Aground on St. Thomas (9 page)

Washington, DC

Buster

THE US ATTORNEY
general sat in a top-floor office cluttered with stacks of legal files and document-laden banker’s boxes, pensively staring at a collection of papers spread across his desk.

He was a wolfish man with a lawyer’s worn-down look. Worry lines had aged his once-boyish face. A pair of smudged eyeglasses sat haphazardly on his nose, the lenses needed to correct the vision that Harvard Law School and fifteen years at an ultracompetitive Manhattan law firm had irreparably damaged. While the speckled gray of middle age made some men more attractive, his color change only lent an air of frazzled exhaustion.

It was late morning in the nation’s capital, but the country’s chief law enforcement officer had been up half the night. The lack of sleep—along with the accumulated wear from several decades’ worth of nocturnal deprivation—had taken their toll.

He reached for a bottle of antacid tablets, tilted the container to knock the last pink squares out into his palm, and popped them into his mouth like candy. The tablets crunched between his teeth, disintegrating into a thick powder that he swallowed without water. The chalky taste was no longer bitter or off-putting. Just another part of his daily routine.

The potent combination of stress, caffeine, and aspirin had worn his stomach lining to the point of constant irritation. The condition was exacerbated by his nightly relief, a cocktail—or more typically, cocktails—at the bar around the corner from his DC apartment.

The downtown digs had originally been meant as temporary housing, to use when work kept him too late to bother with driving home. The apartment had quickly become his permanent residence.

His wife and dog lived in the family’s townhouse in Old Town Alexandria. The wife had long since given up on the marital relationship. She accompanied her husband to obligatory work functions and social events; otherwise, the two rarely saw or spoke to one another.

A picture of the happy golden retriever was propped on the corner of the AG’s desk, facing his chair for easy viewing. There were no mementos of the wife.

The AG was the epitome of professional success. His career had been lauded by colleagues, fellow alumni, and myriad bar associations, but he rarely felt any satisfaction in his achievements or that his life’s sacrifices had been worthwhile.

A few months down the road—perhaps sooner, given the mess that his department had just created down south—someone else would take over this office.

After that, he doubted anyone would remember that he was ever here.

•

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
swallowed the last chalky bits of antacid and chased the pink paste down with a gulp of stale coffee.

He flipped over one of the top sheets of paper on his desk, cursed under his breath, and shifted his gaze to the framed photo of the dog.

The room was nicely furnished, fitting for his rank, but the décor was hidden behind the boxes and piles of paper, giving it a closed-in feel.

The AG was one generation removed from the modern trend of paperless record-keeping. While he was comfortable with a computer and at ease with the various forms of tablet technology, he still preferred to read a document on printed paper. He wanted to write notes in the margins, highlight important words and passages in the text, or, if the need arose, crumple the sheet up and throw it across the room.

When he walked into the tidy offices of his junior attorneys, he couldn’t help but feel suspicious. How could they work in places that were so clean? Where was the evidence of their diligence?

When these same attorneys handed him their legal briefs, he often asked to see their background notes. He still found it unconscionable when they handed him a tiny jump stick instead of a Redweld crammed with dog-eared court cases. The worst offense, of course, happened at the end of each day as they walked toward the elevator, carrying nothing but a thin briefcase and a laptop computer.

He still lugged a banker’s box home each night.

Of course, in times like these, with his career on the line and an increasingly unstable situation unfolding in the Caribbean territory his department had decided to seize, he just slept in his office.

The AG shivered, pulling on a cardigan he kept draped over the back of his chair.

An electronic wall setting allowed him to control the room’s temperature, but it seemed he could never get comfortable. It was always either too hot or too cold.

As the air-conditioning unit cycled on, blowing frigid air down onto his desk, he thought about the events unfolding a thousand miles to the south on humid St. Thomas.

“We’ve really stepped our foot in it, Buster,” the attorney general muttered to the dog’s flat photo image.

The Green Light

THE US ATTORNEY
general rubbed his temples as he reflected on the circumstances that had brought about the day’s arrests on St. Thomas.

Attempted arrests
, he corrected. The Governor and two senators were still missing.

The case had come up through the department’s Virgin Islands division, championed by the woman who led the branch office in Charlotte Amalie. Wendy the Wunderkind—that’s what the AG called her. She was one of his best and brightest recruits, an attorney who brimmed with the ambition that had all but drained from his being.

