Hunter's Moon Page 3

  These weren’t federal agents on maneuvers. It was remotely possible they were American friendlies assigned to test the island’s security. Staging mock attacks is part of Secret Service training. In Maryland, the agency built a mock city to simulate attacks on motorcades. Agents participate in crisis scenarios known as AOPs, “Attacks on Principals.”

  But war games in this fog? At this hour?

  No, I’d stumbled onto a hit team. The men were assassins with a plan and they were now only minutes from their target.

  The celebrated man had told me he had enemies. He’d said he expected someone to take a shot. I’d dismissed the million-dollar bounty as media sensationalism, just as I’d dismissed his fears as an outdated sense of his own importance.

  He was right. I was wrong.

  “It’s something you’ll get used to,” he’d told me the night I agreed to help him. I’d been pressing for details on what, exactly, he was offering me in exchange.

  “Not that there’s anything in my past that I regret,” I’d added.

  “Really? Then you’re one of the few rational men I’ve met who can say that. Or maybe I’ve misjudged you.”

  “When I say ‘regret,’ I mean there’s nothing that warrants records being destroyed.”

  “I’m not that stupid. The only thing destroyed when a man tries to erase the past is his own future. How many fools have marched off that cliff? What I can offer is clemency—in a legal sense. The same for other members of your little group . . . including your friend Tomlinson.”

  Long ago, Tomlinson had been a suspect in the bombing of a U.S. Naval base. There are men in high places who still believe he’s guilty of murder. They want him dead.

  “A pardon, you mean?”

  “Yes. Retroactive.”

  It strengthened my impression that the man had an obsolete sense of importance.

  “It’s my understanding you lost that power when you left office . . . ten years ago?”

  “Nine. It just seems longer because of all the screwups and bad luck the last two administrations have had.” He was standing in my lab at the bookcase, hands on hips. “I don’t suppose you have something on the subject?”

  No, but I had Internet access. I’d moved the computer next door into my quarters because it wasted so much of my time in the lab.

  I watched him put his wide farmer’s hands on the keyboard. A few minutes later, he motioned to the screen. He said, “Do you see this name?,” then went on to explain the significance.

  He was right, I was wrong—if what he told me was true. That’s when he said, “Don’t feel bad. Me being right is something you’ll get used to.”

  The man had also told me there were enemies who wanted to kill him.

  Right again.

  I watched the four men, with their masks and automatic weapons, paddle into fog and moonlight, their boat surging forward like a water spider.

  I gave it a few seconds, then went after them. I used mangrove limbs to vault the canoe into open water and turned bow on to their course.

  Keeping the man alive—that had seemed like the easy part.

  I DUG HARD WITH THE PADDLE, FOUR ABBREVIATED strokes on the left, three on the right, gathering speed. Then I stopped, thinking about it as I glided.

  Fog is where mankind’s first monsters were born. What awaited me on the other side of the veil? The coincidence of arriving at the same time as the hit squad was suspicious . . . or was it?

  Halloween is the only night when military gear can be worn as costume. It’s a night when gunshots may be dismissed as fireworks. Halloween provides natural cover for those who venture into the night with sinister intent.

  Plausible deniability—that’s why I was dressed for a party, not a wet night in a canoe. The assault team had chosen Halloween for the same reasons.

  The timing wasn’t coincidental. It was a professional choice.

  Then why the hell was I pursuing armed professionals? It was stupid. I hadn’t brought a gun—with the possibility of being intercepted by the Secret Service? Even if I had, it was idiotic to blunder ashore and take on four guys with automatic weapons.

  No. The smart thing to do was go running and hollering to security agents, tail between my legs, and hope they didn’t shoot before giving me a chance to explain. I could deal with the fallout later.

  I swung the canoe around. Secret Service would have people guarding the channel on the other side of the island, so I began paddling toward Ligarto’s southern tip with the same sprinter’s rhythm: four strokes on port side, three strokes on starboard, ending with a slight rudder correction.

