Chapter 24

I shared my concerns with Garner, but chose to withhold them from the chief of security, who also came to me from MI6 but seemed less all-in, than Garner. The result was instantaneous.

“Boss, I have the CIA on the phone. They tell me that the whole story about Fiona and Nan might be a mish mash of made up tales and old cases that MI6 worked over the last few years.”

We talked until he gave me the rest.

“Fiona is her name and she is from where she says she’s from, but there are no independent records of the rest of her story. Same with Nan. They might as well have told you they were Dickens and Fenster. There’s just nothing to corroborate them. You need to bear in mind that MI6 and the CIA keep things out of the official records for a whole bunch of reasons, so this doesn’t give us more than an idea to go on.”

He gave me plenty to think about.

“I want them out of here by daylight. The castle is damaged and we don’t need to be harassed while we get to work. Get them wherever you think is safe. Call MI6 and demand they meet our helicopter and take them off our hands. If they refuse or make up ridiculous reasons why they can’t just take them away, we’ll know they are involved, somehow.

“Either way, I want them gone and right now.”

It happened just that way. Garner ordered the chopper prepped and the pilots took our guests to a contracted vessel out in the Atlantic that just happened to be close enough for a transfer. Garner said they tried to talk him out of dumping our problem women on him, but when he informed the duty officer that unless they came up with a transfer plan, he was under orders to land near Piccadilly Circle and leave the women there.

Several hours after getting rid of the women, MI6 Chief Younger called. “Lord Terrance,” he dove right in. “I have just been advised that I need to speak with you considering a severe security breach at your Scottish home. Joan Davidson should have been keeping me apprised of any unusual activity regarding you, but she has been off site tending to other issues. Can you tell me what has been happening? I’ve got Joan’s reports but it would be ever so much more helpful to hear it from your lips.”

Without acknowledging that I believed him, I gave the Chief a short run down on my experience with Fiona Murphy and Nan Reynolds, emphasizing my suspicions relating to their culpability in the attacks. When I finished, Younger stayed silent, no doubt thinking, not just about the facts as I shared them, but my intuition about who was behind it.

When he finally spoke, Younger sounded like he’d suddenly aged a couple of decades. “Lord Terrance, There has to be a reasonable explanation for such virulent attacks against you. You’ve sold your positions in all of the companies that arms dealers would be concerned with. The American holdings are in the hands of new buyers who are from Germany, but own a chain of banks in Bahrain, and your aunt took possession of the rest of your grandfather’s estate in England, so I can’t figure out why anyone would be interested in you.” We chatted a bit but he either knew nothing, or wasn’t about to tell me if he did, which amounted to the same thing. Jack had an inkling of what was going on and he was successful at putting it to bed with rather abrasive finality.

“So, we tracked the people who ran your friend’s boat over and they were dead, like we told you last week.” Jack sounded like a tax accountant. He was neither excited about the information, nor interested in how I felt about it. “We followed the money and identified the people who paid them, and ultimately killed them.

“It seems that you were the real target, not the women. It appears to be a classic screw up all the way around. Though Fiona Murphy’s husband was killed by people associated with the ones who wrecked the wrong boat, it was a coincidence, because those critters were finished worrying about the Murphy family.

“You apparently bested them in a business deal, without knowing they were even in the deal. For reasons we might never fully understand, those folks stood to make a lot of money off of scamming you out of some big stuff you owned. When you sold out without leaking the story ahead of time, their side lost a lot of money because the stock run-up ended way too early.

“It comes down to money, and a psycho who thinks you did it to him on purpose.” He let that all sink in before going on. “The whole thing resembles a stupid Three Stooges movie. It’s so convoluted that rather than deal with untangling all the stupid people, stupid motivations, stupid actions, and stupid outcomes, we just killed them all, like you suggested.”

Now we were getting somewhere productive.

“So...” he went on. “You’re in the clear on this one. Go renovate your castle in peace. Your enemies are pushing up daisies in very over-priced coffins, bought by relatives that seem pretty happy to be rid of them. This one won’t be coming back on anyone.”

He wanted paid.

I paid him.

Everyone was happy, with the possible exception of the guys pushing up daisies in over-priced coffins, of course.

It’s so simple when you look at it like that.

So ... after all of that ... what to do ... what to do...

Baby Girl and I spent a butt load of money hiring contractors to fix up, remodel, and expand Castle Wellington, and we took off for sunny Curacao to enjoy the warm weather, at a mountain top villa I bought just for the occasion. We slept late, played on the beach, chased waves and generally lived the life of the idle rich for the rest of the winter.

It’s funny how things change when you think everything is perfect.

Baby Girl was a joy in my life. We were inseparable. The sun and ocean lulled me into a state of pleasant dullness. The villa became a winter paradise in the same way Castle Wellington was my escape from the world the rest of the year. We could have been so happy if nothing had changed at all.

Everything changes.

The only thing you can count on never to change is that everything will change.

On the ninety-third day of our winter escape we got a visitor. I wouldn’t exactly call her a visitor, though. She was more like an uninvited guest. Sometimes unexpected guests bring happiness and energy to your home. Sometimes they bring aggravation.

This guest brought a small army of paparazzi.

Cathay was one of those singers that need only one name. It was some kind of trade secret whether Cathay was her first or last name. It was entirely possible that it was neither, just a figment of the imagination of some publicist. Proper name, or no her proper name, Cathay arrived with an entourage of thirty-two, including four nannies for one child, and her own press corps.

The island is pretty small, so everyone on Curacao knew Cathay was ensconced in the grand villa on the hill. The grand villa was out of the city and high up on the mountain, giving her some semblance of privacy. The island newspaper covered her arrival as if the last surviving potentate had chosen Curacao to announce the succession of power. Hordes of press and onlookers clogged mountain road, wreaking havoc with transportation and making the residents of said mountain unusually caustic in their remarks.

As the reporter for the local rag memorialized it, “Cathay brought the world to Curacao.” The world sure seemed to be blocking the roads going and coming from the grand villa, and the impossibly difficult traffic also caused the grand dame to seek an alternative route off the mountain so she could shop and allow the utterly entranced paparazzi to photograph her every move, facial expression, and purchase.

Baby Girl and were quite willing to ignore all the noise and complication for as long as it took Cathay to get her fill of the island and jet off to garner headlines somewhere else. All of the hoopla surrounding the arrival of Cathay was completely lost on me. All I knew was that the road was blocked, and since I intended to stay home and enjoy the soft breezes, gorgeous view, and peace, neither did it matter in the slightest.