Circle of Bones: a Caribbean Thriller

by Christine Kling

  Cole regarded Riley’s face. She squinted her eyes and stared at the distant man.

  Zeke said, “I keep Galen company. Be here when you get back.”

  Cole swung round to watch Zeke as he crossed the sunlit clearing. All around them, the jungle now looked dark and impenetrable. “Do you know where we’re headed, Theo?”

  He answered by holding up the GPS. “Follow me.”

  At first, their track was a narrow trail that wound through the trees at the top of the riverbank. Theo explained as they walked that the trail was for tourists who wanted to hike up to the beginning of the rapids. Cole could see why they had decided to construct the dock back downstream. Along this stretch, the river narrowed to a fast moving stream and was often obstructed by large granite boulders. Boats would never make it up this far.

  Cole was pleased to see that Riley, in spite of her much shorter legs, had no trouble keeping up with them. She was taking two strides for every one of Theo’s, but she wasn’t even breathing hard. It was tough going, and he was glad he’d decided to wear the hiking boots. To make it even worse, the air around them was so heavy with heat and humidity, he already felt the drops of perspiration trickling down his skin. He knew what he was going to smell like in an hour or so.

  They heard the rapids before they saw them. It started as the soft chuckling sound as the water dodged around the stones in the shallows, but from ahead came a muffled shushing like the static of white noise. As they hiked closer, the jungle sounds of birdsong and underbrush skitterings were drowned out by the roar of the rushing water. Then the trail came to an abrupt end on a dirt patch high above the rapids. Below them, white water gushed over boulders in the middle of the stream while dark pools and eddies swirled nearer to shore.

  Cole had to shout to Theo. “Where to now?”

  Theo consulted the map. “The location is a little southeast of us,” he said, pointing off to the right of the river. “I used to play up here when I was a kid. It’s easier to follow the river than to go overland. The brush is too thick.” He reached down, removed his flip flops, and wiggled his big brown toes in the dirt. “Be careful on the rocks. Algae makes ‘em slippery.”

  Riley nodded once and started down the hill, her sneakers at an angle to the incline, sliding a little as she inched her way down. He watched Theo walk to the far side of the incline where a smattering of small trees offered the occasional handhold as he descended. Riley was already at the bottom and picking her way across the rocks at the edge of a deep green pool when Cole decided to go for it.

  “Geronimo!” he yelled as he leapt headlong down the steep dirt incline. The first couple of steps were a rush, and he felt the grin break out on his face when Riley looked up at him in complete surprise. He was headed straight for her, his heavy hiking boots flying, arms windmilling and shouting “Hoo-wee” when the fleeting picture of him mowing her down popped into his brain. In that fraction of a second, he realized that stopping this downhill hurtle might be more challenging than he thought.

  He would never have believed she could move so fast. He saw those gray-green eyes of hers open wide and, in addition to surprise, he saw in them a twinkle of amusement. Then she was gone. But the toe of one of his hiking boots slammed into a boulder, and the next thing he knew his body was flying through the air like one of those winged squirrels — just before he executed a perfect belly flop into the emerald pool.

  The water was icy cold and the current fierce. When he surfaced, Cole had to stroke hard to reach the boulder where Theo now stood, one lanky arm draped over Riley’s shoulder. The two of them were laughing so hard, Cole was certain he heard Riley snort.

  Breathing fast, he pulled himself out of the water still shivering and looked up at the red faces of his companions as they struggled to stifle their laughter. Then, he got to his feet and smoothed his wet hair out of his face in an attempt to retrieve some sense of dignity. But when he took his first step, the combination of water and air that squeezed out of his hiking boot sounded regrettably like a bad case of flatulence. His two companions collapsed onto the ground, but he just kept on walking, each step producing a rude loud noise. He kept going, hoping that sooner or later, his boots would run out of air.

