“In terms of electronic signature. Yes. The National Security Agency has amazing monitoring technology. Details are classified, but I know their capabilities. Use a cell phone in the Afghan mountains and our people can triangulate the position within a minute. With prior authorization, we can have a laser-guided missile under way within ninety seconds. The technology is brilliant, but it’s also very specialized. And that makes it vulnerable.”
During our canoe trip from Ligarto Island to Cayo Costa, he’d asked if I’d brought a draft of the paper Tomlinson and I were writing. But this was the first time he’d mentioned the subject.
“An early indicator of overspecialization is when a technology no longer addresses the problem that made it necessary in the first place. Intercepting an adversary’s communications dates back thousands of years. Our monitoring systems can track a cell phone on the other side of the earth. But they’re not equipped to monitor the primitive transmitters you and your friends were using this morning.” Wilson was looking at Tomlinson, expecting him to be confused, and maybe a little disappointed because he wasn’t.
“The drums, man,” Tomlinson said. “Yeah-transmitters. A communication system so old that our brains can’t translate the language. But our hearts still understand.”
Wilson said, “You could set up a network, send messages back and forth, and the finest surveillance systems in the world would never record a beat. Lots of noise but zero signature. Drums. When you’re up against the National Security Agency, you’re much safer living in the Stone Age.”
Drums?
During the last year, I’d spent time in the Stony Desert, between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where domes of ancient mosques turn to pearl in moonlight. Was that how they avoided spy satellites-hammering out messages on rocks and goatskins?
Wilson caught my eye. “ ‘Zero signature’-it’s an interesting term. I came across it in my reading a year ago. When you think about it- zero signature -it has philosophical implications. People who accomplish nothing. People who stand for nothing. But it also describes someone who is very good at what they do. Brilliant reconstructive surgeons. Architects, petroleum engineers. And… other professions. Were you guys Boy Scouts?”
Tomlinson’s expression read Are you serious? as I replied, “No. I’ve never been much of a joiner.”
“Too bad. One of the founders was a great naturalist. He had a theory that every living thing leaves an uninterrupted track, from birth to death, that’s readable to a skilled tracker. And he believed the converse was true: A skilled tracker knows how to cover his tracks. That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“How, Sam?” Tomlinson was into the conversation, loved the idea that we’d switched centuries, I could see. I could also see that he was getting twitchy, tugging at his salt-bleached Willie Nelson braids. It was after six- beer time -but Wilson had ordered him to limit his alcohol intake and banned marijuana.
Wilson replied, “By the way we communicate. I’m going to use your drum technique tonight. Sort of.” Meaning we’d find out. “But right now, we need to finish this electronics issue.” He pointed at the flashlight. “Is that all you’re carrying?”
“I’ve got another flashlight in my bag, but it’s a simple penlight. I’ll show you-”
Wilson put his hand on my shoulder when I tried to stand. “No need. Your word’s good enough.” His sincerity somehow added to my sense of indebtedness. “The question now is, what should we do with it-your light, and any other items aboard this boat that might compromise us?”
I was holding the little LED. A fine piece of equipment. Machined aluminum body and a dazzling beam. It wasn’t as nice as the Blackhawk I’d left with Wilson’s would-be assassins, but it was nice.
I said, “How about I take the light apart? You can stow it with your gear. These things are a lot more expensive then you might think-”
The former president was shaking his head even before I finished. “On a trip that’s so personally important, is that our most secure option? I don’t think Tomlinson’s going to be shocked to hear that, in certain circles, you’re considered a security expert of sorts. So I’ll leave the decision up to you, Doc. Your call.”
In only a couple of sentences, the man had voiced his unquestioned respect for my integrity and deferred to my superior knowledge and judgment.
Damn.
“Marion, your behavior is so predictable.” Tomlinson said. “You’re clinging, man. Material objects. Money. The sutras tell us that all suffering is rooted in selfish grasping. To experience reality, we must first divest ourselves of delusion.” He was using his Buddha voice-the gentle, all-knowing tone he uses with his students, and, at times, to intentionally piss me off.
