Circle of Bones: a Caribbean Thriller Read online

  He leaned against the door for a moment. God, he’d be glad to get away from this stink. Sweat, those damned French cigarettes, and the ever-present smell of diesel fuel combined in a pervasive stench they could no longer wash out of his clothes.

  Taking his sailor’s rigging knife from his pocket, he knelt on the deck next to the crate and pried up first one of the wooden slats, then another. The device looked just as lethal as they had told him it would — all tubes and wires on the side of a black box. Carefully, he lifted out the timing pencil detonator and crushed the copper end under the heel of his boot as instructed. This, they’d told him, would release the cupric acid that would then eat through the wire holding back the striker.

  “You’ll want to get out of there fast as you can,” the chap had said when he showed him how to arm it. “We design them to go off in twenty-four hours, but explosives are funny, ya’ know? They sometimes have a mind of their own.”

  Woolsey hadn’t said so aloud, but he didn’t see how blowing oneself to bloody bits could be considered funny.

  Twenty-four hours. He consulted his wristwatch. It was half past four. Assuming they did sail in two hours as the captain had promised, that would still leave plenty of time for the massive sub to get well away from the island and other prying eyes. She would be out where they measured the depth in miles instead of fathoms when she disappeared.

  Without him. Woolsey had no intention of being aboard when Surcouf took off on her final voyage.

  He tucked everything back in place, not wanting to touch it now any more than he had to. Once he replaced the staves, the crate looked untouched. He stood and folded the blade back into his knife, noticing his palms were wet with sweat. The only one among the French crew who ever ventured in here now was Henri Michaut, their signalman and interpreter, a wiry, scrappy little chap from Normandy. Mullins had nicknamed the man Kewpie because he had a strawberry birthmark on his right cheek in the shape of a heart. Woolsey left a note for Michaut and the two Brits warning them not to touch the crate, that it was fragile radio equipment.

  He glanced at the clock on the bulkhead and resisted the urge to grab his gear and race off the boat as fast as he could. If he did, they might not leave port, they might stay to search for him. He needed to get the locked and lead-sealed mailbag from the strongbox and then head up to the bridge to show the Captain the decoded message from London detailing his reassignment. He had prepared it himself the evening before. He’d leave the codebooks behind. They could go down with the boat. But the man who had passed him the mailbag from the Canadian frigate two days out of Bermuda had told him the documents inside that bag had to get to the US as soon as possible. He would deliver them to New Haven, personally, as promised.

  He had just started to dial the combination to the strong box when he heard footsteps and shouting outside in the companionway. The door flew open and Ensign Gohin, a huge weight-lifter-type, filled the doorway and waved a pistol in the air.

  “Allons, depeche-toi, Anglais.”

  “What the bloody hell?”

  Henri Michaut squeezed his little ferret-like face into the doorframe. He spoke the best English of any of the crew. Whenever he was excited, the birthmark on his cheek darkened, and at the moment it almost pulsed with color. “Lieutenant Woolsey, you must come with us.”

  “What the devil’s going on, Michaut?”

  Gohin began babbling in French. He grabbed Woolsey’s arm, jamming the gun against his ribs.

  “Lieutenant, please,” Michaut said. “Do as he says.”

  The beefy ensign shoved Woolsey ahead, marching him down the narrow passage, barking what Woolsey gathered were insults aimed at his English parentage. One huge hand gripped his shoulder, the other held the gun hard against his side.

  Through the deck, Woolsey felt the throb of the sub’s twin Sulzer diesels revving up. It was too early, damn it. The captain had said evening — they couldn’t be leaving yet.

  He struggled against the ensign’s iron grip and was rewarded with a stunning blow to the side of his head. Blood filled his right eye, nearly blinding him as he staggered against the bulkhead. Gohin pulled him forward.

  Michaut said something to the bigger man. Woolsey sensed the young signalman was arguing on his behalf. When Ensign Gohin replied, it was with words all seamen understood.

