River of Ruin

The Radisson Royal Hotel Panama City, Panama

Harry was on the couch teaching Miguel how to play poker when Mercer entered the suite. Roddy stood over the desk, talking on the phone, and two Legion soldiers sat with their backs against a wall as they cleaned weapons. Another Legionnaire was just visible in the bedroom where he covered the front door with an automatic pistol. He lowered it when he recognized Mercer.

The remaining French soldiers occupied a room next to the one the Herrara family was using. Foch had gotten off the elevator on that lower floor with Maria Barber, promising that he would only lock her in the bathroom until Rene returned from the embassy and he and Mercer were ready to talk to her.

“Mercer!” Miguel shrieked and raced into his arms, his smile dazzling. “Mr. Harry is cheating.”

“I’m sure he is.” Mercer set the slender boy back on his feet. “He cheats me all the time.”

“Damn kids these days,” Harry growled. “They expect to learn poker from a master and think they won’t lose a little money.”

Mercer whispered in Miguel’s ear and the boy ran back to the sofa. He reached under Harry’s cushion and extracted a fistful of cards. “You were right!” he cried. He plucked several dollar bills from the pile of money in front of Harry. “There,” he pronounced with the gravity of King Solomon. “Now we are even.”

Harry nodded, satisfied with the price his trickery cost him. “Seems fair since I lifted that money from Mercer’s wallet this morning.”

Mercer became aware that the shower was running in the bathroom. He shot a look at his friend.

“I almost had a heart attack when she called from the front desk to get the room number,” Harry remarked. “You could have warned me she was back from the dead.”

Mercer smiled. He’d called Roddy from the cab to tell him about Maria and Lauren, and what she’d said about the Gemini. He made Roddy promise not to mention her miraculous escape to Harry. “Consider it payback for the stunt you pulled in the hospital.”

Harry laughed at him. “Don’t think for a second that resurrecting a dead woman comes close to matching that practical joke.”

“You got some warped priorities, buddy.”

The shower snapped off, and suddenly the suite seemed very quiet. Mercer could feel time passing, but could do nothing to fill it. He had to wait until she emerged. Roddy hung up the phone and shook Mercer’s hand.

“Where’s Maria?”

“Downstairs with Foch. We’ll interrogate her when Bruneseau gets back from his embassy.”

“I was just talking with another canal pilot. He’s one of the last Americans still working.”

“And?”

“He’s heard a rumor that they’re shuffling tomorrow’s transit schedule. Nothing final yet.”

“Only a rumor? Isn’t he at his office?”

“His position with the Canal Authority is pretty uncertain right now. Since Felix Silvera-Arias was appointed director, almost all the older pilots have been fired, and those that remain have had their hours severely cut. They aren’t given much information anymore. My friend hasn’t worked in a week and doesn’t expect to be called into the office for another few days. I asked if he’d go to the administration building to get the revised list. He refused.”

“We’ve got to get that list,” Mercer pressed. “Did you tell him what’s at stake?”

“Yes, but he won’t do it,” Roddy said bitterly. “Since yesterday all off-duty employees have been barred from going to work. He’s heard guards have been posted and isn’t willing to risk going back.”

There was no need for Mercer to ask Roddy to get the manifest. The Panamanian almost looked eager to do it. “You’ll be careful?” Mercer asked.

“I’m friends with a lot of the staff there. I’ll be fine. As soon as I have the revised schedule, I’ll fax it over.” There was a fax machine attached to the suite’s telephone as a convenience to the hotel’s business clientele. “If I can’t get the new one, an old manifest will do. It’ll have information about the Gemini and give us an idea what to look for.”

“Good thinking.”

“Mercer, is that you?” Lauren’s voice was muffled by the closed bathroom door. It swung open in an excited rush.

Even with her breasts straining the front of the towel and the fact that the thick terry cloth ended just inches below her buttocks, the first thing Mercer noticed was the livid bruise around her right eye. The eye hadn’t swollen shut despite the puffiness, yet the dark purple and blue welt looked painful. Mercer crossed the room in four long strides, his face split by a soft smile.

Lauren was grinning.

He took both her hands in one of his and used the other to turn her head slightly. Feather soft, Mercer touched his lips to the bruise. The moment was so emotionally charged and so tender that neither trusted their voices for several long moments.

Lauren laughed softly, finally breaking the lengthening silence, and touched the wound as if it were a badge of honor. “If you think this is bad, you should see the other guy.”

“I knew you’d say that.” He enfolded her in his arms and she melted into him. He could feel the damp heat from the towel and her skin soaking into him. He wanted the sensation to last forever.

“Get a room, you two,” Harry groused. “There are minors in this one.” He ruffled a goggle-eyed Miguel’s hair.

Lauren reluctantly stepped from Mercer’s embrace. “Harry, you hugged me even harder when you saw me.”

“Yeah, but you were wearing a uniform that smelled like a wet dog.”

