The pilot stopped his grumbling about ruined upholstery long enough to radio ahead so an ambulance was parked at the General Aviation ramp when they landed.
Mercer’s struggle to keep his bowels from voiding ended as a pair of orderlies maneuvered him onto the waiting gurney. Too wasted to care he’d fouled himself, he wasn’t even aware that Lauren and Miguel climbed into the ambulance with him, nor did he realize a saline drip was inserted to replace the fluids his body evacuated at an alarming rate. The only thing he held on to as he slid toward the darkness was that a previous bout of dysentery had taught him the worst was yet to come.
Panama City, Panama
It was the alien feeling of crisp sheets that Mercer first noticed when he regained consciousness. He hadn’t lain on a bed since . . . he thought it was Utah . . . no, Paris . . . but how many days ago? The question remained unanswered as sensations overloaded his body again. He slept.
The next time he came awake, he felt a presence nearby but couldn’t turn his head or even open his eyes. He smelled something pleasant, a combination of flowers and a sweet odor like mint, before the darkness overwhelmed him.
It wasn’t until the third time he remembered coming awake that he could crank open his eyes. From the fog, he saw a square of light to his left. He thought it might be a window, but he couldn’t make out details. A noise drew his attention to his right. A shape. A figure. He tried to wet his mouth with his tongue.
He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling weaker than he could ever remember. When he opened them again, the shape had moved closer and resolved into a man wearing a dazzling white suit, with a solid red tie and elegant straw Panama hat. The eyes were kindly blue and his skin glowed from the light streaming into the room. Mercer’s vision was too blurry for him to tell if he knew the man. It was only when the mysterious person spoke that Mercer felt the jolt of recognition.
“How’s it going, Mercer?” Normally the voice was like gravel pouring through a rusted steel chute, but Harry White asked the question so gently that Mercer wasn’t sure it was him.
“That you, Harry?”
“In the flesh, so to speak,” Harry replied, lighting a cigarette from the tip of the one he was just finishing.
“You aren’t supposed to smoke in a hospital,” Mercer said after Harry gave him a sip of water through a straw. In the dim background, he could hear the sound of harps being played.
“We’re not in a hospital, but I’ll put it out.” Harry nonchalantly ground his Chesterfield into the palm of his hand.
“Jesus,” Mercer rasped when White dropped the crushed cigarette on the floor.
Harry looked at his watch. “Not for a few minutes.”
Confused by that statement, Mercer tried to shake the fuzziness from his mind. His body seemed to be floating freely under the sheets. “Did you use my credit card to buy the suit? You look like a million bucks.”
At eighty years old, Harry White was in better shape than he had any right to expect considering his daily alcohol and nicotine intake. He held himself ramrod straight and Mercer saw no sign of the walnut sword cane he’d given his friend for his last birthday. Regarding him through eyes that refused to focus, it appeared to Mercer that Harry’s face was unlined and the silver razor stubble that normally blurred his strong jawline had been shaved clean. Harry took off his hat and the backlighting looked like a halo around his head.
“This place tends to make you look good.” Harry took a long breath, then reached for his cigarette pack before remembering where he was.
“This place? Where are we?”
“Oh, God. Listen, pal, there’s no easy way to do this so I’ll come right out and say it.” Harry fiddled with his hat, procrastinating for another second. “On the cab ride to the airport to come meet you, an eighteen-wheeler jackknifed on the Dulles access road. My taxi hit the truck doing about seventy miles an hour. The cabbie just couldn’t avoid it. He, ah, he made it out okay, but I didn’t.”
Muzzily, Mercer said, “What the hell are you talking about? Are you trying to tell me you’re dead?”
“I’m trying to tell you we’re both dead, Mercer. Whatever you picked up in the Paris sewer was a lot worse than dysentery. The doctors did everything they could for you, but they just couldn’t save you. It’s funny. Considering all the crap you’ve faced in your life I thought you’d go before me. Now I’m glad I could be here for you. When I woke up from the car crash and realized where I was, my guide was a twenty-year-old kid who blamed me for getting him killed in World War Two.”
Mercer couldn’t comprehend what Harry was telling him. He heard the words, but they made no sense. Dead? He was dead. He felt like shit. Wasn’t pain a sign that he was very much alive? His confusion was written across his face and Harry spoke again as if he could read Mercer’s mind. “It doesn’t work the way you think it does. You’ll feel woozy for a while longer. Jesus or Saint Peter will be here in a while to explain everything. I’ll let you get some rest.”
