Circle of Bones: a Caribbean Thriller

by Christine Kling

  Riley ran for her dinghy but decided against using the outboard. Though she couldn’t make out the features of the person, she was certain it had to be Ponytail. She was finished messing around with this guy. She wanted to confront him, talk to him, and she wouldn’t mind knocking him on the side of the head a few times as payback. As she untied the dinghy painter and stepped into the little boat, she saw the figure open the double doors, slide open the main hatch, and proceed down the ladder into the cabin. He was lucky she didn’t have any firearms on her, because though she hadn’t been to a range in months, she’d once been able to outshoot every Marine at every post she’d been assigned to. She shoved the boat away from the dock, fitted the oars into the oarlocks and began to pull.

  As she rowed out, the inflatable bounced over the wind chop. She remembered that she had left the forward hatch over her berth open. She decided to go in that way. As she pulled alongside the Bonefish, she noticed that the intruder hadn’t brought a dinghy. What did he do? Bum a ride? Swim out? She headed her own inflatable to the anchor chain.

  Her boat’s foot-wide teak platform extended out from the bow, supported beneath by stainless steel tubing called a dolphin striker that ran from the platform down to the hull at the waterline. Riley tied her dinghy to the anchor chain with a quick bowline, then stepped up onto the rubber boat’s seat. Bonefish was rocking gently in the swell that wrapped around the point, and she used the boat’s natural motion to help her as she boosted her belly onto the anchor platform by stepping on the striker. She slid under the bow pulpit and pulled herself to a stand with her hand on the roller furled sail. She stood for a moment waiting to see if the intruder noticed the change in the boat’s balance as she came aboard. After several seconds, she figured she was in the clear.

  By now the night had grown dark, and she no longer had to worry about the man seeing her outlined against the sky. She squatted on the foredeck, and her line of sight through the forward hatch showed a cabin that was dimly lit at the aft end. He had a small flashlight. She got down on all fours, then crawled on her belly to the hatch and lowered her head inside for a better look.

  She couldn’t make out the man, only the dark bulk facing outboard, seated at her chart table. She could see the flashlight’s beam dancing around under the lifted lid, searching the contents. She almost yelled out in her fury, but she didn’t want him to get away this time. She slid her feet through the narrow hatch and eased her deck shoes onto the berth. Then ducking inside, she slid to the floor and stood just inside the cabin door.

  This was her home, her bed, but for a moment she felt disoriented. Pressing her body against the drawers under the bunk, she was out of his line of sight, hidden by the bulk of the open door. She scanned the cabin, remembering more than seeing what was there. By her bunk, behind the door. She needed a weapon. She kept a ten-inch aluminum Maglite flashlight in a pocket on the bulkhead for nights when she had to get out of bed and on deck in a hurry. She reached in and eased the flashlight out, then gripped it in her right hand, bottom up, measuring the weight of it.

  From aft, she heard the sound of the chart table top dropping into place. She eased to her left and saw his shadow pass in front of the open cockpit companionway. She ducked back behind the door. Would he see her outline in the dark? No, especially not after losing his night vision from the light he was using. After sliding her butt onto the bunk, she pivoted, then swung her legs up and crawled onto the mattress.

  The floorboards between the settees in the main salon creaked. The thin beam of his light danced around the woodwork in her cabin. He was coming forward. The sound of the wind moaning in the rigging masked any noise she made as she shifted her legs across the mattress until she was kneeling on the bunk behind the open door.

  She saw the flashlight appear from around the corner of the door and she knew his body would soon follow. She raised the Maglite over her head and waited. She sensed his bulk more than saw him, and that was when she struck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Atlantic south of Bermuda

  February 12, 1942

  After several seconds’ silence, all three men began shouting at once. McKay’s voice, the loudest of the lot, drowned out those of the captain and young Mullins.

  “Bollocks. S’not true. There’s no bomb. He’s nothin’ but a shit stirrer,” he said.