I held up a warning hand. “Okay. Enough. No more of your ping-pong Zen speeches. I’d rather throw the damn thing overboard than have to listen.” And I did-flipped the flashlight over my shoulder. Didn’t even turn to see it hit the water.
Tomlinson had both feet on the wheel, hands folded behind his head. He leaned and gave me a brotherly rap on the arm. “Sam? Doc’s the sort of guy who, if I pointed at a meteorite, he’d study my finger. Seriously. Meditation frees us.”
Wilson said, “Really? You’re free of greed and delusion, huh? We’ll see.” He had returned to the companionway, talking to Tomlinson as he went down the steps.
When the President reappeared, he was carrying Tomlinson’s leather briefcase, timing the sailboat’s movement before he took his seat. The man was careful about getting banged around, I’d noticed.
“You stowed this in the bulkhead locker. The briefcase was open, so you’re obviously not trying to conceal anything.” Wilson removed a laptop computer, then a palm-sized wafer of white plastic-an iPod.
Tomlinson was suddenly sitting up straight, watching. “Careful there, man. If we take some spray, salt water could ruin the circuitry.”
“I’m aware of that. Question is, why are these things aboard?”
“Because this is my home, man. Don’t you have a computer at home? Everybody has a computer at home. Where else would I keep it?”
“I told you several times that I had to personally okay all electronics.”
“Yeah. But you meant navigational gear. Radios, radar, my sonar-that kinda stuff. The bullshit twenty-first-century baggage no real sailor needs. I got rid of that crap. We’re simpatico on the subject-”
Wilson was shaking his head. “Apparently not. I hate to force the issue, but this equipment has to go.”
Tomlinson was twitching, tugging at his hair. “My computer? Sam. .. you can’t be serious.”
“I’ll give you time to back up your files.”
“You mean… throw it overboard?”
Wilson nodded.
“But it’s a MacBook, Sam! It’s not some IBM clone piece of garbage. We’re discussing an engineering work of art.”
Wilson remained stoic.
“ And my iPod?” The president didn’t resist when Tomlinson reached, took the device, and held it lovingly. “This is my personal music system. I’ve got, like, my entire vinyl collection stored here. Jimi Hendrix outtakes from the Berkeley rally. Cream’s last concert. The actual tape from the Rolling Stone interview with Timothy Leary!
“Sam, please”-I’d never heard Tomlinson beg before-“this is history, man. Think of what you’re doing. You… you need to shallow up, Sam.”
The president said, “Sorry,” his voice flat.
Tomlinson leaned forward and touched my sleeve. “Doc-talk to him. Aren’t there some basic safety issues involved here? He’s asking me to sail to Key West without music or smoking a joint? Why, it’s… insane. I’ve never tried anything so crazy. Say something, compadre.”
I was watching Wilson open the laptop-surprise, surprise. Tomlinson’s screen saver was a photo of Marlissa Kay Engle, actress and musician. She was wearing a red bikini bottom, nothing else, smiling at the camera from a familiar setting. The woman I’d been dating was topless on the sun-
drenched foredeck of my best friend’s boat.
Wilson said, “I admire your taste, but your judgment is questionable.”
“But it’s only two months old. A MacBook with a SuperDrive, four gigs of memory, and the built-in video eye. You can’t be serious!”
I studied the computer screen long enough to be sure of what I was seeing, then looked at Tomlinson, whose expression had changed. “Doc. I can explain.”
I interrupted. “You’re clinging, man. Don’t grasp-it’s the root of all suffering. You’re hung up on possessions… man.” To Wilson I said, “Give me the goddamn computer. I’ll throw it over.”
Wilson closed the laptop, cutting us both off. “You take the helm, Dr. Ford. Mr. Tomlinson, go below and back up your data. Then deep-six this contraband.”
As the president went down the companionway steps, Tomlinson sounded near tears. “But these are Apple products, Sam.”
