Aground on St. Thomas (15 page)

Blackbeard’s Castle

AGENT FRIDAY WATCHED
the Bishop shut the parsonage gate and lock it behind the last members of team yellow.

Friday was getting an odd vibe from the religious man. There was something strange about the Bishop’s demeanor—something off about the whole parsonage experience—but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Shrugging, he pulled out his map and assessed the possible routes to Blackbeard’s Castle, the location of the Governor’s reported sighting. He slid his finger toward the upper north side of Charlotte Amalie. The resort was located almost directly above him at the top of the nearest hill.

There were two public staircases that would take him to the spot. He chose the one farthest from Government House—and Agent Hightower.

•

FRIDAY LED TEAM
yellow down the one-way street to the stairway entrance for the 99 Steps.

The turnoff was marked by a colorful signpost highlighting the direction to various tourist destinations, with some labels pointing toward the lower downtown area and others indicating up the hill.

Friday picked out the upward arrow for Blackbeard’s Castle, uncomfortably aware that he was being watched from Hotel 1829, the property located on the opposite side of the staircase. A woman with a 35mm camera leaned over the hotel’s veranda railing, snapping shots of the black-clad agents.

Remembering the attorney general’s cautionary instructions, Friday cupped the brim of his hat, shielding his face from the lens.

Operation Coconut was meant to be a low-key operation, a government takeover with minimal visual impact. The sooner they captured the Governor and brought him into custody, the better.

The situation had the potential to turn into a media circus.

•

NOT WISHING TO
provide any more photo opportunities, Friday steered his crew up the staircase.

Like many of Charlotte Amalie’s slanted public walkways, the 99 Steps were formed out of bricks that had been transported from Europe as ship ballast, a balancing weight stored in the hull during transatlantic journeys. When used as staircase building materials, the bricks were positioned on edge and surrounded by a thick layer of mortar. Each step provided a minimal increase in elevation, a scheme designed to facilitate their use by the donkeys that once carried loads up the hill.

Three hundred years of heavy traffic had carved dipping ruts into the stairs; every square edge had been rounded from wear. Under dry conditions, the walkway was relatively easy to navigate; after a soaking downpour, the footing became treacherous.

Friday and team yellow hiked the stairs at a trot, passing a thick hedge of bougainvillea that formed an impenetrable barrier against the walkway’s east side. On the opposite flank, the hotel rose with the steps, a terracing of coral pink structures behind a high concrete wall.

Each step in elevation provided a clearer view of the harbor, but Friday and his team didn’t stop to look behind them. Their black clothing was quickly soaked with sweat.

Midway up the walk, palm trees took over the landscaping and the hotel gave way to other historic homes. They were soon even with the abandoned construction site where the second Governor impostor had been discovered.

Friday tried not to think about that fiasco as the team reached another multipronged signpost at the top of the stairs. He hoped they weren’t being led on a similarly fruitless chase, but given the vagueness of the reported sighting, he remained skeptical.

A colored arrow pointed the way to their destination. The agents jogged up a curving road past a few more private residences. Then the hotel at the crest of the hill came into view.

Friday motioned for his team to drop into stealth mode as they approached the edge of the property.

He scanned the lower perimeter, pondering the best strategy to flush out the Governor.

•

BLACKBEARD’S CASTLE ENCOMPASSED
several acres, much of it on a vertical slope.

A line of steps led up from the road, cutting into the hillside beside a rolling lawn. Midway up the grade, in the center of the grassy slope, stood a fountain featuring a ring of metal statues.

The fountain’s spigots had been turned off, likely to conserve water, but the lack of spray did nothing to diminish the grace of the sculptures. Three young West Indian women stood in a triangle, each facing outward, poised as if searching through a wind-whipped night. One lifted a lamp, the next a torch, and the last a cutlass. The bronze figures were so lifelike, it was easy to imagine that they were on the verge of speaking, calling out the name of the person or object they so desperately sought.

