The Huguenot Thief

by L. K. CLEMENT

  He waited for questions, but his audience was silent and still. He said, “A reliquary missing from a French convent was thought to have been contaminated with a strain of anthrax, and the FBI traced the reliquary to Charleston.”

  “Charleston?” Sara said. “How did it get here?”

  Thompson gave her a half smile. “If you can believe it, the reliquary was stolen in France by a Huguenot girl in 1685, and brought here then. The thief was an ancestor of Amarintha’s.”

  Before he could go on, Fannie said, “Thirty years ago, my husband worked for the Army in Charleston doing research on bacteria. He wasn’t supposed to talk about it, but he did. His team was asked to investigate how long certain bacteria could live. They looked at old bottles, frozen bodies from the Arctic—that type of thing. Somehow he found that reliquary, I don’t know how, and he buried it on that lot.”

  Jack said, “The rest of you already knew this?” He looked at Fannie, Amarintha and Richard. All of them nodded.

  Thompson said, “Jack, until we talk to Kate, we won’t be able to fill in all the blanks, but it seems likely that Kate was being used by Bunin to identify reliquaries that might be old enough, and might never have been opened, so they could steal them and look for old microbes. Until the FBI finishes their investigation, I think Kate could still be at risk.”

  “But they let her go,” Jack said. “It was this same ring that stole the box from the hospital and who set the bombs, right? They have the reliquary. Why would Kate still be in danger?”

  “Three men have turned themselves in, but I still think you and Sara need protection.”

  Fannie held up a hand. “Amarintha needs protection too. She is the only person we know of that has touched what’s

  inside that reliquary. She touched it and was cured of her

  cancer.”

  Sara cried, “Ms. Sims, you’re cured?” She looked over at Ava, who sat smiling.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” said Amarintha, who had been sitting in a chair listening. “I need to be tested.”

  “Look at her, Jack.” Fannie said, “She’s cured, and whatever was in that reliquary was responsible.”

  Jack looked from Thompson to Amarintha to Fannie. “I suppose if Bunin knew Amarintha may have been cured by what’s in that reliquary, he’d want her too, wouldn’t he?”

  Amarintha scoffed. “Come on, the facts of the story are already complicated enough. Why add this kind of supposition on top?”

  Thompson ignored Amarintha. “Yes, I believe he would,” said Thompson. “What is in there can apparently cause disease as well as cure it. It’s happened before. The emissary the Vatican sent to Charleston had a document that described the theft of the reliquary and the escape of the Huguenot woman, Marin Postel. I read it. Marin Postel used the contents of the reliquary to heal children at the convent. They had the plague. She escaped with the reliquary and somehow made it to Charleston.”

  Sara put her head on her father’s chest. Jack didn’t say anything, but he kissed the top of her head and said, “Don’t worry, kid. Your mom is safe at the embassy in Istanbul, and if we need to take a long vacation while the FBI works this out, we will.”

  Thompson did not want to be the person who burst Jack’s happy reunion scenario. Once Kate was retrieved, she would be questioned for days if she were physically able to withstand interrogation. If she arrived in Charleston unable to be interviewed, dark-suited agents would wait patiently in the hospital for her to recover. Jack would not be taking her on a vacation anytime soon.

  Fannie said, “It seems strange that the Vatican actually sent someone here to take possession of the reliquary. Do you think they know it might have caused cures?”

  “I asked Monsignor Ogier that very question, Fannie,” said Thompson, “and he dodged it quite nicely. The Vatican wanted Amarintha in quarantine. The monsignor also wanted to question her himself. That was the other reason we left Charleston. Having the U.S. Government and the Vatican both want you in custody cannot be a good thing.”

  Thompson’s phone rang. “I’ll be right back.” He walked outside. “Thompson here.”

  “It’s Frank. I guess you heard about Kate Strong from Jack?”

  “I did. He and his daughter are prepared to fly to New York, and onto Istanbul.”

