Hunter's Moon

by Randy Wayne White

  “What could I have done to help? Me against five men? Six, really, because our own fucking pilot set us up—the coward never got out of the helicopter. And my damn cell phone was useless!”

  Shock, as it fades, is commonly replaced by guilt.

  Waters had caught up with Danson as he was boarding the helicopter in Panama. They had compromised, using the same helicopter and sharing Danson’s crew.

  They were disappointed not to find the former president at the camp, but they both recognized Vue; Tomlinson, too. Still a damn good story, she said, even though Vue refused to talk.

  Danson and his crew were setting up outside the hacienda getting ready to shoot, so Waters decided to take a look around. Maybe Wilson was at the camp but hiding.

  When the five men arrived in a Toyota pickup truck, she was near the baseball diamond on the far edge of the property. Waters heard the first scream as she was returning to the house.

  “It’s the only thing that saved me. My God, to think how close I came . . .” The woman put a hand to her stomach, eyes dazed, as if she might vomit. “By that time, they’d herded everyone into the house. They knew who Walt was. Those bastards had watched him on satellite. An American anchorman. So they went after poor Walt right away.”

  At first, she thought the men were robbers. Waters watched through a side window as they collected billfolds and jewelry. Tomlinson got some abuse because he had neither, she said.

  “But then he came in. A guy the size of a football player, smoking a cigar.”

  It was Praxcedes Lourdes, though the woman didn’t know his name.

  They were all wearing ski masks, she said, or had their faces wrapped—turbans were easily adapted.

  “But the big man wore this bizarre silk mask, the kind they use in operas. It was white, with huge Oriental eyebrows and a fucking smile. Like a clown, but with an opening so he could smoke.”

  Yes, it was Lourdes.

  Lourdes always kept his face covered because of his scars—the failed plastic surgeries, too. He’d been burned to the bone on the cheeks, much of his chin, and the top of his head. His mouth was an exposed wedge of teeth, like a dental schematic—skeletal, like a cadaver used in medical school.

  He might seem a sympathetic figure, unless you knew the truth. He’d been scarred by a fire he set himself while murdering his family.

  Lourdes sometimes wore surgical gauze, or bandage wrap, plus sunglasses—practical, when traveling by day. Most often, though, he preferred a monk’s habit, because of the hood, and he liked masks, which are common in Central America. During the war in Nicaragua, rebel Contras often wore light mesh masks that allowed them to eat and drink without revealing their identities.

  It sounded like the mask Waters was describing.

  “He had one of those propane torches, the kind with the screw-on cylinder. He used his cigar to light it. I could hear the hissing noise even through the window while he adjusted the flame.”

  By that time, she said, the men had taped Danson’s hands and tied him to a pole in the center of the main room. The rope allowed the anchorman to walk around it in a tight circle.

  I pictured a pony on a leash, although Waters did not describe it that way.

  Then, with everyone watching, Lourdes began to goad Danson around the pole. Burning him with quick blasts of flame on the butt and back. Both Vue and Tomlinson attempted to intercede, but were knocked to the floor with rifle butts. Vue, she said, had to be taped like a mummy because he was so strong.

  Lourdes continued his torture of the anchorman.

  “One thing I found out—Walt was one tough son of a bitch. I always thought it was an act, but it wasn’t. He was so damn . . . brave. I could have never endured what he did.”

  Lourdes was a performer. He often filmed victims, as I knew. He loved an audience. Torturing a TV star with men watching was the sort of thing he would enjoy.

  Her breath catching, Waters said, “I thought it would go on forever, the cruelty. But then . . . then . . . then Walt’s hair caught on fire. I’ve never seen anything so hideous in my life. But they were laughing. Those men thought it was hilarious—like some sick, slapstick comedy bit. See the anchorman’s hair burn!”

  That’s when she ran away.

