She’d been on a chartered flight, a humanitarian mission carrying medical supplies to Nicaragua. The plane had caught fire during an emergency landing near a volcano. Wray Wilson and six other people were killed.
Distraught, the great man had demanded an international investigation. Later, he made headlines by hinting that his wife’s death wasn’t accidental.
Grief is part of a complicated survival process, but it can also debilitate. I wondered if grief had unhinged the man. He was too young and vigorous to be senile. But mental illness might explain his behavior. What he was proposing was impractical, maybe irrational.
I became agreeable in the way people do when they are dealing with the impaired. “I can empathize, sir. If a doctor told me I had a month to live, I’d want to . . . well, escape. So I understand, and I’m honored, but—”
He interrupted. “Why makes you so damn certain you don’t have a month to live? Or two weeks?”
“Well . . . I don’t know. You’re right, of course, but we all assume—”
“No, Dr. Ford, we don’t all assume. Your time may be more limited than you realize—that’s not necessarily a threat. It’s true of everyone, everywhere. And please don’t use that patronizing tone with me again. Do you read me, mister?”
Only Academy graduates and ex-fighter jocks can make the word “mister” ring like a slap in the face. He was both.
The man might be nuts but he wasn’t feeble.
I started over. “Look, I do empathize, but”—I gestured, indicating the room: wood ceiling, towels for curtains, rows of chemicals and specimen jars, books stacked on tables, fish magnified through aquarium glass—“but I’m a biologist. I don’t see how I can help.”
“I’ve done the research and I can’t think of anyone more qualified.”
“It’s possible, sir, that you have the wrong man—”
“No. Don’t waste my time pretending . . . or maybe denial is a conditioned response in people like you. I know Hal Harrington. He’s your handler, isn’t he?”
Harrington was a high-level U.S. State Department official and covert intelligence guru. I’d known him for many years.
I replied, “Harrington? With an H?” I pretended to think about it. “I’m not familiar with the name.”
“Maybe if I remind you of a few details. Would that convince you?”
“I really don’t know what you’re—”
He held up a hand. “When I was in office, they said I had access to every classified document in the system. Baloney. After what happened in Cartagena, I asked for a dossier on you. Know what I got? Nothing. Or next to nothing. Later, I ran across other globe-trotting Ph.D.s with backgrounds just as murky as yours. Scientists, journalists, a couple of attorneys, even one or two politicians. That’s when I began to suspect.
“I started digging. Insomniacs crave hobbies. I won’t tell you how but I discovered documents that hinted at the existence of a secret organization. An illegal organization, funded by a previous administration. Something called the ‘Negotiating and Systems Analysis Group.’ Only thirteen plank members; very select. ‘The Negotiators.’ Sound familiar?”
I’d replaced the slide containing the sea urchin embryo with another—a blank slide, I realized, but I pretended to concentrate.
“It was deep-cover intelligence. Members were deployed worldwide as something called ‘zero signature specialists.’ An unusual phrase, don’t you agree? Zero signature. It suggests they were more than a special operations team. Just the opposite. It suggests that each man worked alone.”
They weren’t killers in the military sense, he said. They had a specialty.
“Their targets disappeared.”
The celebrated man studied me as if to confirm I wouldn’t react.
I didn’t.
TO PADDLE A STRAIGHT COURSE, I FOCUSED ON THE canopy of palms that punctured the mist. Their trunks were curved. Fronds drooped like sodden parrot feathers.
The breeze was southwesterly, warm on my face and left arm—another directional indicator—but the mist was autumnal. I should have been shivering. My clothes were soaked, but I was too focused to be cold.
I was dressed for a dinner party, not a canoe trip: dark slacks, dress shirt, a black silk sports jacket tailored years ago in Southeast Asia. I’d dressed for the role I would have to play if the Secret Service intercepted me. It could happen.
