Hunter's moon

20

Five miles out, the helicopter pilot said “Fire” as if he wanted me to pick up a weapon and open fire. A moment later, though, he said, “Something’s on fire,” and I knew he was talking about Rivera’s camp.

I was in the cargo hold and couldn’t see what the pilot was seeing. He said it in such a flat, indifferent tone, I doubted the seriousness.

The man was hard to read. When we lifted off from the cattle ranch, I had asked if he was going to use conventional lights or night-vision gear to land. It was dark by that time. He had replied, “Neither. I’ve landed in that field at least five times. Why would I want to see it again?”

Pilots.

Rivera’s camp was farther than I remembered. We were in the air more than an hour. I sat alone near the open door as we flew over jungle, the forest canopy awash in mist. Occasionally, I saw pockets of light: isolated villages, fires burning, the night strongholds of rural people linked by darkness, strung like pearls, bright and incremental, from a thousand feet.

Ahead, a half-moon was rising, white as hoarfrost in the tropic night. Its surface was pocked by geologic cataclysm and a wisp of earth shadow.

At a hundred twenty knots, there was the illusion that the moon was pulling us as if we were waterborne, suctioned by tide ever deeper into darkness. The thrumming of helicopter blades echoed in the lunar silence. The silence allowed me to think, to visualize.

I’d been to this camp before, but Rivera had drawn a rough map, anyway, and I memorized it.

It also gave me time to assemble, then dry-fire the weapons the president had unexpectedly provided-they were in the boxes Vue had loaded onto the plane. There were five to choose from: a rifle, two handguns, a shotgun, and a submachine gun.

I selected two: a Russian-made sniper rifle with sound arrester and a pistol. Both had been fitted with infrared sights. Put the red dot on your target, squeeze the trigger.

I was tempted to select a second pistol that was also Russian made-a rare PSS silent pistol, used by KGB assassins. It was palm-sized and used special ammunition that, when fired, was no louder then the click of its own trigger.

Where had Wilson found a KGB silent pistol?

But it was a specialty piece and held only three rounds, so I left it with Rivera and Wilson. I was comfortable with the weapons I selected.

With chambers empty, I fired them over and over as we flew southeast. I worked the slide and bolts until my fingers were intimate. I loaded the magazines, learning the subtleties of their feeder springs.

The rifle had a Startron scope, which I had used before. The occasion was made necessary by two former KGB agents who aspired to be salesmen.

When I touched the scope’s power switch, the jungle below was transformed into green daylight, minutely detailed. Except for the iridescent glow and the slight whirring sound, we might have been flying at midday.

I adjusted the focus and experimented with the scope’s windage and elevation knobs. With the scope off, I activated the laser sight and aimed at the jungle. A red dot kept pace beneath us, sliding over treetops.

For each weapon, there was high-tech ammunition. Prefragmented bullets: maximum stopping power; no ricochet.

I also had a knife, the badek I’d taken from the bearded killer. And I had written instructions from the president, sealed in an envelope.

He had told me what was expected of me tomorrow in Panama. Wilson had been stationed there as a Navy pilot, he knew the area well and made suggestions about what to look for and where to position myself. He jotted a few key words, he said, so I wouldn’t forget.

The man really was good at details.

One of Rivera’s men was sitting forward, next to the pilot. The general had insisted. His name was Lucius. He was twentysomething and humorless. Lucius had a fuck-you-kill-them-all attitude. It matched my mood perfectly.

Rivera’s men were notoriously loyal. I was delighted with the general’s choice.

The helicopter’s pilot didn’t introduce himself-not unusual in Central America when circumstances are questionable. He spoke Spanish with an Israeli accent and English with a Mississippi accent. So when he said “Fire!” it came out “Fah-er!,” sounding like a Jackson door gunner I’d once flown with.

That’s why I had my hand on the pistol when he elaborated: “Up ahead. There’s something on fire.”

The chopper’s cargo area was lighted with overhead red bulbs. I secured my weapons and ducked forward. I put a hand on the right seat, steadying myself, as we tilted in descent. Ahead, I saw a petroleum blaze, black smoke boiling starward.

We angled lower, accelerating. I felt the temperature drop as we traced the course of a river, the quarry scent of water fresh in the cabin. But then there was heat and the smell of combusting rubber.

“Helicopter crash?” I was thinking of Danson.

“No, diesel doesn’t burn like that. That’s gas.” As we got closer, the pilot said, “Yeah. It’s a car.”

I whispered, “Christ.”

Rivera had told me the only vehicle that should be at the farm was the Land Rover that Tomlinson and Vue had driven from Nicaragua.

“If you spot any vehicle larger than a mule,” he had said, “expect trouble.”

