The Devil on Chardonnay

by Ed Baldwin

  “Once, when I was 12.”

  “Seriously, I like men, and I like you. But, I’ve had this old fashioned idea that …”

  “Not a problem,” he interrupted.

  The half moon rose high in the sky, but it and the stars were periodically blocked by banks of low clouds scudding across the opening of the crater. Lying together on their sleeping bags at the bottom looking up, they felt like they were streaking across the earth beneath stationary clouds. The sense of movement was so intense, Angela became nauseated and had to stop watching. They embraced.

  “In Culpepper, Virginia, we all went to the Baptist Church. Even today, if I watch television and a movie comes on and it’s Sunday, I feel guilty,” she said, breaking away after several minutes.

  “Dancing is out of the question, then.”

  “Oh, yes, all those hot-blooded teens on that gym floor, pressing their loins together?”

  They laughed.

  “We never went to church,” Boyd said. “Dad just handed me the Bible and told me to read it to him.”

  “Did you?”

  “Sure.”

  “You understand then, how I feel?”

  “I don’t understand why you keep talking about it.”

  “Because I’ve never felt this way about a man before,” she said, quietly.

  “What’s in that case?” Boyd asked, pointing toward the leather instrument case she’d brought along.

  “Oh, I forgot. I brought my banjo.” She jumped up and retrieved the case.

  “A banjo? I never heard of a girl playing the banjo.”

  “Well, you have now. I don’t get to practice as much as I’d like. The other girls in the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters aren’t music lovers.”

  She slipped the strap over her head and deftly began tuning it.

  “Daddy plays in a bluegrass band. He wanted me to play fiddle, but I wanted to play what he played.”

  Her fingers rehearsed a riff before strumming two more times to test the tune.

  “You’d probably go for train songs,” she said gaily and jumped right into a spirited, complex arrangement of “Fireball Mail.”

  The grass and brush-covered walls of the crater dampened the sound of Angela’s soprano just a bit before the rock returned an echo, while tinkling crystal sounds of the banjo seemed to radiate unchanged out into the cosmos. The intensity of her face as her flying fingers worked through variations on the original riff showed she was a serious student of her instrument, but the smile and purity of her voice on the chorus was what captivated Boyd.

  “That’s great,” Boyd applauded as she finished.

  “I don’t play much here. I found out in nursing school most people think you’re a hick if you even listen to banjo music. If you liked the last one, you’ll love this one – 'The Wreck of the Old ’97.' ”

  Boyd retrieved a fresh longneck from the cooler as she got to the familiar “she was going down the grade doin’ 90 miles an hour,” and tossed another log on the fire. The flame danced in her eyes, already bright with the music.

  “That’s a professional skill. You must have joined your father’s band.”

  “The Clear Creek Boys became the Clear Creek Boys and Angela Kelly.”

  “I’ll bet it was Angela Kelly and the Clear Creek Boys.”

  “Sometimes it was, but I had college and nursing school. How about a gambling song? Old Stewball was a racehorse …”

  Boyd’s beer grew flat as he sat, riveted by the familiar tunes, played with a flair he’d seldom heard, and that beautiful, clear, laughing voice.

  “Come on,” she said, patting the ground beside her. “I’ll teach you a song.”

  Boyd stood readily and sat, cross-legged, beside her.

  “This is a gospel song that was our signature when we sang in the churches around Culpepper. Sing along with me on the chorus until you learn it, then I’ll harmonize the next time.”

  “I’m game, but I make no claims to musical talent.”

  With no introduction, Angela belted out the introduction and first stanza, then nodded at Boyd for the chorus: “Better get in that number, that no man can number.” She repeated that three times, then, “Comin’ down, comin’ down from God.”

  Boyd picked up the simple tune, and they started again. He could hear his own baritone echo from the walls. The third time he began to improvise on the harmony, with mixed results. Their laughter and music passed the evening.

  “Let’s neck, my fingers are tired,” she said, taking the strap from around her neck and replacing the banjo in its case. She kissed him fully on the lips and pulled him back onto their sleeping bags.

