River of Ruin

Above the Darien Province, Panama

Sergeant Huai watched the four commandos climb into their helicopter through a pair of binoculars he held steady against the door frame of the company chopper. He was impressed. Most people couldn’t maintain enough balance to keep from spinning on a rappel line and these four managed to climb against the wind. Not an easy feat.

On a purely professional level, he had to give them credit for the entire operation, even if they had lost two people. He had no idea how many were still out in the jungle, but it seemed that even if there were only the six he could account for, they’d done a good job. This time there were no Panamanian troops that could be blamed for the security breach. These six had gone up against some of the best in the Chinese military and had not only made it in, but two-thirds of their force had made it out again.

He wasn’t worried that they would actually evade him. Two choppers armed with heavy machine guns would be taking off from the Hatcherly facility within a few minutes. The JetRanger would be trapped between them, allowing him to respect what they’d accomplished without worrying about long-term damage if they did escape to tell their tale.

At the warehouse a few nights earlier, Captain Chen had suggested that the force who’d infiltrated the port was a local gang of thieves or gunrunners. Watching as the JetRanger was pulled deeper into the storm, Huai knew that he was facing something else entirely. These people fought like trained commandos. His first instinct was American Special Forces, SEALs, or maybe Marine Recon—a chilling thought because it meant their security was blown. Liu Yousheng had kept Operation Red Island well compartmentalized and yet Huai knew that if the Americans were onto even this part of it, the entire mission might be finished. Destroying the chopper and its occupants was of primary concern, but equally important to Huai was identifying the commandos. While he knew they wouldn’t be carrying any identification, he was familiar with other, subtler signs that would give away their nationality. Types of uniforms, equipment and weaponry could be false flags, while a corpse couldn’t hide its skin color, tattoos or dentistry.

With his helo closing the gap to the fleeing JetRanger, Huai thought about his report to Captain Chen. Chen had turned into a real bastard since his screwup at the warehouse. He was looking to shed some of the blame onto his men and he’d like nothing more than tearing Huai apart for this latest lapse if only to regain Liu Yousheng’s favor. Not that Huai believed the Hatcherly executive would be impressed that Chen could yell at one of his own men. Huai thought he understood Liu. The official wanted results and didn’t care how he got them. So long as the JetRanger was destroyed, he wouldn’t be bothered with the details.

And taking down the enemy chopper was only a matter of time.

Gasping to regain his breath, Mercer finally rolled out from under the others in the cramped hold of the JetRanger. His uniform was soaked after only a few minutes in the deluge and more rain continued to whip through the open door frames. An occasional burst of lightning seared his vision. His first concern was Lauren.

“Are you all right?” he yelled over the engine noise and the steady pounding of rain. He helped her into a sitting position.

She looked miserable with her hair plastered against her head yet threw him a saucy smile. “Never better. How about you?”

“I owe you one for the boat. If not for your fancy driving, I would have gone overboard.”

Lauren disregarded the praise. “Your head okay?”

Mercer fingered the knot at the back of his skull. His hands came away bloody but he knew the wound wasn’t bad. “It will be after a stitch or three.” He looked to where Bruneseau sat with his back against the rear bulkhead. A burst of anger made him forget the minor cut in his scalp. “You gonna tell me what the hell you were playing at back there?”

The French agent began to slide over to where he could climb into the cockpit. “Later,” he said brusquely. “We’re not clear yet.”

“Hold it.” Lauren shifted her position to block the spy. “Do you know how to fly a chopper?”

“No.”

“Let me up front. These missing doors are killing our aerodynamics and speed. The Chinese helo’s gonna be on us soon. Your pilot will need the extra set of hands.”

“You fly?” Mercer asked.

She nodded, pleased that this skill seemed to impress him. “My rotary ticket hasn’t been punched in a few years, but ...”

“Okay,” Rene said after a moment’s thought. While Lauren crawled into the cockpit, Bruneseau pulled two pairs of headphones from a rack and handed one to Mercer. With his face a blank mask, Foch worked on the weapons, filling magazines from those that were half depleted. Mercer wasn’t surprised by how hard he was taking the deaths of his two men. The Legion prided itself on its esprit de corps and its unwavering dedication to its own. The loss was devastating.

Once on the comm loop Bruneseau asked the pilot, an Aussie named Carlson, about their situation.

“We have maybe five minutes on the other chopper, sir,” he replied in French with an Australian twang. “Looked like a Gazelle to me. She’s faster than us and we can’t hide in this storm forever.”

“Options.”

The JetRanger shuddered and lost fifty feet in a sudden downdraft. The winds whipped predominantly from their left but gusts came from every direction. The storm had turned the leaden sky into a riot. Lauren sat in the right seat with her hands hovering over the controls, ready to assist Carlson at any moment. She asked that they speak in English.

“We are talking about our options, Captain Vanik,” Carlson said. “The Chinese Gazelle is closing and this storm won’t cover us all the way to our base at Chepo.”

“Don’t forget,” Mercer interrupted, “they’ll probably have choppers at the port. If Liu’s smart, he’ll have them airborne and on an intercept course.”

“Proverbial rock and hard place,” the pilot said.

Lauren was the first to develop a plan. “Forget Chepo. It’s too isolated. We’ll fly the ridge of the continental divide. If we’re lucky we can lose the Gazelle and head to Panama City from the west after crossing the canal. If Liu’s other choppers manage to catch us they’ll have to disengage once we’re within radar coverage of Tocumen Airport.”

“You mean to outflank the inbound helos from the port?” Mercer pictured a map of Panama in his head and followed Lauren’s course.

“If they find us over open ground, we’re dead. We need to reach an area where they won’t be so anxious to shoot us down.”

“Do it,” Bruneseau ordered.

