Hunter's moon

25

Use a predator to lure a predator…

Kal Wilson had said it about a hammerhead shark that was shadowing a barracuda. Cayo Costa, five days ago.

It seemed like five weeks ago. I should’ve felt tired after so little sleep and so much travel. Instead, I felt energized.

I am not fanciful when it comes to speculating about emotion attributed to creatures not of my species. When people say their cat, or dog, “believes he’s human,” I attempt to smile as I edge away. But I have speculated-fancifully, I admit-that the single-minded focus of a shark might be the purest sensation in nature.

That’s how I felt. Single-minded.

I was sitting high in a tree, back braced, sniper rifle in my hands, as I watched political luminaries assemble for Panama City’s Independence Week ceremony.

It was 11:05 a.m., Wednesday, November 5th.

I was more than a hundred yards away. Even with my glasses clean, the crowd was a blur-people socializing and finding their seats on a stage decorated with bunting and flags. But when I pressed my eye to the rifle’s scope, individual faces came into focus, filling the lens, as I moved crosshairs from person to person searching for the assassin that Kal Wilson told me would be there.

He was not the only one expecting trouble. Security around the stage was intense. Panama’s special assignment cops wear black. There were dozens moving through the crowd, using bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors at the two public entrances cordoned off by rope.

Political ceremonies attract political activists. There were several protests under way: clusters of people carrying signs, already chanting slogans. Elections were approaching. U.S. economic sanctions against Panama was a volatile subject, and so was Indonesia Shipping amp; Petroleum’s control of the canal.

Some despised the yanquis. Some despised the IS amp;P. Discontent on other issues was scattered throughout. There were many issues because Panama is like no other country in the region.

Panama City was part of Colombia until the U.S. dug the Canal, then protected its investment by backing independence. They named the new nation “Panama.”

Panama was an invention of the Canal Zone, and the canal’s construction spawned a population assembled from cultures around the world. It was not considered a Latin country until the 1950s for the simple reason that its citizenry was so varied.

Kal Wilson had referred to Panama as an Ark. He had been stationed at nearby Albrook Air Base and he knew the people and the country well.

Once again, he was right.

The Apocalypse could start here.

I paid close attention to a large and vocal group of protesters to the north. Signs they carried identified them as members of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian faction devoted to creating an Islamic state in Southeast Asia and joining Middle Eastern Muslims in Holy War.

Ramadan had just ended, so there was a big turnout. Many wore traditional Muslim dress, loose robes, shawls, kufis. Women kept their faces covered with scarves, or burqas- a full-face veil with only a slit showing the eyes and bridge of the nose.

I moved the rifle’s crosshairs from face to face.

Praxcedes Lourdes was a theatrical man. It was a costume he might enjoy.

I checked my watch: 11:10 a.m.

I expected to come face-to-face with Lourdes very soon.

We had arrived in Panama City at dawn and I had neither seen nor spoken to Kal Wilson. An hour after landing, I left Vue and Tomlinson in the lobby of the El Panama Hotel so it was possible they had made contact. I didn’t know. There was no reason for me to speculate.

Wilson had given me simple but specific verbal instructions plus the sealed envelope. I had not opened the envelope until I was alone in the suite we’d rented.

The president’s note included a final, unexpected order. I felt numb as I read, then reread it. There was no mistaking what he wanted me to do. Question was, could I?

When I had read the card twice, I burned it and flushed the ashes.

I knew what was expected of me, even though I still didn’t know what Kal Wilson had planned. The president shared information only on a need-to-know basis.

My only clue was what he had said on Cayo Costa: Use a predator to lure a predator…

But who was the barracuda? Who was the shark?

What I knew, apparently, was enough. I had orders. I would carry them out.

I knew how to view a parade ground or a motorcade route as a killing field and I knew how to reconnoiter that killing field. Where were the unavoidable intersections? The unobstructed walkways?

They were “X spots.” Good places to kill.