  “Was that lust or love?” Boyd asked, pausing.

  “Do it again. I’m not sure yet.” She rolled onto him, hands digging under his shoulders to pull him closer.

  Minutes passed. Breathing heavily, Angela rolled onto her side and sat up, lifting her sweatshirt over her head. She quickly removed her bra and turned triumphantly to Boyd. The clouds parted and the half moon lit the crater with a white light that made her pale, pointed breasts glow against the dark background of the grass.

  “I think this is lust,” Boyd said, bending his face toward her.

  “This is too good to be lust,” she said, panting, drawing his face up to kiss him again.

  Boyd’s arms surrounded her and she fell back onto the sleeping bags. After a few seconds she struggled to sit back up.

  “I’ve gone as far as I go, what do you have to show?” she asked with a breathless laugh.

  Boyd removed his shirt. There was still a bandage on his back.

  “Not good enough. More.”

  Shrugging, Boyd rolled onto his back and pointed to his jeans.

  “May I?” She asked, reaching for his fly.

  “You may.”

  With some difficulty she unbuttoned the fly and when he lifted his hips, she pulled his jeans and boxers down.

  “Oh, my. You didn’t look like that when we prepped you for surgery back at the hospital.”

  “You naughty lady. You’re not supposed to have a prurient interest in such things when you work in a hospital.”

  “I was entirely clinical. But, we’re not at the hospital now.”

  They fell back on the sleeping bags.

  Boyd’s cell phone rang.

  “Ferguson,” he said. “That’s the command post’s number. It’s like he knows what I’m doing and can’t stand it if he doesn’t call to interrupt.”

  They broke camp, packed up and returned to the base to take Ferguson’s call on the scrambled line in the command post. Driving back to the base, which was only a few miles away, Boyd realized it would be 0300 hrs in D.C. Something must be up to have Ferguson at the command post.

  *******

  “Sorry to bother you at night, Boyd, twice in one week,” Ferguson said. “Hope I didn’t drag you away from anything.”

  Boyd suspected the duty officer might have told Ferguson that Boyd was camping with one of the nurses.

  “Bible study group. We were on Revelation,” Boyd said, deadpan straight.

  “Hum, well, sorry to call you away from it,” Ferguson said, then shifted into his more businesslike general-officer tone. “They’ve got the Wrath of God in Khartoum.”

  “There’s a lot of that in Revelation,” Boyd responded.

  “Yes, well, it couldn’t be in a better place. Khartoum is in the middle of the desert in Sudan, and their borders have been sealed.”

  “Looks like Constantine made the delivery in spite of all our efforts to stop him.”

  “He was probably in Africa by the time we started looking for him.”

  “What an odd place to try to use a bio-weapon.”

  “Raybon and Davann broke that story for us. Good thing, too. It’s given us a real jump on this.”

  “I thought they told us the ragheads were planning to use it in South Sudan.”

  “The outbreak started in a jihadist camp just outside of Khartoum.
Then when the first cases got to the hospital, it took out the hospital staff. Then people started getting sick all over town. It’s a ghost town now. All the roads out are filled with cars, trucks, camels, donkeys, people walking.”

  “Bad guys must’ve gotten careless, like Jacques.”

  “Joe Smith said that’s why nobody wants to work with Ebola. It’s too dangerous. Also, Joe thinks this is just a trial and that the main thrust will be somewhere else.”

  “You’d have to think that if someone could come up with the millions of dollars they spent on this, they’d have a better plan than just dumping it out.”

  “The way this has spread, Joe said, pretty much confirms that it’s spreading by vector now. We were pretty sure of that in South Carolina, but there was still the possibility someone was infecting each of those people. Now with a whole town getting sick, it’s the only explanation.”

  “We’ve had some developments on this end. Mikki knew we were federal agents,” Boyd said ominously.

  “Someone talked?”

