“They could also have your friend in the old barracks used by his palace guard. It predates the house and is located along the west wall of the compound. The only other possibility is the compound’s utility building. It’s built to withstand a hurricane and has a water desalinization plant and backup generators for when the power goes out.”
“How do you propose to get us in there?” asked Barnaby.
“Between permanent and temporary catering staff, we’ll have about twenty-five people working the events this evening,” he said. “I’ve already had a team go over there to set up four different serving stations inside the house and on the terraces. We’ll arrive there at about four o’clock in my two jitney buses followed by my refrigerated truck. There will be parking set aside for us near the outside entrance to the kitchen. My people all wear the same white uniforms, skirts for the women, twill trousers for the men. The food is already prepared and refrigerated. My kitchen staff will do the final prep work in the kitchen.”
Littlefrost checked his printed schedule. “The guests will start arriving at five thirty for the cocktail party on the front esplanade, and then they’ll eat a buffet dinner in the great hall. There is a charity auction followed by dancing and finally fireworks after it gets dark.”
“How many people will be at the event?” asked Barnaby.
“I was asked to cater for at least a hundred guests.”
“Is everyone in your company checked for identification?” asked Lexy.
Littlefrost shook his head. “They don’t have the means. The one thing they will do is check for concealed weapons. I have to ask you not to bring any. That discovery would put both me and my family at great risk.”
“Understood,” said Macaulay, “and agreed.”
“One more thing,” added Littlefrost. “After the cocktail party is under way, there is also a personal tour of the house given by the host of the event. If your friend is being held somewhere else in the house, that might help to point the way. They will certainly avoid it.”
“Who gets to go on the tour?” asked Macaulay.
“Special guests and major contributors to the effort to save the Bahamas endangered bird species,” said Littlefrost. “This year they’re expecting a number of royals, including the duke of Lancaster and his wife. She’s the leader of the whole effort.”
Littlefrost began sizing up Macaulay.
“You’ll fit right in with the bartenders,” he said. Turning to Lexy, he said, “Perhaps the waitstaff, maybe a hostess.”
He turned to gaze up at Barnaby.
“And me?” demanded Barnaby.
“I’m afraid . . .”
“You’re afraid?” demanded Barnaby.
“I just meant . . . it would be pretty difficult to disguise you,” said Littlefrost.
“I’m going in,” said Barnaby.
“You would blow our cover in five minutes,” said Macaulay.
“I could cut his hair with my medical shears,” said Cora. “I think that would help a lot.”
“Sorry,” said Barnaby. “No one has touched my hair since my second wife sliced it off with a Viking short sword when I was under the weather thirty years ago.”
“You’re lucky she didn’t cut off something more important,” said Macaulay. “Let her do it or stay behind.”
Cora was able to shear his three feet of tangled hair surprisingly quickly. “Amazing,” said Lexy when she was finished. “You look like Ichabod Crane.”
“On steroids,” added Macaulay.
“Prep chef,” said Littlefrost to Barnaby. “The chef’s hat will clinch it.”
Lexy drew Cora aside as the others began to try on the uniforms Littlefrost had brought with him.
“Do you have a cocktail dress and some pumps I could borrow?” Lexy asked Cora. “I think we’re about the same size . . . at least before you . . .”
Cora laughed and said, “I’ll show you what I have.”
• • •
Every breath was a silent sob. After the initial shock of having all his fingernails torn off at the roots, the agonizing pain began throbbing steadily behind Carlos’s eyes like a mini jackhammer. He closed his eyes and willed himself to remain silent. He could smell cooking spices and the rank odor of sewage in the air.
He heard someone coming down the stone steps again and waited as the person approached the wooden slab. When he opened his eyes, she was smiling down at him with what looked like motherly concern.
“Where is the sunken ship?” she asked him.
He stared back up at her, saying nothing.
She walked back over to the toolbox and returned with a pair of handheld garden clippers, the type used to prune small branches. In her other hand she was holding what looked like a tube of ointment. She paused for a few moments as if waiting to see if he planned to say something.
Smiling again, she stepped to the end of the slab, grabbed his left foot, and snipped off his big toe. He watched as she squeezed the ointment on the wound. A moment later he felt a sea of pain rage like fire through his brain.
“Epoxy cement to stanch the bleeding,” she said. “That pungent odor is formaldehyde. You don’t want too much of it in your bloodstream.”
She returned to his side and held his big toe close to his face. “You have only one more of those left. If you don’t tell me what I need to know, you will no longer enjoy the use of fingers or toes. And that is only the start.”
Carlos turned his head to look back at the man who had been strapped to the throne chair. The man was still sitting there, but his chin was now resting on his bare chest and his eyes were closed. He didn’t appear to be breathing.
“Mr. Dolan suffered a fatal heart attack while I was attending to my rounds,” she said with seeming sadness. “Like you, he was entirely too careless in worshipping the holy temple of his body. Now, where is the wreck of the ship you found?”