Harry opened a door at the head of Mercer’s bed. A dark streak brushed by him and leapt onto the bed. It was Miguel. He hugged Mercer fiercely.
What the . . . ?
Harry’s saintly demeanor changed in an instant and his voice thundered, “Goddamnit, you little pipsqueak! You were supposed to wait for a few minutes.”
“But he is awake, Mr. Harry!” Miguel squealed, burrowing into Mercer’s arms. “You said I could come in when he was awake.”
“I said you could come in after I was finished talking to him. Oh, well, it’s blown now.” Harry used a handkerchief to wipe pancake makeup from his face. The skin below showed his eight decades of hard living. He moved to the window to open the gauzy curtain that had given the hospital room its heavenly glow. He also shut off a portable tape player that had provided the harp music. Lauren Vanik entered a second later wearing baggy shorts and an oversized Oxford shirt.
“What the hell’s going on?” Mercer looked from one to the other.
“Your friend Harry conned us into letting him pull a practical joke. He said if I didn’t help he’d burn that journal he brought.”
Mercer’s stare fell on Harry, noting the flash of merriment in his old friend’s eyes. “How did you do that thing with the cigarette?”
Harry suddenly looked hurt. “I pull the best joke of my life and you ask me about that old gag? I snubbed the cigarette against a coin I’d palmed.”
“I should have known this was a scam from the very beginning,” Mercer said as the full force of what Harry had just done struck home. This indeed was a caper to beat them all. “If I’d come to in a pool of fire with snakes on my bed and you were wearing a red cape and horns, then I would have believed we were both dead.”
“I thought about that but this building has sprinklers. How are you feeling?”
Mercer ignored Harry’s genuine concern. “I am going to get you for this, you bastard.”
The door opened again and in stepped a man of about forty. Medium height and trim, he had a full dark beard and a bush of thick hair. He wore a white robe and sandals.
“You’re too late, Roddy,” Harry greeted the newcomer. “Miguel already ruined it.”
This time, Mercer couldn’t stop the laughter. Harry had really outdone himself, going so far as to find someone to play a Latin Jesus Christ.
“Good, I feel ridiculous.” The ersatz Jesus pulled the robe over his head. Beneath he wore slacks and a colorful open-necked shirt. He smiled at Mercer. “Welcome back to the living. I am Rodrigo Herrara.”
“Roddy’s father served with me for a time as an engineer,” Harry explained. Before the incident that had claimed his leg in the 1950s, Harry White had been a ship’s captain, first for the U.S. Navy and then on tramp steamers in Asia. “After I got to Panama and learned that you were in the hospital from Captain Vanik, who I might add had the courtesy to meet me at the airport, I looked him up. Roddy’s dad died a few years ago, but he knew about me from his old man. Roddy’s a canal pilot. Or was until recently. He has three kids around Miguel’s age so he and his wife have been looking after him.”
Mercer shook the Panamanian’s hand. “I bet now you’re questioning your father’s choice of friends.”
“
Sí.
” Roddy Herrara smiled.
“Where am I and how long have I been here?”
“You’re in a private room at the Centro Medico Paitilla, Panama’s best hospital,” Lauren answered, giving Mercer more water. “You’ve been here four days. The doctors decided to keep you drugged while they pumped you full of antibiotics because your reactions to the infection were pretty violent. How do you feel?”
“Weak, but not as bad as I should.”
“Because they kept you hydrated they said you’d come out of it in decent shape. Also, you only vomited for eighteen hours, which I guess is pretty short for bacillary dysentery.”
“Considering Paris is the City of Love, why couldn’t you have gotten VD like normal people?” Harry quipped.
Like any child, Miguel intuitively knew he’d heard a bad word. “What is VD?”
Roddy gave a stern answer in Spanish and Miguel fell silent. “They grow up fast enough without your jokes, Harry,” he admonished mildly.
“What do I know about kids?” Harry said, mussing Miguel’s hair. He whispered down to him, “We’ll talk about it later.”
