I put my hand on the tiller arm, straightened our course, then moved to the inflatable’s port side. Coast Guard or not, if the friendly terrorist started shooting the chopper would return fire. I didn’t want to get much farther from my canoe, but I also didn’t want the terrorists to get a clean shot.
I shielded my eyes and glanced behind. I guessed the chopper was a few hundred yards out. The pilot had waited until he was almost over us to toggle his megawattage searchlight. It told me something. Visibility was zero yet he knew where we were.
Some kind of high-tech radar? Older infrared systems don’t work well in fog. But this aircraft’s electronics had nailed us. A thermal image sensor system maybe. Or thermal FLIR goggles. Whatever it was kept the chopper latched to our stern. The pilot seemed to be keeping his distance intentionally.
I took another quick look, then concentrated on driving. The chopper’s military searchlight illuminated the mist without piercing it; my strobe added blinding starbursts. The combination screwed up my depth perception, which was nil to begin with. I’d straightened our course but couldn’t tell if I was focusing on a veil of fog fifty yards ahead or five feet ahead. It was like rocketing underwater through radiant bubbles.
Two men remained hunched low in the inflatable, gripping the outboard safety line. But the friendly terrorist and Folano had managed to balance themselves between the middle seat and deck, both with automatic rifles. In a moment, they’d open fire.
I waited. Kept our course steady, expecting to slam into a reef at any moment… or take a bullet in the back. The boat’s top speed couldn’t have been more then thirty knots, but it felt like fifty. When Folano touched his cheek to the rifle’s stock, taking aim, I jammed the tiller hard to port-a threshold turn that almost jettisoned him into the water.
“Goddamn mechanic. ”
From his belly, the friendly terrorist pointed his rifle at me. I ducked low and pulled the tiller hard to starboard, then shoved it away. The boat skidded for a moment, then heeled at an impossible angle. He tumbled onto his side and lost control of the weapon.
In rapid succession, I rocked the steering arm back and forth. With each wild turn, the boat careened on its edge, so the four men could do nothing but stay low and hang on to the outboard safety line.
Behind us, I suspected the chopper’s crew interpreted our zigzagging as evasive action. They’d been on our tail for less than a minute, but it was enough time for their weapons systems to lock. The pilot was probably on the radio with his superiors maybe asking permission to fire. Stick a rocket into our engine’s exhaust. Could that happen?
Yes.
I continued zigzagging, eyes forward, as I looped the fuel hose around the tiller arm to prevent the boat from circling. Then I found the gas tank with my right hand and twisted the cap off. Gas sloshed. The fog had wicked fumes; the two vapors melded into a petroleum cloud. Striking a flare now would’ve been insane, so I lobbed the stick over my shoulder. Then I felt around in my pocket for the lighter-a search that was hampered by my own misgivings. In a cloud of gas fumes, I knew what would happen if spark was added.
I did it anyway… took a deep breath… released the tiller so I could cup my left hand over my eyes, then flicked the plastic lighter and…
Whoof!
A sphere of pressurized heat blasted me backward. I used the momentum to somersault overboard, my left hand now covering my nose, my right hand over my nuts.
Impact: I skipped once on the hard surface, then water settled around me, the bay warmer than air. I stayed under for a moment, then surfaced. I’d worried about landing on an oyster bar, but the depth here was waist-deep, the bottom soft beneath my shoes.
I crouched low in the water, expecting the boat to be in flames. It wasn’t. Maybe the explosion had consumed oxygen so abruptly that it had extinguished itself. Whatever the reason, the inflatable wasn’t ablaze but the strobe I’d left aboard was still firing.
The helicopter rocketed past at tree level and I ducked again.. . then stayed low, thinking the terrorists might manage to fire a shot. They didn’t. Maybe they’d gone overboard, too, when I’d ignited the gas.
I waited, listened. I heard no voices, saw no movement ahead. They were still on the boat.
After a few moments, I stood, my eyes tracking the course of the inflatable by the strobe’s irregular starbursts, feeling relieved but also dumb. The chopper pilot didn’t need thermal imaging to find the boat. All he had to do was follow the blinking light.
