Circle of Bones: a Caribbean Thriller

by Christine Kling

  Riley adjusted the lines on her safety harness and pulled up the hood of her foul weather jacket. She sat tucked under the dodger, thankful her autopilot was handling the steering for her so she didn’t have to sit back there behind the wheel where spume filled the air most of the time. The air temperature was warm enough, but with all the spray flying across the boat, she was shivering. Her T-shirt beneath the jacket was already damp from a wave that had caught her without her hood up and doused cold seawater down her neck. She was still only wearing shorts and her feet were cold and puckered from the constant wet.

  “Ah, the joys of sailing, eh Mikey?” Her brother hadn’t ever cared much for foul weather.

  Riley remembered that time when they’d sailed with their father back to Antigua and they had been caught in a squall with full sails up. Her father had ordered Michael to take down the main and Riley had shouldered her brother aside and lowered the sail herself. She knew her brother could do many things in math or science that she would never be able to do. They each had their strengths.

  Her father had called her brother a weakling who’d let a girl do his job. His disdain for his son had always been there. That was why she had always “blamed” him for Michael’s death.

  “Oh dad,” she said aloud. It appears you were the weak one – unable to protect your own son. And yet, he was her father, too, and in spite of his weakness, he had not deserved to die like that. All last night as she’d traveled south, she had gone over and over it in her mind. The real blame lay with a man she had once slept with, maybe even loved – and the organization.

  Riley shuddered and pulled her rain jacket closed under her chin. Concentrate on the task at hand, marine.

  She’d had to take a negative tack, motorsailing to hold tighter to the wind so that she could get clear of the reefs off the eastern side of Dominica. Now, she was trying to pinch up to hold a northerly course to clear Jenny Point. She’d tack again somewhere in the middle of the Dominica Channel to get around the island of Marie-Galante. It was going to be a very long night.

  The airport was somewhere along this shore, but Riley didn’t see any planes taking off or landing. She stuck her face outside the dodger and scanned the shoreline, but the boat reared up and then slammed down into another trough and more spray splattered across the canvas sounding like buckshot. Forget trying to spot the airport, she told herself. They probably shut it down at night anyway. Most of the runways at these small island airports left little margin for error. Neither did their rocky windward coasts, she thought.

  Once she was a good five miles beyond the point, Riley stood up, stretched and made her way below, moving from handhold to handhold on the heaving boat. She wanted to check her radar again. Even on the twenty-four mile range, aside from Shadow Chaser, she hadn’t seen a thing. So far, so good. Maybe this idea of going up the ocean side of the island had thrown them off their tail. Or maybe Cole and Theo were dealing with them about now. She had tried contacting the guys on the other boat by radio earlier, but they were out of VHF range and they weren’t reading her on the SSB channel they had chosen to monitor, either. It was a shame that they hadn’t been able to buy new cell phones while they were in DC.

  She slid into the chart table seat, turned on the radar at the panel and waited for the image to appear. With her autopilot, chart plotter and refrigeration all running, she needed to conserve her battery power. She’d shut off the engine several hours ago. She considered making herself another cup of coffee on the propane stove while she waited for the radar to warm up, but decided against it. She was already feeling jittery enough. Solo night sailing did that to her.

  A message appeared on the radar telling her to push the power button to start up the antenna. She watched as the green line made the sweep around the black screen. A large green blob sat off the north end of Dominica. It looked like a big rain shower. The blob changed shape with each sweep round the screen, but a small bit in the lower left hand corner stayed solid. As she watched, she decided that hard blob might be moving.

  Riley changed the range on the radar from twenty-four miles down to twelve. Using the buttons on the front of the screen, she moved the cross hair symbol over the radar target and marked the spot. The green target moved away from the X she had drawn. Yes, it was definitely moving. And fast. Too fast for a freighter. She judged the distance between her and the target to be something around ten miles. And shrinking. Maybe a cruise ship would move that fast.

