Hightower’s gaze skimmed over the décor, checking for any third parties that might give him trouble. Seeing none, he shifted his focus to the man he’d seen from the public gardens below Government House. The target still stood on the balcony, looking out over Charlotte Amalie.
Unless the Governor was blind, he would have seen the feds swarming the Legislature Building on the shoreline as well as the activity of the black-clad agents in Emancipation Park. Hightower’s arrival wouldn’t be a surprise. The Governor had apparently decided to capitulate without a fight.
The Gorilla’s chiseled face eased into a sly grin. This would be the biggest arrest of his career, résumé-building material that could catapult him into the agency’s upper echelons.
He glanced over his shoulder at the agents hovering in the hallway and mouthed a stern Stay back. He wasn’t going to share this glory with anyone else.
Hightower pressed forward into the office, his footsteps muffled on the evenly spaced floor rugs as he crossed to the balcony. The audio of the anticipated accolades played in his head.
We are here today to award the department’s highest commendation to SAIC Reginald Hightower, for deftly taking down the corrupt leader of a rogue state . . .
Oh, heck, he thought, don’t let facts get in the way. Let’s just call him an oppressive dictator.
Ready to get down to business, Hightower hit the pause button on his internal commentary and crept to the edge of the balcony.
The Governor’s build was slightly less bulky than Hightower had expected, based on the photos in the briefing file he had flipped through on the trip down to the island. His shoulders didn’t quite fill out the tailored lines of his suit. Perhaps the strain of the past few weeks had taken a toll on the big man’s appetite—or his wife had cut off his ice cream supply.
Hightower could barely suppress mental chuckle.
Regardless, nothing was going to prevent the successful completion of this mission.
As he stepped onto the balcony, the clatter of plastic on wood sounded from inside the office.
Hightower flinched, resisting the urge to look back to see which agent had knocked the picture frame over on the Governor’s desk.
The suited man slowly turned from the balcony railing.
“Good morning, gentlemen.”
Hightower leapt forward with his handcuffs.
“Governor, you have the right to remain silent.”
The suit looked even more ill-fitting when viewed from the front, but the man inside the clothes was perfectly at ease. He held out his hands to the agent.
“Yes, of course.”
Hightower snapped the cuffs around the man’s wrists. “Anything you say can and may be used against you . . .”
“Oh dear.”
The mocking tone riled the Gorilla’s temper, taunting his inner beast. Already irritated by the subordinate’s picture frame fumble, his face turned red with rage.
Swallowing a curt retort, Hightower continued the mandatory listing of the arrestee’s Constitutional rights. “You have the right to an attorney . . .”
“Sounds like we better call him.”
A strained cough interrupted before Hightower could spit out a response.
“Sir.”
An agent stood by the desk, holding a picture of the territory’s head of state standing next to his wife, the First Lady.
The agent frowned at the image and then compared the photographed face to that of the man in the handcuffs.
“You got the wrong guy.”
“What?”
Meekly, the agent cleared his throat. “That’s not the Governor.”
Hightower spun around, stomped to the desk, and snatched the photo from the agent’s hands.
His expression cycled through disbelief, realization, and then back to rage.
Cursing, he threw the frame onto the floor, cracking the glass fronting.
~ 17 ~
The Betrayal
GRUMBLING INTO THE two-way radio, Agent Friday huffed up the road to Government House. He was accompanied by a handful of agents that he had snagged on his way out of the Legislature Building.
The group had nearly completed the short hike to Government Hill, skirting Fort Christian, Emancipation Park, and a large post office en route.
While climbing a flight of public steps north of the post office, they received word that the Governor had given the slip to the team responsible for his arrest.
Alarmed, Friday had increased his pace to a brisk trot.
He rushed through the Government House front entrance just as a fuming Hightower shoved the handcuffed doppelgänger out of the Governor’s office and down the hallway toward the stairs.
Friday joined the sea of upturned faces watching from the first floor. He clenched his teeth, hoping the Gorilla wasn’t about to throw the man over the hallway railing.
He tried to catch Hightower’s attention, but his hand-waving was ineffective. His polite verbal attempts were drowned out by the senior agent’s belligerent rant.
“No one plays me for the fool and gets away with it. I’ll book you on impersonating.”
The doppelgänger merely smirked. He knew Hightower was bluffing.
“I believe I asked for my attorney.”
“Oh, I’ll get you your attorney. He’ll have to use dental records to identify you . . .”
“Agent Hightower, sir,” Friday called out, straining his voice to be heard. “I thought we might be of assistance.”
Hightower jerked the doppelgänger to the side so that he could see down to the lower level.
“Friday,” he replied without the least bit of embarrassment. “Good of you to join us.”
•
FRIDAY SENT A subteam to scour the rest of the building for the real governor while one of the other agents took custody of the doppelgänger and carefully marched him down the stairs.
