Beneath a Panamanian Moon (28 page)

A few minutes later I eased into the corridor, put on my sunglasses and hurried back to the piano.

Guests began to arrive by water taxi and private boat. Ricardo checked each guest's invitation, giving me a little room to breathe, and soon the Major was so busy moving about the crowd of important people that there was as much chance he would notice the piano player as he would the waiters who circulated around the deck with drinks and hors d'oeuvres.

Several couples danced on the aft deck, but most stood inside the salon and filled the yacht with Spanish and laughter. I let myself get lost in the music for a few moments. Thoughts of being fried by Meat or shot through the heart by the Major took a back seat to Ellington, Berlin, and Basie. I even played some Jobim and Gilberto just to watch the women's hips sway to the music and see the officers and moneymen of Panama's new revolution think about things other than military conquest and cash.

Mariposa was as cool as her emeralds and never once looked at me. She was surrounded by attentive men lighting her cigarettes, fetching her drinks, cooing what they hoped were amusing words, and I nearly pitied her husband, the fool with delusions of ever holding this woman for long. Soon, even her vows would mean nothing and she'd either leave him to his pistol and pajamas or give in and smother the Major in his sleep.

It was after six when the sun went down. Darkness spread quickly across the harbor, turning it from a drab slick of gray water into a garden of light, each ship doubled in reflection, and even the rusted freighters looked like fairy-tale barges, their rigging strung with white holiday lights. Colón gathered at the shore and even this city, with all of its criminals and desperate slums, looked like a place of infinite romantic possibilities. I wondered how far I could swim in my tux.

Ricardo nodded that I could quit playing. Under his watch I grabbed a bottle of water and took it to the bow of the yacht. Ricardo stood close by, in case I thought of jumping, which I did.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and then felt Mariposa's breath, perfumed by champagne, in my ear. “Come with me, John, hurry. There is something you must see.”

I pointed at Ricardo and said, “I can't. He won't let me.”

Mariposa said something in Spanish, too fast for me to translate, and Ricardo bowed and let Mariposa take me by the hand.

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him the General wanted to meet the piano player.”

“And where are we going?”

“Below, John, there's something you have to see.” She led me down the steps, through the main salon and into the master bedroom, the cabin farthest aft, a space larger than my Crystal City apartment and dominated by a gilded, king-sized bed with a leopard-print cover.

“Elvis lives,” I said.

“Come in here,” Mariposa said.

“Mariposa, if someone sees us—”

She pulled open a closet door and said, “Look in there.”

I stepped into a walk-in loaded with more suits and uniforms than I could wear in a lifetime. “So what? So the General likes clothes.”

“Here.” Mariposa joined me in the closet and, in spite of everything, I caught an erotic charge. Apparently she did, too, because she said, “Put your mind someplace above your belt, John Harper, that is not why we're here. I want you to see this.” She pushed back the suits to get some room, then the shoes, all lined up in their cedar shoe trees like stiff little soldiers on parade. Mariposa pointed to a hatch in the floor and said, “Open that, John.”

I got on my hands and knees and pulled up the brass
D
ring. It was a maintenance hatch, used to access pipes and wiring that ran below the deck. I poked my head inside, not knowing what to expect—cocaine, weapons, cash—but what I did see made my scalp break into a sweat. As far as my hand could reach, fastened to the deck and stuffed up into the bulkhead, were brick-sized packets of plastic explosive. Red, white, and green wires connected detonators stuck into each brick.

I jerked my head back, letting the blood drain away. I looked again, making sure that my fatigue wasn't making me see things that weren't there. There they were, right where I'd seen them before. I tried to find the main detonator but couldn't see that far under the deck. I had no idea if it was time-triggered or set off by hand. Neither option made me feel any better.

“How did you find this?”

Mariposa shrugged. “I get bored, and when I get bored, I get curious. What is it, John? Drugs? Why are those wires attached to drugs?”

I grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back into the bedroom. “We have to get off this boat.”

“But I can't. The Major.”