Friday and his agents crept up the adjacent stairs, glancing only briefly at the fountain, their focus trained on the hotel above.

At the top of the lawn, a formidable concrete wall with spiked iron bars surrounded the main guest area. An arched entrance with a metal gate stood off to one side. Each half of the gate incorporated the image of a tower accompanied by the initials
BC
.

Closely followed by his team, Friday eased himself through the gate’s open left-hand door. Yet another flight of steps rose from the entrance, this one wiggling toward the hilltop.

The switchbacks blocked the view of the upper horizon until the last rise revealed the hotel’s signature landmark, the Skytsborg lookout tower, used during Colonial days to monitor the harbor and the surrounding sea for marauding pirates intent on invading Charlotte Amalie.

•

ST. THOMAS HAD
a rather complicated relationship with pirates. Over the years, the swashbuckling sailors had been welcomed by some Danish governors, shunned by others, and, most recently, exploited as fodder for day-tripper tours.

Despite all this history—and the name attached to the hilltop property—it was unlikely that Blackbeard himself ever visited St. Thomas.

Regardless, it was easy to imagine the famous buccaneer hanging out at the entertainment area that surrounded the lookout tower.

A swimming pool abutted the tower’s base and ran parallel to an open-air pavilion that housed an expansive bar. The elevated view provided a unique perspective of the city, the surrounding water, and the smaller islands that bumped up against the south shoreline. It was a great place to suck down rum, revel in the scenery, and watch the cruise ships navigate the harbor’s narrow channels.

If that wasn’t enough to inspire a person’s pirate fantasies, statues of the Caribbean’s most notorious sea criminals were scattered around the bar, the pool, a side yard, a gift shop, and the various guest room bungalows. The life-sized statues were as convincingly real as the trio of women in the fountain on the lawn below. Only close examination in the direct sunlight revealed the menacing scowls to be fixed in place and not alive.

In large part due to the pirate collection, Blackbeard’s was a prime stop on the day-tripper circuit. On a regular port day, the tower and the surrounding hotel would be packed with visiting cruise ship passengers. The spiraling ladder-like staircase inside the tower was a bottleneck of aspiring lookers, with two-directional traffic vying for space within the single-width passage.

Costumed locals added flesh-and-blood characters to the statue display. Kitted out in hats, blousy shirts, pantaloons, and boots, the hired actors posed for pictures, handed out brochures, and provided the occasional pirate anecdote—researched or made up: either way, it enthralled the guests.

But all that action had been shuttered for the day.

As agent Friday and team yellow reached the top of the last staircase and advanced on the swimming pool, none of the regular bustle was in evidence.

The pavilion was quiet, occupied only by a bartender cleaning glassware. The tower was locked, and the pirate imitators had been sent home.

The lawn chairs spread across the flat side yard next to the pool were empty—save one, occupied by a lone guest who had booked all of the hotel’s rooms for the next six weeks.

A Maligned Mojito

BLACKBEARD’S MOST RECENT
arrival lay snoozing fitfully beneath a layer of wet towels that he had draped over his body to block whatever UV rays might penetrate through the sky’s increasing cloud cover.

A glass with melting ice cubes rested on the grass at his feet. The consumed contents had represented the bartender’s best effort at a mojito—minus the muddled mint leaves, which were currently unavailable.

The bartender glanced across the pavilion at the sleeping man and smiled at the empty glass. The improvised concoction had finally won the guest’s approval—not bad for a drink that had received negative reviews before the ingredients were even mixed.

•

“NOPE. NO WAY,
man. I’m telling you, that is not a mojito.”

“Sorry, pal. Best we can do under the circumstances. Even if I could make it to the grocery store, it’d be closed by now. Locked up tight, and a guy inside with a gun ready to shoot first and ask questions later. Not worth the risk. How about we swing it to a rum punch?”

“I’m a dying man, and the best you can offer me is rum punch?”