  About twenty minutes had passed and his steamy clothes were starting to dry out when Riley and Theo caught up with him. He had stopped at the edge of a small pool into which rushed a magnificent waterfall that dropped from a cliff fifty feet above them. The late morning sunlight cast rainbows in the mist at the base of the falls.

  “What now?” he shouted so they could hear him over the noise of the water.

  Theo pointed into the jungle. “There used to be a trail — over there. Come on.”

  The trail was a series of switchbacks up the side of a jungle-covered cliff. In places, someone had buried round tubes of bamboo in the slick mud to be used as steps. The person who had placed the steps had legs as long Theo’s, and while his Dominican friend climbed on ahead, Cole’s pace slowed as he followed behind Riley. Given the view from that angle, though, he wasn’t about to complain.

  “That really was spectacular,” she said, and now he noticed, she was breathing hard.

  He said nothing. He didn’t think she was referring to the waterfall.

  “That name you hollered.” She paused then to gulp in air. “It has special significance for Skull and Bones, you know.”

  “What name?”

  “Geronimo.” Although they could still hear the rush of the falls off to their left, the noise was muffled, and they didn’t have to shout to hear each other anymore. She spoke in spurts, gulping air between her words. “The real one, the Indian, he plays a part in the whole mythology about Skull and Bones. I did a lot of research about Bones when I found out what Michael had written on his hand. Most folks claim there is more fiction than fact in the Geronimo myth, but according to the story, Prescott Bush, father to one president and grandfather to another, had a bunch of his fellow Bonesmen visit him when he was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. Their weird idea of a prank was to dig up Geronimo’s grave, steal his skull, and take it back to New Haven as some sort of trophy.”

  “Fun bunch of guys.”

  “Yeah.” Riley stopped on the trail, bent at the waist and rested her hands on her knees. Then she straightened up and took a deep breath. “They’re supposed to have quite a collection of them in the Tomb. Skulls, I mean.”

  “The Tomb?”

  “That’s the name of their headquarters on campus. Silly, isn’t it? That’s why I can’t really see this bunch of boisterous, grave-robbing frat boys as the engineers of some New World Order.”

  Cole knew it would take time to make her understand what they were up against. There was nothing funny about these guys. “According to my old man, there was another not so silly side to Prescott Bush. He was a director of a bank that was seized during the war because it was owned by Nazis.”

  “Really? I’d never heard that.”

  “Good old capitalism. Make money where you can. Morals be damned. In the journals, my father never points fingers. He kept everything either very vague or enciphered. Otherwise, I never would have gotten my hands on the journals. And, he wasn’t sure. See, according to him, these guys aren’t spies for the other side. They’re not enemy sympathizers. They believe in the strength of the U.S. In fact, they build the weapons and equipment that make us strong. But the last thing they want to see is the world at peace because then there is nowhere near the consumption of goods and services like there is during a war.”

  When they reached the top of the trail, Theo was waiting for them at the edge of the stream. The water flowed deep and fast just before plunging off the cliff. He held up the GPS and shouted. “Hey, it’s less than a quarter of a mile ahead now. Come on.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Indian River, Dominica

  March 27, 2008

  1:15 p.m.

  When Cole first saw the tree, he knew it had to be the one. He felt
like he was starting to think like the old man — and he knew he would have picked that tree. Above the falls, they had found more rapids, and while there were stretches where they were able to hike up on the dirt banks, too often the shrubbery and low hanging trees forced them onto the slippery, algae-covered rocks at the edge of the stream. Theo had been calling out numbers, telling them they were getting closer, and then Cole saw the biggest tree trunk he had seen yet. The old man would have chosen an attention grabber like that. It was his style. The massive roots covered an area at least twelve feet in diameter. He didn’t know what kind of tree it was, but the proportions were so fantastic, he half expected to find a small door between the roots with Bilbo Baggins’ name on it.

  He felt Riley looking at him as he stared at the enormous tree. “Wow. That’s an impressive tree,” she said.