“Come on.” We went back through the main salon, up onto the deck and down the main corridor to the stern, where the small boats and waiting water taxis bobbed on the chop. I told Mariposa, “You hail one of the water taxis, and get as far away from this yacht as possible.”

“John, what was that? Why are you doing this?”

“It's explosives, Mari. There's no time to waste. We have to move.”

She grabbed my sleeve. “Where are you going?”

“To find the captain. We need to evacuate the boat. You go, you get into one of those water taxis and get away as far and as fast as you can.”

Mariposa gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and a brief hug, her arms around my neck, and when we broke I saw that everyone on the aft deck was staring at us—Ricardo, couples by the rail, waiters, the crew, and, most significantly, the Major. The earth seemed to hold its breath and the only movement was the Major's hand as it went inside his jacket and withdrew a stainless-steel pistol.

“You! I should have known you would follow us here. And now you have the audacity to assault my wife and dishonor me in front of the General's guests.”

“Major, this is not what it looks like.”

Mariposa said, “We have to get off this boat.”

The Major didn't hear either of us. The Major was deaf to everything but the roar of his wounded pride. “This will be the last time you bring a stain to my family name. Prepare yourself!”

He aimed the pistol, one-handed, and the bore seemed to swallow me up.

“Major,” I said, as calmly as I could, “there is no time for this. The entire deck beneath us is packed with plastic explosives.”

A murmur ran through the crowd.

“It could go off at any time,” I said, keeping my voice steady, not wanting to cause a panic. I turned to the circle of party guests. “Please, I need all of you to abandon ship. I need you to do it now.”

The guests began to back away.

“Stop!” the Major hollered. And, he being the man with the gun, the group stopped. All but one man. He kept moving. I was afraid to turn my head to see who it was.

“You stay where you are,” the Major shouted.

Then I heard Phil say, his voice soothing, “Major, you have to put the gun away.”

“I am going to kill him!”

“I don't have any problem with that, Major, but not here. Think of the General's guests. Think of the women.”

The Major's pistol did not waver. “Mariposa,” he said, “come to me.”

Mariposa left me and went to stand beside her husband. She said many things to him, too low for me to hear, and in the surrounding silence it sounded as if she were reciting the rosary and each revealed mystery would bring us closer to Jesus.

“Now, sir,” the Major said, “it is time for you to say your prayers.”

Another man, a waiter, moved away from the bar where he'd been standing, his dark eyes glittering with purpose. When he reached the center of the deck he held high a blinking detonator, his thumb on the plunger. His hand shook.

Ricardo pulled the MP-5 out from under his jacket and began to circle the waiter.

The waiter pushed the detonator forward as if it were a religious icon, meant for holding back evil in all its forms, even large tuxedoed men with automatic weapons. Ricardo stopped moving.

Cooper stepped from the crowd, his hands up and open, showing the waiter that he had no weapon. The waiter turned to look at Cooper, then around at the rest of us, his eyes huge, and I knew he wasn't seeing anything beyond his own bright panic. Cooper took another step toward him and the waiter raised the detonator high over his head. “Stop,” he said, and Coop stopped.

The Major didn't know what to do next, whether to shoot me, or bring his full attention to this waiter. Being a man of action, he decided to deal with the threat to his person before he dealt with the threat to his honor. “You, what do you think you are doing?” The Major pointed his pistol at the waiter. “I order you to put that down.”

Ricardo raised his rifle and the click as he removed the safety could be heard across the bay.

The waiter looked very scared now. His underarms were soaked with sweat and his hair was plastered to his forehead. His eyes darted from the Major to Cooper. Coop was moving slowly toward the waiter, his voice soft with calming words I couldn't hear.

I felt Phil at my side. He said, “This doesn't look good, Harp.”

“Where did you two come from?”

“I'll tell you later.”

“You think there'll be a later?”

“Are you ready?”

“Ready? Ready for what?”

