Circle of Bones (34 page)

“How’s it going with the calendar thingy?” Theo asked.

“I don’t have a clue what to do with it. It’s got to refer to some future date.”

“Hmm,” Theo said and then he took another long pull from the beer. “Do you think that Spyder is still searching in the weeds back on Dominica?”

“I doubt it.”

“Think he’ll come after us?”

“Maybe.”

“You worried?”

“Not about him.”

“Ahhh,” Theo said, dragging the sound up and then down the scale.

The two men stood there for a long time watching the moonlight trail travel across the bay. Finally, Cole broke the silence.

“Theo, what do you think of when you hear the phrase, ‘end of days’?”

“Why?”

“I hate when you do that. You answer a question with another question. Just answer it.
End of days
. What does that mean to you?”

“Cole, my mama took me to church every Sunday of my childhood and I heard many preachers refer to the
end time
or
end of days
. They meant the return of Christ, you know, the second coming.”

Cole squeezed his eyes closed. “My mom never once took me to church, so excuse me if I ask some stupid questions.” He peered at Theo through slitted eyes. “But, like, is there a specific date associated with that?”

Theo laughed. “There’s more than one preacher who’s claimed to know, but no, I don’t think any of them really do.”

Cole nodded. He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin. “I remember there was an old Schwarzenegger movie called
End of Days
— a horror movie, I think — but there wasn’t a specific date given in that one either.” He stopped his hand on his throat and looking up at the morning sky, he asked, “You don’t suppose it’s the release date of that film? No, I can’t see Pops as an Arnold fan.”

“What’s this all about?”

“We have to figure out what date to set the calendar to so we can try to understand what my crazy old man is trying to tell us. I thought the answer might be in the journals — you know, on that last page with the nursery rhyme we were trying to decode. He wrote, “expect to be there until the end of days.” I don’t think it was a mistake — that he forgot to write end of
my
days.  He meant
end of days
— like it was some special date. But what date is that?”

“Well, I know of one possibility.”

Cole straightened up and turned to face Theo. “What?”

Theo didn’t look at him; he continued to stare across the water at the sailboat, a small smile on his face.

“You want to share it with me or are you just going to stand there grinning?”

“I thought I’d relax here for a bit and enjoy the moment. I know something that the brilliant Dr. Thatcher doesn’t.” Theo tipped his bottle to his lips. Before he could take a drink, his teeth clinked against the glass when Cole slapped the back of his head. Beer sloshed down onto the deck. “Hey,” Theo said. “You’re wasting perfectly good beer.”

“You don’t speak up, and I’ll be throwing you over the side next.”

“Oh captain, my captain. I was getting to it.”

“Sometime before those two morons get here?”

“All right, all right. According to the Mayas, the end of days is going to be December 21st, 2012.”

“The Mayas?”

“Yes, you know, indigenous people in South and Central America?”

“I know who the Mayas are, numb nuts, but what’s this about them and the end of days.”

“I’m surprised that a know-it-all archeologist and conspiracy buff like you doesn’t know about the Mayan Calendar.”

“Hey, I’m a
discerning
conspiracy buff. But this is ringing some bells. Not my specialty — I stayed away from all that Pre-Columbian stuff. But I do remember that the Mayas had some super accurate astronomical calendar. I need to get to a library — a big, decent library, not one of these dinky island places. You’re saying this thing specified a date when the world is supposed to end?”

“Yeah, it’s all the New Age rage — all over the ‘net. It seems the calendar comes to an end on the winter solstice in the year 2012. There are people who are so into this they believe your government is building underground shelters in preparation for a great celestial event on that date.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. People believe that hooey?”

Theo sniffed. “Well, if it isn’t the crackpot calling the kettle black,” he said — and then he ducked.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Washington, DC 

March 28, 2008

12:18 a.m.

Riley followed Dig through the empty corridors of Reagan National as though she were in a dream. She supposed she must look like some refugee with her bare legs and the thin airline blanket draped over her shoulders, but she was too exhausted to care. She doubted whether the late night floor polishers and bathroom cleaning ladies were paying any attention to the crazy woman whose only baggage was the passport in the back pocket of her shorts. 

