The hosts had formed a group apart. The Arab student was with his back to the audience, and while he waited he unloaded things from the recesses of his jacket and set them out on the table. Four of the fighting boys had taken the doors. One held a cellular telephone to his ear. The rest moved quickly toward the cubist mountain, passing between the ring of guards who remained facing outward like a shooting party, clutching their submachine guns across their chests.
Langbourne pointed at a box in the middle of the heap. Two boys tugged it out for him, dumped it on the ground beside the student, and pulled up the lid, which was not sealed. The student delved in the box and drew out a rectangular package bound in sackcloth and plastic and adorned with the same happy Colombian child. Placing it on the table before him, masking it with his body, he bowed low over it. Time stopped.
Jonathan was reminded of a priest at Holy Communion, helping himself to the host and the wine with his back turned, before bringing them to his communicants. The student bowed more deeply, entering a phase of particular devotion. He sat back and gave Roper a nod of approval. Langbourne selected another box, from another part of the mountain. The boys tore it from its place. The mountain slipped and recovered. The ritual was repeated. And repeated. Perhaps thirty boxes were tested in this way. Nobody fidgeted his gun or spoke. The boys at the door were motionless. The only sound was the shuffle of the boxes. The student glanced at Roper and nodded.
"Señor Moranti," said Roper.
Moranti took a small step forward but didn't speak. The hatred in his eyes was like a curse. Yet what did he hate? The white colonialists who for so long had raped his continent? Or himself for stooping to this transaction?
"Reckon we're getting there. Quality's no problem. Let's do quantity, shall we?"
Under Langbourne's supervision, the fighters loaded twenty random boxes onto a forklift and drove them to a weighbridge. Langbourne read the weight from the illuminated dial, made a reckoning on his pocket calculator and showed it to Roper who appeared to agree with it, for he again called something affirmative to Moranti, who turned on his heel and with the farmer at his side led the procession back to the conference room. But not before Jonathan had seen the forklift truck take its load to the first of two containers standing open-topped in the bays numbered eight and nine.
"It's coming on again," he told Tabby.
"I'm going to kill you in a minute," said Tabby.
"No, you're not. I am," said Frisky.
* * *
There remained the paperwork, which as everybody knew was the sole responsibility of the plenipotentiary chairman of the house of Tradepaths Limited of Curaçao, assisted by his legal adviser. With Langbourne beside him and the contracting parties under the guidance of Moranti opposite him, Jonathan signed three documents, which, so far as he could make out: acknowledged receipt of fifty tons of first-quality pre-roasted Colombian coffee beans; certified the accuracy of waybills, bills of lading and customs declarations in respect of the same cargo, freight on board the SS
When Jonathan had signed everything the requisite number of times in the requisite places, he put down his pen with a small slap and glanced at Roper as if to say, "That's that."
But Roper, until recently so forthcoming, seemed not to see him, and as they walked back to the cars he strode ahead of everyone, contriving to suggest that the real business lay ahead, which was by now Jonathan's view as well, for the close observer had entered a state of readiness that exceeded anything he had experienced. Seated between his captors, watching the lights slip by, he was gripped by a stealth of purpose that was like a newfound talent. He had Tabby's cash, and it amounted to a hundred and fourteen dollars. He had the two envelopes that he had prepared while he was sitting in the lavatory. In his head he had the numbers of the containers, the number of the waybill and even the number of the cubist mountain, for a battered black plate had dangled over it like a Cricket Scoreboard at cadet school: consignment number 54 in Warehouse underneath the Eagle sign.
They had reached the waterfront. Their car pulled up for the Arab student to get out. He vanished into the darkness without a word.
"We're reaching crunch time, I'm afraid," Jonathan announced calmly. "In about thirty seconds I shan't be responsible for the consequences."
"For fuck's sake," Frisky breathed. The car in front was already accelerating.
"It's due about now, Frisky. The choice is yours."
