A Quarter for a Kiss Read online

  “Point of convergence, people,” the agent at the monitor said. “Craig, looks like this’ll be yours for the taking.”

  Apparently one of the agents in a boat, a simple craft that seemed to be floating harmlessly offshore, had the best vantage point.

  “She’s there!” Craig whispered sharply. “She’s there on the rocks, waiting for him.”

  There was a good sound connection, and we all listened as the little dinghy pulled up to the sand and Merveaux and his man climbed out. Then, as we watched the screen, we saw Dianne emerge from the rocks. I realized that except for Eli’s photos, it was the first time I had really seen her. For such a secretive and elusive creature, the thing that struck me the most was how normal she looked. Sporting a black malliot and a floral skirt, she looked like a tourist taking in the early morning sunshine. The big sunglasses and matching scarf over her hair lent her a sort of “Jackie O”-type appearance.

  “How are you, Dianne?” Merveaux asked in a French accent as the two stood there on the beach and shook hands.

  “I’m fine,” Dianne replied. “Ça va?”

  “Ça va bien,” Merveaux answered. “My gout is giving me problems. Otherwise, I can’t complain.”

  Dianne made a gesture with her hand. Suddenly, one of the men who had come with her came out from behind a rock, walked over to Merveaux, and began running a bug sweeper up and down his body. Once that was finished, he ran it on the bodyguard, who cooperated by standing there on the beach with his arms outstretched.

  I bent closer to the monitor to look at the man with the bug sweeper, expecting to see Earl. Instead, this fellow was older and heavier. When the second man appeared from between the rocks, I grabbed Tom’s arm.

  “It’s them!” I said. “The men who beat up Chris Fisher!”

  “Who?” the agent asked, zooming a bit closer on their faces.

  “A private investigator in St. Thomas was roughed up by two men,” I explained. “Those goons look a lot like the artist sketches that were done.”

  “Send those images to Quantico,” Agent Holt said to the technician. “They can run them through FRS.”

  “FRS?” I whispered.

  “Face Recognition Software,” he replied. “If those two guys are in the database, they’ll be able to ID them.”

  When the bug sweeps were complete, Dianne paused and looked out at the water, shielding her eyes to scan the boats on the horizon. She looked straight at the camera without really seeing it and then moved on.

  “Everyone hold positions,” the agent at the monitors said. “They are hyperalert. Repeat. Hold positions. Craig, you’ve got sound and picture coming in clear.”

  “I’m right at a thousand feet,” he responded softly. “If they go for a stroll, I’ll lose the sound.”

  For the moment everyone stayed exactly where they were. Then Dianne motioned for Merveaux to follow her, and we all held our breath as they started walking. They didn’t go far, however; they simply walked to the nearest boulder and sat. Once they had done that, the other three men separated on the beach, keeping watch, stiff and conspicuous.

  “You have what I want?” Merveaux asked.

  “I have the location and the code,” Dianne replied. “You can pick and choose as you desire.”

  “But I have to go in and get it myself?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Merveaux nodded, looking around for a long moment.

  “That is not worth three,” he said. “Too much risk. I will give you one.”

  “One?” she cried angrily. “I will give you the code for one. You want the location, that’s two more.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I can get the location from someone at SPICE.”

  “How can you do that?” she asked with a wry smile. “When they aren’t even aware that their collection has been relocated—the best parts of it, anyway?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That there’s a half-empty climate controlled storage facility in San Juan. Someone’s going to be very surprised come Monday morning.”

  “You are fearless, Dianne.”

  “That’s why I’m rich, Yves.”

  “All right, I cannot resist. Three million. Give me the drop.”

  She spoke as she adjusted her sunglasses, breaking the sound.

  “The first will be at th…ist,” she said.

  “What was that?” the agent at the monitor asked.

  “I think she said ‘At the Christ,’” the agent on the mike replied.

  “What time?” Merveaux asked.

