Rivera said, “There is no doubt why they are here. One of my comrades overheard the cameraman mention your name. Not once but twice. They also overheard the place where the famous Danson wanted to go.” Rivera was growing more serious. “My friends are very good at overhearing. There is no mistake.”
The place, he said, was near the village of Muelle de San Carlos.
The general focused on me a moment. “Is that name not familiar, my old catcher friend?”
It was, but I’d been a lot of places and heard a lot of names. Then I remembered.
“John Hull owned a farm near there,” I said.
Hull, with the help of the CIA, had built a dirt airstrip sizeable enough to land cargo planes. Colonel Oliver North and associates had used the strip to transport food and arms to the Contras during the war in Nicaragua.
“It is true I had a base near John Hull’s, but this camp is far to the south. You should remember this property. A secret camp that is also a farm. You do not remember the excellent baseball stadium my men constructed?”
It was a rocky infield with a couple of benches, not a stadium.
“Of course,” I said, smiling-until I saw that Rivera was not smiling. Danson was on his way to Rivera’s secret camp, I realized. That’s why he’d chartered a helicopter.
The president had figured it out. “Son of a bitch-your farm-that’s where I sent Vue and Tomlinson. They’re there right now, spending the night. What time did Danson’s helicopter leave?”
“Only a few minutes before my comrade contacted me with the information. That was a little more than an hour ago, after I saw the sexy gringa in her pretty blouse.”
“How far is your camp from Panama City?”
“About an hour’s flying time.”
Wilson began to pace. “If Danson isn’t there yet, he soon will be. Damn it. How could he know?”
Rivera said, “It pains me that I also must ask this question. How did the famous man learn of my secret base?”
Walt Danson had the GPS coordinates, Rivera informed us. He gave the coordinates to the pilot of the helicopter he chartered.
“The exact coordinates?” I asked.
“Yes. Written on a paper.”
I turned to the president. “We’re being tracked. There’s a telemetry transmitter somewhere on the plane. It’s the only way to explain how Waters knew where we refueled in Honduras, and why Danson-” I stopped, aware that I’d overlooked the obvious. If the plane was bugged, why wasn’t Danson flying here, to the cattle ranch? Instead, he was bound for a place near the Caribbean coast.
If there was a bug, it was no longer on the plane.
Wilson was right with me. “Either Tomlinson is feeding them information, which I doubt, or there is a transmitter in the gear Vue took from the aircraft. If Vue or Tomlinson had planted the bug, they would’ve made sure it stayed on the aircraft. If either one of us had planted a bug, we wouldn’t have allowed them to take it from the aircraft.”
Reasonable. And comforting. The president’s logic, by including us all, cleared us all.
The “Angel Tracker” chip in the president’s shoulder had been the size of a rice grain. It would have been easy to hide a transmitter anywhere in the plane. Perhaps in one of the containers that we’d transferred to Vue’s SUV.
But who?
I was replaying the linkage, still puzzled, as Rivera said, “Thank God, no matter how it happened. My great worry was that you were at my camp, Mr. President. I have not explained why. The avion company is owned by extranjeros. It is a word we use.”
The general looked at me for help.
I said, “The charter company is owned by foreigners? I don’t understand. Almost everything in Panama is owned by foreigners.”
“They are Muslims. But not Latin Muslims. You see? They are foreigners. Brought here by Dr. Thomas Bashir Farrish, that cabrone. If the famous Danson knew your location, then the foreigners would also know because it is their helicopter. They might sell the information to other journalists. Or even give it to someone who wants to kill you.”
Wilson stopped pacing as the implications crystallized. “Islamicists own that charter company?”
“The same people, Mr. President, who offered money for your head. That is why I am overjoyed you are safe. With such men, the way their brains work; killing civilians, children-they are foreign in that way, also. They are malvados. Capable of anything.”
Malvados. Evildoers.
I said, “Farrish is behind all this?”
“He’s a main player,” Wilson replied.
“Because of politics? Or religion?” Change the political makeup of Central America and Panama could cancel the Indonesian company’s lease.