  She stood up and pulled herself up the companionway ladder until she could see through the dodger’s windows to the sea ahead. Scanning the horizon as the boat crested a wave, she thought, no way a cruise ship could be that close and still not be visible. After assuring herself that she couldn’t yet see anything off her bow, she climbed down and slid back into the seat.

  Riley stared at the radar. They were only about eight miles off now and closing at a speed close to fifteen knots. That meant they were less than thirty minutes away even in this confused sea. And they were on a collision course.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  Aboard Fast Eddie

  March 30, 2008

  9:30 p.m.

  “Christ, Pinky,” Spyder said. “Can’t you do that over the leeward side for Pete’s sake? The fucking wind is blowing your chum all over my jacket.”

  He watched his brother clutching the gunnel of the boat, his head dangling over the side like a bar of soap on a rope. Spyder buried his nose in the crook of his own elbow. God, the smell was enough to make him get sick even though he’d never been seasick a day in his life. Didn’t matter whether he was on a swordfish boat or a shrimper, Spyder could take the smells of rotten fish, diesel, you name it. But puke? Shit, no.

  “Listen Bro,” Spyder yelled towards the back of the red racing jumpsuit his brother wore. They had found a pair of these all weather suits on board the big Donzi race boat, and they had both climbed into them when it had started to rain earlier. “The boat rolls a hell of a lot worse when we slow her down. She don’t pound so bad, but she rolls like a bitch,” he yelled. “That’s what’s making you sick, man.” He had no idea if that was true or not, but Spyder loved opening up those big throaty engines and letting the Fast Eddie show off her stuff. When the boat flew over flat water and he flexed his knees with the motion, it almost felt as good as sex. Almost.

  Even with all the noise, Spyder heard the sound of his brother’s retching one more time. He turned away lest the wind carry the vomit into his face.

  Here we go again, Spyder thought. When they first took off in the Fast Eddie, his brother had started puking as soon as they’d got out into the channel. Spyder had slowed down, but once they got in the lee of the island, he’d opened her up again. Pinky was okay on the flat water. Still, by the time they got down to the south end of Dominica, it was almost dark and there was no sign of the doc or the bitch. Pissed him off.

  That was when Pinky got out the GPS machine again. They seen she was on the other side of the island headed north. Pinky wanted to know how the hell he knew it was her boat and not the doc’s. He told the freak that ain’t no way they’d be going no five knots in that big trawler. So Pinky says, then let’s follow her. Spyder knew for damn sure what would happen if they tried to take that route in the open ocean. Back to the vomiteria.

  Then Pinky suggested they could cut her off just as easy at the north end. So they’d headed up the flat, sheltered water on the leeward side of the island. Since he was feeling better, Pinky went below and found some cold beer and packages of crackers and chips. Only once they rounded the point, they’d run into that squall and here they were with Pinky spewing his guts over the side again. Those vinegar potato chips had smelled bad enough the first time around.

  Spyder turned the wheel to point the boat into the swells and tilted his head off to one side so the windshield no longer blocked the rain-scented wind from his face. The beaded braids that dangled down either side of his face flew back and fluttered against the side of his hea
d. God he loved how this boat made him feel. He pictured what he’d do to the bitch once he pulled up in this black bomber and got his hands on her. He was gonna tear her wide open. Show her not to mess with him.

  “Damn,” Pinky said, as he pushed himself up and collapsed into the padded passenger seat.

  “‘Bout time,” Spyder said. “You ready to go now?” He was ready to open that sucker up and start pounding those seas.

  Pinky’s hand flew out and grabbed Spyder’s forearm. Shit! He had no idea the little freak could squeeze that tight. His long fingernails seemed to be cutting right through the rain jacket.

  “Fuck, Pinky. You’re hurting me!”

  “Listen,” his brother hissed.

  Spyder had to lean in close to that puke face to hear.

  “There’s no way we both gonna jump from this boat to hers out here in this ocean.”

  Spyder started to interrupt, but his brother dug those fingernails into him again.