The noise of the engines faded but the fogbank continued to flare. It reminded me of a storm cloud filled with lightning. I was surprised the boat hadn’t hit something. I was also surprised that the chopper hadn’t opened fire.
I turned… and got another surprise.
Towering above me, closing in fast, was a red light and a green light, aligned like glowing eyes-a boat’s running lights. The patrol boat was bearing down on me at high speed in pursuit of the inflatable.
It was like stepping off a sidewalk into the path of a cement truck. The pilot couldn’t see me, I didn’t have time to get out of the way, and there were only a few inches of clearance between the boat’s churning propellers and the soft bottom.
I reacted instinctively and dove to the right, trying to dolphin out of harm’s way. But too late…
The vessel was on me… then over me. Its forward displacement wake lifted me off the bottom when I tried to submerge. I felt the boat’s port chine graze my thigh and I balled up into a fetal position, expecting the props to chop my feet off. I released air from my lungs, trying to get deeper, then all that displaced water slammed me hard into the bottom as engines screamed past overhead… slammed me so hard that I threw my hands out, anticipating impact.
If I hadn’t, I would’ve broken my neck. Instead, when I hit bottom my left arm buried itself up to the elbow in muck.
Underwater, I waited for a few seconds to be sure the boat was gone, then I tried to pull my arm free. Surprise! My fist had created a suction pocket. It wouldn’t budge.
I got one foot on the bottom and tried to stand. I still couldn’t break the mud’s hold.
Impossible.
Calmly, I tried again… and felt muck constrict around my forearm.
I opened my eyes. Darkness accentuated a darker realization: I might die this way. Ironic. It was also absurd. Die on a calm night, in waist-deep water, because I’d gotten one hand stuck in the mud-after the life I’d lived?
Funny, Ford. Fun-n-n-ny.
I stopped struggling. Told myself not to panic; to stop fighting and think. I did… which instantly reduced the pressure around my forearm. I could feel the hole collapsing into rivulets of sand around my fist, as water trickled in and breached the vacuum. I gave a gentle pull… and my hand came free.
I surfaced, blowing water from my nose and gasping for air but alert: a second boat might be following in the wake of the vessel that had nearly crushed me.
I stood, waited… Silence.
I turned. The patrol boat’s course was marked by a contrail of bubbles but its lights had been swallowed by fog. I could still hear its engines, an eerie demarcation between sight and sound: A sixton boat had vanished into a void of infinite gray.
I took a few careful steps, still shaken by the series of close calls. Bad luck has its own momentum. It’s not conditional or personal, but misfortune does seem to gain energy from panic. Time to move purposefully.
I did.
If the patrol boat’s wake was still visible, the inflatable’s narrower track should be visible, too. I made a slow search and found the residue of exhaust oil and disturbed water.
I backtracked, following the rubber boat’s course, walking, sometimes swimming. The knife with the curved blade, and the extra flashlight I’d slipped into my pants, had both survived, and I used the flashlight. After several minutes, there it was, a ghost ship, awash in fog but still afloat: my canoe. I was afraid the patrol boat had crushed it.
Before I vaulted
aboard, I allowed myself a blissful minute to pee.
My watch read 12:15 a.m.
5
I used the GPS to get my bearings, then paddled. A few minutes later, blue topography materialized in the moonlight: Indian mounds elevated above mangroves.
I traveled along Ligarto’s rim. As I did, I heard the diesel rumble of another vessel. It was on the western side of the island. Occasionally, its searchlight breached the fog canopy. The boat was headed north, its engines fading.
Why north? Why not back up the helicopter and patrol boat?
I thought about it as I paddled. Decided there could be only one reason: The former president was aboard. Secret Service agents were taking him to safety. The Special Operations Center at MacDill Air Base was in Tampa, and so was the Coast Guard’s regional headquarters.
