River of Ruin

The Twenty Devils Mine Cocle Province, Panama

Beyond the office windows, Liu Yousheng could see the side of the mountain had been sculpted back so it resembled the type of terrace farm seen all over southeast Asia. Rather than leveling land to produce flat plots for planting, the heavy machinery tearing into the hill searched for one of the most precious metals in the world. Of the different types of gold mining, strip mining is by far the most destructive. The mountain was being eaten, as if by a cancer, its flanks peeled away systematically to get to the gold-bearing ore underneath. The raw earth appeared red, rich in iron oxide—rust—but still it looked as though the soil bled from its wounds.

The deal he’d reached with former president Ochoa was that the open mine would be refilled once they reached the end of the ore strata, called a banket reef. With him out of the way, and the pliable Omar Quintero now living in the Heron Palace, Liu no longer concerned himself with the ecological devastation. The jungle would eventually reclaim the pit. In two hundred years or so.

Another earlier concession to Ochoa that Liu could now ignore was the installation of a state-of-the-art processing plant to ensure none of the mercury used to separate gold from the crushed ore escaped into the water table. Liu had yet to activate the plant. Same went for the rolling mill that used monstrous drums filled with metal balls to pulverize the ore to a fine powder. It had lain idle since its construction.

The only machines in operation at the Twenty Devils Mine were the excavators, dump trucks, and bulldozers that endlessly pulled down more of the mountain the geologic reports said was the best suited for his operation.

He reflected how those reports had cost a fortune to come by. Drill crews had been hired to take hundreds of core samples, consulting geologists brought in to interpret the data, and an army of workers employed to pan the rivers and streams that flowed down from the hills in the area. In the end, they said exactly what Liu knew they would, that this mountain was a virtual mother lode of gold. The bullion that had been in the Hatcherly warehouse was proof, with their newly designed Republic of Panama seals stamping them 99.99 percent pure. That gold was reported to have come from panning, drilling, and surface recovery.

Liu’s estimate that the mine would annually pump two hundred million dollars into Panama’s economy was, if anything, a conservative appraisal. Half a billion might be closer to the truth.

The office Liu had commandeered for his visit belonged to the mine supervisor and was strewn with papers, reference books and crates of rock samples. It was cluttered and smelled of the dirt outside and the faint ozone tang of a poorly maintained air conditioner. He turned back from the window overlooking the site and blew across his fingertips. Across the desk sat Mr. Sun, sipping tea brought by the supervisor’s Chinese secretary. Only the lowliest laborers in the pit were native Panamanians. All other employees belonged to Hatcherly through a dummy corporation.

“You couldn’t break Mercer with your needles, but think he’ll crack from regular torture?” Liu said, unconvinced about such a claim after listening to the tape from the interrogator’s just-completed session. “It’s a risk I’m not comfortable with. It’s imperative I learn what he knows before he dies.”

“Before learning the needles, I was well acquainted with traditional techniques,” Sun replied. “I know his thresholds now. He can’t keep anything from me.”

The phone rang in the outer office and the secretary buzzed Liu. “Mr. Shan for you, sir.”

Liu picked up the phone. Because of what had happened to Ping on the night of the warehouse break-in, Shan had become his chief assistant from COSTIND. “What do you have, Shan?”

“The Canal Authority completed their investigation of the auto carrier. Their findings haven’t been made public but they will say that it was an attempt to hijack the ship so that the automobiles could be stolen.”

“Good.” The money Hatcherly had used bribing the new canal director, Felix Silvera-Arias, was well spent. His influence not only guaranteed that new pilots were Chinese working for another division of Hatcherly Consolidated, but he could also sweep aside unforeseen contingencies like the fight aboard the car carrier. “What about the government. What do they say?”

“They’ll go along with the Authority’s findings, with the added recommendation that soldiers travel through the canal on each ship to act as guards.”