  I wasn’t worried about making noise now. Once I’d put some distance between the hit team and myself, I intended to start yelling, whistling, thumping my heels on the hull, calling out the alarm.

  I didn’t get a chance. The canoe was still gathering speed when there was a sharp Bang. Not a big explosion; more like a dozen firecrackers with the same fuse. Even so, water conducted a mild vibration through the plastic hull. Above the tree line, a haloed incandescence flickered.

  My brain was still trying to pinpoint the source of the noise when there was a second firecracker, Bam.

  On the water, most explosions are caused by sparks in unventilated boats, a sickening sound because passengers are usually aboard. But these twin detonations had the sharper, metalon-metal report of military ordnance. My first impression was they were stun grenades or flash bangs, but the shock wave didn’t carry the distinctive stink of nitro aromatics. Whatever had fueled the combustion was odorless.

  I stopped paddling as I considered the significance. There are a bunch of odorless explosives, but only one stuck in memory—Semtex, a Czech-made plastique preferred by terrorist types, sold on black markets worldwide. More power than TNT and undetectable to conventional security devices. A firecracker-sized glob made a grenade-sized noise.

  It fit: foreigners using black market ordnance.

  The explosions were on the western side of the island. The men I’d seen were on the eastern side. It meant they had accomplices . . . or the explosives had been planted earlier and detonated by timers, or remotes.

  I reconsidered my options. A western approach was now suicide. The Secret Service would be on a war footing. They’d shoot before I had a chance to identify myself. Even if they gave me a chance to talk, I would be too late. The assault team had landed by now, or soon would.

  I had to intercept the killers, I decided, before they got into position. Find a way to slow them and give the feds time to regroup.

  Once again, I turned and began trailing the inflatable, retracing my path along the mangroves. As I paddled, I heard muted shouts. Expected to hear automatic weapons fire but didn’t. Not a shot fired. The silence told me there was no follow-up attack. It also told me there were no human targets visible to Secret Service. Anything that moved they would have shot.

  The explosions were a diversion. Silence carried that message, too. Freeze the attention of security agents; make them focus on the island’s western rim.

  I began to paddle harder, the canoe lunging with each stroke.

  I’d made the right decision. I knew something the Secret Service didn’t. Assassins were approaching from the east.

  BAM . . .

  A third detonation sounded like a dud bottle rocket. Once again, I expected the clatter of small-arms fire. Once again, fog conveyed only the outrage of screaming night birds, then a drizzling, shadowed silence.

  Weird. A tactical diversion is designed to create a hole in security. Move fast, it might work. Hesitate, it will not. The timing has to be tight or the hole slams shut.

  If the fireworks were a diversion, why hadn’t the assault team slipped through that hole, into the island’s perimeter? Federal agents don’t run from gunfights, yet there was nothing to indicate Ligarto Island was under attack.

  I considered the possibilities. Maybe the assault team’s timing was bad. The guys I was trailing hadn’t had time to get
into position prior to the feeble series of bangs and booms, so why detonate before they were ready?

  They wouldn’t—not intentionally. So . . . maybe the charges had gone off accidentally.

  Terrorists use garage remotes and cell phones as detonators. Remove the phone’s outer casing, solder a blasting cap to the ringer circuit, and wire it all to a chunk of explosives. Later, dial the number from anywhere in the world to ignite the blasting cap.

  On a soggy, foggy night, how reliable was a cell phone? Detonators could be short-circuiting because of moisture. Even the timing between explosions seemed accidental.

  Maybe these guys weren’t so professional after all.

  I paddled close enough to the mangrove fringe to see under branches but focused on the contrail of bubbles that marked the inflatable’s path. The fog was so dense that I risked rear-ending the other boat. Even so, I continued to push.

  If the diversionary explosions hadn’t gone off accidentally, I’d overlooked an explanation: The assault team had an accomplice already ashore . . . an insider waiting for his support team to arrive.

