I smiled. “Yeah. Pathetic.” Then we both sat back, drinking beer and laughing . . . after I’d told him the truth.
15
The significance of a plane catching fire after it had landed in a Nicaraguan rain forest? The answer came to me in a dream. I was not the same man when I awoke.
We found the island. We found the estate, with its sheltered harbor. When No Más was anchored and secure, I made a bed on the bow. Last time I checked my watch, it was 3:30 a.m.
It returns sometimes. My dream. It is a nightmare played in the flames of a long-gone blaze, my index finger twitching on a trigger as young men nearby, alive but terrified, lay frozen in their innocence, eyes fresh with homecoming, haylofts, ghettos. They are not yet scarred by the darkness that frees them to admonish their killers by killing in return.
Shooting a human being in a fit of temper is one thing. To do it professionally, when you are exhausted, filthy, and afraid, half a planet from home, is another.
The brain, undirected as we sleep, organizes random thoughts into patterns. Synapses are gaps between cells. Like sparks, neurotransmitters arc between. Dreams are the chemical-electric by-product, and they are meaningless—with rare exceptions.
For the last few days, my subconscious had been struggling to connect random phrases and events. They became fragmented as I ascended into sleep:
“Wray’s plane caught fire after it landed. No survivors. Suggestive?”
“You know more than you realize . . .”
Significance . . . ?
“. . . one of them a brilliant plastic surgeon, near a volcano in Nicaragua . . .”
“You’ve been following events in Panama . . .”
“Thomas Farrish is the most dangerous man on earth . . .”
“Not the only reason I chose you. You’ll figure it out . . .”
Nicaragua . . . fire . . . Managua . . . fire.
Nicaragua . . . burn scars . . .
“You are the perfect man for the job, Dr. Ford. When I visit you at the lab, I’ll sign a photograph for your son . . .”
Fire. My son.
How does the president know I have a son?
As I slept, random data sparked until it catalyzed the old, familiar dream. Once again, I was returned to that place, suffocating with dread, and the stink of flames fueled by innocence.
FIRE.
I sat up, sweating in the chill, gray light of a November morning, seeing water, the sailboat’s mast, relieved to know it was only that damn dream. Again. But the relief was soon replaced by a sickening awareness.
After landing safely, a chartered plane caught fire in the jungles of Nicaragua.
I now understood the significance.
Seven people had been burned alive, one of them a plastic surgeon. I knew their murderer.
Praxcedes Lourdes.
It was the sociopath who had kidnapped my son, who maintained contact with Laken even after being extradited to Nicaragua. Writing letters or e-mails, describing his “symptoms,” and discussing behavioral anomalies caused by injury and birth defects. A predator’s ruse to keep the prey within grasp.
Prax was out. The Man Burner was free. He was killing again.
TOMLINSON WAS IN THE AFT BUNK, ASLEEP, BUT THE president was gone.
I felt a moment of panic but then took stock. It was an hour before sunrise. The world was shades of charcoal and pearl, a few stars showing. But there were dock lights and sodium security lights on the island. I could see that our dinghy was tied next to a boathouse a hundred yards away. I stuffed my shoes in the back of my fishing shorts, jumped from the stern, and swam.
The main house and outbuildings were Mediterranean-style salmon stucco with roofs of red tiles. The lawn hadn’t been tended in weeks and the pool was clogged with palm fronds. I assumed the place was empty but banged on the back door, anyway. No response. The door was locked.
I pressed my face to the window and saw furniture covered with white sheets and a television that had to be twenty years old. The island was a multimillion-dollar property, but seldom used.
“Ford. I’m in here.” Wilson was outside the boathouse, wiping his hands on a mechanic’s rag. Behind him, the horizon was banded silver, silhouetting the tops of trees. He turned and disappeared, closing the door behind.
Unlike the other buildings, the boathouse was a remnant of Old Florida: cypress-shingled, built on low stilts, barn-sized, large enough to house one of the elaborate wooden yachts from that period.
But there was no yacht. Instead, when I stepped through the door I found the president standing on the pontoon of a single-engine airplane. Amphibious—it could land on water or a runway. He had the engine cowling open.
Hoping I was wrong, I said, “Praxcedes Lourdes—was it him? Is he the one who . . . attacked Mrs. Wilson’s plane?”
The president turned in my direction, holding an oil dipstick, then returned his attention to the engine. “I knew you’d figure it out.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure of my sources.”
“Then that explains why you came to me. You know what Lourdes did to my son.”
“Motivation is important.” Wilson turned again, briefly. His expression had changed, as if a mask had slipped. “I want that son of a bitch. And you’re going to help me get him.”
“Then you were right. I’m the perfect man for the job.”
“I told you you’d get used to it.”
“But my son—”
“He’s in no danger. He’s still in California with his mother—I confirmed that before I met you at the party on Useppa Island. And Lourdes, hopefully, is still in Central America.”
“Where?”
“On the run. That’s all I know. He escaped—or so they say.”
“Bullshit.” I was shaking, I realized. My clothes were soaked on this cool morning, but it wasn’t just that.
“I agree. Someone bought his freedom. There are powerful people who don’t want him caught. Elections are coming up in Nicaragua and Panama. You know what that means.”
Yes, I knew. Lourdes had been raised by Miskito Indians in Nicaragua. In his early teens, he’d murdered his adopted family by torching their hut.
It was the beginning of a lifelong fetish even though he, too, was badly burned.
An element of Lourdes’s fetish was his fantasy of harvesting an attractive face from a victim. That’s why he’d kidnapped my son. Lourdes’s face was a horror of scars and plastic surgery gone wrong.
Threaten a village with a visit from the “Man Burner” and the vote was guaranteed. Among the superstitious, he was believed to be a monster with inhuman powers. They were right.
“Who has the most to benefit from using someone like him?”
“The determined or the depraved. Or both.”
An evasion.
“No matter who’s paying him, sir, it’s possible he wasn’t after you. There was a plastic surgeon aboard.”
“Yes. Dr. David Miller. A good friend. Brilliant.”
I said, “Lourdes could have been after him,” and explained why.
“I don’t see how he could have known David was on the trip.”
“The Wilson Center has a Web page. Could it have been mentioned there?”
The president hadn’t considered it. I could tell. “Possibly.”
“Are you certain all seven people aboard that plane died?”
The subject was painful and it made him impatient. “Yes. You’re getting off track—my contacts are convinced Lourdes was hired to assassinate me.”
“Because of the elections? But you no longer have any influence—” I stopped myself.
I watched him check and recheck the dipstick, then close the engine cowling, before responding. “You’re right. I no longer have the political influence I once had. But I told you before that events don’t change world history. Events as symbols change history. I’m a symbol. A far more powerful symbol than an Austrian archduke. There are religious
zealots, as I’ve said, who are determined to start a world war. Armageddon. They long for it.”
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 & 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 wou
ld 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 equipment.
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 Más 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 Yucatán, 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.”
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