Siege of Stone Read online

  It was eight in the evening when they drove into Gairloch. From there they went another three miles up the west coast of the peninsula, and turned left onto a dirt road that took them to the cottage that had been rented for them. It was a large, white, two-story house only a hundred yards from the rocky beach that looked out across the Minch, the body of water separating the mainland from the Isles of Harris and Lewis. There was not another cottage in sight.

  They went into the house first and looked it over. Downstairs was a large living room with a television and sparsely filled bookshelves, a smaller parlor, a kitchen, and a dining room. Three computers sat waiting for them on the long dining room table. "Guess we eat in the kitchen," Joseph said.

  The refrigerator and pantry were well stocked, and the closet just inside the front door was filled with rain gear in their respective sizes, as well as several pairs of rubber boots. Upstairs there were four small bedrooms and two baths.

  Then they unpacked the van, taking the weapons, explosives, and covert supplies down into a windowless cellar accessible only from the kitchen. Once locked, the heavy door to the cellar would need a well-placed charge to open it.

  Afterward, they had a supper of sandwiches. Laika and Tony had tea to finish, and Joseph helped himself to the single malt Scotch thoughtfully provided by whoever had prepared the place for Skye. Joseph smacked his lips after the first sip. "I'd forgotten how much I liked Scotland," he said.

  "Better be careful," Tony warned him. "You'll have bad dreams."

  It wasn't a bad dream Joseph Stein had that night, but a good one. Joseph dreamed that he awoke in the middle of the night, and saw his father standing next to his bed, tall and strong, as he had been when Joseph was a boy. He seemed to be illuminated from within, and was smiling at Joseph.

  His presence was comforting, and Joseph thought how nice it was of his father to come back from wherever it was that people went when they died. He probably wanted to reveal to him that there was life after death, and Joseph found that reassuring, despite the fact that he knew he would not believe it in the morning, no matter how real it felt now.

  Then his father started to change his shape. His arms joined his body, becoming one with the torso, and the features of his face faded into a pale plain. The entire figure became taller and cylindrical, losing all detail and definition, but still the sensation of comfort and benignity remained in Joseph's mind. There was a touch of frustration as well. Joseph had the overwhelming feeling that his father, or whatever seemed to be his father, very much wanted to tell him something, but could not, not yet.

  The glowing figure ascended slowly, and the ceiling of the bedroom melted away, so that Joseph could see the form rising into the sky, gaining speed and diminishing in magnitude as it went, until it was only a dim dot against the black night, and then was gone. The sky's darkness became the darkness of his bedroom ceiling, and Joseph realized that he was lying in bed, his eyes open, looking up at it.

  He was awake, all right, but his father's ghost had been nothing more, he was certain, than a hypnopompic hallucination, a half-dream, half-vision sprung from the mind just before waking.

  So the next morning, when Tony jokingly asked Joseph if he had had any nightmares or seen any ghosts, he simply smiled and said he had not. After breakfast, they drove to the MacLunie croft.

  Dennis MacLunie was a thin, sunbrowned man, seemingly made up of flesh and ligament alone. The house out of which he came, however, was big and broad, made of whitewashed stones. Its thatched roof made it appear to be wearing a wig, an illusion strengthened by the net that kept the individual rushes from blowing away in the gusty wind. MacLunie introduced himself and then invited the three inside, "out of chill."

  His wife, Mary, as round as he was thin, brought tea and homemade scones, and they all sat by the fire in the main room. Although the house had looked huge from outside, the stone walls were so thick that the room felt cramped. "So you're from Princeton, then?" MacLunie asked. "Never been to the States m'self, but had a cousin gone over there. You'll be wantin' to know about the stones, won't ye? They're over on the croft next to this, I own 'em both. Have three of 'em altogether, four acres of inbye land each."

  "'Inbye' land?" Laika asked.

  "Aye. Means the land's good for farming. Not all rocks and cliffs and such, that's all."

  "What do you farm?" Joseph asked, curious to know what this rough land might yield.