I nudged him away from the sailboat’s wheel, saying, “You need to deepen up, pal.”
12
Two hours before midnight, the president said, “I didn’t anticipate our friend Tomlinson disappearing. So I’ve got to confide in you. We have to be in Central America in three days. By the afternoon of November fifth.”
Tomlinson hadn’t disappeared. As I had explained to Wilson, we were in Key West. The man was out having fun, not hiding.
Even so, we were walking the streets, searching.
I said, “By ‘Central America,’ you mean Panama? Or Nicaragua?” He didn’t reply for several seconds, so I made another guess. “You’re going there to kill the person who murdered your wife.”
He walked half a block before saying, “No. You’re going to kill him.” His voice low. “If you have moral reservations, tell me now.”
I turned my attention to the tangled limbs of a ficus tree, where bats dragged a fluttering light into shadows. “November’s nice in Central America. Rainy season’s ending, but tarpon are still in the rivers.”
“Is that an answer?”
I looked at the man long enough for him to know it was.
“Then we don’t have time to waste. Why the hell would he do something so crazy?”
“There’s nothing crazy about Tomlinson disappearing in Key West,” I said again. “The only reason he doesn’t live here is because he knows it would kill him.”
We’d anchored off Christmas Island, Key West Bight, at 5:30 p.m. An hour later, Tomlinson vanished into the sunset carnival of Mallory Square while I chatted with my friend Ray Jason, who juggles chain saws when he’s not captaining boats.
It was Ray who reminded me that Fantasy Fest had just ended, a weeklong celebration of weirdness. A dangerous time to lose Tomlinson on the island because the party’s wounded and demented were still roaming the streets.
Tomlinson was visible one moment, laughing with a couple of bikers and a woman dressed as a Conehead. Next moment, all four were gone. I didn’t see him all evening, and he wasn’t aboard No Mas when I returned at 8:30 to ferry the president ashore.
Wilson thought it would be safe to spend an hour after dark reacquainting himself with Key West. He was peeved that he had to spend the time searching.
“Is he still mad about dumping his computer?”
“Giving him orders on his own boat? Sure, and I don’t blame him. But he’s too good-natured to be spiteful, and he’s too much of a sailor to miss a tide.”
Wilson had told us to be up and ready to leave at 6 a.m. Water turned early in Northwest Channel.
We were walking Caroline Street, blue-water fishing boats to our right, lights reflecting off docks, showing masts of wooden ships. People roaming, tourists, bikers, Buckeyes, hip rockers and old hempsters, their faces cured like hams, browned by sun, salt, nicotine.
“He might be around here. These are his people.”
Wilson stopped. “I hope you’re right. We only have”-he squinted at his wrist-“a little more than seven hours.”
“Unless there’s something I don’t know,” I told him, “leaving an hour or two later won’t make any difference. Channels here are a lot more forgiving than Sanibel.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” he answered.
We were back at Key West Bight after making the big loop around the island in cab and on foot. The president was wearing a Hemingway fishing cap, a goatee, and a camera hung around his neck. That was my idea-in a tourist town, a camera’s the perfect mask. He could shield his face anytime he wanted.
Even so, he’d waited outside in the shadows while I hit Tomlinson’s favorite bars: the Bottle Cap, the Green Parrot, La Concha, the VFW, Louie’s. Tomlinson spent so much time in Key West, locals considered him family, so bartenders may have been protecting him when they said he hadn’t been around.
The good news was, the bars had televisions, and networks weren’t abuzz with news of a missing president.
At Margaret Street, we stopped in a circle of streetlight. The doors of Caroline Music were open: grand pianos glistening in sea air; guitars, horns, harps suspended from the ceiling as if buoyed by some composer’s helium-laced fantasy. We crossed to the Turtle Kraals where dinghies were tied like ponies, ours among them. I said, “I’ll run you out to No Mas, then come back for Tomlinson. But let’s talk first.”
“You sound worried. Having a change of heart?”
“Maybe.”
“Because what we’re doing is dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Crazy?”