  “Someone from the State Department is going to call him. They already have her on one of their jets. She’ll arrive in Charleston around 10:00 p.m.” The detective paused. “We also have identified Imran Sadat as the fourth man, the one who paid our perpetrators. The Hispanic men identified him from a photograph. There’s an all-points bulletin out on him, but we haven’t notified the public yet. We’re hoping that with all the cameras on the roads around here, we can find the man. Cameras near the hospital got a clear look at his vehicle—he was in his personal car if you can believe it.”

  Thompson said, “Sadat was never anything but a white collar, hands-off criminal. I doubt he knew anything about how to do this kind of job. The money must have been phenomenal for him to take such a risk. I assume we’ll start seeing his face on television.”

  “Not yet. We want to try to apprehend him first. Are you ready to come back to Charleston, Agent Denton?”

  Thompson didn’t know what to say or think. Was he exaggerating the potential danger Amarintha might be in? Finally, he said, “I assume the monsignor is still in Charleston?”

  “Funny you should mention him. The technicians had already taken samples from the reliquary before it was taken. Everything was negative. No anthrax found. Even when I told Monsignor Ogier the results, he still insisted that that Amarintha Sims be put into quarantine until he can speak with her. It’s very strange.”

  Thompson said, “And that computer program, the one that predicted a thirty percent chance that Bunin was seeking a biological weapon? What’s going on with that?”

  Frank snorted. “I don’t know. Having an actual crime to investigate kind of negated the discussion around a theoretical one. When Dr. Umstead learned that the reliquary isn’t contaminated, he and his team packed up and left. I’m not sure the Task Force has any reason to meet. Of course, the debriefing of Kate Strong might bring up some new information.”

  Frank stopped. “Agent Reynolds is asking for you to participate in the interview with Strong. You up for that?”

  “Yes. But—”,

  Frank interrupted, “Gotta go, Brook Reynolds is calling me.”

  Chapter 71

  Frank sat behind the FBI pilot, Brook Reynolds beside him. The helicopter noise was deafening. Although he knew he didn’t have to yell because of the microphone built into his headset, he did anyway. “Do Major Munez’ people have a visual on Sadat yet?”

  “Not yet,” said Brook. “A county cop saw a car matching Sadat’s pull into Francis Marion Forest, but they haven’t pursued him on foot yet. Too many places inside those woods for an ambush. They’re waiting for more resources. You can be sure Sadat is going to leave the vehicle when he hears this bird, unless he’s ready to turn himself in.”

  “I’m guessing the FBI will want to take over and charge him in federal court?” Frank raised his eyebrows at Brook, reinforcing the question.

  “Let’s just catch the guy first.”

  A young female FBI agent in the front beside the pilot scanned the woods below them with her high-powered binoculars. She leaned over to the pilot and said something Frank couldn’t hear, and then pointed.

  “We’ve got him!” yelled Brook.

  Voices bombarded his ears, and the helicopter began to hover. Frank leaned over and saw a man trying to run through a swamp, holding something, looking up at the helicopter.

  “We can’t land here.” Frank could hear the pilot clearly, obviously responding to a question from Brook.

  Brook took off her headset and scanned the ground below, clearly frustrated. She leane
d over the pilot’s shoulder and yelled, “Take us back to Hwy 17 where Major Munez is.” She didn’t put the headset back on.

  A landing zone had been set up for the helicopter in a cleared area next to the highway. SC Highway Patrol and Awendaw Police were diverting traffic away from the intersection where Sadat’s car had been found. Brook and Frank left the helicopter and ran over to a large black SUV, where Major Munez of SLED stood with a map spread out on the tailgate.

  The major waited until the two of them got close. “Here we are.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “I’ve got people stationed throughout the forest and along the road. We’ve got a few hours of daylight, and are tightening the circle.”

  “How do you know he hasn’t slipped by your people?” asked Frank.

  The major looked up. “Once we got the word he’d pulled off Hwy 17, I started moving people into position. This area is nothing but swamp. Trust me; he will not have been able to get more than a few hundred yards in any direction. He’ll be begging us to save him.”

  Frank snorted.

