Aground on St. Thomas (13 page)

The Clamshell

THE AUTHOR SLUNG
her backpack over her shoulder and walked onto the hotel’s veranda. In her free hand, she carried a frozen mango daiquiri, a drink she hoped would help soothe the itch from her mosquito bites and erase the tiresome memory of the day’s travels.

The bartender soon followed with the burning citronella coils. He positioned them strategically around her table and returned to his station.

About ten feet up from the street, the porch caught a nice sea breeze. There were plenty of seating options, with two rows of wicker tables and chairs, either pushed up against the building’s coral pink wall or adjacent to the planters that lined the veranda’s front railing.

The author selected a spot and powered up her laptop, but her gaze quickly drifted from the computer to the scenery. Sipping on the cool drink, she gazed out at the surrounding city.

•

LIKE COUNTLESS OTHER
travelers, her previous visits to St. Thomas had been brief, a necessary stopover on her way to other locations. But even from those limited encounters, she knew Charlotte Amalie was different from the typical Caribbean port.

Many cruise ship destinations had become nothing more than cardboard cutouts, façades created for the amusement of day-trippers, with little of substance existing underneath. Each morning, the tourist-catering businesses and related infrastructure were rolled out like a rug, the pieces neatly polished and positioned, an illusion of a colorful Caribbean scene.

The moment the cruise ship’s afternoon whistle began to blow, the entire enterprise was closed down, packed up, and carted away. Umbrella operators cleared the beach, jewelry shops shuttered their glass windows, and tour operators folded up their sidewalk sandwich boards.

Charlotte Amalie had all that superficial dressing, most prominently on display at the vendors’ plaza and in the alley shops, but beneath that commercial shell lay a foundation of culture and history.

Although the nonstop cruise ship schedule had driven out some of its long-term residents, Charlotte Amalie was still a real town where people actually lived. It was a thriving microcosm, with the diversity, economic strata, and inevitable frictions of a modern Caribbean society.

And because the territory’s seat of government provided almost as much local employment and income as the passing cruise ships, the town was far more varied than most in terms of drama and intrigue.

Even with a population of almost twenty thousand, it was a place where everyone knew everyone else. Cupped in the palm of the hill, the actors could wave to one another across the vertical stage.

The city was a clamshell propped open for observation, each property visible to prying eyes—it was just a matter of finding the right angle.

Taking another sip from the ice-cold daiquiri, the author directed her gaze past a looping power line and through a screen of spreading tree branches to the distant shoreline where she could make out the stranded cruise ship and, beside it, the navy vessel.

She suspected the last item had drawn a great deal of scrutiny from the surrounding hillsides that day—along with the government offices located two doors down from her hotel—as the residents of Charlotte Amalie wondered what had happened to their missing Governor.

Caught

TIRED OF STARING
through the window to the vacant public stairway, Cedric began to pace across the flat concrete floor inside the abandoned construction site. Despite the heat baking down on his head and shoulders, he couldn’t help it. The repetitive movement was an instinctive habit, his conditioned response to stress.

And right now, he felt his stress level rising.

Despite his earlier reassurances, he was beginning to have doubts.

They had been holed up in the construction site for over an hour. Surely, by now someone had been sent to look for them. The doppelgänger inside the Governor’s office shouldn’t have fooled the federal agents for more than a minute, maybe two. They couldn’t possibly have fallen for that ploy . . . or could they?

He reached up with a handkerchief to dab a drop of sweat from his chin. On the subsequent downward motion, his hand brushed against the cell phone wedged into his front shirt pocket. He had transferred the device to his shirt a half hour earlier when he slipped out of his suit jacket and folded it neatly on a concrete ledge.

For the duration of their concealment inside the construction site, the aide’s thoughts had repeatedly returned to that phone.

He would be struck by a sudden inspiration on how he might contort his limbs and sneak a text message to Wendy, his contact at the local attorney general’s office.

