The Bone Hunters (22 page)

29 May

Casa Grande Brugg

Dunmore Town

North Eleuthera

Bahamas

Macaulay watched as the tour group led by Brugg came back down the main staircase and began to disperse into the great hall. The duchess of Lancaster separated from her husband and came toward him.

“Where is Winifred?” she asked with a worried tone, looking around for her Yorkshire terrier.

“She needed to relieve herself,” said Macaulay with a reassuring grin. “It's raining quite hard, so I asked one of the staff to take her for a walk on the covered terrace.”

“Excellent,” she said. “I'll be back to pick her up as soon as we finish dinner. I am certain that she will wish to repay your kindness with a special gratuity.”

“Thank her for me, Your Grace,” he said, glancing back up the empty staircase and wondering why Lexy had not returned with the others.

As the orchestra began to play a Strauss waltz, Varna led Juwan by the hand into the center of the great hall. The crowd of guests parted to let them through. They had practiced the dance together for two weeks.

When they reached the dance floor, Juwan felt Varna's
right arm reach around behind his back. Juwan shut his eyes. As the waltz music reached the precise moment, Varna began leading him in ever-widening circles across the open floor. Juwan kept his eyes closed, waiting for the inevitable laughter that would end the dance as well as the life of the man or woman who did it.

Macaulay suddenly heard the heavy splatter of rain on flagstone and glanced over to see the front door opening. Three men strode quickly into the foyer under wide umbrellas and stopped briefly to remove their raincoats.

From photographs Barnaby had shown him in New York, Macaulay recognized two of them as Zhou Shen Wui and his son, Li. Macaulay turned away from the bar toward the cases of mixer as they strode past his serving station to the entrance to the great hall. The Chinese stopped when they got to the edge of the dance floor and saw the two men dancing.

Li Shen Wui remembered being at a circus in Shanghai as a boy where he had seen a gigantic trained bear dancing with a midget. He was unable to stifle a laugh. Juwan's ears pricked up at the thin cackling sound and he opened his eyes to see the group of Chinese standing at the entrance. One of them was grinning at him like a spotted hyena.

Zhou Shen Wui issued a stern, one-word rebuke and Li regained his composure as Juwan stopped dancing and came toward them. From the look on Brugg's face, Macaulay thought that the big man was going to murder the younger Chinese in front of the whole crowd. As he was about to reach him, his dancing partner sped ahead and began shaking the younger Chinese man's hand.

“I'm Varna. Welcome to Casa Grande Brugg,” he said with an inviting smile.

Li found himself drawn to the younger man immediately. They were the same physical type, short, muscular, with swimmers' bodies, one of a piece, although Varna had a Latin flavor to his handsome pug-nosed face and Li a Chinese caste.

The rest of the couples began to dance and the tension at the edge of the floor slowly ebbed. The duke and duchess of Lancaster stopped on their way to the buffet and were introduced to Zhou and his son.

“I have always adored the Chinese,” said the duchess. “When we lived in Hong Kong, our children's school had two Chinese cleaning people.”

Macaulay took advantage of the lull to grab one of the metal serving trays filled with premixed drinks from a waitress. Stepping past the serving station, he headed up the main staircase alone.

There was no one in the broad hallway on the second floor and he put down the tray. Most of the doors of the rooms stood open. He poked his head into all of them, but the rooms were empty. Two doors were locked, but they yielded easily to his jury-rigged bump key. They were entertainment rooms and empty too.

The third floor reflected the same pattern, mostly open doorways and brightly lit parlors, along with a billiard room and a small movie theater. He was about to head up the staircase to the fourth floor when he noticed a small side corridor leading down a dark passageway. The first door he came to was closed. He stood outside it for a moment and listened.

In the distance, he thought he heard a police siren, nothing from inside the room. He turned the handle, but it was locked. He quietly inserted the bump key in the hole and was about to turn it when he heard a voice from beyond the door. The voice wasn't talking. The sound it made was more like a moaning wail followed by a low howl of outrage.