  Theo picked his way through the underbrush and stood next to the giant trunk. “According to the GPS, we are now on the latitude fifteen degrees, thirty-four minutes, and fifteen seconds.” He began to hike around the trunk, and he was out of sight when he yelled, “It would be nice if we could find a big red X on the ground right about now. This looks like a rather large area.”

  “Cole,” Riley said, “now that we’re here, it seems a bit stupid to ask, but —” She made a little half turn like Vanna White. “Why here? If your father was trying to hide instructions on how to find a submarine, why hide it half way up a mountain in the middle of a jungle?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you that won’t make you think I’m even crazier. But my father saw the world differently than anyone I have ever known. Three years ago when he was here in the islands, he was already paranoid. But then again,” he tried to smile at her, “is it paranoia if someone really is out to kill you? He believed that his research had attracted the attention of these people. James Thatcher lived in a place he called the ‘tween. It was a world of shadows. I guess he knew I’d figure it out and find my way here, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t.”

  “You make me wonder what the hell I’m doing here when you talk like that.”

  “Hey, Cole. Over here. Look!” Theo was perched on one of the huge razorback roots, and he had been unloading gear out of his backpack. Now his nose was an inch from the bark, and he was tilting his glasses up to see something.

  Cole and Riley pushed their way through the underbrush to join him. The writing was crude. Cole figured his father had done it with a small knife. Carved in the bark of the tree was the word Liberté.

  He held up the coin to show her in case Riley didn’t remember. Then he picked up the folding shovel from Theo’s pack and struck the ground between the roots. His arms felt the impact when the shovel clanged against hard wood. There were more roots under the surface that he couldn’t see. He tried again in another spot. It seemed the whole area — even ten feet away from the trunk — was a part of the massive root system. He was still searching for dig-able dirt when Riley called out.

  “There’s another one over here.”

  Cole handed Theo the shovel and then made his way through the underbrush to the smaller tree where Riley stood. She pointed. There, carved in the same crude letters was the word Égalité.

  “Good find,” he said. “That’s two, but there are three words on the coin.”

  Riley swung her head around and surveyed the surrounding trees. “And with three, you could get a precise triangulated position.”

  “You stay here,” Cole said. “I’ll go look. Theo,” he called. “Stay by that tree.”

  It only took him a couple of minutes to find the word Fraternité carved into the bark of a large gumbo limbo.

  “Okay, now let’s all walk the shortest distance to the center.”

  Theo still had the shovel, and there was very little underbrush at the point where they met. “Looks like the ground has been cleared here,” he said as he thrust the spade into the ground. “Ground’s soft, too.” He tapped the overturned spade and a handful of dirt fell to the ground alongside the small hole.

  Cole grabbed the shovel. The dirt was soon flying. The muscles in his back were feeling the strain of bending into the deepening hole. He knew his father would have been more than thirty years older than Cole when the old man was here. That is if he was here. Cole had hit more dry holes than he wanted to think about since coming to these islands.

  He had dug down over two feet, and he was beginning to doubt that they had found the correct location, when he heard a clink as his shovel struck metal. He saw something shiny through the dirt.

  He dropped to his knees, and then, almost standing on his head, he shoved his hands into the black soil at the bottom of the hole. Riley handed him a pocketknife, and he used the blade to clear away the dirt from the edges of what looked like a rusty, round Danish cookie tin with a shiny bright slash where the shovel had scraped through the dirt and corrosion.

  Theo and Riley crowded him, blocking his light, and he blinked as the sweat dripped into his eyes. He thumped the box with the heel of his hand, trying to loosen it from the earth. When it broke free, he lifted the box out of the hole and sat back on his heels. For a moment, he felt light-headed after hanging upside down in the hole. The shafts of sunlight that filtered through the trees danced with Tinkerbell-sized balls of sparkling light.

  “So, come on. Open it,” Riley said. “What are you waiting for?”

  He closed his eyes for a second trying to clear his vision, hoping the dizziness would pass. “Wait a minute,” he said, trying not to smile. “Didn’t we skip lunch? Maybe we should take a break. Theo, what have you got to eat in that pack of yours?”

