I replied, “In that case, if someone hired Lourdes, so he’s not the only one you’re after.”
The president had been standing on the floating dock next to the plane. Now he stepped onto the main dock and walked toward me, using the mechanic’s rag to clean his glasses. His eyes were luminous-the light of obsession.
“I’m after anyone who had something to do with murdering my wife, and six other good people. Most of them friends.”
His voice became incrementally louder as he got closer-a man no longer struggling to keep his anger in check. “But first, I want him. I want the sick son of a bitch who poured gasoline in a plane, struck a match, then blocked the door. Can you imagine anything closer to hell? That image is in my head, asleep or awake. What it must have been like to be trapped inside.
“ It was me they wanted! But Wray suffered, my poor, dear girl. Now do you see why I’m willing to risk so much?”
He stopped; stood looking into my eyes, his own eyes coal black through his tinted glasses, nostrils flared, and I took a step backward, intimidated by his rage. It seemed to be directed at me. In a way, it was.
“There’s another reason you’re the perfect choice, Dr. Ford. It’s because I know you had the chance to kill that animal nearly a year ago. He kidnapped your son. Lourdes came close to cutting the boy’s throat-I read the Coast Guard report! You had him alone on that ship for how long?”
I knew better than to try and explain the complicated circumstances. “Long enough, sir.”
“You knew he was a murderer. Burned people alive because he likes it. You had a perfect opportunity”-Wilson was shouting now-“Killing him would have been easy for you. I’m aware of your skills. A zero signature professional. Yet you did nothing! Why?”
I hadn’t had time to process the implications of Lourdes’s involvement. Suddenly, I understood: If I had killed Lourdes when I had the chance, Wray Wilson would not have died in a burning plane. A different assassin might have been hired, but Wray would not have endured that horror.
“I have no excuse, sir. I’ve regretted it for many months. Never more than now.”
“What Praxcedes Lourdes did was the first bullet. You are the second bullet, Dr. Ford. This time, you will not leave that round in the chamber. There will be no more appeasement. Is that clear, mister ?”
I found myself standing straighter. “Very clear, sir.”
The president had his index finger in my face, leaning close enough so that I could feel the heat of his breath. “I want the heads of the people who did this. The ones who started it by putting a bounty on my head. And I want that twisted motherfucker.”
I demonstrated my allegiance by remaining calm. “Get me close, sir. Turn me loose. You will have him.”
“Good.” Wilson looked at the plane for several seconds as if letting the precision of its lines calm him. The plane was white aluminum with green trim. A four- or five-seat Maule mounted, like a trophy on ski-shaped pontoons. The plane looked new, but black grease was smeared over the ID numbers on its side.
“We leave at exactly zero-seven-thirty hours. Roust Mr. Tomlinson, and collect the gear you need. Weight is a problem on a small plane. We’re traveling light. Stress that. You have a little more than an hour.”
“The gear I need isn’t on the boat,” I said. “It’s hidden in my lab. That’s why I want to contact friends in the region. Trust me, Mr. President, I’ll do it in a way that’s discreet. I won’t implicate you. I’m… good at this.”
He wrestled with the idea before saying, “There’s a phone in the house, but don’t use it. This island’s owned by one of my oldest, most trusted supporters. He’s an invalid. Vue uses the place sometimes, and it’s possible Secret Service will make the connection. But there’s a computer. Vue’s. I think it’s hooked up for the Internet, but I’m not certain.”
“What’s our destination? I can give rendezvous points without spelling it out.”
“Are you certain?”
I said it again. “Trust me.”
He used the rag to polish a smudge off the plane’s silver propeller, before he said, “I want to visit the place where my wife died. It was on an island in Lake Nicaragua. Their government put a memorial there. I’ve never seen it.”
“The central part of the lake?”
“No. Far south, near the Costa Rican border.”
The Solentiname Islands. I’d been there during the Sandinista-Contra wars.
“After that, we go to Panama?”
Wilson nodded. “Officially, Panama’s Independence Day is the first of November, but they celebrate the end of Independence Week on November fifth. That’s when it was officially recognized as a sovereign nation.
