Hunter's Moon (21 page)

I finally figured it out.

“In Morse code,” I said, “the sonata plays the letter
W
over and over.”

“That's right.
W,
as in Wilson. When we were children, the sonata was our distress signal. The way the little deaf girl summoned the kid who'd become her protector. Me, the jock hero and Boy Scout.

“As we got older, it meant more. Beethoven was deaf when he wrote the piece. He was also in love with a women he knew he could never have. Because of her handicaps, Wray had felt the same was true of a guy like me. Unattainable.
WW
stood for Wray Wilson—her name once we were married.”

I nodded, not sure how to respond, so I asked, “And ‘Clair de Lune'?”

Wilson chuckled. “I'll do us both a favor by not asking you to hum it but listen.” The telegraph key clattered with a series of dots and dashes too fast for me to read, but the rhythm was similar to the beginning of the Debussy classic.

“In Morse code, the first few bars of ‘Clair de Lune' spell out
I-L-U.
Several times. Think about the melody.” He began tapping the key. “Hear it?”

I said, “Yes. But you lost me. What does
I-L-U
stand for?”

The president shook his head, a wry expression. “No one will ever accuse you of being a romantic, Dr. Ford. I'll let you figure it out. But how did Mr. Tomlinson know? That's what I'm asking you.”

I thought about it for a moment. “He has uncanny intuition, I'll admit. He observes details, I think, that most of us miss, and his subconscious processes the data in a way that may seem mystical. But it's not.”

“I think you're wrong. He had nothing to observe regarding those two pieces of music. Yet he knew. My wife was the same way. You didn't want him to come on this trip, did you?”

“No. I'm afraid he'll get in the way—for what you have in mind.”

“Once again, I think you're wrong. He knows things. That's why I chose him.”

“But you never met Tomlinson before. And the only time we met—”

“Cartagena, Colombia,” the president interrupted. “My motorcade was coming from the airport, on the road by the sea. Secret Service had done its usual superb job. We had Blackhawk helicopters, more than a hundred agents working the streets. But the only one who noticed something odd about that little gray fishing boat was you, a vacationing tourist—or so I believed at the time.”

The gray boat was made for pulling crab traps yet the men aboard were fishing. They were also holding their rods upside down. I'd been in a fourteen-foot Boston Whaler watching the motorcade. I'd rammed the boat just as they fired the rocket. A SAM.

The president continued, “You both know things. But in different ways. That's why I chose
you.
One of the reasons, anyway.”

“There are other reasons?”

“Yes. That's something else I'm going to let you figure out for yourself. It'll come to you. The significance.”

That word again.

 

 

 

I STARTED TO GET UP FROM THE GALLEY TABLE, BUT THE president held up an index finger:
Wait a minute.

He was removing wires from the telegraph key, boxing it again. “Before you go topside, there's one more thing I want to show you. I said the top TV people were either decent professionals or thugs? The same's true of politicians.”

When I started to speak, he held up the finger again. “I'm making a point.”

He reached into his pocket and placed a palm-sized digital recorder on the table. It was silver.

“Look familiar?”

“It's Shana Waters's. Danson said he gave it to her as a present.”

“That's right. I dumped her purse intentionally. She stuck the recorder in there when she helped us get Danson on the bed.” The president removed his glasses and looked at me with his farmer's eyes, telling me something. “My wife was the good and decent half of our presidency. I was the
other
half. I have a lot more in common with that shark that was cruising the drop-off. I want you to know that.”

He seemed to think that would reassure me.

I touched the recorder. Digital. Expensive. “What's she going to think when she finds it missing?”

“That Danson took it, of course. Those two are in a kind of occupational death dance. You didn't pick up on that? They despise each other, but they also get some kind of perverse satisfaction out of their secret battle. Who can outdo the other. He gives her a fancy recorder, she uses it to blackmail him, he steals it back. Like chess.”

“You could ruin Danson with what's on here.”

The president nodded. “But I won't. I may use it, but not to ruin him.” In reply to my expression, he explained, “My life's evolved to a point where I trust old enemies more than new friends. At least I know what they want. You'd have to spend four years in the White House to understand what I mean.” He paused, suddenly alert. “Do you feel that?”

