Scone Island

by Frederick Ramsay

  The helicopter hovered somewhere nearby, perhaps over the ridge. He could not tell where exactly—the sound of its engine seemed to bounce around, first here, then there.

  With his panic growing but still under control, he yanked open the first bag and searched frantically among the cold steel of the pitons and C-rings and the rough coils of rope. Wrong duffle, no pistol. He heard the scrabble of rock dislodged by an approaching boot. He turned to face his visitors empty-handed.

  “Afternoon,” he said, he hoped casually.

  “Afternoon.” The man to his right said, but it could have been either one. They were as alike in stature and appearance as to be interchangeable. Both stood about six feet tall, were trim, and sported sandy moustaches. Aside from the fact that one had blue eyes, the other brown, they could have been twins, right down to the 1911 Colt .45 at their hips.

  The men stopped. One squinted at the sun, absorbed, it seemed, in the clatter of the helicopter. He turned and faced Neil. The other simply stood unblinking, staring at a spot six feet behind Neil’s left eye.

  “Nice day for a trip to the mountains, wouldn’t you agree, Agent Bernstein?” the first one said. Neil heard but could not place the accent.

  “What?” Neil was taken aback by the familiarity. “How do you know me? Who are you?”

  “Friend of a friend, you might say.”

  “Really? Who might that be?” Neil nurtured the unlikely hope that these two men were forest rangers sent to find him and deliver an urgent message. Unlikely, since no one knew where he’d gone except Krissie, and even she did not know his exact location. And who knew to address him as agent? This could go south. He wondered if he was quick enough to get the second bag open and the M-11 out before one of these Bozos drew down on him.

  The man smiled and nodded.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, there is, now that you mention it. You can stand real still and not make a fuss and I might tell you who.” These last words he accompanied by drawing and chambering a round in his pistol. The steely blue eyes, mirthless in spite of his sunny, good-natured smile, froze Neil in his tracks. So much for the Sig Sauer.

  “Look,” he said, hoping these two were thugs, not what the hair on the back of his neck suggested. “I haven’t got much, some camping equipment, a couple of bucks.” He left his gold and stainless steel Rolex off the inventory, hoping his sleeve stayed down and they would not notice it. “Take them, whatever you want, and point that thing somewhere else.”

  “Not interested in your stuff, son, we came to have a chat, you could say, with you.”

  “A chat with me! Why me? I’m nobody.”

  “Oh no, Sonny, you’re definitely somebody. Luckily for us, we found you.”

  “Us? Who’s us?” Neil choked. “You must have made a mistake. I’m not an…what did you call me? An agent? What, you think I sell real estate, insurance? I’m a consultant for a local government agency, that’s all.”

  “Local government agency—that’s a good one,” the man said to his companion. “He says he works for the local government, Bob.”

  “Funny man.”

  “Too true.”

  Neil studied the men. If he could figure out what, or perhaps who these guys represented, maybe he could talk them down. Their blank eyes told him nothing. They were military in dress and demeanor, but not Army or Marine. He tried to make out the insignia on their berets. It appeared to be something like a number, fifty-one or seven centered in a star. It meant nothing to Neil. The helicopter chattered in. The sound doubled and then the machine loomed suddenly above the cliff face, rose a few feet, dropped gracefully into the valley, and beat its way toward them.

  The man gestured with his pistol.

  “Let’s go,” he shouted over the din.

  “Go? Go where?” Neil yelled back.

  “You’re going for a little ride in the chopper.” The second man spoke for the first time. Hey, don’t worry,” he shouted over the chopper’s clattering, “It’ll be a very short ride.”

  Neil thought irrelevantly that he had been wrong. The two were not twins at all. This one had really bad teeth.

  Chapter Nine

  The sun glowed orange and deep lavender to the west as Scone Island loomed on the horizon. Twilight framed it and the trees, which dominated its silhouette, grew progressively darker as they drew near.