“There’s a ceremony scheduled at the Canal Administration Building at noon. All the principals are expected-including the U.S. ambassador.”
Ambassador Donna Riggs Johnson was a brilliant woman, but unpopular for the stand she’d taken against leasing the canal to an Indonesian company.
Wilson was a historian. I suspected he mentioned Archduke Ferdinand for a reason.
I said, “Someone plans to assassinate her.” A statement.
“I believe so. I couldn’t warn her through regular channels-my source would’ve been put in danger. But I’ve made sure she knows. Ambassador Johnson’s not going to announce it publicly, but she won’t attend the ceremony.”
“Someone hired Lourdes to kill you. Will they be attending?” I was thinking of Thomas Farrish and the Islamic clerics he was associated with.
“We’ll discuss that at another time.” The president looked at the plane again. “The keys to the back door are under the mat. I still have my preflight to finish.”
As I was walking toward the house, Wilson stopped me, calling, “Doc? I do trust you.”
I sent three e-mails, two of them to men who spend extended periods in the jungle, so there was no guarantee they would get them in time. I knew several people in Panama City because of my recent consulting job, but they were scientists. These were the only two contacts who could provide the sort of assistance I needed.
One was to an American mercenary I’d met a couple of years ago, Curtis Tyner. Sergeant Curtis Tyner. Tyner is a little over five feet tall, has bristling orange muttonchops, carries a swagger stick, and collects shrunken heads as a hobby. He became wealthy as a jungle bounty hunter, and as a facilitator of small wars.
We were going after people inviting the Apocalypse? Curtis Tyner could provide them a personal introduction.
I wrote: Sergeant Tyner, I’m on a collecting trip, after a rare species of shark. Spoils may be significant. Can we discuss over a Chagares water amp; rum in a day or two? Sunset at the yacht club by the American Bridge, or I will be staying at a favorite hotel. Cdr. m Wf.
The Chagares River flows into the Panama Canal. A popular place to watch sunset is the Balboa Yacht Club, near the Bridge of the Americas, and the El Panama Hotel is a favorite of the CIA and Mossad.
Tyner would understand-but I gave the message some thought before sending it. Did I really want to return to Balboa? I’d witnessed a different sort of nightmare there.
It was an emotional reaction, I told myself. Avoiding the place was irrational.
I sent the message.
In Spanish, I wrote a second e-mail to Juan Rivera, the Castrostyle revolutionary who was Kal Wilson’s old adversary but also my old friend. Gen. Lanzador, I would be honored to join you for batting practice. I will soon be at the lake where we once fished for sharks. Unfortunately, it will be necessary for you to provide all equipment. Moe Berg
Lanzador is Spanish for “pitcher.” As in baseball. At one time, Rivera had been a good one, and he was still miffed that the major leagues had never drafted him. Moe Berg had been a professional baseball player in the 1930s and ’40s-and a spy for the OSS. I knew Rivera would get it.
I wrestled over how Wilson might react involving Rivera, a man he had every reason to despise. But it was true: I had no eq
uipment.
I sent that e-mail as well.
Finally, I e-mailed my son, telling him Lourdes was on the loose, he was killing again, then added, “Please believe this: He is not your friend. He will murder you if he gets the chance.”
When I returned to No Mas to collect our gear, I asked Tomlinson, “Do you have your ball glove aboard?”
Tomlinson had been sleeping, but he was instantly interested. “Of course. Glove, spikes, and the bat Spaceman gave me.”
Wilson was concerned about weight on the amphib, so I said, “Leave the bat but bring the rest.”
I told him we were leaving for Yucatan, 7:30 sharp, by plane.
16
The reason we had to leave at exactly 7:30, Wilson told us, was because that’s when the downward-looking radar on nearby Cudjoe Key was scheduled to be lowered for maintenance.
“Fat Boy?” Tomlinson said. “The balloon, you mean.”
