Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [50]
DeSoto then threw the throttle and the Riva was off. “The toll,” he explained to Charlie.
Charlie felt no relief. If experience was any teacher, that wasn’t the last they’d see of the police cutter.
“So what’s your first impression?” DeSoto asked.
“It depends on how much the toll is.”
Laughing, the real estate agent pointed at the mass of land looming before them like a low-lying thunderhead. As they drew closer, it turned greener and sharpened into picturesque, sprawling meadows.
“Originally Îlet Céron was home to a rum distillery.” DeSoto waved at the ruins of a long warehouse coated in moss. “That was the factory.”
“Oh, good, I was worried that was the château,” Charlie said.
With a belly laugh, DeSoto drove the boat around a stretch of coast, bringing them into a small cove. A long, weather-grayed pier terminated at a gorgeous beach.
To tie up, the Riva had to gain admission. DeSoto slowed alongside a guard post resembling a prison watchtower. Atop it, in a small roundhouse, a man stood, shadows obscuring his features but not his machine-gun barrel.
“Why are there guards here?” Charlie asked DeSoto under his breath.
“The seller’s concerned about looters.”
Certainly it was a better answer than The security staff has been retained in hope of preventing anyone from retrieving the bomb disguised as a washing machine. Charlie suspected that the latter was the case, however.
“Who’s the seller?” he asked.
“I ought to have mentioned that before,” DeSoto said. “Mr. Fielding had no marital partner or descendants. His closest living relative is an uncle in the States who’s motivated to unload everything and collect the proceeds ASAP.” He nodded at Drummond, now sleeping on his stomach. “From his point of view, the ideal seller.”
The uncle in the States was in fact none other than Uncle Sam, Charlie speculated. Without Fielding, the CIA was probably eager to roll up its operation here. Charlie hoped that the island included no new personnel who would recognize him and Drummond. According to Alice, Fielding’s staff had had no idea that he was a spy. In fact, to add to his criminal cover, the Cavalry hired heavies from the Colombian Bucaga drug cartel.
The guard stepped onto the square platform surrounding the roundhouse. He was a tall Hispanic with the build of a Greek statue. He peered down through binoculars. Thankfully Drummond’s face was pressed against the cushioned sundeck.
Flashing a toothy smile, the guard waved the Riva ahead.
“It would seem we had one margarita too many, and three or four after that,” Hadley said as soon as Kyle loosed her gag. “As for our friend who left us tied up here like this, I don’t think there is any earthly explanation for her behavior.”
“It happens,” said Kyle, the amiable aquatics director.
Stanley hoped that Kyle was sincere, or, at least, that any curiosity the hardy Australian harbored would go no further than war stories the staff shared at happy hour. Although young—twenty-seven or twenty-eight—he had probably seen his share of oddities on the resorts circuit. Certainly he’d never opened up shop to find a couple bound and gagged. Yet he exhibited no surprise beyond the natural shock of discovery, nor any misgivings after hearing Hadley’s yarn. He asked only, “You folks want a Powerade—get some electrolyte action going?”
“That would be wonderful,” Hadley said. “Anything would be, except a margarita.”
“A margarita might not be such a bad idea, actually.” Kyle regarded Stanley. “You look like you could stand some hair of the dog, mate.”
Stanley decided to leave Kyle’s recommendation out of the report he would write Eskridge, who had never been in the field and would have enough trouble digesting the rest of the events at Hôtel L’Impératrice.
On return to their hotel room, Stanley took a seat at the rolltop desk. Blocking out the postcard view of the Caribbean through the balcony window, he clicked a featureless area of his computer screen four times in rapid succession, opening a fresh cable