“No, I don’t.”
“So you’ll be going home?”
“Yep.”
“Me too. I’m afraid at my age a short nap after lunch is called for in this heat. But while you’re sitting in the shade, waiting for the heat of the day to pass, would you do something?”
“No more fishing,” warned Monk.
“Oh, Lord no.” The elderly man burrowed into the shoulder bag he had brought and produced a brown envelope.
“There is a file in here. It is not a joke. Just read it. No one else sees it, you do not let it out of your sight. It is more highly classified than anything Lysander or Orion or Delphi or Pegasus ever brought you.”
He might as well have punched Jason Monk in the solar plexus. As the former chief ambled up the dock to find his rented buggy, Monk stood with his mouth open. Finally he shook his head, stuffed the envelope beneath his shirt, and went to the Tiki Hut for a burger.
On the northern side of the chain of six islands that make up the Caicos—West, Provo, Middle, North, East, and South—the reef is close to the shore, giving speedy access to the open sea. On the south the reef is miles away, enclosing a huge thousand-square-mile shallow called the Caicos Bank.
When he came to the islands, his money was short and prices on the north shore where the tourists went and the hotels were built were high. Monk had costed out his budget and with harbor dues, fuel, maintenance costs, a business license, and a fishing permit, there was not much left. For a small rental he was able to take a timber-frame bungalow on the less fashionable Sapodilla Bay, south of the airport and facing the glittering sheet of the bank where only boats of shallow draft could venture. That and a beat-up Chevy pickup comprised his worldly assets.
He was sitting on his deck watching the sun go down to his right when a vehicle engine coughed to a halt on the sandy track behind his house. Presently the lean figure of the elderly Englishman came around the corner. This time his white Panama was complemented by a creased alpaca tropical jacket.
“They said I’d find you here,” he said cheerfully.
“Who said?”
“That nice young gal at the Banana Boat.”
Mabel was well into her forties. Irvine stumped up the steps and gestured to the spare rocking chair.
“Mind if I do?”
Monk grinned.
“Be my guest. Beer?”
“Not just now, thanks.”
“Make a mean daiquiri. No fruit except fresh lime.”
“Ah, much more like it.”
Monk prepared two straight-up lime daiquiris and brought them out. They sipped appreciatively.
“Manage to read it?”
“Yep.”
“And?”
“It’s sick. It’s also probably a forgery.”
Irvine nodded understandingly. The sun tipped the low hump of West Caicos across the bank. The shallow water glowed red.
“We thought that. Obvious deduction. But worth checking out. That’s what our people in Moscow reckoned. Just a quick check.”
Sir Nigel did not produce the verification report. He narrated it, stage by stage. Monk, despite himself, was interested.
“Three of them, all dead?” he said at length.