  “Detective Edson, this swamp is full of alligators. Between gators, snakes, mosquitoes and ticks, I promise you, he’ll be ready to come along peacefully.”

  At that moment, a SLED agent with a bullhorn began to yell. “Imran Sadat, you are surrounded. Give yourself up.”

  The agent began walking slowly into the swamp from the road, yelling the same statement every minute or so.

  “Now we wait,” said the major.

  Frank spent the next thirty minutes pacing the road, periodically updating the chief of police back in Charleston about their progress. From time to time, he could hear muffled voices communicating on the handheld radios. Brook Reynolds sat in the major’s SUV, leaving it only when a late model car pulled up. An FBI agent got out and handed Brook a pair of boots.

  There was a shout from one of the SLED agents.

  “We think we got him,” yelled the major, dashing into the deep underbrush and disappearing almost immediately. After a beat, Frank followed him.

  Within a minute, the noise from the road had almost completely disappeared. A new cacophony of sounds was heard from the creatures the police had disturbed. A blue jay cawed and dived towards Frank’s head. The mosquitoes began to dig inside of Frank’s collar and he slapped them, knowing it was ineffectual. Someone behind him said, “Here use this,” and an Awendaw deputy tossed him a can of insect repellent as he shouldered past Frank in rubber knee boots.

  Frank leaned against a tree and sprayed himself until the can began to rattle. He looked up and realized he couldn’t see anyone else. He stopped, listening. Nothing. He looked down at his black rubber-soled shoes, likely ruined in the sticky mud the swamp had in abundance. Damn. In front of him was a stagnant pond about thirty feet across, a small path to the side showing the likely direction the deputy had gone.

  Should he turn back? No way. Frank pushed ten feet further into the black and green maze, and passed a six-foot tall palmetto tree, its fronds thick at the ground. He batted one of the fronds aside and froze, a face on the ground looking up at him. The face was Imran Sadat’s and the man was holding a gun.

  Chapter 72

  Thompson walked back into the B&B and found the proprietor setting the table in the long dining room. Thompson nodded at her and then went back into the parlor on the other side of the wide entrance hall. Amarintha, Fannie, and Ava were still there, Fannie asleep on the small couch and Amarintha and her daughter talking in low whispers. His phone pinged.

  Thompson pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked his text messages. There was one, from his mother, and it had an attachment. He stood at the door of the parlor and held up his phone to look at the picture in the afternoon light. It was his mother, about sixteen years old. She was smiling, her widow’s peak and dimpled chin clearly visible. She was dressed in clothes from the sixties, with straight hair and white knee-high boots, but other than the clothing, she was Ava’s twin. He looked back at Ava, who was now gazing at him from the chair she was sitting on.

  “What’s up, Agent Denton?” she asked. “You look like you saw a ghost.” Ava smiled, and he felt as if the picture on his phone had leapt from the electronic to the physical world.

  Thompson dropped his phone into his breast pocket. His heart pounded, and his voice squawked when he said, “Amarintha, can you come outside? I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure, but if you tell me again I’m in danger, I’m going to steal Richard’s boat and leave.” Amarintha grinned at him as she walked past him outside to the porch.

  He followed. “Let’s go to the garden.”

  She nimbly jumped down the stairs. They walked down the winding path towards the garden, where dozens of camellias had been planted over the life of the house. Many were still in bloom. Each one had a metal marker in the ground indicating its botanical name and planting date. Some of the bushes were as large as trees, and the shiny green leaves reflected the setting sun. Thompson could hear crickets and frogs in the nearby marshes beginning their evening serenades. He and Amarintha walked side by side through the green maze of flowering bushes, with every color and form of flower on display. When Thompson finally spied a bench, he motioned to it and said, “Sit down, I’ve got something to ask you.”

  Amarintha sat and looked up at him. Her hair and eyebrows were still sparse, but the glow of health was unmistakable, and her face had a more relaxed form, the sharp angles softened somehow by the knowledge that she might be beating her cancer.

  “Did you use a sperm donor to conceive Ava?” Thompson said abruptly, staring into her eyes.