  “We will moor at the pier in The Bite, won’t we, Captain?” Walter Gott merely nodded and kept a close eye on the current. The tide was on the ebb and he had to be careful where he put the keel of his boat. “The pier is very clever, Ike. Since the tides can run twelve feet or more and the bottom in the harbor shelves out a ways, the pier is built in two pieces. No, make that three. Guess how it works.”

  “Judging from the map I’d say there is a long arm that extends past the low tide line and a T-shaped platform at the end floats rises and falls with the tide. Then there must be a ramp or ladders from it to the permanent portion. Am I close?”

  “Smart ass. You cheated.”

  “I did my homework, if that’s what you mean by cheating. That habit has kept me vertical when others have fallen on their faces, often never to rise again. Do not knock it. Cheating saves lives.”

  “You are the only person I know who can make a virtue from a recognized vice and get away with it.”

  “I’m not the only one, just the only one of your immediate acquaintance.”

  “Who else, then?”

  “Obviously you’ve been too busy to read the newspapers. When we get settled you can start with the entertainment section and witness how an adoring public celebrates the drug abuse, infidelity, greed, and theft of their idols. Then move to the business pages and—”

  “Okay, okay, you are at it again. It’s a vacation, Ike, come on, lighten up.”

  “You asked. So, can you see your cottage yet?”

  “I think it’s in the middle of that row to your left, the one with the widow’s walk.”

  “Port.”

  “Maybe after dinner sure, but not now. The way this boat is rocking you might spill it, and I don’t think Captain Gott would appreciate that.”

  “I thought you were a Down Easter.”

  “Oh, I am, whaling stock, “Down to the Sea in Ships” and all that.”

  “Then you should know that port means left on board a boat, not wine.”

  “Right. I mean left. I knew that. I was testing you, landlubber. Port, starboard, abaft and abeam and other nautical stuff.”

  “Amazing. Hang on, we’re about to nudge the pier.” The boat’s motor picked up sound as Walter briefly threw the screw into reverse and then it gently bumped the pilings, which restrained the floating portion of the pier. Walter stepped quickly off the boat and dropped the aft and forward mooring lines over the small bollards at either end and signaled for Ike and Ruth to alight. Ike handed her up and turned his attention to the bags and crates stacked on the deck.

  “You’re gonna need some help lugging that there gear all the way to your house, Miss.”

  “Thank you, I guess we will. Is there anyone on the island who could do it?”

  “Coupla young fellahs over at the LaFranc’s place. If you don’t mind paying, I’ll fetch them.”

  “You do that,” Ike said. “Some of this stuff is pretty heavy, and I’m whipped. We’ll take the bags with us and the guys can bring the rest along when they can.”

  “Yawp.”

  Ike and Ruth extended the handles of their roller bags and headed up the ramp to the pier and then toward the shore.

  “I have a steak and salad stuff in this plastic bag and you have the booze, right?” Ruth grinned and they set off. “A fire, a steak and salad, a couple of drinks, and who knows what therapeutic effect that will have?”

  “We will soon find out. As much as I am savoring this wonderful salt air, it is getting dark and cold. Here, give me your bag. We can move more quickly if you don’t have to lug that thing over this poor excuse for a path.”


  “It’s a road.”

  “And I am Frank Lloyd Wright.”

  “Come on, Ike, get in the spirit of the thing.”

  “Right—feeling more spiritual already.”

  “Look, the moon is clearing the horizon. You can make it out in that gap between the big island and Pine Tree Island.”

  “You didn’t tell me about the little island.”

  “No? Well, it’s a really nice place for a picnic. When the tide is out, you can walk over to it and if you eat fast, get back before the tide comes in again.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “Then you camp out for another nine or ten hours.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “No spirit of adventure?”

  “More than once I’ve spent hours wet and shivering in the dark. I do not have any intention to ever do it again. So, no spirit of adventure. This whole junket is rough enough.