  "Oh, corn and barley, mostly, and then I've got my souming on the common land."

  Joseph chuckled. "You lost me again. What's souming?"

  "Souming—how many sheep I'm permitted to graze on the land where the other crofters graze their sheep, too. Anyway, the stones are right near the castle."

  "There's a castle?" asked Laika.

  "Aye, Castle Dirk. Stupid name. Man called Scobie owns it, but haven't seen him in years and years, though folks say he comes to the castle time to time. Just an old caretaker in there now, lives in a cottage right by."

  "So, Mr. MacLunie," Laika said, in the brief silence during which MacLunie took a bit of scone and dipped it in his tea, "you're not concerned that our little dig might stir up any . . . ghosts?"

  "Achhh," MacLunie growled. "Ghost are shite, ye'll pardon me. Lived here all my life and never seen one."

  "We've heard that other people are claiming they have."

  "I've heard that, too, but it's foolishness. The only ghosts these drunkies see is when they've had one too many drams." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Though there must be a lot of whisky and lager goin' down lately." He tossed back his tea and set down the cup with a rattle. "Shall I show ye the stones, then?"

  The croft that held the MacLunie Stones was another mile north. Laika went with MacLunie in his truck while Joseph and Tony followed in the Peugeot. MacLunie turned off the rough road into an open field and gestured for the two men to hop into the back of the truck. "Your wee car won't do so well here," he said, and proceeded up a steep hill. Although Laika couldn't yet see the Minch, she knew they were heading in that direction.

  MacLunie stopped when they were fifty yards from the top of the hill, and they got out. The MacLunie Stones were nothing to write home about, Laika thought. There were three of them, all heavily weathered. Two were lying flat on the ground, nearly covered by vegetation, while the third, only two feet high, stood barely upright, leaning like a tired gravestone. Moss and lichen clung to its gray surface.

  "Nae much to look at, are they?" MacLunie said. "Don't think I'll be puffin' in a souvenir stand soon. Dig all you like, lang as you don't dig up the stones. I won't be botherin' you. Can't farm here, too rocky. And bad grazin' land, too. The bees like the heather, though. I've got some hives nearby. Anything else you'll want, then?"

  "I don't think so, Mr. MacLunie. We'll look around up here a bit, then walk down to the car."

  MacLunie tipped his wool cap, went back to his truck, and drove down the hill and onto the road. Laika and the others surveyed the site. The land sloped down to the south and east, where they could easily see the road, and rose to the north and west. They walked northwest until they came to where the hill stopped rising.

  The earth fell away from them down to the narrow strand that hugged the waters of the Minch. But what captured their gaze was not the sea, but the broad and heavy shape of the castle that sat upon a crag not five hundred yards from where they stood.

  It seemed ancient and majestic and grand in its partial ruination. The tumbled stones that remained of the outer wall lay as though flung by the hand of Fingal the giant. But the inner wall and the four towers at each corner still stood, defying the centuries of war and harsh elements that must have stormed around them. The castle sat on the edge of the sea, and though not as high as the spot where the operatives stood, it held a commanding view of the Minch. Though Laika could not see its northwestern wall, it appeared to drop straight down to the strand, making it a formidable foe to attack by water.

  Several outbuildings s
tood around the main pile. Laika could see smoke rising from the chimney of the largest one, and assumed it was the caretaker's cottage of which MacLunie had spoken. A rusty English Ford sat next to it, the only vehicle in sight.

  A low stone wall separated the castle grounds from the rest of the peninsula, going down all the way across the strand and into the Minch itself. She wondered how far under the water the defenders of the castle had piled the stones. It seemed more symbolic than practical, for an attacking force could easily climb over it.

  "Wish we were digging that up instead," Tony said. She barely heard him over the sound of the wind blowing up the cliff from the sea. It was cold on their faces, with the sun at their backs.

  "It's a pretty small castle, though," said Joseph, "you come right down to it. It looks impressive, but most of that's the location. I wonder if it was really designed for defense. What little is left of the outer curtain indicates that it wasn't very high, or even very thick. But it is old, not a Victorian reproduction—see where they replaced missing stones with new ones? There's a difference in color."