Yes, the balloon. It was a “Tethered Aerostat Radar Detection System,” a white, bovine-shaped inflatable attached to several thousand feet of cable. Day and night, it hovered above the Keys, tracking ships at sea and low-flying planes. Some, especially Tomlinson’s hemp-loving kindred, considered the balloon a malevolent icon, the all-seeing eye of Big Brother. They called it “Fat Boy” because of its shape, and as a sinister reference to another top secret government program.
We were in the plane, taxiing in shallow water, Wilson in the left seat, me in the right. Tomlinson, with his long legs, was in the back, stretched out among our gear. We wore headphones, using the plane’s voice-activated intercom system to converse.
The president said, “They do a major systems maintenance once a month and today’s the day. We’ll have a window of between forty minutes and an hour. By the time they’re up and running, we should be about a third of the way to Mexico.
“But if we’re early, or late, radar will red-light us, and DEA or Homeland Security will scramble planes to intercept us. We can’t miss the window.”
Tomlinson was impressed. “Sam, I’m not even gonna ask how you got Fat Boy’s maintenance schedule. It’s got to be, like, top secret, right?”
His tone wry, Wilson said, “Yes. Entrusting smugglers with the schedule might be considered counterproductive. But no one expects a former president of the United States to try anything illegal. It’s another one of the perks. I never have to go through metal detectors or airline security.”
Tomlinson said, “You’re shitting me. No one ever checks?”
“Never. It would be a breach of international protocol. And old acquaintances in the military trust me with all kinds of useful information.”
All the potential scenarios-Tomlinson was having fun with them in his mind. “Look, if you ever get tired of traveling around, making speeches? And you’re willing to share-down the road, I’m talking about. We could make a lot of money with that kind of access. Not that I’m into the whole materialism thing. I see it more as spreading the gift of mellowism.”
Wilson was in a brighter mood, now that we were under way, and he smiled. “ ‘Mellowism,’ huh? My friend, with your gift for language you would be a superb diplomat. It’s not as easy as it sounds. To say nothing, especially while speaking-that’s diplomacy. Teddy Roosevelt’s line. Or was it President Carter?”
Tomlinson sat back, enjoying it. “I wouldn’t mind being an ambassador. Colombia, maybe-that would be cool. Jamaica would be okay if it wasn’t for all the assholes at the airport. Speaking of which, where’re we gonna land?”
I watched Wilson reach to switch off the plane’s transponder, the VHF radio, then the GPS. Our electronic signature was now zero. He checked his watch, then turned to look out the port window. Fat Boy should have been visible. It wasn’t. Wilson said, “We’re not landing at an airport. But we will land. That’s about all I can promise you.”
His hand on the throttle, we began accelerating-seventy… eighty… eighty-five knots-the water’s surface tension drumming the pontoons, the plane lifting, fishtailing as it broke free. Then we were banking low over Content Keys, the plane’s shadow preceding us, skating across shallow water veined with gutters of jade.
I was surprised when the president immediately leveled off. He noticed as I checked the altimeter: a hundred fifty feet.
“For the next hundred miles, we’re going to maintain this altitude. Our cruising speed will be a hundred fifteen knots-about a hundred thirty miles an hour. A little faster over ground with the wind shift. If we’d shed a hundred pounds of gear, we could probably do one-forty.”
It looked as if we would barely clear the treetops of mangrove keys ahead. Tomlinson whistled softly, getting into it. “This is more like surfing than flying. Man”-he whistled again-“give me a rope, I could ski behind this thing. Hope we don’t run into any tall ships.”
Wilson said, “Let’s talk about that. We’ve got a range of almost six hundred nautical miles so fuel’s not a problem. But eye fatigue could be. There’s no autopilot-too much weight. So, Ford? I’m going to need your help. We’ve got clouds to the west, which is good. Less chance of losing the horizon. Even so, flying this low will be a hell of a strain on the eyes. So we’ll do it in shifts. Half an hour on, half an hour off. You okay with that?”
“Fine,” I said.
“You want to see how she handles?”
“Okay.” My feet found the rudder pedals as I put my hands on the control yoke. It was embossed with a white MAULE M7 insignia.
“You know the gauges-fuel, air speed, altitude.” Wilson was pointing. “Here’re your trim controls. Keep your eye on the horizon indicator. We want the wings level.”
