Solomon's Compass

by Carol Kilgore

  Solomon’s Compass

  Print ISBN: 978-1-48185-014-8

  Copyright © 2013 by Carol Kilgore

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the Publisher.

  For John,

  my true north.

  And to all Coast Guard veterans,

  especially those who served during the Vietnam Era.

  Thank you for your service.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Acknowledgements

  Author Bio

  Excerpt from In Name Only

  Chapter 1

  Bangkok, Thailand—Summer, 1970

  The Patpong bargirl tapped Jake Solomon’s shoulder. “You go buy my friend drink.” She pointed toward the other end of the noisy bar as she wrapped her other arm around Ham Norberg’s neck and let her fingers play with the short hair at the back of his head.

  Jake frowned at Ham. “You good with that?” The Rolling Stones blared from speakers at the back of the tiny go-go stage and prevented words from carrying farther than a couple of inches.

  Hamblen Norberg was the most married man Jake had ever known. Here they were, on the other side of the damn world, two sailors free in Bangkok on R&R, and Ham hadn’t even danced with anyone. Much less done anything else.

  Ham looked up. “Yeah, I’m good. Stop halfway.” He ordered a drink for the girl.

  Jake nodded, moving several feet down and squeezing between two other Americans at the crowded bar. Near enough to reach Ham in seconds, if the need arose. The mamasan behind the bar motioned for the bargirl’s friend to join him. He inched over to give her space on the side nearest Ham so he could see them both at the same time.

  The first bargirl’s dark head was bent close to Ham’s blond one. Her lips were moving, and Ham nodded.

  The friend-bargirl next to Jake tugged his shirt and mimed taking a drink. He waved bills in the air. A minute or two later, the barkeep brought him another beer and the expensive, watered-down fruit juice the bargirls drank.

  Ham’s bargirl raised her leg to his lap and removed a garter. She slid it up to his bicep and repeated the action with her other leg. After securing the second garter on Ham’s muscled arm, she kissed his cheek, downed her drink, and left the bar. Ham knocked back the rest of his beer.

  Jake left his bargirl to fend for herself. Back next to his buddy, he waited while Ham paid for a fresh beer. “What was the deal with the bargirl?”

  Ham snapped the garter. “She asked me to hold these for her.”

  “How much did she want for you to keep them?”

  “Nothing. She’ll be back in an hour.”

  Three hours and many beers later, the bargirl hadn’t returned.

  “Gotta take a piss, man.” Jake slid off the barstool. Had to stop drinking, too. The room spun like a merry-go-round.

  “Same here.”

  They staggered through the open door into Patpong. More Americans on R&R like Ham and Jake roamed the street. Everyone wore civvies, as if that would keep them from being recognized. Bangkok touts and ladyboys did their best to lure them inside every open bar door. Jake glanced at his watch—two-thirty in the morning and the street was bright as day. Loud music ebbed and flowed as he stumbled over the cracked sidewalk, Ham at his side.

  A few steps later, Jake spied the opening to an alley. “Let’s go in here.”

  Ham turned to the wall on the right. Jake to the left. Over his own sounds, Jake heard scrapes coming from near a trash bin a few yards into the alley. “Hurry up. Someone’s back there.”

  “Probably Army. Too cheap to get a hotel room.”

  They laughed. The noise came again, an arm or leg bumping against metal.

  “Three hours, and she’s a no-show. I’m done. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “Mamasan let her leave and didn’t get a girl to stop us. Maybe her kid’s sick.” The bumping sounded again, this time accompanied by a moan. Jake zipped up.

  Ham faced the street. “Army’s getting his rocks off. Let’s give him some privacy.”

  A burst of metallic blows and a faint high-pitched scream split the air.

  Jake ran toward the waste bin, Ham’s footfalls behind him.

  “Jesus H.” Jake dropped to one knee in the neon twilight.

  The bargirl who had given Ham her garters lay on the ground, still banging her forehead against the bin.

  Ham rushed to her shoulders, pulled her away from the side of the bin, and let her head rest against his broad chest. “Stop, baby. It’s me, Ham. I have your—oh, Christ, no!”

  Ham had seen what Jake saw from the beginning. The girl lay in a pool of blood and used her hands and arms to hold her belly closed.

  Her head drooped to the side. Jake didn’t know how she’d had the strength to raise it, much less use it to make enough noise to attract their attention. Her left hand slid down her side and landed palm up in her blood.

  Ham felt for a pulse and shook his head. “I’m going to be sick.”

  Jake forced down the saliva trapped in his mouth and moved to the waste bin. It was smaller than the ones in the States, but the same shape. Patpong smells were bad enough, but the ones emanating from the bin were worse. He held his shirttail over his nose with one hand and dug through the garbage with the other. He pulled out a metal box, the size and shape of a small safe deposit box. Beneath it were two silk pouches with drawstring closures.

  Ham approached as Jake pulled out the sacks. “What are you doing? Let’s get out of here.”

