Black Widow

by Randy Wayne White

  I began to get interested. Because he was so immaculately dressed— slacks, white shirt with cuffs, shooting jacket—I said, “Sandhurst?”

  The terrace was open on three sides, with ceiling fans and wicker tables. He laughed as he led me to a table. “That obvious, is it? Yes, I was born to the boots and bear. Grandfather was a major general in the Great War when your lads helped us run the Huns out of Argonne. Father learned a bit of Japanese in Malaya, then served in Suez after the French mucked up the bloody business. Between wars, our family have always come back to Saint Lucia.” He reached for a plate of biscuits. “Scone?”

  The table was now covered with a tea service, a silver tureen, and heated serving dishes. There were cheeses, salted cod, fresh mangoes, tamarinds, local pineapple, and sugar bananas. Within easy reach were bottles of Harper’s bourbon and Pinchbottle Haig & Haig, a siphon of soda, ice in a bucket, a flagon of spring water, and two pint glasses thick as crystal. Montbard had also ordered poached snapper, some kind of curry dish, and roasted marrow bones—something I’d never tried. The marrow bones were served wrapped in napkins, with caviar spoons.

  “Like those, do you? I have Chef bribe the local butchers. When good marrow bones come along, he snaps them up. I believe that fine food and drink are a form of art.”

  I raised my caviar spoon in acknowledgment. “You live here, at Jade Mountain?”

  “No! I’m the resort’s closest neighbor and a friend of the man who designed the place—a Russian who also happens to be a brilliant architect. His name’s Nick, but I call him the Mad Russian. A joke of ours.

  “The food here’s wonderful, of course, but Nick doesn’t mind if I have my own chef send over the occasional delicacy. I live there—” He nodded toward lights on the dark hillside overlooking the sea. “Perhaps you noticed the place?”

  I had: a mansion of rock and gray wood, yellow flamboyant trees in bloom, staff cottages with green tiled roofs, and steps winding down to a dock where a trawler was moored. I commented on the view he must have, and the long descent to the water.

  He was proud of it. “There are precisely three hundred and eighty-one steps from my dock to the terrace of the main house—the equivalent of climbing twenty flights of stairs. Believe me, I’ve counted them enough times to know.

  “Keeps a man fit, climbing up and down these mountains. When I hear visitors whining about all the steps, I’m tempted to ask them how much they paid for the exercise equipment in their homes. Every day but Monday, I do the hillside six times, quick march pace, then swim from my dock to the beach at Anse Chastanet.” He patted his flat stomach. “Daily PT is absolutely crucial, that’s my personal belief.”

  I said, “Spoken like an officer in the Royal Marines. You didn’t mention where you served, Sir James.”

  The man gave me a sly look as he poured more whiskey. “Didn’t I? I thought I had—the memory starts to slip a bit when you reach seventy. Bloody boring, I should think, listening to me ramble on about my days in harness. And we have more important matters to discuss.” He leaned to open a canvas shoulder bag he’d brought. “It’s time we got down to brass tacks. Very rude of me to invite you here at this hour, Dr. North, and not tell you the reason.”

  The sly look narrowed as he took a stack of glossy photos from the bag and placed them on the table.

  He asked, “Recognize that man?,” his eyes bright above his whiskey tumbler as he drank. “Quite a rough-looking character—when he’s not clomping around our beaches, pretending to be a biologist.”

  The photos were of me.

  18

  THE PHOTOGRAPHS WERE TAKEN on Saturday, my first day on the island, as I explored the hillside above the beach house on Saint Arc.

  There was a shot of me as I knelt to pick up a stick, then another of me probing the entrance of the camera blind, checking for booby traps.

  I paused long enough to ask Montbard, “How did you get these?” He was no longer the warm and cheery host. “Keep going. We’ll discuss details later.”

  The next photo was taken from outside the camera blind, looking in through the viewing window. I was holding up Paris Match, the issue with the attractive female politician on the cover. My face was only partially visible.

  In the last two photos, I was looking downward from the viewing window, then I was reaching to drop the curtain—the twins had appeared, I remembered, and I was allowing them their privacy.