Carlson banked northward and tentatively dumped altitude, he and Lauren both straining to peer around the curtains of rain for the mountains that ran like a spine through Panama. Foch had shortened the rappelling ropes to create safety belts for himself, Mercer, and Bruneseau and now sat facing backward with his FAMAS on his lap. Trusting the pilot, but Lauren more so, Mercer joined him on the floor and covered the other open door, watching their tail for the first sign of Hatcherly’s Gazelle. They could see perhaps a half mile into the storm, and occasionally one would tense as they thought they spied something solid emerge from the towering clouds, only to relax again as the phantom merged back into the tempest.

With their circuitous route, it would take more than an hour to reach the canal and another few minutes to reach the shelter of Panama City.

Once they found an altitude where they could judge the topography, the pilot took them into the valleys that twisted through the continental divide, maintaining a dangerous proximity to the jungled hills. With each steep bank, Mercer felt his straps dig into his flesh, forcing him to grab a handhold to maintain his balance. It was like riding backward on a roller coaster only there were no tracks. One moment he was thrust halfway through the yawning door frame and the next he was lifted bodily toward the hold’s ceiling or dumped into Bruneseau, who hunched between the pilots’ seats. Not a roller coaster, he thought. A turbine-powered rodeo bull.

Only Lauren and Carlson spoke as they continued toward the canal, short sentences of arcane aviation language that Mercer didn’t bother to follow. He kept all his concentration on their tail. After thirty minutes his vigilance hadn’t flagged. Until they were safely on the ground again, he wouldn’t let himself believe they’d lost the Gazelle. So he continued to scan the sky, waiting, hoping he didn’t—

“There!” he shouted as the pursuing Gazelle burst from a wall of clouds into a small clearing in the storm. For a moment its wet paint gleamed before it plunged into a bank of fog.

“How far back?” Lauren’s tone was composed, a sharp contrast to Mercer’s frantic yell.

“Hard to tell. Maybe a quarter mile.” Mercer felt the JetRanger fall lower into a valley, its whirling blades less than a hundred feet from the overgrown flanks of a nameless mountain.

“Hold on,” Carlson said after he’d already thrown the chopper into aerobatic maneuvers its builders never intended. His control over the JetRanger was masterful.

So was that of the Chinese pilot of the Gazelle chasing after him.

The surreal game of cat and mouse was played amid the folds of the earth and the rain-laden clouds of the tropical storm, two areas any sane pilot would avoid. Instead Carlson flew deeper into both, dogged by the Gazelle. Fifteen minutes further into the chase, with the canal another ten minutes away, submachine-gun fire was added to the equation.

Foch was the one who saw the fire coming from the other helicopter. With the extreme range, he was unconcerned and only motioned to Mercer about it without disturbing the two pilots. For the moment there was nothing they could do. Both watched the sleek Gazelle follow their trail like a bloodhound on a scent, a perfect mirror of every movement Carlson made and every turn Lauren pointed out.

Neither noticed the two other shapes flying in a loose formation that appeared through the storm until they opened up with door-mounted .30 calibers. Two streams of tracer fire cut directly behind the JetRanger, laserlike streaks of light that Carlson recognized. He threw the helicopter over so quickly that Foch was left dangling in space before the floor of the cargo hold pivoted back underneath him. The next spray of fire sliced the air where the JetRanger had been a second earlier.

The lead chopper, the Bell that had dropped the depth charges at the lake, swung in between the Gazelle and the Legionnaires’ helo while the other slid behind Sergeant Huai’s aircraft in a line astern formation. The door gunner could only get a bead on his target when they made sharp turns and even then he had only scant seconds before his own craft followed the other around and his angle was lost.

Foch fired off a few rounds. At five hundred yards, he had no hope of hitting his target; he just wanted the pursuing pilot to know his quarry had fangs.

“Now what?” Bruneseau spoke for the first time in half an hour.

“How about we pray they get struck by lightning,” Lauren said tightly. For a while she’d been helping Carlson with the controls, compensating for the storm’s turbulence while he kept them on course. “Or they strike it!”

Cutting across the valley was a high-tension electrical line, a power feed from the Madden Dam only three miles to the south. From this distance the transmission cable was as slender as a thread and Lauren would have missed it if not for the large rubber balls spaced across its length as a warning to low-flying aircraft. Intuitively, Carlson knew what she meant and kept the JetRanger on course and at an altitude to crash into the power line. If the pilot behind them was following normal procedures he’d be searching the sky for such obstacles but Lauren prayed he was too intent on the hunt.

At ninety knots, and in uneven wind conditions, Carlson got as close as he dared before lifting the JetRanger up and over the cable. The chopper’s skids cleared the line by eleven feet and he immediately dropped them back to his original altitude in hopes of tricking his pursuer that his maneuver had been the result of wind sheer.

Carlson had had fifteen seconds to prepare for the maneuver. The pilot behind him had four. Nowhere near enough time.

Only when the chopper he was chasing rose suddenly did the Chinese pilot see the red-colored sphere its bulk had hidden. He had an instant to notice the others strung across the valley like beads. Training told him to dive, to allow gravity to assist him as he tried to avoid the obstacle, but instinct overrode this and he heaved back on the cyclic and stomped the rudder to compensate. The chopper’s skids hit the line. In a light-speed blink, a finger of electricity jumped into the gunship, opening the path for tens of thousands of volts seeking ground. There was no place for it to discharge so the power continued to pour into the crippled craft that dangled from the sagging cable. Delicate electronics were fried first, and that included the electrical impulses in the brains of its occupants, the synaptic bursts that created thought.

Brains were boiled within skulls, blood within tissue, skin within clothing and finally the aluminum body of the helicopter began to melt. The blinding arcs of electricity and the pop of air exploding from the thermal onslaught erupted from behind a mist of ozone, charred metal and flesh. The chopper burned like a meteor when it finally dropped from the power line and plowed into the storm-swollen stream in the valley’s floor.