He turned the bump key, but this time it wouldn't engage. He kept twisting it against the locking pins to move the cylinder, but they didn't budge. When he turned it even harder, the blade of the fillet knife snapped off. From beyond the door, the first voice was replaced by a second one, this one deeper, issuing a snort of laughter.

Macaulay took three steps back to the opposite wall and then hurled his right shoulder into the spot where the door lock met the jamb. It splintered and gave way. A moment later he was in the room.

The space was filled with the vibration noise of a compressor. As he glanced down, his eyes registered the four-foot-square opening in the floor. Beyond it were standing shelves full of canned goods and a big commercial refrigerator along the far wall. In between them, a man was standing with his back to the door.

He had removed his uniform coat, and his trousers were down around his shoes. Taking a step forward, Macaulay saw there was a woman pinned to the table. She was bent forward and the man was behind her holding a stiletto to her throat. Lexy was still wearing her long black cocktail dress. The man was trying to raise the hem above her thighs with his free hand.

Hearing the door splinter, the man turned away from
her and brought the stiletto around to face Macaulay in a smooth underhand motion. Macaulay was about to launch himself across the room when he saw Lexy slide free from the table. Still in a low crouch, she turned and drove her shoulder into the man's back.

The man stumbled toward him, his eyes staring down at the hole in the floor with abject terror, unable to free himself from the pants shackling his ankles above his two-toned black-and-white shoes. With short stutter steps, he lost his balance and scuttled to the opening, trying desperately to stop.

“Mère de Dieu,”
Bardot cried as he tiptoed over the edge and dropped straight down.

Macaulay stepped forward in time to see him land in a huge tank of standing water. It looked as though fish were swimming in it. A few moments later, the surface of the water was alive and churning from the man's thrashing arms and legs.

Lexy came into Macaulay's arms. They held each other as the man's single piercing scream died away and was replaced by the noise of the compressor.

“Sorry I couldn't get here sooner,” said Macaulay as the water beneath them turned pink and then bright red.

•   •   •

“Allow me to introduce my son, Li Shen Wui, and Colonel Mu,” said Zhou as the three Chinese settled into the couches flanking the fireplace in Juwan's first-floor study. “I understand that you have located the people we have been searching for.”

Li looked up at the oil painting above the marble mantelpiece. It was a life-size rendering of a woman who looked like Juwan Brugg and appeared to be wearing a
tent. He stifled another urge to laugh as Juwan stood beneath it.

“I only told Sir Henry to report to you that I believe the three people you are seeking are here in Dunmore Town,” he said. “We expect them to be enjoying my hospitality quite soon. One of their friends is already providing some valuable information about their activities as we speak.”

“I am very gratified by your efforts, Mr. Brugg,” said Zhou. “Once you turn them over to me, you will be rewarded well beyond the terms of the original finder's fee.”

“What makes them worth five hundred thousand dollars?” asked Juwan.

Zhou gazed up and said, “Two of them are archaeologists who we are hoping to honor with a lifetime achievement award.”

Juwan smiled down at him benevolently. “And that is why you are accompanied by a commando team?”

“One can never be confident about one's safety in this dangerous world.”

“You should know that the people you are seeking have been diving on an old shipwreck off the Devil's Backbone,” he said. “I assume that this has nothing to do with your plans to honor them.”

“Of course, we are interested in all their achievements.”

It was Juwan's turn to laugh. “Then we will keep that information to ourselves until you decide to share your real interest with me,” he said, looking up to see Black Mamba silently enter the study through the French doors leading from the terrace.

He watched as she gave him a thumbs-down.

“Gentlemen, I would like to introduce my mother,” said Juwan.

•   •   •

Bob Littlefrost stood guard outside the door after they gathered to plan their next moves in the servants' bathroom off the kitchen. While Lexy changed back into her catering uniform in one of the stalls, Macaulay told Barnaby and Mike McGandy about the confrontation with Brugg's guard commander and the fight leading to his death.

“We stopped on the second floor to look at the aquarium,” said Macaulay. “The circulation system had already cleared the water of any trace of blood. If there was anything left of him, we didn't see it through the glass.”

Lexy emerged from the stall to tell them what she had seen of the guard barracks from the balcony, including the body of the naked man being dumped in the back of one of the guard vehicles.

