by Tom Savage
The old man leaned forward in his chair, and his eyes twinkled. “I thought there was more than the visit to the Harry Potter bedroom. He was asking Eb about my boat earlier—does he wish to use it?”
Nora blinked, then stared. “How did you know—?”
Saul produced a dry chuckle. “I know the look of a fisherman. He does not get the chance in New York City, yes? He is welcome to fish in my boat. I would be grateful if he would take it out—I am no longer able to do this, and a boat needs the sea. Or perhaps he wants to see the place you were asking Eb about this afternoon, Shipwreck Cay?”
Nora was about to reply when she looked up to see Ralph standing in the archway. He’d heard Saul’s last comments. He came into the room and sat on the other end of the couch, close to Saul’s lounger.
Ralph glanced over at Nora, then turned to Saul. “I’m not going to lie to you, sir. We want to rent your boat so we can go to Shipwreck Cay, Îlet Naufrage. Tonight, if possible. I—I can’t tell you why, but I assure you that we—”
The old man held up a hand.
“Enough,” he said. “I saw Madame Baron—Nora—and her friend this afternoon. I heard about the game they played with Eb, the pictures they showed him and the questions they asked. But I ask no questions. You people are here for a reason, and I think you might be with the American government. My father was with the French Resistance in the war, right here in Martinique, and I fought in Algeria, so I know about working for one’s country.
“Something has been happening lately on that deserted island—there are lights sometimes, and boats come and go from it. I am thinking, smugglers? If catching smugglers is your business, so be it. You are welcome to my boat. I have sailed to that island, and the Violet will take you there easily enough. The motor will help you land. There is a dangerous reef in the big bay facing Martinique, and they will see you coming. The north inlet is best for landing, or the coves on the far shore.”
“You’ve been there?” Nora asked. “Eb said you called the place—”
“—le domaine du Diable,” Saul finished for her. “That is an old island story, because of all the shipwrecks there in the past. When I was young, before I married Violet, we used to take our girls there. It was a perfect place for, how shall I say, a picnic? I have not told Eb about this, or my wife. Now it is private property, and young people do not anymore use Îlet Naufrage for the, um, picnics.”
Nora grinned, and she saw that Ralph was also amused. The old man was not as incapacitated as she’d first suspected. He wasn’t afflicted with dementia or Alzheimer’s. He checked his boat every day, because that’s what fishermen do, even when they can no longer go to sea. And the sinister island of the Devil had once been nothing more sinister than a Lovers’ Lane.
“You just said they will see us coming,” Ralph said. “Who’s there now?”
Saul leaned back in his chair, waving a dismissive hand. “I do not know who they are, but something happened there one year ago. A party of drunken tourists went there in a boat, and they nearly crashed on the reef in the big bay. Then they said that men appeared on the beach, men with guns. They aimed the guns at the boat and told the tourists to go away. Smugglers, I should think. The Coast Guard promised to investigate the tourists’ complaint, but I don’t think they did—the tourists had been drunk, and nobody believed them. Now I can sometimes see lights at night. You must be careful there, and you must take care of the Violet. Please bring her back to me.”
“Yes, sir,” Ralph said.
Violet arrived with a tray, and the subject was immediately dropped.
“How did you like the Harry Potter museum?” she asked.
Ralph laughed. “That’s quite a room! I think he has every book, movie, poster, action figure, game, and bobblehead figurine on the market. He’s a great kid, and I admire his energy. He promised he was going to sleep when I left, and I hope he finally settled down.”
Violet smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She looked over at the archway and raised her voice. “In fact, I think I hear someone on the stairs, listening to the grown-ups talk. I hope I am mistaken!”
There was no reply from the archway, but they heard the sound of running feet and the slamming of a door above them, followed by the thump of a small body crash-landing on a soft bed. Everyone laughed.