  The captain quieted them by turning off the torch and plunging the hold into darkness. When he had their attention, he clicked it back on, illuminating Woolsey in a column of light. “This is true, Lieutenant?”

  Woolsey blinked and turned his face aside. He could hear the other men shuffling in the dark, moving in closer to hear him. “Captain, we don’t have time for the why and wherefore. Suffice it to say that this afternoon, on orders, I brought aboard and armed an explosive device that is set to go off within twenty-four hours of arming.” He tilted his wristwatch toward the torchlight. “That was roughly three hours ago.”

  “Why you —” McKay started toward him but the captain reached out and shone the light on his face.

  He barked, “Monsiuer McKay. Arrête. Stop.”

  Woolsey was surprised that the big signalman followed the Frenchman’s orders.

  The captain swung the torchlight back round on Woolsey’s face. “You say we don’t have time, but I say you have sufficient time to explain this to me. Who gave you your orders?”

  “I am not at liberty to say, sir.”

  “Non. Ça ne suffit pas. I will not accept that. It cannot be true that the British plan to destroy this magnificent boat.”

  Woolsey tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a gasp. “Captain, do you have any idea of the gross tonnage of ships we’re losing daily in this Atlantic War? You’re nothing but a gnat in their eye. It’s all about money and goods, man. When the cost of her upkeep exceeded her usefulness to the Allies, Surcouf was doomed.”

  “If this is true, Lieutenant, why not take her out of service?”

  “Do you really think DeGaulle would let us? She’s become a bloody symbol for the Free French, sir. But a damned expensive one.”

  The captain turned his back on the British officer and his torch lit the far side of the hold. Woolsey saw McKay glowering at him between slugs of drink, his cheeks reddening with each swallow. He was seated atop an enormous stack of crates of wine. Mullins sat on the floor not far from him, his head swiveling back and forth between his lieutenant and the angry telegraphist. Woolsey saw his lips move, but he couldn’t hear what he was saying. Either he was trying to calm McKay or he was praying.

  Captain Lamoreaux turned back to face Woolsey. “You were ordered to place this bomb, and then leave this boat and your own men to die?”

  Woolsey spread his hands, palms upward. “Men are dying every day in this war. Ordered to do so. This isn’t personal. You see, there are some critically important documents aboard this boat. The Americans need them. My orders were to set the explosives so the world would think Surcouf was the victim of a U-boat, and then to get the documents to the Americans.” Woolsey hoped the captain would leave it at that. If he started asking him any more questions about who had issued the orders, he would have to lie. And he knew he was a piss poor liar.

  “How convenient for you that you were the one man who was supposed to survive.”

  Woolsey wiped his palms on his pants leg. There was no heat in the hold, and his hands were cold, yet wet with sweat. “Just following orders, sir.”

  For such a big man, McKay’s moves were both fast and silent. The first sound Woolsey heard came only a couple of seconds before the big man’s head and shoulders plowed into his gut.

  The two of them went down in the pool of spilled red wine. He thought maybe the other men, Lamoreaux and Mullins, were yelling since their mouths were moving, but he couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in his ears.

  McKay had him pinned to the floor. Woolsey tried to use his arms for protection, it was to no avail. The big man concentrated on his body
and the blows to his ribs and abdomen made it impossible to breathe. As the darkness round the perimeter of his vision began to close in, Woolsey registered a different sort of look in McKay’s eyes. They changed from dull, unseeing brutish eyes, to green pools sparking with light and interest.

  McKay froze with his fist drawn back, then he leaned down over Woolsey and reached out his arm. When he raised back up onto his knees, he held a dark round piece of glass. It was part of the wine bottle’s bottom and attached to it was a long slender shard, two inches wide at the base and tapering off to a perfect, razor sharp point.

  “Gonna leave us to die, was you?” McKay asked, turning the glass in the torchlight, staring at it and grinning as he watched the faint emerald shadow dance across the deck.

  Woolsey opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  “Havin’ a little brown trouser moment here, eh Lieutenant?” McKay pressed the point against Woolsey’s neck and the lieutenant felt the sharp pain as it pierced the surface of the skin. “You yellow-bellied piece of shit, let’s see if you can take a little of what you was plannin’ for us. Them bombs dismember, ya know.”