He meant the way
No Más
was taking the sea. The wind was off our port side now.

I said, “We've tacked. Tomlinson's turned west toward Mexico.”

Wilson stood, lost his balance, then steadied himself. His face was pale in the cabin's light, his skin looked as fragile as paper. He found the chart, saying, “That man needs to establish a priority list. I told him to steer south until he heard from me. Here's where I want to go.” He rapped his finger on an island that was only a few miles up the road from Key West. Big Torch Key.

It made no sense. Why would he want to remain in Florida when the feds were looking for him? I said, “Are you sure?

“Very sure.” With a pencil, he circled a smaller island off Kemp Channel. “This is our destination. There's a private estate, with a good anchorage.”

“Is someone expecting us?”

Wilson said, “Let's hope not,” handing me the chart.

ABOVE DECK, I SLID IN NEXT TO TOMLINSON, PUT THE chart in his lap, and said, “He believes you're psychic. Even though you're a hundred eighty degrees off course. He says you need a priority list.”

Tomlinson flicked on a little red lamp as I pointed to the island Wilson had circled. “I tried making a priority list once but it came out more like triage.”

He checked the compass, then the horizon: fragmented moon in the west, navigational markers flashing in the early morning darkness. “I'm not off course. My route's just twenty-five thousand miles longer.” He touched the chart. “You're serious?”

“That's what he wants. Turn us around.”

“Go below and ask him.”

Tomlinson shook his head. “No, thanks. Let the man have his space.”

It had been the same way on the sail from Cayo Costa to Key West. Kal Wilson was not an individual who invited familiarity, so Tomlinson and I spent most of the time topside while he slept or read below. If the president wanted conversation, we waited until he engaged us. But even idle talk with the man consumed an inordinate amount of energy. I wasn't sure why, nor was Tomlinson. Wilson had a presence that was tangible, like heat or cold, and required total attention. So we kept our distance—not easily done on a thirty-five-foot sailboat.

Another factor: The man was ill. It was apparent only when he didn't know we were watching.

Tomlinson asked, “You ready to come about?”

“Let 'er go.” I slid beneath the boom as
No Más
pointed into the wind, stalled, then fell toward the lights of Key West. When Tomlinson gave me the word, I cranked the mainsheet trim, feeling the starboard side lift beneath me. The sailboat began to accelerate southeast as canvas leveraged wind.

“You still pissed off at me?”

“That's a hard one to answer. I've got so many reasons.”

He reached into the cooler he keeps on deck and opened a Corona for me, saying, “I'm talking about Marlissa.”

As if surprised, I said, “Oh . . .
her.
I'm not mad.”

“Which means, you're majorly pissed-off.”

“Damn right. We've always had a gentlemen's agreement that we don't date the same women at the same time and we don't discuss details if it happens later.”

“I didn't break the agreement, man. It was her. Marlissa's no gentleman. Like that TV woman, Shana what's her name.
Very
hot. But poison.”

“You're serious?”

“Two of a kind. But I'm like a kid at Christmas when it comes to women. I can't wait to unwrap them, even if I don't like what's inside. At the marina, Joann, Rhonda, and the other woman said I should warn you. In a way, I guess, maybe I did.”

“Don't expect me to thank you.”

Tomlinson said, “I won't. But you're welcome,” as he hunched over the chart. I watched him put a thumb between our position and the nearest obstruction. Then I watched him hold his arm out, sighting over three fingers held parallel. They were old sailor's tricks for measuring distance.

After a while, he asked, “When we were in Key West, did you call Marlissa?”

“Never crossed my mind,” I lied. “Why would I bother?”

“To find out the truth. She would've denied it.”

“Think so?”

“Yep. Hell, Doc, I
wanted
to call her—I don't have your willpower. Know why I didn't? Because I couldn't remember her damn number. I had it on speed dial so I never memorized it. Pathetic, huh?”

I smiled. “Yeah. Pathetic.” Then we both sat back, drinking beer and laughing . . . after I'd told him the truth.

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?”

Significance . . . ?

Nicaragua . . . fire . . . Managua . . . fire.

Nicaragua . . . burn scars . . .

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.

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.

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.