The Gazelle and the second gunship were forced to break away to avoid the flaming wreck, giving the Legionnaire team a few moments’ respite. Carlson, Bruneseau, and Mercer each congratulated Lauren for the maneuver even if it was the pilot who’d pulled it off.

They linked up with the Chagres River, the main source of water that fed the Panama Canal, about two miles before it spilled into the man-made waterway. They were still twenty-five miles from Panama City and no one felt the earlier confidence that the choppers would break off the chase once they reached the town.

“Oh, merde!” Foch screamed as the second gunship flashed into view. It flew at a slight angle so the door gunner could bring his .30 caliber to bear.

The first blast missed the JetRanger by a few feet. The second came almost immediately and ripped into the tail, producing the metallic snarl of hardened ammunition meeting delicate machinery. By the time Foch leaned out to look for the gunship, it had swooped out of view.

“Mercer, your side.”

Mercer felt more than saw the black shape settle in off the starboard side of the helicopter. Before he was certain, he fired anyway. His assault rifle felt puny compared to the barrage that slammed the chopper again. Heavy rounds passed right through the open cargo door and several more ripped into the metal that protected the JetRanger’s critical main transmission.

“Lauren, get us on the deck,” he yelled, changing out an empty magazine.

In a gut-wrenching dive, the chopper raced for the swollen waters of the Chagres, coming level only when they were mere feet from its boiling surface. Almost immediately Carlson popped up again as they leaped over a trestle bridge that supported the trans-isthmus railroad and one lane of automobile traffic. Had a train been on the bridge they would have smeared themselves against its side.

About to turn to the left toward the Gaillard Cut and Panama City, Carlson saw that the Gazelle had managed to cut him off and hung just above the canal with a cluster of armed troopers at its open door. Six assault rifles opened as one, six bright eyes that continued to wink as the first of the 5.8mm rounds found their mark. He jinked as bullets cut through the Plexiglas canopy, managing to keep everyone alive for a moment longer.

Here the canal was flanked by gentle slopes that had been recently peeled back in an effort to stem the remorseless avalanches that had plagued the waterway since its construction. It resembled a lazy river more than an engineering marvel. Still, Carlson couldn’t trade off his speed for altitude to pull them out of the canal.

He cut right, away from civilization, and had to swing around a massive container ship headed toward the canal’s choke point at Gaillard.

From the door of the chopper hurtling just fifteen feet above the green water, the container ship appeared to be a solid wall of black steel and multicolored containers that seemed to stretch to the horizon. The cargo vessel’s wing bridge towered sixty feet above them. A burst from the gunship missed the JetRanger and exploded in a blossom of ricochets against the ship’s thick hide.

While the canal’s locks were one thousand feet long and more than a hundred wide, her builders had envisioned several ships at once passing into them, not vessels built to the lock’s monolithic proportions. Even with the widening of the Gaillard Cut to 624 feet, the original plan of continuous two-way traffic had been abandoned. Navigation was too tricky to allow the PANAMAX ships, those vessels designed specifically to maximize the space in the locks, to pass each other in the canal’s tightest point. As a result, PANAMAX freighters, tankers and even the new fleets of super cruise liners transited in daylight hours and only in one direction at a time, while smaller ships used the canal at night and could transit in either direction.

No sooner had the JetRanger rocketed past the stern of the container ship than she had to swing wide to avoid a tanker headed straight for her. Rising from the mist beyond was an eighty-thousand-ton cruise ship glistening like a white wedding cake. It was a procession of Goliaths.

“Where now?” Carlson asked over the intercom, his voice tight even as his hands on the controls remained relaxed.

“Stay away from the cruise ship,” Lauren answered. “We can’t risk them getting caught in a cross fire.”

Bruneseau grunted as if he thought using the passenger vessel as cover was a good idea.

“Right,” the Aussie said.

“How about Gamboa?” Mercer suggested. He’d seen the town on the map and knew it was the headquarters for the canal’s dredging operation. He hoped there was a chopper pad or field nearby where they could set down.

Lauren agreed. “Better than anything else out here.” The recently leveled banks were too exposed to gunfire from above to risk a landing.

In the five-hundred-yard gap between the tanker and the cruise ship, the Chinese helicopter came at them again. This time the chopper angled in so the door gunner could fire down at the JetRanger. Much of the barrage hit the water like so many pebbles tossed into a pond, but enough bullets hit the helo to cause a skip in the engine.

“Oil pressure dropping,” Carlson said. “That burst was fatal.”

Gamboa was a half mile farther up the canal.

Resisting the urge to fire up at the gunship because his bullets would hit their own spinning rotor, Mercer was impotent as another blast of .30 caliber sprayed across the JetRanger. Like magic, small holes appeared in the ceiling and floor of the helo as rounds passed right through. One was only three inches from where he crouched and he could smell the scorched metal before the odor was whipped away. The turbine’s steady whine deepened. It was grinding against itself, unbalanced and ready to come apart.

Trailing a dilating plume of oil smoke, they streaked past the eight-hundred-foot cruise ship. Like fans at a stadium, a wave of arms shot up along the ship’s rail as stunned passengers watched the JetRanger’s progress, then turned in unison as the two choppers chasing her came into view.

With a quick scan, Lauren checked the cockpit gauges and knew that they’d never make Gamboa. The only alternative was setting down on the water. They might be able to hover long enough for her and the men in the hold to get clear but Carlson would surely die when the blades hit. And then what? They would be stuck without cover while the gunship stood off and machine-gunned them one by one. There had to be another alternative.

She looked up just as another massive cargo ship rounded a corner in the meandering canal and Lauren knew what she had to do. “Carlson, there!” She pointed ahead.

