Randy White - Hunter's moon

“Well, how about-”

“How about ‘Chief.’ I left the Navy as a lieutenant commander so it’s a bump in rank. But it’s better than Skipper.” There was a smile in his voice. The man had known some chief petty officers.

I said, “It fits.” I was thinking chief executive, commander in chief.

“Hold it. No… Chief’s too pushy. If we run into strangers, they’ll start asking questions if you call me Chief. It needs to be bland. I don’t want to attract attention.”

I remembered Vue using the military acronym FIGMO, and said, “Why not ‘Sam.’ That’s as simple as it gets.” It was short for Samson bit, the cleat on the bow of a ship. It was also an acronym with a couple of meanings. One was profane, and stood for ‘Shit Awful Mess’; the other, a type of missile.

Wilson laughed when I reminded him of SAM’s three meanings. He thought it for a few minutes before saying, “I like that. For now, that’s what you call me. Sam. Try to treat me like I’m just a regular guy.”

“Okay. You’re making it easier for me. Sam.”

“Making what easier?”

“Talking about the way you handle a canoe. You’ve got us zigzagging like drunks. It’s going to take forever to make land unless we switch places.”

The paddler in the stern controls the boat and Wilson had insisted on taking that seat.

“But I want to steer.”

“I’m aware of that… but it’s not working out. I should be in the back.”

“You’re saying I’m not competent?”

“I’m saying I’ll get us there faster.”

“Come on, Ford. What’s the problem? I prefer honesty to-”

“Okay, okay, you’re not competent. In fact, you’re worse than not competent. You bang the hull, and you splash me about every third stroke. You suck at the helm.”

“I didn’t say to be crude-”

“Don’t be offended. I have more experience. That’s why I should be steering.”

In a flat voice, he replied, “But you don’t know where we’re going.”

I was aware of that, too. When we left Ligarto, I’d told him my truck was two miles east, loaded and ready, as he had ordered. The former president replied, “There’s been a change of plans. We’re not using your truck.”

Instead of east he was steering us west -trying, anyway-toward the chain of barrier islands that separates mainland Florida from the Gulf of Mexico.

“It’s time to trust me. Tell me where you want to go. We’ll find shallow water and trade places.”

“I share my plans on a need-to-know basis. I’ve already explained that. A few details at a time, that’s all. It’s a standard security measure.”

With exaggerated patience, I said, “I need to know the boat’s destination because I will soon be sitting where you’re sitting and I will be steering, not you. Which means we will be going in a straight line, not zigzagging, or making little tiny circles on the great big ocean. So why not tell me the destination now, before we switch places? Give me something to aim for… Sam.”

The man softened. “Am I that bad? Or are you in a pissy mood?”

I said, “Both.”

He laughed. “Know what? You’ve got a point. I try to pick the best people available and let them do their jobs. No second-guessing, ever. Out here, Doc, you’re the expert. And you’ve had a long night.”

He said it so amiably, I felt bad for snapping at him. But I also realized that by challenging me, then deferring, he’d created a sense of indebtedness-the precursor to loyalty. The man knew how to leverage, pushing, then backing off.

But he was right. I’d had a long night.

On Ligarto, agent Wren had insisted on escorting the former president to his cabin. That left me alone, waiting in swamp and mosquitoes, unsure what to do. Leave or stay?

I stayed… stayed for two miserable hours before Vue returned. “President be here soon,” he said, then surprised me by adding, “He is sick. How sick is he?”

Vue didn’t know-my first revelation of how private and stubborn Wilson could be.

I evaded, telling him I knew nothing about Wilson’s health.

Vue’s reaction was strange. He sounded pleased. “Already, you are lying for him. Good. I lie for him many times. I would die for President Wilson, he is such a friend. That how I know he must be very sick or he would not be determined to do this thing.”

I said, “Determined to do what?”

It was Vue’s turn to lie. “How would I know? I am his bodyguard. If I could travel, he maybe tell me. For all these years, I go everywhere with him. That’s why I must stay here. It is the only way to fool Secret Service. But there’s something I want to ask you. ” He was eager to change subjects. “Where that knife you say you take from those men?”

I found the knife and handed it to him. He used his penlight to inspect it, then shook his head solemnly. “I believed what you tell us before, but I believe more now. This is knife, very rare. It called a ‘ badek,’ some places; Indonesia. Or a ‘khyber’ in Burma and the Himalayas.” He touched the knife’s edge. “Very best steel, hand-forged, and sharp. It curved for this”-Vue swiped a finger across his throat-“You don’t have weapons. How you take this knife from a man?”

He seemed impressed when I told him, but it didn’t make him any more talkative. He shrugged when I pressed for details about Wilson’s travel plans. When I asked for an update on the men in the inflatable, his answers were vague; he seemed preoccupied. He kept returning to the subject of President Kal Wilson.

“This very hard for me ’cause I used to taking care of the man. Dr. Ford, you must be his bodyguard now. When you return safe with the president, you and me, we meet privately. I expect you give me full report.”

He spoke unemotionally, but there was an implicit threat.

Less veiled was Vue’s interest in the electronics I was carrying, or had aboard. I told him I had a GPS, and a cell phone, adding, “My VHF radio’s broken and the cell phone’s worthless. I can’t get a signal out here.”

I was lying about the VHF-I’d dropped the damn thing overboard when I was loading the canoe. But the man’s interest wasn’t conversational, I discovered.

“You very sure that all you have?”

“Yep. Very sure.”

Without warning, he took my wrist. “What about your watch? They lots of electronic watches now.” I was wearing my old stainless Rolex Submariner, something I rarely do, but it seemed to fit the situation.

He inspected both sides of the watch, then said, “No laptop? iPod? No personal data file?”

“In a canoe? Nope. Canoes and electronics don’t mix. Plus, I don’t own any of that crap, anyway.”

Vue didn’t see the humor. He held out his hand. “You give me GPS and cell phone. President be here soon and you go.”

That made no sense. “Why would I leave the GPS? There’s still fog out there. And it’s my personal cell phone.”

His hand didn’t waver, nor did his tone. “You give me all electronics. President’s orders. I keep them safe ’til you get back.”

“But why?”

Vue shrugged, another lie. “I dunno. He call these things blind horses. Maybe he want you to use your own eyes.”

I felt like telling him to spare me the aphorisms. Instead, I said, “He’s worried about being tracked. Why don’t you just say so?” I handed him my phone and little GPS, finally grasping why Wilson had refused to let me use my twenty-one-foot Maverick flats boat. I could have poled in just as quietly, and the skiff was specially rigged for night travel-tactical LED lights mounted beneath the poling platform; a spotlight, with an infrared lens, mounted above. The Maverick will do fifty knots in a foot of water -only a helicopter could have caught us.