The Lost Island Page 9

  19

  RESPONDEO AD QUAESTIONEM, ipsa pergamenta.

  In his aerie high above the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, Glinn gazed from a plate-glass window that looked westward over the High Line park to the dark back of the Hudson River, reflecting the lights of Jersey City. It was just after three o’clock in the morning.

  “I respond to the question, the page itself.” Ipsa pergamenta, the page itself…

  Glinn had not studied Latin, but Brock had spent hours with him going over every possible meaning, submeaning, double meaning, and alliteration in each word of that sentence, parsing it with Talmudic intensity. To no avail. Now Glinn’s mind felt congested. He’d been chewing this over too long.

  The page itself…

  To clear his head, he took out another book of poetry: Wallace Stevens. He opened the book at random. The poem his eye settled on was titled “Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself.” The page itself, the thing itself. A nice coincidence.

  He read through the poem once, twice, then laid the book aside.

  Not ideas about the thing, but the thing itself. I respond to the question, the page itself.

  And that was when he had the revelation. It wasn’t a riddle at all. It was a literal statement of fact. Ipsa pergamenta. The page itself or—quite literally—the vellum or parchment itself, the physical parchment, would answer the question.

  Could it really be that simple?

  It made perfect sense. The vellum of the Chi Rho page was different: thicker, finer, whiter, cleaner than the rest of the Book of Kells. The secret lay in the vellum itself.

  There, in the dark, he blushed with chagrin. The answer was so obvious he had missed it completely.

  He directed his wheelchair to the elevator and descended to the main floor. The back laboratory for Project Phorkys was empty. Glinn motored to the safe that held the Chi Rho page, punched in the code, and removed it. Laying it on a clean glass stage, he selected a sterilized surgical knife from a set of tools resting in an autoclave and, working with great care, cut a millimeter-square piece from a blank corner of the page. Using tweezers, he placed the square into a test tube and sealed it, labeled and racked it.

  For a long time he stared at the square piece of skin. Then he muttered, under his breath: “I wonder…I wonder…just what kind of animal you came from.”

  20

  GIDEON STUFFED THE two pistols into his waistband, feeling a bit like a pirate, and ascended to the pilothouse. In the twilight he could make out the boat they’d seen earlier just a few hundred yards off, coming into the bay, its running lights on, heading slowly in their direction.

  Gideon slipped the 1911 to Amy, who tucked it into her pants and pulled out her shirttails to hide it. She pulled down the VHF mike and hailed the ship, identifying herself as captain of the Turquesa and asking, in a neutral voice, for identification in turn.

  “This is the Horizonte,” came a male voice, speaking perfect, American-accented English. “Captain Hank Cordray. We don’t mean to bust in on your privacy, but you don’t often see cruisers along this coast.”

  “What are you doing in these waters, if I may ask?”

  “You may ask. We aren’t drug runners, if that’s what you were thinking.” An electronic chuckle followed this. “We’re a pair of documentary filmmakers. Myself and my wife, Linda.”

  “Really? What are you making a documentary about?”

  “Pelicans.”

  A short silence. “Pelicans?” Amy said into the mike. “We haven’t seen any around here.”

  “Not around here, but past Cabo de la Vela there’s a lagoon known for them. That’s where we’re headed.”

  Gideon began to snicker. Drug traffickers, indeed. Amy waved a dismissive hand at him.

  “We hope to anchor in this bay, if you don’t mind. There aren’t many decent anchorages along this coast.”

  “No objections,” said Amy.

  “And if we aren’t interrupting anything, we’d like to pay you a courtesy visit at your convenience. As I said, these are lonely parts and we haven’t seen anyone in days, aside from our hired crew.”

  “You’d be welcome,” said Amy. She glanced at her watch. “We’re about to eat dinner—how about in an hour?”

  “Very good.”

  Amy racked the mike and glanced over at Gideon. The old boat was slowing and turning, preparing to drop anchor. A moment later Gideon heard a splash and the rattle of the anchor chain going out.

  “Pelicans,” he said. “And here we thought they were drug runners. I’d better go below and finish cooking if we’re going to entertain. You want me to put your pistol away?”

