Десмонд Бэгли - Bahama Crisis

Jim chuckled. ‘The pill.’

‘That’s to economize on power where space is limited. Those bugs send out an unmodulated signal, either steady or pulsed. When it comes to modulation, a voice transmission, it becomes a little harder. You’ll be wired up with every kind of bug we have.’

Rodriguez put a familiar-looking box on the bench. ‘Pack of cigarettes; genuine except for those two in the back right corner. Don’t try to light those or the sparks will fly.’ Something metallic went next to the cigarette pack. ‘Stick-pin for your necktie — will pick up a conversation and transmit it a quarter-mile. Belt to hold up your pants — bug in buckle, but will transmit a mile because we have more room to play with. Try to face the man you’re talking with, Mr Mangan.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

Two identical objects joined the growing heaps. ‘These go in the heels of your shoes. This one sends a steady signal so we can get a direction finder on it. But this one has a pressure transducer — every time you take a pace it sends out a beep. If you’re being hustled along on foot we’ll know it — we might even be able to calculate how fast. And if it stops we know you’re static — if you’re not in an automobile, that is. Now, this is important. You know the rhythm of shave-and-a-haircut?’

I smiled and knocked it out with my knuckles on the bench.

‘Good. If you’re being taken for a ride tap it out once for a car, twice for a boat, three times for an airplane. Repeat at five minute intervals. Got that?’

I repeated his instructions. ‘Just tap it out with my heel? Which one?’

‘The right heel.’ Rodriguez picked up my jacket and trousers. ‘I’m giving you two antennae — one in your coat sewn into the back seam, the other in your pants. Don’t worry; they won’t show. And there’ll be a few other things — I’ll give you a new billfold and there’ll be the coins in your pockets — anything I can cook up between now and Thursday. You don’t have to know about them, just be glad they’re there.’

The Cunninghams were going to a great deal of trouble and it occurred to me that if they had all this stuff ready to hand then they were probably up to their necks in industrial espionage. I wondered if they had used it on me in the course of their admitted investigations.

Rodriguez looked at his watch. ‘I have to make a phone call. I won’t be long, Mr Cunningham.’ He walked away into his office.

Jim said, ‘That man once said he could make a working microphone out of three carpenter’s nails, a foot of copper wire, and a power cell. I bet he couldn’t. I lost.‘ He laughed. ‘He even made his own power cell from a stack of pennies and nickels, a piece of blotting paper and some vinegar.’

‘He seems a good man.’

‘The best,’ said Jim, and added casually, ‘Ex-CIA.’

I looked longingly at the packet of cigarettes on the bench. I had run out and I knew Jim did not smoke. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I said. I remembered there was a stand in the lobby of the Cunningham Building which sold cigarettes among other things, so I went down in the elevator to street level.

There was a short line waiting for service but I bought two packets of cigarettes within minutes. As I turned, opening one of them, I bumped heavily into a man. ‘Watch it, buster!’ he said nastily, and walked past me.

I shrugged and headed towards the elevator. In a climate like that of Houston anyone was entitled to be short-tempered. I stood waiting for the elevator and looked at the half-opened packet in my hand while absently rubbing my thigh. The health warning on the side of the packet shimmered strangely.

‘You okay, mister?’ The elevator starter was looking at me oddly.

I said distinctly, ‘I’m perfectly all right.’

‘Hey!’ He grabbed my arm as I swayed. Everything was swimming and my legs felt like putty. Slowly and majestically I toppled forward like a falling tree, and yelled ‘Timber!’ at the top of my voice. Oddly enough, not a sound passed my lips.

The next thing I knew was that I was being turned over. I looked at the ceiling and heard someone say, ‘Just fell down right there.’ Someone else said, ‘A drunk, I guess.’ And again: ‘At this time of day!’

I tried to speak. My brain worked all right in a somewhat crazy manner — but there seemed to be interference with the connection to my voice box. I experimented with ‘Mary had a little lamb’, but nothing came through. It was weird.

From a distance a man said, ‘I’m a doctor — let me through.’ He bent over me and I stared up at him, past a big nose and into his eyes, yellow flecks in green irises. He felt my pulse then put his hand over my heart. ‘This man is having a heart attack,’ he said. ‘He must be taken to hospital immediately.’ He looked up. ‘Someone help me — my car is outside.’

I was lifted bodily and carried to the entrance, shouting loudly that this was no bloody heart attack and this was no bloody doctor, either. My brain told me I was shouting loudly but not a sound did I hear from my lips, and neither could I move a muscle. They put me on the back seat of a limousine and off we went. The man in the front passenger seat twisted around and took my limp arm. I saw the flash of glass and felt the prick of a needle, and soon the bright world began to go grey.

Just before I passed out I reflected that all the Cunninghams’ organization and the painstaking work of Ramon Rodriguez was going for nothing. The kidnappers had jumped the gun.

It was dark when I woke up. I was lying on my back and staring into blackness and feeling no pain, at least not much. When I stirred I found that I was naked — lying on a bed and covered by a thin sheet — and my left thigh ached a little. I turned my head and saw a rectangular patch of dim light which, when I propped myself up on one elbow, appeared to be a window.

I tossed aside the sheet, swung my legs out of bed, and tentatively stood up. I seemed to be in no immediate danger of falling so I took a step towards the window, and then another. The window was covered with a coarse-fibred cloth which I drew aside. There was nothing much to see outside, just the darker patches of trees silhouetted against a dark sky. From the west came the faint loom of the setting moon. There were noises, though; the chirping of cicadas and the distant, deeper croaking of bull-frogs.

There were bars on the window.

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 Ali, 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.