  At that moment, Woolsey found his voice, but to his profound embarrassment, what came out was a high-pitched scream. Or so he thought at first. Then, when a blur of a shadow knocked the big man off him, Woolsey realized his barely audible “Please!” had been drowned out by the screams of Walter Mullins as he had launched himself at the big telegraphist. The two of them disappeared into the shadows beyond the column of light and with them went the sounds of their scuffling. The captain’s voice was now penetrating the roaring in Woolsey’s ears, but the man seemed to have forgotten how to speak English. He was hollering “Arrête!” and other words the lieutenant could not comprehend.

  Woolsey sat up and touched his neck where the point of glass had pierced his skin. His fingers slid, smearing the blood that trickled from the wound. But his whole arm felt wet inside his sleeve and when his fingers continued to probe the arm, he found another small shard of glass that protruded from the backside of his upper arm. When he touched it, pain shot down the length of his arm.

  At once, all the yelling stopped and all Woolsey heard was the ever-present rumble of the big sub’s diesels.

  Woolsey looked up as the captain played the light around the compartment. Finally, it found the two Englishmen, still and quiet and prone on the deck. Woolsey was surprised to see Mullins lying flat across the bigger man pinning him down. For a moment, a small smile played around Woolsey’s mouth until he saw the growing pool under McKay’s shoulder, soaking his sweater. For several seconds neither man moved, then McKay sat up, pushing the younger man away, rolling him onto his back. McKay leaped to his feet, his breathing hard and noisy in the cavernous compartment. The front of his heavy wool sweater was stained dark and his face was spotted with blood.

  “Jesus,” he said, wrapping one of his big arms across the top of his head. “Jesus Christ.” He turned away and bent over from the waist, his hands on his knees.

  McKay’s movements had settled the younger man in an awkward, splayed pose revealing a long gash that traveled from his jawbone across the front of Mullins’ throat, down his chest to its finish where the glass shard remained stuck in the body, its traverse stopped by the bunched fabric of the young man’s woolen shirt.

  “What the fuck were you thinking, Wally?” McKay flung his arms wide, entreating the body on the floor. “Stupid kid. I wasn’t really gonna hurt him.”

  McKay turned and faced the two officers, his head angled to one side as though he could no longer support the weight of it. The tears on his face glinted in the torchlight. “He’s just a fuckin’ kid.”

  A loud clank from the far side of the compartment startled them, and they turned to the entrance. Lamoreaux swung the torch away from the body. They saw the wheel turning on the watertight door. When the door swung open, Ensign Gohin peered into the darkness for a moment, then jerked his head to one side, indicating that someone should enter.

  “Dix minutes,” he said.

  It was Kewpie, the telegraphist, who entered carrying a tray of food, a big smile on his face.

  “Ah, Michaut,” the captain murmured.

  “Bon soir, mes amis,” the young man said as the door swung closed behind him. From outside, someone switched on the overhead lights, illuminating the entire hold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Îles des Saintes

  March 26, 2008

  7:25 p.m.

  Cole opened one eye and the searing pain in the back of his head and behind his eyeballs made him squeeze it shut again. Light, bright light. Where was he? He reached up and touched the back of his scalp.

  “Ow.”

  “Wake up, Bob, or whatever your name is. I didn’t hit you that hard.”

  When he heard her voice, he remembered. He was on her boat. That woman. Citrus scent. Riley. He swam out to get the coin, but it wasn’t where he’d left it. He’d started to search the salon and then decided to see where she lived, where she slept. Bad move.

  He grew aware of the rest of his body beyond the center of pain that throbbed at the back of his head. He was sprawled on the floor, his cheek and chest pressed against something cold and hard. Wood. Opening one eye again, he rolled onto his side, careful not to press the back of his head to the floor. She was sitting on a bunk, her bare feet dangling above him, and a fluorescent light on the overhead behind her made it impossible for him to see her face. How did she get aboard?