The vessel lumbering through the canal was a utilitarian box set on an unstreamlined hull. Without porthole or window, she rose from the waterline to her top deck in sheer walls of steel—a height of 87 feet, making her barely wider than she was tall. Her single deck was an expanse of metal measuring 750 feet long by 106 wide, punctured by a one-story pilothouse hunched close to her blunt bows. Her hull was painted in rust-streaked green while the deck was a faded yellow. By the thick red band showing above the waves, Lauren could tell she was running near empty.

She’d spent enough time in Panama to recognize the ship as a car carrier, probably deadheading back to Japan or Korea from Europe. Within the enormous box of her hull would be between eight and twelve decks, connected by ramps, for her load of automobiles. Some of these ships, she knew, could carry up to seven thousand cars and their holds resembled the parking garage at an urban airport, only fully enclosed and capable of traversing the globe at twenty knots. There would be loading ramps at her stern and starboard midships that could be lowered like medieval draw-bridges to allow vehicles to be driven directly to their assigned parking spaces.

As they got closer to the auto carrier, she saw where the ship’s funnel rose like a pimple at the vessel’s stern. Near it was an access box for a staircase. If they could land close enough to the stairs they might make it into the steel confines before the gunship cut them down.

Another rattle of autofire hit the JetRanger and suddenly she could no longer feel Carlson’s hands on the controls. She looked over. The Aussie pilot had let go of the sticks and clutched at his thigh, his fingers already slick with blood. Contorted with pain, he met her eye and nodded.

“I have the controls,” she said.

“How bad?” Bruneseau asked over the intercom, leaning farther into the cockpit to check on his man.

“Leg,” Carlson panted. “Bullet’s still in there. Oh, Jesus.”

Mercer hadn’t seen what had happened. The gunship had swung across the side of the JetRanger right into view. He fired a full clip, joined by a long burst from Foch, who was still strapped in at the other door. The gunship broke off, turning her tail to gain distance before twisting back again, her door gun pounding.

“Where’s the Gazelle?” Mercer shouted, a fresh magazine ready to be slapped home.

“I don’t know!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lauren cut in as the struggling chopper clawed its way up to the deck of the car carrier. “Prepare for a crash landing.”

“Gather the weapons,” Bruneseau added. “Run for the stairs as soon as we hit.”

The engine coughed again as Lauren fought to gain enough altitude to clear the ship’s railing, still thirty feet above the helicopter. They were less than a hundred yards from the slab side of the car carrier, and it seemed the vector she’d chosen wouldn’t be enough. She goosed the engine again, wincing as it skipped, her concentration solely on getting them down safely.

Like a thoroughbred taking a fence, the JetRanger gathered itself at the last moment and flashed over the railing just as the engine quit. The rotor’s momentum gave just enough lift to avoid a fatal crash but the skids hit the deck hard enough to snap one strut and pitch them forward. Sliding across the rain-slicked surface, the aircraft hit a stanchion and stopped dead. Carlson managed to shut off the fuel as the men in the hold scrambled out into the storm. The Gazelle was closing fast from two hundred yards off, while the gunship was out of sight below the side of the ship.

Ignoring the plight of the others, Bruneseau ran for the staircase door. Lauren had already hit the quick disconnect on her safety harness, so when Mercer yanked open her door, she jumped down, ducking because the chopper’s lop-sided position allowed one arc of the turning rotor to cut just three feet from the deck. He pushed her toward where Bruneseau held open the stairway door and swung around to help Foch, who’d just eased the pilot out of the chopper.

Without warning, the gunship appeared over the railing. Her rotors kicked up a tornado whirlwind that drove sheets of rain across the deck. Because of the wall of swirling water, the gunner’s aim was off by a few feet. He had to muscle the .30 caliber to correct. Mercer was holding up Carlson’s right arm, which left his own right hand free. The range was fifty feet and even one-handed he couldn’t miss. He raised his FAMAS on its sling and began firing even before he had centered his aim. Sparks exploded along the ship’s railing in a trail leading toward the hovering chopper. The Chinese door gunner was almost set when the trail reached him. His body bucked against his safety straps and jerked like a marionette as Mercer poured in the fire. He only went slack when the gunship heaved itself away from the auto carrier.

“Come on,” Lauren’s alto sounded over the rain and the echo of combat. The Gazelle was fast approaching.

With Carlson between them, Mercer and Foch ran for the stairs, hunching under the rounds Bruneseau sprayed over their heads to keep the Chinese troop copter at bay. Once safely inside the stairwell, Mercer slammed the door. The stairwell was a steel shaft that dropped straight down for eleven decks, with scissor stairs that cut the distance in steep zigzags. Heavy doors led to each of the separate decks. Mercer passed Carlson off to Rene and reached for the fire ax clipped to the wall. He turned back and with one perfectly placed blow wedged the blade into the gap between the door and the jamb.

“That’ll hold them for a few minutes.” His breathing was already returning to normal as adrenaline drained from his bloodstream.

“I got us here, boys.” Lauren’s face glistened and her eyes shone with the triumph of her successful landing. “It’s up to you to get us out again.”

“There should be a lifeboat one deck above the waterline,” Mercer informed them, hoping the auto carrier was outfitted the same as the super tanker he’d once been on near Seattle. “It’s launched down a rail like a bobsled. If we can reach it we might be able to get away.”

“If the Gazelle lands, it won’t be able to take off in time to catch us before we reach shore, but what about the gunship?”

Bruneseau had a valid point. Mercer was about to say that he suspected the other chopper would clear out. The crews on all three ships that had witnessed the aerial duel would be contacting the Panamanian authorities. He didn’t think Liu could afford to answer the kinds of questions they would ask if his chopper was identified. Before he could voice his reply, bullets pounded the door and harmlessly bounced away.