To get on and off the island undetected, I had to know how the Secret Service operated so I did my homework. I spent time at Sanibel’s library and on the Internet. More valuable was a discussion I had with an old friend, Tony Stoverthson, who’d worked for the agency prior to passing the Florida bar.
I knew the island would be protected by a dozen or so agents working in three shifts. They would’ve created an on-site command post that would include liaison people from the local sheriff’s department and the Coast Guard. The command post would maintain direct contact with the agency’s intelligence division in Washington and also their main headquarters in Beltsville, Maryland. Unique code names would be assigned to the island, the protectee, members of the protectee’s family (if any), even the protectee’s boat.
Tony told me, “The agency’s dealt with all types of celebrities and they’re all assigned a name. Prince Charles was ‘Unicorn.’ Ted Kennedy,‘Sunburn.’Amy Carter was ‘Dynamo’; Frank Sinatra, ‘Napoleon.’ A protectee’s limo might be called ‘Stagecoach.’ An island might be called ‘The Rock’ or ‘Fort Apache’—a name that’s immediately understood but still maintains security.”
The more I learned, the more I came to think of Ligarto Island as The Rock.
The agents would be armed with MP5 submachine guns and semiautomatic SIG-Sauer pistols, although some older members might still carry Smith & Wesson Model 19s. Other tools, such as night-vision goggles, Remington street-sweeper shotguns, and antiaircraft ordnance, would be included in their arsenal.
Security might include sharpshooters from the uniformed division of the agency’s countersniper team. The team would establish a shooting post on one of the island’s highest points—a tree, maybe, or water tower. In agency slang, the sniper would be armed with a JAR (Just Another Rifle), which, in fact, was a high-tech weapon custom-designed for the Secret Service. The sniper team would be in radio contact with Beltsville, which would provide the shooter with sight adjustments, depending on the island’s temperature and humidity.
I’d also learned there would be at least two boats. One would be smaller, capable of running onto the beach if necessary. The other would be a fast patrol boat.
Daunting. So I planned on being intercepted. Because I didn’t want to be arrested or shot, I also planned on lying my ass off. A believable lie, I hoped.
I would tell agents I was on my way to the annual Halloween party at the friendliest of nearby islands: Cabbage Key, a popular bar and restaurant, accessible only by water. I’d have to do some acting. Pretend to be appropriately sloshed, tell agents I’d gotten lost in the fog.
If they contacted Cabbage Key’s superb dining room, they would find my name on the guest list: Marion D. Ford, Dinkin’s Bay Marina. Reservation for one, admission paid in advance.
Establishing plausible deniability is not a subject taught in college. The famous man was right: My past includes training in subjects other than marine biology.
Nearby, I heard a heron’s reptilian growl. I was passing an oyster bar where wading birds had gathered—unusual for this time of night. Maybe they were grounded by fog. Was that possible? Or maybe feeding in the light of this full moon.
I touched my paddle to the bottom. Felt shells crunch as the canoe pivoted with the current. Once again, I listened for the patrol boat. Nothing. Could still hear the distant outboard . . . could hear the river-rush of tide flushing seaward . . . then I was surprised to hear voices. Men’s voices whispering: a few staccato fragments, words indecipherable.
Garbled by distance?
No. They were close.
I waited, using the paddle as a stake, my canoe pointing downtide like a weather vane.
Water drizzled from leaves . . . yowl of raccoons . . . creak of trees . . . then another muffled exchange: two men, maybe three.
The island was to my right. The voices came from my left. The men had to be in a boat. Or wading. The syllabic patterns were exotic, not English, not Spanish. That’s why it registered as garble. I didn’t hear enough to guess at the language.
Fog is romantic in a cozy sort of way, but, in primitive lobes of our brain, it also keys primitive alarms. The alarms remind us that tribal enemies use fog as cover.
During thunderstorms, people retreat in clusters, voices hushed. The same is true of the slow, silent storm that is fog. Men were out there in the gloom. Foreigners in a Florida backwater. Why?
There were plausible explanations.