“ Yes. ‘Crazy’ is what the press is going to call you if we get caught. Is it worth it? Think of what you’re risking. Your legacy. The prestige of the office.”
Wilson’s eyes caught mine as we walked onto the dock. They were measuring. I’d hit his most vulnerable spot with accuracy-the man’s reverence for the presidency.
“You’re sharp. The office is bigger than all the men who’ve ever held it combined. But there’s more at stake than you know.”
“You told me getting even was for amateurs. You wanted revenge.”
“Yes, but I’ll say it one more time: There’s more at stake than you know.”
He was talking about the Panama Canal. I felt sure now but didn’t ask. With Wilson, every bit of data was a bargaining chip.
“If we sail in the morning, there are people I need to contact before we leave. Discreetly. People I trust.”
“By telephone?”
I said, “Yes,” I said, lying because I was embarrassed. All my contact information had been stored in the cell phone I’d left behind. Worse, I’d even forgotten the numbers of people I call regularly because of one-touch speed dialing.
Operator assistance was no help-most people rely on cell phones and the numbers aren’t listed. Not entirely a bad thing. I would’ve been tempted to call Marlissa Engle-if I could’ve found a pay phone that worked. Which I couldn’t.
“I need to get to an Internet cafe,” I told Wilson. “But first, you have to trust me with details.”
“Impossible. I’ve already told you too much. The more you know, the more danger you’re in. To paraphrase Andrew Jackson, ‘If I’m shot at, I don’t want another man in the way of the bullet.’ ”
I said, “Here’s a quote that might change your mind: ‘I not only use all the brains I have, but all the brains I can borrow.’ Woodrow Wilson, twenty-eighth president. I’m offering you a loan.”
He chuckled, then sobered. “There are historians who say if my brilliant relative had confronted Germany in 1914, instead of signing a Declaration of Neutrality, there would’ve been no war.”
I said, “What do you think?”
“I’ll answer that with another Wilson quote: ‘Politicians use history to rationalize confrontation, religion to explain restraint, and academia to justify cowardice.’”
Because Woodrow Wilson was an academic, I asked, “Why would he say something like that?”
“He didn’t. I did-after Wray was killed. I’m no academic.” He looked at me. “Andrew Ja
ckson did something no other American president had before or since. Any ideas?”
“No.”
“He killed a man, face-to-face. Called the guy out, slapped him, and challenged him to a duel. The guy accepted, and Jackson shot him dead-a man who insulted his wife.”
“Old West justice. Part of our history.”
Wilson replied, “Being part of history is easy. Changing history-that’s risky. Woodrow Wilson signed the Declaration of Neutrality after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Ferdinand’s murder-one bullet-started the war.”
“Could he have stopped it?”
The president said, “Maybe. With a second bullet.” Even through the tinted glasses, I could feel the intensity of his eyes.
“Ferdinand was an Austrian blueblood. The Serb who killed him was a bumbling kid. Nobodies. But, because of legally binding pacts, world powers were obligated to mobilize their armies. They depended on the legal machinery of the time as protection. Instead, it led them off a cliff, one country linked to another. Like blind horses.”
“But the second bullet-used how?”
“Events don’t change history, Dr. Ford. Only events that become symbols change history. After a first bullet is fired, how is the second bullet best spent? Appeasement-leave it in the chamber? Or retaliate blindly? Both guarantee war. Pick the right target, though. .. use the second bullet like a scalpel. Who knows?” His tone softened; he yawned. “I’m working on it. But I’m not going to come up with an answer tonight.”
I stood. It was 10:35 and the bars across from the fuel docks were busy. “Then let me help. I’m going to grab a beer, Sam. Think it over.”
It was beginning to feel comfortable, calling him that. Sam.
Sailing from Sanibel to Key West, we’d spent the night trading watches, talking softly, as stars swayed overhead. Formality can’t survive a small boat on a big sea. Wilson was a gifted storyteller and he had a profane sense of humor-especially when he got on the subject of journalists. Particularly a network anchor or two.
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