“Later.” Foch rebraced Carlson and started down the stairs. “Let’s go.”

They’d descended just two decks when an explosion blasted down the shaft, a heavy wall of hot air that was immediately sucked back up due to pressure change. The door had just been blown from its hinges by a grenade or satchel charge. A dozen rounds were fired into the antechamber at the head of the stairs, and when the Chinese received no return fire, they’d come pouring down the stairs like banshees.

Burdened by the injured pilot, the team would never be able to stay ahead of the troops. They had to get out of the stairwell.

Mercer opened the next door they reached, waved them through and closed it gently behind them. All five of them stopped short when they first encountered the cavernlike cargo deck, struck dumb by its enormity. In front of them stretched an enclosed space large enough to store eight hundred automobiles in rows marked on the floor like a parking lot. Yet the deck was empty, its uniformity only broken by support columns as thick as trees and structural baffles that shored the long walls like a cathedral’s buttresses. Because the area was one hundred feet wide and eight hundred long, its low ceiling felt unnaturally squashed, like some subterranean realm where untold tons of earth bore down on them. The few lightbulbs merely served to accentuate the shadows and add to the eerie claustrophobia. Only when their eyes adjusted to the dim light did they see a ramp amidships that descended from the deck above and curled around to connect to the next one down. Similar ramps were next to them at the stern. The air tasted metallic.

“Formidable!” Foch had never imagined such a structure.

A moment later, what sounded like a dozen feet raced past the door and continued down toward the bottom of the ship.

“Once they realize we’re not down there,” Lauren said, “they’ll be coming back up to check each deck.”

“We should seek out the crew,” Bruneseau suggested.

Mercer looked at him sharply. “Negative. We involve them and they’re as good as dead. After what we’ve seen, the Chinese won’t hesitate to kill a few civilians to stop us.”

The agent’s face reddened, angered at Mercer’s presumption of authority. “What do you suggest?”

Looking around the echoing hold, Mercer sought inspiration and found nothing. All he knew was that standing by the door was the quickest way to get caught. “Follow me,” he said without a clear plan and began running toward the distant set of ramps.

The others had no choice but to keep up.

The equipment slapping against his uniform sounded like a one-man band to Mercer as he jogged to the amidships ramp, certain that the pursuers would burst through the door at any second. He started up the gentle slope. Carlson slowed the others so they reached him seconds later. They eased the injured man to the deck. Lauren looked at Mercer, her eyes at once quizzical and confident. She lifted a brow.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” he answered, peering farther up the ramp and wondering what lay on the deck just out of view. He strode up the rest of the way and his answer crouched before him in a spectacular shade of blue so deep that it seemed to absorb the light cast by the bulbs secured to the ceiling girders.

Appreciated by auto enthusiasts as near perfection in vehicle design, and by art lovers who responded to its low-slung crisp lines, the beauty of the Bentley Continental R was undeniable. It seemed unable to suppress its luxury in even these drab surroundings. With a curb weight of three tons, the English-built touring sedan easily managed a top speed of a hundred and fifty miles per hour thanks to a whisper-quiet turbocharged V-8. Unparalleled in safety, comfort, and style, the only thing keeping such a magnificent machine from every garage in America was its base price of $275,000.

Mercer had never considered himself a “car guy,” even if he did drive an XJS Jaguar convertible. But the smile that spread across his face as he gazed at the Bentley was one part desire and one part gratitude. He knew how to get them to the lifeboat and do it in style. He turned to motion the others up the ramp and strode to the Continental. The paintwork was like satin when he brushed his hands on the flared fender.

“Looks like someone in Asia is getting themselves a new toy,” Lauren said as she took in the car.

“They might not like the condition it’s going to be in when it gets there,” Mercer remarked offhandedly and stripped protective plastic from the windows. “Anyone up for a little ride?”

Foch stared at him. “It can’t be that easy.”

Mercer didn’t say a word, just swung open the driver’s door and eased himself into the leather seat. Because so many cars were stored on these ships, it was logical that the vehicles’ keys were left in the ignitions. Once he’d turned the key, the only indication the engine was running was the smooth jump on the tachometer. The Bentley purred.

He gave Foch a disarming smile. “It can be that easy. The Chinese will concentrate their search near the stern. We just drive down these midship ramps until we reach the deck where the side loading door’s located. From there we motor on down to the stern and hop into the lifeboat.”

“Why not just walk?”

“Screw that, mate,” Carlson said. His face was pale and clammy. They hadn’t had time yet to tie a tourniquet, something Lauren did now with the pilot’s belt, so he’d lost a lot of blood.

Bruneseau opened the rear door and slid in to help Carlson into the backseat without jostling his injured leg any further. Lauren passed around the front of the car and stepped in next to Mercer. Settling into the opulent car, she couldn’t resist saying, “Okay, James, once I’m done at the salon, I want to do a little shopping along Fifth Avenue before the cotillion.”

Mercer chuckled. “Is this rotten attempt at humor normal or a reaction to stress?”

“Drive on, or you’re fired,” she shot back haughtily. “And don’t dirty the seats with that unlaundered uniform of yours. I’ve warned you about that before, James.”

Tipping an imaginary driver’s cap, Mercer said, “Yes, ma’am,” and put the car in gear.

Reining in the powerful engine so he wouldn’t chirp the Pirelli P-Zeros, Mercer took them down the slope and around to the next ramp. Foch and Bruneseau lowered their windows so the stubby barrels of their FAMAS rifles poked over the sills. Around they went, corkscrewing down four more empty decks. At each landing, Mercer paused to study the stern of the ship, checking to see if the guards had yet doubled back up the emergency stairwell. So far nothing.