Mercer looked over his shoulder at his friend, his eyes mocking. “Jealous?”

“Damned right. I’m old, not dead.”

“Mercer,” Roddy interrupted. “I’ve got to go.”

Roddy had been working the phones since before Lauren arrived at the hotel so she knew where he was headed. She asked, “No one’s willing to get the manifest for us?”

“It’s up to me,” Roddy replied. “I should have something in an hour or so.”

“Watch yourself,” she cautioned. “Getting the schedule isn’t worth your life. If it looks like you’re going to have a problem, just get yourself out of there. We’ll figure out something else.”

They all knew he’d do whatever it took to get the list. Still, the words of warning were appreciated. Roddy nodded. “Thanks.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” one of the Legionnaires asked.

Lauren seemed to have forgotten the soldiers were here and leapt back to the bathroom in an embarrassed dash when she realized her half-clothed state.

“Thank you, no,” Roddy answered. “It’ll be tricky enough getting just myself inside.”

The soldier offered his Heckler and Koch P9S pistol. “It’s loaded. Safety is on the left side. Click it off and give the trigger a long pull to fire the first round.”

“No need to cock it?” Roddy asked, accepting the matte-black automatic.

“Oui.” The soldier gave him a second magazine. “Nine rounds each.”

“Gracias.”

“Pas de tout.” The soldier shook his hand by slapping palms and grasping Roddy’s thumb in a tight grip. “Bon chance.”

Roddy turned to Mercer, his voice steady. “You’ll talk to Carmen for me?”

“Talk to her yourself when you get back.”

Roddy paused at the door and smiled. “That’s what I mean. She’s going to kill me when she finds out I did this.”

“Get out of here.” Mercer laughed. The gravity of their situation had been suspended, at least momentarily, by the collective relief at Lauren’s miraculous salvation.

She emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, her hair still damp and shimmering. The duffel bag of clothes she’d lived out of for the past days had been brought to the room by Carmen Herrara, so she had on a fresh shirt and jeans. Mercer took a few seconds just to admire her.

Enough of that, he thought, and addressed the issues at hand. “Before you tell me how you survived the ambush at the lock, have you spoken with your father?”

Lauren took a seat, her elbows on her knees. “Yes. He was already in the National Military Command Center. That’s like the heart of the Pentagon, the place where senior officers monitor the world situation and make appropriate recommendations to the White House.”

“And?”

“And, well, not much,” she admitted. “This kind of thing takes more time than you realize.”

“But they are looking into it?”

She nodded. “He couldn’t get into specifics because we weren’t on a secure phone.”

“Where can we get a secure comm link?”

“That’s problem number one.” Fingers of wet hair swung down over her eyes. She swept them aside. “He’s already getting reports of a disturbance at our embassy.”

Mercer understood the implication immediately. “Liu’s trying to isolate us from getting help. We’re going to have to chance coordinating our efforts over unsecured phones. Better using land lines than cells.”

“Agreed. In fact, I should call him now.” Lauren reached for the phone next to her chair. Mercer picked up an extension near where he sat and Harry went into the bedroom so he could listen in. Miguel remained at the coffee table, practicing some of the fancy card shuffles Harry had taught him.

“Vanik,” the general answered after a single ring.

“Dad, it’s me. I’m back in the hotel with Mercer. He’s on an extension.”

“General,” Mercer said, “I’m sorry about the scare I gave you earlier.”

“Understood under the circumstances, Dr. Mercer,” John Vanik replied. “Hold one second, I’m transferring this call to another line. It should guarantee us a bit more privacy.” After a moment of clicks and squeaks, the general returned. “You still there?”

“Yes, sir,” Lauren and Mercer answered together.

“Have you debriefed that woman you told me about?”

“No, General,” Mercer said. “We have her, but we’re waiting for the French agent to return from his embassy before we talk with her.”

“Let me know as soon as you get something from her.”

“We will. We’ve also sent someone to the canal administration building to recover a manifest of tomorrow’s scheduled transits. Apparently the old manifest has been changed to accommodate Liu Yousheng’s expedited timeline.”

“You’re looking for a ship called Gemini?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve already had someone check with Lloyds in London. Appears to be six registered vessels with that name plus another dozen with variations. Everything from a Greek supertanker called Gemini Sea to a trawler in New Zealand just called Gemini. We have no way of tracking a fraction of them before tomorrow.”

“That’s why we’re getting the manifest, Dad. It’ll give us an exact time the ship’s going into the canal. How about on your end? Anything?”

“Maybe.” Vanik cleared his throat. “A refrigerator ship called the Korvald was seen leaving Shanghai harbor less than twenty-four hours after a special armored train arrived in the city. Security was tight during the transfer of eight individual payloads onto the ship. The operative on the ground couldn’t tell what they were but at least knew the count.”

“This came from the Taiwanese?” Mercer asked

“No comment,” the general said quickly. “The important thing is that the ship had been in port for five weeks without any kind of activity going on and it appears that nothing other than the cargo from the train was loaded aboard.”

