Randy White - Hunter's moon

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.

Praxcedes Lourdes was dressed as a woman… a Muslim woman, with traditional robes, a shawl and a burqa, the full-face veil with only a horizontal slit for the eyes. The man was a freak for costumes.

I waited until he was beneath me, then jumped, using the rope to slow my fall. I crashed into him so hard he was launched tumbling into the bushes. His surprise registered as a girlish scream.

By the time he got to his feet, I had the knife out. I grabbed him by the shoulder, pulled him to me with unexpected ease, then looked into his eyes as I touched the blade to his neck.

Lourdes’s burn scars are signatory. I expected to see one sleepy gray eye and one lidless blue eye. Instead, I was looking into eyes that were olive-brown, wide with terror.

I stepped back. It was a woman. She screamed-a high, warbling alert-as I slid the knife into my belt and stammered in Spanish, “I’m sorry… I’ve made a terrible mistake. I thought-”

I didn’t finish. There was a rustling of bushes behind me, a woof of heavy breathing, and as I turned to look a huge hand spun me, as a knee hammered at my groin. I deflected all but the first kick, a glancing shot that buckled my knees with nauseating paralysis. The barrel of a gun, jammed under my chin, kept me on my feet.

Once again, I was looking at a figure cloaked in a burqa. This time, pale eyes stared back, one gray, one lidless blue.

“Ford, you meddling punk! I expected your spawn. A younger face. Softer. Skin I can use. ”

Praxcedes Lourdes swung his head at the woman, who was edging sideways down the trail. “Go, bitch! You’ve done your job.”

The woman understood English. She lifted the hem of her robe from the ground and ran.

Lourdes had his left hand behind my neck, the gun in his right, and he pressed the barrel deep, rotating it as if burying a screw. He found the knife in my belt, then the pistol. As he tossed them away, I tried to spin away but gagged as he pushed harder and tried to knee me again. He stank of cigars, and also something fetid, like bugs I’d once left in ajar too long.

“I can’t believe your son conned me. We were becoming such pals. Where is that sweet boy, California? I checked the IP address.”

Lourdes the computer wizard.

My voice was hoarse as I nodded, “California. Yes.”

Laughter. “What a fucking imbecile! You think reverse psychology works on me? So he is in California. I’ll catch the next freighter. I’ll bring scalpels and dry ice. Maybe there’ll be a harvest moon.”

As I brought my hands up to pry the gun away, his knee hammered me twice in the thigh. The body’s most sensitive glands all seem linked to the gag reflex. My legs sagged once again and he collapsed with me onto the ground. He buried a knee in my stomach, then got to his feet and stood over me, a stainless steel revolver pointed at my head.

I told myself not to panic- Breathe, the nausea will pass- as he said, “Ford, I knew it was a con. I’d would have been on this trail waiting, anyway. That’s how stupid you are.”

I took a chance and sat up. My pistol was only a few yards behind me, the knife next to it. I arched my back as if in pain, my right hand behind me. The first weapon I touched I would use.

“Keep your hands where I can see them!” Lourdes moved as if to kick me. I put my hands up to block him.

He stepped back. He motioned with the gun. I got slowly to my feet, expecting him to pull the trigger any moment.

“Your boy has such a beautiful face. Nothing at all like your slab of meat. I may boil you down for glue. Picture it before I put a bullet in your brain. How am I going to look wearing your brat’s face?” He bowed and yanked the burqa off his head.

Praxcedes Lourdes resembled a human skull over which gray skin had been stretched too tight, then patched with melted wax. Tufts of blond hair grew out of white bone. He had the wild eyes of a horse that smelled smoke.

I had once sealed this man in a fifty-gallon drum, determined to roll him off a ship into the Gulf of Mexico. Wilson was right-I was a fool to have spared him.

Lourdes was reaching into the pocket of his robe as I said, “Plastic surgery can’t disguise an asshole, Prax. It’s been tried.”