  He told him to go to hell.

  At the sub’s massive cargo hold, Gohin stopped and handed Michaut the Captain’s key ring. Michaut unlocked the padlock and chain that secured the watertight door, and Woolsey caught the frightened look in the young man’s eyes. Once Gohin turned the wheel and released the seal, the door swung inward. Woolsey planted his feet and struggled to wrench his arm away from the big man. His mind was focused on the device he’d left hidden in the signal room. This could not be happening to him.

  “Stop! I’ve got orders to get off this ship! Back in the signal room. Wait! You’ve got to get me off this ship. I’m not to sail!”

  The opening to the cargo hold yawned like the mouth of a black adder, and the air wafting out smelled of their goddamn rotting cheese.

  “Allez!” Gohin shoved him hard into the darkness.

  “No!” Woolsey cried out, but he was falling into the black as the steel door slammed shut.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The island of Guadeloupe

  March 25, 2008

  10:15 a.m.

  Cole Thatcher steered his Boston Whaler dinghy through what passed for surf on the leeward side of the island, cutting his engine and lifting the outboard just before the bow nosed onto the black volcanic sand. He slid over the side and grabbed the line on the bow, then dragged the boat up the beach away from the tug and pull of the waves.

  The small, isolated cove was familiar to him. He had been diving a search grid in the area for over two months now. After he peeled off his wet suit and booties, he stood still, leaning his leg against the bow of the boat, feeling the warmth of the late morning sun erase the cold from his naked body. The Caribbean waters were warm enough at the surface, but at the depths where he’d been diving, the chill reached right through the neoprene suit to his bones.

  He closed his eyes. From habit, his hand clutched at the gold coin hanging from a chain round his neck, his thumb rubbing over the raised image. It was crazy diving alone and he knew it, but he’d had to let the rest of the crew go. It was down to just him and Theo, and though his first mate was born down here in the Caribbean, he didn’t even know how to swim.

  Things weren’t exactly turning out the way he’d always dreamed. As a kid, Cole loved watching reruns of those old TV shows like Adventures in Paradise and Sea Hunt. He thought he’d grow up to be just like Mike Nelson, but here he was feeling more like Gilligan. This three-hour cruise had turned into months of fruitless searching, and after signing their checks over a year ago, his investors were beginning to demand results.

  All the supposed experts in World War II maritime archeology claimed the French submarine Surcouf lay somewhere on the sea floor outside Panama where she sank after a collision with the freighter Thompson Lykes on February 18, 1942.

  But Cole knew otherwise. He just had to prove it. And he was certain after all these months, he had to be close. But they knew it, too.

  Not the academics or his investors. He’d fled the world of academia. But his doctorate and the time he’d spent working on the Ocracoke Shipwreck Survey had brought in most of the investors when he started his company Full Fathom Five Maritime Exploration. His credentials convinced them he was legit and not some paranoid, crackpot treasure hunter. He’d assured them the old man’s journals were the equivalent of a treasure map that would lead them straight to the wreck.

  But today, he’d hit a dry hole. Again. Just as he had every day here in Guadaloupe for the last two months.

  His investors weren’t the only ones waiting for news of the sub’s discovery, though. Cole knew there were poachers out there. The cutthroat scumbags waited, just over the horizon, lettin
g guys like him do all the research and discovery work, and then they’d swoop in at the last minute, guns blazing to steal the find out from under him. Modern day pirates. It was the rumors of gold that drew them out of their dark little hidey-holes. He’d dodged a pair of them up in North Carolina, but they were still out there somewhere – he could feel them closing in like a school of sharks – and he wasn’t about to let them near his wreck.

  And if it wasn’t the poachers? Then God help him. Pirates, he could deal with, but he wasn’t ready to deal with them yet. He didn’t even know who they were, but he was certain they knew of him. Okay, it wasn’t like he’d seen black helicopters following him around — he wasn’t that crazy — but he’d caught glimpses of them even if nobody else believed him. The strangers whose gazes lingered just a little too long in his direction. They were watching him — had been ever since his father’s death. Of course, if they’d thought the old man’s diaries contained any real intel, the volumes never would have made it to his hands.

