Because I wasn’t sure of the pronunciation, I was relieved when he said, “No. For now, use something impersonal. Military. Nautical, maybe.”
I said, “What about your Secret Service code name?” Vue had used it a couple of times on the radio.
Wilson shook his head.
I tried again. “Captain?” I waited through his silence, then said, “Skipper?”
“ ‘Skipper’… yes, that works. Use it. Drop all the other formal baloney. No, wait…” He thought about it for a moment. “I spent June on Long Island. Seaside mansions, and about half the people there were named Skipper. Skipper’s too old money. I grew up on a farm.”
“Well, how about-”
“How about ‘Chief.’ I left the Navy as a lieutenant commander so it’s a bump in rank. But it’s better than Skipper.” There was a smile in his voice. The man had known some chief petty officers.
I said, “It fits.” I was thinking chief executive, commander in chief.
“Hold it. No… Chief’s too pushy. If we run into strangers, they’ll start asking questions if you call me Chief. It needs to be bland. I don’t want to attract attention.”
I remembered Vue using the military acronym FIGMO, and said, “Why not ‘Sam.’ That’s as simple as it gets.” It was short for Samson bit, the cleat on the bow of a ship. It was also an acronym with a couple of meanings. One was profane, and stood for ‘Shit Awful Mess’; the other, a type of missile.
Wilson laughed when I reminded him of SAM’s three meanings. He thought it for a few minutes before saying, “I like that. For now, that’s what you call me. Sam. Try to treat me like I’m just a regular guy.”
“Okay. You’re making it easier for me. Sam.”
“Making what easier?”
“Talking about the way you handle a canoe. You’ve got us zigzagging like drunks. It’s going to take forever to make land unless we switch places.”
The paddler in the stern controls the boat and Wilson had insisted on taking that seat.
“But I want to steer.”
“I’m aware of that… but it’s not working out. I should be in the back.”
“You’re saying I’m not competent?”
“I’m saying I’ll get us there faster.”
“Come on, Ford. What’s the problem? I prefer honesty to-”
“Okay, okay, you’re not competent. In fact, you’re worse than not competent. You bang the hull, and you splash me about every third stroke. You suck at the helm.”
“I didn’t say to be crude-”
“Don’t be offended. I have more experience. That’s why I should be steering.”
In a flat voice, he replied, “But you don’t know where we’re going.”
I was aware of that, too. When we left Ligarto, I’d told him my truck was two miles east, loaded and ready, as he had ordered. The former president replied, “There’s been a change of plans. We’re not using your truck.”
Instead of east he was steering us west -trying, anyway-toward the chain of barrier islands that separates mainland Florida from the Gulf of Mexico.
“It’s time to trust me. Tell me where you want to go. We’ll find shallow water and trade places.”
“I share my plans on a need-to-know basis. I’ve already explained that. A few details at a time, that’s all. It’s a standard security measure.”
With exaggerated patience, I said, “I need to know the boat’s destination because I will soon be sitting where you’re sitting and I will be steering, not you. Which means we will be going in a straight line, not zigzagging, or making little tiny circles on the great big ocean. So why not tell me the destination now, before we switch places? Give me something to aim for… Sam.”
The man softened. “Am I that bad? Or are you in a pissy mood?”
I said, “Both.”
He laughed. “Know what? You’ve got a point. I try to pick the best people available and let them do their jobs. No second-guessing, ever. Out here, Doc, you’re the expert. And you’ve had a long night.”
He said it so amiably, I felt bad for snapping at him. But I also realized that by challenging me, then deferring, he’d created a sense of indebtedness-the precursor to loyalty. The man knew how to leverage, pushing, then backing off.
But he was right. I’d had a long night.
On Ligarto, agent Wren had insisted on escorting the former president to his cabin. That left me alone, waiting in swamp and mosquitoes, unsure what to do. Leave or stay?
I stayed… stayed for two miserable hours before Vue returned. “President be here soon,” he said, then surprised me by adding, “He is sick. How sick is he?”