The car waiting outside in a cloud of steaming exhaust was identical to the thousands of black Lincoln Town Cars one saw all over the city. When she stepped into the frigid winter night, Riley gasped and stopped short. Dig took her by the elbow and steered her to the car door, placing his hand on her head like a cop settling a prisoner. She sank into the soft leather, thankful the car had seat warmers. Dig covered her with another blanket, tucking the edges around her legs, and she leaned her head back to watch the city lights and the barren, leafless landscape as they drove toward the river.  

She wanted to think things through, but her brain felt fuzzy. She and Cole had slept little the night before as they’d sat in the galley on his boat and poured over that chart of Dominica. Now, here it was after midnight by the digital clock on the car’s dash, and still she had not even dozed. Lack of sleep could be as debilitating as drugs or alcohol. Her brain wasn’t working right any more. Thus far, Dig had brought her to Washington. Nothing more. No secret agenda in evidence. If it turned out that he was telling the truth about her father, she would need to make plans for her father’s care, for the townhouse, for her boat back in the islands. If it turned out that he had something different in mind for her, she needed rest to be able to take Dig on both mentally and physically.

Her mind kept flashing images of the sparks in Cole Thatcher’s eyes as he held up that damned calendar device. The man was obsessed, but she was beginning to understand it. She felt it, too. She wanted to be there with him — to solve the puzzle, that’s all. No other reason. Had he solved it without her? Or had he gone back to the Saintes to look after her boat as he’d promised? 

Don’t be a fool, she thought. Did she really believe he could leave Dominica if he had discovered where the
Surcouf
was located?

For the second time since they’d landed, Dig’s satellite phone buzzed. The first time, she’d been struggling to keep up with his long strides and hadn’t heard a word of the conversation. This time when he answered, he said, “Yes. Mm-hm. All right.” She was not able to hear any of the caller’s side of the conversation. Dig pushed a button to end the call, and as he leaned forward to slide the phone back inside his coat pocket, he said, “Your father is home now.”

“What? They’ve already discharged him?”

“Seems so.”

“But I thought he was at death’s door.”

“Riley, you never know how it is with these things. Given his age, they may have sent him home so he’d be more comfortable if there was nothing more they could do for him.”

“I want to talk to his doctors.”

“In good time. Tomorrow.” He stretched his arm out to bare the watch on his wrist. “Or rather, later today. You get cleaned up, get some rest. I’ll come back in a few hours to take you to the hospital.”

The car turned into the familiar street and Riley felt her stomach churn. “I can walk in the morning. It’s not that far.”

“As you wish. I’d be happy to drive you if you want, but I don’t mean to intrude on your life.”

If she hadn’t been so tired, she would have laughed at that.

There were no inside lights visible when they pulled up in front of her father’s brick two-story townhouse, but the dim porch light was lit in the alcove at the top of the steps. As usual, the street was lined with parked cars — they hadn’t built garages in the late 1890’s when these row houses were built. Riley patted her shorts and realized she didn’t have her key with her.

As though he could read her thoughts, Dig said, “Mrs. Wright will let you in. Just tap on the door. She’s awake.”

She wondered how he could be so certain.

Dig reached across her and opened the door. “Hurry,” he said. “Or you’ll freeze.”

Riley climbed out of the car and her sneakers crunched on the thin layer of snow that covered the pavement. The frigid night air stung her bare skin like a thousand icy needles. She trotted across the sidewalk, opened the black iron gate, then rushed up the steps. As she was lifting her hand to knock on the door, she heard the sound of the lock turning, and the door swung open. Riley tilted her head back to look up at Eleanor Wright who filled the doorway in her flower-print robe, a white scarf tied round her head. Behind her the house loomed dark and silent. Weird, Riley thought. All Wright needed was a kerosene lamp in her hand, and she’d look like a king-sized version of the original residents of the house from the turn of the last century.

