But even on this score, Burr felt no cause for alarm. Indeed, if Burr was honest, Apo had a case. His handlers had been pushing him hard. Perhaps too hard. For weeks, Apo had been voicing his resentment and threatening to down tools until his amnesty was signed and sealed. It was not surprising, as the heat gathered, if he preferred to keep his distance rather than run the risk of attracting another six life sentences as an accessory before and after what looked like being the biggest drugs-and-arms haul in recent history.
"Pat just called Father Lucan," Strelski reported to Burr. "Lucan hasn't had a peep out of him. Pat neither."
"Probably wants to teach him a lesson," Burr suggested.
The same evening, the monitors turned in a bonus intercept, picked up on a random sweep of phone calls out of Curaçao:
Lord Langbourne to the offices of Menez & Garcia, attorneys, of Cali, Colombia, associates of Dr. Apostoll and identified front men for the Cali cartel. Dr. Juan Menez takes the incoming call.
"Juanito? Sandy. What's happened to our friend the Doctor? He hasn't shown."
Eighteen-second silence. "Ask Jesus."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Our friend is a religious person, Sandy. Maybe he has taken a retreat."
It is agreed that in view of the proximity of Caracas to Curaçao, Dr. Moranti will step in as a replacement.
And once again, as both Burr and Strelski admitted afterwards, they were shielding each other from their true thoughts.
Other intercepts described the frantic efforts of Sir Anthony Joyston Bradshaw to call Roper from a succession of public telephones scattered round the Berkshire countryside. First he tried to use his AT&T card, but a recorded voice told him it was no longer operative. He demanded the supervisor, paraded his title, sounded drunk, and was courteously but firmly cut off. The Ironbrand offices in Nassau were scarcely more helpful. On the first run, the switchboard refused to accept his collect call; on the second, a MacDanby accepted it but only in order to freeze him off. Finally he bullied his way to the skipper of the
"Well, where is he, then? I tried Crystal. He's not at Crystal. I tried Ironbrand and some cheeky bugger told me he was selling farms. Now
The skipper suggested he try Corkoran's private number in Nassau. Bradshaw had already tried it, without success.
Nevertheless, somewhere, somehow, he found his man and spoke to him without troubling the monitors, as later events abundantly revealed.
The call from the duty officer came at dawn. It had the absolute calm of Mission Control when the rocket is threatening to blow itself to smithereens.
"Mr. Burr, sir? Could you get down here right away, sir? Mr. Strelski's on his way already. We have a problem."
* * *
Strelski made the journey alone. He would have preferred to take Flynn, but Flynn was still eating his heart out in Curaçao, and Amato was helping him, so Strelski went along for both of them. Burr had offered to come, but Strelski was having a certain difficulty with the British involvement in this thing. Not with Burr ― Leonard was a pal. But being pals didn't cover the whole issue. Not just now.
So Strelski left Burr at headquarters, with the flickering screens and the appalled night staff and strict orders that nobody was to make a move of any sort, in any direction, not to Pat Ryan or the prosecutor or anyone, until he had checked this thing out and called through with a yes or a no.
"Right, Leonard? You hear me?"
"I hear you."
"Then good."
His driver was waiting for him in the car park ― Wilbur, his name was, nice enough guy but basically had reached his ceiling ― and together they drove with flashing lights and sirens wailing through the empty centre of town, which struck Strelski as pretty damn stupid when, after all, what was the hurry and why wake everybody up? But he didn't say anything to Wilbur because, deep down, he knew that if he had been driving he would have driven the same way. Sometimes you do those things out of respect. Sometimes they're the only things left to do.