“I doubt it’s a giant takeout order of Peking duck,” Harry White said.

“Who the hell is that?” Anger flared in General Vanik’s voice.

“Sorry, sir,” Mercer said. “That’s a colleague of mine.” He covered the mouthpiece and shouted across the suite, “Harry, keep your goddamned comments to yourself.” The octogenarian scowled.

“Any idea where the train came from?” Lauren asked her father.

“HUMINT wasn’t that good. This all happened about two and a half weeks ago, more than enough time for a ship like the Korvald to reach Panama. Can your friend verify if that ship is in Panamanian waters?”

“I’ll call him right now.” Harry hung up his extension and returned to the living room, where Mercer gave him Lauren’s cell phone.

“Could it be the missiles that go along with the launchers Lauren and I saw?” Mercer mused.

“CIA has been sitting on that piece of information since the ship sailed, but as soon as I got some analysts looking for eight rockets it took on a new meaning,” Vanik answered. “It had been filed away with the hundreds of other bizarre things the Chinese do every day.”

Like with so many rogue operations, the hindsight of combing old intel often revealed direct links that only looked significant after it was too late. Learning about the Korvald this quickly was a major break.

“What’s going on at our embassy?”

“A group of about fifty protestors are there. Marine detachment says they’re pretty riled up but haven’t done anything other than burn a couple of flags and prevent anyone from leaving or entering.”

“Liu’s cut us off.” Mercer repeated what he’d said when Lauren first told him.

“Appears so,” General Vanik agreed. “Worse still, if the Panamanian government doesn’t allow us to land troops, any Special Forces team we send down won’t have weapons and can’t get access to the armory at the embassy.” He added sarcastically, “Thank the Clinton administration for not pressing to keep at least one active base in the Canal Zone.”

Lauren knew a tirade was coming and headed him off. “Dad, if you can get us the troops, I’ve got the contacts to get the weapons down here.”

“To be on the safe side I did call General Peter Horner, the head of Special Operations Command. He’s put a team on alert status.”

“But no Go order?” Mercer asked.

“It’s no secret we’ve kept antiterrorism forces on standby ever since the World Trade Center attack. What is not widely known are the tight constraints put on their deployment. It takes some pretty solid evidence before we unleash them. There are serious implications of sending American troops to a sovereign nation like Panama.”

“They’re nothing compared to what happens if you don’t, sir.” Mercer’s ire leaked into his voice. Lauren shot him a look.

“We know what you’re up against, Dad,” she soothed. “But things are getting tense here. We need help.”

“I’m getting it for you. Don’t worry. Once we get confirmation from the French, I’ll get the authorization to divert the guided missile destroyer, USS McCampbell that’s currently in the waters off western Colombia.”

“Any combat troops on that ship?” Mercer asked.

“No, but she’s loaded with Tomahawk missiles and has been retrofitted with an experimental VGAS cannon.”

“VGAS?”

“Vertical Gun for Advanced Ship. It’s a 155mm precision weapon to be installed on the next-generation Battlefield Dominance Vessels. The gun can fire fifteen rounds a minute and can direct a stream of six-inch explosive shells like a fire hose from about eighty miles away.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. So don’t think I’m not supporting you.”

“I didn’t think you weren’t,” Mercer said respectfully. “Just so you know, General, the French agent, along with a team from the Foreign Legion, were in Panama tracking what they thought was a shipment of nuclear waste stolen off a ship in the canal.” Mercer could sense Vanik was about to go off again and spoke quickly. “The materials have already been found in Japan, where a clerical error had triggered the alert. I tell you this so you’ll know that’s what they were up to. It may help in dealing with them when they call to verify Lauren and my findings.”

“What’s the agent’s name?”

“Rene Bruneseau.” Mercer spelled it for him. Given the sensitivity of his mission, I expect he’s a ranking agent within the DGSE.”

“Okay. I have to go now,” the general said abruptly. “I’ve already traced this call so I have your number. I’ll call you with any new developments. You do the same.”

“Yes, sir,” Lauren answered automatically and hung up. She turned to Mercer. “What do you think?”

Mercer remained silent for a second, thinking about all that could go wrong and the slim chance that everything could come together in their favor. If even one thing went awry, any planned response to Hatcherly’s operation would collapse. He knew they were facing the longest odds he’d ever encountered, but true to his nature, he would go on no matter what. He looked at Lauren without a trace of pessimism. “We’re going to nail Liu to the wall.”

“Amen,” Harry said around a cigarette. “I reached Roddy. He’s just about to enter the admin building at Balboa Heights. I told him to check on the Korvald if he can.”

“If my father can get us some SF, I need to get working on securing some weapons.” Lauren reached for the phone again. “I lost some of my best contacts back at the River of Ruin when that Hatcherly chopper made the lake bubble up, but I’ve got a few people I can call here in the city.”