"Was?" Valentine said, sensing an opening.
"Mr. Valentine, I'm looking for a weapon, too. We are growing here. It's getting harder and harder to support the people we have. Always more coming in, not always the sort we need, but still mouths to feed. I've never been much good at turning needy people away. The best land, at least for planting, is on the south half of the island. It's not just my people I worry about; it's my ships, as well. This harbor
is worthless in a real storm. But if I could get old Kingston, take it somehow from the Specter-that's what we call that trumped-up devil running things there-a lot of our problems would be solved. A real harbor with a real shipyard, though it's run to ruin like everything else, would mean a lot to us. Just that every time I've tried"-he nodded in his granddaughter's direction-"it's gone wrong."
Jensen stood and went to the map of Jamaica above the sideboard. He extended one of his short, thick arms and pointed to the coastline.
"The Specter has it pretty good. He's about as secure in his position as he could be. Lives on a sort of estate, in a castle, no less." Jensen pointed at a black square just off a crescent-shaped bay on die southern coast, west of Kingston. "They say he sometimes appears on the walls, to watch the women work his fields or see a new wagonload of the condemned come up the road, bound for the killing hole."
Just right for a Kurian, Valentine thought.
"He's jealous of his lands, always worried about another of his kind moving in. He has his Black Guard-that's those Reapers you call 'em-and he keeps a good-sized regiment of Asians to keep the rest of the Jamaicans down. Those are the Horsed Police. Then the Chinese and Indians in turn run the Public Police-more thugs, mostly a rabble, that organize the farms and labor using the hard end of a club. Same old game: elevate an ethnic minority to a position of privilege that said minority knows will disappear if the ruler does, then give a lot of brutes a little power. He's got informants everywhere ... even within my palisade, I expect. Kind of reminds me of a web with a fat spider sitting in the center of it, sensitive to vibrations at the edges. We try to enter the web, we get stuck, there's just not enough of us to get to him, even with the guns we've been stealing and stockpiling. Years before Major Hawthorne arrived, my son-in-law once tried to recruit some of the gangs in the mountains, but they killed Eduardo for his trouble. We can do what we want in the water around Jamaica, but that doesn't
do much for us. He can get everything he needs from the land and the southern shoreline and the occasional armed trade ship. About all we've managed to do is keep his brothers and sisters from showing up to run other parts of the island, like maybe ours on the north coast or the Cockpit Country in the west."
"I suppose he never leaves that castle," Valentine said, looking at the scale of the map.
"We've never heard of it, if he has," Carrasca said.
"That's usual for a Kurian. Their Reapers act as eyes and ears. No need to risk venturing out," Valentine said. "They stay in their holes with just their servant or two ever seeing them. Immortality turns you into a recluse, evidently."
But this one likes to have a look around, now and then. Is he too secure for his own good?
Now that he knew more about the island's situation, he saw the chance of an answer. Maybe not even a chance, maybe more of a prayer. "Sir, I'll take your analogy about the web one step further." Valentine felt his skin flush, not from the wine, but from his quickening pulse.
"Don't let me stop you. I'm listening."
"His organization also has the weakness of a spider's web."
"What's that?"
"If you kill the spider, the web falls apart in a matter of days."
Even Cook paused and looked at Valentine.
"My son, I would say it is impossible," Jensen finally said. "The Specter lives in a bloody fortress, a real rock castle. It's about as old as the British flag on this island, and he's got it fixed up. Word is he stays in some cave beneath it. A dozen or so years ago, some of the Jamaicans on the other side got the same idea as you. Thirty of them swore a blood oath: they'd kill him or they'd die trying. They'd managed to get a key to a back door, thought they'd sneak in and do him in. They got together a few guns-the rest had fishing spears
and machetes. Two of those Black Guard Reapers caught them on the approaches, and they died, to a man. Of course, the Special Police tried to round up their families, but I'll say this for the Jamaicans: they know how to keep a secret better than anyone I've ever heard of. Offers, bribes, even using torture they got only a name or two, and still there was enough of a delay for their children to head for the bush. Captain Utari lost his older brother in the attempt, by the way. That's how we ended up with him in our orphanage."
"Then what did you mean, you would say it is impossible?"
Jensen looked at Cook, suddenly uncomfortable. "This is going to sound like utter bollocks, Valentine, but I want to tell you, nevertheless. There's a woman living inland the Jamaicans go to for advice. Sort of a witch, she is, at least to them. They call her Obay. Over six feet tall, and they say she has four breasts. According to the stories, she once suckled four infants at once, her top two breasts thrown over her shoulders to two tied to her back, and then two to the front, and they grew up to be the four great headmen of the free inlanders. They really exist, by the way, they're known as the four Kernels, though I suspect what they really mean are Colonels. She holds festivals at the solstices and equinoxes, when they go to her for predictions. An oracle she may be, I'm thinking now," he paused, perhaps for dramatic, effect, but more likely out of embarrassment. "At the last one in December, she said a man would come from the sea, a Crying Man. This man would rid the land of the Specter."
Valentine reached up to his face, and felt the old scar moving up from his chin to the level of his eye.
"I forget the rest," Jensen said. "How did it go, Cook?"
The cook cleared his throat. 'The Crying Man would bring a storm in flesh, and a storm in metal. His eyes would see to the end of a long straight path, and at this path's end would come our salvation."
"What was your ship called, the Thunderbolt?" the commodore asked. "Thunderstorm? Thunder in metal?"
"Yes," Valentine said. "But the rest is a leap. I might be able to do it, but not because of an oracle. I have certain ... abilities ... that the Jamaicans who tried before lacked. To do the job, I'll need the ship back, on loan for a short cruise round the island. If I can get rid of the Specter, break his hold on the island, would you return the ship and crew to take me to Haiti and back to the coast? Afterwards you could keep her. I'm sure you'd find her useful."
"Valentine," Jensen said. "If you can do this, I'll give you the ship and a team of men who'd sail with you across hell's lava ocean in a powderhulk, no fear."
"That's what I'm counting on. No fear."
The party broke up after midnight. It turned out Jensen was a fan of mah-jongg, and he insisted on teaching Valentine. The driver from the carriage, now formally introduced as Jason Lisi, joined them to make the fourth. After the pieces were distributed, Jensen started telling Lisi Valentine's idea to oust the Specter. Valentine had to force his brain to do double duty as he explained his plan to Lisi while learning how to match up his tiles, when to call kung, and when a hand was over. Valentine asked about the depths in the waters off the southern coast of the island while keeping the ancient box-top from the mah-jongg set ready to remind himself what the bamboos and characters and flowers and so on were worth. He had a feeling that convincing the commodore to commit to his plan somehow rode on his ability to play the old Chinese game-easy enough to learn but difficult to play well.