Aground on St. Thomas (12 page)

Charlotte Amalie Harbor

Through the Looking Glass

CASANOVA MOTIONED FOR
the motorboat to slow as it approached the outer fringes of the Charlotte Amalie harbor. Keeping a safe distance from the cruise ship port and the docked navy freighter, the Crucian craft veered toward the west side of the protected bay.

The commercial ferries had been halted, but as Nova’s source had assured him, there was little policing of the hundred or so smaller craft in the area.

The boat slipped easily behind Hassel Island, a onetime peninsula that had been cut off from the mainland in the 1860s to create a shipping lane.

The ever-expanding size of Caribbean cruise ships placed constant pressure on harbor officials to maintain and widen the water routes to Charlotte Amalie’s deepwater dock. While such alterations remained environmentally controversial, the island’s lifeblood depended upon regular visits from the floating cities and their thousands of cash-dropping passengers.

Even with the harbor modifications, the massive ships moved through the designated passage points at a snail’s pace, their captains fearful of straying from the narrow course and beaching on the adjacent shoals.

No such turtle traffic cluttered the area that day. The lone cruise ship stranded at the dock had sent a clear message to those scheduled for late morning arrival. The next several days’ worth of vessels had already diverted to other destinations. There were plenty of islands within range happy to host an extra cruiser.

The Crucian powerboat edged around the far side of Hassel Island and slid through the cutout channel. The motor cut back to an idle as Nova whipped up a pair of binoculars and surveyed the shoreline.

His magnified lenses skimmed over the shuttered waterfront shops to the Legislature Building, whose front entrance was guarded by a pair of FBI agents. Across the street, the crumbling rear walls of Fort Christian retained their typical forlorn and abandoned stance.

Shifting his view up the slope, Nova scanned the crowds packed into Emancipation Park. National Guard troops from the navy ship had encircled the perimeter and were trying, without much success, to maintain order.

Moving another notch higher in elevation, Nova’s glasses picked out the Lutheran church and, just above its metal roof, the easy marker of Government House. Skipping up the adjacent public staircase and past an abandoned construction site, a zoom of the binoculars captured the lookout tower for Blackbeard’s Castle.

As Nova’s scope swept across the hilltops toward the Governor’s Mansion, he homed in on a taxi van speeding along a curved road at the city’s upper outskirts.

He kept the lenses trained on the vehicle, following it back to the center of the upturned city, where it stopped in front of Hotel 1829, a historic accommodation at the bottom of Government Hill.

Charlotte Amalie

Room at the Inn

THE AIRPORT TAXI
van screeched to a stop, blocking the one-way street outside Hotel 1829.

With a weary wave to the other riders, the author climbed out and met the driver at the rear cargo doors. She paid her portion of the fare, grabbed her roll-around suitcase, and watched the driver shuffle back to his slot behind the wheel.

She saw the wince on the driver’s face as he pulled open the door. The interior’s cool blast of air-conditioning couldn’t mitigate the ongoing commentary of the Mojito Man in the front passenger seat.

Seconds later, the van squealed off. The driver was eager to make his next delivery as quickly as possible.

His next stop was around the corner and up the hill at Blackbeard’s Castle.

•

THE AUTHOR EXTENDED
her suitcase handle and rolled it toward the hotel’s front steps.

The drive into Charlotte Amalie from the airport had been far from routine. Near the downtown area, the van had encountered a number of pedestrians on the streets. The driver had slowed the vehicle to a crawl, carefully pushing the bumper through the roaming crowds. He hadn’t used his horn, perhaps fearing retribution. The day’s events had understandably left the populace on edge.

A number of low-riding pickups, many with stereo speakers hanging out their rear windows, had further blocked the roads. After taking to a sidewalk to get around a snarl of parked trucks, the driver had finally detoured up into the surrounding residential hills in order to gain less impeded access to Government Hill.

Like the rest of the van’s passengers, the author had been unable to get any updates on the lockdown situation. Her cell phone didn’t appear to be working, and the taxi van’s radio had been drowned out by the Mojito Man’s constant yammering.

All she knew is what she’d been told at the airport. The territory’s elected officials had been indicted on bribery charges. The FBI had moved in to arrest them, but the Governor and two senators had so far escaped capture.

Still standing by the hotel’s front steps, the author turned to look down at the waterfront. She had a partial view overlooking several flights of stone and brick steps that tracked down the slope to a post office, which, like the adjacent jewelry shops, had been locked up and barricaded.

Most of the action was happening the next block over in Emancipation Park, where bullhorns and portable microphones amplified the noise from the crowd. It was difficult to discern the actual words, but the tone was clearly one of anger and concern.

Beyond the park, the occasional pop of gunfire echoed through the air.

It was a tense, uncertain scene.

She wondered if she’d made a mistake coming into town.

•

THE AUTHOR ALMOST
didn’t make it out of the airport.

The taxi concierge had managed to secure a viable phone line, but it had taken several attempts to get through to a hotel. Due to the telecommunications outage, none of the resorts were reachable. With the help of the officers stationed at the airport, the concierge had reached a police station located across the street from Hotel 1829. Using this relay, a room had been held for the author.