“You're sure it wasn't Carlos?” asked Barnaby.

“He was too big,” she said. “But if he was imprisoned there, it probably means that Carlos is there too.”

“You said the rear entrance is guarded?” asked McGandy.

“Two of them,” said Lexy.

“We're going to need a diversion,” said Macaulay.

“I have some thoughts on that,” said Barnaby.

“Let's hear them.”

“I need to find a way to lure all the bird saviors down to Brugg's mortuary in the cellar and to do it without leaving my fingerprints,” said Barnaby. “We obviously need to get out of here without a trace so Mr. Littlefrost isn't implicated.”

“To my knowledge, only Bardot discovered that we were here,” said Lexy.

“Unless he has already shared that information with Brugg and his other lieutenants,” said Macaulay.

“I don't think he had the time,” said Lexy with an involuntary shudder.

“We have to go forward on that assumption,” said Barnaby, heading for the door. “Make your preparations for getting across the compound to the guard barracks to release Carlos. I'll focus on the diversion. If I can make it work, how will I send a signal to you across the compound?”

Macaulay remembered the power utility room off the passageway from the kitchen. He told Barnaby what it contained and where to find it.

“I already unlocked the door,” said Macaulay. “After you start the diversion, you'll need to disable it somehow.”

“I know what to do,” said Barnaby. “I'm off the grid with my own power system back in Cambridge.”

Macaulay handed Bardot's uniform coat and hat to Mike McGandy.

“This might give you some protective coloring,” he said.

“I already have the right coloring,” said McGandy with a grin.

29 May

Casa Grande Brugg

Dunmore Town

North Eleuthera

Bahamas

A roaring sound woke him. It took Carlos a few seconds to realize it was the sound of rain pounding on a tin roof. The only light in the chamber came from the flickering candles she had set at the head and foot of the wooden slab.

He remembered where he was and what she had done to him. He could faintly hear what sounded like a live band or an orchestra carried on the rising wind. He turned his head to the side to release a mouthful of bile.

He knew he was done. When she returned to work on him again, he would tell her everything he knew and more. After watching them carry out the dead man with the basketball strapped to his scrotum, he had reached the breaking point. Dying would be a welcome release.

He felt a deep, agonizing ache inside from what she had accomplished with the mallet. It felt as if he had broken glass in his stomach. Each time he tried to move, he felt the grinding of his cracked ribs.

His hands were still on fire from the missing fingernails and he could no longer move his feet or his mouth.
He wondered if he would even be able to speak well enough to tell her the location of the wreck and answer the other questions she had asked.

Inside his head, everything was twisted and distorted, images of memory combined with dazzling colors, purple and red and shimmering gold. Carlos heard a grating noise near the stone staircase and nearly cried out at the thought she was back to resume her work, all the while peering down at him as if he were her wayward child. Then he realized it was a shutter banging in the wind. He waited to die.

•   •   •

The rain was coming sideways as Macaulay and McGandy went out through the kitchen door onto the covered terrace. They were still in their catering clothes. McGandy was carrying Colonel Bardot's uniform coat and hat in an empty plastic food container.

Two uniformed security guards carrying light submachine guns stepped out of the rainy darkness and intercepted them as they began to move across the terrace to the parking lot. One of them poked a flashlight in their faces.

“You can't leave the house until the party is over,” he said. “Go back inside.”

“Fine,” said Mike McGandy with irritation in his voice as he leaned closer to read the name tag on the guard's uniform coat. “I will tell Mr. Brugg that Corporal LePage denied us access to the catering truck to prepare more shrimp and scallops for him and his mother.”

The guard stared down at the plastic food container and shrugged.

“You can go,” he said, leading the other guard back under the protective roof of the terrace.

“We have to be in position to move when Barnaby springs the diversion,” said Macaulay as they passed the catering truck.

Lexy had told them about the gravel path that connected the two buildings but that it was patrolled. They had to reach the guardhouse barracks without being spotted again. They would have no explanation if found on the other side of the compound.