Liu considered then dismissed the implications. A couple of bored Panamanian conscripts wouldn’t be a factor during the last phase of the operation. “Doesn’t matter. What’s happening at the lake?”

“Work has already resumed. We’ve dispatched additional guards to tighten the perimeter.” Shan faltered, “We may want to consider bringing in more soldiers from China, sir. We are stretched thin.”

“Out of the question.” Liu’s voice didn’t betray the anxiety he felt at the thought of having to beg more help from Beijing. His position back home was tenuous. Any sign that he couldn’t handle Red Island would bring swift action from COSTIND, his removal from Panama being the easiest punishment, his execution the most likely. Unconsciously he blew on his fingers again, yet spoke smoothly. “We are fine with the troops we have.”

“Yes, sir,” Shan answered.

“In a few hours I will know who we are facing, and what their goals are. That information will allow us to determine where our soldiers can be best deployed.”

“What about calling on President Quintero to dispatch some of his troops to the lake. We would need to legitimize the site somehow, a gold prospecting expedition or something, but that would give us reinforcements.”

“Good idea.” He could almost hear Shan swelling with pride. “I will call him, but I’ll ask him to send men here instead. Unlike our work at the lake, there’s nothing here they can see to compromise us.”

“And sir? Gemini,” Shan whispered the name, uneasy speaking the esoteric code word aloud, “is loaded and standing by.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Liu said quickly, for he too was uncomfortable on the open line. “Is there anything else?’

“No, sir.”

“I’ll be back in the city shortly. I’ll see you then.” The executive hung up the phone. From his coat pocket he removed a bottle of liquid antacid and took several swallows.

Across the desk, Sun watched him as if cataloguing the weakness if he ever needed to exploit it. He did that to every living thing he saw. It was instinct.

Liu mentally shuddered at the reptilian gaze and quickly put the bottle away. “You heard what I told Shan. I need that information from Mercer.”

“Once his body adjusts back down from the needles, I can employ the other methods.” Sun glanced at his newly acquired Swiss watch. “About four hours.”

This time Liu shuddered physically.

Studying the louvers that covered the air vent above the door, Mercer saw where he could get his screwdriver. Buoyed yet fighting mental and physical exhaustion, he had to make sure that there were no guards posted in the building before he got to work. He took the metal lid off the chamber pot and smashed it against the door handle, waited for a second and hit it again. Though producing a god-awful sound, the crash of steel against steel wasn’t enough to damage the heavy knob.

That would come later.

He kept it up for ten minutes, and when no one appeared to challenge him, he decided it was time to get to work. He dumped the contents of the slop bucket back into the bowls and inverted it in front of the door. The added height gave him enough leverage to insert the lid between two of the grille’s slats. Panama’s brutal humidity had so weakened the metal that when he yanked downward, one of the louvers broke free and dropped to the floor. The piece of steel was a foot long, and with a little work he managed to blunt one end to a flatness approximating a regular screwdriver.

He turned his attention to the light fixture.

The field of mine engineering is a multidisciplinary one. People not familiar with the work assume it involves little more than digging holes. In fact, excavation is just part of the process. A good mine engineer must understand structural loading in order to keep a mine from collapsing, industrial ventilation to maintain breathable air, plumbing to remove seepage, and electrical mechanics to provide light for the miners and power to the equipment. While specialists are brought in to handle specifics of each field, the overall project supervisor must know them all. In a sense supervisors are jacks-of-all-trades, but unlike the Jack from the adage, they must be masters of them all.

Mercer approached the light fixture with the confidence of a professional electrical contractor. As he’d noted earlier, it was fed power through a one-inch steel conduit pipe clamped to the ceiling. Near where the pipe stuck through the block wall was a coupling that threaded two pieces of conduit together. Before unscrewing the coupling, he first needed to free the wires within it from where they attached to the light. He set his inverted chamber pot under the fixture and used his makeshift screwdriver to remove the screws holding the cover to the base. Two wires, one of them carrying the current, were attached by set screws as he’d anticipated.

