Caribbee(78)

Two possibilities. Either he was mad, deluded and not responsible – or he was not.

Take the first. There was nothing he could do about this and presumably he must wait for the inevitable spiral into madness. So, do nothing.

The other. If he was not, then … it had really happened. And therefore he must find an explanation consistent with the facts as reported by his own perceptions.

Fact: he had heard from the informant directly, one who had without prompting confirmed his theory and told him where to find the base.

Fact: he had acted on this and duly uncovered it. While there, the experience had been entirely what he would have expected, given the circumstances.

Fact: a short time later, at the taking of Curaçao, the self-same house had been utterly without any sign that it was his secret base, and the losses had continued. It was beyond reason to imagine that a complex operation conducted there and hastily vacated would have left no traces whatsoever.

He heaved a sigh. It would take a heroic effort of imagination to reconcile these.

After cudgelling his brain for as long as he could bear it, he lay back in the sand, looking up through the gently waving branches to the immense bowl of innocent blue sky, and let his mind wander.

So what would he do if he were the commander of a clandestine naval operation needing to keep its secret secure? Presumably anything: if it were knocked out, so would be the nerve-centre of the planned predation. How would he go about this? It would seem reasonable to take every care to seal tight the headquarters so none could possibly suspect its existence, the consequence of discovery being so catastrophic.

Yet that didn’t fit with what he had seen. That was not how it had been in Curaçao: the building was not properly guarded and, in any case, while the Dutch were French allies and vassals, they were proud and independent, and it would be a questionable thing indeed to rely on them allowing a covert operation on their sovereign territory.

But he had overheard with his own ears naval talk, the name Duperré and so on. In complete agreement with what he had heard from his informant. It made no sense at all unless …

A new thought took shape, one that, wildly improbable as it was, brought together these mutually conflicting elements and went on to explain everything.

He sat up, energised. It would of course imply a brilliant mind, one with organisational skills well beyond the ordinary, whose grasp of the shadowy world of undercover operations was nothing short of masterly – for he was considering that the entire business with Curaçao had been nothing but a charade, aimed squarely at himself.

This great mind had heard of Renzi’s theory of a fleet controlled and deployed centrally against Britain’s Caribbean trade, probably from some public indiscretion by the dismissive Dacres. He had realised that someone had stumbled on the truth and needed to move instantly before any steps were taken to uncover and neutralise his base.

The move Duperré – if that was his name – had taken was breathtaking, a perfect solution. Comprehensively discredit Renzi and thereby his theory.

The result would be no more talk of searching for a mythical secret base: the Royal Navy would go on to become spread impossibly thin in endless vain patrols.

And, damn it, Duperré had succeeded: thanks to the clever failure at Curaçao, there was not the slightest chance of Renzi’s theory ever being revisited or any other explanation listened to.

Masterly.

But Duperré had had necessarily to yield one vital point. As a result of his subterfuge, he could not help but provide Renzi with a priceless piece of knowledge: by going to such lengths he had confirmed that what Renzi had come up with was the reality. He had been right after all.

The realisation came in a releasing flood that begged for action. He scrambled to his feet and began pacing up and down, reviewing what had happened.

Orders must have gone out to send a clever agent whose task it would be to contact Renzi and give him information that bore out what he already believed, while at the same time dispatching men and orders to Curaçao to set up the dummy base in accordance. Really quite simple and, being prepared to accept anything that supported his theory, Renzi had fallen for it. A stickler for detail, this canny mastermind had been so thorough in his orders that not the tiniest scrap or indication would be found – the careful replacing of rubbish and other forlorn detritus of a long-deserted house was nothing short of artistic.

Then how would the fleet operation work? The crucial element was communications. To achieve such rapid response to both threat and promise there had to be an incredibly speedy method of passing on information and orders.

Renzi’s pacing quickened. To get intelligence out implied a network of spies relaying news of planned trading-ship movements, however it was done. That would result in orders to the nearest predator, wherever concealed, to lie in wait for it.