Vue didn’t know-my first revelation of how private and stubborn Wilson could be.
I evaded, telling him I knew nothing about Wilson’s health.
Vue’s reaction was strange. He sounded pleased. “Already, you are lying for him. Good. I lie for him many times. I would die for President Wilson, he is such a friend. That how I know he must be very sick or he would not be determined to do this thing.”
I said, “Determined to do what?”
It was Vue’s turn to lie. “How would I know? I am his bodyguard. If I could travel, he maybe tell me. For all these years, I go everywhere with him. That’s why I must stay here. It is the only way to fool Secret Service. But there’s something I want to ask you. ” He was eager to change subjects. “Where that knife you say you take from those men?”
I found the knife and handed it to him. He used his penlight to inspect it, then shook his head solemnly. “I believed what you tell us before, but I believe more now. This is knife, very rare. It called a ‘ badek,’ some places; Indonesia. Or a ‘khyber’ in Burma and the Himalayas.” He touched the knife’s edge. “Very best steel, hand-forged, and sharp. It curved for this”-Vue swiped a finger across his throat-“You don’t have weapons. How you take this knife from a man?”
He seemed impressed when I told him, but it didn’t make him any more talkative. He shrugged when I pressed for details about Wilson’s travel plans. When I asked for an update on the men in the inflatable, his answers were vague; he seemed preoccupied. He kept returning to the subject of President Kal Wilson.
“This very hard for me ’cause I used to taking care of the man. Dr. Ford, you must be his bodyguard now. When you return safe with the president, you and me, we meet privately. I expect you give me full report.”
He spoke unemotionally, but there was an implicit threat.
Less veiled was Vue’s interest in the electronics I was carrying, or had aboard. I told him I had a GPS, and a cell phone, adding, “My VHF radio’s broken and the cell phone’s worthless. I can’t get a signal out here.”
I was lying about the VHF-I’d dropped the damn thing overboard when I was loading the canoe. But the man’s interest wasn’t conversational, I discovered.
“You very sure that all you have?”
“Yep. Very sure.”
Without warning, he took my wrist. “What about your watch? They lots of electronic watches now.” I was wearing my old stainless Rolex Submariner, something I rarely do, but it seemed to fit the situation.
He inspected both sides of the watch, then said, “No laptop? iPod? No personal data file?”
“In a canoe? Nope. Canoes and electronics don’t mix. Plus, I don’t own any of that crap, anyway.”
Vue didn’t see the humor. He held out his hand. “You give me GPS and cell phone. President be here soon and you go.”
That made no sense. “Why would I leave the GPS? There’s still fog out there. And it’s my personal cell phone.”
His hand didn’t waver, nor did his tone. “You give me all electronics. President’s orders. I keep them safe ’til you get back.”
“But why?”
Vue shrugged, another lie. “I dunno. He call these things blind horses. Maybe he want you to use your own eyes.”
I felt like telling him to spare me the aphorisms. Instead, I said, “He’s worri
ed about being tracked. Why don’t you just say so?” I handed him my phone and little GPS, finally grasping why Wilson had refused to let me use my twenty-one-foot Maverick flats boat. I could have poled in just as quietly, and the skiff was specially rigged for night travel-tactical LED lights mounted beneath the poling platform; a spotlight, with an infrared lens, mounted above. The Maverick will do fifty knots in a foot of water -only a helicopter could have caught us.
But Wilson had demanded I come by canoe. Less chance of hidden electronics, I realized.
Before Vue left me, he loaded the president’s bags into the canoe, saying, “I am from the snow mountains, Burma, near the Chinese border. There are men in my village who think they know of you. You had many friends, some with green faces. And yet, our men say, you always traveled alone.”
I waited. He was talking about Indochina.
“You not traveling alone now. Understand? You never leave the president alone. Not for a minute, because he die soon, I think. In my village, when a great man dies we place his body on a platform where the wind can take it. President Wilson, he is a great man, and he must not die alone.”
