Foreign and Domestic Read online

  “What?” she asked, following his gaze to the woods.

  Mahegan gave her a glance and then looked back in the woods, but he couldn’t recapture the white flash.

  “See Virginia?” Locklear asked.

  “Virginia’s north of here. Can’t see it from this far,” Mahegan said.

  She smiled and said, “Virginia Dare. Her spirit roams the island.”

  “First English child born in America, right?”

  She punched him on the arm. “Not bad.”

  “Part of the Lost Colony, right?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Born on August 18, 1587. The county’s named after her.” Locklear was moving into the driver’s seat by now and Mahegan kept his eyes on the trees. He didn’t completely dismiss the story. He was a spiritual man in many ways, often wondering about a higher being and his place in the world. His father had said, “The Spirit lives” as if it were the answer to almost anything. He did feel connected to the earth and something beyond, but he had difficulty discerning the tangible, that which he could sense in a physical way, from the intangible, which wholly required faith. He had so palpably tasted death and witnessed the basest behavior in mankind that he did believe the only thing that could balance such depravity was an all-powerful goodness, perhaps God. His logic went like this: If there was evil in this world, and there most certainly was, then an equally good and powerful force was out there to balance things. The Spirit lives.

  So did he believe that Virginia Dare’s spirit was floating around the forest? Maybe. But the more likely explanation was that the sheriff had someone tailing him.

  He eased into the passenger seat as Locklear tossed him an extra-large T-shirt reading IF IT’S TOURIST SEASON, WHY CAN’T I SHOOT THEM?

  He held it up and said, “I’m not wearing some guy’s shirt.”

  “This is my sleeping shirt.”

  He pulled on the T-shirt and it smelled of fabric softener and recent laundering.

  “So did she live?”

  “Who?”

  “Virginia Dare. Did she survive the colony?”

  “I wish we knew, Jake.” She looked at him as if she had known him all of her life and put a hand on his shoulder where his scar was hidden beneath the shirt. “I’ve been working with the Lost Colony Research Center and they’ve got clues that lead to Dare Mainland, near the bombing ranges. Can you believe it? The military put in bombing ranges where the Croatan used to live and now there’s evidence that the Lost Colony had actually fled there.”

  “What evidence?”

  “The contractors found Moline crosses on some coffins over there when they were digging for bombs.”

  “So it was an English or French colony.”

  “Right. But there’s no record of the French ever colonizing here.”

  “Was there an infant female in the coffins?”

  Locklear looked at him. “No. But they found parts of a necklace made of whalebone with her name carved into it.”

  “Virginia? Or Virginia Dare?”

  “Virginia. And then an ‘r’ and an ‘e.’ There are those that think it was like a souvenir or tribute to the new land, but it would fit the neck of a ten-year-old girl.”

  Mahegan nodded, wondering why she seemed so emotionally attached to the story. He decided not to pursue the matter. “People were smaller then.”

  “Maybe. There’s the research that shows Eleanor Dare married Chief Manteo. That could have something to do with it also.”

  Locklear started the Defender again and slammed it into gear. As they were pulling out of the winding asphalt road that led past the botanical gardens and onto Route 64, Mahegan noticed the black pickup truck parked about a half mile away to the west, directly before where the bridge lifted over Croatan Sound.

  Teach’s Pet, black pickup, and Virginia Dare, he thought as she pulled into a west side restaurant called “Blackbeard’s.” They sat at a rear deck table that gave them a fifty-yard-line view of the orange sun diving into the far bank of Croatan Sound not far from where he had swum earlier this morning. The deck had about twenty tables scattered about with a few umbrellas for shade. Waiters and waitresses in black T-shirts with skulls and crossbones silk-screened onto them scurried around carrying giant trays of seafood and alcohol.

  “So you swim ten miles a day?”

  Mahegan shrugged. “Never measured it.”

  “I have. It’s five miles each way.”

