Circle of Bones (15 page)

She checked the GPS chart plotter at the helm and saw that her speed was sometimes exceeding eight knots.
Bonefish
was flying on her favorite point of sail, rolling as the seas lifted her stern quarter. Riley sighed, sorry that this sail would end too soon, and she would have to get back to the real world of people and officials and finding this jerk who had put her into this situation.

When she began to see the red roofs of the village and the masts of the many boats anchored in the harbor, Riley peeled off her oilskins. The seas had quieted in the lee of the island and she was sweating inside the waterproof fabric. As she tucked her jacket up under the dodger, she heard her cell phone ring inside the velcro-sealed pocket. She fished the thing out and recognized the number of her father’s townhouse in DC.

“Hello?”

“Maggie? It’s Eleanor Wright, here.” 

She closed her eyes for moment picturing the woman standing next to the wheelchair where her father spent his days propped up in front of the second story bay window. He liked to watch the neighbors hurrying to work or walking their dogs or pushing strollers on the sidewalk in front of his Foggy Bottom townhouse. “Your father has been asking about you. We haven’t heard from you in a while.”

She opened her mouth prepared to defend herself, then closed it again and breathed in through her nose. “Communication is difficult down here. How is he?”

“He’s having a good day today. Would you like to talk to him?”

It was the last thing she wanted to do, but of course, she couldn’t say that. “Sure. Put him on.”

Even over the sound of the wind, she could hear the muffled noise as Mrs. Wright passed him the phone. He would be talking on the wired handset. He hated wireless phones. Always said he couldn’t hear through them.

“Maggie?”

“Hi, Dad. How are you doing?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m just sailing into the anchorage at the Saintes. You know, off Guadaloupe.”

“What the hell are you doing down there?”

She had to laugh sometimes. Her father had been such a proper man, never swearing before this dementia changed his personality. It seemed to have erased all his protocol filters. “I’m having a grand sail, Dad, on the
Bonefish
. Remember my boat?”

“I’ve got a boat named
Bonefish
.”

“Not anymore, Dad.”

“No? I’ll ask your mother when she calls.”

Her parents had been divorced for more than a decade, and he would be waiting a long time before his ex-wife, now remarried and living in France, was likely to call him.

“Where did you say you are?”

Most of the time now, she told him anything, true or false. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t remember the next time she talked to him. She tried to find something that would connect in his muddled memory. “Yesterday, I was in Pointe-à-Pitre.”

“What for?” 

“If you can believe it, I ran into someone I knew. He’s a Yale man like you, Dad.”

“Yale? Maybe I knew him.”

“I don’t think so, Dad. You were there a long time ago.” 

“You make me sound like an old man.”

She reached for the autopilot to adjust her course. “You are an old man, dad.”

“I’m a Yale man. What’s his name?”

“Diggory Priest.” 

“You met a priest?”

She took the phone away from her ear and looked skyward. You had to laugh or you’d cry. “No, Dad, Diggory Priest is the man’s name.”

“I once knew a priest.”

She rolled her eyes. “Did you, Dad?”

“He was a Yale man. He knew Michael.”

She shook her head. This disease mixed everything up in her father’s head. Dig had been more than five years gone by the time her brother went to the school. “Not the same man, Dad.”

“I didn’t think much of him. Priests are supposed to be men of God.”

It was strange how there were moments like this when his voice sounded so sane, and she could almost forget that he was so ill. “Dad, the man I know once told me that his mother named him after the hatter who sailed from England on the Mayflower.”

“I don’t remember that.”

She laughed out loud. “No, Dad, you’re not quite that old. Is Mrs. Wright taking good care of you?”

“Damn woman won’t let me smoke a cigar.”

“It’s your doctor who says you can’t smoke.”

“There’s something I need to tell you, Maggie.”

“No, Dad, don’t worry about it.”

“I can’t keep the secret any longer.”

She heard his voice crack and knew where the conversation was headed. Every time she spoke to him now, no matter where she steered the conversation, it always came back to this.

“It was all my fault.”