A nurse came in, snapping a terse order to let Mercer sleep. Everyone left after giving a few words of encouragement until only Lauren remained. She placed her hand over Mercer’s. That’s when he recalled the pleasant aromas from one of his moments of lucidity. Flowers and mint. The floral smell was her perfume. The mint was her toothpaste. For those scents to linger, he guessed she’d spent a great deal of time at his side.
She brushed aside a lock of his fever-brittled hair. “How long did you have symptoms before you got sick?”
“I started fighting it when we were in the tent. That’s why I raced to reach the plane. If I’d collapsed at the lake it would have taken too much time for you and Miguel to go get help.” He looked into her eyes. “But you getting me to a hospital was what really saved my life. Thank you.”
Lauren leaned in to kiss his forehead, her hair like a wave of silk that brushed his cheek. Her skin was flawlessly smooth and her neck so slender it appeared that it couldn’t support her head. Again he found himself fascinated by her bicolored eyes.
“From what Harry’s told me about you, I think you’d have made it without me.” She paused at the door. “When you’re feeling better, we have a lot to talk about. Roddy knows who owns that helicopter.”
Against his doctor’s orders, Mercer checked himself out of the hospital thirty-six hours later. He’d kept down his bland meals and felt his strength return remarkably fast. Because Lauren refused to tell him more of her findings until he was recovered, his desire to get to the truth more than overcame his shaky limbs. She and Harry accompanied him in the short cab ride from the hospital to Harry’s hotel.
The high-rise Caesar Park was located on the beach south of Panama City, a combination executive hotel and tourist destination. Mercer got stares from both groups as his friends led him across the tiled lobby. He could walk all right; it was his pallor that drew attention. True to form, Harry had used Mercer’s credit card to book a three-room suite near the top floor. A maid was cleaning up the countless room service trays when they arrived. Another attendant was restocking the depleted mini-bar.
Mercer collapsed into a plush captain’s chair. “And what’s this costing me a night?”
“More than the hospital room, I’m sure.” Unconcerned by Mercer’s scowl, Harry fixed them all drinks, triple Jack and ginger for himself, a vodka gimlet for Mercer and Glenfiddich in a highball glass for Lauren. “Roddy’s bringing his family to use the pool. When he gets here we can talk.”
Mercer spent the time in the bathroom while they waited, calling out once for Harry to make him another drink as he soaked in the tub. Lauren and Harry had done some shopping on his behalf, because in one of the bedrooms were clothes in his size. He threw on jeans, a polo shirt, and sneakers.
“I don’t trust your newfound consideration, Harry. What are you playing at?”
“I was hoping you’d cover the line of credit I blew at the casino,” the octogenarian breezed. “And let me use this room for a week or so. I haven’t had a vacation since God knows when.”
“You’ve been retired for years and you practically live in Tiny’s Bar.” Mercer’s tone was sarcastic, but teasing. “Your whole life is a vacation.”
Before Harry could launch a protest there was a knock on the door and four noisy children, including Miguel, tumbled into the room followed by Rodrigo Herrara and an attractive woman a few years younger than he. After quick introductions, Carmen Herrara took the eager kids back down to the swimming pool behind the hotel.
“You are looking well,” Roddy opined to Mercer after accepting a beer.
“The doctors said the best thing for me is rest and food, both of which are better here.” Mercer waved an arm around the opulent sitting room. “Lauren said you know something about the helicopter that attacked Ruben and his men. Thanks for coming over and sharing it.”
“I haven’t worked in four months,” Roddy said, the admission underscored with embarrassment. “Coming to this hotel is like Christmas for Carmen and the children. I should be thanking you.”
Mercer found his eagerness to learn more about the helicopter tempered. Despite the loss of his job, Herrara had taken in Miguel without question and Mercer owed it to the man to hear his story. More than that, he realized, he truly wanted to know. Roddy’s voice and demeanor bespoke of a pride not yet crushed by circumstance—a dignity that Mercer respected instantly. “Didn’t Harry say you worked for the canal?”
“I was a ship pilot until my license was pulled following a suspicious accident.”
“Suspicious?”
“Coming out of the Pedro Miguel Locks headed toward the Atlantic, the ore carrier I was piloting suddenly veered into the oncoming lane. We scraped a smaller freighter, putting a hole in her hull just above her waterline. Fortunately no one was hurt. The inquiry found nothing mechanically wrong with my ship so they determined it was my fault.”