There was a hacienda now visible and we buzzed it doing a hundred knots at treetop level. As we passed, the cockpit jolted unexpectedly and the pilot shouted “Shit” in Spanish, a word that has an ironic, musical sound.

“What’s wrong?” I thought maybe the vehicle had exploded beneath us.

“Some pendejo is down there shooting!”

There was a sound of a hammer hitting aluminum, three times fast, and the helicopter jolted again.

“Hold on!”

We banked into a climb so steep that I nearly went skidding out the open doors.

Clinging to the pilot’s chair, I could look straight down and see an SUV burning. It was the Land Rover.

A safe distance away, there was also the shape of a pickup truck. Rivera’s camp had visitors.

Yes, expect trouble.

When I told the pilot to land, he didn’t even turn to look. “When I’m being shot at? Fuck you, I’m not getting paid enough.” He began to bank west, saying, “We’ll be back in Panama City in time for drinks at the Elks Club.”

In Spanish, I said to the twenty-year-old curmudgeon Lucius, “Order him to land. General Rivera will hear of this.”

Lucius was wearing a special forces boonie hat and tiger-striped camo. He had unbuckled the seat belt, grabbed his assault rifle, and was facing the open cargo door ready to return fire-reassuring.

But he surprised me, saying, “I don’t care what you tell Rivera. I would like to put a bullet in those culos, take their money and necklaces. But if the pilot chooses not to land, that is his decision. The old fool doesn’t frighten me.”

He was speaking of the general.

I was no longer reassured.

“I am asking for your help. There are friends of mine down there.”

“Why should I care about your friends? What are they to me?”

Lucius’s tough-guy act, I realized, was an act. He sounded relieved.

I returned my attention to the pilot. “Cut me loose. After that, I don’t care what you do. Put us on the ground long enough for me to bail and you’ve done your job.”

We were now climbing as we turned. “No way. We’ve taken, what, at least ten rounds? My advice to you is, get your ass back to the cargo hold where you belong and shut the fuck up.”

These were Rivera’s men? In Nicaragua, I had watched his men walk into fire following the general on horseback. Rivera had fallen further than I realized.

The. 45 caliber pistol was in a holster on my belt. I put my hand on it as I asked Lucius, “Is the pilot in command or are you in command?”

Lucius gave me a look of disgust. “There is no one in command. We are here because we get paid.”

I was losing patience. “My friends are in trouble. Please tell the pilot to land.”

Lucius tilted the barrel of his M16 toward me-a threat. “The important thing, yanqui, is that you are not in command. If the pilot has decided we are returning to Panama City for drinks at the Elks Club, then that is what we will do. The pilot gave you an order. Move your culo -”

I was watching the helicopter’s altimeter. We were at three hundred feet. I didn’t let Lucius finish. With my left hand, I reached as if to touch the pilot’s shoulder. But then I turned my palm outward and grabbed the barrel of the assault rifle and yanked it from his hands.

I had the pistol drawn. I jammed the barrel into the back of the pilot’s neck as I said to Lucius, “Don’t point.”

I tossed the assault rifle out the open door.

“You idiot cabrone!”

“You want to go after it?” I shoved the pistol barrel hard into the soft spot beneath the pilot’s skull. “Drop us down to a hundred feet.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll kill him if I throw him out from here.”

“You’re bluffing.”

Yes, I was bluffing, but also watching as Lucius unsnapped his holster. I swung the pistol toward his face, hoping the little red laser dot would blind him and also scare him. Lucius shaded his eyes with his left hand as he pulled the gun with his right.

“Don’t do it!”

He wouldn’t stop. As Lucius lifted the gun toward me, I put the pulsing red dot on his boot and fired.

“Mother of God!” The gun spun from his hand as he fell against the chopper’s controls clutching his foot. The helicopter rocked, began to climb, and nearly stalled.

The gunshot was so loud that, for a moment, I thought the slug had caromed off the deck and hit me in the temple. My ears were ringing.

As the pilot struggled to regain control, I reached and dragged Lucius into the aisle.

“You’re insane, man. You’re gonna kill us!”

I stuck the pistol against his neck again. “Insanity’s for amateurs. Do exactly what I tell you to do. Understand?”

Lucius was still screaming, trying to get his boot off.

“Okay! But keep that kid away from the controls. Christ, he’s getting blood all over everything.”

I told the pilot to do three touch-and-goes-brief landings, each with only a few seconds on the ground.

“Circle the hacienda, but stay a couple hundred meters away.”

There were men with weapons near the burning Land Rover. I hoped to confuse them. At which spot had the helicopter off-loaded attackers?

The third time we touched down, I slipped off the landing skids onto the ground. I kept the pistol pointed at the pilot. He gave me the finger as the helicopter lifted away.