“Dad, don’t worry about it.”

“They called me. Told me they were going to throw me out if I said anything. I had to go along with it.”

“Dad, it’s over now. Everyone has forgotten.”

“Not me.”

“I beg to differ, Dad. You’ve forgotten most things.”

“But Maggie, I was so angry. After everything I had done for them, to ask for that sacrifice.” He stopped, choked on a sob. “I wanted to tell you and your mother, but they wouldn’t let me.”

“Dad, I know. It was a long time ago.” Truth was, she didn’t know. She had gone through everything she knew about his diplomatic service career, and she couldn’t come up with anything  this story could be based on. He never went into specifics. His doctor told her it might even not be a real memory at all. This was not unusual in dementia patients. They often started inventing stories. On one call, her father told her that the State Department had just phoned him and asked him to be the new U.S. Ambassador to Taiwan. 

He was crying now, sobbing into the phone. Before this illness, she had never seen her father cry. Not even at Michael’s funeral.

“I’m sorry. If I had only known I would have stopped him from coming. Please, Maggie, please, say it wasn’t my fault. Maggie? Maggie?”

She bit her lower lip and squeezed her eyes tight, not knowing if her eyes burned from tears or salt spray. “Dad, it’s okay.”

Mrs. Wright was on the line then. “I’m putting him to bed. He wouldn’t get this worked up if you’d call him once in a while.” She rang off without saying good-bye.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Grand Terre, Guadeloupe

March 26, 2008

10:10 a.m.

As he undressed again, in his own room this time, Diggory set out the two phones, the disposable local cell and the satellite phone, as well as the Baby Glock. He usually carried the weapon in an inside waistband holster, but he had slipped it into his jacket pocket when he’d disrobed with the German woman. He also removed the small custom-made leather and lead blackjack from his pants pocket and set it on the nightstand with the other articles he always liked to keep close at hand.

He had selected his own hotel, l’Auberge de la Vieille Tour, both for the impressive amenities and the discreet staff who were accustomed to keeping very quiet about the hours at which their guests returned to their rooms. He stretched out nude on the Egyptian cotton sheets and tried to sleep for several hours, but his mind kept circling around images and memories of Riley. She could be a threat, yes, but once whatever was on that submarine was in his possession, he would be immune to threats. He didn’t want to eliminate her immediately, but it pleased his sense of symmetry that he should have this power now to decide her fate. Some religious types might call it Karma, but in Diggory’s mind, they owed him this. Do unto others as they have done to you. 

After all, how many times over the years had he suffered at their hands. Belittle him? How dare they? The truth was, they saw it in him. That was why they always tried to keep him down. They knew he was extraordinary and they feared him. His father might not have claimed him, but Priest still had his father’s blood in his veins. He was born to lead. They didn’t even know what it was to work hard. He, on the other hand, had earned his rightful place. Yet from the time he had first been accepted at Yale through his years with the Company right up until now, he had often heard the not-so-subtle digs reminding him that he was not quite one of them — that he had no father, no money, no family connections. Of course, Yorick, who had tried to make him his lapdog, had been the worst. 

The first time Diggory had been invited to spend a few days at Deer Island, the private island owned by Skull and Bones on the St. Lawrence River, he had not known what to expect. He had packed his bags as though headed for a country estate. It was during “Dead Week,” between having finished his exams and before graduation. He’d brought his new Brooks Brothers slacks and the blue blazer he’d purchased with money his mother had given him for graduation. But he was startled to find the conditions on the island nearer to summer camp than weekending at an estate. 

When several of his classmates yelled for him to join them on the lawn for a game of football, he declined saying he didn’t feel well — when in fact, he didn’t want to damage his new clothes. That night in the dining hall, he was sitting at one of the long rough-hewn tables with a group of young men whose faces glowed bronze from their afternoon in the sun. Their khakis and polo shirts were faded and a bit frayed around the edges from years of wear. Diggory was the only one wearing a jacket and tie, and his clothes felt as new and stiff as he did. While he sat there hoping no one would notice such details, Yorick stopped by their table, slapped him on the back and hollered, “Our boy here looks like he’s on his way to the prom!” The whole dining hall roared with laughter, and Dig finally got some color in his face.