  ***

  Charlie knew he needed to pack it in and go home, which meant a condo near Alexandria and a night spent looking at reports. He had one more thing to consider, and he wanted to do that in the relative security of his office rather than outside in a Denny’s or the pizza joint on the highway. There were possibilities that lay somewhere other than with Archie Whitlock’s angry exes or professionals motivated by revenge. What if it was someone inside? Charlie did not believe the director would order a hit on Archie, but there were agencies and groups that ran operations that paralleled the CIA, and all of them were understandably shy about mentioning what they were up to. Had Archie stirred up something or someone in one or another of those dark basements and did that someone, with his or her access to the agency’s server, decide to send a wet squad out and snuff Archie and any future embarrassment he might cause them now that he was no longer under the agency’s umbrella?

  Charlie considered that possibility and realized it was equally possible the director could order such a black operation. Then it would be good cover for him to task Charlie to find a leak where there would be none. It would serve to keep Charlie occupied and out of the game while the cleaning detail did what they were ordered to do. The director knew of the relationship Charlie had with Ike, and so diverting him made sense. He did not like this new thought, but he had been in the business long enough to know that some secrets could be kept only if sent to the grave along with their keepers. Sentimentality and the “old school tie” would play no part in a decision to proceed if the risk was deemed real and the decision to eliminate made. If Archie had to go, he would be terminated and anyone who might have an embarrassing memory about him and his work would be fair game as well.

  Charlie decided he would exercise option BBB, his code for going Behind the Boss’ Back. He didn’t like it, but there were times and occasions when one had to cover areas and possibilities others would as soon you forgot.

  And in a business not known for making them, Ike was his friend.

  Chapter Ten

  Ike managed to broil the steaks in the antique range, barely. If they both hadn’t liked their beef rare, the evening would have been a disaster. With a pre-mixed-in-a bag salad and a not quite soft, not quite done baked potato, he and Ruth dined by candlelight on the cottage’s screened back porch.

  “That tasted very good, all things being considered.”

  “By all things, you are referring to the cooking, the appliances, or the circumstances?”

  “All of the above. It can’t be easy to cook on this old oven, and cops aren’t known for their culinary skills, are they? Then there is the fact we’re both bushed. So, as I said, all things considered.”

  “What do you mean no culinary skills? I’ll have you know I am extremely skillful, culinary wise.”

  “How come I’ve never seen any evidence?”

  “Cooking takes time and patience and a settled life. Neither you nor I have a surfeit of the above.”

  “So when does one acquire them?”

  “One must be in a domestic situation.”

  “And we are not domesticated.”

  “Not as yet, but we live in hope. The cooking arrangements will soon be better.”

  “Really? How so, oh mighty chef?”

  “I am not a chef. A chef knows what a confit is. I haven’t a clue. I am a cook, not a chef. To answer your question, I brought some things to make this enterprise somewhat less trying.”

  “That would be the booze and the chocolates?”

  “No. Better. I will show you in the morning. Right now I am tired, cold—getting colder and could use a shower.”

  “It will take a while for the hot water heater to get us enough for a shower.”

  “You don’t have a shower. I looked. You have a Procrustean tub with a rubber hose that has a sprinkler head on it. The hose leaks, by the way. I am willing to forgo a shower tonight. I prefer the thought of a fire in the bedroom and one of your duvets.”

  “I’m game if you are.”

  “The operative word is game.”

  He would demonstrate why he’d hoped there was an auxiliary tap on the propane tank in the morning. As it happened he’d found there was one and it would soon come in handy. Camping out held no attraction to Ike. Too many years spent in cold, barren hillsides, basements, and caves in what he referred to as “his other life” had created a permanent abhorrence to living rough, unless it became absolutely necessary. As far as he was concerned, this trip was not one of those occasions.