Reaching the seventh deck they found it half full of BMWs of every size and color, a glittering array that sparkled like jewels. As Mercer began to twist around to keep descending, he saw two figures dash from around a car. He stomped the gas and the rear end of the Bentley twitched before traction control took over. A shout reverberated off the hold’s steel walls followed by the buzz of the Chinese type-87 assault rifles. The unexpected confrontation had left their aim off by several dozen feet but served to alert the rest of the team scattered throughout the huge ship. Bruneseau didn’t have time to fire back.

Mercer fishtailed the sedan around the corner, popping the brakes with his left foot while gunning the throttle with his right. The heavy vehicle bottomed out on the end of the ramp, leaving a shower of sparks as he repeated the trick and threw them into a four-wheel drift that cooked rubber from the tires. Stomping the accelerator again he almost had them down another level when a second two-man patrol near the stern spotted them and fired a wild barrage. The Bentley twisted out of sight.

Carlson whimpered with each violent turn.

“They know where we’re going,” Rene said as Foch prepared to fire out the window when they hit the bottom of the next ramp.

“No shit!” Lauren shouted back in a tone that sounded defensive of Mercer and derisive of Bruneseau. “What’d you expect?”

Mercer ignored the exchange and concentrated on his driving. Not knowing how many troops the Gazelle carried, he decided to get off the ramps and make a run for the stern on the next level.

The undercarriage scraped the deck again. Using his control over the pedals he managed to keep the Bentley in a low gear as he shot between rows of Volkswagens. The engine began to wind up, and when he took his foot off the brake the automatic transmission shifted and suddenly they were accelerating past forty miles per hour. Ahead was a wall of steel and a line of Jettas facing outward. So many years playing with his Jag in the crazy traffic around Washington taught him how to judge distances and speed better than most and he twisted the wheel at the precise moment. The car drifted closer to the little Volkswagens but missed them by inches as he lined up for the stern ramp. A lone soldier was at the bottom of the slope and looked up just in time to see the Bentley bearing down on him. He dove over the edge of the ramp and had almost vanished from their view when Foch put two rounds into his body.

Mercer turned at the next deck and had to drive around the lifeless body sprawled across the hood of a Mercedes ML-320 SUV. Unlike the other decks, which had eight feet of headroom, the ceiling here lofted at least twenty feet. Halfway down the length of the vessel, Mercer could see the drawbridge door cut into the starboard side of the auto carrier. Next to the larger stern ramp was a symbol indicating the lifeboat station was one deck closer to the waterline.

He also noted that this level was nearly full of cars. Only two long alleys running toward the bows allowed any kind of movement. He suspected that the next deck down would be even more fully loaded to keep the ship’s center of gravity low. He braked at the stern ramp. “Everyone out.”

“We have one more deck to go.”

“Use the stairs. I don’t think we’ll have any room to maneuver the car down there.”

Lauren reached for the door then noticed Mercer hadn’t shut off the engine. “Don’t even think about it,” she said sharply, a strong hand on his wrist ready to pull his hand from the steering wheel.

He didn’t meet her eye. “If I don’t distract them, you’ll never get clear.”

“We stay together,” she snapped.

“On the midship ramp!” Foch pointed with his rifle to where two men ran at them. He was about to fire but Mercer reached behind him and pushed off his aim.

“Get going, the car’s blocking their view.” Behind the idling Bentley was a door to the stairwell. “Keep sharp but it should be clear. I think the gunship’ll be gone by now.”

“What about you?” Lauren’s eyes had dilated.

Fear or concern, Mercer mused. “I have no intention of sacrificing myself. Just be ready to pick me up.”

“How are you getting off?”

Mercer pointed to the upright loading door in the distance. “I’m going to fly.”

“Are you out of your—”

He cut her off with a shove when Foch and Bruneseau reached the staircase door with Carlson. Reluctantly she joined them and Mercer took off with a squeal of rubber.

The big Bentley was just a few inches narrower than the alley left between ranks of Mercedeses and he misjudged the gap, clipping the front of one SUV only to careen into the rear of another opposite it. Both side mirrors were sheared off by the brutal hits. Four more times he pinballed back and forth before centering the Continental. Idly, he estimated each hit would cost about ten grand to repair. The soldiers coming down the ramp saw him approach, held their fire until they were ensured hits, then opened up. The body of the Bentley absorbed the light rounds like armor and Mercer barreled at them without check. Only when they saw that fracturing the windshield and blowing out the four headlamps weren’t going to slow the relentless charge did they think about their own safety.

Like hunters facing a rampaging elephant, the two Chinese turned and started back up the ramp. Mercer was thirty feet behind and closing fast. One soldier managed to leap out of the way at the last second; the other was clipped in his hip and hit an unforgiving steel bulkhead fully eight feet above the deck. He was alive but his pelvis was shattered.

Mercer spun in a tight one-eighty and drove down the ramp again, racing across the deck for the loading door. He misjudged his skid and the car’s fender crumpled against a buttress. The contact hadn’t done any more than ruin more of the Bentley’s coachwork but a series of airbags exploded around him. Although the bags deflated almost immediately, the damage was done.

He cursed his stupidity.

The only thing making his plan to jump the car from the hold into the canal even remotely possible was the protection afforded by the multiple airbags. Without them the impact would be like hitting a concrete wall at forty miles per hour. He wouldn’t trust his life on the Bentley’s seat belt alone. The deploying of the bags meant he was stuck on the ship.

With an angry jerk he jammed the transmission into reverse and backed toward the stern ramp. Even as his own predicament became critical, he still had to think about the others. If he didn’t keep the Chinese occupied, they’d never get clear. He powered up the ramp, leaning on the horn to draw the attention of any of the roving soldiers.