They drank coffee and chatted with the couple about the island, the guesthouse, and Eb—Violet agreed with Nora that he needed more exposure to other children. As soon as they decently could, they thanked their hosts and returned to the guesthouse, where Chloe and Ellie were sipping tea and playing backgammon.
Nora and Ralph joined them, and they spent the evening there until eleven o’clock, when everyone finally went upstairs. Chloe bid them good night and wafted up to her third-floor apartment, and Nora slipped into her room, leaving Ellie and Ralph in the hallway outside their respective doors. She heard the low murmur of their voices for a few minutes, followed by the closing of two doors. Her phone buzzed moments later, with a text from Ralph:
Lobby. Midnight. Shhh.
Chapter 34
Nora sat in the little boat, thinking of Davy Jones’s locker. The rise and fall of the waves around them caused a pitching and listing that was almost constant; she never felt that they were completely upright. Strong winds swept by at regular intervals, causing the sail to billow and the craft to tip precariously. The fishing poles slid around on the floor, and the big box of netting bumped against the stern. The rain was light but constant. She imagined the ocean floor far below them as a graveyard waiting to welcome them into the company of the many ships that had been swallowed here over the years.
She wondered how much of that was true. Though never a real skeptic, Nora had always had a healthy disrespect for urban legends and old wives’ tales. Still, she knew that most local stories of this sort usually had some basis in fact. One famous shipwreck could do it, as did the great volcanic eruption in Martinique, now a mere haze of light at the horizon behind them, had made the very name Pelée a synonym for danger.
The danger was very real at the moment, or so Nora had convinced herself. She’d ignored Ralph’s calm insistence that the cay was a mere “mile and change” from the main island, as she’d ignored his assurance that the Violet was more than up to the challenge of these modest waves. He sat in the stern, manipulating the tiller and the sheet, tacking with ease and what Nora assumed was authority; she wondered where he’d become so proficient with boats. The Violet moved steadily toward the cay ahead of them, but Nora continued to imagine the worst.
To distract herself from her nervousness, she tried to plan their movements once they reached the island. She wore the dark blue pantsuit, a dark blue blouse, and her black sneakers, and she’d borrowed a hooded, navy blue oilskin poncho from the hook near the front door of the guesthouse, which she suspected belonged to Dirk. She hadn’t brought her trusty shoulder bag, but she had both phones, the new one in an outer pocket and the older one in the inside pocket of her linen jacket. Ralph was clothed in dark jeans, black turtleneck, black windbreaker, and black boots. The fact that he was also a fully trained agent of the CIA, schooled in confronting just this type of situation, was a bonus for him that Nora couldn’t match. She was a novice here, even though she was, technically, the person in charge at the moment—this was her op, not his.
Ralph had one other advantage: He was armed. She’d seen the holster under the nylon jacket as they’d dragged the boat down the beach into the water. Jeff always traveled with a weapon, which he’d stow in airplanes’ cargo holds in accordance with regulations. Ralph had clearly done the same when he’d rushed here from New York. He also had a knife in a scabbard attached to his belt. Her brief glimpse of it reminded Nora of Marcel Arvide in Guadeloupe. She shivered.
So, they would be there in a few minutes, and Ralph had already decided to try the north inlet or th
e far side rather than the main bay that would soon appear before them. He’d explained to Nora the advantage the Violet had over larger craft, including Ken Nelson’s ill-advised speedboat. If Diablo and his crew had radar or other means of scanning the sea around the island, which they presumably did, the Violet was probably small enough to avoid detection. If they remained far enough away from shore and circled around to the north or the far side, there was every chance they could land without those on the island being made aware of their presence.
Once on land, they would have to watch for security equipment. Nora didn’t know what to look for, but Ralph did: devices rigged on trees or bushes that shot out invisible beams. Breaking a beam would trip an alarm. There might also be physical wires stretched between trees that did the same thing. And there was always the possibility of cameras, a CCTV setup at the most obvious entry points. When Nora thought of all these things, she was tempted to tell Ralph to turn back.