  It meant the man I’d promised to help might already be bound and bagged for delivery. Or he could be standing quietly, awaiting my arrival, while a shooter focused crosshairs on his chest.

  I couldn’t let that happen. The doctors had already presented the man with a death sentence. He was so desperate to make the most of his final weeks, his vulnerability had been unmasked. I liked him better because of it.

  When a great beast stumbles we not only wince, we also feel an indefinable dread as it falls. Our weaknesses are magnified, our fears confirmed.

  This guy wanted to go down fighting. There was hope in his strength, strength in his survival.

  SURVIVAL.

  He’d brought up the subject five days earlier, the first time we met. The first time we met officially, anyway. I’d been invited to a party on Useppa Island, a classy Old Florida sanctuary isolated by water and time. It’s not unusual for powerful politicos to vacation on Useppa, so I was only mildly surprised that the invitation’s RSVP response card required a Social Security number.

  Someone was doing background security checks.

  I avoid the high-society party circuit, but the hostess was persistent. “You have to make an appearance, Doc. I can’t tell you why, but you really must.”

  That’s not the reason I went. I went because my new workout partner, Marlissa Kay Engle, is a musician and actress who’s savvy enough to understand that entertainment is one of those rare industries that pretends to loathe wealth and power, but, in fact, is a courtesan to both. I didn’t mind. Marlissa is hauntingly, heartbreakingly beautiful. It was reason enough for me to endure a social function that required shoes and slacks.

  I arrived, prepared to make polite conversation with a visiting ambassador or two. Instead, I was surprised to see him. When he spotted me, he nodded as if he’d been waiting. Suddenly, I understood why I’d been invited.

  “It’s been a long time, Dr. Ford. The last time we spoke, you were stepping off a boat in Cartagena near the Old Walled City. And I was still a little numb from how close that rocket came to nailing my vehicle. Colombia, remember?”

  I was aware of a Secret Service agent to his right, another on the Collier Inn’s balcony. Both wore Hawaiian shirts, neatly pressed but baggy enough to conceal weapons. The agent on the balcony held a beach towel that probably hid a submachine gun.

  “I think you’ve confused me with someone, sir. Colombia, as in South America?”

  “I don’t recollect any rocket attacks in South Carolina, do you? Of course I mean South America. Not that I’m surprised by your reaction. Selective memory is a survival device. I’ve heard you’re an expert on the subject.”

  He emphasized the sentence in a way that forced me to struggle with the double meaning.

  “Expert on what subject?”

  I watched him exchange a knowing glance with the agent to his right—a stocky man of Mongol or Asiatic heritage who looked too old to be on active duty. His personal bodyguard, I discovered later. Also the celebrated man’s friend and confidant.

  “I’m talking about survival. The Darwinian theory. Your friend, Tomlinson, was just telling me about the paper you two are coauthoring on . . . what did he call it? Fatal Specialization something.”

  Tomlinson was at the party? Another surprise. Yes . . . there he was, standing beyond the pool where coconut palms framed the Gulf of Mexico. He was wearing white linen slacks, a linen jacket. He was also barefooted, and shirtless, to the delight of the women around him. Marlissa included.

  Not a surprise.

  Marlissa was the reason we’d argued a few weeks earlier, though we never referred to her by name. Tomlinson and I both embrace the conceit that we are chivalrous men and therefore equitable.

  “I’d like to take a look at your research, Dr. Ford. Sounds like it might support what I’ve been preaching for the last few months. Would you mind?”

  I was flustered by our unexpected meeting. I also didn’t know what he was talking about. Aside from the plane crash, and an occasional headline, I hadn’t read much about him for many months, maybe years. He interpreted my expression accurately.

  “Don’t worry, you’re one of millions who hasn’t been getting my message. Which really pisses me off.”

  He enjoyed my reaction. “That’s right, once a sailor, always a sailor. I’m mad because no one takes what I’m saying seriously—a disaster waiting to happen. ‘Apocalyptic,’ although I seldom use the word. It makes people nervous.” He waited through my bland silence before adding. “But it’s happening. Now.”