TWENTY-SEVEN
29 May
Casa Grande Brugg
Dunmore Town
North Eleuthera
Bahamas
Light rain began to spatter the windows of the jitney buses as they arrived at the mansion entrance and were allowed through the immense bronze gates.
Mike McGandy was driving the first bus with Barnaby, Macaulay, and Lexy aboard. A slew of mansion security guards armed with semiautomatic pistols and wearing red-and-white uniforms flanked the open doors of the buses as the catering staff emerged. Each new arrival was carefully patted down and given a scan with a security wand.
Heading inside the kitchen, Littlefrost’s small teams of professionals began to organize for the event. While one team brought in the provisions from the refrigerated truck, others began spreading out across the main floor of the mansion to stock the predesignated serving stations with wine, liquor, and mixers.
In the great hall, they began decorating the large plantation tables with flowers and serving pieces while the prep staff in the kitchen began warming the refrigerated dishes and the serving staff arranged the array of food selections on faux silver platters.
By the time the guests began arriving an hour later, Macaulay and Barnaby had found by process of elimination the only entrance door to the cellar. It was behind a massive oak door off the great hall. The door was locked.
Macaulay went outside with two of the bartenders at one point when they took a smoke break. Twenty yards away across the compound, Macaulay saw the steel door to the utility building. It was windowless aside from two large vents mounted on the second story of the concrete block wall. He wondered if Carlos was inside just steps away from him.
A security guard was deployed at each corner of the building and another two at the entrance door. He would have to wait until dark to make his try, he decided. As Macaulay watched, a white panel truck with the letters BEC stenciled on the sides drew up at
the entrance. Two men in uniforms lettered with the BEC logo got out and approached the guards. They were allowed inside.
“Maintenance guys from the Bahamas Electric Corporation,” said one of the bartenders to the other. “They must be having problems with the generators again.”
“The mansion isn’t on the local power grid?” asked Macaulay.
The bartender shook his head. “They wanted to be completely independent. Even the fresh water in here comes from the big desalinization plant over there.”
With all the required access to the utility building, Macaulay scratched it off the list of places they might be holding Carlos.
By five o’clock, guests were streaming through the entrance to the compound in the rain under brightly colored umbrellas, all of them gaily dressed, most of the men in ties and sports jackets and the women in a range of dresses and outfits tailored to their ages and figures.
The British royals arrived in a succession of four Bentley limousines. Juwan stood beside Varna to personally greet the duke and duchess of Lancaster as they came up the flagstone steps to the formal entrance.
“Welcome, Your Grace,” said Varna with the flourish of a brief curtsy.
The old duchess looked to Juwan as if she hadn’t eaten in a week and was carrying a dog the size of a big Gambian pouched rat under her right arm. She was wearing a yellow crinkled dress that reminded Juwan of the ones worn by the Southern belles in Gone With the Wind.
He stood impassively as the old lady extended her hand. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to kiss it. Instead he just took her thin fingers inside his own massive hand and gently shook them. They felt like dried twigs.
He wished that he had never allowed Varna to accept the invitation to host the event. There were too many things happening at once, including the imminent arrival of the Chinese. As he led them inside, he had an impending sense of doom that this wasn’t going to turn out well.
Inside, the full orchestra that Lexy had seen playing on the deck of the Danish yacht out in the harbor was now ensconced in the great hall and playing a medley of hits from Sir Elton John.
A white banner hung above the partiers that read SAVE OUR PRECIOUS BIRDS. The guests passed through a gauntlet of blown-up photographs of endangered Bahamian bird species before they reached the entertainment area, including the Bahama swallow, the red-bellied woodpecker, Kirtland’s warbler, and the West Indian tree duck. Lexy moved about them with a tray of canapés, serving each new cluster of guests as they arrived.
Macaulay had asked Bob Littlefrost if he could man the serving station that had been located near the locked door that he already knew led down to the cellar. While setting up, he had stacked four wooden crates of mixers in front of it.
Now mixing drinks for a long line of customers, he watched as the hulking Brugg made his way around the great hall with his diminutive partner, shaking hands and welcoming the guests.
“I would like a gin martini, as dry as the Kalahari,” said the next voice in line. “Straight up.”
It was the duke of Lancaster. Macaulay recognized him from his entrance into the hall, which had been accompanied by applause from the other guests. In his late seventies with a silver ponytail, he was wearing flaming red Bermuda shorts under a safari jacket. A purple scarf was tied at his neck.
Macaulay reached for a martini glass. The duke shook his head.
“One of those,” said the duke, pointing to the big glass tumblers that were used for mixed drinks.
“Yes, Your Grace,” said Macaulay, filling a cocktail shaker with gin and ice and adding a dash of vermouth and bitters. After giving it several shakes, he served it in the tumbler with a cocktail napkin.
“Heavenly,” said the duke, moving off.
Thirty minutes into the reception, Lexy saw Brugg approach the royal entourage. It was clear that he and his little friend were about to begin the tour of the house. Taking her tray, she walked quickly back to the kitchen. Laying the tray on the serving counter, she reached down to a lower shelf and retrieved the backpack she had brought with her on the bus.