Every contemplated scheme, however, was quickly squashed, deemed too risky by Cedric’s practical inner voice. He couldn’t risk being seen by the Fixer.

(The Governor, of course, had long since drifted off to sleep. Judging by the volume of the snores emanating from his cubbyhole, he was enjoying quite a snooze.)

The message probably wouldn’t go through anyway, Cedric concluded for the umpteenth time.

But as the minutes dragged by, desperation grew closer to parity with his sense of prudence.

Keeping an eye on Fowler—who, in turn, obliquely glowered back—Cedric gradually expanded the path of his pacing, with each cycle veering farther toward the open window overlooking the public steps.

On his third pass by the window he spied a flash of black clothing.

Finally, he thought with relief. This is it.

Seconds later, heavy boots could be heard tromping up the stairs.

“Get down,” Fowler hissed.

Cedric dove to the ground, as slowly and as ungracefully as possible, sending loose pebbles scattering across the concrete.

Sprawled across the floor, his heart thumping a rapid drumbeat, he listened for the approaching agents. In his right hand, he clutched a pebble he’d grabbed during his overly dramatic fall. He tensed his arm, preparing to toss the stone toward the public stairs if needed to draw the agents to their position.

The skidding tumble had been sufficient.

The boot-generated footfalls deadened to silence, the sound replaced by the heavy pant of individuals who were unaccustomed to physical exertion in the tropical heat.

Through a narrow crack in the south wall, Cedric watched a man in a black T-shirt make hand signals to the rest of his team.

The horsey face looked almost comical behind the dark sunglasses, but to Cedric, Agent Friday’s homely mug was the most welcome sight he could have imagined.

FRIDAY MANEUVERED HIS
team around the residential structure’s outer concrete shell, sending pairs to either side to close off potential exits. Meanwhile, he and the remainder of the agents moved in on the open window where he’d glimpsed the Governor’s aide diving for the floor.

The assistant special agent in charge showed none of the ego-driven zeal that his boss had displayed during the earlier storming of Government House. If anything, Friday’s tone was hesitant, reflecting the serious nature of the arrest.

“Governor,” he said, a slight falter to his voice. “Please come out, sir.” He cleared his throat and added, “With your hands up.”

The Magician

WITH A WHEEZE
and a snort, the man who had been curled up in the kitchen’s shaded cubbyhole rolled out into the full light of the open-roofed room.

Friday and his fellow agents swept into the construction site, swerving around Cedric’s prone body. From all sides of the building, they closed in on their target as he slowly lumbered into a standing position, flapping his shorts and T-shirt, trying to unstick the clothing from his sweaty torso.

Two agents moved in with handcuffs while Friday began the regular litany.

“You have the right to remain silent . . .”

It was at this moment that Cedric realized the Governor’s accomplice had disappeared. The aide pulled himself upright, whipping his head around, but there was no sign of Fowler’s oversized golf shirt and chinos.

He must have slipped out of the construction site while Cedric was lying on the ground.

“How did he get by all the feds?” Cedric wondered, noting that some of the agents had charged in from the opposite end of the house. “The guy must be some sort of magician.”

Despite the missing accomplice, Cedric felt his spirits lift. It was if a great weight had been removed from his chest.

The Governor was in custody. This arrest location was even better than Government House. He would now be led, handcuffed, down the public staircase—in full view of the surrounding city.

Operation Coconut was a success.

Cedric and his fellow conspirators couldn’t have asked for a more inflammatory photo opportunity. If the photogs hadn’t been tipped off to the fed’s activity at this location, he would take a pic with his cell phone.

That was justifiable, even while maintaining his cover as the Governor’s loyal aide. After all, someone had to document the injustice being done to the territory’s leader—or at least that’s what he would say if anyone questioned him.

Cedric picked up his phone from the concrete, where it had landed during his fall. He checked the settings, relieved to find that the electronics still worked.