  He’d heard about what it was like the day they’d found his father’s body, how the local Brit constabulary had kept the press and the old man’s friends at the end of the lane while a fleet of unmarked black sedans had driven in and stayed for hours. He supposed the only reason the cleaners hadn’t taken the journals along with the rest of his father’s notes was because they seemed innocuous enough, personal memoirs and unintelligible rants kept only for the benefit of a distant American son the old man never really knew.

  They should have known better.

  After several minutes, the tropical sun had done its work and his naked skin began to feel the tingling heat of dried salt. Stretching his arms wide, he opened his eyes and followed the trickle of water that crossed the black sand from deep in the shade of the trees. A small stream flowed down the steep ravine into a pool just back from the beach. The water originated as rainfall up on the cloud-shrouded sides of the volcano, La Soufrière, and by the time it fell into the deep pool here, it was still cold as the depths where he’d been diving. But the water was fresh and that was why he’d taken to stopping here for a cool, revitalizing rinse after every dive.

  Broad-leafed taro plants and lacy palm fronds sprouted from the black rocks that ringed the pool. Tall, old growth trees shaded the glen, and the water gurgled over a small waterfall on the far side, ruffling the surface of the dark pool. On the leeward coasts of most of the Caribbean islands, the vegetation was a combination of lush tropic growth deep in the valleys where the streams came down from the mountaintops, and drier cactus and bush high on the sides of the windswept cliffs.

  Cole lifted the gold chain over his head and carefully placed the medallion on a smooth rock. He lowered his body into the pool and shivered. The depth was no more than four feet, so he slid his legs out toward the center and dipped his head back until the cold water covered his face. The noise from the waterfall sounded different underwater, louder and more immediate. Floating on his back, he watched the branches high up in the canopy where little bananaquit birds flitted among the still leaves. He closed his eyes, listening to the water roaring ever louder, wondering if he had enough of his father in him to see this thing through.

  Cole bobbed his head back to the surface and rested his bare feet on the soft mud bottom. He shook the water out of his ears. That was no longer just the waterfall he’d been hearing. He stood up, the water streaming off his skin, and he looked over the black sand beach to the sea. A gray inflatable dinghy had rounded the point from the north and was already halfway across the cove heading for the beach at top speed.

  “Damn!” Cole ducked down into a squat hoping they had not spotted him.

  The noise of the outboard engine wound down and then stopped. He knew the boat was gliding in for a landing on the beach. Barely lifting his head above the beach level, he took another look. The dinghy slid to a stop on the sand and the men leaped out. There were two of them wearing full-body wetsuits complete with black hoods. Both were carrying spear guns.

  Cole dropped back into the water, then looked around at the volcanic rock jutting out from the sides of the ravine. Beyond, he could see little but the green of the brush. He heard their muffled voices now. They saw his boat. They would know he was close by. There was nothing for it but to run.

  He had both feet out of the water before he remembered the chain and coin. He stopped so abruptly, he lost his footing on the algae-covered rock and fell back into the water. The sound of the splash seemed to echo off the canyon walls. He stood, ran his hand over his face rubbing the water from his eyes, and in one smooth movement, he scooped the chain up, slid it over his head, and leapt out of the pool.

  The sharp rock cut into the soles of his feet and the ferns and vines whipped at his bare legs. He couldn’t allow any of that to slow him down. He ran up a narrow animal path, but that route stopped at a huge boulder. He headed straight up the crumbling dirt wall then, dodged around the scattered prickly fruit of a soursop tree. In places, the side of the ravine was nearly vertical, but he grabbed at roots and branches to pull himself up. Crabbing his way across ledges and over rock outcroppings, he tried to keep under the tree canopy, seeking some sort of camouflage. His scrambling feet let loose a deluge of tumbling stones and dirt that would act like an arrow to point out his route to the men following him. His only hope, he thought as he heard their voices in the glen below, was that he had a good head start.