In the servants’ bathroom off the kitchen, she quickly changed into the cocktail dress that Cora had lent her and put on high-heeled black pumps. Unpinning her thick auburn hair, she ran a brush through it several times and then added a touch of lipstick.
Back in the great hall, she made her way to the group that had already formed up at the foot of the main staircase for the guided tour. Sidling next to the duke, she said, “You are really going to enjoy this, Your Grace.”
His eyes came to the same level as her breasts.
Looking up into her violet eyes, he said, “Heavenly,” and put his arm through hers.
As the group was about to begin ascending the staircase, the duchess put down her dog on the floor and led it on a silver-studded leash to the closest serving station where Macaulay was bartending.
“Could I entrust you with Winifred?” she asked him. “She is very dear to me and descended from the Yorkies raised by Queen Victoria.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” said Macaulay, taking the silver-studded leash as he watched Lexy head up the stairs with the others. “I adore Yorkshire terriers.”
A tall, light-complexioned black man with livid scars on both his cheeks was waiting for the tour group when it reached the second floor. He was wearing the red-and-white uniform of Juwan’s security guard with a gold star on each collar. His shoes were two-toned, white and black.
“I am Colonel Emile Bardot,” he said in French-accented English. “The first stop on your tour this evening will give you an opportunity to view the incomparable collection of marine life personally captured in the sea by Juwan Brugg.”
What had once been an enormous parlor off the main staircase had been partially converted to a saltwater aquarium, the biggest one Lexy had ever seen outside a zoo. Its walls of brass-framed plate glass ran twenty feet square across the room, and rose to a height of ten feet above the stone floor. Behind the glass was a mass of large colorful fish swimming around live coral outcroppings and over a bed of white sand.
“That sound you hear is from a compressor that continually circulates fresh ocean water into this tank and provides a perfect living habitat for our friends from beneath the sea.”
Juwan stepped to the side of the aquarium and turned to face them. “As you may know, the population of predatory fish in the ocean is down nearly two-thirds over the last twenty years. The species here include some of the most endangered ones, including the giant saw fish you see at the bottom. His saw-studded cutting blades are almost five feet long and he can turn a human intruder into hamburger in seconds.”
“Those things look quite ferocious,” said the duke, putting his arm protectively around Lexy’s waist.
“These goosefish kill their prey differently,” said Juwan, pointing to several fish about four feet long with hideously deformed jaws. They were all chocolate brown in color, mottled with white spots. “Both jaws are armed with inch-long teeth, all pointed inward toward its stomach. Once its prey is trapped inside the jaws, its teeth drive the meat of the victim down its gullet. The goosefish can swallow a full-grown German shepherd in less than a minute.”
The duchess of Lancaster visibly blanched.
“How would you know that?” she asked.
Emile Bardot watched the duchess’s husband pawing the young woman and wondered if the old roué was sleeping with her. She was stunningly beautiful with a superb figure accentuated by the black silk cocktail dress. He assumed she was part of the royal entourage, since he hadn’t seen her before on Harbour Island. He would have remembered.
Each time Macaulay went to replenish the bar mixers from the wooden crates by the cellar door, he studied its lock. The oak door was at least three inches thick, and the size of the keyhole suggested a key that was probably six inches long. That made the challenge of pi
cking the lock a little easier.
When his first break came, he went to find Barnaby and found him standing behind one of the plantation tables where the buffet dinner would be served, arranging an empty silver tureen over an electric heating plate. He was wearing a white chef’s hat that covered his ears.
“You look ridiculous,” said Macaulay.
“Fuck you,” said Barnaby. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that for a long time.”
Macaulay grinned and quietly told him that there was no way they were holding Carlos in the utility building, which left the cellar and the guard barracks as the two likeliest possibilities.
“Meet me at my serving station in a couple minutes,” he said. “I think I have a way to get you down there.”
Heading back to the kitchen, Macaulay stopped long enough to brief Mike McGandy on their plan to search the cellar.
“When you’re ready, we’ll go after Carlos together,” said Mike. “It’ll probably be a two-man job.”
Macaulay rummaged through several drawers before finding a thin, six-inch-long fillet knife. At the air force academy, he had once roomed with a cadet who could open just about any door with what he called a bump key. The ridges and valleys along its spine had been filed down so it would fit into most locks and usually engage enough pins inside it to turn the cylinder.
Two of the closets in the kitchen had lever lock-type keys that were smaller versions of the one that fit the cellar door. He removed one of them without attracting attention. Using a short length of tape to fasten the skeleton key to the end of the knife blade, he slipped it inside his shirt.
He was about to head back to his serving station when he saw one of the maintenance men from the Bahamas Electrical Company come in through the kitchen door and head to a room down a side passageway. Unlocking a door, he disappeared inside.
Macaulay followed down the passageway and paused by the open door. The maintenance man was down on his knees with his back to him in front of a green-painted steel compartment that covered most of the wall. Through its open sheet-steel cover panel, Macaulay saw that it housed the electrical system for the compound, including an inverter and several banks of electronic circuit breakers.
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