“Thanks for waiting up for me, Mrs. Wright,” Riley said as she stepped into the dark foyer and closed the door behind her. She stomped her feet on the front door mat and tried to remember where the light switch was.

The older woman looked her up and down in the dim light that shone through the windows from the street, frowning at the way Riley was dressed. She grunted, then turned away, and passed into the kitchen where she turned on a light. “There’s hot tea left in the pot there,” she said, “and you can warm the soup on the stove if you’re hungry.” 

In the harsh kitchen fluorescent lights, the ancient appliances and the deeply etched butcher block counter tops were familiar in their shabbiness. Between her father’s postings, they had sometimes returned to Washington for a few months, and her father would allow the children into his personal domain. Her parents divorced after she joined the Corps, and since her mother had moved back to France, whenever Riley returned stateside, her father’s spare bedroom was hers. After her discharge, she had moved in for good.

The housekeeper lifted the heavy lid off a mammoth pot on the stove and swirled the contents with a ladle. Wright always seemed to cook enough to feed an army. She stood nearly half a foot taller than Riley and probably weighed twice what Riley did. She wore no make-up and her cheeks hung down in over-lapping jowls on either side of her thin pursed lips. 

The woman had seemed like a godsend when she arrived. Riley had been advertising for a day nurse and the old battle axe had arrived at the door one day, saying she had a recommendation from one of her father’s old school friends. When Wright moved in, Riley was able to move out.

“Thank you, Mrs. Wright, but I’m not hungry. I just want to know about my father. What can you tell me about his condition?” Riley hugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders in spite of the oppressive heat in the house.

The older woman sighed and pressed the knuckles of her right fist into her hip. “You never call him and now you drop in and want to chat at nearly one in the morning? I don’t think so.” She started to turn toward the door.

Riley reached out and grabbed the woman’s arm through her robe. “I know you don’t think I’m much of a daughter, but he is my father. Do you have any idea what it’s like to get the news that your father has had a stroke? How is he? I can’t believe they’ve just sent him home from the hospital to die.”

Wright stared down at Riley’s hand on her arm, then looked up and locked gazes with her.

“Turns out he didn’t have a stroke after all.”

“What?”

 “Doctor said it was a problem with his sodium or some damn thing. He drinks too much water. Other than that, there’s been no change in your father’s condition.”

“But he,” Riley pointed toward the front door, “told me you’d been trying to reach me to tell me about the stroke.”

Wright turned and stared at the door for a moment, then shook her head. Turning back to face Riley, she said, “I was wrong, that’s all. Your father is still the same ornery son of a bitch who can’t remember who I am most days or how to find his own goddamn way to the bathroom.  Hasn’t left this house in months. Don’t know what they been telling you, but if that’s the only reason you came home, you can call that limo and head back down to the islands.” Eleanor Wright turned and lumbered out of the kitchen leaving Riley stunned, the blanket still draped over her shoulders.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

McLean, Virginia 

March 28, 2008

1:50 a.m.

Diggory leaned forward and gave the driver an address on Old Dominion in McLean, Virginia. It wasn’t far outside DC, but he would have enough time to sort through the information he had received and make plans. Back in the airport, he had been surprised when his sat phone rang shortly after landing. He realized then he would need to delay his plans. 

He could tell from the echo on the line, they had him on speakerphone, but he didn’t know where they were calling from, nor who all was in the room. They asked about Caliban — said their man in Guadeloupe had gone missing. Beelzebub, the old politico, wanted to know if Dig knew anything about it. Dig, glancing past his shoulder at the blanket-clad girl shuffling beside him, kept to one word answers. 

“When did you see him last?”

“Friday.”

“And everything was normal then?”

“Yes.”

“And the target. Has he found anything yet?”

“No.”

“You’ve been watching him?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to have to consult the others. Our methods may have to change. We didn’t think the target had the potential to do damage, but if he is responsible for Caliban’s disappearance, you might have to take him out. Understood?”