A shooting post that would appeal to a skilled assassin would also appeal to me. I could identify those spots and secure them. More difficult was anticipating the scrambled behavior of an amateur.

I have done similar surveys other times in my life. It was the reason I had been in Colombia the day they fired a rocket at Wilson’s motorcade.

I spent an hour jogging the area-joggers being as common as stray dogs and no longer drawing attention. I was already familiar with the Balboa and Quarry Heights sections because I’d spent a lot of time there with Zonian friends before the U.S. transferred control. By the time I was done jogging, I knew it better.

The Canal Administration Building, where the ceremony was to be held, is located at the base of Ancon Hill, a bunker-shaped mound that’s forested, topped with radio towers and a giant Panamanian flag.

Five hundred feet below the Administration Building is an E-shaped fortress, separated by woods, canal housing, and gardens, all built on a steep incline. The Administration Building is museum sized, four stories high, built of rock, marble, and redwood, all from the U.S.-Teddy Roosevelt’s way of marking this small country with his own spore.

The ceremony was to be held at the front of the building, where royal palms create a corridor connecting the massive entranceway with a stone monument and fountain, the Goethals Monument-a tribute to the canal’s architect.

Panama is among the most beautiful countries in the world. This was the most beautiful section of Panama City.

The stage had been erected next to the fountain and monument. There was a podium with microphones screened with bulletproof plastic. There were four chairs to the left of the podium and two rows of chairs to the right.

The four highest-ranking people would be in the chairs to the left.

The back of the stage was tented so political luminaries would not be seen until they stepped out onto the stage-a security precaution.

I had no trouble finding a superb sniper post. While giving me instructions, Wilson had reminded me that on the east side of the Administration Building there was a trail called the “Orchid Walk.” It zigzagged uphill, two hundred yards through rain forest. It was now overgrown, I discovered, but still passable.

I selected a tree at the edge of the trail that gave me a clear view of the stage and the adjoining park. I found branches that allowed me to brace my feet and back but weren’t too far off the ground. Then I rigged a rope so I could get up and down quickly and spent a few minutes practicing both maneuvers.

The ceremony started at noon. It was now 11:20.

I took a last look through the sniperscope, then buckled rifle and sling to a limb that could not be seen from below.

I was expecting a visitor.

I was wearing leather gloves and had the rope coiled, ready to slide to the ground. I had a pistol and also the curve-bladed knife, the Indonesian badek, I’d taken from the bearded killer.

In ten minutes-11:30-I was expecting a man to come plodding up the steep trail. But people are sometimes early.

A hundred yards away, the stage was equipped with a sound system. A man was experimenting with the volume, his voice booming, Testing. .. testing… one, two, three, one, two, three, lyrical in Spanish, but I waited in silence of my own making, a silence that originated in a dark and single-minded space.

The inner ear bridges an ancient barrier between land and sea. Sound waves must be converted into waves of liquid before the brain reads them as electrical impulses. I was oblivious to the blaring speakers. But the sound of leaves stirring, then the pop of a branch broken underfoot, registered like gunshots.

I sat straighter, ears straining.

The night before, Shana Waters wasn’t the only one who had used Tyner’s satellite phone. I’d called my son in San Diego. The number was new-I hadn’t had time to store it in my cell phone and forget it.

It was after midnight in San Diego but Laken was still awake doing research on his computer. Praxcedes Lourdes, I told him, was probably somewhere in Panama City doing exactly the same thing.

Maybe there is a paternal link between parent and child that alerts the brain’s emergency circuitry. This is important. He did not argue or question when I told him to send Lourdes an e-mail.

“You want me to tell Prax that I’m in Panama City?” Laken had asked.

“Yes, and that you want to meet him.”

There’s an old trail called the Orchid Walk, I told my son. “He’ll find it.”

I gave him a time.

Ten yards downhill, around a bend, another limb cracked… then came the sound of a rock rolling free.

Lourdes had gotten my son’s e-mail.