Cooper moved closer to the waiter, his hand out. He was a few feet from the boy. The Major continued to aim his pistol, but the muzzle was shaking. Ricardo stepped closer, tightening the circle.

“We're going over the side,” Phil said. And then he tossed me, one-handed, over the rail. I was airborne, and then plunged into darkness. Behind me, the world shook and the concussion ripped through the water like a liquid hammer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I was underwater and didn't know which way was up. I thought I was going the right way, the only way, until I saw bubbles drift past me and I turned and saw the light. The surface glowed with fire.

I turned around and kicked up and into air that was brighter than daylight. Gasoline burned in pools on the surface. Smoking parts of the General's yacht, and bloody pieces of the General's guests, bobbed all around me.

I heard shouts above the fire's blistering howl. I added my own voice to the chaos, calling for Phil, and Cooper, and Mariposa. I swam to each rounded back and turned each one over, searching for a friend, searching for a partner, searching for life in a stranger's eyes.

I found Mariposa. Her right arm had been torn away, and the back of her head was stripped to the bone, blackened by the blast. I knew it was Mariposa by her wedding ring and her eyes, once again brown, the green contacts gone along with the spark.

I found the Major next. He looked surprised, but other than that, I couldn't see any wounds or burns. I pressed my palm to his chest to check for a heartbeat and in horror I watched my hand sink up to the wrist. Blood blossomed across his shirtfront.

“Harp?”

I heard his voice before I saw him. “Here!” I looked among the shapes for a hand, a face, a movement.

“Harp?”

I swam in a circle, searching among the flames and debris for the voice. I saw him, twenty yards away, and swam toward him, dodging bodies, burning oil, and wood. I heard more shouts now, shouts of rescuers, and in the distance, sirens and the whoop of an alarm.

When I reached him he was floating on his back, his face barely above the surface. “Phil? Are you hurt?” I held him up. He was breathing. His eyes were open, but he wasn't looking at anything. “Where are you hurt?”

Phil's lips moved and I put my ear close to his mouth. He said, “Cooper?”

“I can't find him.”

“Find him,” Phil said.

“I've got to get you to shore,” I said.

“Find him!”

I looked up at what was left of the General's yacht. The aft deck was gone; the rear half of the yacht's superstructure, including the wheelhouse, had been ripped away. The foredeck was littered with the dead, and stunned, wounded people pulling themselves along on bloodied hands, wandering blindly, or lying still, calling for help. The water near the bow was full of survivors who had been blown free. Those lucky few were treading water around the floating dead.

“He was too close, Phil. There's no way. He was too close.”

Phil floated, my hand under his back, holding him up. He was silent for so long I thought I'd lost him, then he said, “Get me the fuck out of here.”

I grabbed his collar and swam for land, which was the breakwater, a thin spit of concrete and rocks stretched hundreds of yards into the harbor. Searchlights from rescue ships swept the oily water, picking up sadness all around.

I pulled Phil onto the sand and let him lie quiet for a long time. Phil said, “I think I'm okay now.” He tried to sit up, but couldn't. “Or maybe not,” he said. “I think maybe it's my ribs.”

“You stay here. I'll go get help.”

“No, you'll have to carry me out.”

“If your ribs are broken, you could puncture a lung.” I shook my head. “No, Phil, I'm going for help.”

He gripped my shirt and said, “I want them to think we're dead. If you leave me here and they find me, how long do you think I'll last?”

“Okay, okay.” I helped Phil to his feet. He draped his arm over my shoulder and we began the slow, painful trip inland.

The breakwater is not an easy place to walk, even when healthy. It's barely twenty feet wide and constructed of concrete blocks as big as summerhouses, tossed like dice along the gravel. To get back to land we had to climb up and around these blocks, planting each foot carefully. If Phil fell off, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get him back up by myself.

The gravel bed was littered with broken bottles, condoms, and crack vials. “A great place to get high,” Phil said. “Remind me to come out here on my day off.”

I helped him up the slope of one block and at the top I looked to see how far we had yet to go. It looked like we were walking to the far end of the earth.