  “She heard American voices. She wanted us to find something in here. I did.”

  “What?”

  Jake held out the box and pouches. “Stick the bags in your pockets or inside your waistband. I’ll do the same with this box. My shirt’s baggy enough no one will notice. When we get back to the hotel, we can look inside.”

  Taylor Campbell was on a quest. Not just any quest—a quest to unearth her uncle’s buried treasure. Except she was a U.S. Coast Guard commander, the captain of a 270-foot cutter. Coast Guard commanders didn’t go on quests to unearth buried treasure.

  Oh, yeah. Taylor had one more minor glitch.

  She was certain the buried treasure was all in Uncl
e Randy’s dementia-riddled mind. The final words of his last email to her were Tell no one. She had promised to honor his wishes, and a promise was a promise. Even though Uncle Randy had been dead almost a full year.

  She was so screwed.

  Yet here she sat, in the D/FW departure gate, still experiencing the day from traveler’s hell. Her first flight left late from Charleston, and the second had a long weather delay in Atlanta, complete with two hungry infants and the thunderous man who appeared to be calling everyone he’d ever known and telling them all his innermost secrets.

  By the time they reached Dallas, Taylor had missed her connection to Corpus Christi. She would still arrive tonight, but by the time she checked in at the hotel in Rock Harbor, the witching hour would be closing in.

  If only she were a witch. She could grab her broom and arrive at the coast with a wiggle of her nose.

  “Hi. Mind if I sit here?”

  Taylor left her fantasy and glanced up. “No, not at all.”

  When had the seats filled up? She moved her backpack from the one next to her and placed it between her feet.

  The blonde woman sighed as she sat. “This flight better leave on time. I have a busy schedule tomorrow.”

  Taylor smiled. “What do you do?”

  “Realtor. I come up here to shop, when I want to really shop. You know what I mean. Corpus gets me by in between, but there’s nothing like a shopping weekend in Dallas.”

  The woman could have come straight from a photo shoot. Not a hair was out of place, no wrinkles in her dress, French-manicured nails. The only other person Taylor had ever seen layer on so much make-up was her mother. And two minutes walking in the woman’s high-heeled sandals would make Taylor limp for a week.

  “I’m not much of a shopper.” She looked down at her jeans and flip-flops. Crap, she’d dropped mustard on her tee at lunch.

  “Attention, ladies and gentlemen. We have a mechanical delay. The flight will be called to board in approximately one hour.”

  Taylor swore the gate attendant looked straight at her and said the last with a smile in his voice that meant one long hour. And only if she was lucky.

  Her stomach churned. Just perfect.

  Absolutely. Friggin’. Perfect.

  A large bird swooped low across the hood of Kelly’s car just as she pulled to a stop. “Son of a bitch. That damn thing almost made me pi—”

  “I get the picture. You always were a fraidy cat.” Jake braced for the blow he knew his sister would deliver. She didn’t disappoint.

  “Ogre.”

  “Princess.” Their name-calling had endured since childhood and always earned them a huge eye roll from their mother.

  “Damn straight. And don’t forget it.”

  He turned his head to smile so Kelly wouldn’t see. She might have been the one to flinch, but the bird’s close pass honed Jake Solomon’s nerves to a fine edge. He pulled a flashlight from a small brown duffel on the floor. “The bird’s a night heron. Heading to the bay for dinner. The first time I saw one in Colombia, I was lurking in a stand of reeds waiting for a band of FARC rebels to settle in for the night. I thought it was attacking me, and it was all I could do to stay calm until it passed.”

  Kelly turned off the engine and killed the lights. “Your voice is becoming more like Dad’s. You haven’t sounded so much like Brooklyn since high school. Even more after hearing those Texas accents at dinner.”

  “Sounding like Dad is my job. Remember?” Jake looked out the passenger window. “So this is Rankin’s place.”

  Thanks to the information his dad had drilled into his head for months, he knew a frame house with a metal roof stood behind the row of live oaks at the street. To the right, the metal building of Rankin’s Marine Salvage hulked in the deep twilight.

  “Even in the dark, I see you changing into Dad. The way you hold the light. The angle of your head. You always resembled him, but now that you let your hair grow shaggy, you’re doppelgängers. You’re walking like him, too. Even the foot shuffle he does when he’s tired. I have to remind myself it’s you, not him.”

  “Sometimes I do a double-take if I catch myself in a mirror. I know it’s unsettling, but I have to be him, Kel. I can’t switch him on and off. I made videos of the way he moves. Talks. I played them twenty-four seven for weeks. And I am tired. I flew halfway around the world to get here.” He had to nail the performance—physical, mental, and emotional. One incorrect quirk of an eyebrow could get him killed. He didn’t want anyone giving his eulogy anytime soon.

  “The move Dad does with his hand when he’s making a decision. The action that always precedes him telling me no. Do you do that, too?”

