, I might look for some sort of official protection. Mightn’t you do the same, if you were Fay?”

“But what would be in it for Sir Winston to hide a fugitive from the United States?”

“Money, of course; does Fay have money?”

“We believe so, but we don’t know how much. Anyway, that sort of bribe would be very small compared to the money I understand he’s getting from the offshore gambling interests.”

Thomas smiled. “It is not my experience of Sir Winston that any sum of money would be too small to escape his attention. But he might have other reasons to assist Mr. Fay; Sir Winston has a supple mind, and it is always attuned to whatever person or information might be useful to him.”

“I cannot imagine what use Teddy Fay’s presence in his country would be to Sir Winston.”

“Perhaps Sir Winston has a more active imagination than you.”

Stone laughed. “I’ll grant you that. I suppose that could apply to why he might want to listen in on our conversations. Let me ask your advice: should we leave the bugs in place or remove them?”

“If you are guarded in your conversations, perhaps it might be better to leave them in place. If you remove them, it might excite his further curiosity into why you are here-and that would go for both Sir Winston and Teddy Fay.”

“That’s good advice,” Stone said. “By the way, last night the conversation at Irene Foster’s house was mostly of Sir Winston’s rapidly growing wealth. Anything to that?”

“Ah, there are many rumors, but if they are true, Sir Winston is being careful not to display too much wealth.”

“What about his new house on Black Mountain?”

“That’s his most visible purchase in the past couple of years, but it’s not an ostentatious place. He has always lived well, but he sold his old house for more than he paid for the place on Black Mountain. Of course, the government might have invested in certain improvements to the house, mostly in the line of security.”

“Then what’s he doing with all his money?”

“You know about his new bank?”

“That came up in the conversation.”

“The bank, I’m sure, required considerable capital, and people in Sir Winston’s position have always found it useful to own real estate and to warehouse funds in other climes-South America or Switzerland, for instance-in case of the necessity of a quick change of residence. Sir Winston has also been known to visit Miami from time to time, in his newly acquired government airplane.”

“He got himself a jet?”

“A more modest King Air turboprop, but I’m told it’s very nice and has a lot of range.”

“So he has an escape plan?”

“In his position, wouldn’t you?”

Stone took in a sharp breath. “Yes, I would, and so would Teddy Fay. Tell me, Thomas, if you had to escape St. Marks in a hurry, how would you do it?”

“Well, there are boats, of course, but if I were being pursued, air travel would be vastly preferable; perhaps a light airplane that could reach Antigua or Guadeloupe or St. Martins. St. Marks has no direct international flights, except to other islands, but international airline connections are available from those places.”

“There’s only the one airport here?”

“Yes, and a friend of mine now operates the local fixed-base operation and charter service. You’ll remember that Chester, who used to own it, died in a plane crash.”

“I remember. What’s your friend’s name?”

“Don Wells, and he would know who on the island owns small airplanes; there wouldn’t be many. Please tell him I sent you.”

Stone put down his coffee cup. “Thank you, Thomas, for the coffee, the advice and the information.”

“Stone, it might be nice if you stopped in to see Sir Leslie Hewitt.”

“How is Leslie? He must be very old now.”

“My guess would be about eighty-five, but I swear, he hasn’t changed a bit in all the years I’ve known him.”

“Is he still pretending to be half gaga half the time?”

“Only when it suits his purposes. And you may find that Leslie has a lot of inside knowledge about what goes on in St. Marks.”

“Thanks, Thomas, I will go and see him.” They shook hands, and Stone headed for his car.

Teddy Fay drove down to the docks in Markstown and found the freight shipping company. He followed the signs to the receiving platform, gave the foreman his shipment number and waited. Shortly a forklift appeared, bearing two cardboard-and-wood crates, and loaded them straight into his vehicle. Teddy signed for them and started back.

On his way he passed a large hardware store and turned into their parking lot. He bought a small chain saw and a five-gallon gasoline tank and a can of two-stroke motor oil, loaded them into the truck and went on his way. He stopped at a filling station for gas and filled both his vehicle and the spare tank.

Three-quarters of an hour later he backed the vehicle alongside a pair of cellar doors. Using a hand truck, he managed to get both crates inside, then he went back for the chain saw and the gas tank. He garaged the vehicle, then got the crates open to look at his new toy. It seemed sensible enough. He had ordered the thing to be shipped in a half-completed state, and he read the instructions for completion carefully before beginning work. It never ceased to amaze him that most people never read the instructions, until they got into terrible trouble putting things together. Teddy loved instruction manuals, especially when they dealt with assembling something.

He finished reading the manual, put down a pad for kneeling on the concrete floor and set out the few tools necessary for assembly. There were three basic parts that had to be joined; two had come in the long crate and one in the short one. First, he went through the whole thing, making sure all the bolts had been properly torqued at the factory, then he joined the three parts, tightening the main bolts only with his fingers. When he was satisfied that everything was properly assembled, he removed the main bolts and set them next to the thing in a teacup, ready to be used when needed. He’d have to get it out of the cellar before it could be finally assembled.

That done, he filled the tiny fuel tank of the chain saw, went upstairs and outside and walked around to the other side of the building. A ravine ran along one side, and a concrete spillway about four feet wide, meant to handle the overflow from the cistern during the rainy season, ran from the building down to the ravine. Two fairly tall trees had grown from one side of the ravine and, bracing himself carefully, he started the chain saw with a couple of pulls of the cord and cut down both trees, leaving them to wash down the steep ravine with the next rain.