  “I’ll keep it, thanks. You should keep yours, too.”

  Gideon looked at her. Her brow was furrowed with skepticism. “You still suspicious?”

  “I don’t know. That’s an awfully large boat for a pair of filmmakers.”

  “He sounded pretty harmless to me.”

  Amy was silent.

  “Why allow them on board, if you’re worried?”

  She glanced at him. “It’ll give us a chance to check them out. And not allowing them to visit would be such a breach of cruising etiquette it might convince them that we’re drug smugglers. Which in turn might encourage them to call the Colombian coast guard—who, by the way, are known for shooting first and investigating later.”

  She picked up her binoculars and scrutinized the ship, anchored about two hundred yards away. Gideon could see various figures moving about on deck. She was silent for a long time then lowered the binoculars with a frown. “Rough-looking crew.”

  “How many?”

  “Four. Listen…while you’re working on dinner, send an email to Garza, urgent. Ask him to look up the details of a boat named Horizonte, hailing out of Maracaibo.”

  “Will do.”

  She looked at the charts. Glancing over her shoulder, Gideon could see the lagoon Captain Cordray had talked about, some thirty miles down the coast. “And ask Garza if there are pelicans in Bahía Hondita, La Guajira, Colombia.”

  Gideon went below, sent the email, and finished preparing dinner. Amy came down and they ate in silence, Gideon helping himself to wine. She drank Pellegrino. He had never seen anyone eat so fast, and with so little appreciation of her food. She just shoveled it in.

  “How do you like the risotto?”

  “Good.”

  The dinner was over way too soon. Amy pushed away from the table. “All right, let’s get them on board. You got your sidearm?”

  Gideon patted his Beretta.

  She looked him over, narrowing her eyes. “It’s a problem, these tropical clothes. Anyone can see we’re packing.”

  “Maybe it’s good they can see.”

  “Maybe.”

  He heard the ping of incoming email and checked the computer. Garza had come through: the Horizonte was a cheap charter vessel out of Maracaibo—that was all he could discover. And there were pelicans in Bahía Hondita. A lot of pelicans.

  They went up into the pilothouse. Amy got on the VHF and made the invitation. Moments later the boat’s launch was lowered from stern davits into the water. The sky was clear and dark—no moon, but countless stars. As the launch hit the water there was a fizzle of bioluminescence. An engine started up and the launch came their way, leaving a phosphorescent wake. In a moment it had pulled up to the swim platform. Gideon looked at them intently in the dim light from the pilothouse. The captain, Cordray, was short and a little soft looking, almost geeky, with a wispy goatee and thick glasses. The wife was taller and leaner, with a hard-bitten look—as if life had not been easy for her. The launch was driven by a man who, in another century, would have looked quite at home on a pirate ship—shirtless, heavily muscled, covered with tattoos, his long brown hair tied back in a thick ponytail. He had a dark, nasty-looking face with scars.

  Gideon helped the woman—Linda—out of the boat and onto the swim platform. The man got out on his own. The driver turned the l
aunch around and headed back to the Horizonte.

  “Come and have a drink,” said Amy, shaking hands and introducing herself, seating them outdoors in the stern cockpit. “Mark, bring out some candles and wine.”

  A little miffed at her tone—in front of strangers no less—Gideon fetched the hurricane lamps and the wine. It was poured all around, glasses were clinked.

  “That’s quite a boat for a pair of filmmakers,” said Amy. “What is it, seventy-five feet?”

  “Seventy,” said Linda. “Terrible fuel consumption. But she was cheap and came with a crew.” She took a swig of wine. “You should see our crew. Scary-looking bunch, but they’re gentle as kittens.”

  “Or so you hope,” said Gideon.

  Linda laughed, looked around. “Speaking of boats, this is quite the yacht you’ve got here. A Hinckley, no less.”

  “We’re celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary,” said Gideon. “Chartered it out of Aruba.”

  “Well, congratulations.” Linda shook out her bleached-blond hair. “Strange place to go cruising, though.”

