Sinclair wasn’t interested. He was scanning the sky for incoming helicopters. Above the water, he picked out a speck—an aircraft working its way toward them. Intelligence officials, no doubt.
Just then, he heard the door open behind him. Four uniformed military officers stepped into the room and took up guard positions. A dark-suited man entered, carrying a clipboard.
“Mr. Sinclair, Mr. VerPlanck, before we start you will need to sign the State Secrets Act. All information discussed in this room is considered classified.”
“Fine,” Sinclair said brusquely.
He held his hand out for the form, signed it, and passed the clipboard to VerPlanck.
“Sir James Nicholson of MI6 will join you momentarily,” the official said, checking the signatures. “He will be accompanied by Dame Constance Muston, the security minister in the Home Office.”
As if on cue, the door opened and a man and woman walked in. The head of MI6, Sir James Nicholson, was tall and thin, dressed in a beautiful dark gray silk suit. The scarlet handkerchief in his breast pocket added just the right amount of dash.
Dame Constance Muston of the Home Office was in her mid-sixties, with a figure as trim and erect as a steel blade. She was wearing a black trouser suit with sensible low-heeled shoes. Her only ornamentation was a deep purple amethyst pin on her lapel.
During the introductions her eyes were grave. She indicated for them all to take their seats. Sinclair chose the armchair nearest the fire. The warmth on his shins was welcome in the chilly castle.
In the center of the room a mahogany pedestal table was being set with afternoon tea, sandwiches, and cakes. At the sight of the food, Sinclair realized he had not eaten anything since breakfast. Yet even now, eight hours later, he wasn’t hungry.
Refreshments were served and people talked quietly among themselves. A waiter came over with a plate of sandwiches and Dundee cake. A second waiter poured from a silver teapot and passed cream and sugar.
Sinclair had always admired British sangfroid, but under these circumstances he found afternoon tea was more than he could bear. When a waiter approached, Sinclair refused the teacup with an abrupt wave.
“It’s a damp day, sir,” the waiter said, bending low to speak to him quietly. “You won’t be having any tea?”
“No, thank you,” Sinclair said morosely.
“Perhaps a drop of something stronger to warm up? I could find you some Eisenhower scotch; it was blended especially for your president. Perhaps you’d like to sample a wee dram?”
Sinclair looked up, surprised. What a wreck he must look to elicit that kind of sympathy! But a drink would be welcome.
“Yes. Thank you.”
A decanter appeared. A good measure was splashed into a crystal glass. He took a sip and felt a little more settled.
The meeting was beginning. Security officers gathered around and began taking up the extra chairs. Within moments two dozen people were assembled, although no one was introduced by name.
“I suppose you are wondering why you’ve been asked to come here,” Dame Constance began. “The American officials are joining us shortly. And we are waiting for medical experts as well. We’ll officially begin the meeting when everyone arrives, but first let me express condolences, Mr. VerPlanck. A terrible tragedy.”
“Thank you,” VerPlanck said numbly. He continued to stare into the fire. The silence was interrupted only by the sounds of spoons stirring tea.
“They never explained. How did she . . . die?” VerPlanck asked, almost as an afterthought.
“Her body was found in a cabin in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming,” the Home Office minister replied. “The cause of death appears to be complications from exposure.”
“Why was I never contacted by the kidnappers?” VerPlanck asked.
“It appears the demand for ransom was interrupted, and the kidnappers abandoned Mrs. VerPlanck.”
Ted squeezed his eyes shut, apparently trying to control his feelings. He exhaled deeply and looked at the fire for a long moment. Then he got up slowly and walked over to the window. He stood there staring out, surreptitiously wiping his eyes.
“Mr. Sinclair,” Dame Constance continued after a moment. “I’m afraid I don’t have good news for you either. We have not found your companion, Cordelia Stapleton.”
“Do you have any leads at all?” Sinclair asked, his mouth suddenly dry.