  “Interesting,” I said. “Were they taken with some kind of remote-control camera?”

  “Not exactly. I have an interest in what’s going on on that nasty little island. You were being shadowed.”

  “I’m a relatively observant man. I didn’t see anyone shadowing me.”

  Sir James said, “That’s what you may expect to see when I’m shadowing you. But you’re right, in a way. These photographs were taken by cameras equipped with motion detectors. I was higher up the mountain. I followed you as you marked your trail.”

  I remembered parrots flushing from a stand of travelers palms.

  I was about to say I suspected ... as Montbard said, “Now you’re about to tell me you suspected someone was there all along.” He smiled, but there was no humor in his face. “They always do—once I confront them. You asked about my years with the Royal Marines? For part of the time, I was attached to Defence Intelligence and Security in Bedfordshire. PSYOPS. So I’ve had a bit of experience at the game.”

  PSYOPS—psychological warfare operations.

  I asked, “What about tonight? Did you have a quiet evening at home, watching for my boat to return? Or did you follow me again?” I was thinking about the infrared light I’d seen.

  His severe expression faded. “Let’s put our cards on the table, shall we, Dr. North? It’s obvious that we’re both aware what’s going on at Saint Arc. A very shrewd operator is using the place as a filmset for black-mail—and not just that pretty little beach house. It’s quite a sophisticated operation. If you don’t mind, I’ll save the particulars for later.

  “Saint Arc, along with Jamaica and Aruba, is the only island in the Caribbean corrupt enough to allow that sort of business. I have a personal interest in seeing the bastards hang, and I am quietly assembling their gallows. Forgive me for being frank, but what I don’t need is some amateur Yank mucking up all my work by tipping off the buggers in advance—or by calling in the authorities.”

  He reached for the bottle of bourbon and freshened his drink before adding, “I’ve seen enough to know you’re not working for the opposition. I therefore take it you have a personal interest in the matter—someone has hired you, perhaps, to investigate.”

  With some people, the smart thing to do is keep your cards close to the chest until you have an idea what’s in their hand. Not this guy, though. I told him, “No. My goddaughter is a victim. She’s supposed to be married on Sunday. The blackmailers gave her until Friday to pay the balance on a quarter-million dollars.”

  “The balance?”

  “Yes. She made a deal to pay them a little over a hundred thousand, but they reneged the day after she transferred the money.”

  “Really.” He appeared to find the information useful. “Well, I can empathize with the fact that you and your goddaughter are in a bit of a tight situation. Tomorrow’s Monday—only four days to deal with the problem. That’s all the more reason for me to worry you’re going to ruin all my work by rushing matters. Let’s be frank: Are you some bumbling amateur, Dr. North?”

  I said, “I’ll answer that question honestly, if you’ll answer a question honestly for me. Are you the blackmailer, Sir James?”

  I was reassured by his nodding look of approval. “Very smart. I would have followed the same chain of reasoning. Problem is, I checked with a few friends—State Department types; immigration people. They had some difficulty coming up with background information on you. North is such a common surname. According to your passport, the middle initial is W. If I knew your middle name, I might be more inclined to sp
eak freely.”

  “You found out all that about me?”

  “Does that offend you? Perhaps you have something to hide.” Montbard had avoided eye contact in the comfortable way people do when they are busy eating and drinking, but now his eyes locked onto mine. Instinct told me he already knew the answer or he wouldn’t have asked the question.

  I said, “My middle name doesn’t begin with a W.”

  “A mistake on your passport?”

  I shrugged as he stared at me. “Everything’s computerized. If someone hits the wrong letter on a keyboard, it’s better to live with the mistake than deal with all the bureaucracy getting it changed.”

  After several moments, he said, “I think that answers my question.”

  “But you haven’t answered mine. Are you the blackmailer?”

  “Understood. Why don’t you come ’round to the house for tea in the morning. Nine-ish? I’d like to introduce you to someone who, I think, will answer that question for me.”

  He snapped his fingers to get the waiter’s attention, then pointed at me—Another drink here.