  “She put it together from several of us. The point is, she knew. Constantine catching us on the open sea and wiping out all of us makes a lot more sense now, because it essentially seals off her trail.”

  “Cold-hearted bitch,” Ferguson said quietly.

  “Yeah. Neville practically raised her,” Boyd said, thinking about Neville again. Neville had told him they were a fierce clan, unwilling to say anything against Mikki, but wanting to warn Boyd. “She has a grandfather. He’s the principal of Meilland Frere’s in Luxembourg City.

  I’d assumed he was a brain dead old fart, he’d be in his late 80’s, but now that it looks like she could have planned the explosion and the murders, we need to see if he knows where she might be. Could you see what you can find out about Charles Meilland? Also, better put a tap on his phone, cell phone, and a filter on his Internet.”

  “Principal? Boyd, you’ve been hanging around those bankers too long,” Ferguson laughed, then added, “I’ll get back to you in the morning on Meilland. Now, what about Pam and Donn. Do you still need them?”

  “I think they can go home. The whole banker thing is done now. They’re just on vacation waiting for something to happen. But I’d be a dead man if they hadn’t found me in the water. I think a grateful government should give them something for that.”

  “We’ll take care of them. The way travel to the Azores is, they’re liable to be waiting for transportation for a week.”

  Going back to the truck to take Angela home Boyd thought about the telephone call. Ferguson had sounded too comfortable to have been called into the command post in the middle of the night. He was probably at home in bed, patched through to the DTRA command center on a scrambled land line.

  CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

  Luxembourg City

  Boyd found Bancque de Meilland Frere’s on a radial street just off the Victory Plaza in the heart of Luxembourg City. The tasteful, understated brass sign beside marble stairs leading to the two heavy glass doors with thick brass handles was just what he’d expected after discussing the banking business with Mikki. Inside, he went through a small lobby and around a corner to a large interior room with tellers and a courtesy desk. Boyd had come here first just to get a feel for the place.

  “I would like to see Charles Meilland.”

  The clerk, a young man, had a pleasant expression on his face as Boyd approached. Now, his eyes focused behind Boyd. His expression went blank, but he said nothing.

  “I don’t have an appointment,” Boyd said, letting the guy off the hook.

  “Monsieur Meilland has been ill. He does not take visitors. Perhaps one of the officers could accommodate you,” he said, at his officious best now.

  “Mademoiselle Meilland, then.”

  Shock transformed the face of the nice young man. He flushed, and eyes scanned Boyd, as if trying now to know him.

  “Mademoiselle Meilland was killed in a tragic …” he stuttered. English was not his native language. “… maritime accident. The bank was closed last week in her honor. She was …our inspiration.”

  The French accent reminded Boyd of Mikki. In spite of the fact she’d been responsible for his gunshot wound and the death of two friends, he saw, for a moment, her face, with a smile. It was the face he remembered from when they sat contemplating Sand Island, with its ancient magnolia and long sandy beach.

  “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t know,” Boyd said, backing away.

  He turned and left the young man standing there with moist eyes. He walked briskly back toward the plaza, checking once before he turned to see whether he was followed. He then went a block down and walked that street two blocks and turned back toward the bank and to Charles Meilland’s home address, less than a block from Bancque de Meilland Frere’s.

  A butler answered the door. The embassy had called and he was expected.

  Heavy draperies were drawn tightly against the daylight and traffic sounds from the street outside. Boyd felt that the rich oriental carpet, 19th century antique furniture and large oil paintings of pastoral scenes gave the room an oppressive feel. He sat in the chair indicated by the butler and looked up at the 12-foot ceiling with floral designs in plaster embellishing the margins. After 10 minutes, he got up to walk around the room and get a better look at the art. There was no sound but the ticking of a clock.

  A faint sound in the marble entryway caught his attention just as the two walnut doors opened slightly and a very thin man entered. He wore a red velvet smoking jacket, slacks and slippers. The doors closed silently behind him as he smiled and extended a bony hand.

  “I am Charles Meilland. Thank you for coming,” he said in unaccented English.

