Twice a Spy

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 Ilet Ceron 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 chateau,” 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.

25

“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 Hotel L’Imperatrice.

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 form. He filled it with a blow-by-blow account of the past fifteen hours. If adversaries were to intercept the transmission, they would view only an e-mail from Colin Atchison to his secretary asking her to call some other fictitious person and reschedule the morning’s round of golf.

Then Stanley launched into putative next steps: PERMISSION FOR OVERT ACTION. OBJECTIVE: DEBRIEF CARTHAGE

He heard Hadley turn off the shower. He did not hear her approach. The pile carpet was so thick, she might have long-jumped into the bedroom and he would have been none the wiser if it were not for the pleasing perfume of honey and lavender. He didn’t turn around, largely to avoid gawking, not until he felt her standing just inches from his back.

“Overt action?” she said. “In other words, we call up Carthage and say, ‘Actually, Mr. Bream, we’re professional spies from the CIA.’ ”

“Breaking cover is the most expedient way I can think of,” said Stanley.

“Why would a couple of spooks-spooks with a track record of deceiving him-be the people best able to get the truth from him?”

“Because we’ll best be able to convince him that he’ll be in deep kimchi otherwise.”

She took a seat on the nearest corner of the bed, crossing one glowing dancer’s thigh over the other. “I know a really good way that won’t leave any marks,” she said with an enthusiasm that transformed her in Stanley’s perception from a sensuous woman into something darker and colder.

He was troubled already by her rush to slash Drummond’s jugular last night with her switchblade ring-which would have certainly come in handy after they were tied up. Their track record notwithstanding, the Clarks very obviously were not bent on murder. It would have been more expedient for Drummond to snuff them than to tie them up. Also Charlie’s assertion that they had acted in self-defense seemed free of artifice.

Stanley wondered if Hadley had her own agenda.

26

DeSoto had been to Ilet Ceron twice before, first to view the property himself, then to show it to a couple from Dubai who ended up buying a Bettina Ludington listing, an Italianate mansion with no business on a French island. Both times here, on ascending the crushed clamshell pathway from the pier he had halted abruptly when the chateau came into view. The structure was breathtaking.

As its limestone facade appeared now, the crotchety Larsen didn’t even pause. If DeSoto didn’t know better, he would have thought the old man had already seen the place.

McDonough slowed, but only to allow DeSoto to catch up.

“Wow,” McDonough exclaimed.

After eleven years hustling houses, DeSoto knew wows the way a jeweler knows diamonds. The kid’s was pure zirconium. Possibly he lacked education. New money often didn’t aspire beyond a McMansion with superfluous turrets, their sensibilities shaped by Donald Trump.

Thankfully, such clients could still be educated. “Le Chateau d’Ilet Ceron is celebrated for perfectly capturing the period of architectural transition from the rococo of the mid-eighteenth century to the more refined neoclassical style,” DeSoto said. “As Architectural Digest put it, ‘The palatial limestone facade dazzles new arrivals with its towering Corinthian pilasters and detached pillars while at the same time heeding simplicity in order to capitalize on sunlight bouncing from passing waves.’ ”

McDonough slowed at the marble staircase leading to the entry. “Dazzling,” he agreed. Larsen took in the facade and was no more dazzled than if it were a split-level in Sheboygan.

A young chambermaid heaved open one of the monolithic copper-faced French doors. In lieu of a greeting, the old man nodded. He shot inside before she had a chance to open the other door. McDonough hurried after him.

The grand reception hall was like a skating rink made of marble. Elephantine columns supported a gilded and