  “Jesus, cut it out!” Spyder wailed.

  “I said listen. You might be able to do it, but you ain’t leaving me alone on this boat. What we gonna do is, we gonna follow her. Keep far enough back she can’t see us. She either gonna lead us to the doc, or if she stops somewhere, we take her. Once she tells us where the doc is, you can do whatever the hell you want with her, bro.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  Aboard the Bonefish

  March 30, 2008

  11:25 p.m.

  The target on her radar screen was moving again after stopping for about ten minutes right off her beam. Now they were heading for her boat, but no longer making much speed. They were about five miles off. She should be able to spot their lights by now.

  Leaving the radar on, Riley pulled herself back up the companionway stairs, timing every step so that the boat’s extreme motion worked with her instead of against her. The bow lifted again on an extra large wave and then crashed down into the trough, flinging buckets of cold spray across the cockpit and making the hull, mast, and rigging all shudder at impact. She bent her knees and ducked her chin down into her rain gear. Rivulets of water streamed off the bill of the baseball cap she wore under her hood and she shivered. The boat always handled this pounding better than she could.

  She crouched under the dodger and scanned the horizon off her port bow through the dodger’s spray-splattered plastic windows. She reached inside the cabin and pulled the binoculars from the teak holder. Standing and risking a dousing, she took a peek over the top of the dodger. She found that even through the glasses, there was no sign of a light or shadow on the horizon.

  The boat had to be running dark. No lights.

  She sat down on the cockpit seat on the low side of the companionway and leaned her head back against the dodger’s stainless tubing frame. Closing her eyes for a minute felt so good. She was bone tired. Riley hadn’t eaten a regular meal since that sumptuous feast on Niko’s yacht over twenty-four hours ago. Surviving off granola bars, trail mix and coffee was taking a toll. Her stomach was protesting with an acid burn. To make matters worse, this was her second night at sea, and she’d had only four hours bunk time that morning. The body was like a machine, and she knew she’d been treating hers badly. Too little sleep, too little decent food.

  Riley snapped her eyes open. No falling asleep. Routine. Discipline. That was what she needed. She checked her watch. Nearly midnight. Soon it would be time to enter her position in the log. She stood and checked all around the horizon once more. The coast of Dominica was falling away. Her course was taking her into the channel between Dominica and Marie Gallante. But she still saw no lights or signs of other boats. The moon should rise in about an hour. It would only be a little bit of a thing, but it would still provide more light than these few billion stars.

  When Riley climbed back below to check her radar again, she discovered the other boat was only four miles off – dead astern. She set about heating herself a can of beef and barley soup on the gimbaled stove. She kept checking the radar every couple of minutes. They weren’t closing. In fact, they were matching her speed, staying exactly four miles astern. There was no question about it. That boat was following her. Or perhaps stalking was a better word.

  She poured the soup into a large mug and climbed the ladder back into the cockpit. She still saw nothing aft. No lights. The hot thick liquid felt good in her belly. She set down the spoon and drank the rest of it down. Stepping back from the dodger, she looked up at the top of her mast. Her masthead tricolor light was showing a bright white light aft.

  Okay, she thought when she’d finished her soup. Two can play at this game. She ducked below and dropped the mug into the galley sink. At the nav station, she glanced at the radar again. Nothing had changed, so she flipped the switch to douse all her running lights.

  That won’t do much good though if they have radar, she thought, so she climbed back into the cockpit. First, she clipped the line from her safety harness to one of the jack lines running along the lee deck, and then she climbed out of the cockpit onto the side deck. As she crawled her way forward to the shrouds, the deck was rising and falling under her, the black water rushing past her hull like water from a fireman’s hose. With her boat on autopilot, if she went overboard, she’d never be able to pull herself back aboard at this speed.

  When she reached the shrouds, she pulled herself to a stand and wrapped one leg and one arm around the wire rigging for support. Spray from the bow waves splattered across her back. After several minutes effort to untie the knot, she lowered the halyard that supported her radar reflector. Back on her knees again, she carried the bulky thing back to the cockpit then stowed it below.

