Circle of Bones: a Caribbean Thriller

by Christine Kling

  Either the meal of grilled mahi-mahi, rice and peas, and fried plantains was one of Theo’s best efforts or it was the company. Cole tended to think it was the latter. After pouring Riley a glass of chilled Chardonnay, he had slipped into his cabin and changed into his best pair of cargo shorts and the one clean T-shirt he had left. Then by turns, he and Theo regaled Riley throughout the meal with stories of their adventures and misadventures in rebuilding the Shadow Chaser and designing her for maritime salvage work. They told tales of the Outer Banks and the Brewster brothers. They were acting a little like Peter and the Lost Boys fighting for Wendy’s attention. But it was terrific to have a woman on board. She smelled good and she laughed at his jokes. Right there, he thought, it was a massive improvement over Theo.

  But more than that, she was smart, and Cole couldn’t wait to get her take on their code problem. She might see something they had missed. Another pair of eyes looking at things was just what they needed.

  Theo began to clear the dishes off the table.

  Riley lifted her plate. “Let me help you.”

  “Not on this boat, lady,” Theo said as he took the plate from her hand. “You are our guest.”

  Cole slid out of the dinette. “I’ll be right back. There’s something I want to show you.”

  He entered his cabin and sat on the bunk. With the door ajar, he could still hear the clank of Theo stacking the dishes and the voices coming from the galley.

  “Well, Miss Riley,” he heard Theo say, “it looks like you’ve had quite an effect on our Dr. Thatcher. Most of the time, he is so suspicious of people he won’t even talk to them.”

  “Doctor?”

  “Well, don’t ask him to write you a prescription, but he does have a Ph.D.”

  Cole listened. The silence on the other side of the bulkhead stretched out for several beats. He wished he could see her face. He grabbed the box that held the journals and returned to the galley.

  When he set the box on the table, she stared at it. Then she lifted her eyes and squinted as though trying to focus on his face. “Theo tells me you have a doctorate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “In what?”

  “Maritime archeology.”

  “From where?”

  “Texas A&M.”

  “I –” she started to say, stumbled and tried again. “I didn’t figure you for an academic.”

  He shrugged. “I loved the learning part, but I can’t say as I’ve figured out the making a living part. Tried teaching at East Carolina University, but it seems the rest of the department thought I was a nut case. I hated meetings. Never went to their faculty parties or the get-togethers at the local pub. Weekends, I was always out diving or fishing. Did three years, long enough to know I’d never make tenure from that lot. Then Theo came along, and I quit for good. I’ve never regretted it.”

  Theo turned from the sink, wiping his hands on a dish towel, and announced in a loud voice, “I feel like a walk.” When Riley wasn’t looking, he flashed an exaggerated wink in Cole’s direction and grabbed his backpack. “Riley, would you mind if I take your dinghy ashore? That way I can fetch our rubber ducky at the dock when I make the return trip. Dr. Thatcher here has a way of losing dinghies.”

  “Sure, Theo. Take it.”

  Cole asked his first mate to retrieve the shoes and clothes he had left hidden under a sea grape tree on the beach, as well. Once Theo had disappeared out of the galley, Cole shifted his position on the vinyl settee seat. He knew he should say something, but he wanted it to be the right something, and he was drawing a blank.

  “So, is North Carolina home?” Riley asked, finally breaking the silence.

  “No. I was raised by my mom in Fort Lauderdale. Like I said, my dad was British, but he and my mom broke it off when I was a baby. He moved back to England.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “I only met him once.” He was conscious of his hands resting on the metal box in front of him, “He sent cards and letters from abroad, but when I was about twelve, he came to the States.”

  “That’s tough on a kid — growing up without a dad.”

  “So they say.” Cole shrugged. “I didn’t think I was deprived. Adults lived on the periphery of my world. My mom worked at the hospital all the time, so I didn’t see her much either. I just wanted to go surfing and fishing and diving. Can’t say I missed him until I actually met him.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Well, when he showed up, I thought he was great! You know, the accent and all. He took me out to a fancy restaurant on the ocean and told stories about his travels through Europe, behind the Iron Curtain, tales of close calls with military police, secret codes, and smuggled packages. He never admitted it, but I figured him for a real life James Bond.”