His expression severe, Wilson said, “Both. Islamicists consider me a prize. I’m a symbol. The cleric who offered the reward is Altif Halibi, an Indonesian. Halibi is a disciple of the cleric who converted the billionaire playboy into a billionaire Islamicist.”
Meaning Thomas Farrish.
“Halibi visits Farrish in Panama often. Either one of them-or their lieutenants-could’ve hired Praxcedes Lourdes, along with a dozen other psychopaths, to kill me. Halibi doesn’t have a million dollars to pay as a reward. Farrish does.”
Four days with Kal Wilson and I finally understood why he wanted to be at Panama’s Independence Day ceremony. All the “principals” would be there, he had said.
I was picturing it, imagining what my role would be, as Wilson told Rivera, “If Farrish’s people believe I’m at your camp, they could send someone after me. We’ve got to warn Vue. Is there a way to contact them, General?”
Rivera appeared embarrassed. “All winter, at that place, we had a generator and a telephone line. Even the Internet and a hot tub. But then the rainy season arrived, and after so many storms-” He shrugged. They were all out of service.
I suggested, “Morse code?”
Wilson said, “I can try. Vue and I are supposed to make contact at nine and again at eleven. But maybe he’s already hooked up.” As the president jogged toward the bedroom, where he’d placed his bag, he called, “Does your camp have an airstrip? Or a lake?”
“No, I am sorry. Besides, it will soon be too dark for your plane to land.”
Through the office window, beyond the helicopter, the orange rim of the Pacific was fading. It was twenty to seven, and I was thinking of Tomlinson. He’d had a rough day, finding the bodies, and then driving hours to a remote farm. He would be in a marijuana-and-rum stupor by now-maybe for the best.
“General Rivera,” I said as I opened my duffel, “I need to borrow your helicopter. And a weapon.”
“Of course. I will come with you. But”-Rivera looked toward the bedroom where Wilson had disappeared-“but it is very important that the president and I are in Panama tomorrow morning-”
I interrupted. “That’s why you’re staying here. The president’s security-and your security, General-that’s primary. All I need is your pilot.”
Wilson reappeared at the door. “I am not going off and abandoning Vue, goddamn it! You can shit-can that nonsense right now, mister.”
I said patiently, “You’re not abandoning him, sir. You’re sending me. Our bargain was that I get you here and then back home safely. Let me do my job… Sam.”
Rivera said, “Sam? Who is this Sam?”
I had my shirt off, pulling on a black wool watch sweater. I would need it in the helicopter. My jungle boots were in the duffel, too, worn soft but glassy with wax. “Mr. President, if you have plans for Panama now’s the time to share the details. I’ll get to the Canal Zone tomorrow, but I may be late.”
“But what if Danson’s still at the general’s camp? He’ll recognize you from Key West.”
“I’ll offer him a drink and wait for Shana Waters to show up, then-” I paused. My sarcasm had produced an accidental clarity.
I was kneeling, tying my boots. I looked up. “Shana Waters’s tape recorder-the one Danson gave her. Where
is it?”
Wilson stepped from the bedroom toward me, then began to nod. “That damn digital recorder. ”
I said, “I listened to it on the flight from Key West, then gave it back to you.”
Wilson was still nodding. “And I put it in the box with the things we didn’t need. Vue took it. The bug’s in her damn digital recorder!”
It made sense. Danson had tracked the signal to Lake Nicaragua, then either followed the Land Rover until he realized he needed a helicopter or maybe until his pilot decided he’d had enough and dumped the crew in Panama City.
Wilson said, “Danson, that shrewd old bastard. He gave Shana a recorder bugged with a telemetry chip. Maybe to blackmail her or just to keep track of where she was. That clever bastard.”
An expensive recorder. Something she wouldn’t throw in a drawer.
But Waters was now tracking Danson. How?
The president said, “Maybe they had exchanged gifts at Christmas.”
I thought about it and nearly smiled. “Yeah.” Two of a kind.
I was no longer concerned about TV reporters.
