The Mangrove Coast

by Randy Wayne White

  Nothing but careful conversation that seemed designed to prove to me that he really had grown up in the Zone: “I understand the political reasoning behind transferring the canal, but it still doesn’t seem right that they’re making us leave. We had our own court system, fire departments, hospitals, schools, everything. It was our home…. “

  Like it would be big news to me. Almost all Zonians felt that way. The man was filling up space, saying nothing.

  He told me, “In the Zone, there was no crime, no unemployment, and if somebody got out of line, the company shipped their asses back to the states like yesterday.”

  Same thing. Nothing.

  Matt said he’d attended Balboa High, surfed Tits Beach, played golf at Amador, got the shits drinking from the Chagres, took the train to Cristobal for football games and snuck beers all the way back. “It was a good place,” he said. “Why else would our families choose to be buried here? Hey”—his tone brightened—“how can you tell if you’re a Zonian?”

  I had to listen to him play the little game: You know you’re a Zonian if you’ve spray-painted your girlfriend’s name on a bridge … if your boat has a better paint job than your car … if you can name the president who gave the canal away but can’t name any presidents since…

  We were on the narrow road that twisted through the foothills, nothing but trees and moon shadow. I could see his face in the dash lights. Finally, I said, “Matt, let’s drop the bullshit, okay? I’m appreciative, I really am. But I’m also curious: Why are you people doing this?”

  His tone was studied, concerned. “Pardon me? I’m giving you a ride to Gamboa. What’s the big deal? Some friends of yours told me that’s what you needed, so here I am.

  I sat back. “Does that mean you can’t say? Or are you just playing hard to get?”

  We drove in silence for what seemed a long time. Finally: “Can we talk off the record?”

  “Gee, is there any other way?”

  The man was nodding, smiling. Then: “Bobby Richardson, he must have been quite a guy, huh?”

  So that was it. Bobby.

  “Yeah. A good man. He was very … reasonable. Very smart.”

  “I’ve heard some of the stories. You were there when he was hit.”

  “No. But in the general area. I helped ship home what was left.”

  “People still rave about the man. He’s like a legend in certain circles, this All-American cover-boy type who also happened to be a serious shit-kicker. So let’s put it this way: Your friends and my friends don’t like the idea of some freak taking advantage of Commander Richardson’s wife. I’m talking about certain people in the organization who believe your story. They trust your judgment in the matter. They are people who … people with a lot more juice than me and they think that the intelligence community needs to take care of its own.”

  “I’m flattered—and surprised. My impression is that the Company would never trust anyone who refused to work for them.”

  “Okay, so maybe I didn’t say it right. That’s the word on you, by the way: a details freak, precise wording. Know what else?”

  I was enjoying this. Fitness reports from the past. “I’m all ears.”

  “That’s the point: there is nothing else. People know who you are, but they don’t know what you did. People know that you were part of it, probably a big part, maybe a main player, but no one seems to know who you worked for. A few, a very few, have met you and say they like you, but none of them can really explain why.”

  “I’m just an all-around swell guy, Matt. Get used to it.”

  “Yeah, you’re being facetious, but that’s what they say. And that you probably got out of the business because you like people. Maybe like them too much.”

  I said, “What?”

  “That you’re a nice guy, what’s wrong with that? You care about people too much to fuck them over, so you got out of the business.”

  “I’m a marine biologist, that’s all. It’s what I do.”

  “Uh-huh, sure. We all know that story. The scientific types, they can go any where, ask anything and no one ever doubts them.”

  “It’s not a story. I’ve got a lab. Ask me almost anything about fish.”

  “The rumor is that there is an intel organization in this country so black, so deep, that even the big-time politicos know nothing about it. Financing was set aside years ago, the whole group recruited during Nam. Really top hands. Name it: assassination, dissemination, political sabotage. The rumor also says, ‘Hey, that’s what Ford did.’ Any of this sound familiar?”

  I said, “No, but it’s a great story. I’ll look for it on HBO. You were telling me why the Company is being so helpful.”