“Unfortunately, yes. We have found the man who was abducted with her—a Mr. Charles Hannifin. His body was recovered from the Thames River this afternoon. Drowned.”
She spoke with perfect professional composure and no sign of emotion at all.
Sinclair’s breath caught in his chest. Charlie Hannifin was dead!
He stared at her, sitting in her straight-backed chair, unruffled, her silver hair perfectly coiffed. She returned Sinclair’s gaze, her eyes intelligent, grave. There were no soothing platitudes or expressions of false hope. Her tone of delivery implied that she believed Cordelia might have suffered the same fate.
Shattered, Sinclair looked away and stared at the fire. The word “drowned” reverberated in his mind. He could feel his lungs constrict and the beginnings of a familiar respiratory pinch of hyperventilation in his chest. His darling girl, drowned!
Sinclair was aware of a faint rattling sound. He looked down and saw that his hand was clutching the side table, where a teacup was vibrating against its saucer. He put his scotch down.
The faces before him blurred. Important men in dark suits were typing into portable notebooks. They didn’t look up. He was flushed, hot. His shirt was buttoned too tightly against his neck. A black wave of claustrophobia hit him like a tsunami. Then the room began to swirl around.
“Mr. Sinclair! Are you all right?” Dame Constance asked, leaning toward him. She sounded like she was underwater.
“Just need some air,” he gasped, and stood up unsteadily.
“Can we get you anything?” she asked.
“No. Please excuse me,” he managed to say as he bolted toward the exit. “I’m sorry, I’ll be right back.”
Sinclair groped for the door handle and found his way out onto the hall landing. The military officers stood aside, allowing him to pass, then closed the door after him.
The corridor was quiet. He stood at the top of the main staircase. A quick glance over the banister made him dizzy again. Red-carpeted steps spiraled down three stories to the ground floor. He had a quick mental image of pitching over the railing, tumbling over and over until he crashed onto the black-and-white marble entrance hall below. The vision was so vivid that he backed away and flattened his back against the wall.
He stood still, eyes closed, trying to regain his equilibrium. If he could calm his breathing for a moment, the vertigo might pass. But a second wave of claustrophobia welled up in him. It was a full-scale attack! He had to get outdoors, and quickly!
He forced himself away from the wall and clutched his way down the three flights of stairs, his knees trembling with each step. He slammed through the door and rushed out into the freezing garden.
It was better outside. He bent over to get blood into his head, gulping down the cold air. Squatting, with his face inches from the turf, he tried to breathe slowly through his mouth, forcing oxygen into his lungs. He felt as if his chest was going to explode.
“Delia!” he cried.
It came out as a gasp. Foolish to call out her name like that, but perhaps she would know he was trying to communicate. Even if she were dead.
Just then, on the verge of crushing despair, he saw a clear image of Cordelia’s face in his mind. She was laughing, her hair swinging over her shoulder. He knew she was still alive. She hadn’t drowned.
That was the turning point. His vision sharpened and the fresh air cleared his head. He managed to fight back the panic. Finally, carefully, he stood up and took his first deep breath. And then another.
As the air filled his lungs, he noticed his surroundings for the fir
st time. He was in a large enclosed garden rimmed on all sides by a high stone wall. The vegetation was dormant and the flowerbeds had been pruned and mulched. There was an oblong carpet of grass—a croquet lawn with the iron hoops still in place from the summer season.
The sun had dropped and it was bitter cold. But he needed to stay a moment longer to give himself time to recover. Why did this claustrophobia keep happening? Every time he thought his condition was under control, he had another attack.
Sinclair had been cursed with this ever since his young wife had died on a snowy night, crushed to death in the wreckage of their car. For years now, his response to extreme stress was shortness of breath and claustrophobic hyperventilation.
It didn’t take Sigmund Freud to tell him he was physically reliving the horror of his wife’s death over and over. The attacks occurred whenever someone he loved was in danger. If he could deal with the situation, all was well. But if he was powerless to help, he usually fell victim to the debilitating symptoms.