  He smiled. “You probably just made it harder now that I have to think about it.”

  “Doubt it. You have a good stroke.”

  “So are you stalking me?”

  “Something like that, but probably not like you’re thinking.”

  He turned away from staring at the sun and looked into her blue eyes, then at her necklace.

  She sighed. “It will take me back to our previous conversation. You sure?”

  “It didn’t bother me before,” he said. “Lindy starts with an ‘l.’ What’s up with the ‘c’ on your necklace?

  “Croatan. My mitochondrial DNA shows I’m linked to Virginia Dare. Eleanor Dare is an ancestor. I believe the Dares moved with the Croatan to protect baby Virginia from everything that plagued Raleigh’s Lost Colony: disease, famine . . . unsympathetic Indians. So in a sense the Croatan protected me.”

  She let the comment hang out there. He had noticed her high-fashion sunglasses, the $60,000 British Land Rover, the perfect teeth, and her accented Elizabethan English. Being a direct descendent of Virginia Dare was probably as close to royalty as someone could get in North Carolina. So, she had some funding, but what was she doing?

  “I thought the Croatan slaughtered the English,” he said.

  “White man’s illogical deduction. John White comes back after two years and can’t find anyone, so he and his men assume the worst. Meanwhile, a few generations went by and the Croatan all looked like North Europeans, blond hair, blue eyes . . . like you. But now they’re saying there are no Croatan left in the world. Extinct.”

  “I think I’m Lumbee,” he said before he could stop himself.

  She cocked her head. “Really?”

  “Perhaps.” Changing the topic and getting to a point he wanted to discuss, he asked, “What do you know about the Teach’s Pet?”

  “The ship? Lots. Why?”

  “Just saw it out there off your beach,” he said.

  “It’s really just a prop for the Lost Colony production, which is an outdoor drama put on every year from May until September. In fact, the cast party is tomorrow night. But it is parked out there in a strange spot.”

  “How so?”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as a waiter brought two waters and menus. He was about twenty years old with an earring in both ears and colorful tattoo sleeves that stopped abruptly at his wrists.

  Once the waiter left, she said, “Treasure hunters are looking for pirate treasure all around it.”

  “Pirate treasure?”

  “Teach? Edward Teach? Blackbeard?” she said, waving her hand and looking around the restaurant. “I guess growing up around here we all know Blackbeard’s real name was Edward Teach. Personally, I’d go by Blackbeard also if that was my real name.”

  Mahegan vaguely recalled something about Edward Teach being Blackbeard the pirate and now put the two names together. Teach’s Pet was obviously a play on the common phrase “teacher’s pet.”

  “This far inland?”

  “Why do you think all this Blackbeard stuff is around here? Heck, where you’re staying, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, was the name of Blackbeard’s ship once he stole it from the French in the Caribbean.”

  Mahegan nodded. “Got it,” he said. “But how do you know where I’m staying?”

  Locklear paused and smiled without looking at him. “I’ve got connections.”

  Mahegan watched her, something flashing in his mind. It was a comment she had made earlier, but the thought disappeared when she continued speaking.

&nbs
p; “Anyway, legend has it that Blackbeard ferried his treasure north into Croatan and Albemarle sounds and up the Blackwater River. Then apparently he hid it in various locations in North Carolina and Virginia. You know Buffalo City, North Carolina, at all?”

  Mahegan shrugged.

  “Back in the 1850s a Doctor Thomas Johnson bought an ironclad ship called the Curlew he used in the sound because of its shallow draft. He would ferry his family and friends back and forth to Nags Head on the beach. Even back then it was a resort spot. He did timber and cotton, stuff like that.”

  Mahegan shrugged again as if to say, “So?”

  “During the early stages of the Civil War, the rebels took control of the ship when the War Between the States broke out and began using it initially as a troop transport to move men up and down the Outer Banks. Then they tricked it out with some guns and made it a fighting ship, like the Monitor and the Merrimack. It was shot and burned very close to where the Teach’s Pet sits right now.”

