Десмонд Бэгли - Bahama Crisis

Tony Bosworth was also pretty busy flitting from island to island attending suspected cases of Legionnaires’ disease which turned out to be the common cold. Our hotels were clean but the tourists were jittery and the whole of the Bahamas ran scared for a little while. It was not a good year for either the Bahamas or the Theta Corporation, and the Ministry of Tourism and I sat back to watch the people stay away. Tourism fell off by fifteen per cent in the next three months. The Parkway Hotel was cleaned up and certified safe, but I doubt if the room occupancy even reached ten per cent in the months that followed. The company that owned it later went broke.

Another thing it meant was that I was away from home more often than I was there. Debbie grew fractious and we had our first rows. It had never been that way with Julie but now, with hindsight, I remember that when Julie was expecting Sue I had been always careful to stay close. That had been my first baby, too.

So, perhaps, in a sense our quarrels were equally my fault even if I did not recognize it at the time. As it was I took umbrage. I was working very hard, not only protecting against this damned disease which was worrying the hell out of me, but also taking the usual workload of the President of the Theta Corporation, and I did not see why I should have to be drained of my energies at home, too. So the quarrelling became worse. It is not only jealousy that feeds on itself.

Debbie was still doing her thing with Cora, Addy and the Texan kids, but operating mainly from the Bahamian end. But then I noticed that she was spending more and more time back home in Texas. Her excuse was that Cora and Addy were hopeless at organization and she had to go back to iron out problems. I accepted that, but when her visits became more frequent and protracted I had the feeling I was losing a wife. It was not good for young Karen, either, who had lost one mother and looked like losing the surrogate. It was a mess and I could not see my way out of it.

My feelings were not improved when I saw the headlines in the Freeport News one morning. There had been a fire in Nassau and the Fun Palace had burned down. The Fun Palace was a pleasure complex built, I think, to rival Freeport’s International Bazaar as a tourist trap. It contained cinemas, restaurants and sporting facilities and had been a shade too gaudy for my taste. As modern as the day, it had a cheap feel to it of which I did not approve.

And now it was gone. Analysing the newspaper report it would seem that the firemen never had a chance; the place had gone up in flames like a bonfire almost as though it had been deliberately built to burn easily, and it took eighty-two lives with it, most of them tourists and a lot of them children. That, coming on top of Legionnaires’ disease, would certainly not help the image of the Bahamas. Come to the Islands and die! Take your pick of method!

Over the next few days I followed the newspaper reports and listened to people talking. There were muttered rumours of arson but that was to be expected; after any big fire there is always talk of arson. The Chief of the Fire Brigade in Nassau was eloquent in his damning of the construction of the Fun Palace and the materials used in its construction. In order to give it a light and airy appearance a lot of plastic had been used and most of the victims had died, not of burning, but of asphyxiation caused by poisonous fumes. He also condemned the use of polyurethane foam as furniture upholstery. ‘This is a real killer,’ he said. I made a note to check on what we were using in our hotels, and also to tighten up on fire precautions.

And it was at this point that Jack Kayles popped into sight.

Storm signals flew over the breakfast table next morning but I was too preoccupied to notice them until Debbie said, ‘I suppose you’re going back to the office again today.’ I poured myself a cup of tea. ‘I had thought of it.’

‘I never see you any more.’

I added sugar. ‘You do in bed.’

She flared up. ‘I’m a wife — not a harlot. When I married a man I expected all of him, not just his penis.’

It was then I became aware that this was not a mere storm in a tea-cup. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Things have been really tough lately.’ I reflected. ‘I suppose I don’t really have to go in today, or even tomorrow. In fact, I can take the rest of the week off. Why don’t we take one of Joe Cartwright’s sailboats from the marina and cruise to one of the Family Islands? That would take us to the weekend and we could fly back.’

She lit up like a Christmas tree. ‘Could we?’ Then she frowned. ‘But we’re going nowhere near any of your damned hotels,’ she warned. ‘This isn’t a disguised business trip.’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ I was drinking my tea as the telephone rang.

It was Jessie. ‘I think you’d better come in early this morning; we’ve got trouble.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Something to do with baggage at the airport. I don’t really know what it is, but the lobby sounds like a hive of bees. Mr Fletcher’s at the dentist and the under-manager isn’t coping very well.’

That was all I needed. ‘I’ll be in.’ I hung up and said to Debbie, ‘Sorry, darling, but duty calls.’

‘You mean you’re going in spite of what you just promised? Damn you!’

I left the house with recriminations clanging in my ears, and arrived at the Royal Palm to find that a minor bit of hell had broken loose.

I sat in Jack Fletcher’s office listening to him moan. ‘Two hundred and eight of them, and without a damned toothbrush between them, not to mention other necessities. All they have is their hand baggage and what they stand up in.’

I winced. ‘What happened? Did they arrive here and their baggage end up in Barcelona?’

He looked at me with mournful eyes. ‘Worse! You know that new baggage-handling carousel at the airport?’ I nodded. It was an innovation for which we had been pressing for a long time. With increased flights of wide-bodied jets the airport had developed a baggage-handling bottleneck which the carousel was intended to alleviate.

Fletcher said, ‘It couldn’t have done a better job if it had been designed for the purpose.’

‘A better job of what?’

‘Opening the baggage without benefit of keys. The baggage was put on the conveyor, and somewhere in that underground tunnel something ripped open every suitcase. What spewed out on to the carousel were smashed suitcases and mixed-up contents.’

‘Didn’t they try to turn it off when they saw what was happening?’

‘They tried and couldn’t. Apparently it wouldn’t stop. And the telephone link between the carousel and the loading point outside hasn’t been installed yet. By the time they’d fiddled around and sent someone outside to stop the loading it was too late. They’d pushed in the lot — the whole plane-load of baggage.’

I nodded towards the lobby. ‘Who is this crowd?’

‘LTP Industries convention from Chicago. They’re already raising hell. If you want a slice of gloom just go out into the lobby — you can cut it with a knife. One good thing; the Airport Authority carries the can for this — not us.’

The Airport Authority might carry ultimate responsibility but the airport people did not have on their hands over 200 unhappy and discontented Americans — and when Americans are discontented they let it be known, loud and clear. Their unhappiness would spread through the hotel like a plague.

Jack said, ‘That Boeing was full, every seat filled. We’re not the only people with grief; Holiday Inn, Atlantik Beach, Xanadu — we’ve all got troubles.’

That did not make me feel any better. ‘What’s the Airport Authority doing about it?’