  I said, “Apocalyptic, as in ‘catastrophe’? Or the Bible story?”

  “That’s the first time I’ve heard someone refer to Revelations as a Bible story.” He was still having fun. “You’ve read it?”

  Yes, and I thought it a bizarre mix of myth and wistful psychosis—it was disappointing that a man of his accomplishments considered it worthy of discussion.

  “You don’t take it seriously?”

  “I wouldn’t want to impose on someone’s religious beliefs, sir—”

  “Speak freely, Dr. Ford. I’ve got big shoulders, and so does God, I suspect, if there is one.”

  “All right. I put Revelations in the same category as astrology and palm readers. Nostradamus, conspiracy theories, and visitors from outer space—the same. Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. You’re a realist.”

  “I’d like to think so.”

  “In that case, you should take Revelations very seriously. Because it doesn’t matter what you think or what I think. There are powerful people who believe—really believe—that the Apocalypse is divine prophesy. Leaders who not only welcome the end of the world, they’re determined to make it happen. The scary thing is, these people are gaining political clout in both hemispheres.

  “Their followers are devoted, educated, and absolutely secure in their righteousness—the most dangerous of all human trinities. Destabilize the United States, lure us and our allies into Armageddon, and the doors to heaven will open. That’s what they believe. That’s their goal. And we’re making it easy for them.”

  The man had a speech on the subject. It had to do with a connection he perceived between prophecy and technology. He was worried about the country’s reliance on fragile essentials, or “blind horses,” as he called them—an old horse trader’s term for unreliable equipment. Internet. Cell phones. Satellites and oil.

  He was an articulate speaker, but I was more interested in his intent. It was no accident I’d been invited to this party. The same might be true of Tomlinson. Why?

  “The First World has created a techno-environment that’s unrelated to the natural world. It’s a manufactured reality. But it has become America’s national reality.

  “What happens if zealots scramble the Internet? Or interrupt the oil supply? The impact would be similar to environmental cataclysm on a primitiv
e community—volcanic eruption, a meteor strike. Disrupt a society’s perceived reality and you’ve destabilized its foundation. Panic would roll across this country like a wave. The perfect setup for World War Three.”

  His fervor reminded me of the driven men you sometimes hear preaching doom on busy street corners. I commented that he spoke of panic as if it were a weapon.

  “In terms of bang for the buck, panic’s the most lethal weapon around because we’re not prepared. Think about what’s going on right now in Central America. I understand you’re currently doing work there?”

  I nodded, surprised he knew. I’d made several trips in the last few months. An international consortium was proposing to build a canal across Nicaragua. Unlike the nearby Panama Canal, it wouldn’t use locks to raise and lower sea level. Two oceans would, for the first time in many millions of years, be connected. What would be the impact when sea creatures from the Pacific Ocean, Caribbean, and Atlantic Ocean intermingled? I was one of several biologists hired as a consultant.

  “I assume you’ve been following the conflict there?”

  I nodded. “Along with the rest of the world.”

  The conflict had to do with the Panama Canal. In 1979, after the U.S. transferred control to Panama, Panama leased the canal’s operational rights to a Hong Kong company. When the Hong Kong company’s multidecade lease expired, Panama awarded the contract to an Indonesian firm, Indonesia Shipping & Petroleum Ltd (IS&P).

  Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country.

  The CEO of Indonesia Shipping & Petroleum was Dr. Thomas Bashir Farrish, heir to an oil fortune, who lived a playboy life as “Tommy Raker” in Europe and the United States until he became a follower of Ustaz Abu Bakar Bashir.

  Farrish’s mentor was sent to prison after a café bombing in Bali that killed 202 people, but Bashir continued to preach that “the Western world will crumble when Indonesia joins in Jihad.”

  Awarding operational control of the Panama Canal to a company owned by Thomas Farrish was controversial—and critics were soon proven right.