He could have simply yanked them free and pulled the conduit from the ceiling to get what he wanted, but when the hot feed touched the inside of the pipe, it would short-circuit and trip a breaker. He couldn’t chance the breaker snapping off, alerting his guards. This demanded subtlety.

Knowing what he was up against, he unthreaded the conduit and unscrewed the clamps holding the pipe to the ceiling so that it dangled from the wires running through it. The section of conduit was about four feet long. Perfect.

Mercer stripped off his boxer shorts. Using the sharper end of his screwdriver like a knife, he sliced away the underwear’s elastic band, then cut the band into one-inch segments. Enough elastic remained for him to wrap his index and middle finger. Now came the tricky part.

He got back up on his bucket and loosened the set screw that held the return wire to the light. The rubberized material around his fingers protected him from the electric current flowing through the fixture. Next, he backed off the hot feed, making certain that both wires maintained contact with the light. He took a breath, mentally running through his next motions, then pulled the live feed.

The windowless cell was plunged into a darkness worse than a starless night. There was no need to wait for his eyes to adjust. They couldn’t. Until he was finished, everything had to be accomplished in absolute blackness. By feel, he poked the first of his elastic scraps over the end of the electrified wire, working it a quarter inch along its length before it butted against the plastic insulation coating. He kept adding elastic, like skewering a kabob, until the shiny wire was padded with the nonconductive material.

Very carefully, he stepped off his bucket so the dangling conduit slid down to where he held the two wires. He made sure his insulated pads fit inside the pipe, then slowly drew the conduit over the wires. As delicately as a sommelier pulling the cork from a fine bottle of wine, Mercer eased the pipe away. If any of the insulating scraps came off, the hot feed would arc in the pipe, shock the hell out of him, and trip the breaker. He took five full minutes to slide the conduit from the wires, sucking in his first deep breath when the ends freed themselves and dropped to the floor. Mercer set down the heavy piece of steel, got on all fours, and located the wires by sweeping his hand along the concrete.

Once they were safely out of the way, he retrieved the heavy metal pipe. Moving like a blind man, he located the door. He measured where the knob was, hefted the pipe and brought it down with all the force in his body. His hands stung from the blow. He checked the handle. The direct force of the impact had loosened it.

Four more times he beat on the knob until the tortured metal simply fell away. A beam of light from the hallway shone in on the floor through the mangled lock mechanism, enough illumination for him to use his screwdriver to free the bolt from the door casing. A little hip check to the door and it swung open. He was free.

“Let’s see Houdini top this.”

Mercer had been left naked and armed with only a foot-long shiv and a piece of pipe. He had no idea what lay outside this building. For all he knew, the exit would dump him on a busy street in Panama City or Hatcherly’s terminal facility or some location he wasn’t even aware of. None of this mattered for a few seconds. He’d accomplished more than he had any right to expect.

Gripping his rudimentary knife and club like some post-modern Neanderthal, he set off down the hallway, ready for whatever came.

The scene around Roddy Herrara’s kitchen table couldn’t have been more morose. A gloom had settled over them that nothing seemed able to dispel. Roddy drank black coffee while Lauren sipped from a water bottle. Only Harry drank liquor, Jack Daniel’s from a shot glass he recharged from a bottle he’d bought. The other two adults looked like they wanted to join him but couldn’t make the effort to reach for the bottle. Miguel was the worst of the four.

The boy sat in his own chair but had moved it so he could be closer to Roddy. His face was desolate, inconsolable. His dark eyes, once bright, had dulled from the crying. Lauren would have given anything not to have told the boy that Mercer was gone.

He’d been so excited when they returned from the safe house, expecting that the object of his hero worship would be with her and Roddy and Mr. Harry. Even at twelve he was perceptive enough to read their drawn faces. It was a testament to his inner strength that he hadn’t started crying until Lauren stooped to enfold him in her arms and mutter apologies in Spanish.