  “I never said that the Company is being helpful. The Company’s got nothing to do with this. It would be bad politically, plus it’s illegal. But there’s nothing wrong with our mutual friends asking me, a private American citizen, to help you.”

  “How far,” I asked, “are you willing to take it?” Suddenly, Matt was not the nice, easygoing Opie Taylor clone he pretended to be. “I don’t want to hear a damn thing about any of it, that’s exactly how far I’ll take it. What you want to do, what you’ve got planned, it makes no difference to me. Maybe you’re thinking about killing the piece of shit which I wouldn’t mind doing myself. But me, I don’t want to hear about it.”

  He said, “Here’s the drill. When we get to Gamboa, we’ve got a little safe house there, it’s vacant You can use it if you want. There’s food in the refrigerator, not much, but it’ll get you by if you need to stay for a few days. Stay there longer and I’ll make a house call. In the garage is a motorcycle if you need transportation. All fueled up, ready to go.” A motorcycle? I hadn’t ridden a motorcycle since Cambodia. It was the only thing we could count on because of the mud trails.

  Davidson said, “After that, I’ll show you where the Club Gamboa office is and where Merlot lives. It’s the old golf clubhouse, a place called The Ridge. Then you’re on your own. But be careful. His office and his house have first-rate security systems. The same security company that does our bid work did his place. That’s how I know.”

  “They’ve got cops out here?”

  I could see the look he gave me in the dash lights: I was joking, right? “If you get caught, the cops coming would be the luckiest thing that could happen to you. But they won’t. His alarm system will notify Panama City police and they’ll call and check to make sure he’s okay. But it would take them an hour to get out here.”

  “You’ve seen Merlot.”

  “I know he’s there. And I know Commander Richardson’s widow is there. Which is why I’m now going to tell you something important: Play it very, very cool. Merlot really does have a lot of juice in this country. Why? Because he’s got blackmail video of top-level Taiwanese honchos misbehaving. Take a guess at what they’re doing. All Merlot has to do is make a phone call or two and he can have you arrested, shot blown up, you name it. Welcome to the new Panama.”

  “You think I’ll have any trouble getting the commander’s wife out?”

  “That’s my point. If you piss him off, my advice is don’t try to use public transportation out of here. I’m talking about the main airports.” He handed me a slip of paper. “We have a boat all fueled and ready for you at the Balboa Yacht Club. You know where that is?”

  I did.

  “The name of the boat is Double Haul, in great big letters. Don’t ask me why. It’s one of the big ocean racer Scarab boats. The hull’s canary yellow with red trim, easy to find down there with all those sailboats. It’ll do seventy, eighty miles an hour. My advice is head south-west to the Azuero Peninsula. Do you know the area I’m talking about?”

  “I know it. Not well. It’s that big foot of jungle that sticks out into the Pacific.”

  He was nodding. “There’s a little town there called Chitre. You’ll be able to see it from the water. It has a pretty nice paved airstrip that our people built. We have a friend there, ask
for Vern. Everyone knows him. He’ll fly you to Costa Rica. By water, the trip should take you an hour, hour and a half tops. With your sea time, no big deal.”

  “What should I do with the boat?”

  “I couldn’t care less. The DEA confiscated it in some drug bust, so we truly don’t give a shit what happens to it. When you get to Chitre, cut it loose, make some local happy. Or tell Vern where it is. If there’s not a lot of heat on, someone will pick it up. One other thing: In the garage of the safe house, on the motorcycle’s seat, someone’s put a little bag of goodies there. Stuff you might need but don’t have.”

  “Someone.”

  “That’s right. And it’s all nice and clean.”

  Davidson seemed to be telling me that if I wanted to kill Merlot, it was fine with them. They were happy to provide the tools if I was willing to provide the labor. “All I ask,” he added, “is that you let me know in advance when you plan to take Merlot down.”

  That was easy. I said, “What time is it now?”

  “Eleven-fifteen or so.”

