Free Aground on St. Thomas by Rebecca M. Hale Page B

Friday’s assistance, he corralled the onlookers into a center seating area for questioning.
    It was a crowded assembly. Workers from a variety of positions were represented, from senior policy advisors to administrative clerks and cleaning staff.
    Hightower was confident he would be able to elicit the Governor’s location from one of the employees.
    Agent Friday wasn’t so sure. Despite the wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, there was a stony similarity in the expressions on these West Indian faces. Whatever fractures of loyalty that might have existed within the group had been sealed over by Hightower’s rough display on the second-floor hallway.
    Friday stepped back and observed, but remained ready to jump in if needed. He’d been saddled with the awkward job of preventing his boss from making any further errors in judgment.
    Operation Coconut, he thought bitterly. This is the last time I take an assignment named after a hairy piece of fruit.
    The Gorilla moved clunkily from one suspect to the next, passing over the suited bureaucrats for the administrative staff and cleaning crew. The latter employees he deemed more likely to rat out their boss.
    After unsuccessful interrogations of a janitor, a copy boy, and a secretary, Hightower focused on a cleaning maid seated in the middle of the group. The large unhappy-looking woman wore a cotton dress with a high frilly collar. A hairnet covered her tangled hair.
    She sighed uncomfortably as Hightower bent over her chair, flexing his beefcake muscles for intimidating effect.
    The maid fiddled with her cheap drugstore eyeglasses, nervously pushing the plastic frames into the soft cartilage of her nose.
    “I think
you
know where the Governor ran off to. Don’t you?”
    Like the rest of the employees, she at first refused to speak or even look at him. She crossed and recrossed her unshaved legs, shuffling the flimsy rubber sandals that were squeezed onto her chunky feet. But after a few minutes of Hightower’s steely-eyed stare and badgering questions, she pursed her lips and silently rotated her head. Her eyes looked pointedly northwest, in the direction of the public stairs that led up Government Hill.
    It was a wordless communication, but an effective betrayal, nonetheless.
    “Friday!” Hightower hollered, thrusting his arm to point at the building’s rear exit. “Get moving!”

An Abandoned Construction Site on Government Hill
    Charlotte Amalie

~ 18 ~
    The Hideout
    IN AN ABANDONED construction site up the hill from Government House, Cedric kept a watchful eye out the window through which Fowler had hefted the Governor less than an hour earlier.
    The aide wiped his sweaty face with a damp handkerchief. He was standing next to the building’s only open portal; the rest of the doors and windows had been sealed up, likely to prevent just this type of incursion.
    Government Hill was a pricey neighborhood with several historic homes built into its steep slope. Key selling points were the area’s proximity to downtown, the facilitating access of multiple public staircases, and the stunning harbor views. The most appreciated feature—by both the current inhabitants and the original settlers—was the breeze that filtered up the hillside, helping to break the humidity.
    “No luck on that today,” Cedric muttered as he glanced over his shoulder at the gutted interior. Despite the building’s missing roof, the high walls blocked any cooling respite the wind might have provided.
    •
    THERE WASN’T MUCH left of the residential home that had been co-opted as the Governor’s hideaway.
    The structure was undergoing a major renovation and had been stripped down to its concrete shell. From the look of things, work had been stopped for several months. The interior had been left exposed to the elements, and weeds had sprouted up through cracks in the concrete. A permit issue had probably tied up the construction, Cedric mused.
    It was a perfect spot for the Governor to