He had tried many times to bring the attacks under control. There were breathing exercises and mental training. But it inevitably welled up again. He thought about the scene he had created upstairs with the British officials. Everyone had a weakness, but why did his have to be so visible?
Now that he was feeling better, it was time to think about helping Cordelia. He strode around the garden, breathing deeply, filling his nostrils with the damp Scottish air. He beat his arms for warmth as he walked.
The wooden side door to the castle opened and squealed on its hinges. Sinclair looked over to see who had followed him, and VerPlanck walked out. The man looked like hell. His face was gray and his eyes were red-rimmed. He walked across the croquet lawn, moving quickly toward Sinclair.
“Pardon me, John,” VerPlanck said. “Forgive me for intruding . . .”
“What? I have to think. . . .”
“I’m sorry, but they need you back upstairs,” VerPlanck told him. “The American officials have arrived.”
Unknown Location, English Channel
THE SHIP WAS moving with a steady rhythmic motion. Cordelia could feel the deck sway under her as she sat there. It was pitch black. She figured that she was probably being held captive in the hold and there must be a door or a hatch somewhere.
She moved her legs and realized that there was nothing constraining her. No one had tied her up, probably because she had been unconscious.
Cordelia tried to stand up, but the pain in her head was excruciating, so she crouched down again. Better to take it in stages. Crawl before you walk.
Feeling along the filthy floor on her hands and knees, she touched debris that stuck to her palms. In the dark, her fingers encountered something sticky—probably a grease spot. She wiped the substance on her skirt and kept going. If there was a vertical wall, it might be possible to lean on it and stand up.
Suddenly, her fingers stubbed against a hard surface. It was the side of the ship. The metal was so cold it hurt, but she leaned on the wall and managed to pull herself erect. It took all her concentration to stay upright. Why was she so weak?
Cordelia knew she had to get out of there quickly. Her fingers brushed along the surface, blindly feeling for a door. She finally touched a light switch. The shape was instantly recognizable and she flipped it on. Bright light flooded the area.
There was nothing in the vast space except a generator and a pile of tarp in the corner. The shape of the hold—squat and wide—suggested some kind of trawler. The stench of rotten fish confirmed this. Her shoes, high-heeled pumps, were on their sides next to the tarp, abandoned like two orphans—a patch of vomit distressingly close to them.
She walked over, put them on, and suddenly felt more prepared for whatever came next.
Could she escape? Only one door was visible, toward the back of the hold. Cordelia walked over and turned the handle. It moved! But suddenly the door was wrenched open from the outside.
A tall, heavyset man stood there in a black rain slicker, hair plastered down on his forehead. A pistol was pointing at her.
“Where do you think you are going?”
Cordelia sat in the captain’s wheelhouse wrapped in a blanket. The gunman had handed her a bowl of lukewarm soup and a hunk of bread, and she forced the food down, despite her lingering nausea and dizziness.
The fishing trawler was in the open ocean now and, by her estimate, traveling at about twelve knots. Even inside the pilothouse it was freezing cold. The scratchy gray blanket was not really thick enough to keep her warm and smelled of motor oil and fish.
The man steering the craft placed himself between Cordelia and the instrument panel, blocking her access to the maritime radio. She couldn’t see the electronic navigation system either. But she had some information—the GPS on her watch showed that they were somewhere off the English coast.
Her abductors were rough-looking guys in their mid-thirties. There were only two of them. One was the gunman from the museum; the other looked like a genuine fishing captain. He was dressed in foul-weather gear and a knitted cap and piloted the craft with considerable skill.
Neither man took much interest in her; they seemed intent on getting to their destination quickly, and kept checking their watches. She was only cargo to them. Cordelia observed the men for a while and then drifted off to sleep. There appeared to be no immediate danger here.
Cordelia stood on the deck of the fishing vessel, shivering, still feeling woozy. Whatever drug they had given her was wearing off slowly. It had been more than sixteen hours since the abduction.