  "It's bigger than my apartment back home, anyway," said Tony, as if miffed that Joseph was minimalizing such a romantic vision. Laika knew how he felt.

  "Well, we'd better get down to work," she said, "or none of us will ever see our little hovels back home again."

  They walked to the car, drove back to their cottage, and returned to the site in the van, bringing all the equipment with which they would develop their archeological cover. The van made it easily up the hill to the stones, and they parked it so as to most effectively block their activities from view of anyone passing on the road.

  Then they set to work with stakes and yellow plastic ribbons that reminded Laika of crime scene markers, setting them in a gridwork pattern around the stones. Next to them they placed wooden frameworks of plastic webbing through which dirt could be sifted.

  With flat-bladed tools they cut through the turf, first marking off a six-by-six-foot area and then removing square-footsized slabs, placing them carefully in piles, the way the Scots cut peat. At last they began to dig with small shovels, removing only the first six inches of dirt, sifting it through the webbing, and finding only pebbles and bits of rock.

  Even though they were only creating a ruse, Laika still looked carefully at what they were doing. Once, possibly millennia ago, men had worked here, placing these now worn stones in patterns that meant something deeply significant to them. It was altogether possible that they might unearth something of interest.

  After a few hours of work, they had found nothing, but at least there was physical proof of their cover, should it be required. They drove back to the cottage and had lunch. Afterward, Laika and Joseph took the Peugeot into Gairloch to buy groceries and investigate the spectral reports.

  Tony returned to the MacLunie Stones in the van, and continued digging. Another few hours of excavation would add to the verisimilitude of their facade. But he had worked only for a half hour when he had a visitor.

  He had seen the black-garbed figure corning north on the road on a bicycle. At first Tony had thought it was a woman, because of what he mistook for the hem of a long skirt flapping around the man's ankles as he rode. But when the man stopped and began to walk up the hill toward him, Tony could see that it was a priest's cassock, black and buttoned nearly to the feet. The priest was wearing a very non-ecclesiastical burgundy-colored beret, and was panting by the time he reached Tony. He was thin to the point of gauntness, and appeared to be in his early sixties.

  "Good day, m'sieu," he said with an unmistakable French accent, looking anxiously at the three large stones. "These are the MacLunie Stones, n'est-ce pas?"

  "Oui, père," Tony said, continuing the conversation in French. The priest, who said his name was Father Alexandre Coisne, was delighted to find someone who spoke his tongue. As his fatigue from climbing the hill vanished, he grew more garrulous. He was, he told Tony, finishing a three-month bicycle tour around England and Scotland.

  "I am trying," he explained in rapid-fire French, "to see as many of the British stone circles as I can in that time."

  "Even these?" Tony said, gesturing with mild contempt to the trio of sorry boulders.

  "Oh, I did not come especially for these, but they are only a few miles out of my way as I travel to the Mellangaun Stones. And I wanted to see the Templar castle."

  Tony suppressed his reaction to hearing the word. The Knights Templar had been the key that had opened this mystery back in New York. The eleven men found poisoned and burned in an upstate hunting lodge had, in all likelihood, been Templars, either a newly formed group, or, as the evidence seemed bizarrely to suggest, men centuries old, who had somehow retained their youth and survived all those years. Tony smiled and looked at the priest with what he hoped appeared to be only slight interest. "Templars, Father?"

  "Yes. Certain studies suggest that this Castle Dirk was built as a Knights Templar meeting place rather than a fortress."

  "I'd never heard that."

  "Oh, my reading takes me into obscure corners, my son. There are many books and old manuscripts concerning the Templars in the Bibliothèque Nationale."

  "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed, Father, but the castle isn't open to the public."

  "Ah well," said the priest, looking forlornly at the three stones, "I have had other disappointments on this trip." Then he brightened and looked back at Tony. "So what is it that you are searching for here, m'sieu?"