I didn’t like any of them.
A million-dollar bounty had been offered for the celebrated man’s head. My guess: They were here to collect it.
THE NIGHT THE CELEBRATED MAN APPEARED AT MY DOOR, I’d said to him, “If you travel outside the country, no security, what happens if the bad guys take you hostage, or worse? It could get some of our people killed, maybe even start a war. To be blunt, you’d be putting the nation at risk. Is that worth a couple weeks of personal freedom?”
I’d expected indignation. Instead, he became philosophical, which is an effective cloaking technique. “History’s fickle. Small events have started wars. I suppose some minor event could also prevent war—who can predict? The only time I depend on men and nations to behave like they have any brains is when there’s no other choice. I’m speaking theoretically, of course.”
Was he?
“Who knows what I might stir up. The risks depend on where I go. And who you consider to be bad guys. It’s far more likely someone will take a shot at me in the States instead of in a country I’m not scheduled to visit.
“That’s another reason I’m eager to get on the road, Dr. Ford. Someone’s going to take that shot—soon, I think. My enemies view me as unfinished business. What they don’t suspect is, I have some unfinished business of my own.”
He used his fighter pilot’s voice—a combat vet on a mission.
“It sounds like you have a target in mind.”
“Maybe.”
“Something to do with your wife’s death?” I knew the accident was still under investigation. It had only been a few months.
“Possibly. Her plane caught fire after it landed. Seven people killed, no survivors. Do you find that suggestive?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know the details.”
“I think you know more than you realize.” The man was looking at me strangely.
“Are you suggesting something? Or am I missing something?”
“Maybe both.” I watched his jaw muscles knot. “But I think I’ll reserve the details until we come to an agreement. For now, let’s just say there are several stops I’d like to make. I’ve lived a big life. I’ve called liars liars, frauds frauds, and I’ve stood toe-to-toe with every variety of despot and egotistical ass. When enemies visit my grave, it won’t be to plant flowers.”
“You have old scores to settle.”
“You disapprove; it’s in your tone. Good. Getting even is for amateurs. I want revenge.” After a moment, he chuckled. “I’m joking. My plans aren’t that dramatic.”
It was disturbing. Witness a wounded beast stumble and most of us wince. I winced inwardly at his stumbling paranoia, his outdated bravado; his weak attempt to cover malice with humor. I was thinking Yes, he’s mentally ill.
According to my pal Tomlinson, who turns into a newspaper junkie the instant his Birkenstocks touch soil, the man dropped from public view shortly after his wife’s death. He retreated to a Franciscan monastery, then spent time with a famous Buddhist scholar on Long Island.
When he reappeared, he had changed. The man had always been dignified, under control, even when speaking his mind. In the last few months, though, his behavior had bordered on the outrageous.
“He’s doing what no one in his position has ever done,” Tomlinson told me. “If he’s asked a question, he tells the truth—his version, anyway. He’s managed to offend just about every political and religious organization in the world.”
The million-dollar bounty was an example, Tomlinson explained. It started when the man called America’s news media “cowards and fiducial incompetents” because they sidestepped reprinting an editorial cartoon from a Danish newspaper that sparked worldwide riots. The caricature depicted the prophet Muhammad with a lighted bomb fuse in his turban—mild by Western standards.
The man remained outspoken even when Islamic clerics issued an international fatwa, or religious decree, demanding his head. Literally. The reward was posted soon afterward.
“The media used to despise him,” Tomlinson told me. “Then, for a while, he was their darling. But that’s changing because he refuses to back down on the cartoon issue. ‘When did the New York Times and Wall Street Journal start deferring decisions about free speech to religious fundamentalists?’ That’s the sort of thing he’s been saying and he won’t shut up.
“Ultimately, they’ll crucify him. He knows it. He seems to be inviting it.”
Standing in my lab that night, the man sounded in full control of his facilities, even while sharing a plan I dismissed as irrational.
