River of Ruin

Radisson Royal Hotel Panama City, Panama

Maria Barber made no effort to conceal her connection to Liu Yousheng and his operation, although she maintained that she didn’t know the Chinese were going to kill her husband at the River of Ruin. Liu had told her that he only wanted to frighten Gary off so he could get the treasure himself. Because she’d already admitted to tipping off Liu that Mercer was likely headed to the Pedro Miguel Lock, Mercer took her at her word. She was in so deep that lying about her involvement would gain her nothing.

All that took place in the first five minutes of their interrogation. The next fifteen were spent trying to learn if she knew anything about Liu’s future plans. Rene was skilled at asking probing questions, yet it became clear that she’d never been taken into Liu’s full confidence. She knew nothing about his intention to disable the canal, had never heard of Gemini, and had no idea who else in Panama was involved beyond Felix Silvera-Arias and President Quintero.

Sobbing, she summed up her role in one line. “Liu needed me at first, then just kept using me.”

She wanted to explain what she’d been promised, but no one listening cared. Lauren, if anything, was even more dismissive of Maria’s motivations. One of Foch’s men remained in the room with her as the others took the elevator back up to Mercer’s suite.

In the elevator up to their suite, Lauren said, “Why she prostituted herself doesn’t make her any less of a whore.” She let loose a string of profanity. When she’d regained her composure, she added, “I’m sorry, but women like that bitch sicken me.”

“That is quite obvious,” Foch said with an impressed smile. “And your mastery of the curse does the American military proud.”

“We have a problem,” Harry called from the sofa as soon as they entered the room. He was backlit by the afternoon sun. “Roddy phoned. He got the list and says it’s about to come over the fax machine. Then it sounded like he ran into trouble. Now he’s not answering his cell.”

A chill ran through Mercer’s body. “What kind of trouble?”

“Don’t know,” Harry admitted. “He said he thought he was being followed. That’s it.”

Just then the fax line rang and the compact machine began to whir. Lauren was closest and read the list as the pages emerged. Her worried frown deepened as she passed each sheet of paper to Mercer. The six pages made a circuit of the room, frantic eyes looking for the name they sought. None found it. It was Bruneseau who stated the obvious. “There’s no ship called Gemini.”

“Not even close,” Foch said.

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know.” Mercer’s face had drained of all color. “Gemini must be a code name of some sort, not the name of the vessel.”

Harry was the only one not entering the heated discussion that flew around the room. He sat calmly on the sofa, the list of ships’ names spread in front of him. Miguel sat at his side, looking along with him, although he could barely read English.

“Even if your father gets us troops, what’s the purpose?” Rene told Lauren. “We have no target.”

“We’ve got to do something,” she defended.

“Guys,” Harry called quietly, repeating it louder and louder until his ragged voice cut off all arguments. “If any of you knew the first thing about crossword puzzles you’d see the answer right here.” He rattled the first sheet of paper.

“What do you have?” Mercer recognized the triumphant gleam in his friend’s eye.

“The ship that Liu’s going to use to blow up the canal.”

Bruneseau’s impatience boiled over. “Out with it, damnit.”

“It’s the Mario diCastorelli, a bulk carrier registered in Liberia.” He checked the manifest again. “Says she’s loaded with twelve thousand tons of scrap steel and cement, but that’s gotta be bullshit.”

“Why do you say it’s the Mario diCaso-whatever?” Lauren asked.

“DiCastorelli. It’s an old crossword clue.”

“Mario diCastorelli is an old crossword clue?”

“No. Listen, what is Gemini?”

“It is a sign of the Zodiac,” Foch answered.

“That’s right.” Lauren brightened “The twins.”

Mercer saw it then. “Castor and Pollux. DiCastorelli.”

Harry looked smug. “I’ve seen Castor or Pollux as a clue for Gemini a hundred times. This has got to be our ship. She goes into the canal at seven A.M. on the Pacific side.”

“Good job, you cagey old bastard,” Mercer said amiably.

“One moment.” Bruneseau took the list from Harry. “I thought ships entered from the Atlantic in the morning.”

