Hunter's Moon (18 page)

“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 Más
'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 Más
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 Más
'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.”

When Tomlinson disappeared, he was wearing British walking shorts, tank top, hair braided. Now, though, he was dressed formally: black slacks, white dinner jacket, hair brushed smooth to his shoulders, sun-bleached, with streaks of gray. He was hunched over the piano, fingers spread, face close to the keys, like a nearsighted novelist at a typewriter.

Wilson and I entered the shop unnoticed to listen. It was like stepping into a musician's attic: a cramped space, no airconditioning but cool, instruments overhead, violins, guitars, swaying with ceiling fans like the pendulum of an antique clock. There were reading chairs, a chess set, a workbench of disassembled artistry. Red-shaded lamps melded shadows with the reticent lighting of a Chinatown whorehouse. If Sherlock Holmes lived in Key West, it would've been here.

When Tomlinson finished, Wilson and I waited for the last note to end before I said, “Ten years I've known you and I've never heard you play.”

Tomlinson looked, threw his hair back, and focused. Said, “Marion?,” as if coming out of a trance while his brain relocated. “You've never heard me because I don't play anymore. Pianos disowned me when I moved to a sailboat. Can you blame them?”

“Because . . . ?”

“No room, man. It was a form of infidelity. Pianos demand space and I chose not to provide it. Occasionally, I'll find a very forgiving instrument”—he touched the ebony wood with affection—“that'll play
me.
This is one of the few who accepts my fingers. This piano is saturated with sea air, I think. We're both sailors.” Tomlinson's eyes drifted until they found the president, then brightened. “Sam! I've been trying to contact you! That's why the piano.” His fingers moved over the keys. “Like the Pied Piper. I knew you'd show up if I played.”

“I don't get it.”

“For the music, of course.” Once again, Tomlinson began “Moonlight Sonata”—left hand rolling the repetitive bass notes, right hand coaxing a reluctant melody.

Instead of being confused, Wilson grew serious. “Why that passage?”

“Because I watched you on the beach yesterday and the sonata's first movement was
all over
you. Like an aura.” Tomlinson continued playing; notes reluctant, understated.

“Knock off the baloney.”

“For real, man. It's what I
heard.
I was getting
No Más
ready. You walked to the point.”

“That's true. But why ‘Moonlight Sonata'? Out of all the songs in the world?”

“ 'Cause I felt it, man. This sort of thing happens to me all the time, Sam. I'm like a wind tunnel. Energy blows right through me.”

Tomlinson's eyes were cheerfully numb. From Wilson, I expected cheerful forbearance. Instead, he became more serious. “
Prove
it's true.”

By the way he tugged at his hair, I could tell Tomlinson wanted to be done with the subject. “I can't prove it, but I'm right. I knew if I played the sonata, you'd show up. Same with ‘Clair de Lune.' It was there, too, with you and your wife on the beach. Debussy.”