“Have you tried any of this stuff?”
Wilson said, “A couple of things.” He pointed. “That… that. .. that. But I felt ridiculous. Like a kid playing dress-up.”
I pointed. “What about this?”
He shook his head.
“It could work. And it’s simple.”
“Do you know something about disguise?”
I lied again, “No. Just a feeling. Give it a try.”
The president took the item, held it up for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “I will.”
In the intelligence business, agents who rely on disguises are called “ragpickers”-a term that dates back to the days when spies dressed like bums so they could stand innocuously on busy streets. I’d been through an agency’s two-day disguise evolution because it was part of the required tradecraft. I’d felt ridiculous, just as the president described it. But the course probably saved my life a couple of years ago when, for the first and only time, I had to improvise a disguise to get across the border from Venezuela into Colombia. It was only a day after Rodrigo Granda, a FARC “revolutionary,” was kidnapped by “an unknown group” and spirited back to Bogota to stand trial.
A poor disguise invites scrutiny. Wigs, fake beards, rubber noses, dark glasses, scarves jar the human eye. They feel wrong. A good disguise is neutral, cloaking or repelling, without surprise. Joggers, tourist photographers, construction workers, fishermen are stereotypes so common that the eye sweeps past without alerting the brain. People with deformities or facial scars are invisible for a different reason: Our eyes dart away instinctively. The scar may register on the brain, but other details do not.
Near the stove was a sink with a mirror. Wilson stood with his back to me, applying surgical adhesive to his face, as he asked, “Will this thing stay on if I get it wet?”
I was reading the directions that came with the kit. “It’s supposed to. Once it dries, the only way to get it off is with this special solvent.”
“It’s ironic you chose this. I hope it works.”
I said, “The worst that can happen is Tomlinson’s friends realize it’s fake. A lot of them are painted, so it’ll be no big deal. Which reminds me: Tomlinson’s not going to like the idea of using his engine. He’s a purist. Especially with a bunch of locals watching.”
Still looking into the mirror, Wilson said, “We’ll find out how much of a purist he really is.” Hinting at something, the way he said it. Then he turned so I could see his face, his expression asking What do you think?
I moved around the table and took a closer look. “Put your glasses on.”
He did.
I looked at his face from several angles. “Is it comfortable?” “I can’t even feel it.”
“Amazing. Leave the nose shield on your glasses if you want, but you don’t need it. Not now.”
“It looks real?”
“It’s incredible. ”
He didn’t seem convinced as he returned to the stove, slid the hash onto a plate, and nodded toward the table. Breakfast was for me, I realized. “Eat. I’m having fish for breakfast.” He sounded very sure of himself.
Wilson stood at the mirror briefly before he took the pan to the sink, scrubbed it clean. Then he went out the door, carrying the fly rod.
I chose a bunk, laid down to read, but also listened to the news on the cabin’s clock radio. No mention of terrorists. No mention of a missing ex-president. But more trouble in Panama.
Outraged by a speech given by the pope, IS amp;P’s CEO said he would “not be surprised” if Jihadists brought Holy War to Central America. “I am not inviting them,” Dr. Thomas Bashir Farrish added, “but we will not turn them away, either.”
Farrish was the most dangerous man on earth, Wilson had told me. Right again.
I awoke an hour later with Tomlinson shaking my shoulder.
“We got trouble, Doc. The water cops are out there talking to Kerney.”
I said, “Who?”
“Kerney.”
“Who?”
“You know-Kal Wilson. The president.”
It took me a moment to recall that Kerney Amos Levaugn Wilson was his full name.
I was wearing nothing but running shorts. As I ducked into a shirt, I said, “Were they looking for him?” I hadn’t heard helicopters. If one passes within a mile, I wake up.
“I don’t know. I was asleep myself when one of the tribe got me.”
“Did they recognize him?”
“Man, I didn’t even recognize him for the first couple of minutes. His face-when I saw him, I thought What the hell happened? It’s so damn… real.” I was tying my shoes as he added, “Oh-Ginger Love’s involved, too. The cops are questioning them both.”
“Wilson and Ginger?” Maybe I was dreaming. “How did he hook up with her?”
Tomlinson lifted his eyebrows, a disclaimer.
“What’s that woman doing here? Please tell me you didn’t invite her.”
“Drum circle’s wide-open. I let karma handle all my detail work, man.”
Ginger Love and Kal Wilson? If I was dreaming, it was a nightmare.
Ginger Love is a self-described political activist. The islands attract them. Name an ideology or a cause. Ginger’s less motivated by political ideals, though, than by a lust for attention and her craving for a stage to vent hysterical rants. A few months back, she came to the lab and tried to enlist me in some project. Her perfume and rage filled the room. Ginger Love was a spooky, overmedicated pain in the ass.
Tomlinson followed me out the door, then north along the shore. Where the beach ended and mangroves began, I could see the gray hull of a Florida marine patrol vessel-Florida Fish and Wildlife, officially. Two uniformed officers were talking to the former president while a half dozen of Tomlinson’s group looked on-a couple of them painted but at least clothed. Ginger Love was there, with her Kool-Aid orange hair and signature straw hat.
Wilson was standing next to our plastic canoe. He’d been fishing from it, apparently. When I mentioned it to Tomlinson, he said, “I bet he doesn’t have a fishing license. Maybe that’s what this is about.”
In Florida, a saltwater license is required if you fish from a boat.
“Even if he does, he can’t show it. Or his ID.”
I said, “I hope you’re wrong.” I was imagining the president resisting, then news footage of Wilson and Love handcuffed. Humiliating.
Before we got much closer, though, the officers gave farewell nods, pushed their boat into deeper water, and fired the engine as the little group splintered. Some returned in our direction, a few remained with the former president, Ginger among them.
When Mike Westhoff, one of Tomlinson’s few jock pals, got close enough, I called, “What’s the problem?”
Coach Mike smiled. “That woman’s nuttier than a bucket of loons. If it wasn’t for your uncle, she’d be on her way to jail’bout now.”
Tomlinson and I exchanged looks. “Whose uncle?”
“ Your uncle, Doc. He’s right there.” Mike used his linebacker chin to point. “Your Uncle Sam. He was great, the way he handled the water cops.”
I was thinking Uncle Sam? The former president’s alias had just gotten better.
Ginger, Coach Mike explained, had gotten into an altercation with the Fish and Wildlife officers. “The water cops were on the beach for some reason and she started bitchin’ at them. Who knows why. But it attracted a crowd. Ginger has the rare ability to alienate everyone. But then Sam paddles in. He got everybody calmed down.”
I said, “What did he do?”
Coach Mike thought for a moment. The man’s a football coach, and he also has a Ph. D. in psychology. Even so, he was puzzled. “Damned if I can say. Just started talking. Asking questions, mostly. Very polite, but not faking it. Usually, when someone butts into a fight, they’re the first ones cops put on the ground. But Sam, he’s cool. You know”-Coach Mike was still digesting the scene-“he reminds me of someone. I can’t put my finger on it. He looks a little like that actor, the older guy who plays a pilot, or a senator. Except for the scar, of course-no offense, Doc.”