  "Whatever may be left after so many centuries, Father. Tools, hopefully. Anything to help explain how and why the stones were moved and put into place."

  "May God grant you success in your goal," Father Alexandre said, and bade Tony goodbye.

  To maintain the illusion they had created, Tony resumed digging, but he carefully watched the priest walk down the hill to his bicycle. Several cars passed, and he found himself hoping the old man would be careful on the narrow roads. When the priest had pedaled around a bend, Tony dropped his shovel and walked up to the ridge of the hill, where he looked down at the castle.

  Templars. My God, what were the chances that they'd have come across a Templar connection again? There seemed to be a synchronicity at work here, a guiding hand of some sort. Or maybe it was all connected. Maybe the sightings here somehow tied in to the Prisoner, and since those same Templars had watchdogged that same Prisoner for centuries, it made sense that there might be a Templar connection here as well.

  As he looked at the castle, he knew that something was different. Then he had it—the rusted Ford was missing from beside the caretaker's cottage.

  Had Tony been in his normal, cautious state of mind, he would not have even considered going to the castle alone. But losing Miriam Dominick had made him ravenous for action and involvement. When he was merely digging a trench, there was too much opportunity for memories and regrets to come to him. If he did not keep his mind constantly busy, the sight of Miriam's face, the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand haunted him.

  Here at last was a chance to banish her for at least as long as it would take to enter the castle and see what might be found. There was no denying that it was a long shot to take on the casual word of a wandering priest, but priests had proved to be effective guides before, both spiritual guides through his life, and guides to the mystery in which he and his colleagues were immersed.

  He jogged back to the van, stuffed what equipment he thought he might need in a backpack, and trotted back over the hill and down toward the castle.

  Chapter 11

  Joseph had never seen a town as much on edge as Gairloch seemed to be. As he and Laika entered the grocer's shop, the man looked startled and forced a smile at the strangers. When they took their selections to the register, he avoided eye contact as he tallied up the bill.

  "Beautiful day," Laika observed. He glanced up and nodded, then went back to his sums. "Is there a pub in town you might recommend?" He would have to talk now, Joseph thought.
/>   "Black Bear," he said, not looking up.

  "Is anything wrong?" Laika asked.

  "Wrong?" Still he looked down.

  "When we came in, you looked as though you expected to . . . see a ghost."

  Now he looked up, gave a sickly smile, and forced a laugh. "Oh no, not me." The implication was obvious.

  "Others have, then, eh?" Laika said, as though she knew.

  "I wouldna know anything about that." He straightened up. "That's thirty-three pounds and forty-seven pence."

  Laika paid, and they picked up the bags and walked out. The grocer kept his gaze fixed firmly on the floor.

  "There's a man who's hiding something," Laika said outside, as they put the groceries into the trunk.

  "Or maybe it's just a bad case of acid reflux," said Joseph.

  Laika speedread the newspaper she had bought in the shop. "Nothing much in here except births, weddings, and deaths, jumble sales, auction records, crop yields, and the weather."

  "I was expecting newsboys to be on every corner, shouting 'Ghosts haunt peninsula! Citizens panic!'"

  "Let's try the Black Bear," said Laika. "Maybe people will be more talkative there."

  "Great. I've been dying for a lukewarm beer."

  The Black Bear was only a few storefronts away. On one side was a bar with small tables for drinkers along the opposite wall. A door led to a dining room. Laika and Joseph chose a table near one occupied by three men in work clothes who, Joseph guessed, worked on a croft. He got two glasses of lager at the bar, and he and Laika sat and drank and chatted of nothing, trying to overhear the conversation of the crofters.

  But the men spoke in low voices, and when Joseph tried to make conversation, they were polite but unresponsive. Laika and Joseph finished their beers and left.

  "I think we need to find the local shoeshine guy-slash-informant and slip him a twenty. Or maybe a cabbie—'You know where we can get some good ghosts around here?'"

  "No. Let's pay a visit to the Gairloch Gazette," she said.