  “We wanted to get off the beaten track,” said Gideon. He noticed that the man, Hank, hadn’t spoken. But his eyes were roaming everywhere, taking in every detail. “You know these waters well?” he asked Linda.

  “Oh, yes.”

  This was encouraging. “Are there any…unusual landmarks along the coast worth seeing?”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Interesting rock formations. Caves, maybe? That sort of thing.”

  He found Cordray was now looking intently at him.

  “There’s a lot of wrecks,” Linda said slowly. “You interested in wrecks?”

  “Not really. More into natural formations. Rocks, caves, sea stacks.”

  Another drag and another sip. Gideon noticed her nails were very long and very red. “Caves? Why caves?”

  “I’m interested in caves.”

  “You scuba divers?”

  “Ah, not really.”

  “You got a scuba setup here.”

  Gideon shrugged.

  There was a pause before Linda spoke again. “There are some caves in the bluffs along Punta Gallinas, about ten, fifteen miles down the coast.”

  “Thanks, we’ll check them out tomorrow,” said Gideon.

  The man, Hank, rose. “May I use your head?”

  “I’ll show you where it is,” said Amy. The two vanished into the pilothouse.

  Linda watched the two leave, then laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you two were smuggling drugs!”

  Gideon managed to laugh along with her. “Why do you say that?”

  She waved her hand at the mast. “Two supersize radars, two GPS antennas, microwave horn, VHF and ELF, satellite uplink. You’re equipped up the wazoo!”

  “Came with the boat.”

  “So what’s the top speed?”

  “They tell me thirty-six knots.”

  “Thirty-six? I bet you could do forty-five on a flat sea. Hell, you could probably outrun some of the patrol boats of the Colombian navy!”

  Amy returned with Cordray. They took their seats again and Cordray drained his wine. “You folks are sure traveling in style,” he said. He had a soft, whistling sort of voice. “Nice suite of electronics. Not to mention sidescan sonar with a tow apparatus. You looking for something on the seafloor?”

  “It came with the boat,” said Amy.

  At this, Linda cackled: a raspy, smoke-cured sound. “Funny, that’s just what your husband said. It came with the boat!” She shook her head. “Well, we’d better get going, leave you two in peace.” She pulled a walkie-talkie out of her pocket. “Jose? Listos.”

  A few moments later the launch arrived and the couple departed, motoring back to their boat, waving good-bye. Gideon waited in silence, watching as they boarded their vessel. Amy poured her untouched glass of wine over the side, then motioned Gideon into the pilothouse.

  “They’re more suspicious of us than we are of them,” Gideon said.

  “Using the head was just an excuse,” said Amy. “That guy didn’t miss a thing.”

  “They could have stayed anchored right where they were when we first passed them, in that bay down the coast. Instead they came after us.”

  Amy nodded.

  “Think maybe they’re drug traffickers, pissed that we’re in their territory?”

  Amy shook her head. “My guess is they’re up to something else—something no good.”

  Gideon went to pour another glass of wine, only to be surprised when Amy’s hand stopped him.

  “I need you to be sharp. We’re going to run an armed watch tonight. Two on, two off.”

  “Why don’t we just hoist anchor and take off? We could easily outrun that tub.”

  “No. Who knows how they might react? They might report us to the Colombian coast guard—and we really, really don’t want them looking for us.”

  21

  GIDEON LOUNGED IN the stern cockpit, having taken the midnight-to-two-AM watch. The wind had picked up and was blowing hard from shore, whipping up whitecaps in the bay. Each gust brought stinging sand with it. The air smelled of smoke, and he could taste salty dust on his tongue. It was very dark, the stars now obscured by blowing dust.

  Once in a while he picked up his binoculars and looked across the two hundred yards of water to the Horizonte. It showed no signs of life. All the lights were out, and the launch was safely hoisted in its davits.

  He got up and made the rounds of the boat, hopping up on the deck and completing a circuit outside the pilothouse to the foredeck and back around the other side. He wasn’t sleepy and was glad to be on watch instead of tossing and turning in his stuffy stateroom.