Once he thought he saw one of the Chinese troops, but it turned out to be a member of the ship’s crew. He tried to shout to him to find cover but the Japanese crewman didn’t look like he understood. Mercer flashed his FAMAS and the man scampered away like a startled deer.

He was on level five when he came across a group of Chinese near the amidships ramps. There were four of them, perhaps all that remained on board, clustered around a Mercedes SUV like the one that had broken the fall of their dead comrade. Seeing one of them open the driver’s door, Mercer recalled this deck had been empty when they’d passed through a few minutes earlier.

The other soldiers scrambled into the SUV and suddenly the truck was in motion. The ML-320 accelerated with the suppleness that Mercedes is famous for and halved the distance before Mercer could react. He punched the gas and shot up another of the stern ramps, feeling the Bentley come airborne at the crest before smashing down on its suspension. In the rearview mirror he saw the SUV giving chase and he smiled grimly. He was getting what he wanted. The others would get away. But at what price?

Hitting forty miles an hour again, he raced for the midship ramp. He ignored the distraction of the pursuing Mercedes and motored up one more deck before turning back to the stern, launching the luxury car across the hold like a javelin. This time he didn’t care that his approach to the downward ramp was off and the car slid into a bulkhead, crumpling more metal.

For five minutes he taunted the Chinese as they raced through the ship, keeping them close enough to maintain the chase but staying far enough ahead that they couldn’t get an accurate shot. He knew that he’d never get enough of an advantage to reach the top deck. Not that the open deck would afford him any help. Because of the ship’s towering height, a leap over the side would be fatal. The most he could hope for was to buy Lauren time. He figured it would take her and the others ten minutes to launch the lifeboat and get clear of the auto carrier—maybe fifteen in total to reach Gamboa.

Mercer could have kept this up long enough except Sergeant Huai, driving the Mercedes, had other plans. When they sped down to the deck where the other SUVs were parked, he ordered two of his men to take vehicles and try to corner the Bentley by blocking off both sets of ramps several levels up. He lost only a few seconds in his pursuit and quickly reacquired the luxury sedan without its driver becoming aware that the noose was tightening.

Several more Japanese crewmen and a few officers in white uniforms had appeared in the holds, unsure about what they were seeing but feeling some compulsion to keep witness to the wanton destruction of so much of their cargo. When they reached Tokyo, they would have to explain to a great many people why dozens of cars had been totaled. Even they had a hard time believing a car chase had erupted within the confines of their ship between terrorists who’d arrived on helicopters. One officer even videotaped the battered Bentley being pursued by the ML-320 with hopes of assuaging irate car owners. And perhaps selling the tape to a television show.

Tempted to throw a jaunty wave to the cameraman, Mercer instead showed his weapon in hopes the crewmen would take cover. Yet they remained rooted like slack-jawed statues. He checked his watch, noted it was barely eleven o’clock in the morning. He also saw he’d given Lauren her fifteen minutes. If he hoped to survive the chase, it was time to end it now and surrender, hoping that the Chinese would rather interrogate a live prisoner than dump overboard the body of a dead one.

He was amazed, after what he’d been through since last night, that he had lasted as long as he had. Driving an unfamiliar car through the steel confines of a cargo ship required a level of concentration that he was rapidly losing. Now that he was ready to give up, it seemed his body had anticipated it and was beginning to shut down. His eyes burned from fumes and exhaustion, and he felt as deflated as the airbags draped across his lap.

He planned to park the shot-up Bentley in the middle of one of the open levels and wait next to it with his hands raised. Just in case the Chinese weren’t accepting captives, he wanted to get clear of the Japanese sailors and steered toward the midship ramp. He was doing twenty miles per hour when he reached the gently sloping ramp, and for a split second his concentration wavered, focusing again on the sailors as they watched him drive away.

Refocusing on the ramp, he saw the black snout of a second Mercedes SUV barreling toward him. Mercer didn’t have time to even take his foot off the gas. Panicked, he cranked the steering wheel without looking where he was headed. The Bentley’s left wheels dropped off the ramp with a crash as the other two maintained traction for a second longer and the heavy car began to roll onto its side. There was enough speed for the car to drag across the deck in a painful rending of metal before it flipped onto its roof and halfway to its wheels again. It settled back onto its roof and lay with its wheels turning desultorily in the air.

The seat belt did its job keeping Mercer secure, so all he suffered was a moment of disorientation and a crack on the head from the door pillar. Gravity pulled him out of the seat and he crawled from the overturned vehicle. Before the two SUVs braked in front of him, he had his fingers laced on his head.

Three soldiers jumped from the trucks, two with assault rifles, the other covering him with an automatic pistol. Mercer saw he was older than the others and guessed he was in charge. Taking heart that they hadn’t already shot him, and not knowing what was coming next, he gave the man a tired smile. “Tell your sales manager that this car just wasn’t up to my standards. Maybe I’ll take the Rolls-Royce instead.”

The soldier’s glacial expression didn’t change as he motioned Mercer to his feet. Mercer stood, a little shakily, and waited. The Chinese leader was shorter than him, but with a heavier build. He looked nearly fifty, but that in no way detracted from his physical presence. Mercer could tell he was a professional, a veteran in his country’s service, and about the toughest looking son of a bitch he’d ever seen.

The vet moved past Mercer and peered into the overturned car. His expression was grim when he looked back at his captive. The two men sized each other up for what felt like a long time.

“Sorry, pal,” Mercer said. “One of us is as good as you’re going to get.”

“Where?” Sergeant Huai barked. He didn’t understand Mercer’s exact words but got the meaning—gone.

Mercer never saw the blow coming. Sweeping a leg between Mercer’s, the old soldier pounded the heel of his hand into his sternum and dropped him to the deck. By the time Mercer realized what had happened, Huai was kneeling by his side with his pistol jammed against his throat hard enough to make Mercer gag.