“The group I mentioned, the Negotiators. They operated without oversight. Their victims were seldom found so there’s very little proof they were licensed to kill. But there is proof. I have it. Ethically, I couldn’t ask a law-abiding citizen to help me . . . That’s why I’m asking you.”
With an edge, I replied, “Very flattering.”
“It’s not meant to be. I’m explaining why I’m here. The illegalities my trip requires won’t be a problem for someone with your expertise.”
“You’re asking me to break laws, too.”
“None you haven’t broken before.”
His inflection conveyed subtext. Was he telling me he wanted someone killed?
I said, “You don’t need me. You need a magician. The Secret Service will realize you’re missing before you make it to an airport.”
“Not the way I’ve set it up. We’ll have enough time.”
My expression read We?
“That’s the deal. You’re coming. Spring me loose, keep me alive, and get me back. Help me disappear and I’ll make your past disappear.”
He interpreted my unresponsiveness as mistrust.
“I’m not the first to offer, I know. But I’m the first who has the power to make it happen.”
2
I let the canoe swing free, then drifted awhile before I ruddered toward the island.
I’d studied charts and aerial photos. Ligarto consisted of about seventy acres of high ground, most of it built by Florida’s pre-Seminole inhabitants. They were a sophisticated people who constructed cities of shell. On Ligarto, they’d built courtyards, dug canals, and raised shell pyramids four stories high.
Archaeologists believe that royalty lived atop those pyramids. The equivalent of post-Columbian royalty still did: The celebrated man was staying in a cabin on the highest mound.
From the aerials, I knew the layout. I also knew that Ligarto’s Prohibition-era docks were on the western shore along a private channel. That’s why I was approaching from the east. To the east, water was seldom more than chest-deep, scarred with reefs of oyster and rock—okay for canoes, bad for powerboats. A fringe of mangrove swamp buffered the island so there was no easy place to land.
Visitors, welcome or unwelcome, would not be expected from the east.
I paddled close to the mangroves, mist smoldering out of the bushes as if the swamp was afire. I caught a branch, slid paddle beneath thwarts, and repositioned my feet as the canoe swung under limbs. It was a cheap canoe, green plastic hull, quieter than aluminum, with ridged seats. I’d been paddling for an h
our. I had to pee and my feet were numb.
I sat rubbing my ankles and waited, straining to see through the mist. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wait long.
I didn’t.
There were four men, not two. They were in an inflatable boat, all of them paddling, but the last guy, starboard aft side, also used his blade as a rudder. They came directly at me. For a moment, I thought I’d been spotted. But then the boat turned north, hugging the shore, passing within twenty feet of where I sat motionless, all senses testing, as they paddled into mist.
Water-laden air molecules transport odor as efficiently as they conduct sound. After a few seconds, the smell of men and equipment arrived on foggy tendrils: military canvas, rubber, machine oil, the stink of wet boots, the stink of stale tobacco laced with an unexpected hint of eucalyptus or clove.
Spiced tobacco. Distinctive.
An inflatable boat resembles an overinflated inner tube, pointed at the front, with rigid buoyancy chambers made of high-tech fabric. In military jargon, it’s a “rubber boat,” or an IBS (Inflatable Boat, Small). This one had an outboard engine mounted aft, but it was tilted upward and locked, so the vessel should have been difficult to control.
The four men made it look easy. Blades cut the water in synch; strokes short, efficient. This was a military unit, or paramilitary, a trained assault team: two men had already pulled on ski mask balaclavas. All four had weapons slung over their inboard shoulders, ammo clips fixed. One of the rifles had the distinguishing banana clip of a Russian AK-47 or one of that weapon’s myriad clones.
Weapons identification is something else not taught in college science labs. I maintain a working knowledge for a reason.
A Secret Service agent carrying a Russian assault rifle? No way. Nor do agents whisper in a foreign language or smoke clove tobacco—the odor reminded me of Kreteks, the cigarette of choice in Indonesia and some parts of the Middle East.
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