Out on deck, it was absolutely frigid. She clutched the dirty blanket closer to her, but the wind was cutting right through the fabric. The pitch and roll of the boat was a dead giveaway—they were far from land. No sign of a coastline, a lighthouse, or even a maritime buoy.
The two men who had abducted her were peering out into the night, waving a flashlight back and forth. In the narrow beam, she could see the waves churning into sharp peaks.
The men appeared to be searching for something. Their backs were turned, so she took the opportunity to look around for a gun, a cell phone, anything at all. But all she saw were some messily coiled lines.
There was no way to escape. Swimming in this chop would be suicidal. The water temperature would sap her strength before she got ten feet. So she sat down on a stationary locker and hugged herself to control the shivering.
If she had to guess, judging from the amount of time they had been traveling and the speed of the boat, she’d say by now they were well out of the English Channel. Cordelia purposely crossed her arms over her chest to glimpse the dial of her watch. The digital GPS read latitude N 48°19', longitude W 5°18'.
After years of being on ships, figuring out a geographic location was second nature to Cordelia. She estimated they were off the coast of Brest, France—an area known for its fishing boats. But calculating her position gave her absolutely no idea where they were headed.
The ship could travel farther along the coastline to Spain’s Cape Finisterre, the western edge of the European continent—named after the Latin finis terrae. After that, it could be North Africa or the Straits of Gibraltar to the Mediterranean.
“There she is!” one of the men shouted, pointing out over the railing. “Get the fenders in. Portside.”
A white light was approaching. The orb got larger, until Cordelia realized she was looking at the cabin lights of a ship. Within moments a gigantic white yacht loomed up alongside the fishing vessel. It was a beauty—two hundred feet or more. Classical lines. A Feadship. Exquisite woodwork. Fabulously expensive.
“Ahoy, Khamsin!” the gunman shouted.
Khamsin? Wasn’t that the name of a wind in the western Sahara? Sinclair had told her about it.
“Come on,” her captor said, turning to Cordelia. “Time to meet the boss.”
“Fine.” Cordelia sounded a lot braver than she felt.
The two men grabbed her blanket and flung it aside. Then t
hey seized her arms and hoisted her up on the lip of the fishing vessel. Apparently they were going to pass her from one boat to the other. In this kind of weather, a ship-to-ship transfer would be difficult. She would have to leap from one deck to the other in treacherously slippery leather shoes! The greatest risk was that she might fall overboard and be crushed between the hulls of the two boats.
She balanced her feet on the narrow rail as the huge yacht bucked in front of them like a horse in a rodeo. The two men held her arms as a crewman on The Khamsin reached down for her. When the two ships were level, the tugboat crew propelled her toward the other deck. The man on the yacht caught her and hauled her up.
She slid and fell against him, clinging to his sweaty neck. His strong arms gripped her and held fast. She was repulsed. The wet wool of his peacoat had the pungent smell of Turkish tobacco and beer.
“Where’s the other one?” he called back to the crew on the fishing boat.
“He slipped.”
“Slipped?”
“Yeah. Drowned. In the Thames.”
“She isn’t going to like that.”
“Well, what the hell can I do about it?” the man replied. “The stupid bastard jumped overboard and tried to swim. He didn’t get two meters.”
“OK, mate, I’ll tell her. Why don’t you push off now?”
“You don’t have to tell me. This weather’s getting ugly.”
Within seconds the fishing trawler disappeared into the darkness. Cordelia clung to the rail of The Khamsin and watched it disappear.
Culzean Castle
SINCLAIR NOTED THAT every seat in the Eisenhower sitting room was taken by both CIA and British intelligence officers. Dame Constance looked up when Sinclair returned and waved at an assistant to bring another chair. He was directed to take a place near the front of the room.
Sinclair hoped that now they would tell him more about Cordelia. He craned his neck, looking for the others. Dr. Paul Oakley stood by the door, almost as if he were waiting in the wings. Gardiner and Holly were perched nervously toward the back of the room with Ted VerPlanck.
The Stolen Chalicel Page 20