  Jake bounced his left wrist up and down—two clicks up, one down.

  “Stop.” Quiet but firm. No nonsense.

  “No detail too small, Kelly Jane.”

  “Don’t call me Kelly Jane.” Her words came through clenched teeth.

  “Dad would.” And it gave him an excuse to get away with it.

  “Get out.”

  He chuckled as he stepped onto the asphalt road and closed the door without a sound. Irritating his baby sister was fun, but they had work to do.

  Kelly met him at the gate. “Shine the light on the lock.”

  He switched on the Maglite and zeroed in on the padlock hanging in the center of the gates. Kelly went to work with her pick and the padlock clicked open. “Follow me.” She opened one side of the gate far enough for them to slip through before closing it.

  “Not bad so far.”

  “Looks worse in daylight. Wait until your eyes feast on the luscious goodies inside. I’ll show you the house first.”

  “At least the grass is cut.”

  “Commander Campbell arranged for an exterminator and general upkeep of the grounds. Almost three acres—the house, the business building and parking area, and an empty salvage yard.”

  U.S. Coast Guard Commander Taylor Ann Campbell. Randy Rankin’s niece, and the primary purpose of his mission to Rock Harbor, Texas. Keep her safe. No matter the cost. Do not become involved with local law enforcement.

  Not bodyguard protection—proactive protection. Keep the problem away from the subject, and keep the subject unaware. That meant identifying the problem and stopping it at its source. He and Kelly made a good team. Working together, proactive protection wouldn’t be a problem. It was one of the services the family security business, Compass Points International, provided its clients.

  Kelly led him across the lawn between the ancient trees by the road and the old house. They rounded the corner. She stopped, and he shined the beam through a salt-encrusted window. “Jesus H. This place needs to be bulldozed.”

  “You’re creeping me out with Dad’s words.” She shivered. “I told you it was a rat’s nest. Dad said Rankin was as squared away as they came. Even tried to be spit and polish out on the rivers in the jungle. Each one of his tools on the Point boat had a spot where it stayed unless he was using it. Rankin kept every area aboard that he was responsible for the same way. That sort of organization is missing here.”

  He angled his light through the window to reduce the glare. Engines, boat seats, boxes, and open bins of parts were stacked floor to ceiling. On a folding table, set after set of glassware stood in rows. Jake needed to understand this man, but the enlightenment wouldn’t happen from rereading his dad’s memories. Tonight was a start.

  “Look at these.” He ran the beam over the glasses.

  Kelly leaned closer to the window. “Junk heaped in piles, and he sets up for a party.”

  “Strange.” Something was off. He didn’t know what, but he would. In time.

  The next window provided a view into another bedroom. This one held a twin bed, carefully made up. Closed plastic boxes, three high, flanked a small dresser on the far wall. One box stood under each of the two windows.

  “Crowded, but neat.” Kelly slapped at a mosquito.

  “Right. This looks more like the Randy Dad kn
ew, except for the boxes.” The glasses. The bed. The jumbled mess. Jake would let the pieces bump around in his head for a day or two.

  They worked their way from window to window. The other rooms echoed the first, jumbled but with one neat item tucked in, like the glasses.

  The house stood on pilings, taking it a few feet off the ground. Not enough to walk under. Jake put a knee down and bent to take a look. The Maglite beam revealed several tufts of weeds sprouting through a layer of oyster shells.

  “Let’s go over to the shop.” He turned the flashlight off and strode beside Kelly. They crossed the shell driveway and stepped over a fallen fence separating home from business. Wooden shutters covered the windows of the shop. “You went inside?”

  “It’s worse than the house. No alarms in either place.”

  “I’ve seen enough.” He could barely hold himself upright, much less concentrate, from lack of sleep—over the last thirty-six hours, only two short naps.

  “Dad may be wrong about Rankin. Perhaps he did get lost in the fog the last few years.”

  “He says no. We have to trust him, Kel, and play by his rules.”

  “Not my strength.”

  Kelly had been the wild child. She flourished at the edge. The whole family did, himself included—Compass Points International was a family business, after all—but Kelly outshined him and their parents.

  “Dad respects your independence. Look where that untamed streak has taken you.” His sister was one of the top cyber security experts in the world.

  She shrugged. “Whatever. I have two more spots to show you tonight.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Where Will Knox lives.”

  “He owns the boatyard across the street?”

  “Bingo.” She pointed to it as they walked to the car.

  “I don’t suppose you’re going to provide any more clues?”

  “You’re a smart man. Form your own conclusions.”

  “And the other spot you want to show me?”

  “You’ll find out.” Kelly’s phone chirped. “Commander Campbell just checked in.”

  “Good.”

  Kelly kept her speed a mile or two under the limit and didn’t run any yellow lights. They passed his hotel and turned onto Milam Beach Road, the same street they had taken to dinner earlier. Before reaching the restaurant, Kelly inched over to put the two right wheels on the tiny shoulder and turned on the flashers.