  “Soon as you can make it happen,” Dianne replied. “Once the first transfer has been made, the code will be there. No transfer and, well, that was your chance. I can’t wait till next week.”

  Merveaux laughed, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Do not kid yourself, Dianne. You are not ab…to walk away from this any more….th…I am.”

  She shielded her eyes and looked out at the water again.

  “After you have the code,” she said, “make the second transfer. If it goes through, the drop will be at F twel…” once again, her arm crossed her mouth and her voice faded. “…ake’s Pond.”

  “You sure nobody else will be there?”

  “No, the site’s quiet today. You know where it is?”

  “Of course. I just have to find F twelve. I assume it’s marked.”

  “Yes. You shouldn’t have any problems there, except maybe with hikers. But don’t worry. They all move along eventually. You can just pause and reflect.”

  They both chuckled.

  “Very well, then. It is nice to talk with you, Dianne, but this sun is about to burn a hole right through my head. I sh…worn a hat.”

  They both stood.

  “It was good to see you again, Yves,” she said. “I wish you…I wish you all the best in life.”

  “Au revoir for now,” he said, stepping into the boat.

  “Yes, au revoir,” she replied.

  Merveaux and his bodyguard climbed into the dinghy and puttered away. Dianne stood on the beach watching him for a moment before turning around and going back the way she had come.

  Forty

  “We just witnessed a three-million-dollar transaction,” Agent Holt said, coming back into the room as the men at the monitors tracked Dianne and her two goons back to the Enigma. “And it looks like it’s all going down today.”

  From what I already knew about the situation—combined with what I could understand of the conversation—my guess was that Yves Merveaux had just agreed to pay Dianne Streep two million dollars for the location of artifacts that had been stolen from SPICE. He would then give her a million more for the security code that protected those artifacts, allowing him to go in and steal whatever he wanted of them without being caught. Merveaux would be paying the money to Dianne via wire transfers, and she would be leaving him the information at two different drop points.

  “The question is,” said Tom as we talked about it, “where are those drop points? From their conversation, I’m just not clear.”

  “The bigger question,” Abraham added, “is when can we move in and make some arrests?”

  Agent Holt heard Abraham’s comment.

  “With the tape we have, we could make an arrest right now for conspiracy to sell,” he said. “But we would do better to wait until the money changes hands and the goods are received. Then we can get him on possession and her for trafficking.”

  Of course, if we couldn’t figure out the drop points, then it might be a little more difficult. At least the satellite connection was now working; both the Enigma and the Cezanne, Merveaux’s boat, were being tracked as they sped away from Virgin Gorda.

  “Roll the tape again,” the agent said, and soon we were listening to a replay of the brief conversation on the beach.

  It definitely sounded as though she said “at the Christ” for the first drop.

  The Christ?

  I was thinking they meant
something in a church, but then Abraham’s face broke into a big grin.

  “The Christ!” he cried. “There used to be a statue of Christ on Peace Hill. It blew down in a hurricane, but everyone knows where it used to stand. There is still an old windmill there. I bet that is the place!”

  “Let’s go, then,” Holt said.

  Once again Tom, Abraham, and I were relegated to the background as the FBI did their thing. One by one the agents returned from their posts and everything was packed up quickly to shift the base of operations over to St. John. Abraham had already cleared the way legally with his warrants. Now he would work with the FBI to bring this matter to a close—hopefully today.

  Meanwhile, Tom was pacing over to the side, puzzling out the second drop site.

  “F twelve,” he said to me as he paced. “Why does that sound so familiar?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Is it an address? A beach? A boat?”

  Suddenly, he stopped pacing.

  “Play it again,” he said, walking to the recorder.

  “We have to pack up,” the agent said, just about to pull the plug.

  Tom reached into his pocket and pulled out his digital voice recorder.

  “Just one more time,” he said, holding it out and turning it on.