I was picturing my friend alone on a farm-a place with pigs, most likely-and Praxcedes Lourdes outside, watching from the darkness, accessing Tomlinson’s facial qualities.
The two had met, once, in a Florida courthouse.
Lourdes would remember.
20
Five miles out, the helicopter pilot said “Fire” as if he wanted me to pick up a weapon and open fire. A moment later, though, he said, “Something’s on fire,” and I knew he was talking about Rivera’s camp.
I was in the cargo hold and couldn’t see what the pilot was seeing. He said it in such a flat, indifferent tone, I doubted the seriousness.
The man was hard to read. When we lifted off from the cattle ranch, I had asked if he was going to use conventional lights or night-vision gear to land. It was dark by that time. He had replied, “Neither. I’ve landed in that field at least five times. Why would I want to see it again?”
Pilots.
Rivera’s camp was farther than I remembered. We were in the air more than an hour. I sat alone near the open door as we flew over jungle, the forest canopy awash in mist. Occasionally, I saw pockets of light: isolated villages, fires burning, the night strongholds of rural people linked by darkness, strung like pearls, bright and incremental, from a thousand feet.
Ahead, a half-moon was rising, white as hoarfrost in the tropic night. Its surface was pocked by geologic cataclysm and a wisp of earth shadow.
At a hundred twenty knots, there was the illusion that the moon was pulling us as if we were waterborne, suctioned by tide ever deeper into darkness. The thrumming of helicopter blades echoed in the lunar silence. The silence allowed me to think, to visualize.
I’d been to this camp before, but Rivera had drawn a rough map, anyway, and I memorized it.
It also gave me time to assemble, then dry-fire the weapons the president had unexpectedly provided-they were in the boxes Vue had loaded onto the plane. There were five to choose from: a rifle, two handguns, a shotgun, and a submachine gun.
I selected two: a Russian-made sniper rifle with sound arrester and a pistol. Both had been fitted with infrared sights. Put the red dot on your target, squeeze the trigger.
I was tempted to select a second pistol that was also Russian made-a rare PSS silent pistol, used by KGB assassins. It was palm-sized and used special ammunition that, when fired, was no louder then the click of its own trigger.
Where had Wilson found a KGB silent pistol?
But it was a specialty piece and held only three rounds, so I left it with Rivera and Wilson. I was comfortable with the weapons I selected.
With chambers empty, I fired them over and over as we flew southeast. I worked the slide and bolts until my fingers were intimate. I loaded the magazines, learning the subtleties of their feeder springs.
The rifle had a Startron scope, which I had used before. The occasion was made necessary by two former KGB agents who aspired to be salesmen.
When I touched the scope’s power switch, the jungle below was transformed into green daylight, minutely detailed. Except for the iridescent glow and the slight whirring sound, we might have been flying at midday.
I adjusted the focus and experimented with the scope’s windage and elevation knobs. With the scope off, I activated the laser sight and aimed at the jungle. A red dot kept pace beneath us, sliding over treetops.
For each weapon, there was high-tech ammunition. Prefragmented bullets: maximum stopping power; no ricochet.
I also had a knife, the badek I’d taken from the bearded killer. And I had written instructions from the president, sealed in an envelope.
He had told me what was expected of me tomorrow in Panama. Wilson had been stationed there as a Navy pilot, he knew the area well and made suggestions about what to look for and where to position myself. He jotted a few key words, he said, so I wouldn’t forget.
The man really was good at details.
One of Rivera’s men was sitting forward, next to the pilot. The general had insisted. His name was Lucius. He was twentysomething and humorless. Lucius had a fuck-you-kill-them-all attitude. It matched my mood perfectly.
Rivera’s men were notoriously loyal. I was delighted with the general’s choice.
The helicopter’s pilot didn’t introduce himself-not unusual in Central America when circumstances are questionable. He spoke Spanish with an Israeli accent and English with a Mississippi accent. So when he said “Fire!” it came out “Fah-er!,” sounding like a Jackson door gunner I’d once flown with.
That’s why I had my hand on the pistol when he elaborated: “Up ahead. There’s something on fire.”