  “What’s the connection?”

  “Legend has it that Warren did more than take his family on vacation. We’re told that he raided the SS James Adger, stole two million in gold, and was moving it around the sounds on the Curlew kind of like an armored car.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Mahegan noticed her affect change from playful to determined as the conversation continued.

  “I think I should stop there,” she said.

  “Okay . . .” Mahegan remembered the gold coin in the key pouch of his board shorts. He got the sense that she was working some angle on the gold and clearly some had been found. He had hauled someone named Miller Royes in from the sound and Royes had a gold coin hidden in his boot.

  He turned to look over the deck railing at the glassy smooth sound. The sun was slicing into the haze just above the horizon, which came together with the east bank of mainland North Carolina and the nexus between the two sounds. An orange stripe painted its way along the mirror of water like the wake he had created this morning. He pieced together the information from the day.

  “But you need me for something,” he said, turning toward her.

  She nodded.

  “Something to do with this treasure stuff.”

  Not a question.

  She nodded again. “Strong and smart,” she said.

  “You go out in your kayak on the west side of the island away from where you live. You paddle into the sound every day and see me swimming, so you’re wondering if I’ve got something to do with searching for this treasure or if I’m a Copperhead carpetbagger. At first I’m an idle curiosity, but then you determine that I might actually have value to whatever end it is you have in mind. You figure I’m not with Copperhead and maybe decide to approach me later, but then I found the dead body and the sheriff is threatening to arrest me, forcing you to act. You need someone who’s not a local and whom you can trust. The first part you’ve got figured out and you’re working on the second part.”

  A frown grew on her face. “Am I that easy to figure out?”

  “But what I can’t figure out is why Sheriff Johnson apologized to you about Miller Royes and whoever J.J. is,” Mahegan said.

  Locklear looked away over the deck of the restaurant and into the tranquil sound. He thought he saw tears well in her eyes, but she quickly regained her composure.

  “Ah. Miller was a friend. And J.J. . . .” she said. Her voice saddened and she couldn’t finish.

  “And J.J.?” he asked. But the waiter interrupted by asking for their order. He ordered a Mahi fillet and she ordered a vegetarian dish. As the waiter was turning away, Mahegan noticed a movement to his three o’clock. He looked in each direction using all of his senses, including imagining his magnetic field scanning like radar. Mahegan believed every animal had a spirit and an energy field, which was part of the reason he preferred being alone. Get mixed up with the wrong energy overlapping his all the time, he figured, and he might lose his tenuous bearing on magnetic north.

  He turned slowly and saw a large man with a close haircut sitting at a table at the far end of the deck. The man looked vaguely familiar if for no other reason than he had seen that look, build, and haircut a million times in the military.

  Then he thought about the black truck and excused himself.

  “Restroom,” he said to Locklear, standing to leave.

  As he walked toward the restaurant’s rear door, he caught in his periphery the large man nodding to someone he could not see. Careful not to turn his head, Mahegan saw that there was a window looking onto the back deck. As he entered through the back door, he felt the intent stare of another man whom he could make out in the corner of the restaurant. This man was big and muscular with a tight military haircut also.

  He walked to the front of the restaurant into the main lobby where the bathrooms were located and with purpose continued to the parking lot where he saw the black truck parked in the far corner. He walked to Locklear’s Defender and grabbed the binoculars from under the seat.

  Mahegan bent down and acted as though he was working on the Defender’s right rear tire. He held the powerful binoculars to his face and focused on the license plate.

  US Government. He memorized the plate number and scanned the sticker on the left top portion of the plate. Virginia.

  Pentagon?