  SHANA WATERS HID IN THE TREES UNTIL THE HELICOPTER they had chartered flew away, soon followed by the truck. After waiting ten minutes, she went inside the house but got only a quick look before the truck returned and the three men surprised her.

  I said, “Maybe the pilot told them he’d brought a woman. A trap.”

  “Maybe,” she said bitterly, “but it’s more likely he thought I was dead. The coward had to realize what was going on, but he made sure he didn’t see it.

  “It was existential. I covered the Middle East for two years and it’s the only thing that comes close. Tie men and burn them alive? I thought Kal Wilson was a spineless figurehead, but I respected Vue. And the old hippie Tomlinson? If he was a friend of yours, I’m so sorry.”

  We were standing near the Toyota pickup truck. I had confirmed that the keys were in it, it was fueled and ready to go. I didn’t want to stay at Rivera’s camp for a minute longer than was necessary.

  I was nearly done. Waters had locked herself inside the truck, waiting while I searched the hacienda.

  I found Danson. His hands were still taped, but he was no longer tied to the pole. In an adrenaline-charged frenzy, he had popped the rope, only to crash into a wall so hard his head had shattered plaster. A blind sprint.

  His two crewmen were in a bedroom tied facedown on a mattress that was still smoldering.

  Existential. Yes.

  It was not a place to linger.

  But where were Vue and Tomlinson?

  Because I had to hold my breath, I made several trips in and out of the house. Checked every room and closet. Then I took the night-vision scope outside and searched the property.

  There were hogs in a pen.

  If Tomlinson was clairvoyant, his sudden loathing for the animal suggested that’s where I might fight him. It was a sickening possibility, but I opened the gate and looked as the hogs scrambled free.

  He wasn’t there.

  I returned to the house and searched some more until I was convinced there were only three bodies, not five. After that, I focused on details.

  I confirmed that the TV crew’s wallets and valuables were missing. I confirmed that their wallets were not in the truck or on the three men I had killed.

  I went through their wallets. They had twenty-seven hundred dollars among them in euros, pesos, and dollars. I took the cash, and a piece of ID from each.

  The only other thing valuable I found was the digital recorder that Danson had given Waters as a present.

  The recorder wasn’t left accidentally. It had been placed on Danson’s chest as a rose might be placed on a corpse.

  When I exited the hacienda for the last time, I showed the recorder to Shana. She was shocked to see it. I told her it contained a telemetry chip and watched her reaction.

  “Walt was spying on me? Jesus Christ, he gave me this recorder for my birthday!”

  Sincere.

  “You didn’t have any trouble following him across Honduras. Or finding him at the airport where he was chartering a helicopter. Why?”

  “I’m a journalist. It’s called having good instincts.”

  A lie, which I didn’t challenge.

  That’s when I told her that Tomlinson and Vue were missing.

  “How can that be?”

  “Did you actually see their bodies?”

  “No. I could barely make myself look at Walt, then I went to the bedroom and . . . It was so awful being inside, I just assumed . . .”

  I said, “Either they hauled their bodies away in the truck and dumped them or Tomlinson and Vue left on the helicopter with the man who was wearing the mask.”

  “You think they might be alive?”

  I handed the recorder to her. “If they are, th
ere’s a reason. And there’s a reason he left this.”

  There was a little red light flashing on the recorder. The recorder had a message function, Shana explained. Someone had used it.

  I started the truck as she got in. In the cabin light, she read the digital time signature.

  “This message is only an hour old.”

  “Play it.”

  PRAXCEDES LOURDES’S VOICE IS UNFORGETTABLE. HE HAS a smoky, mixed-breed accent that grates like a wire brush on metal. When he speaks English, there is a grandiose quality, like a theatrical child desperate for attention.

  Dr. Ford, you self-important twit. If you want to see your playmates alive, bring me the president today by sunset. Just the two of you, at his favorite landing strip. You know the island. I’ll tell that pompous fool what his wife was screaming as she died. No tricks. I am God to the Indios and they will be watching.