There were relatively few lodging options within the city limits, even without a government siege. For many tourists, Charlotte Amalie was a place for passing through. The town hosted about a hundred thousand cruise ship passengers per year, but those visitors came for the day, spent their money in the shops, and, at the signal from their ship—a hooting whistle that could be heard across the entire downtown—returned to their staterooms for the evening. The next day they’d disembark at St. Maarten, St. Barts, or some other cruise ship–friendly destination with a deepwater port and repeat the process all over again.

Another flow of tourist traffic used Charlotte Amalie as a connection hub to neighboring islands. The ferryboats that docked along the waterfront provided transport to St. John and the chain of British Virgin Islands to the north.

Even those tourists planning to spend their vacation on St. Thomas rarely overnighted in Charlotte Amalie. The expansive resorts that dotted the northeast shore provided everything a guest might need or want, from relaxation to water sports and casual to high end dining.

With resort lodging unavailable, the author had been lucky to secure a room in town.

Of course, the Mojito Man had offered to host her at Blackbeard’s Castle, but she had immediately rejected that suggestion.

She recalled his offer with a shudder.

“I would have preferred a mat on the airport floor.”

•

THE AUTHOR LOOKED
up at her temporary home—for who knew how many nights.

As the name suggested, Hotel 1829 had been around for a while. The date was a reference to the year of the building’s original construction.

Painted coral pink with white trim, the multistory structure was built into a steep slope at the bottom of Government Hill, just two doors down from Government House—which presumably explained the presence of the FBI agents on the street.

As a pair of boot-stomping agents jogged past the author and up the hill, the hotel’s front gate opened. A cheery man with a sandy-gray mustache and a matching ponytail issued a hearty welcome.

“You must be the writer. Come on in!”

The Gym Membership

IT TURNED OUT
the hotel’s check-in clerk was also the bartender—or, more accurately, the bartender did double duty as the receptionist. The check-in counter was a wooden table inside the bar.

He was a cheerful bloke. The smile behind the mustache was one of genuine contentment, the kind often found among older expats living in the Caribbean. After years of a regular nine-to-five job up in the States, he had chosen to work where he vacationed, so that every evening was a tropical sundown and every day off offered a potential swim at the beach.

Once the author signed in, he handed her a key and motioned toward a doorway leading through to the building’s inner courtyard.

A younger man with an athletic build brought in a bucket of ice and dumped it into a bin on the serving side of the bar’s long counter.

“I’ll take her up,” he offered, setting aside the bucket.

“Number fifteen,” the mustached man replied, tossing the key. “Your morning workout.”

“I’m on it.”

“It’s not that heavy,” the author said as the second bartender reached for her roll-around suitcase.

Bemused, she followed him into the courtyard—and then she understood the exercise reference.

The building’s open interior scaled up the hillside, with the guest rooms accessed by a daunting array of crisscrossed staircases. A small pool had been built into a narrow landing around the slope’s midpoint. The lower level where she now stood held just a small patio, with most of the space taken up by a splashing waterfall.

“Where’s number fifteen?” the author asked, looking up, her eyes wide.

The young man grinned his response. He threw the suitcase over his shoulders and nimbly leapt up the first set of stairs. She panted to catch up as he summited the second flight. By the third, she’d given up trying to keep pace. When she finally arrived at the top of the fourth, he was waiting to show her into her room.

“No need for a gym membership,” he said with a smile.

•

THE AUTHOR TOOK
a few minutes to freshen up. Then she loaded her camera and computer into her backpack and returned to the bottom level.

The trip down was much easier than the one up, but the hotel’s steep architecture was just as much a marvel on the descent.

She stepped inside the bar and slowly looked around, absorbing the details she’d missed on her first pass through.

While the room now served as a casual entertainment area, it had originally been the building’s main kitchen. A brick fireplace big enough for several people to step inside took up one end of the space. Vintage cooking utensils were displayed above the hearth. Other mementos from that earlier time frame could be seen throughout the bar, with assorted brass pots hanging from the ceiling and plaques and black-and-white photos mounted onto the brick walls.

A heavy wooden table in the center of the room displayed an oversized backgammon set with a marble board and a matching dice-throwing cup. The author paused to study the game pieces. Given the position of the checkers, it looked as if play had been stopped midgame.

She turned to the bar itself, a solid structure of deep mahogany with brass detailing, set her backpack on the floor, and climbed onto the nearest stool.

The bartender leaned over his counter and pumped his mustache, inquisitively waiting for her order.

“Hi, I’ll have a . . .” she started and then groaned at a dreaded itch on her arm. Swatting her elbow, she caught a bloodsucker still attached to her skin.

After only a few hours on the ground in the Caribbean, she’d already accumulated a small rash of mosquito bites.

The bartender eyed the welts. “Wow, they must love you.” He pointed to a pair of bug-spray bottles on a shelf by the cash register. “Help yourself.”

He reached beneath the counter and brought up a pair of citronella coils. He lit one on either side of her barstool and returned to his counter.

“Now, what can I make for you, hon?”

“Whatever you like,” she replied and then added, “Just so long as it’s not a mojito.”