His tears brought hers to the surface.

The pall of hopelessness that settled over them back at the safe house had come from a single phone call from the French embassy. When the call came through, Bruneseau, Foch, and the other Legionnaires were planning their operation to infiltrate the Twenty Devils Mine. Much of what they accomplished was based on speculation about the site, but they’d nailed down the details of reaching the facility and getting back out again.

And then the phone had rung. The communications officer at the French embassy located at the very end of Casco Viejo peninsula didn’t even know what the code phrase he related meant. Bruneseau did and told the assembled soldiers and civilians.

“Like I said earlier.” He had a twinge of superiority in his voice. “The missing uranium wasn’t missing after all. That call was the embassy. The team of regulators in Japan found that the fuel wasn’t put aboard the ship. In fact there was no fuel at all. A glitch in the computer that controlled their scales added extra weight to the containment cask in Rokkasho. The scales in France were perfectly calibrated, so it appeared that two hundred kilos were missing, when in fact they were never there.” He lit a celebratory cigarette. “Our mission in Panama is over. We’ve all been recalled. Me back to Paris and Foch and his team to their regular barracks at the Ariane spaceport.”

Lauren gaped. All her work convincing the agent to rescue Mercer, or at least look for him, had been nullified by the call. She could see that Rene Bruneseau would do nothing now except put the whole debacle behind him and hope it didn’t hurt his career. If Mercer had survived the car carrier, she knew he wouldn’t last long in Liu’s clutches. The French represented her only chance at mounting a credible rescue. Now it was gone.

“You won’t do anything to help him, will you?”

“I have my orders,” Rene replied in the classic dodging of personal obligation behind professional responsibility. She’d heard it countless times in her military career. Blindly following orders had doomed millions to senseless deaths and that list was about to include Philip Mercer.

Foch wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“This won’t end here.” She had no idea what that threat meant or how hollow it sounded but she needed to say something. She stormed from the safe house, unable to be around the Frenchmen any longer. A few seconds later, Harry and Roddy joined her and they drove in silence back to Roddy’s house.

For the first hours back at Roddy’s they’d talked about mounting their own rescue. Lauren explained that going to the embassy would be a wasted gesture and that it would take days, if not longer, to hire locals. Her main contacts in the mercenary underworld had all died when the Hatcherly helicopter had used depth charges to release the CO₂ stored in the lake.

Now they sat with their thoughts, each feeling empty for the same reason.

Carmen Herrara was in the living room, knitting on the couch while her children played on the floor with coloring books. Framed behind her was an elaborate picture of Jesus, and only slightly smaller and a little lower on the wall was another of famed boxer and local hero Roberto Duran. She put down her knitting when the doorbell rang. Her eyes flew to her husband.

It was after eight P.M. Not knowing who would knock at this hour, he told her to take the children into the back of the three-bedroom home. Lauren moved next to the front door, her Beretta cocked and the safety off. Roddy swung it open and jumped aside.

“If Monsieur Bruneseau knew we were here, he’d kill us.” Behind Lieutenant Foch stood four of his troopers. Parked in the street was a rented moving van. “Mercer might not have taken the Legion oath,” Foch continued, “but he saved my life and Carlson’s. I ...” He looked back at the deadly expectation on his men’s faces. “We won’t leave him behind.”

The pause after his declaration lasted for many seconds as the emotions in the room swung one hundred and eighty degrees. Leave it to Harry to finally shatter it.

“ ’Bout time you sons a bitches showed up,” he called from the kitchen. “Foch, you’re even easier to read than Mercer. Knew you were coming the whole time.”

“If you knew they would help,” Lauren’s challenge was filled with delighted relief, “how come you’ve been sitting there as hangdog as the rest of us?”

Harry recharged his empty shot glass. “Needed an excuse to bend the elbow a few times. Now get your asses in here and let’s figure out how we’re going to get him back.”