Hightower directed his ire to the employees who had been gathered in the lobby. With Friday’s assistance, he corralled the onlookers into a center seating area for questioning.
It was a crowded assembly. Workers from a variety of positions were represented, from senior policy advisors to administrative clerks and cleaning staff.
Hightower was confident he would be able to elicit the Governor’s location from one of the employees.
Agent Friday wasn’t so sure. Despite the wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, there was a stony similarity in the expressions on these West Indian faces. Whatever fractures of loyalty that might have existed within the group had been sealed over by Hightower’s rough display on the second-floor hallway.
Friday stepped back and observed, but remained ready to jump in if needed. He’d been saddled with the awkward job of preventing his boss from making any further errors in judgment.
Operation Coconut, he thought bitterly. This is the last time I take an assignment named after a hairy piece of fruit.
The Gorilla moved clunkily from one suspect to the next, passing over the suited bureaucrats for the administrative staff and cleaning crew. The latter employees he deemed more likely to rat out their boss.
After unsuccessful interrogations of a janitor, a copy boy, and a secretary, Hightower focused on a cleaning maid seated in the middle of the group. The large unhappy-looking woman wore a cotton dress with a high frilly collar. A hairnet covered her tangled hair.
She sighed uncomfortably as Hightower bent over her chair, flexing his beefcake muscles for intimidating effect.
The maid fiddled with her cheap drugstore eyeglasses, nervously pushing the plastic frames into the soft cartilage of her nose.
“I think you know where the Governor ran off to. Don’t you?”
Like the rest of the employees, she at first refused to speak or even look at him. She crossed and recrossed her un
shaved legs, shuffling the flimsy rubber sandals that were squeezed onto her chunky feet. But after a few minutes of Hightower’s steely-eyed stare and badgering questions, she pursed her lips and silently rotated her head. Her eyes looked pointedly northwest, in the direction of the public stairs that led up Government Hill.
It was a wordless communication, but an effective betrayal, nonetheless.
“Friday!” Hightower hollered, thrusting his arm to point at the building’s rear exit. “Get moving!”
An Abandoned Construction Site on Government Hill
Charlotte Amalie
~ 18 ~
The Hideout
IN AN ABANDONED construction site up the hill from Government House, Cedric kept a watchful eye out the window through which Fowler had hefted the Governor less than an hour earlier.
The aide wiped his sweaty face with a damp handkerchief. He was standing next to the building’s only open portal; the rest of the doors and windows had been sealed up, likely to prevent just this type of incursion.
Government Hill was a pricey neighborhood with several historic homes built into its steep slope. Key selling points were the area’s proximity to downtown, the facilitating access of multiple public staircases, and the stunning harbor views. The most appreciated feature—by both the current inhabitants and the original settlers—was the breeze that filtered up the hillside, helping to break the humidity.
“No luck on that today,” Cedric muttered as he glanced over his shoulder at the gutted interior. Despite the building’s missing roof, the high walls blocked any cooling respite the wind might have provided.
•
THERE WASN’T MUCH left of the residential home that had been co-opted as the Governor’s hideaway.
The structure was undergoing a major renovation and had been stripped down to its concrete shell. From the look of things, work had been stopped for several months. The interior had been left exposed to the elements, and weeds had sprouted up through cracks in the concrete. A permit issue had probably tied up the construction, Cedric mused.
It was a perfect spot for the Governor to lay low, he had to admit. With the exterior walls still intact, they were hidden from the public staircase that led down to Government House. That same walkway had ensured the Governor’s minimal exposure en route. Once they ducked out the back gate, it had taken just a few minutes to get here.
His only complaint: with no roof, the concrete floor was baking hot.
•
LOOSENING THE TOP buttons of his collared shirt, Cedric glanced over his shoulder at the fugitive hiding farther inside the building.
The Governor had tucked his body into a shaded crevice in one of the kitchen walls, an opening designed for a sink or a stove. Capped wires and cut-off piping poked out from the framing. Seeking shelter from the sun, he had crawled as far back into the hole as possible. Not much of the man was visible, other than his sneakered feet, which had drooped sleepily sideways.
Whatever burst of energy had inspired the wild sprint through Government House and the hike up the hill had been depleted.
Cedric grinned as a snore droned out of the kitchen cubbyhole.
Now that was the Governor he knew.
Cedric shifted his gaze to Fowler, who hunched by the Governor’s shoes like a pit bull guarding a bone.
Fowler stared across the construction site, an unreadable expression on his flat face. Sweat drenched his oversized golf shirt and dotted his loose-fitting khaki pants.
Cedric found himself wondering, yet again, how the Governor had managed to contact the Fixer without his knowledge.
In the weeks leading up to the indictments, he had carefully monitored the Governor’s movements, always staying within earshot, if not closer. Whatever means they’d used to communicate had somehow slipped past his radar.
His eyes narrowed as he pondered Fowler’s interference in the day’s proceedings.