  “Was he?”

  “Not quite Bond, but I did learn later, after he died, that he had worked for MI-6 in the eighties. He was a courier and cryptanalyst. Must have been something he didn’t like about the business, though, because he spent the last twenty years of his life writing books and articles that ripped the international intelligence community — and he especially ragged on the Brits and their Official Secrets Act.”

  “You seem to know him pretty well.”

  Cole opened the box and pulled the journals. “You know, I never saw him again. But after that one night, we stayed in touch through the mail. No email. He was old fashioned, you know. Bit of a Luddite. He sent me stuff — packages with books about codes and cyphers. After that, he included secret messages in all his letters. Taught me to decipher his letters and how to encrypt my own to send back. All that stuff about secrets and spycraft was pretty cool to a twelve-year-old. When I got older, in high school and later in college, his letters became these rants about what was wrong with the world and well, I stopped writing back.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought he was crazy. My father had this world view that I found very disturbing at first — about how this small minority of super-powerful, wealthy people have been attempting to control western civilization for hundreds of years.”

  “So that’s where you get it from.”

  “It? What do you mean ‘get it from’?” Cole stopped and took a deep breath. He could feel his pulse pounding in his neck. He had to stop the knee-jerk defensive reaction this time. “Riley, I realized I was wrong. He wasn’t crazy. He wrote about them in his books, too, and they killed him for it.”

  She looked away then. He was losing her. It sounded nuts when he said it out loud. “Listen, I know how that sounds, and I know that crazy people always insist they’re the sane ones. But these people, they’ve counted on that. They’ve gone by different names. Everything from the Illuminati to the Masons, but names don’t matter; they’re still all secret societies. These guys are from old money. They’ve infiltrated the CIA, NSA, NRO, DIA – the entire alphabet soup of intelligence agencies, including the secret ones people like you and me have never heard of. They own Homeland Security. Hell, they created it. These aren’t just some guys with a fancy handshake who meet at the lodge to drink beer. We don’t know what really happened at Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Kennedy assassination, or even on 9/11 – these guys have been controlling the flow of intelligence for decades and all for one end: to make sure our country gets into another very profitable war. My father showed me they have not gone away.” He took a deep breath; it had all poured out of him in such a rush, he hadn’t even paused to inhale.

  She didn’t say anything. Seemed to be a habit of hers. She wouldn’t speak until she had thought about what she wanted to say. Any other time, he’d find that quality refreshing. But not today. The silence dragged out. Then she pushed back her chair, stood, and headed for the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Bourges des Saintes

  March 26, 2008

  10:15 p.m.

  “Who the fuck does he think he is?” Spyder said when he jumped from the Fish n’ Chicks’ aft swim platform onto the to
wn wharf. “It’s our boat and after we do all the work of upping the anchor and docking alongside, he sends us to town to fetch his shit.”

  He watched as his brother reached for the stone pier. The mottled hand missed the steel cleat he’d been aiming for, and Spyder had to grab at the waistband of his brother’s pants to keep him from falling into the water. “Jesus H. Christ, Pinky. You’d think you never been on a boat.” He dragged his brother up onto the concrete surface of the commercial wharf.

  “He wants some privacy,” Pinky said. He stood and brushed bits of gravel off his white pants.

  “I don’t give a flying fuck. It’s our boat. Leastwise it is now.” They headed up the wharf to where it intersected the village’s main street. Spyder wanted to get this errand done quick. He didn’t trust that Thor dude on his boat all alone.

  “He’s got a sat phone,” Pinky said when they arrived at the intersection. “I saw it. And he won’t eat that crap you bought. He wants some decent food and wine and he gotta make a phone call.”

  After Thor had settled in the master stateroom, he came out into the galley and started opening lockers. A quick check of their supply of cocktail sausages and cheese puffs, and the neat freak asshole had demanded they take the big boat in and tie up to the main dock. That way they would be able to run the AC without running the generator.