Too late now, she thought. We’re in this, whatever happens. And there was a good chance that much of what Ralph had listed wasn’t in place. These people probably had no reason to think they’d be of interest to anyone, mainly because the world didn’t even know they were there. Nora was hoping their arrogance would outweigh their caution.
On the subject of arrogance, Carmen Lamont had left Nora alone, even after realizing that Nora was CIA. Why? Ham Green had asked her that last night, and she’d guessed it was because she’d saved Carmen’s life. But Nora also suspected that the woman knew she was about to vanish from the face of the earth, and she assumed that Nora wouldn’t know where to look for her. If Nora hadn’t followed her to the beach in Ste-Marie the other day and seen her staring out at the island, clearly expecting someone to arrive from there—someone who had never shown up—then Carmen would have been correct in her assumption.
Now, in the boat, Nora thought about that day. Why hadn’t Carmen’s rendezvous occurred? Why hadn’t Diablo—or whoever—shown up to meet her? Why had she been so angry about the missed appointment, shouting into her phone in Spanish?
And why was someone in her own gang trying to kill her? Marcel Arvide might have been acting for the rival cartel that had killed her family in Colombia, but Nora doubted it. Most of the cartels did business with Diablo’s group, Nuestra Familia, so they probably knew who Carmen Lamont was, despite her change of identity. They wouldn’t have waited six years to kill her; why should they? Nora was certain there was another explanation for the attempt in Guadeloupe, one that involved the current players in the game.
Eb was observant, and Eb had vividly described the people in the boat who came to Ste-Marie once a week for supplies. The other woman named Carmen was apparently in charge of Marcel, Zeb, and the third man, which told Nora they were assistants, flunkies. They didn’t issue orders; they followed them. Nora figured that Marcel had been sent to kill Carmen Lamont in Guadeloupe by Other Carmen—or maybe by Diablo.
Marcel had failed in his mission. What did that do to the dynamic, the hierarchy of this strange group of terrorists and their financiers? If Other Carmen was behind the botched killing, why had she gone to a friendly dinner with Carmen Lamont in the hotel in Martinique the very next night? Was Carmen Lamont still in danger from her own people? If that was the case, there was every chance that Carmen Lamont was already dead, killed the moment she arrived on Îlet Naufrage yesterday.
Nora intended to find out. She peered ahead through the light rain as the island took form in the distance. Even from here, with the wind blowing, she could hear the sound of breakers against the shore. She looked at her watch: 12:44. Their voyage from Ste-Marie to Îlet Naufrage had been made in about thirty minutes.
Ralph had called tonight’s venture recon, and that was precisely what Nora had in mind. They would land, and then they would make their way as close as possible to the place where Diablo and his party were gathered. They’d record the layout with their phone cameras. They’d try to count heads, and then they’d get back to the Violet and get the hell out of there. They’d give Ham Green and the people he’d contact the intel they would need to make an informed decision about how best to invade and overwhelm the encampment. She didn’t know which services would be involved, but it would probably be a mix of American and French military forces. There was a U.S. Navy base in Puerto Rico—they could have choppers here in less than an hour…
Now Ralph tacked again; the boat came about and headed toward their left, the north end of the island. Gazing over at the wide main beach as they passed it, Nora saw a glimmer of light through the thick press of trees beyond the sand. She turned around to face Ralph and pointed toward the light. He saw it and nodded.
The rain stopped as the Violet passed by the little inlet on the north side and continued around the island. Looking at the geography of the place, Nora thought she understood Ralph’s decision. If they landed on the far side, the high hill in the center of the island would be between them and the lights they’d just seen near the beach.
When they reached the midpoint of the Atlantic side, Ralph tacked again, taking them in toward a tiny cove—barely a beach at all, from the look of it. Nora hoped there was no reef here; if they ran aground, they’d be trapped here with these people. Ralph lowered the sail, but the Violet didn’t slow down. As it turned out, they didn’t need the outboard motor: The strong night tide carried the boat straight in to the sand.