  Raising an arm to shield his eyes from the glare, he said, “That light up there’s killing me.”

  She twisted her torso around and he heard a click, followed by another and the overhead light went out. The cabin was now lit by the softer glow of the bunk reading light. At least it wasn’t shining in his face.

  “Thanks,” he said as he rolled over and curled up into a sitting position. As he bent his bare legs in front of him, he realized that he was again confronting this woman almost naked. He had swum out wearing only his Speedos. “What did you hit me with, Magee?”

  She lifted her right hand. In it was a long black Maglite flashlight, and she slapped it into the palm of her other hand like a beat cop with his baton. “If I’d known it was you, I might have hit you a little harder.”

  Cole’s fingers explored the painful lump on the back of his skull. “Any harder and you might have killed me.”

  “Stop whining and get up.”

  She slid off the bunk, her firm thighs brushing his shoulder, and she walked aft through the main salon to the galley, turning on an overheard red-colored light. Sailors used them to move about without impairing their night vision. She knew the bright light hurt his head right now and she was being kind to him. That was a good start. And now, watching the way she moved — silky, like a panther stalking its prey — he didn’t care how much it hurt. He didn’t want to close his eyes anymore.

  After filling the tea kettle from the sink, she lit the burner, then looked up at him. “Come on, off the floor and onto the seat. There.” She pointed. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

  This woman always seemed to be ordering him around. He picked himself up off the floor, his body stiff and sore, and he hobbled his way into the salon. He looked at the neat, tufted-velvet upholstery. “My swimsuit,” he said, rubbing his hand across his hip and feeling the wet nylon fabric.

  She stepped out of the galley, cocked her hips to one side, placed a hand at her waist, then threw a dish towel hitting him on the side of his head. He spread the towel on the edge of the cushion and perched, wishing he had at least worn swim trunks over the Speedos. If she kept moving her body like that, things could get embarrassing real fast.

  He needed to get his mind onto something else. Reaching back he probed the lump on the back of his head. The pain had slowed to a dull throb. He needed to get back on track. Forget the woman he told himself. Stop thinking about her. He peered around the boat’s interior. He hadn’t found the scrapboo
k where he’d hidden the coin, so had she moved it?

  She lifted two heavy white mugs off hooks and dropped teabags into them. “So? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  He looked up at her and shrugged. What could he say? That he’d broken into her boat to steal back the gold coin that was the key to the location of a sunken treasure? He was pretty sure he knew how that would go over.

  Before he could come up with some clever retort, she said, “I should report you to the police for breaking and entering.”

  He felt like he was back in eighth grade and Mrs. Laughlin was threatening to report him to the principal for cutting school to go fishing. Riley sure as hell didn’t look like Mrs. Laughlin, though. The thought struck him as funny, and he began to smile.

  “You think this is funny?”

  He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. Well, yeah, he wanted to say. She had just slid a potholder shaped like a shark over her hand, and the fish now looked like it was trying to bite a chunk out of her hip. He couldn’t help it. He tried to stifle the laugh, but it bubbled up the back of his throat until he sounded like he was choking on something.

  Stepping out from behind the galley counter, her feet planted apart like any good sailor, she glared at him. She was wearing some very short navy cargo shorts, and it took all his strength to keep looking at her face and ignore those legs as she advanced on him, taking another step with each point she made.

  “First,” she said, “you disappear off my boat leaving me to try to explain to the French Immigration authorities what happened to the American man I claimed I had brought into the country.” The shark oven mitt bit her second finger. “Then, I find you gave me a fake name. After that, of course, the French authorities accused me of trafficking in illegal aliens and took away my passport. And let’s not forget that you stole my only handheld VHF radio.” The tea kettle started whistling, but she ignored it as she continued advancing on him. “Then you have the nerve to come back and break into my boat and go rummaging through my things. And every damned time you come on my boat you seem to forget your clothes.” She was standing just in front of him by now, the shark oven mitt scrunched up into a fist.