  Lourdes had a drunken, raspy laugh.

  I put the truck in gear and started down the dirt drive as Waters played the message again.

  I said, “He didn’t expect the recorder to be found until tomorrow. That’s why he says ‘today at sunset.’ ”

  “The one with the mask?”

  “Yes.”

  “What island is he talking about?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s not getting the president, and Vue and Tomlinson won’t live through the night.”

  In fact, they were probably already dead. But if Lourdes had postponed killing them, they might still have a chance—if I could find them.

  “Shana? You knew exactly where we’d refueled in Honduras and you found Danson? How?”

  “I told you. I’m a professional journalist. I have good instincts.”

  We’d come to a dirt road. I had to decide whether to turn north or south. “Can you live with it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You said you respected Vue. Can you live with the way he’s going to die? Lourdes enjoys what he does. Tonight, he found five new toys. He didn’t want to use them all at once. So he saved a couple for later. Like dessert. With Vue and Tomlinson, he’ll make it last a long time. Can you live with that?”

  She’d been using her tough broadcaster’s voice. The voice she used now, though, revealed uncertainties. “I don’t see how I can help.”

  “If I knew where they are, maybe I could do something. I searched Danson’s body. They took all his valuables—including something you gave him. A present, maybe. That’s how you knew we’d landed in Honduras, isn’t it? You were tracking Danson, stopping where he stopped. Where was the microchip? In his watch? It had to be something expensive or he would’ve carried it.”

  After a long silence, she said softly, “His wallet.”

  I waited.

  “I had it custom-made in Singapore, so the chip was sewn in. I was there doing a story on telemetry implants. They’ve been putting them in pets, their children, old people with Alzheimer’s. The medical advances they’re making in Asia are incredible.

  “Walt was so damn competitive. The idea he’d never beat me again with another exclusive seemed . . . well, fun at the time. We were always playing dirty tricks on each other.”

  “They have his wallet, Shana. Unless they threw it out of the helicopter, we can find them.”

  She opened her backpack, then a purse. “I’m sorry I didn’t admit it right away. The idea of following them . . . my God”—she shuddered—“it makes my stomach roll to even think of seeing that hideous mask again.”

  The face was worse, though I didn’t say it.

  The receiver was about four inches long, with a screen the size of a matchbook. It took a minute to acquire satellites. Then she pressed the zoom toggle until an outline map of Central America appeared.

  There was a flashing dot. She moved the cursor to the dot, then zoomed closer. The flashing dot remained stationary.

  “They’re here,” she said.

  Lourdes was on the Caribbean border of Costa Rica and Panama, about sixty miles away.

  I expected him to be in Nicaragua.

  Waters said, “We’re going straight to the police and tell them, right? Or we’re driving until I get a signal and then I’ll call the police. Right?”

  I had turned south, truck tires kicking gravel.

  “Right,” I said. “First chance we get.”

  23

  At the side of the road, there was a sign visible in the truck’s lights, the writing in Arabic and Spanish. Shana Waters asked, “What does Granja de Panal mean?”

  “ ‘Honey Farm.’ ”

  The telemetry chip inside Dan Danson’s wallet was sending a steady, pulsing signal from somewhere inside the fenced confines, about a quarter mile ahead. Tomlinson and Vue might be near.

  “Lourdes is staying on a honey farm? It would be funny if it wasn’t so disgusting.”

  But it made sense. Osama bin Laden had been in the honey business before he went underground, and the honey trade is still a primary source of funds for terrorist groups. Honey is shipped in industrial drums—ideal for smuggling weapons, conventional, chemical, or nuclear. When the U.S. Treasury froze the assets of the three major honey producers in Yemen, Islamicists moved some operations to Colombia.

  It was 11:15 p.m. I put the truck in gear and continued down the road, accelerating as I passed the gate with its chain and NO TRESPASSING Sign. There was a light, the shape of men guarding the shadows.