  “Then give me an hour after we get there.”

  “You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

  “You want time to get out of the area, right? Plausible deniability, make sure you’re seen by neutrals while I’m grabbing the woman. So I’m telling you, it’s not going to take me long. If I’m in Gamboa for more than two hours, it was a bust. Merlot got me, I didn’t get him.”

  Davidson seemed to be smiling a little as he said, “In that case, I’ll make sure I’m long gone.”

  Something very odd about the way he said that. But why else would he want to know?

  There were lights of a village ahead, Paraiso. A little bend in the road with a grocery store that was still open. I told Davidson I wanted to stop in, use the phone.

  When Amanda answered, I told her everything was set, to go ahead and take the Miami-to-Panama City flight.

  She said, “I’ve got a confirmed seat on American at eight-fifty that will put me into Panama at twelve-forty-eight … no, eleven-forty-eight. I didn’t figure in the time difference. Or I can try standby later in the afternoon if you want.”

  I told her the flight she had booked was fine, but come prepared to travel. Carry-on bag only, comfortable dress and boat shoes.

  “Boat shoes?” she said.

  “Yeah, I’m going to take you for a cruise, then we’re going to tour the rain forest by small plane.”

  I described the yellow Scarab; told her that when she arrived in Panama, have her cab stop so she could buy food and drinks—some champagne to celebrate if she wanted— and to stow it aboard the boat when she got there. Her mother and I would meet her at the Balboa Yacht Club at one and absolutely no later than one-thirty, unless I called the bar and left word.

  She was getting excited. “You’ve got my mom? Can I speak with her?”

  I told her, “No. But I’m going to get her tonight.”

  That dropped her intensity down a notch, but she still sounded happy. “Doc, you know what I’m going to do right now? This friend of mine, Betty, she’s big in the Unity Church up in Ohio and she’s organized what they call a prayer chain for my mom. I’m going to write her the second I hang up and tell her our prayers have been answered.”

  A religious side—the first I’d seen of that. But nice. After what Amanda had gone through as a child, perhaps it explained her stability now.

  I remember reminding myself that for every Jackie Merlot in the world, there were unnoticed thousands, tens of thousands, of genuinely decent and thoughtful people. These were people like Betty.

  Nice, yeah, very nice.

  Jackie Merlot had commandeered the old Gamboa golf clubhouse. No surprise there. A board-and-batten classic with a pitched copper roof that was barely visible through the trees from the road. The house was built on a hill, with a long screen porch looking out. Nothing but banana trees and ficus between it and the water. Because the lower level was enclosed with white trellis, the house looked even bigger than it actually was. For the last, what? seventy-some years, Zonian families had lived in this place. Lots of babies, school plays, graduations, retirements within those walls. Now Merlot had it.

  A hydraulic lift, I noticed, had been installed next to the back stairs. I’d never seen anything like that in Central America. Apparently the fat man was too lazy to walk up and down the steps on his own. I could picture him waddling from the Mercedes diesel parked beneath the house to his own little elevator.

  I’d made sure the motorcycle would start while still inside the sealed garage of the safe house. It was a Harley Sportster with a black teardrop fuel tank, saddlebags tossed over the rump as if the thing were a horse. No papers with it, no serial numbers that I could find.

  Clearly, the boys in blue shirts didn’t want to risk being linked to this business in any way.

  I walked the Harley the half mile or so to The Ridge and the entrance of Merlot’s drive. My second nocturnal tour of Gamboa. This time, though, the little village seemed deserted. No lights on in the houses, but lots of construction happening, lots of signs of remodeling. Something else: What I remembered best about Gamboa was that it sat within a cavern of shadows and dense forest

  Not now. The landscape around the houses was a pock-work of yellow stumps. A chainsaw’s whine is the national anthem of every Third World country that still has rain forest standing. The loggers had been busy here. So check the price of rare tropical hardwood, multiply it by board feet and tally the small fortune that Merlot and company had already made. Developers and resource hogs are discovering what the sexual predators discovered long ago: Life is free and easy outside the U.S.