Despite Wendy’s stellar reputation and the merits of the case, the AG had shied away from the USVI corruption allegations for months—and for good reason, he could almost hear the dog’s picture reminding him.

But Wendy had persisted.

He’d finally been convinced by the analogies to the situation in the Turks and Caicos. Wendy had assisted the British government in their case against the T&C’s former premier, whom Interpol had tracked down to a beach in Rio. The fugitive politician had been extradited back to his homeland to stand trial on corruption charges. The suit involved bribes worth millions of dollars, some paid by US nationals, made in exchange for discounted purchase prices and facilitated development clearance for publicly owned land.

By all accounts, the premier had changed, seemingly overnight, from a man of relatively modest means to a lavish millionaire playboy. His rapid wealth accumulation had occurred in conjunction with his election to the territory’s highest elected office. Not long after taking the position, he began traveling the world in private jets and holding extravagant parties for movie stars and other celebrities. To top it off, he built a jaw-dropping private estate on one of the island’s most pristine and sought-after beachfront locations.

Despite the circumstantial evidence of the T&C premier’s flamboyant lifestyle, it was the testimony of the man’s ex-wife that dealt the fatal blow. As payback for her husband’s many infidelities, the glamorous American model had provided crucial evidence to the British Parliament. The investigating committee subsequently issued a damning corruption report on the premier.

Rather than face a full inquiry, the premier fled the country. A British caretaker governor was put in place to clean up the territory’s rampant corruption and supervise new elections.

All in all, the process of takeover and release went smoothly. The transition was completed in just under three years. The Turks and Caicos reformation was now touted as an example for other countries with pesky post-Colonial Caribbean holdings.

Of course, the premier’s decision to flee his post had facilitated the procedure. There had been a few rough patches during the caretaker governor’s rule, but the hastening of new elections had muted those criticisms.

With this precedent in place, the US attorney general had faced a difficult and pressing question.

If the technique had worked so well for the British territory, why not use it in the US Virgin Islands?

•

THE CASE AGAINST
the USVI Governor and the Legislative Assembly came together quickly. The parallels with the situation in the Turks and Caicos were too numerous to be ignored. While the Governor was not as showy with his allegedly ill-gotten wealth, the bribery allegations were nearly identical in substance and scope.

The attorney general had worried endlessly over the matter. An indictment of the entire USVI government would look bad for his president, who had numerous ties to the islands, but—as Wendy had pointedly reminded him only the day before—the president was halfway through his second term in office. The AG had his own reputation to think about.

Over the past several months, the president’s administration had been plagued by an endless stream of leaks. The released information had included sensitive details about several of the justice department’s ongoing investigations.

If the AG declined to prosecute the USVI Governor and the Washington press corps found out, he would be in for a public grilling of epic proportions.

In the end, he felt he had no choice.

The portfolio of evidence was irrefutable. The primary witness was one of the Governor’s closest aides. The whistleblower had provided voluminous testimony that was buttressed by a slew of incriminating documents. It was one of the most ironclad indictments against a politician the department had ever handled.

And, of course, they couldn’t give the British an excuse to call their American cousins complacent.

After a vigorous evaluation and several tense discussions with the president, the AG had reluctantly given the action a green light.

It was a decision he already regretted.

But once started, the process could not easily be undone.

•

FROM THE GET-GO,
the prosecution was fraught with difficulties. There was no budget for a full-scale military action. The arrests would have to be handled by the FBI, using the utmost discretion and respect for the affected islanders. A small number of National Guard troops had been allocated to provide support, but they had been told they were unlikely to see any action and that they were essentially going on a tropical vacation.

Wendy had met up with the FBI team when the navy vessel docked at the cruise ship pier earlier that morning. As the justice department liaison, she had been on-site ever since, monitoring events.

So far, her reports had not brought good news.

Snippets of their phone conversations, the last one ended moments before, replayed in the attorney general’s head.

“It looks like two senators managed to escape from the Legislature Building, Bobo and Sanchez.”

The AG had stroked his chin, pondering. “Well, that’s not so bad. They were low on our list of priorities anyway.”

The next call had caused him to fluster.

“A couple of local DJs are stirring things up with their on-air commentary. I’m afraid they’re calling this a federal invasion.”

“I thought we had clearance to shut down all local broadcasts while the feds were moving in. Why are they still on the air? KRAT? What kind of a radio station goes by the call letters of a rodent?”

The third report generated stomach-churning consternation.