  The agent obliged and Tom was able to record the snippet of tape.

  “Are you finished now?” the agent asked impatiently.

  “Sorry,” Tom replied. “Go ahead with what you were doing.”

  He and I went back to the corner, staying out of everyone’s way and listening to the exchange several times.

  “After you have the code, make the second transfer. If it goes through, the drop will be at F twel…ake’s Pond.”

  “You sure nobody else will be there?”

  “No, the site’s quiet today. You know where it is?”

  “Of course. I just have to find F twelve. I assume it’s marked.”

  “The site’s quiet today,” Tom repeated. “She means s-i-t-e. Site. Like,” his eyes widened, “an archaeological site!”

  “A dig site!” I echoed.

  “That’s why it sounds familiar. F twelve is an archaeological location. What is ‘ake’s Pond’?”

  “Drake’s Pond is my guess,” Abraham said excitedly, crossing toward us. “There is a dig at a place called Drake’s Pond, out on the south side of the island. It’s a bit of a hike but quite a thing to see once you get there.”

  “Is that the dig Jodi’s friend Sandy has been leading?”

  “No, this is a different dig. An older one. I think they are almost finished with this one.”

  “Good work, folks,” Holt said. “Now we’ve got both drop locations.”

  Everyone was ready to go, so we headed to Virgin Gorda’s public marina. The place was certainly busier now than it had been when we had arrived before dawn. A group of tourists was pouring from a ferry, most of them in bathing suits and cover-ups, carrying tote bags and ice chests. As we sped toward St. John across the deep blue water, I couldn’t help but think that though I would have loved being the one to race in and find the final evidence, things were out of my hands now. When we reached St. John, we quickly cleared through customs and then went with those who were setting up the base of operations in a small public works facility that Abraham had managed to commandeer, a non-descript building he said was often used for a multitude of purposes, including police training and community education. Tom and I watched with great interest as agents were dispatched all over the island—some to observe Dianne’s house, some to keep an eye on the Enigma, and some to watch the drop points. Though we didn’t have audio or video surveillance of the area yet, the agents were wired for sound, so they could describe what was happening as it happened.

  Things began moving quickly.

  Merveaux’s boat docked at the Sugar Manse resort. He walked up the dock and into the main building, where he stayed for quite a while. Eventually, he and his bodyguard emerged out of the front side of the building and took a cab straight to the parking lot at Peace Hill. The cab remained with Merveaux seated inside while the bodyguard hiked the uphill trail toward the “Christ.” We all waited breathlessly, and about ten minutes later the bodyguard came backand got in the cab.

  “On the move, on the move,” the agent at the monitor said as the cab pulled away. Once it was out of sight, an agent came out of hiding and ran up the hill toward the Christ. Meanwhile, Merveaux’s cab returned to the Sugar Manse.

  “What’s he doing back at the hotel?” an agent’s voice said.

  Everyone was silent, so I ventured a guess.

  “He needs to make the next transfer,” I said. “He wants a secure place to do some banking.”

  They agreed, talking about moving in for an arrest at that point, but they were determined to hold out as long as possible.

  “Any sign of what the bodyguard found at the Christ?” Holt asked into his microphone.

  “There’s something here,” the agent replied. “Inside an old windmill. I don’t know what it means, exactly.”

  “What is it?” the commander asked.

  “It’s just a bunch of numbers scraped into the wall. But I can tell it was freshly done.”

  Tom stepped forward. “Numbers,” he whispered. “It’s encrypted.”

  I looked at him and then back at Agent Holt.

  “What are the numbers?” he asked. “Can you read them off to us?”

  “Uh, let’s see.”

  Tom grabbed a pen and paper and wrote them down as the man read: 32 29 24 33 12 11 41 31 14 13 34 22 26 21 20 14 34 42.

  “Thanks,” Tom said.

  He carried the paper across the room and sat at a table, going to work.