What other explanation could there be? The inflatable would’ve been easy to find. The explosion hadn’t damaged the gas tank much because I could still hear the engine-the overrevved scream of an outboard plowing bottom. The boat had finally hit something, and its engine was killing itself; probably kicking up a geyser of mud and grass as it buried the rubber boat on a sandbar.
Less than ten minutes had passed since I’d flicked the lighter and jumped, but they’d been long, long minutes for the four foreigners. They’d spent them careening through fog, out of control, with a helicopter on their tail. With the inflatable grounded, the men would either have to fight or wade. I hadn’t heard any shots, so maybe they weren’t the martyr types… or maybe they’d found the bottle of vodka I’d left aboard.
I pictured the guy with the bushy black beard, Folano, guzzling from the bottle and smiled. He could have the liquor-I had his knife. I hadn’t looked at it closely but the heft and balance suggested superb craftsmanship. Consoling. The Blackhawk flashlight I’d sacrificed was expensive.
I continued paddling but not fast. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed the Secret Service had hustled Kal Wilson aboard the northbound boat. If he was no longer on Ligarto, there was no reason for me to hurry. Even so, I decided to land on the shell ridge as planned.
Maybe I’d learn something. Secret Service agents wouldn’t be as quick to open fire, and they might be talkative if I had information to trade. I’d use a spare flashlight to draw attention and tell the first person I met to notify the cops about four crazy foreigners with guns. That would get a conversation started.
Wait… only four foreigners? I remembered the unlikely timing of the explosions, then reminded myself there could be a fifth terrorist already on the island, an insider.
Adrenaline is a chemical accelerant and I felt supercharged. If the Secret Service hadn’t found the fifth terrorist, I might… or he might find me.
That was okay.
In fact, I hoped it happened.
Wind stilled; moon floated behind Halloween clouds. Fog became rain-an ascending, silver weight.
Good. My clothes were soaked but visibility was improving. Steam seeped from the tree line, then was vented upward by the bay’s cool surface. Moonlight was chameleon. It mimicked a night sky that was charcoal, then copper.
Ahead, I could see an elevated darkness that, according to the GPS, marked the shell ridge. The ridge crossed the island-a foot highway built a thousand years ago by contemporaries of the Maya. Florida was home to an ancient people. Visitors to Disney World and South Beach never suspect.
I approached cautiously: two strokes, glide… two strokes, glide. The elevated darkness assumed form. A break in the tree line appeared as a ravine of white. I turned the canoe toward the island and gave a final stroke. Shells grated beneath the boat’s hull as the bow lifted itself onto the bank.
I waited: tree canopy sifting rain… bee-WAH groan of catfish
… vertibraeic pop of pistol shrimp. A separate, living universe intermingled below, indifferent to my vigilance or to the absurd world above the water’s surface.
Was I alone?
I leaned my weight to port, swung one leg, then the other, out of the canoe and stood in knee-deep water. On the island, fog strata created a tunnel; the ridge, made of seashells, glowed like bone. I pulled the canoe onto the ridge. Hid it in a mangrove thicket that was several feet above the tide line, but I tied off to a limb, anyway-the rituals of a compulsive man.
I was undecided about carrying Folano’s knife. The Secret Service would ask questions if they found it. But what if there was a fifth assassin? He would be armed.
I took the knife. Slid it through my belt, over my hip. I was still wearing my black sports jacket, an incongruous combination-dressed for a dinner party, soaking wet, and armed to kill.
I carried a flashlight but didn’t use it as I started up the ridge. At the first clearing, I stepped into the open, faced the island’s interior, and waved my arms overhead-a maritime distress signal. If there was a sniper team positioned on Ligarto’s highest point, I wanted to give them a chance to hit me with a spotlight before they hit me with a bullet.
The only response was the twittering of midnight birds and the faraway boom of an owl: Hoo-ah… Hoo-ah-hoo… Hoo-ah…
I stepped back into shadows and hugged the tree line as I walked, shells resonate beneath shoes. Every few yards, I stopped; checked behind, then searched the corridor of mist ahead.