The chopper’s cargo area was lighted with overhead red bulbs. I secured my weapons and ducked forward. I put a hand on the right seat, steadying myself, as we tilted in descent. Ahead, I saw a petroleum blaze, black smoke boiling starward.
We angled lower, accelerating. I felt the temperature drop as we traced the course of a river, the quarry scent of water fresh in the cabin. But then there was heat and the smell of combusting rubber.
“Helicopter crash?” I was thinking of Danson.
“No, diesel doesn’t burn like that. That’s gas.” As we got closer, the pilot said, “Yeah. It’s a car.”
I whispered, “Christ.”
Rivera had told me the only vehicle that should be at the farm was the Land Rover that Tomlinson and Vue had driven from Nicaragua.
“If you spot any vehicle larger than a mule,” he had said, “expect trouble.”
There was a hacienda now visible and we buzzed it doing a hundred knots at treetop level. As we passed, the cockpit jolted unexpectedly and the pilot shouted “Shit” in Spanish, a word that has an ironic, musical sound.
“What’s wrong?” I thought maybe the vehicle had exploded beneath us.
“Some pendejo is down there shooting!”
There was a sound of a hammer hitting aluminum, three times fast, and the helicopter jolted again.
“Hold on!”
We banked into a climb so steep that I nearly went skidding out the open doors.
Clinging to the pilot’s chair, I could look straight down and see an SUV burning. It was the Land Rover.
A safe distance away, there was also the shape of a pickup truck. Rivera’s camp had visitors.
Yes, expect trouble.
When I told the pilot to land, he didn’t even turn to look. “When I’m being shot at? Fuck you, I’m not getting paid enough.” He began to bank west, saying, “We’ll be back in Panama City in time for drinks at the Elks Club.”
In Spanish, I said to the twenty-year-old curmudgeon Lucius, “Order him to land. General Rivera will hear of this.”
Lucius was wearing a special forces boonie hat and tiger-striped camo. He had unbuckled the seat belt, grabbed his assault rifle, and was facing the open cargo door ready to return fire-reassuring.
Bu
t he surprised me, saying, “I don’t care what you tell Rivera. I would like to put a bullet in those culos, take their money and necklaces. But if the pilot chooses not to land, that is his decision. The old fool doesn’t frighten me.”
He was speaking of the general.
I was no longer reassured.
“I am asking for your help. There are friends of mine down there.”
“Why should I care about your friends? What are they to me?”
Lucius’s tough-guy act, I realized, was an act. He sounded relieved.
I returned my attention to the pilot. “Cut me loose. After that, I don’t care what you do. Put us on the ground long enough for me to bail and you’ve done your job.”
We were now climbing as we turned. “No way. We’ve taken, what, at least ten rounds? My advice to you is, get your ass back to the cargo hold where you belong and shut the fuck up.”
These were Rivera’s men? In Nicaragua, I had watched his men walk into fire following the general on horseback. Rivera had fallen further than I realized.
The. 45 caliber pistol was in a holster on my belt. I put my hand on it as I asked Lucius, “Is the pilot in command or are you in command?”
Lucius gave me a look of disgust. “There is no one in command. We are here because we get paid.”
I was losing patience. “My friends are in trouble. Please tell the pilot to land.”
Lucius tilted the barrel of his M16 toward me-a threat. “The important thing, yanqui, is that you are not in command. If the pilot has decided we are returning to Panama City for drinks at the Elks Club, then that is what we will do. The pilot gave you an order. Move your culo -”
I was watching the helicopter’s altimeter. We were at three hundred feet. I didn’t let Lucius finish. With my left hand, I reached as if to touch the pilot’s shoulder. But then I turned my palm outward and grabbed the barrel of the assault rifle and yanked it from his hands.
I had the pistol drawn. I jammed the barrel into the back of the pilot’s neck as I said to Lucius, “Don’t point.”
I tossed the assault rifle out the open door.
“You idiot cabrone!”
“You want to go after it?” I shoved the pistol barrel hard into the soft spot beneath the pilot’s skull. “Drop us down to a hundred feet.”
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