The only option was to go straight across through the junglelike grounds. Macaulay had not anticipated the severity of the challenge. Once away from the manicured lawns, the way ahead was choked with a seemingly endless thicket of jacaranda, poinciana, and huge intertwined hibiscus plants.

The sweet scent of bougainvillea, jasmine, and citrus filled his nostrils as the dense undergrowth tore at his clothing and boots. McGandy followed right behind him, still carrying Bardot's uniform in the plastic container.

Five minutes later, Macaulay finally broke through the last line of shrubbery and came to the narrow strip of grass that surrounded the barracks. He and McGandy waited in the darkness while they surveyed the building.

Two guards with machine guns guarded the gravel path that led back to the mansion house. Another two were standing under the portico above the rear entrance. A hundred feet past them Macaulay could see a small parking lot and a four-bay garage in a halo of misty light.

Motioning McGandy to wait inside the tree line, Macaulay crept forward in the darkness to one of the
first-floor windows close to the back entrance to the barracks. Raising his eyes to the sill, he peered inside.

A fat brindle cat stared back at him impassively from the other side of the screen. Beyond the cat, one of the off-duty guards was making love to a skinny woman on a single bed, their bodies coated in sweat. A rotating electric fan snarled loudly above them, moving the humid air around the room.

The next window in line revealed a dimly lit bathroom. Inside one of the shower enclosures was the biggest cockroach Macaulay had ever seen. He crept along the edge of the building on his hands and knees until he reached the corner near the back entrance. Lying flat on the wet ground, he slid his head around the corner.

The two guards were huddled under the roof of the portico. Behind them, Macaulay saw that there were actually two entrances into the building. One was through a screen door behind them. The second was a set of steps heading downward. He saw the screen door open and then slap shut as another guard came outside. It was the one Macaulay had seen in the bedroom. He was now dressed in a pair of shorts.

“Big storm comin', mon,” he said after lighting a cigarette. “This ain't nothing yet.”

Macaulay crawled back to the tree line and told McGandy what he had seen. He briefly explained his plan while McGandy took off his catering shirt and put on Bardot's uniform coat and hat.

A minute later, McGandy emerged from the dense undergrowth near the parking lot and ran to the small garage beyond the guard barracks. Inside, he saw what looked like several expensive cars. He found a flashlight
on the workbench and briefly trained it across the interior. One of the cars was covered with a shiny canvas tarpaulin. He pulled it off, revealing a red Ferrari. Taking the cover with him along with a length of cord, he turned off the flashlight and walked quickly to the parking lot.

There he found the black panel truck that Lexy had seen from the balcony. McGandy opened the rear door. A naked man lay sprawled on his back just inside the opening, his bulging eyes peering back at him. McGandy threw the canvas tarpaulin beyond the corpse into the bed of the truck.

•   •   •

Varna came into the study carrying a tray filled with a coffee service and a small platter of cookies. He had changed from his tuxedo into a formfitting jumpsuit. Putting it down on the coffee table in front of the matching couches, he served the new guests.

“Li Wui,” said Juwan, pronouncing it Lee Wee as he stared at the younger Chinese. “You have any problems with that when you were a kid? You know . . . the other kids?”

Li had no idea what he was talking about. He already detested the mountain of blubber on the other couch. He wondered how a delicate young man like Varna could allow himself to be touched by this monster. He forced himself to keep his eyes rigid and unmoving.

Ta shuí cónglái bu zhayan. He does not blink.

Zhou turned to Brugg's mother, who had picked up half the cookies on the platter with one sweep of her hand.

“May I offer you my assistance with your interrogation?” he said with a solicitous smile. “We Chinese have
refined certain methods over the centuries that guarantee positive results.”

Black Mamba remained quiet as she munched the cookies and thought about her answer. She did not want to offend this Chinese while Juwan was conducting a sensitive financial negotiation with him.

At the same time, she had almost reached climax while extracting the man's upper teeth with the needle-nose pliers. She was sure he had now reached the breaking point. When he next saw her descending the stairs, he would be ready. Once she had what he knew, she could go the rest of the way with him.

“I expect to have the answers we need shortly,” she said.