The day hadn’t turned out quite the way he and his coconspirators had planned. Now that he’d had a moment to reflect on the situation, however, he could see that the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as he had initially feared.
They had yet to achieve their primary goal—the Governor’s arrest—but it was only midmorning. The Guv couldn’t possibly elude his pursuers for long. Operation Coconut was off and rolling. The feds wouldn’t stop until they had their man.
•
CEDRIC RETURNED HIS focus to the window and the view through to the public staircase on the opposite side. Although all sorts of commotion rumbled up from Emancipation Park and the city’s waterfront, the walkway outside the construction site was quiet and—frustratingly—unoccupied.
There was no indication that the federal agents inside Government House had sounded the alarm and begun a wider search.
Cedric tried to ignore the tantalizing weight of his cell phone in his pocket.
If only he could send a text message with their location to the woman from the local attorney general’s office, the information would be routed to the FBI, and agents would be swarming up the stairs in a matter of minutes.
But with the Fixer lurking less than ten feet away, it was too great a risk to try to access his phone. While the man’s eyes appeared to be glazed over, Cedric had the distinct impression they were sharply trained on his position by the window. He couldn’t chance it.
He shrugged off the thought.
All but essential phone lines in the territory had been shut down. Even if he could sneak his phone out of his pocket, he probably wouldn’t be able to send the message.
More important, he had a cover to maintain. The general public need never know that he was involved in the Governor’s downfall.
He took in a deep breath and slowly let it out.
By now, the doppelgänger in the Governor’s office should have been exposed. Surely, one of the many backstabbers at Government House would have snitched on which direction they’d fled, if not the exact location of the hideout.
It was only a matter of time before the feds began sweeping the hillside. Sooner or later, the agents would track them down.
With a tense sigh, Cedric stared out the window.
He wished they’d hurry up.
He’d been waiting months for the Governor’s ouster. His patience had reached its limit.
~ 19 ~
Seeking a Schism
IT WAS NO small thing, plotting to unseat the elected governor of a US territory. Even as Cedric sweltered in the hot sun, restlessly anticipating the arrival of the federal agents, he knew that he had to remain calm and let the situation play out.
This was but the latest scheme hatched by the aide and his fellow conspirators—the goal of each initiative had been to trigger a groundswell of social upheaval that would cause a permanent schism between the territory and its US overseer.
Separatist movements had been present in the US Virgin Islands for decades, going back to the 1917 transfer of ownership from the Danes to the Americans. But in recent times, the independence ideal had lost all momentum. Despite a never-ending stream of complaints, most islanders had concluded that the benefits of US citizenship outweighed the drawbacks of their limited federal representation. After years of thwarted ballot initiatives and waning political support, the separatist agenda had petered out—on the surface, that is.
A secretive offshoot from the lone surviving independence coalition, Cedric’s cabal was alive and kicking.
•
CEDRIC AND HIS conspirators had abandoned all attempts to achieve a separatist mandate through the ballot box. In their view, subterfuge had a far better chance of manipulating public perception than stump speeches and door-to-door canvassing. They aimed to create a provocative event that would rile local sentiments and sway enough opinions, if only temporarily, to effect the desired change.
As in any modern municipality,
there were plenty of fears and prejudices upon which to play. The easiest for the cabal to exploit revolved around Native Rights, a belief among a vocal minority that preferential treatment should be given to islanders who could trace their ancestry back to West Indians living in the territory at the time of its US transfer. The proposed list of rights included tax exemptions, homestead land grants, voting privileges, and qualification hurdles for those seeking elected office.
Frictions between those who could claim the Native Rights heritage and those who could not were regularly vented in election debates and on the floor of the Legislature. The contentious issue had even torn apart the most recent effort to draft a USVI constitution.
The populace was primed for an explosive outburst. It was just a matter of finding the right wedge, the right nerve to expose and trample.
•
IT TURNED OUT social engineering was a difficult science, a delicate process of trial and error. Despite their best efforts, the cabal’s previous schemes had failed to achieve the desired results.
Indeed, the most recent project had nearly ended in disaster.
Intended to spark civil unrest on St. Croix, a plot to engineer the racially motivated murder of a Saudi grocery store owner had gone awry when the sacrificial perpetrators, two luckless coconut vendors, had disappeared from the crime scene at the last critical moment.
Cedric shook his head at the memory. They were lucky their man on St. Croix had taken the fall for that caper. Otherwise, the entire cabal could have been exposed. Casanova had been sent to Golden Grove to serve a minimal sentence. Given his connections, he would no doubt be released soon.
The cabal had continued its work, unabated.
Crouched next to the concrete wall inside the abandoned construction site, Cedric listened to the chaos bubbling up from Charlotte Amalie’s lower downtown area. He could hardly suppress his inner glee.
The attempt to remove the Governor from office was their most promising effort yet. It was bolder and more direct than anything they had tried before.
Aground on St. Thomas Page 7