  She was speechless, her mouth working. Not breaking his gaze, she finally said, “That’s none of your damn business. Why would you even ask that?”

  Thompson sat down next to her and said again, “Did you use a donor to conceive Ava?”

  Amarintha sprang up. “You have no right to ask me such a personal question.” She wasn’t angry, he realized, just astonished, and a little hurt.

  When she turned to go back towards the house, Thompson jumped up and said, “Look at this before you go, please.”

  He fiddled with his phone, and then handed it to her. Amarintha put her face close to the screen, stared, looked back at Thompson, and brought her other hand to her mouth. “Who is this?” she whispered.

  Thompson put both of his hands on her shoulders, waiting until she lifted her face from the phone. “It’s my mother,” he said.

  Amarintha shrugged off his hands and sat back down, still staring at his phone. She looked down at the path. “It’s not possible.”

  Thompson picked a camellia blossom and brought it to his nose. He could not look at her. “It is possible. Ava looks like my mother’s twin.”

  Thompson waited for Amarintha to work it out in her head.

  “How did your sperm get to Charleston?” she finally asked.

  “I was in college. Got mugged, and my buddy and I had to make a donation to get gas money to get back to Raleigh.” He looked at her. “Good thing you got me. My buddy grew up to be fat and stupid.”

  “Well,” she said. “I should tell you that I spent a good bit of time reading the descriptions of the donors before settling on you. As I recall, you described yourself as a medium height, dark-haired man of French descent with dark brown eyes, high IQ, physically healthy, and kind. The word “kind” sold me. No other donor used that word.”

  “But why, Amarintha? Why would a young woman choose to get pregnant from a sperm donor, what were you—twenty-two years old?”

  Amarintha was running her finger over the picture of his mother. “I was told when I was ten years old that I might have the gene for early onset Alzheimer’s. You know what that is?”

  “Jesus, of course I do. Why would anyone tell a ten-year-old that?”

  “My father was part of one of the early research studies th
at identified this form of the disease as inheritable. He would have died from it. Even now, I’m not sure the wreck that killed him was really an accident. He told me I would die young of very severe neurological symptoms.”

  Severe neurological symptoms, thought Thompson. That certainly summed it up.

  “He told me that when I got to be twenty, I should have a baby with someone who likely didn’t carry the gene, enjoy being a young mother, the hell with the rest. So I did.”

  Amarintha rubbed tears from her checks. “Turns out I didn’t have the gene. I found that out about five years ago. Can you believe that? All these years I avoided having any relationships. I didn’t want anyone to watch me die from such a horrible disease. Guess I’m a lot like my father. There you have it—the reason I marched off and found a donor.”

  Thompson looked down at Amarintha, and touched her face. She looked up.

  She looked down at the phone. “Do you have a picture of her as an adult? Is she healthy, is she, well, sane?”

  Thompson laughed. “My mother is the healthiest person I know. She’s a teacher, in a French elementary school, almost retired. Very sane, very well balanced. Always bugging me to get married and produce a grandchild.”

  He looked away. “When I saw Ava this morning for the first time, I just, I just . . .” he stopped, not able to finish the sentence.

  “You felt like all new parents feel when they first meet their newborns—only for you, it must have been even more shocking given that your newborn is over five feet tall.” She grinned at him, and Thompson felt a rush of feeling roll over him like a gentle wave. Did this woman deal with everything with such equanimity?

  She laughed at the expression on his face and came to him, hugging him gently.

  “Thompson,” she murmured into his shoulder, “I’ve had twenty years to imagine meeting Ava’s biological father. I’m relieved you’re so normal. Let me enjoy it before we figure out what to do.”

  Chapter 73

  “If you yell, I’ll shoot you,” said Imran Sadat, as he stood, his eyes never leaving the detective’s face. Sadat’s light tan face was covered in angry red mosquito bites. His leather loafers were almost unrecognizable, covered with mud, and his white cotton shirt was bloody and filthy. There was a tear at both knees of his pants, and Frank noticed the Sadat only had one sock on, although it looked like a rag. A dirty leather bag lay at his feet.