  “Singapore Sling, Dr. North? Got the recipe from the barman at Raffles personally.” He looked up from his glass, studying my face. “Or may I start calling you by your real name . . . Dr. Ford?”

  19

  MONDAY, JUNE 24TH

  Sir James Montbard’s estate was named Bluestone, maybe because of the slate blue rock used to build the main house. The place was fully staffed— armed guard at the gate, gardeners, maids in bright plaid skirts sweeping around the veranda’s rock pillars—so I was momentarily flustered when the photogenic woman on the cover of Paris Match opened the door.

  I didn’t recognize her at first, but that’s who it was.

  “Welcome to Bluestone, Dr. Ford. I was expecting you.”

  I’d assumed a maid would answer, not this attractive fortyish female wearing crisp morning clothing, white blouse and jodhpurs, brown hair tied back from her face, just a touch of lipstick. Looked dressed for a morning ride.

  The woman’s hair was lighter, she had aged a year, but those weren’t the reasons I didn’t recognize her right away. There are a few rare people whom the camera lens sees more clearly than the human eye. Perhaps it has to do with bone construction, the angles of cheek, chin, and nose. Whatever the reason, the lens loves them. They photograph differently than they appear in person. I’ve read that some of the classic film stars were examples: Bogart, Hepburn, Gable.

  Here was another. It wasn’t until the woman thrust out a firm hand and said, “I’m Senegal, a pal of Hooker’s. So nice of you to come,” that I realized I was speaking to Senegal Firth, former candidate for British Parliament, who’d been featured in the magazine: the unflattering shots of a photogenic woman with interesting eyes, who looked good in her revealing swimsuit.

  The pictures had been taken while she was vacationing on Saint Arc, according to the article, and she had threatened to sue the magazine.

  I said, “Hooker?” to cover my surprise.

  “Oh, sorry. That’s what chums call Sir James. His middle name is Hooks—from the maternal side.” She smiled. “You’re embarrassed because you didn’t recognize me. Don’t be. I’m flattered. Couldn’t be happier, actually. Hooker told me you’d seen the horrible photos the magazine published. I never really appreciated the value of privacy until I ran for public office. Now I revel in my anonymity. Tea?”

  I followed her through a great hall, past a billiard room, then a library where walls were covered by framed, antique maps. The room smelled of books, pipe tobacco, the nutty musk of pecky cypress. When I stopped, Firth said, “Go ahead, have a walk around. Sir James is mad for this sort of thing.”

  There were charts of the Caribbean, the early Americas, and ornate world maps with notations in Latin. I slid glasses to my forehead and said, “The plaque says this map was drawn in 1507.”

  “That’s right. The Waldseemuller map.” There was a smile in her voice. “It’s not the original, of course. Notice something unusual about it?”

  “Yes. It shows the western coast of South America, and the Baja Peninsula. Hudson Bay, too. All fairly accurate. I’m trying to remember my fifth-grade history—”

  “Excellent catch, Dr. Ford. You’re thinking of Magellan. He didn’t reach the Pacific Coast until decades later, and he never really explored it. And explorer Henry Hudson didn’t arrive in the Americas until a hundred years later.”

  I said, “So the map couldn’t have been made in 1507.”

  “But it was—it’s been well documented. The maps on that wall represent some of history’s great mysteries. That’s what Sir James claims, anyway. The Stuttgart Map, for instance, is from the sixteenth century. It shows Antarctica in incredible detail—two hundred and fifty years before western explorers had laid eyes on it. Not only that, it’s the Antarctic as it would appear without ice. I checked for myself. It’s true.”

  I compared the map to the world globe that sat beside a leather reading chair. She was right about the accuracy. The map was dated 1535.

  “How can that be?”

  The woman shrugged.

  The library’s shelves were stacked from floor to ceiling, and there was a glass display case containing jade carvings similar to those I’d seen during my years in Central America. There were a dozen wedge-shaped amulets—owl motifs, archaeologists had told me—with Vs carved into the necks, representing beaks. In a corner, mounted on a pedestal, was a piece of what looked to be a stone wheel. Carved into it were what might have been pre-Colombian glyphs. Part of a Mayan calendar, possibly.