“Hightower arrested the wrong governor!? How did that happen? Doesn’t he know what the man looks like?”

The last call, he had received with exhausted resignation.

“A flight from Miami just landed? How did they get clearance to take off from Florida? Should you send them back? No, that’ll get too complicated. Let the people off the plane, but tell them the city’s been shut down. Make them register their whereabouts. We’ve got bigger problems to deal with.”

The mental recap caused the AG to dig divots into the side of his head.

He directed his next comment to the framed photo of the retriever.

“The Brits would never have called it Operation Coconut.”

Groaning, he pulled open a desk drawer and broke the seal on a fresh bottle of pink tablets.

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

A Bumpy Landing

OF THE 146
passengers on board the Miami flight as it landed on the bumpy runway at the St. Thomas airport, no one was happier to see the approaching ground than the woman in seat 26E.

The author leaned forward at the welcome screech of brakes, relieved beyond words as she felt the forceful drag of the upturned wing flaps.

The two-and-a-half-hour flight from Miami had stretched on interminably. At one point, she had unbuckled, squeezed around the Mojito Man, staggered up the aisle, and shut herself inside the bathroom, just to have a few minutes respite from his ongoing chatter.

Earphones were no use. There was no setting loud enough to drown out his persistent commentary, which vacillated among three main topics: the graphic details of his painful illness, the gruesome means he might use to hasten his impending death, and—by far the most disturbing—his attempts to lure the writer into a romantic rendezvous.

“Why don’t you join me for dinner tonight on St. Thomas? I’ll take you somewhere nice.”

The woman fixed a blank expression on her face, hoping he would think she hadn’t heard the question—to no avail.

“I’ll pay,” he insisted, undeterred. “I’ve got plenty of money and just a few weeks left to live.” He paused for a mojito-scented burp. “No point in holding back now. I can’t take it with me.”

He waited through only a short silence before trying another tack.

“I’ve booked a room at Blackbeard’s Castle. It’s a nice place up on a hill. Great views. You could stay with me for a while. Come on, what do you say?”

She pulled the earphones from her head.

“I’m headed to St. John,” she replied tersely. It wasn’t the first time she had tried to convey this information. The geographical distance and intervening span of water between the two islands appeared not to faze him.

“How about dinner, eh? I’ll take you to the nicest restaurant on St. Thomas. I’ve got wads of cash to spend, and not much time to do it in.”

He paused, a faraway look in his sunken gray eyes, but after constant repetition, the accompanying phrase had lost all dramatic effect.

“Within a few weeks, I’ll be dead.”

•

“UH, WELL, BYE-BYE,
then,” the author said to her seatmate as she hurried down the rollaway steps that had been pushed next to the plane’s side door.

She sprinted across the tarmac to the terminal, her backpack swinging from her shoulders, her suitcase bumping wildly across the asphalt.

A frail voice called after her.

“Come see me at Blackbeard’s!”

Her muttered reply was directed at the pavement.

“Not on your life, buddy.”

•

A QUICK DEPARTURE
for the St. John ferry, however, was not to be.

Uniformed policemen blocked the terminal entrance. One of them held up a stern hand, halting the author at the doorway.

“St. Thomas is on lockdown. You need to stop here and register.”

“Excuse me. What?”

“The US government has temporarily taken control of the island.”

“What?” she asked again, this time in stunned disbelief.

“Which hotel are you staying at?” he asked, clearly wishing to avoid another “what.” “We can only allow you to go directly to your hotel, nothing more.”

“But I’m staying on St. John,” she said, a lump growing in her stomach.

“No ferries are leaving today, miss. Talk to the woman organizing the taxis. She can get you a room in Charlotte Amalie.”

Woefully, the author walked outside to the taxi stand.

“Where are you headed?” the matron asked, tapping a pencil against her clipboard.

“Anywhere but Blackbeard’s Castle,” she replied with a groan.

•

TWENTY MINUTES LATER,
the author watched in despair as the Mojito Man joined her in the line of people waiting for a local taxi. The drivers wouldn’t leave the airport until they had accumulated five or six passengers who were heading into the city.

The midmorning sun beat down like a hammer, as relentless as her sickly suitor.

The Bishop breezed past the taxi line, following a private driver to a waiting car. The author stared numbly at the swishing brown cassock, trying to ignore her traveling companion’s jubilant greeting.

“Hey there, partner. You look like you could use a drink!”