With a sigh, the bartender had reached for a top shelf and pulled down a bottle of aged overproof rum that was typically only used for special customers.

If ever there was an occasion to pour the gold standard, this was it.

“Trust me, mate,” he’d said as he measured out a large dose and added it to the drink. “This one might just push you right on over to the other side.”

•

WHETHER THE FORTIFIED
rum drink had permanently relieved the Mojito Man of his earthly pain was still an open question.

The body beneath the pile of wet towels didn’t move as Agent Friday and his team silently circled the pool to the grassy side yard, looking for their target.

The man on the lawn chair wasn’t near large enough to be the Governor, but there was no one else in sight, the bartender having ducked beneath his counter when the agents cleared the top of the stairs.

Friday couldn’t help but sigh at the relaxing scene. He would have liked nothing more than to jump into the pool and cool off—were it not for the matter of cleaning up the mess of Operation Coconut.

“If I ever get done with this case, I’m taking a vacation.”

The faint mutter caused the hotel guest to wake with a start. Wet towels tumbled to the grass, revealing a pale human form in a pair of neon-colored swimming trunks. The advanced state of his illness was impossible to ignore.

Friday stepped back, instinctively repulsed. Trying to regain his composure, he directed his gaze to the ground beside the lawn chair, avoiding the skeletal face and wasted limbs.

“Sir, have you seen anyone else up here today?”

The man slowly sat up in the chair, gumming his dry mouth. With difficulty, he dropped his bedsore-ridden feet to the grass. He cupped a hand across his forehead, shielding his eyes. Blinking blearily, he stared up at the agents.

“Well, I’ve just seen you, haven’t I? Hey, they called off the pirate party today. You boys can head to the beach. What do you say we all go? The pool is nice, but I’m hankering for some salt water.”

He shifted his weight to try to stand, but Friday quashed his momentum with a slight tap on the shoulder.

“This is a serious matter, sir. We’re searching for the Governor. He escaped arrest earlier this morning. We received word he’s hiding up here at Blackbeard’s.”

The remaining towels went flying as the man tossed them into the air.

“Well, let’s take a look, shall we? He must be around here somewhere. Now, where’d he go? Maybe we should look in the tower.”

Friday frowned sternly. He didn’t want to waste time dragging this poor soul down all the steps he and his team had just hiked up. But if the fellow had sent in a false report on the Governor’s whereabouts, the agent would have no choice.

“Sir, do you have some clothes nearby? You’re going to have to come with us.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, there, G-man. You’ve got this all wrong. I don’t know nothing about no governor. I’ve just been sitting up here relax-inating. I came here to die, man.”

His face took on a pathetic, pitiful expression—which vanished when he noticed the empty glass at his feet.

He peered up at Friday and asked hopefully, “Do you think you can you get me a mojito?”

•

THE HOTEL MANAGER
arrived on the lawn to provide an alibi for his guest. He’d been summoned by the bartender, who had slipped out of the pavilion while Friday suffered through a lengthy mojito monologue.

A survey of the property turned up no evidence the Governor had been there that morning. Friday was about to radio back to Government House to ask for more information about the source who had called in the reported sighting, when he noticed a color television mounted over the pavilion’s bar.

The sound had been muted, but the picture on the satellite feed was tuned to one of the main news channels from the United States. Images of the Legislature Building and downtown Charlotte Amalie flashed across the screen, followed by footage of National Guard troops marching in formation down the walkway leading into town from the cruise ship dock.

In another clip, troops were shown jogging past a closed Prada store and a row of mega-million-dollar yachts. The occupants of the last category stood on their decks, gaping and snapping shots with their cell phones.

The bartender had returned to his station. Seeing Friday’s interest, he turned up the set’s volume, releasing a thunderous sound of combat boots thumping across the wooden boardwalk that wound through the shopping area.

Friday sputtered, incredulous. Spinning around, he turned to stare down at the harbor.

“Who let the Guard guys loose?”