  I drove another quarter mile before I got out, collected my rifle, and told Shana Waters to keep driving.

  “Fine! And I hope to hell I never see you again!” She floored the accelerator, showering me with dust.

  We had not become friends during the trip. The woman had endured two hours of bad roads and rain, plus she was pissed off about her cell phone. I had asked to borrow it, when she finally got a signal, and called the El Panama Hotel on the chance that Curtis Tyner had checked in.

  When I was done, I threw her phone out the window.

  Waters was momentarily shocked, then furious.

  I had to do it. She would have called the police. The woman had been only a dozen yards away when I murdered three men—something she had conspicuously not mentioned as we drove.

  When I refused to go back for the phone, she had screamed, “Who are you!” It was an accusation, not a question.

  I replied, “I’m the guy who saved your life and I’m asking for a little time in return.”

  She gave it to me, in a chilly, relentless silence.

  As the woman sped away, I felt relieved to be alone—until I heard a distant turbine whine coming from inside the compound. It was a helicopter. I watched as the helicopter levitated above the forest canopy, its landing spotlight maintaining contact with the ground until the craft tilted southwest. The light went out and the helicopter flew away toward Panama’s Pacific coast.

  Damn.

  Was it possible that, after hours of hard driving, I’d missed them by only a few minutes?

  The telemetry receiver was in my pocket. I hurried to check the illuminated screen.

  Yes, it was the same helicopter. Danson’s wallet was aboard. Maybe Tomlinson and Vue were aboard, too. Or . . . could the pilot be returning to Panama City alone . . . ?

  No. If he’d wanted to do that, he could have left hours ago.

  I whispered profanities and checked the sky, hoping another helicopter would materialize. I was thinking of my call to Curtis Tyner.

  It did not.

  So I was alone, on a dirt road in the jungle. No transportation, no way to communicate with the outside world. Because it was possible that Tomlinson and Vue had been left behind, I decided to stick with my original plan and search the honey farm. If nothing else, I might find a vehicle to steal.

  As I turned toward the fence, though, I heard the truck skid to a stop. Waters had seen the helicopter lift off. She was coming back for me.

  “The only reason I’m doing this is because”—she made a growling s
ound of frustration—“because you’re the only person I know in this whole goddamn country who’s still alive and even I’m not bitch enough to go off and leave you alone.”

  For the first time that night, she began to cry.

  VUE WAS INSIDE.

  Alive? I couldn’t tell because the woman was accurate when she said they’d taped him like a mummy.

  But no sign of Tomlinson. No sign of Lourdes.

  I was standing on a stump at the rear of a corrugated-metal building looking through an open window. It was a processing and packing plant, set back several hundred yards from the road. There were stacks of boxes, unused commercial hives, a conveyor belt for bottling, and a wagon-sized centrifuge.

  Commercial beehives contain removable frames. When the combs are full, the frames are slotted into a centrifuge that spins the honey free. My crazed uncle, Tucker Gatrell, had kept a few hives on his ranch because he liked orange blossom honey in his coffee.

  This was a prospering business, not a front for Praxcedes Lourdes. But it was a front for weapons smuggling, judging from the metal crates stacked near the window and screened from the main entrance by machinery. The crates were labeled NIRINCO/PRC.

  NIRINCO is China’s primary weapons manufacturer. The company produces many thousands of AK-47-type assault rifles a year.

  Lourdes had been hired by a wealthy and highly motivated group. It was not a commercial enterprise, it was a terrorist organization.

  Vue was lying immobile next to the centrifuge, near a table where two men with beards and skullcaps sat smoking Kreteks and talking as they concentrated on assembling something—kites, I realized. Vue’s guards were enjoying hobby time while he lay bound with duct tape, legs, arms, and mouth.

  The temptation was to use the rifle. One round each. But I didn’t know for certain these men had been involved in the earlier atrocities. Unless pathology is involved, murder always claims at least two victims. By sparing them, I would spare myself.