  Or maybe the fat man was keeping it all for himself.

  I was now standing in a thicket of bananas beside the house. It had begun to rain. Just rain, no lightning yet, although I could hear the distant rumble of thunder. A steady, soaking drizzle. I wore gloves and the navy watch cap; my face was darkened with the waxy tech paint I’d found in the goody bag left for me by Matt Davidson.

  Not that I now believed that Davidson was his real name. No, he’d probably come up with it when getting the motorcycle ready. Harley Davidson. Matt Davidson. Clever.

  Other useful articles in the bag: wire clippers, bolt cutters, two flashlights, a leather sap, a cheap stiletto, duct tape, a nautical chart showing the Panamanian coastline, a glass cutter, a drugstore first-aid kit.

  No firearms. Maybe Bobby’s old friends were reluctant to get their hands too dirty.

  So I stood there in the rain, smelling the wet wool, watching water fauceting down the canoe-size leaves. In the moonlight, the Panama Canal looked to be more than a quarter mile wide here, jungle on the other side. An idea: I take Jackie Merlot by the collar and sidestroke him to the middle of the Canal. Say to him, “I just saw a photograph of you and my dear friend Amanda. It was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. So the good news is, you’re only forty feet from land. The bad news is, it’s straight down.”

  Say something clever to him and watch his face. Remind him of his tough guy Darkrume persona, say, Why aren’t you acting tough now? Then nail him.

  It would be nice, very nice … but it would also be very dumb. No, freeing Gail was my sole objective. And I planned to do it in the simplest, safest and most effective way.

  A basic snatch-and-bag.

  How many of those had I participated in during the early years?

  What could be simpler?

  First things first, though. I took the knife and punctured three of the Mercedes’s tires.

  Let them try to chase me now….

  I found the telephone connection box at the base of Merlot’s house. Underground cable entered from the road. Lights were still on upstairs and I could hear voices. Heard Merlot say something about the television, heard a much deeper, stronger voice with a Middle Eastern accent say, “Fuck you, do it yourself. All you do is sit at that computer. Or have this bitch of a whore do it. She never doe
s anything around here!”

  A grumpy night in paradise.

  Then I heard Gail’s voice for the first time. Heard her say, “I will do anything to make you two stop arguing. At least grant me the peace of silence. I should be allowed that.”

  Her voice was deeper than I had anticipated. It had a strength and a clarity that was unexpected, considering the circumstances. Class—Garret had described her that way. What I heard in her voice, though, was something I valued more highly. It was dignity. After what she’d been through, this was, indeed, someone special. Bobby had chosen well.

  Kneeling in the rain, hearing her voice so close, it suddenly seemed hugely important to rescue her, to keep her safely within arm’s reach until we were home in Florida.

  I had the lid to the connecting box open. Merlot had three phone lines going into the house. His computers— that explained the additional lines. One phone line, and probably two Internet access lines. A couple of days before, he’d sat up there at his keyboard and communicated with me through one of these lines, baited me as Darkrume.

  He’d written: “Find me, asshole.”

  I’d replied: Exactly what I plan to do.

  Now I had.

  A little-known fact: Most security systems work like incremental switches linked in a series that completes a low-amp, low-voltage electrical circuit. Cut the power and most good systems have a battery backup. Cut the phone line, however, and all but the very best systems are worthless.

  I was counting on Matt Davidson having given me accurate intel: this was a very good system.

  I loosened all six of the brass nuts onto which were attached three different pairs of red and green wires. I pulled the top pair of wires off first.

  From upstairs, I heard: “Goddamn it! Now what’s wrong with this fucking connection!” Merlot’s voice with his limited vocabulary.

  I’d apparently knocked him off line.

  I reattached the top pair of wires, then disconnected the second.

  Nothing.

  Maybe Merlot hadn’t armed the alarm yet. Maybe they waited until bedtime, just before they turned the lights off.