  The higher he went, the more arid the climate grew and the ferns turned to thorny century plants, easy enough to avoid, but providing little cover. He’d never felt more exposed. The dry sandy soil was easier on his shredded feet, but oddly enough, after the first few steps, he felt no pain.

  He couldn’t look back. That would slow him down too much. But he could not stop thinking about the men below him with their metal spears and the fact that his most tender parts were out in the open, right above their heads, literally daring them to take a shot.

  “Shit!” He’d reached over a large rock to get a good handhold, and his hand had come down on a bed of cactus unseen behind the stone. He held his palm up and saw it was covered in a pale blond fur of tiny needles.

  “There!” he heard a shout below him.

  Using the side of his hand, cradling the injured palm, he pulled himself up over a dirt ledge and rolled. He sprang to his feet and saw he had come to a flat and narrow plateau on the top of a razorback. He assumed he would start the climb down the other side, but when he ran to the edge of the precipice, he saw that the cliff fell away straight down to the dark sea. The water stretched unruffled to the distant horizon marred only by the white sail of a single boat.

  He took several steps back from the edge, and from behind him came the huffing and chuffing of his pursuers. One of them was nearly to the top. The cliff looked straight, even undercut, eaten away by centuries of storms. The water below was inky blue, not the pale turquoise of the shallows.

  He made his decision and started running back the way he had come. The black-hooded man looked startled when he crested the ridge and saw a naked man running straight at him, flailing his arms in the air, and whooping like a Hollywood Indian. The hooded man made it to his feet and began to lift his spear gun at the very moment Cole reversed direction.

  Cole Thatcher saw a metal spear fly past his right shoulder just as he took a running leap off the cliff and into the air.

  CHAPTER THREE

  At sea off Guadeloupe

  March 25, 2008

  11:05 a.m.

  Seated on the cabin top, in the shade of the mainsail, Riley cradled the sextant in her left hand, recorded the numbers off the dial into her logbook, then leaned back out of the shadow. She lifted her face to the sun and closed her eyes. The corners of her mouth drew up in a small smile.

  Sighing, she sat up straight and glanced down at the instrument she held in her lap. It was secured to a small tether she wore around her neck. She considered celestial navigation a painful necessity. Like her father’s nursin
g home insurance, it was something you hoped never to use, but if you needed it, you’d be glad you had it. Sure, she had GPS, but on days like this one, when the wind was light and the water was flat in the lee of the island, she dragged out the sextant to get in a little practice. She’d learned that in the service. Drill, drill, drill.

  She checked her watch and then ducked under the sail to squint up at the sun again. Her boat was drifting off the southwest coast of the island of Guadeloupe, and she was waiting for the morning sun to rise high enough — and for her boat to sail far enough south — so she could get a more accurate shot with her sextant. She swiveled her head around the horizon checking for boat traffic. Earlier that morning, she had sailed past an empty Boston Whaler flying the red and white diver down flag, but other than one sportfishing boat anchored close to the island, she now had the sea to herself.

  Her father, Richard Riley, was the one who had taught her celestial navigation back when he had been posted to the U.S. Embassy in Barbados. She was ten and her brother Michael a year and a half older. The Bajan kids there had been as cruel, teasing her older brother about his small stature and the thick lenses that magnified his blue eyes like the bulging eyes of a grouper. Their father, who always talked of his youth sailing out at the Cape, had bought a Bequia boat there, the first of a long line of boats named Bonefish. She and Mikey ran home every day, both to enjoy the lively little boat and to escape the taunts of the street. In time, her father taught her to sail the boat alone – and to use the sextant.

  “Those were the good years, eh bro?” she said aloud and winked at the light breeze passing under the mainsail. “Captain Maggie and first mate Mikey, the twin terrors of the Caribbean.”