I tried easy turns to port, then starboard. I climbed briefly without adding throttle, then pushed the yoke forward, my stomach alert to a slight increase in g-force. At only a hundred fifty feet off the deck, I didn’t have room to try anything else.
“You seem comfortable.”
“I’ve steered a lot of planes in a lot of places. Pilots need breaks. But I wouldn’t want to try a water landing unless I have to.”
“Don’t worry about that. The important thing is, keep us level, use your compass. We’re traveling the old-fashioned way: dead reckoning. Just a chart and a pencil. Pretend you’re Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic. Just lower.”
I felt the yoke move as the president resumed control. I slipped my feet off the pedals.
As he said, “At this altitude, we’ll be invisible. Like ghosts,” I was looking out the window, seeing water change from green to silver, then blue, as the bottom fell away.
There was a pod of dolphins hobbyhorsing as we banked again, westward, toward the Gulf of Mexico.
During the flight, with me at the controls, Wilson used a mini earphone to listen to Shana Waters’s digital recorder. After five minutes, he said, “I don’t know what’s stronger, Shana’s ambition or her sex drive.”
He passed the recorder to me and I fitted the earplug beneath my headphones.
Danson wasn’t the only man Waters had taped. She had recorded lovemaking sessions with at least two men whose names I recognized-a U.S. senator, and an anchorman from an opposing network.
I raised my eyebrows as I handed the recorder back to him.
“She has the makings of a great politican,” the president said. “Too bad she went into broadcasting.”
He was serious.
By 11:10 a.m., Florida time (10:10 Yucatan time), we were forty miles off the Mexican coast. Wilson activated the GPS long enough to confirm our position, then turned south, keeping distance between us and the tourist destinations of Cancun and Cozumel.
An hour later, we landed south of Cayo Culebra on an isolated bay. The water was Bombay gin blue. Coconut palms shaded a shack built on stilts at the mouth of a river. There was a rim of white beach where pigs rooted.
As Wilson idled the plane toward shore, he asked, “What’s Cayo Culebra means in Spanish?”
Tomlinson said, “ ‘Island of Cobras’?”
/> I said, “Close. ‘Island of Snakes.’ ”
Wilson appeared pleased. “Perfect.”
He was in a good mood. We’d crossed the Gulf without close contact with ships or planes, and he was comfortable enough with me at the controls to get more than an hour of sleep. First part of the mission accomplished.
But then he said, “Uh-oh. Something’s wrong,” not happy anymore.
He was still wearing the tinted glasses, but he had removed the fake burn scar-he expected someone he knew to come out of the shack and greet us. Vue. My guess. Wilson didn’t say.
But someone had anticipated our arrival, because there were ten six-gallon gas cans on the dock, all full.
We got out, secured the plane, and went to work.
“I don’t like this.”
Tomlinson was holding the huge funnel, while I poured gas through a leather chamois into the wing tanks. The president was standing behind us on the dock, his head moving as if he suspected that eyes watched from the shoreline. “There should’ve been at least a note.”
There wasn’t. I had checked the shack.
“From who?” I asked for the second time.
Wilson didn’t reply-for the second time.
He was studying the pigs, now coming along the beach toward us-the farmer in him paying attention.
“Those aren’t domestic hogs. See the tusks on the boars?”
The animals were black, hump-necked, with elongated snouts.
“What were they rooting for?”
“Crabs,” I said. “Sea worms.”
The president frowned. “That’s why they’re moving the way they are-more like a pack. They’re hungry. Trip and fall, those hogs would gut you, then eat you. Mr. Tomlinson? You are supposed to have a gift for knowing things. What’s your read on this place?”
Tomlinson appeared nervous-unusual. “Well… it seemed kinda fun until you started talking about a bunch of damn pigs eating us. I mean… the water’s nice and clear. Lots of coconuts that would go real good with rum. But you’re right. Sam? Those bastards are coming after us. ”
Tomlinson looked from the pigs to me, his expression a mixture of awareness, dread, and disgust. “Doc? Is he right? I’ve never even thought about it before. Getting eaten by a fucking pig?”
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