They jumped out into the breakers and quickly pulled the boat up onto the beach. The cove was sheltered on both sides by high walls of rock, and the thick tropical forest rose up the hill before them. Ralph pointed to the rock wall at one side, and they dragged the boat over to rest against it. He looked around, then pointed to fallen palm fronds lying near the trees. They gathered up armfuls of fronds and covered the Violet with them. From a distance or from above, the boat was now invisible—the enemy would have to be here, in the cove, to see it. The moon was behind clouds; that would help most of all.
They crossed the sand to the tree line and stopped, peering into the jungle. Ralph reached into a pocket of his jacket and produced a small, tubular object about the size of a cellphone. A weak beam of blue light shot out of it, illuminating the way before them. His gun was in his other hand.
“Stay behind me, Mrs. Baron,” he whispered.
Guided by the muted blue light, they stepped forward, and the wet, black jungle engulfed them.
Chapter 35
The uphill journey to the highest point at the center of the island took longer than Nora had expected, but they moved slowly for a good reason. As Ralph explained in sporadic whispers, the dim blue light served a dual purpose: It illuminated the way before them, and it detected the security beams he’d mentioned. There weren’t any so far, and Nora hoped their luck would hold.
Earlier this year, Nora had been required to climb a steep mountainside in Switzerland in the pouring rain, so she should have found this relatively gentler slope a piece of cake. No such luck: The oppressively thick jungle and the constant fear of electronic exposure kept her rigid with anticipation. Wet leaves and fronds constantly brushed against her face and arms in the utter darkness, and the weak blue light did little to show the best footholds on the uneven terrain. She tripped and nearly fell at least twice, caught in the tangle of serpentine, semi-exposed roots.
A variety of trees was here: palms and sea grapes, with tamarinds like the two in the guesthouse garden, mangroves, and flaming red flamboyants. Huge century plants bloomed along the forest floor, reaching out to catch at her poncho with the razorlike spikes that lined the edges of their thick, rubbery leaves. Ropy, mossy vines stretched from tree to tree, forming further obstacles; they constantly had to step over or duck under them.
There were other things here as well. Nora soon became aware of the low humming sound that she finally identified as the chirrup of tree frogs; they fell silent when Ralph and Nora approached, only to begin their s
ong again after the humans had passed by. The occasional buzz of mosquitoes forced her to swat them away from her face. Invisible creatures moved along the ground all around them, rustling in the undergrowth. She saw a flash of something gray and scaled as it slithered across their path: an iguana. Nora would usually be fascinated by this exotic environment, but tonight she felt that she’d rather be anywhere else.
Ralph worked as quickly as possible, scanning the terrain ahead for booby traps, but it was slow going. The wet forest, the vines, and his methodical nature conspired to make the journey to the top of the central hill seem like the conquest of Everest. When they finally reached the summit and emerged from the trees, they paused to look around. Nora gasped.
“Wow!” Ralph whispered.
They were on a mound of rock, the highest point on the tiny island, perhaps 150 feet above the shore. The moon had emerged from behind the clouds, sending a ribbon of light across the Atlantic. Looking out, they saw the vast night ocean stretching away from them in all directions, with the cloudy gray sky above. In front of them, “a mile and change” away, Martinique was a wide black strip dotted with lights. To the north they saw a faint glow at the horizon, and Nora had to envision a map to figure out what that distant island was: Dominica. A breeze struck her face, invigorating her. At this moment, at this height, with nothing else around them, it seemed to Nora that they were the only two people in the world, suspended, floating above the earth.
Ralph grasped her arm, bringing her back to reality. She looked over at him; he pointed down through the trees. Nora stepped forward to look where he was pointing and saw a glow of light below, near the beach. From here she could see the sand of the wide beach, and the churning water at one end of the bay down there indicated the treacherous reef Saul had mentioned. The forest was too thick to see the source of the glow. They would have to move closer.