  The wind gusted again and he closed his eyes, turning away from the biting sand. He thought of the doughty Irish monks sailing this coastline in a tiny curragh or whatever sort of sailboat they had used. It was almost beyond comprehension.

  The gust died down and, in the sudden lull, he thought he heard a noise. It was a strange sound, like bubbling, off the left—port—side of the boat. He rose, pulling out his pistol, and moved silently toward it. He waited just out of sight, listening. Another sound of bubbles breaking the water.

  A scuba diver.

  Moving slowly, pulling an unlit flashlight from his pocket, he leaned over the rail and aimed it at the spot where he could hear bubbles rising. They broke the black surface with a sparkle of phosphorescence. He steadied his gun, switched on the light.

  The beam probed the murky water, revealing nothing. How deep was the diver? Was he sabotaging their boat, placing explosives? Was he trying to board? And now, of course, the diver knew he’d been spotted—having seen the light.

  Gideon leaned over farther and probed into the murky water with the light. For a brief moment he thought he saw a flash of metal.

  It was hopeless to fire into the water. What he had to do was wake Amy and prevent them from being boarded.

  Scrambling away from the rail, he climbed onto the foredeck, above the staterooms, giving the deck two hard raps—their prearranged signal—to rouse Amy. Then he climbed onto the hardtop roof of the pilothouse, where he had a view of the entire boat. Keeping his flashlight off—which would just make him a target—he took cover behind the mast and waited.

  The wind moaned about the mast, obscuring his ability to hear. His eyes strained into the darkness, looking for the telltale flash of luminescence indicating bubbles breaking the surface. But the water remained dark.

  What had Glinn called this assignment? A walk in Central Park. Yeah, right.

  Where the heck was Amy? Was it possible she hadn’t heard his signal?

  Suddenly there was another flash of phosphorescence to his right, followed by another on his left. Two divers? He felt his heart pounding. It wasn’t a natural phenomenon, not a school of fish. He had seen a flash of metal—he knew he had.

  And now he called out. “Amy! Amy!”

  “Ella
esta aqui,” came a deep voice from the pool of darkness below him.

  He turned on his flashlight to see Amy, in her pajamas, the tattooed pirate holding a gun to her head. He was wearing nothing but a scuba tank—not even a bathing suit. In the darkness the tattoos looked like scales.

  Another dark figure rose up, from a hidden position on the swim platform astern. It was the captain—Cordray.

  “Drop your weapon or she dies,” he said.

  22

  GIDEON STARED IN shocked disbelief. Somehow, despite his vigilance, the pirate had managed to board and get hold of Amy.

  Cordray smiled and flicked the wet hair out of his eyes. “Don’t be a hero, pal. I’ll count to three. One, two…”

  Gideon held up his hands, gun dangling, thumb in the trigger guard.

  “That’s a good boy.”

  Now a third figure hoisted itself out of the water onto the swim platform, again stark naked, immensely muscled, with long hair and a mustache, and more tattoos. He shed his tank and came over the stern, a six-foot shark harpoon in one hand.

  “Now come down. Keep the gun in sight.”

  Gideon slid off the roof, came around the railing. The pirate with the mustache took away the gun and grabbed his arms, yanking them roughly behind. He slapped on a zip-tie. Gideon was thrown onto the deck beside Amy.

  Cordray came over and Gideon was, at least, thankful that he wasn’t naked. But somehow the pudgy, smallish man—with his thick glasses and damp goatee—looked more menacing than the naked pirates.

  “How about telling me what you’re really doing here?” he asked Gideon.

  When Gideon said nothing, Cordray drew his hand back and smacked him hard across the face. More silence. Another smack.

  “All right. We’ll find out ourselves.” He spoke in Spanish to Pirate, who moved to stand guard over them with a rifle.

  Cordray went into the pilothouse, and the lights came on. Gideon could see him through the window, going through the cabinets, pulling things out, looking at them, tossing them on the floor. He went to the laptop computer and turned it on, cursing when the log-in password came up. He picked up the briefing book lying on the table and began pawing through it. A moment later he came out, holding it.