  Spyder reached into his shorts pocket for the money and shopping list Thor had given him. “It’s the middle of the fuckin’ night! I can’t even read what he wrote on here.”

  “It’s okay. The French stay up late. That’s some kinda’ grocery store just up there.” Pinky pointed toward the center of the town.

  Spyder counted the bills. “Two hundred. Looks like there’s enough for a tip for us, bro.”

  “You go. I wanna walk. I’ll be back in ‘bout a hour.” Pinky turned and plodded off down the sidewalk that led away from the lights and sounds of town.

  Spyder stood in the middle of the deserted street and watched the eery white outline of his brother’s silhouette as he slid off into the darkness. The bushy Afro, long-sleeved shirt and cotton pants, all white, made him look like a freakin’ ghost, and there wasn’t much Pinky liked better than skulking around outside after dark. Spyder was used to his brother’s weird behavior, but it still creeped him out sometimes. He knew there were two main reasons Pinky loved the night; for one, his skin just couldn’t take the daytime sun, and second, when it was dark, people couldn’t see him, didn’t laugh at him, or point and call him a freak.

  The place Pinky had called a grocery wasn’t much of a store. Inside the small shop, a runt Frenchman with Coke-bottle-bottom glasses stood behind a counter scooping ice cream out of a bin for a kid who wasn’t even tall enough to see through the glass. The two of them were jabbering in French. In the middle of the single room, there were four standing shelves with a mish-mash of wine, school supplies, and packaged goods. Spyder saw some meats in the freezer next to the ice cream and after the freezer, a small cooler held bottles of beer and wine. At the end of the refrigerated section were several wooden boxes filled with fruits and vegetables. Half the wall behind the counter was covered with different kinds of cigarettes, rolling tobacco, and papers, and on top of the ice cream freezer there were boxes of cigars.

  Spyder wasn’t sure they’d have the kind of fancy food this Thor dude was looking for, but as long as it was French, the asshole would probably like it.

  When the kid left, the old man said something in French, and Spyder handed him the list. The old guy pulled out a cardboard box and began collecting bottles and cans from the shelves, so Spyder stuffed a cigar in his pocket when the owner wasn’t looking, pulled a can of Heineken out of the fridge, and went to the door. He figured he might as well kick back and let the old man do the heavy lifting. Across the street, in the restaurant a bunch of customers sat hunched over the bar. The music had quit, but the serious drinkers were still out.

  From the corner of his eye, he noticed movement back down by the wharf. Something moving fast. When he swung his head that way to look, there was no one there. What was it that had attracted his attention? He hollered into the shop that he would be right back and headed down to the corner to take a look at the boat.

  The Fish n’ Chicks was docked about fifty feet up the pier, and though there weren’t many lights in the area, he saw the outline of a man on deck. Keeping to the shadows, he edged closer to the boat. The figure stepped around the cabin headed for the afterdeck and Spyder recognized him. It was just Thor, and now he was climbing up to the fly bridge. What the fuck was he doing? Guy didn’t know squat about boats. He watched as the man settled into the helmsman’s seat. Had Thor been talking to somebody? Was that what he’d seen? He closed his eyes and tried to pull up a clearer image of what had attracted him. Yeah, it had been somebody hauling ass off the wharf. It wasn’t a woman, he was sure of that. A man, then, walking fast. Too fast.

  Spyder returned to the main street, then entered the alley that led up the side of the hill between the dark cottages. This was definitely the direction the shadow man had gone. Spyder stepped softly, listening for footsteps, ducking overhanging branches heavy with sickly sweet flowers. The windows he passed were all dark and dull like the eyes of old blind men. After about fifty yards, he came to another cross street that ran parallel to the little shopping and restaurant district below. The houses on the back street were larger, fancier, with second story wrought iron balconies and whitewashed brick walls surrounding front courtyards. A narrow concrete sidewalk ran alongside the cobblestone street beneath the high branches of the poinciana trees. He turned right and started to circle the block when he felt a hand fall on his shoulder.