  “Are you nuts?” Riley asked.

  Cole opened his eyes in time to see the look Theo gave her.

  Theo said. “Riley, do you have to ask that question?”

  Cole smiled at the two of them, wanting to savor the moment, but unable to keep his fingers from working to loosen the tight-fitting lid. Riley handed him her pocket knife, and he slid the blade under the lid and wiggled it to break loose the bond of rust.

  “Okay, okay, boys and girls. Let’s not squabble.” Cole yanked the top off the tin. Inside was what looked like a wad of old newspapers. But it was too heavy for paper. He dropped the tin and began to unwrap the layers of newsprint. Inside, he found another package wrapped in an olive green oilcloth. He turned it over and unfolded the flaps of the cloth.

  “I was really hoping,” Riley said, “that it would turn out you were just crazy.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The Atlantic south of Bermuda

  February 13, 1942

  Woolsey saw Sean McKay stagger back a step when the bullet struck him in the shoulder. McKay managed to stay on his feet, and he hung tight to the crate.

  Lamoreaux babbled away to the ensign, while Woolsey remained on the deck where he had fallen, nursing his bloody mouth — thanks to Gohin. Woolsey hoped the captain was persuading Gohin not to take another shot. If that bomb went off out here, just over their heads, it would kill them all for certain. Woolsey watched as McKay tucked the crate under his wounded arm. He then climbed down the ladder to the gun deck. No one tried to stop him. Gohin was still covering him with the pistol, but his eyes were wide with apprehension now. Lamoreaux must have succeeded at explaining the situation.

  “Mister McKay,” the captain said. “Put the box down. Ensign Gohin here will shoot you again if you don’t comply.”

  The big man twitched as though to repel a mosquito buzzing about his ear. The blood that soaked the front of his sweater appeared black in the starlight. McKay paused at the bottom of the ladder, his dark hair fluttering in the wind, his eyes focused on something in the distance back in the boat’s white wake. The two Frenchmen were quiet for a change, waiting to see what McKay was going to do next.

  Gohin broke the silence first by shouting what sounded like orders. The man couldn’t seem to comprehend that his French was no good at all with the Englishmen.

  McKay shook his head,
as though waking himself from a reverie. He walked straight across the deck, a trail of black-looking blood following him, his eyes focused on the distance as though the other men were not even there. He ducked around the 37-mm cannons, staggered to get his balance back, then headed for the rear of the gun deck. The ladder down to the main deck was off to the port side, but McKay didn’t head for the opening to descend.

  Injured as he was, Woolsey wondered if Sean McKay would be able to throw the bomb far enough away from the sub to prevent damage in the event it should go off.

  When McKay stopped at the far starboard aft corner, Gohin began shouting and raised the pistol to aim at the English sailor.

  “Arrête,” he yelled. “Arrête.”

  “McKay, you fool,” Woolsey said more to himself than with any hope that the signalman would hear him.

  McKay turned round and faced the opening opposite him. He spread his legs wide for balance and wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve. His mouth was a thin straight line, his cheeks creased from the effort of holding on. He swayed, unsteady on his feet.

  Gohin shouted more French gibberish, but McKay appeared not to hear him. The French ensign was working himself into a lather over the Englishman who would not recognize him as commander of the submarine.

  McKay stood stock still for several seconds and Woolsey watched, waiting for the shot.

  Then, McKay threw back his head, opened his mouth and let loose a wounded roar as he launched himself into a dead run. He crossed the twenty feet of deck that separated him from the opening in the railing in seconds. Gohin fired, but the shot went wide as McKay hurled himself into the air in a powerful rugby player’s leap that carried him over the side deck and into the sea.

  Woolsey scrambled to his feet just in time to be blown back onto the deck again as the bomb exploded in the water off the boat’s port side. The submarine rocked as though it had been hit with a depth charge. Sea water and bits of what was left of Sean McKay rained down on the deck around them.