“Mr. Tiptree, please, let’s talk for a moment, shall we?” The colonel took Tiptree’s arm and steered him toward the door. “Sergeant,” he said to the policeman, “Mr. Tiptree and I will be in the garden for a few minutes. Please send us out some lunch. And would you please process out Mr. and Mrs. Pepper? You may sign them for me.”
“Yes, Colonel,” the sergeant said.
“Wait here, Mr. Pepper,” Tiptree said. “I’ll be back for you and your wife shortly.”
Pepper walked into the anteroom, sat down on a comfortable sofa and tried to slow his thumping heartbeat. “Bring my wife to me right now,” he ordered the sergeant. The policeman got up and left the room.
The colonel steered James Tiptree though another door, and they stepped into the sunlit courtyard at the center of the police station. “Lovely out here, isn’t it? A great improvement from when the British used it to drill their troops.”
“Yes, lovely,” Tiptree replied through clenched teeth. “Listen Colonel, I’ve been waiting here, demanding to see you for most of the night, why…”
“Please take a seat,” the colonel said, showing him to a bench. “I want to assure you that nothing has gone on here except routine police work.”
“I don’t think there’s anything routine about this incident,” Tiptree said, sitting down. My ambassador has already spoken to the prime minister, and I assure you, there will be repercussions.”
The colonel sat down next to him. “I give you my word, Mr. Tiptree, there is nothing…” And then the colonel’s head exploded.
Tiptree leapt off the bench, flecks of gray matter dotting his dark suit, and backed away from the nearly headless corpse, now lying on the gravel path. “Jesus H. Christ!” he said aloud. He could hear doors being flung open and boots pounding on the earth. “I didn’t do it!” he yelled.
35
Holly and her group were sitting on their patio having breakfast when Thomas Hardy arrived and pulled up a chair.
“Colonel Croft is dead,” he said.
Holly reacted with surprise, but she was not displeased. “Oh, good,” she said. “Now we can rip out those fucking bugs.”
“I suppose so,” Thomas said. “His people will be in such disarray that they probably won’t even be listening.”
“How did he die?” Stone asked.
“There is a courtyard at the police station, and word is, he was sitting on a bench there, talking to a man named Tiptree from the American embassy, when his head exploded. No one heard a gunshot.”
“Single shot from a silenced rifle, explosive-tipped bullet,” Dino said, matter-of-factly.
“Could be, I suppose,” Thomas replied.
Holly was staring out to sea, an amazed expression on her face. “It’s Teddy,” she said.
“What?”
“It’s Teddy Fay; this sort of thing is his specialty.”
“This is the man you came here to find?”
“Yes.”
“But why would he shoot Colonel Croft?”
“I can’t go into that,” Holly replied. She stood up. “Will you excuse me? I have to make a phone call; I think our work here is done, Stone. We can go home today, if they can send an airplane.”
“Just a minute,” Thomas said. “You’re not going anywhere today, and maybe not for several days.”
“What?” she asked.
“The airport is closed; the prime minister is furious about Croft, and he is determined that whoever killed him is not going to get off the island, which means nobody else is, either. The airport is closed.”
“Oh, shit,” Holly said. “No reflection on your lovely inn, Thomas, but I’m ready to get out of here. I miss my dog.”