  His hand was warm, the grip firm.

  “Please sit down. Lawrence will open some wine. I try to hold brandy for later, but you needn’t.”

  “Wine would be fine, thank you.” Boyd hadn’t expected such a warm welcome or to like the guy.

  “Your embassy said you were with Michelle and may be able to tell me about the accident. My only information has come from Candido, one of our seamen.”

  He sat in an overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace and directed Boyd to a straight-back chair nearby.

  “Yes,” Boyd said. “I sailed from Charleston. The three of us met her at a bank meeting there. She invited us for the crossing. We were the only survivors.”

  “Three survivors of the accident? Candido said there were none.” The old man sounded incredulous.

  He stopped at a faint knock. “Yes, Lawrence, come in.”

  Lawrence, the middle-age French butler, entered with a tray, balancing two glasses and an open bottle of Vouvray, the same chateau Mikki had served on their first trip up the coast of South Carolina. Pear and apple slices were arranged alternately in a circle on a simple white china plate. Meilland’s eyes searched Boyd’s the entire time. The butler poured wine into the two glasses, set them on the table between the two men and was gone in a moment.

  “Yes, sir. What did Candido tell you?”

  “He said someone from the boat got into a brawl in Peter’s bar, and that shots were fired. Neville took Chardonnay out of the harbor to avoid any problems with the Portuguese. They may have been intercepted by another boat. I have the paper from Horta here.”

  He pulled a newspaper clipping from his jacket and showed it to Boyd. It was in Portuguese.

  “All that is correct,” Boyd said, bending to look at the paper.

  Charles roughly translated the article, which was front page, but short. It said all hands had gone down with the ship and speculated that American drug dealers might have been trying to steal Chardonnay for illegal purposes. It was defensive about any speculation of wrongdoing by Azoreans.

  “I’m an American federal agent. We were rescued by the Portuguese Air Force the morning after the explosion. Our government was able to prevent release of the fact that there were survivors,” Boyd said apologetically.

  Tears f
illed the eyes of the old man.

  “She was my only remaining family,” he said. “My wife died in childbirth. My son drowned in a diving accident, and Michelle’s mother was a suicide. My brother died five years ago, and his profligate son, a morphine addict, whom I haven’t seen in years, is heir to the bank my grandfather founded. I am alone.”

  He bent his head almost into his lap and sobbed, the tears flowing onto his expensive slacks.

  Boyd said nothing.

  “Did she drown?” He looked up expectantly, like maybe that was better than some other way of dying.

  “Sir, before I tell you what I know, I need to know what you know about Mikki’s trip to the United States.”

  As he said this, Boyd imagined himself as a streetwise cop on TV.

  “It was a holiday. She wanted to make a crossing by herself.”

  The old man was obviously lying.

  “It wasn’t a holiday. It was business. You sent Wolf Goebel with her as a bodyguard,” Boyd said sternly.

  The old man seemed to sink back into the chair, the adversarial nature of their talk accepted.

  “Did you send her on Chardonnay with $5 million dollars to buy something from Lymon Byxbe?” Boyd leaned toward the old man, but spoke softly. Sun Tsu and Clausewitz both teach that when an adversary retreats, keep the pressure on.

  “Who?” A feeble response, as Meilland sank further into the chair.

  “Lymon Byxbe,” Boyd said loudly.

  The old man looked up blankly. The red, rheumy eyes, the tears, the nearly hairless scalp and the quivering lips were all real, but he was still lying.

  “Sir, did you pay Lymon Byxbe to send someone to Africa to capture the Ebola virus, purify it, sneak it into the United States, make a vaccine for it, and then smuggle it out of the United States?”

  Boyd was leaning right in Meilland’s face.

  Fear turned to terror in Meilland’s eyes.

  “Sir, did you plan to infect alluvial diggers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to manipulate the diamond market? Did you plan to kill a million people to make some more money?”

  Boyd was genuinely angry now. He’d only known half a dozen bankers in his life, and so far they were all crooked.