Hunter's moon

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 Jackson 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.

That was another reason I was sure Tomlinson hadn’t disappeared because he was mad. We’d laughed too much and had had too much fun on the trip down-after declaring a temporary freeze on the subject of Marlissa.

Something else we’d learned during the sail was Wilson’s method for contacting his unnamed ally-presumably, Vue. He’d alluded to it earlier. A form of drumming, he’d told us.

Accurate, in an ingenious way.

Exactly at midnight, I had gone belowdecks and found the president, wearing old-fashioned headphones, sitting at the galley table, among No Mas ’s familiar odors of teak oil, kerosene, electronic wiring, and a blend of patchouli and cannabis. Tomlinson, who was at the wheel, had just boiled a pot of French roast, so there was coffee, too. The president was hunched over a circuit board made of plywood, on which there were tubes, copper wire, and a brass-and-stainless armature-an antique telegraph key, I realized.

He’d waved me into the seat across from him and focused on the keypad. I watched him use it to tap out a series of dots and dashes. Then he pressed a headphone to his ear, took up a pencil, and made notes, left-handed, as his responder clicked away.

Years ago, I’d had to pass the FCC’s Novice and Technician tests so I could legally use shortwave transmitters in countries that had reciprocal operating agreements with the United States. It meant learning to send and receive Morse code at five words per minute-not nearly as fast as the president was drumming out messages.

I’d lost the skill, but I still recognized some common shortwave abbreviations. C:- -. – -. (Yes, you are correct.) R: – -. (Received as transmitted.) TMW: – - – - – -. – - – -. (Contact you tomorrow.)

Transmission concluded.

The president removed the headphones and slid the circuit board toward me. “Something else I learned in Boy Scouts. Made it myself.” He sounded proud. “It’s a simple continuous-wave transmitter with a crystal oscillator, runs on twelve volts. With this antenna”-he’d strung a copper wire to the forward bulkhead-“I can skip signals a thousand miles or more.”

“You don’t think the NSA can track that?”

“Sure they can. But they won’t. I’m using a straight key on a thirty-meter band-primitive compared to the kind of communications they’re set up to monitor. Even if someone stumbled onto it, they’d think I’m some kid. Drumbeats.” He touched the telegraph key. “That’s what this would sound like.”

No Mas lifted and rocked in the Gulf night as I took a closer look-an old telegraph key with copper contacts, springs, and a steel shorting bar.

I knew better than to ask who he’d contacted, so I asked, “Everything okay back home?”

“So far, so good. My Secret Service guys are getting antsy, but they still believe I’m locked away in my cabin, meditating.” He sounded relieved.

When I returned to the fuel docks, I was carrying two Styrofoam cups filled with ice and Tuborg beer. I knew the president wanted to be back aboard by midnight so he could make his nightly shortwave contact.

We found a bench facing the harbor. No Mas ’s anchor light was a white star among many clustered off Christmas Island.

“That smell… heat and rain”-Wilson sniffed as if tasting-“it hasn’t changed.”

At night, a bubble of Caribbean darkness envelopes Key West insulating the island from the mainland. Air molecules are dense, weighted with jasmine, asphalt, the musk of shaded houses. Rain on coral; heat, too.

“When I was in the Navy, we were stationed here for six weeks. The air base off Garrison Bight-I’d just completed amphibian training in San Diego, and we were still flying the Grummans. I didn’t want to leave. When I finished my hitch, I wanted to come back and run a charter boat. Maybe buy a seaplane and fly tourists to the Tortugas and Bahamas.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It was Wray. She had a higher calling. The woman was born with a need to serve. We couldn’t have children, and I’m not the religious type. So we went into politics.”

“Not religious?” His month in a monastery, the interest in Zen-then both were precedents for severing contact with security people.

“Unofficially? No. My wife, though, was religious in the best sense of the word.”

He took a drink, shaking his head. “I hope I don’t sound like some maudlin old geezer when I talk about her. One of the perks of being president is that when I bore people, they think it’s their fault.”

No, it wasn’t tiresome. He’d mentioned his wife a few times while sailing. Stories that provided fresh insight. Wray Wilson’s public persona was that of the solid, supportive First Lady who had overcome handicaps. According to Wilson, though, “She was the brains, I was the mouthpiece, and we shared the balls.”

A tough, driven soul, was the impression. He loved her. He was also in awe. She compensated for her deafness, and slight speech impediment, by working harder, studying harder, than her contemporaries. The woman had a sophisticated understanding of the world, he said, that could only have been assembled in silence.

“I didn’t go into politics because I wanted to be president,” Wilson told us. “Hell, I didn’t even want to be a congressman. Live in D.C. after some of the places I’d been stationed? I went into politics because I wanted to live up to Wray’s expectations. At first, that was the only reason. Then it kinda swallowed me up.”

He focus was inward. The Navy pilot chuckled. “I was more comfortable as a hero than a president. I’m right at home leading a charge. But I have no interest in assigning tents afterward. If it wasn’t for Wray, I never could’ve pulled it off.”

It was touching. I told him that as we sat looking at the harbor, sipping our beers, adding, “I prefer boredom to surprises. That’s why I’m offering to help. I’m not an adrenaline junkie, Sam. Thrills are for amateurs.”

The problem, I explained, was time. We didn’t have enough.

“We have to be in Central America in three days? If the weather holds, it’ll take us three days to sail to Mexico. After that, what? Nicaragua, where Mrs. Wilson was killed? That’s two or three hundred miles overland. Panama is a couple hundred more.”

I leaned forward for emphasis, because I was now whispering. “For me to eyeball an individual, to chart his habits, his schedule, it takes a week. And I have to know the area well enough to select a.. . a spot.”

As I continued talking, listing the difficulties, Wilson sat looking at the harbor as if I wasn’t there. When I’d finished, he nodded. “Useful information. But I told you from the beginning-don’t worry about details.”

“But we don’t have time-”

He turned to face me. “When people say they don’t have time, it really means they’re not sufficiently motivated. That’s why I’m going to give you another piece of information. I didn’t plan on sharing it until later. You know more about aviation than most.”

“Flying basics, sure.”

“You can land and take off?”

“I can take off, sure. Landing? It depends.”

“Then think about this: Wray’s plane caught fire after it landed. A grass runway in the rain forests of Nicaragua. Do you perceive some significance?”

I said, “You’ve mentioned it twice, both times like it should mean something. It doesn’t. Sorry. Something to do with the rainy season?”

“No.”

“Was the plane low on fuel?” Fire was less likely if a plane was in a rain-sodden forest and low on fuel.

Wilson said, “You’re getting closer, but that’s not it.” He thought for a moment, then stood and began walking.

I caught up with him at Flagler Station, where he turned left. The doors of Caroline Music were still open, ceiling fans fluttering. Music came from inside, the elegant refrain of one of the classics we all know but I couldn’t immediately name.

I looked inside, still walking, then did a double take: a familiar scarecrow figure sat at the grand piano. The president was about to say something when I interrupted. “There he is. Tomlinson.”

He followed my gaze. “Liberace lives.”

“I should’ve stopped here first.” The guy who owned the place was one of Tomlinson’s buddies, but a music shop? An hour before midnight?

Wilson said, “That was one of our favorite pieces. He plays… beautifully. I didn’t know he was a musician.”

My brain had matched melody with a name-“Moonlight Sonata”-as I told him, “I didn’t, either.”