That was more than fifteen years ago now, but the memory still stung. After college, while he had willingly taken advantage of Yorick’s recommendations and connections, he had succeeded at the Agency on his own, as he had at Yale. He owed the man nothing. He no longer had to worry about looking or sounding out of place at any level of society. And soon, very soon, he would ascend to his rightful position as head of the organization.

When he had almost fallen asleep, he was awakened by a call on his local cell from the barbarians alerting him that Riley was on the move, headed for the Iles des Saintes. Since sleep was no longer an option, Diggory decided to get up and pack his bags. He would travel to the islands, find her, and she would be in his bed by nightfall.

As he was taking a last check around the room to make sure it was clean, he heard his sat phone ring.

“Yes,” he said into the phone.

“Thor, we need to meet.”

Diggory checked his watch. It was past one. “I was on my way to St. François
to catch a ferry for the Saintes.”

“Meet me at Pointe des Chateaux at 3:00.” Caliban rang off before Diggory could say another word.

He decided to drive the rental car to the meeting place. It was during the drive and his stop for lunch in Sainte Anne that he contemplated the true meaning of this phone call. Something had gone wrong. Caliban had had no problem meeting with him in the open in Pointe-à-Pitre only the day before. Why this sudden need to drive out to the secluded point at the far eastern end of the island? Had his superiors somehow connected him to Ulrika? Who were they to deny him these little pleasures? They feared he was becoming too strong. Either they wanted to put him back in his place or Caliban had decided to clean the cleaner. 

Diggory arrived early and parked his rental sedan among the half dozen or so vehicles in a dirt lot by the beach.  Before leaving his room at the Auberge de la Vieille Tour, he had unpacked his laptop and Googled the location of the meet. He read several online tourist guide descriptions of the place, and examined it via satellite photos in Google Earth. Pointe des Chateaux was a rocky spit of land that jutted out at the easternmost tip of Grand Terre where the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea met in crashing surf. The wave action had sculpted the limestone rock into dramatic formations resembling stone castles, hence the name, and created several small half moon beaches of white sand along the Atlantic side. A marked trail led off toward a hill at the end of the point topped by an imposing white cross that had been erected in the 19th century. 

On this afternoon with brisk trade winds dotting the ocean with whitecaps, he did not see a single person walking out to the cross. The waves breaking on the rocks all around the hill sent towers of spume more than twenty feet into the air. Anyone exploring out there was bound to get wet on the slippery rock.  He had forty-five minutes to scope out the terrain, and assuming Caliban didn’t also arrive early, he intended to use every second.

He was leaning on the fence that surrounded the parking compound when Caliban drove up in a Mercedes. The older man was fifteen minutes early, but Diggory had expected that.

“Shall we walk?” Diggory asked, indicating the cross on top of the hill. “I imagine the view from up there must be spectacular.”

“Yes, let’s.”

The two men walked in silence for a time. Diggory set a brisk pace. Caliban was the first to speak.

“You’ve had quite an impressive career, Thor.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, bowing his head to indicate his deference to the older man.

“You’ve become an extraordinary asset to the organization.” They walked along, shoulder to shoulder, both of them focused on the path just ahead of their feet. “This morning, though, Thor, I saw something disturbing on the television news. A young woman was killed in Le Gosier last night.” He lifted his head and looked into the face of the younger man. “Did you see it?”

“On the television? No. I rarely turn it on.” Diggory stretched his mouth in a wide smile. “It’s so provincial these days.”

The silver haired man paused, turned away and looked out to sea. “I just wondered. We’ve noticed, you see.”

Diggory walked ahead several steps then turned. “Noticed? What are you talking about?”

“Your little hobby. This time, it surprised me, though. They said she hanged herself by accident, playing sex games. Sound familiar?”

Diggory chuckled. “Was it our people? The ones who did Thatcher?”