  “Mind if I take a look at that?”

  “Not at all. But I warn you, if you ask James about it, he’ll bore you to tears with the details and his pet theories about world history. Same with the maps.”

  I crossed the room and leaned to look. A chunk of gray stone . . . a fifteen-degree section of a stone circle. I was puzzling over the glyphs as the woman said, “His grandfather, General Henry Montbard, found that years ago. James claims it’s ancient—probably Mayan or Olmec. Sir James’s father didn’t catch the bug, but personality traits skip a generation, don’t they? Archaeology is in his blood.”

  Only one of the glyphs had the Asian-flavored, geometrical complexity I associate with Mayan writing. Looked like a rooster, with a cross on its breast. Tomlinson would have remembered the name of the glyph and what it symbolized—he’d been with me in Guatemala and Masagua a few years back, tracking artifact smugglers.

  The other glyphs, however—if they were glyphs—were simple, openended rectangles and Vs similar to those on the owl pendants. Some had dots drilled in the center. Because I thought Tomlinson might recognize them, I took out a pocket notebook and copied them.

  Along the stone’s broken edge was a fragment of a glyph. I copied that, too.

  As I sketched, I said to the woman, “Sir James is a man with eclectic interests.”

  “Oh, just wait until you get to know him better. He’s more like a precocious boy who wants to learn everything about everything. A regular wizard when it comes to history. Warfare, too, I suspect, but he only hints at that.”

  “I hope I’m half as active when I’m his age.”

  Her tone wry, Firth said, “Funny thing about Hooker—only men comment on his age. Women never seem to notice . . . or care.”

  She motioned with her hand, and I followed her through a sitting room—antique furniture, dark wood, coat of arms above the fireplace— to a terrace that faced the sea. A tunnel created by sea grape trees led to a croquet court, an orchid house, a manicured garden filled with roses and ornamentals, then to the bluff overlooking the bay. Three hundred and eighty-one stone steps to the dock, Sir James had told me.

  A wrought-iron table had been set for breakfast: sliced fruit, silver serving dishes, rashers of bacon, poached eggs, kippers; frangipani blossoms afloat in a bowl.

  The woman said, “Hooker rallied long enough this morning to tell me you two h
ad a great chat last night. Turns out you have a mutual friend or two. He said I should treat you like one of his colleagues— which I take to mean you’re mysterious, you’re obsessive, you’re a gentleman, and you drink gin tonics or whiskey neat.”

  I said, “I think you’re confusing me with another sort of colleague,” amused because it was the kind of thing Shay would say.

  It was true that Montbard and I had mutual friends, probably more than either of us would ever know. Despite our age difference, there was a sufficient overlap in our careers to create ties.

  With British PSYOPS, the man had spent time in Borneo, Hong Kong, and also Belize, where he’d worked with the Gurkha contingent stationed there.

  “Got my first look at Tikal while T-D-Y,” he’d told me. “Brilliant pyramids, simply brilliant. My little Gurkha friends scampered up and down them like they were nothing.”

  In the Falklands, he’d helped get Radio Atlantic del Sur operational. In Iraq, he’d been involved in a psy-war night operation that had used “the voice of Allah” to frighten several hundred sleeping Iraqis into surrendering—an operation I’d heard about. Sir James enjoyed telling the story, because it allowed him to segue into stories about digs he’d worked on in Egypt, Cyprus, and the Syrian Desert.

  Yes, he was a traveler. I didn’t doubt he had long service with the British military. I also suspected he had worked for MI6, the U.K.’s equivalent of our CIA. Possibly still did. Saint Lucia was only a few hundred miles from intelligence-gathering hot spots in South America. And even though Sir James was in his seventies, he was sharp, tough, and so physically fit that, for me, he’d already become one of those people that I file away in memory for inspiration later.

  A man in a white tunic and white slacks appeared at the table—member of the staff. He nodded first to me, then the woman, and said, “Mornin’, sir. Mornin’, Miz Senny,” without making eye contact as he pulled out the lady’s chair.