As he had suspected, the St. Thomas cell tower was blocked. He’d made the right decision to leave his phone in his pocket.

After dusting off his pants, he turned toward the construction site’s exposed kitchen. With the Governor secured in handcuffs, the agents began to step away from the prisoner, giving Cedric a clear view of the big man in the visor, T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers.

He was unable to speak for several seconds. His shock was genuine—not part of any ruse.

Finally, he found his voice.

“That’s not the Governor!”

•

“AINT NO CRIME
here, pasty boys.”

The impostor in the white visor who had been huddled in the kitchen cubbyhole for the past hour and a half dusted off his substantial backside. “I was just taking a nap.”

The federal agents stood on the hot concrete, staring at each other in puzzlement. Friday turned to Cedric, as if seeking clarification.

The aide threw his hands up and shook his head. He still couldn’t believe he’d been duped. He didn’t have any idea when the switch had happened or, worse, where the real governor might be now.

The tension of the past several months now returned tenfold. Exhaling in frustration, Cedric tilted his head skyward. In that moment, his sun-glared eyes picked out a man in a golf shirt and chinos standing in front of a bank of bougainvillea about fifty yards up the hillside.

Cedric’s mouth fell open as he was struck with a second stunning blow.

Agent Friday’s visual question had confirmed the aide’s complicity in the operation.

The Fixer nodded his acknowledgment before slipping around the corner of the nearest dwelling.

Cedric croaked to the agents, trying to alert them to the location of the Governor’s accomplice.

Even as he pointed, he knew the attempt was futile.

By the time they turned to look up at the bougainvillea, the Fixer had vanished.

The Seduction

AGENT HIGHTOWER PACED
back and forth across the Government House lobby, waiting for news from Friday and the agents who had been sent up the hill to search for the Governor.

Hightower was not a patient man. He took a demanding approach to life, his sole purpose being the relentless pursuit of self-gratification. No payout, bonus, or reward could come fast enough.

The Gorilla wasn’t the type to sit around.

He needed a backup plan in case Friday failed to find the Governor.

With a threatening glare at the husky maid in the frilly-necked dress who had given them the lead on the Governor’s whereabouts, Hightower started up the stairs to the second floor.

Perhaps he might find some useful intel in the Governor’s office.

•

HIGHTOWER SCALED THE
steps two at a time. Reaching the top, he turned down the hallway and strode to the open door at the end.

He blustered into the office. His boots thumped across the red throw rugs as he prowled the room, searching for a clue that might shed light on where the Governor was hiding.

His beady eyes briefly roamed the rectangular space before coming to rest on the liquor cabinet pushed against the side wall beside the backgammon table.

Hightower had no interest in the checkers placed at seemingly random locations across the board’s painted points. He’d never had time for board games.

It was the cabinet that soaked up his full attention—more specifically, the short glass sitting on its surface and the sizeable volume of dark rum that had been poured inside.

He blinked, trying to remember. He was sure the glass hadn’t been there before . . . but then, he’d been focused on the impostor standing on the balcony. Perhaps he’d missed it.

His nose sucked in the liquor’s rich scent—it was one of his favorite brands. He could gauge the make and year almost by sight.

It was a familiar sidekick, one that he had aggressively tried to lose.

But oh, how he’d missed it. He’d missed it every day of the past six months of sobriety.

He crossed to the credenza and stared down at his old demon friend.

It was almost as if someone had left it there especially for him.

Of course, that was silly, he told himself. He should just turn around and walk away.

The smell was stronger now, wafting up from the glass like a seductive siren. The temptation was too strong to resist—even for a man with the strength of a Gorilla.

Hightower’s hand shook as he reached for the drink. His fingers wrapped around the glass, pressuring the surface with his grip.

His eyes closed as he brought the glass to his lips, tilted it back, and tossed the rum down his throat.

The effect was almost instantaneous. His head spun as the high-proof alcohol hit his bloodstream—and the office search soon became a ransacking.