Randy White - Black Widow

Dr. M. North

Personal

Expensive stationery embossed with the initials JHM on the seal. Heavy, masculine hand with a slight tremor, suggesting age. I opened the envelope.

Dr. North, I am having a nightcap on the upper terrace of the Jade Club. I’ve had staff organize a midnight tea if you’re interested. I realize I’m being presumptuous in advance of an introduction, but it concerns a matter of mutual interest, I believe, and of grave importance.

Cordially,

Col. James H. Montbard RM (ret.) GBE DMC FIEC

Written with British syntax and formality, as were the postnominal letters associated with the British Honours System. I had never heard of the man, but understood it was from Sir James Montbard, recipient of the Knight Grande Cross, the Distinguished Military Cross, a retired colonel in the British Royal Marines, and an International Fellow of the Explorers Club.

Impressive. But how did he know I was here?

It was only my second night at Jade Mountain, a lodge and nature preserve consisting of six hundred acres of rain forest and beach on the southwestern shore of Saint Lucia. I’d chosen Jade Mountain because it is among the most private and exclusive resorts in the Caribbean, and because it was built into a mountainside with a clear view of Saint Arc, a few miles to the west, and Anse Chastanet Bay below, where I’d moored the Maverick.

Because I was doing countersurveillance, it would’ve been easier to stay near the beach house on Saint Arc. But that would put me under the control of the local government. It would have invited interaction with authorities and suspicion from the locals. If you seek anonymity, hide yourself among the very poor or the very wealthy.

Jade Mountain attracted the famous and rich, but of an unusual variety. The lodge had no air-conditioning, no glassed windows or screens. Suites were open on the seaward side, no walls or shutters, so it was like living outdoors in a luxury cliff dwelling-rare woods, custom tiles- jungle all around. The place was brilliantly designed. Rooms were breezy, each with its own infinity pool, water cool as the deep mountain spring that fed them. The staff was unobtrusive; privacy guaranteed.

But I hadn’t been at the place long enough to meet anyone-and I didn’t want to meet anyone. The previous evening, I’d had dinner alone at the beach restaurant at Anse Chastanet-jerked pork with lime rice, mango chutney, and some very good pepper sauce. In the morning, I’d gone for a long swim, ordered fresh fruit and coffee brought to the room, then went looking for a place to send e-mails.

The only Internet access was at the reception cottage, a quarter-way up the mountain. I wrote to Shay and Beryl, asking questions I should have asked earlier: Aside from investing in the resort on Saint Lucia, did Michael’s family have other business connections in the Eastern Caribbean? Saint Arc-had Shay discovered it on her own, or had someone recommended it? What was Ida Jonquil’s maiden name?

Aside from the woman at reception, and my waiter, I hadn’t spoken to anyone else.

That’s why it made no sense there was something so gravely important that a distinguished man like Sir Colonel James Montbard would track me here… if Sir James was who he claimed to be.

Standing on an open terrace, looking down at the Caribbean Sea four hundred feet below, Sir James told me, “In my opinion, Saint Lucia is the most beautiful island in the British Commonwealth-apart from England herself, of course.”

I said, “Of course,” sipping the Singapore Sling he’d ordered, looking at silhouettes of mountains across the bay where a few lights glimmered: beach huts, cooking fires, sailboats at anchor.

“Saint Lucia was undiscovered for decades,” he said, “like a beautiful mistress-but only because it was so wonderfully camouflaged by her association with the French. Napoleon’s wife, Josephine, was born here, you know. All the French names: Soufriere, Castries, Moule a Chique. And those famous peaks you’re staring at: the Pitons-Gros Piton and Petit Piton. ‘Tip of a bull’s horn,’ it means. Naturally, travelers assumed this island was French, so they avoided Saint Lucia like the plague. Understandable, in my opinion.”

I said, “Some would agree,” before asking, “Why are they famous?,” meaning the twin volcanic peaks, weathered rock, and jungle that rose from the sea like pyramids, towers half a mile high.

“I could give you the standard line about landmarks for sailors,” Sir James said, “but, truth is, they’re famous because they’re the most sexually suggestive rock formations in the Caribbean. Have a look now, let your eyes blur for a moment. Then tell me what you see.”

I did it, and laughed. "X-rated. I understand now.”

“They’ve found petroglyphs on those mountains more than a thousand years old. Are you interested in archaeology, Dr. North?”

“I have a traveler’s interest.”

“Traveler, eh?” His reply had an unusual inflection, as if inspecting the comment for double meaning. “I’m a traveler myself.. .” He waited several beats before continuing. “… and an International Fellow of the Explorers Club, I’m proud to say. Archaeology is a passion of mine. Inherited it from my grandfather. Amateur or professional, you must do serious field work to be voted in as a Fellow. I’ve published a few things on the pre-Colombian sites in the Caribbean and Meso-America that I’d like to think contributed to the literature.”

We talked for a few minutes about the Caribs, the Arawak, the stone pyramids of Tikal in Guatemala-he’d worked at a dig there-before he got back to the subject of the famous peaks and sexuality.

“The Pitons have always been associated with fertility rites and magic-first the Arawak, then escaped slaves with their obeah and voodoo. Now it’s every mix of race and religion because Anse Chastanet is a favorite honeymoon destination.

“My God,” he continued, “you didn’t hear the sounds coming out of the forest this morning?” The man chuckled and cupped a hand over his pipe as he relit it. “Positively obscene-and delightful. One couple awakes, sees those peaks, and they become amorous. Their sounds arouse the couple in the next cottage, and then the next-there are no windows or shutters, of course, to buffer the sounds-so the entire rain forest is echoing before long with the most primitive noises you can imagine. They yip and roar like gorillas. Even to an old campaigner like me, it occasionally gets the blood stirring.”

I said, “You don’t strike me as old.” A half truth. Sitting across the table, wearing pleated slacks, a sea-cotton shirt, and shooting jacket with a recoil patch and epaulets, Montbard was the 1940s prototype of the retired English gentleman. He was balding, not tall, and had the brown, tight-skinned face of a Brit who’d spent decades in the tropics.

On closer inspection, though, I noted the thick forearms and hands, the crease of scar tissue beneath his left eye, the way slacks bunched around his waist while the jacket strained at the shoulders. The man was in great shape.

Something else I noticed: the way the jacket’s inseams were tailored loose beneath the arms-room for a shoulder holster?-and, on his left hand, a gold ring engraved with a symbol that was difficult to make out because he wore the engraving palm-side down. Also because the ring was weathered. I finally got a look: a skull and crossbones raised within a pyramid-an esoteric Masonic symbol that I’d seen only a few times in my life.

“But I am old,” Montbard insisted. “The howling of young honeymooners reminds me of the truth. My first and last wife, Victoria, God rest her soul, would agree. My quarters are just down the mountain, so there’s no escaping it. Family property, you know, deeded to us during the colonial uprising-the American Revolution, you’d call it.”