It was now half past midnight; no sign of the president. I began to feel sure he’d been evacuated. I also began to feel an unexpected disappointment. Outwardly, I’d bristled at being coerced by the celebrated man. “Help me disappear,” he’d said, “and I’ll make your past disappear.”
So why the sudden regret? Weird.
Or was it?
It wasn’t a time for reflection, so I told myself to drop the subject -Concentrate, Ford. Focus!- and continued along the ridge. But my mind kept drifting back to the question, inspecting the paradox consciously, then subconsciously.
Unusual. I seldom waste time reviewing the past or fretting over future consequences, yet the interplay continued. It produced a slow clarity.
Kal Wilson, I realized, didn’t have as much leverage over me as he believed. I cared more about securing a pardon for Tomlinson. Unlike me, the poor guy wrestles with moral shadings of guilt. He believes in the concept of sin and redemption.
There are so-called hipsters who use the persona to cloak their laziness and arrogance. Tomlinson, though, is without device. He is one of those rare, transcendent souls who lives ravenously, celebrating life in equal portions of bliss and despair. Tomlinson can be a pious pain in the ass, but he is also a man, and a good one. There aren’t many and the good ones are worth saving.
But nobody reacts favorably to blackmail. So I’d balked at the president’s offer. On a subconscious level, though, I’d been curious about how the trip would go. Maybe even looked forward to it. As a biologist, it was an unusual opportunity: Kal Wilson had occupied the loftiest tier of this planet’s social hierarchy. For a time, he’d been the most powerful man on earth. How was he different? How would he handle himself now that his end was near…?
I stopped for a moment, my concentration intense as I checked my perimeter. All clear. Then I paused to stare at the moon. Wilson had one lunar cycle left to live. If his doctors were right, this moon would wane, then wax full again, before cancer dragged him down. Twenty-eight days-a unit of time as fundamental as sunrise, menses, ocean tides.
What was the appeal of spending those last days with a man of his accomplishments?
The allure was complicated. I continued walking, senses alert. My brain continued to probe, but subconsciously.
Concentrate, Ford. Focus!
Focused or not, I was disappointed. But I felt worse for the former president. He would not spend his last days traveling as a free man. Four or more assassins had come to end his life. In a way, they’d succeeded, even though they’d botched the job.
At least, I hoped they’d botched the job…
I would find out sooner than expected.
At the
top of the ridge, I stopped when I perceived movement within a grove of gumbo-limbo trees. I squatted… waited… watched long enough to confirm the movement wasn’t wind shadow. No.. . something was there. Man-sized, twenty yards away.
I touched fingers to the knife and drew it. With my left hand, I felt around on the ground until I found a conch shell-Indians had used big conchs to build this ridge. It was the size of a glove, pointed at both ends. I slipped my hand into the shell.
The silhouette of a man became visible. He turned and walked in my direction. A second man appeared. He followed.
The fifth terrorist and an accomplice?
I crouched lower, trying to time it right as the men neared. I hoped they would walk past, give me a chance to get a look at them. Instead, the two silhouettes stopped within a few yards. I relaxed a little when I heard a familiar voice say, “Why the hell are you kneeling? Do you really think a man your size can hide when the moon’s this bright?”
As I stood, I dropped the conch shell and tried to slip the knife into my belt without them noticing. I felt like a stupid kid.
“I hope you don’t make a habit of being late, Dr. Ford. Forty minutes? My God! Mr. Vue and I were about to give up.”
Even though he whispered, the president’s tone told me Don’t ever be late again.
We were already walking toward the canoe, both men in a hurry. When I tried to speak, the president’s bodyguard touched a finger to his lips, clapped his hand on my shoulder, and urged me toward the water.
“Later, later. Not much time.”
“But what about the-”
“We go now. ”
Mr. Vue moved his hand to the small of my back and began to push. He was about five-nine, weighed over two-fifty. When I tried to resist, my feet skidded over the shell path like a car being towed.
“ Wait. I have information your people need. I intercepted a hit team. Four men, heavily armed, Middle Eastern, I think-”
“ Hit team? You’ve got to be kidding.” Wilson kept walking-he didn’t want to believe it.
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