  He spun around fast, spilling beer down the front of his shirt from the can he had forgotten was still in his hand. “Shit, Pinky! I almost crapped my pants. What are you creeping around here for?”

  “Just walkin’.”

  “You seen anybody come by here?”

  “Just a dog. That’s all.”

  Maybe it was just a dog. But he didn’t trust Thor, that was for sure, and if they were going to make out on this deal, he’d have to watch him.

  “I found where the woman’s sailboat went to.”

  “You seen it?”

  Pinky nodded. “Just where that dude’s GPS thing said it would be.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Unh-huh.” He pointed down the street that led out of town. “Off that way. There’s another boat there too. Can’t make it out, though. Too far out. I just seen the white anchor light.”

  Spyder chugged down the last of the beer and burped loudly. He was trying to think. He knew that knowing stuff was always worth something. Now Pinky’d seen the chick’s boat and they had that. But what they didn’t know was who had been running away from their boat? Had the dude got rid of him and his brother just so he could meet with somebody?

  “Spyder, you don’t look so good.”

  “Shut up, bro. I’m trying to think.”

  Pinky chuckled and scratched at a scab on his cheek.

  “I said shut up, man.” Spyder hated it when his brother laughed at him. “Fuck this. Come on. Let’s go get the asshole’s food and get back to the boat. I don’t like leaving him alone with our shit. Who knows what he’s doing. He might be going through our drawers and shit. We got our own secrets, right bro?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Aboard the Shadow Chaser

  March 26, 2008

  10:55 p.m.

  Riley leaned over the stern bulwark and peered across the water towards her boat lying at anchor farther inside the bay. Above her loomed the cables and dark shadows of the former shrimper’s outriggers. Though she knew sailboats, she was unaccustomed to work boats, and she felt like a foreigner aboard this one.

  Where was Theo? With her dinghy gone, she had no way, aside from swimming, to get back to her distant anchor light. But at that moment, she wanted more than anything else to get off this conspiracy nut’s b
oat. Her father made more sense than this guy.

  “Mikey, what was I thinking?” she whispered to the wind.

  Closing her eyes, she reached out to her brother. She needed that connection to him. A sudden thought popped into her mind, and she opened her eyes. “You agree with him?”

  Though she hadn’t heard anything, she felt his presence behind her. He exhaled a long breath.

  “Mikey?” she started to turn.

  “I don’t blame you for wanting to bolt,” Cole said.

  “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

  “Who did you think it would be?”

  She turned back to the rail and stared out at her boat’s distant anchor light. “Nobody.”

  He rested his forearms on the bulwark next to hers, and he didn’t say anything for several long minutes. His voice was soft when he began to speak. “I talk to myself all the time, too, Magee.”

  She wasn’t about to correct him – to tell him that she wasn’t talking to herself.

  “I know how all this must sound to you.”

  She thought for a moment before speaking. She had to phrase this right. “Cole, I grew up in embassies. My father was a career diplomat. After that, I spent nine years as a Marine, six as an MSG stationed in Cairo, Honduras, Lima. I grant you, in all that time, I’ve seen some pretty bad stuff from our government. But they’re not even organized enough to get the right units assigned to the proper stations, much less to pull off any big conspiracies. I don’t see how you can believe that.”

  “I was a skeptic, too, at the beginning. After I outgrew the whole hero worship thing, I decided my old man didn’t have both oars in the water. But then it happened. I came to believe.”

  She shook her head, but he continued.

  “A little over five years ago, my father sent me an autographed copy of his latest book. It was about a submarine. The book was called, Surcouf: The Disappearance of the Greatest Submarine in the World. I never wrote him a thank-you note. The package arrived when I was still teaching at ECU, trying to fit into that world. It was some tiny publisher – more like a vanity press. But it got reviewed and people in my field knew about him. I was ashamed of him. Early on in my career, I discovered that a mere mention my relation to James Thatcher made people look at me like I was a crackpot.”