  ***

  Charlie Garland tried his three contacts one last time and failed. Ike had not reported in, his deputy on duty said. Neither Halmi nor Krissie Johansen had heard from Bernstein and didn’t expect to, and Al Jackson’s contact had to attend his nephew’s graduation in Hackensack. He didn’t seem worried, though, and said he’d track Al down first thing when he was back on station.

  Charlie fumed. His job involved enough probing into dark places. He shouldn’t have to babysit one ex- and two active operatives. Of course, the director had reminded him of that fact earlier. It was not his job to look after them. His job was to find the leak in the system, if it was internal, and if not, to say so. Someone else would look outside to find who killed Archie and why. Or perhaps they wouldn’t. Archie was off the books, out of the system, and no longer a person of interest to the agency. His demise was convenient and certain to be ruled an accident with even a slight tip of the hat in gratitude to whoever gave Archie a shove. Problem solved. Fair enough. But if he didn’t alert the three men at risk so they could at least secure their perimeters, finding and fixing the leak would be meaningless on the one hand, and far more difficult on the other. That is, if the death of Archie Whitlock was, in fact, related to his past employment.

  He waited five minutes and then went to the call logger to check if these last calls had been tracked like the earlier ones. They had. Now he needed the software to track the tracker. He’d been promised it the next morning. He turned out his lamp, stood, and left his office allowing the door to lock automatically. The file he’d neglected to put away still lay on his desk. He went home and slept soundly.

  He nearly always did.

  ***

  The sun was well up before Ike woke and higher still before he realized where he was and why. In the past, this would not have been the case. In his former profession, being instantly awake and alert often was the difference between staying alive and disappearing into the black hole reserved for failed covert operatives. This morning he felt pretty good about it. It had taken a long time, but he had finally achieved the level of sleep induced fuzziness afforded normal people. It would not last, as it turned out, but on that bright May morning in the crisp chill air off the coast of Maine, he felt really good.

  Ruth was no more than a soft lump completely buried in the duvet, most of which she had managed to wrap around her body, leaving Ike with barely enough to cover his considerably larger frame. Only her right hand protruded from the mound. He gently tucked it back and received a muffled grunt in response. So
she wasn’t dead—always a good sign. He rolled out and headed to the kitchen. He would brew a pot of coffee in the relic of a percolator and then get to work on the propane line. Chester LaFranc’s sons, Ronny and Robby, had delivered the remainder of his baggage the previous night. While he waited for the coffee to cough, he set about unpacking them.

  He had the major items out and assembled when Ruth, still swathed in the duvet, limped into the kitchen forty-five minutes later.

  “Is that coffee I smell? Why do I have to ask? Coffee has a distinctive aroma and that, though close, is not it.” She peered in the pot. “It’s brown and hot. It’ll have to do. Maybe we should have brought instant. I hate instant, but it can’t be any worse than this stuff. What are you doing?”

  “Well you might ask. Drink or do not drink out of that pot. Either way it is the last dark brown liquid—I will not dignify it as coffee—we will ever brew in it. Later this morning we will have an appropriate memorial service and consign its remains into the sea like a Viking warrior, or something less noble like Osama bin Laden.”

  “Are you telling me you bought a new pot for the stove?”

  “Better. Check out that big box on the table.”

  Ruth removed a smaller box from the larger one and looked at it closely. “You’re the town idiot. You can’t put this on the stove. What were you thinking? This is an electric pot.”

  “Root around in there some more.”

  “Ike, this is a radio and an electric frying pan. Someone saw you coming, Bunky. You did remember that I told you there was no electricity on the island?”

  “The town idiot does remember, but as he has told you on countless occasions before, he does not like roughing it, fireplaces and fluffy duvets notwithstanding. You see this apparatus here? You asked what I was doing. I am installing a generator. In a few minutes, if all goes well and the instructions, which were obviously translated from Chinese, are correct, we will have electricity. That means we can perk a decent pot of coffee, fry an egg, or read a book after six PM.”