Vue, I was guessing, came from one of the many tribes that inhabit mountainous regions from Afghanistan to Nepal, from Burma into Southeast Asia. Like Great Britain’s infamous mercenaries the Gurkhas, the tribesmen are known for their loyalty and their fearlessness. According to legend, they are the descendants of mountain gods, but the ethnic majorities of Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam refer to them as “Mois”- a racial slur that means “savages.”
I said, “I’ve been in those border areas. I attended a funeral like you’re describing. It was for the father of a friend, a member of the Hmong tribe. You call it a ‘wind burial’?”
“Yes. Put the body high among the trees, so the spirit flies.”
As he added, “ Mong, that word mean ‘brave,’ ”I was remembering a line of mourners in colorful dress, winding up a hill with a red coffin, and chanting as vultures cauldroned overhead. There was the smell of incense and ox dung.
“The burial ceremony is important. But it more important how a great man dies. Do you understand? There must be wind and light so the sky can take him.”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t understand.”
Vue shrugged his massive shoulders, then turned, done with it. I watched him disappear into the darkness of the shell ridge.
The former president arrived an hour later, carrying a backpack. “Secret Service thinks I’m locked in my cabin,” he whispered. “Let’s get our feet wet.”
At 4 A.M., wind freshened off the Gulf of Mexico; heat radiating from the Everglades was siphoning weather from the open sea. I was in the stern, paddling toward the Gulf, using the October moon as a beacon. It was desert yellow, gaseous. It cast a column of light broad as a highway.
When we’d traded seats, Wilson finally revealed our destination. We were bound for the southern point of Cayo Costa, an isolated barrier island three miles southwest of Ligarto. There was a settlement of shacks and beach houses on the point that were only occasionally inhabited by the eclectic mix of beach bums, hermit entrepreneurs, and hippie dropouts who owned them. There were no roads on the island, no landing strips.
When I asked why he wanted to go to Cayo Costa, the former president told me I’d find out when we got there. It was the answer I expected.
Cayo Costa was now an undulant darkness less than a mile away, ridged like a sea serpent floating on the Gulf’s rim. The moon was over the island, its reflection linked to our canoe like a tractor beam, drawing us away from mainland Florida, leaving sleeping tourist resorts and city lights behind.
Wilson noticed.
“The way the moon hits the water… it’s like a passageway. Almost like the deck of an aircraft carrier opening up.” After a pause, he asked, “Do you believe in omens?”
“Umm… no.”
“Would you admit it if you did?”
I smiled. “Probably not.”
“Me, neither. Which makes us both a couple of superstitious liars. There was a moon like this the first time I landed on the Kennedy. It turned out to be good luck, so I take this as a good omen. Did you ever make a night landing on a carrier, Ford?”
“No. Well… in a helicopter once. But not what you’re talking about.”
I expected him to add something, tell me how terrifying it was. He was a Naval pilot. He’d experienced it. But all he did was nod. It was another of his techniques: Say little, imply much. You had to listen or you might miss something.
I continued paddling as Wilson opened his backpack. His back was to me, a precise silhouette in the liquid light. I watched him roll his sleeve and wipe his shoulder. Disinfectant. The Angel Tracker had been just under the skin, he told me. Easy for Vue to make a tiny incision and remove it.
Wilson patted a fresh bandage in place, buttoned his sleeve, then swallowed a couple of pills. For the first time, I noticed that his profile lacked a familiar contour. His stylish hair had been buzz-cut.
I assumed he’d figured out some kind of disguise. Was that it?
“I’ve got all my medicines, vitamins, and things in here.” He was talking about the backpack. “I can’t lose this. Or get it soaked. I hate taking pills, but they buy me time.”
Lightning flickered on the horizon, revealing distant cumulous towers. I waited through a minute of silence before saying, “That storm’s ten, twenty miles out to sea. You’re okay. But if we travel by canoe tomorrow, you’ll need a waterproof bag, plus flotation.” I paddled a couple of strokes before adding, “ Are we going by canoe?”