  “Maybe we should call cryptography in Maryland,” the agent working the equipment said to Holt. “See what they can do with it.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Holt replied, lowering his voice. “We’ve got the king of cryptography in the room with us here. That’s Tom Bennett.”

  The guy looked at Tom and then back at his boss, his eyes widening.

  “The Tom Bennett? What’s he doing here?”

  The man shrugged.

  “I don’t know. Guess we got lucky.”

  Guess we got lucky indeed, I thought.

  “We have movement on the East End,” a woman’s voice said over the wire. “A truck is just pulling out of Streep’s driveway.”

  “What kind of truck?”

  “A small cargo truck. All white with a few dings in the bumper. Can’t read the plate. They turned west on East End Road.”

  Nerves were taut. There was so much at stake here—but the FBI walked a fine line between keeping tabs and showing their hand.

  “Hold back,” Holt advised. “This is a small island without a lot of roads. We won’t lose them.”

  And they didn’t. The truck passed various surveillance points along the way, eventually ending up at the Enigma’s boat slip.

  Holt leaned forward, speaking into the microphone.

  “All right, who’s got a visual on the boat?”

  “I do, sir,” one voice said. “This is Craig. I’m about eight slips down the way. Looks like they’re taking stuff out of the truck and loading it onto the boat. I got two men, the same two who were with her on the beach. I don’t see the woman.”

  “This is Reese, sir,” another voice said. “I’m almost there, walking from the other direction.”

  “Good. Craig, Reese, listen up. I need to know what they’re bringing aboard.”

  “So far, it’s mostly clothes, some boxes. A computer.”

  Holt seemed ready to snap. It was like fishing—he didn’t want to set the hook until it was fully in the creature’s mouth.

  Craig continued to give us an oral report of the items that were being loaded onto the boat until the technical guy with us finally got the monitor up and running. Suddenly, the black-and-white screen flashed to life, showing the scene from the hidden camera mounted o
n his boat. We all watched the unloading of the truck, an endless series of trips back and forth between the boat and the vehicle. After a moment, a second monitor popped on, revealing a landscape so odd, it looked like the moon. I stared at the screen for a while and then figured it must be Drake’s Pond, the second drop site. There was a body of water there, but it was ringed in some odd foamy-looking substance.

  “What’s wrong with that water?” I asked.

  “It’s a salt pond,” Holt replied. “Sea water gets trapped there, and the sun burns off the water, leaving the salt.

  “Sir, we’ve got movement at the Sugar Manse,” an agent said suddenly. “Merveaux and his guy are back in the cab. They have turned east on Northshore Road.”

  “They’re going to the second drop location,” Holt said. “Are we in place?”

  Two voices answered in the affirmative.

  “I’ve got visual and audio,” the technician said.

  I took a deep breath, feeling as though I might explode. This was too tense for me. I paced the room, pausing occasionally to peek over Tom’s shoulder at the paper he was working on. It was covered with notations, letters, numbers, and scribbles. I realized that if Tom could decrypt the location where Dianne had hidden the artifacts, then the FBI would get the biggest, best bust of all because they could arrive at the place ahead of Merveaux and arrest him the moment he seized the stolen property.

  In the midst of all of the confusion, my cell phone rang. I stepped outside and answered, expecting to hear Jodi. Instead, a voice as special and familiar as any I’d ever heard raced across the miles to me, in a sound so sweet my eyes instantly filled with tears.

  “Snap out of it?” the voice on the phone said. “Did you really tell me to ‘snap out of it’?”

  It was Eli! He was awake!

  Forty-One

  I called him back on a landline from a small office elsewhere in the building. Sitting at someone’s desk in a stiff vinyl office chair, I closed my eyes and let tears flow down my cheeks. Thank You, Jesus.

  We talked at first about him, about how he had slowly started to regain consciousness last night. By morning, he said, he was talking some, but Stella made him wait to call me until she felt he was completely coherent.