  Seated once again on the high side of the cockpit, Riley found she was sweating inside her foul weather gear from the exertion of moving around on the heaving boat. She unzipped the top of her jacket to let the breeze in and wondered how on earth they had found her and how they knew which boat out here was hers. Her decision to go up the outside of Dominica put her on a piece of water that very few sailboats would choose to be on — beating up a lee shore in the middle of the night. How did they know she was here?

  She thought back to the first day she had seen that pony-tailed Brewster character, the day after she had met up with Dig in Pointe-à-Pitre. That morning, she had departed from the Pointe-à-Pitre anchorage to sail to the Saintes. She had awakened early because she wanted to put some miles between her and Dig. When she went on deck, she found that someone had returned her oars. She knew that Dig wasn’t much good with boats, so she assumed he had hired someone else to do it.

  Of course, she thought. Her oars. As the realization hit her, she felt so stupid. It was so obvious. Why hadn’t she seen it before? When they’d gone to Dominica on Cole’s boat, they had taken her dinghy along. Her dinghy with the set of oars inside it. They’d made it so easy for Dig to find them. There never was a tracker on Shadow Chaser. It had to be in one of her oars.

  Riley slid aft, kneeled on the seat at the back of the cockpit and reached into her inflatable dinghy that hung in davits above her transom. She pulled out an oar and shook it. It didn’t feel like there was anything inside the aluminum tubing. Shaking the other one gave the same result. She depressed the button that held the two halves together and pulled the oar apart. She grabbed the flashlight from her pocket and shone it into the tubes. Nothing. She fitted the two halves back together and stowed them in the dinghy. She repeated the process with the other oar, only the second time, she saw something that looked like paper in one of the halves. She shook the oar and the wad of paper dropped to the cockpit floor. When she picked it up, a clear plastic bag fell out onto the cockpit seat. Inside was a small, silver stick or tube that looked about the size of a AA battery.

  “God dammit,” she shouted, flinging the device out into the black waves. “How stupid could I be?”

  Then she felt her stomach jump and the soup nearly backed up her throat. Was that a light? To the east, off her beam.

  The stal
ker was behind her — not off her starboard side. From the glimpse she’d had of the bright white light, it looked like the masthead navigation light of a commercial ship. Again, it appeared for a moment before it slipped behind a wave. She waited, searching the horizon. There it was again, brighter this time. And here she was running with no navigation lights at all. That was all she needed now — to get run down by a freighter.

  Riley grabbed the binoculars off the low seat and climbed back up to the high side of the cockpit. She couldn’t see a thing because the binocular’s lenses were covered with spray. She slid back down off the seat, reached around into the cabin and pulled a paper towel off the roll that hung on the bulkhead. She climbed back up and hooked one elbow around the winch to hang on to the heeling boat. The light was growing bigger. She rubbed harder at the glass, but she was just smearing salt water on the lenses in a greasy-looking mess. She looked up again.

  And she froze.

  Oh no, she thought. She felt some of the tension release as her shoulders sagged. Then Riley started laughing as she made out the curving top half of the scimitar moon that was climbing up out of the sea. Already, the sea to the east looked brighter as the bottom of the moon cleared the horizon and began to climb higher in the sky. She looked up at her sails and the laughter died on her lips. Her white main and jib seemed to glow with an inner light, as though they sucked in the moonlight, collecting every last ray.

  Riley looked aft. Still no sign of her stalkers, but one thing was clear now. All her efforts of the last hour were for nothing. They wouldn’t need lights or radar or a GPS tracker to follow her now. But if she were to lower her sails and motor, her speed would be cut in half.

  Down at the chart table Riley made her decision. She knew that she wasn’t Dig’s only target. If she was all he wanted, he could have come alongside hours ago. He and his crew of half-wits were following her to stop Cole, and she was not about to lead them to the Shadow Chaser and hence to Surcouf.