Des nodded. “Sure. I’ll run you over myself.”
Sam turned to Remi. “I’ll be right back.”
She rubbed her neck and winced. “I’d offer to join you, but not this time. Maybe scuba diving falls under the category of things you shouldn’t do after plunging off a cliff?”
Sam gave her a concerned look. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine. I think I just slept wrong,” she said, but neither of them believed that.
Soon they were cutting across the placid sea. There was hardly any swell on the calm morning, and they reached the beach in minutes.
Sam hopped out onto the sand and approached the van, which looked exactly as he’d left it. He checked the locking gas compartment—no evidence of anyone trying to break into it. The windows were up tight and the doors all locked. His senses on alert, he inspected the vehicle, listening for any hint of movement in the surrounding jungle.
Nothing but the slight rustle of the wind tickling the tops of the trees.
After a long glance at the area around the Toyota, he walked back to the boat.
He’d spotted fresh tire tracks near the van.
Remi’s instinct had been right. Someone had been watching the boat.
CHAPTER 24
Orwen Manchester sat in the rear of a waterfront bar, empty except for a desultory bartender, who was well paid by Manchester to be blind and deaf whenever he required a discreet meeting place out of the public eye. The Rusty Shrimper had been a notorious Honiara watering hole for decades, a favorite of the more unsavory elements wandering the port, but quiet that morning, its doors officially closed until nightfall.
Manchester drank his beer and checked his watch. The summons from his colleague and sometimes partner in crime, Gordon Rollins, had been abrupt, which Manchester was accustomed to. Rollins’s tenure as governor-general, the largely symbolic representative of the British Crown’s authority, had made him even more powerful and influential than he’d been by virtue of his considerable wealth alone and declining an invitation to meet wasn’t an option.
Rollins pushed his way through the back service entrance, a hat pulled low over his forehead, and approached Manchester’s table. He flicked a finger at the bartender, who nodded, and then shook hands with Manchester before taking his seat. A Bombay Sapphire gibson arrived, and the pair waited until the bartender was out of earshot before they joined in a muted toast.
“The rebels are proving to be a godsend, Orwen. I’ve begun probing with the foreign office, and while they aren’t delighted at the idea of nationalization, they’re really in no position to oppose it.”
Manchester nodded cautiously. “Where does that leave us?”
“Between you and me, we stand to benefit handsomely from a movement for Solomon control of Solomon assets.”
“Yes, however, I have a long-running position in opposition of the idea.”
Rollins waved an uninterested hand. “Which you shall retain. While I work behind the scenes to generate support for it. That will give you considerably greater moral authority when it comes time to reluctantly change your tune—you’ll have been the voice of reason against it for so long that when you capitulate, it’s a guarantee that it passes.”
Manchester’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t in any way involved with these rebels, are you?”
Rollins studied him with a calm expression. “Of course not. But I also know how to capitalize on opportunity, and whether I approve of their tactics or not, they’re forcing the administration to have a dialogue about nationalization now, when six months ago it would have been inconceivable. So the question, old man, is not how we feel about things, but rather how we can both emerge from this little episode considerably wealthier.”
Manchester eyed the seedy walls of the watering hole, stained the color of mud from nicotine, and took a contemplative sip of his beer, before sitting back and fixing the older man with an avaricious stare. “I’m listening.”
—
Upon his return to the Darwin, Sam told Remi what he’d discovered and she convinced him to call a meeting to alert the crew. It could have been something harmless—a curious islander killing time on a slow morning—but there was no point taking chances.
He filled the men in and they agreed to mount a watch. Everyone was more than aware of the two aid workers’ deaths, and the possibility that they were at risk, working a remote stretch of the coast, wasn’t lost on them.
When Sam finished, Leonid pulled him aside and spoke in what for the Russian was a low tone. “Do you think we’re in danger?”
“No more than we would be on land.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“There are risks to everything.” Sam shrugged. “I don’t believe we’re going to be attacked, but it can’t hurt to be watchful. We don’t want to underestimate any rebels in the vicinity.”