“Where?” Huai asked. He showed no trace of exertion.

It didn’t matter anymore. Lauren had to have realized Mercer wasn’t coming and by now she was safely at Gamboa. Bruneseau would be securing ground transportation even if they waited around to see if somehow he did escape. His reason for resisting was gone, but he hoped there’d be more to come.

Angering his captors any further would gain him nothing and would likely make any follow-up interrogation that much worse. Not that he believed there was such a thing as mild torture. Mercer studied the dark eyes boring into his. The soldier seemed to be searching for a reason to pull the trigger. Mercer wouldn’t give him the excuse.

“Lifeboat,” he croaked. “They took the lifeboat as soon as we landed. I stayed behind to distract you.”

The soldiers engaged in a quick conversation in Chinese, refining the translation of the answer. Huai turned back to Mercer without easing the pressure on his pistol. “Where they go?”

“Cruise ship,” Mercer replied without hesitation, feigning total defeat. “Unless you’re willing to slaughter three thousand people, they’re gone.”

Huai didn’t need to hear the rest of the explanation. He heard the words cruise ship and understood the others were beyond his reach. Equal measures of anger and fear coursed through his body. Liu Yousheng was going to kill him. There was no alternative, and for a moment the old sergeant considered not going back. But thirty years in the military had all but erased thoughts of personal safety. He’d taken an oath those many years ago and his decades of service had strengthened it, built it up, made it into an armor that excluded all other considerations. He had to go back and face his superior. That was what he’d been trained to do. He could only trust that learning what his prisoner knew would be enough to save him from Liu’s wrath.

That took care of his fear. His anger he took out on the man lying beneath him. Without warning, Huai threw a punch to the point of Mercer’s chin that contained only half his strength yet was more than enough to knock him unconscious.

Without handcuffs, it was easier to guard a comatose prisoner than a motive one.

“Throw him in the back of the truck,” he ordered his men. “Just in case, we’ll check the lifeboat station then get to the chopper.” He plucked a walkie-talkie from his belt and called to the other driver he’d sent out to corral the Bentley, ordering him to police the ship for the body of their one comrade and the other who’d been critically injured. He then called the pilot waiting in the Gazelle to get ready to clear out.

Ten minutes later they took off. The Gazelle flew west, where Liu had another secret project under way, thirty minutes behind the gunship he’d ordered away from the canal when he’d landed. In his wake he left a JetRanger helicopter crashed onto the car carrier’s roof, about two hundred spent shell casings, and a million dollars’ worth of luxury automobiles that looked like they’d all lost a demolition derby. Huai had confidence that when the vessel’s master reported the incident to the authorities, Liu’s government contacts would deflect any investigation toward drug smugglers or modern-day pirates.

That would explain away what had happened here, but what about what had occurred at the lake? Three other people had seen the excavation. They probably knew what it meant and would report it straightaway. It was a costly failure, to be sure, but again Liu might be able to save the operation. He had so many on his payroll that the nature of the excavation could be disguised. In order to do that, Liu would need to know exactly who the American trussed up in the hold worked for.

As a professional soldier, Huai knew the importance of interrogation even if he found the methods barbaric. He had no problem engaging an enemy in a fight and using any means necessary to accomplish his goal. It was a soldier’s calling. But torturing a captive to extract information was the work of another breed of men altogether—men without any sense of honor or the sacrifice of combat. They were like vultures who descended on battlefields to pick apart the bits of useful offal. They would crow over a piece of information, carry it back to their shadowy masters still covered with the blood of their victims as if it were a badge of courage.

A political officer had been sent with Huai’s detachment to Panama. It would be his job to handle the questioning sessions. Sun was his name, and no one was willing to spend enough time in his presence to learn his first name or his proper rank or title. He was simply called Mr. Sun, an irony not lost on the few soldiers who knew the English word. Sun was the darkest man any had ever met.

With a cadaverous skull sucked in at the cheeks and temples, he appeared to have no flesh at all. His skin was so dry that flecks often fell away when he moved, like a lizard caught halfway through a molt. Whatever his skin affliction, it also affected his hair, so his scalp was covered by a patchwork of graying follicles he combed over to hide the bald spots. His head was too large for his slender body, as if a burden to his thin neck. Huai guessed that Sun was in his sixties but the man’s odd appearance could hide an age swing of ten years either way.

In an unguarded moment on the flight from China, Captain Chen had confided in Huai that Sun had headed the Chinese program to interrogate American pilots shot down during the Vietnam War. Because of advances in technology and tactics, the prisoners China had kept following the Korean War had long since outlived their usefulness. The last of them had been put to death in 1959. Needing a new source of intelligence concerning Western military doctrine, the PLA saw an opportunity in the jungle conflict and paid the North Vietnamese with arms and training for hundreds of pilots. The first, an A-6 Intruder pilot, had arrived at a facility in central China in 1966 and lasted until 1971. During the course of the program, Chen had heard that Sun had overseen the torture of more than two hundred men, and had only lost funding when the last of the aviators died in 1983. Since then he’d been “working” with dissidents and most recently with suspected leaders of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Wiping his face and head, Huai glanced at his prisoner. The man had regained consciousness and gazed idly out the window. He almost looked like he was enjoying the flight. The American saw that he was being observed and gave Huai a little smile, then winked.

And the man wasn’t faking it, Huai thought. He must know what was coming, and yet didn’t seem concerned. By allowing himself to be captured, the American had to realize that he’d be interrogated, tortured, and yet had chosen it over simply letting Huai’s men gun him down. The captive seemed content with his choice. If not anticipating, at least accepting of the inevitable outcome.

Sheer bravado or real courage?

Huai shuddered, knowing how Mr. Sun would find that answer on his quest for the truth.