•   •   •

Barnaby glanced at his watch as he stood behind the buffet line in the great hall. The first round of the dinner had been served to the guests. The catering staff was replenishing the serving platters and tureens as the orchestra played a medley of Tupac Shakur hits.

Barnaby wondered what had happened to Brugg and the Chinese, but was grateful for their absence. He was still anonymous for the time being, although as things stood that wouldn't be for long.

The only option he had left to create a diversion was to approach the bird saviors and inform them about the collection in the basement. Once they saw it for themselves, all hell would hopefully break loose. But there was no guarantee they would listen to him and everyone would then know of his involvement, which would implicate Bob Littlefrost.

Barnaby looked at his watch again. Hopefully,
Macaulay was already waiting to undertake the rescue attempt at the guard barracks. He had to move. There was too much at stake, even if it meant betraying Littlefrost's trust.

He was heading around the buffet line when he looked up to see the duchess of Lancaster approaching a young server at the plantation table holding the dinner entrees.

“This ragout is quite divine,” he heard the duchess say to the server. “Quite simple in its bouquet from the claret and the meat is simply sublime. Are you permitted to share the secret with me?”

Barnaby saw his diversionary plan materialize before his eyes. Stepping over to join the server behind the table, he raised his voice at least two octaves and said, “On behalf of my master, I can take the liberty of informing Your Grace.”

As the server moved off, the duchess looked up at him expectantly. He ceremoniously stirred the concoction in the tureen and extracted a chunk of meat with the ladle, presenting it to her across the table.

“I prepared it myself,” he said, preening. “It is a specialty of the house here at Casa Brugg . . . Yorkie fillet sautéed in dill butter with shallots and then lovingly stewed in a salsa cremosa with a Bordeaux claret.”

The duchess's beaming smile gave way to an openmouthed gape of confusion.

“What did you say the meat component is?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yorkies,” said Barnaby solicitously. “Yorkshire terriers . . . only the breast meat, of course. . . . This recipe called for a dozen breasts.”

She was staring at him with disbelief.

“You must be jesting,” she said, her cheeks turning crimson. “And I hasten to say quite cruelly jesting.”

“To the contrary,” said Barnaby. “Thanks to Mr. Brugg's Chinese brokers, we have experimented with fox terriers, but there is precious little meat on them. You may have met his brokers when they arrived a little while ago.”

The duchess's matronly demeanor disappeared, her face transformed into hard granite as she continued to stare at the chunk of meat in the ladle.

“My master keeps the birds and the dogs in the cellar through that door over there,” went on Barnaby in a hurt tone. “I'm sure he would be thrilled to have Your Grace inspect them. I think I can hear one of the Yorkies barking down there right now.”

The glower she bestowed on him went back to the ancient times when a duchess could have a servant drawn and quartered for failing to please her. She turned on her heel and began stalking toward the massive cellar door.

“Reginald,”
she commanded across the great hall with a voice that not only stopped the Tupac Shakur medley but would have sunk the Spanish Armada.

As Barnaby made his escape through the servants pantry, he glanced back to see the duke sprinting toward the cellar door followed by the royal entourage.

In the kitchen Barnaby gave a thumbs-up to Bob
Littlefrost and picked up a full pitcher of ice water from the serving table. He carried it down the passageway to the electrical power room.

Macaulay had left the door unlocked. Inside, he walked to the sheet metal compartment containing the transformer and the panels full of circuit breakers and electrical lines. He hoped what he was about to do wouldn't electrocute him.

He remembered the electrical transformer that had exploded in the building across from his on Brattle Street in a thunderstorm and emitted a fireball three stories high. This was a tiny version of it, and contained in a watertight cover plate. He carefully removed the cover plate and set it on the floor.

He saw that the floor was carpeted. Good. His shoes were dry. Good. He could now hear muffled screams coming from the area of the great hall. It was time to go. Picking up a flashlight that was sitting on a shelf next to the compartment, he turned it on.

Stepping back a few feet, he held on to the pitcher while tossing its contents over the open transformer. A small sea of sparks and fire crackled across the compartment. The smell of ozone filled the air. The lights went out.