He rolled down his sleeve and closed the backpack. “When it’s time for you to know, I’ll tell you.”
As expected.
Useppa Island and Cabbage Key were behind us. Windows of sleeping households twinkled through trees, and Cabbage Key’s water tower was a solitary star above mangroves, bright as a religious icon. To the south, lights of Captiva Island and Sanibel were a melded blue aura; Cape Coral was an asphalt fluorescence to the east.
Separating us from Cayo Costa was the Intracoastal Waterway where navigational markers blinked in four-second bursts: white… red. .. green. The Intracoastal is a federally maintained sea highway that runs from Texas to New Jersey. Big boats depend on it. I avoid it. The water would be rougher there because its deep channel accelerated an outgoing tide like a faucet.
I told Wilson, “You can stop paddling. We’ll let the tide do the work. Get some rest-but secure your life jacket first.” I explained why.
“I wondered why you were bearing north. You being such an expert paddler, there had to be a reason.”
The man didn’t miss anything
I said, “The channel’s going to be running fast, like a river. If we get swept too far south, we’ll have to wait for the tide to change, then work our way back.”
“We can’t wait,” he said. “I don’t have time. So stay as far north as you need to be.”
I nearly responded, “Aye, aye, sir.”
For the last half an hour, I’d been watching a light on Cayo Costa. A yellow light that brightened, then dimmed-a fire, I realized, on the island’s point. There was pink sand there, where the water of Captiva Pass swept past, fast and deep, into open sea.
“Are we meeting someone?”
He realized I was talking about the fire. “Yes. A friend.”
I knew better than to ask who.
“Did you tell him to do that?”
“No. I’ve been wondering about the fire myself. It’s the last thing I’d want.”
“Maybe he has camp pitched and breakfast cooking. That would be okay. We both need sleep and I didn’t pack a tent.”
“Don’t worry about details. But there wasn’t supposed to be a fire.” His puzzled inflection read Why draw attention?
“It’s not a private island. Maybe he has company.”
The former president replied, “That would not be surprising.”
The way he
said it, it sounded like his friend might be an interesting character. I wondered if it was Vue. Vue could’ve hopped a boat and beat us to the island by an hour. But why?
I could feel the running tide beneath us now, the canoe beginning to hobbyhorse among black waves. I adjusted our course, got my paddle rhythm set, before I said, “Give me twenty, twenty-five minutes and we’ll find out.”
8
I concentrated on paddling while Wilson sat with his forehead in his hands, resting I hoped. He had such a powerful personality it was easy to forget he was sick.
Leukemia contributed to the illusion. I’d lost a friend to the disease recently so I had a layman’s knowledge. It’s a progressive cancer in which the abnormal production of white blood cells destroys red blood cells. In the final stages, a person can appear healthy even while a microscopic war is being waged within. Anemia and bruising are the first symptoms. Death can be the next.
Even the word carries a chill. Like many cancers, leukemia seems inexplicably random and is therefore more frightening. Without clear cause and effect, the disease hints that life itself is random and without design. My friend Roberta Petish had a bright spirit, a huge heart, and she lived big up until a few days before her internal war was lost. I understood Wilson better because of her.
I liked the man’s aggressiveness. Instead of lying back waiting for death, he was determined to race the bastard to the finish line. I was glad to be with him. For now…
Paddling rough water kept my hands busy and allowed my mind to drift. Wilson’s silhouette at rest was an amorphous gray. He sat as silently as the battle raging inside his circulatory system. The man had survived his share of battles and prevailed in many. The research I’d done reminded me that my traveling partner was an unusual example of the species, sapiens.
Kal Wilson was a man of contradictions and one of those rare people who was stronger for them. His legal name, Kal, was actually an acronym comprised of his first name and two middle names. He’d been born and spent the early part of his life in the village of Hamlet, North Carolina, but his family had moved to Janesville, Minnesota, when he was an adolescent. Having roots in the Deep South and Bedrock North was an unusual political asset.
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