  He used the binos to scan through the driver’s side window but the tint was too dark. He moved slightly and adjusted his angle to see through the rear window. Though the window was clear, he could not make out anything but the presence of a green three-ring binder. He recognized it as a dispatch log the military used for keeping track of who signed out what vehicle when and how far they drove. On the log were the words: Fort Belvoir. Then, CIDIG. CID, Mahegan knew, stood for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. IG was the acronym for the Army’s Inspector General, every soldier’s enemy. The IG was exactly like any police force’s internal audit function, only exponentially more powerful and far reaching.

  Recalling Savage’s warning about General Bream, the Army Inspector General, he put the binos under the seat of the Defender, brushed off his hands, and walked up the steps.

  These were Bream’s goons?

  He turned right and positioned himself at the end of the long covered porch. There were four rocking chairs on either side of the main entrance, cigarette butts littering the sun-bleached deck. The porch encircled the entire building, so he moved just off the periphery as the two men came charging out of the restaurant, believing he had probably escaped from the tight net that they had cast about him.

  He walked back into the restaurant and sat across from Locklear.

  “Everything . . . okay?” She arched a barely visible blond eyebrow.

  The waiter had brought two house salads and a greasy basket of hush puppies.

  “Two guys are going to come barging back in here in a second and I want you to level with me. Do you know them?”

  “I can already tell you. I’ve never seen them. I noticed the one sitting at your four o’clock and the one who followed him out of the restaurant when you’d been gone more than a minute.”

  Mahegan stared at her a moment, half smiled, and nodded.

  “Good. I like that.”

  On cue, the dark-haired guy came walking in too fast directly toward their table. He had a slight bulge under his Windbreaker and, up close, Mahegan saw the man had a broad build, much like a football lineman, but on the softer side, perhaps a guard not a tackle. He was probably good in his day, but Mahegan noticed in his walk that his legs weren’t powerful enough for his frame so he pushed out with every step instead of fully forward. He had to turn sideways to weave through the smattering of tables, which didn’t help as he was wide in both directions.

  He stopped directly in front of their table and before he could say anything Locklear looked up at him and said, “You know, I think we will have another appetizer. Some of that calamari looks good. And we’ll have a bottle of Sonoma Cutrer Char
donnay also.” Then she looked at Mahegan and smiled, reaching her hand out to his on the table. “Don’t you agree, dear?”

  Mahegan nodded, looking at Locklear, but kept his antennae up. “Sounds good to me.” He returned his gaze to the interloper, taking in his Doc Marten boots, pressed no-iron slacks, big rodeo belt buckle, and the cheap blue Windbreaker. He memorized his pockmarked face and high-and-tight haircut and pegged him for military police.

  “Captain Chayton Mahegan?” the man asked.

  “That’s me.” Mahegan stood slowly until he was fully upright and nearly chest to chest with the man. He was proud of his name and proud of his service and he would never deny either, no matter who this stranger was or what he might want. “But it’s Mr. Mahegan now.”

  “I’m Chief Warrant Officer Paul Paslowski with Army Special Activities Division in the Army Inspector General’s office. Lieutenant General Stanley Bream directed me to either apprehend you or ask you to come to the Pentagon for questioning in regard to the alleged murder of Commander Hoxha in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, a year ago.”

  “Murder?” Locklear spat.

  Paslowski shifted on his feet and actually backed away from him a bit. Mahegan tensed, ready to fight.

  “Murder. That’s the allegation and it’s really all I can say.”

  “What kind of jurisdiction do you think you have down here?” Mahegan asked.

  Paslowski slid the Windbreaker back a tad so that Mahegan could see the butt of his Beretta pistol.

  In his periphery, Mahegan noticed Locklear fidget with her purse. While he didn’t know her very well, he wouldn’t be surprised if she had some kind of small firearm tucked away in there. The lady had an engine, but he wasn’t sure she had a governor on her carburetor. She seemed to be full throttle with a methodical bent, like a fighter pilot. Reckless but in control.

  “Afraid that’s not going to get you a whole lot down in this region, chief. I put in my paperwork less than a year ago, and I’m on a date with this beautiful woman.”