“Usually, but if you’ll see here, there are a bunch of cruise ships returning to the Caribbean.” Lauren pointed out the names of several PANAMAX cruise liners. “They always transit in the morning so the passengers get the full show. Remember the one we saw before crashing the chopper on the car carrier?”

“Jesus.” Mercer looked up sharply. “Any of them close to the Mario diCastorelli?”

She double-checked. “No. There are a few freighters in between, Robert T. Change, Englander Rose, and the Sultana , a container ship.”

“I wonder if that’s intentional, that maybe the canal director is trying to minimize the loss of life?” Harry commented. “You know, by isolating passenger ships from the explosion.”

“I’m not looking for altruism from these bastards,” Mercer said sourly. He had to ask Harry the time. “There are only about eighteen hours before that ship enters the Gaillard Cut. We’ve got to get a plan together.”

“I’ll call my father right now.” The phone rang as Lauren reached for it. “Hello. Roddy! Are you okay? Where are you? What happened?”

“I’m fine. I’m in my car. I was stopped by an undercover traffic cop who saw me pull an illegal U-turn. I’ll be at the hotel in a few minutes. You or Mercer didn’t tell Carmen, did you?”

“No, we didn’t tell her anything.” Lauren’s relieved laugh dispelled the anxiety in the room. “We got the list and found the ship. Harry figured it out.”

“Thank God,” Roddy breathed. “When I read it I thought we were sunk.”

“I have to get off this line,” Lauren told Roddy. “I need to call my father.”

“Okay. Hey, I’m going to spend some time with my family before I come up.”

“That’s a good idea. We’ll call you if we need you. I’ll send Miguel down too.”

“Good. Thanks. I’d like to see him too.”

Lauren hung up the phone and gave the others a brief outline of her conversation. “I’m going to use the phone in the bedroom to call my father,” she announced. “I’ve already tracked down weapons if he can get us Special Forces. It’s up to you boys to have a plan ready for when they arrive.”

Foch had a map of the Canal Zone ready. “We’re on it.”

She was still talking with the Pentagon when Mercer ordered up room service, and barely acknowledged when he left a steak dinner on the bed where she’d surrounded herself with pages and pages of notes. He could see some were drawings of the diving chamber and submersible she’d seen at the Pedro Miguel Lock. Others detailed Liu Yousheng’s compound outside the city and still others were revisions of weapons and equipment lists she’d secured from some of her local contacts.

Mercer considered himself lucky just for the brief smile she threw him and the dazzle in her eyes.

Back in the sitting room, the men tore into their meals. Lights were on, and out the window the skyline of Panama City resembled a constellation of fallen stars. Harry had given his watch to Mercer after the tenth question about time, so Mercer knew that twelve hours remained before the Mario diCastorelli entered the canal. About four hours after that it would reach the cut. If they didn’t get an answer from General Vanik soon, they would be on their own.

The air was thick with cigarette smoke, mostly from Harry, who was on his fifth Jack Daniel’s and ginger ale. Foch and Rene also added to the fog that made Mercer’s food taste like the bottom of an ashtray. He barely noticed.

They’d discussed countless operational ideas for taking out the Mario diCastorelli in the canal in the event they couldn’t disable her before she entered the waterway. Everything from a fast-rope rappel off the Bridge of the Americas when the ship passed underneath, to a helicopter assault, to blowing it apart with the VGAS cannon on the guided missile destroyer hopefully steaming into the Bay of Panama. All of these were ultimately rejected in favor of launching an attack from a small boat in Miraflores Lake.

Everyone agreed that assaulting the bomb ship before she reached the lake was too dangerous because of the possibility of an early detonation. A blast anywhere before she passed through the first set of locks would certainly level Balboa and likely cause damage as far away as Panama City. Hitting the ship in the isolated lake would drastically reduce collateral damage if the SF soldiers failed and the sailors on the vessel blew the explosives. And by risking a raid, they prevented the certainty of a colossal explosion caused by precision munitions from the USS McCampbell’s VGAS autocannon. It was a calculated gamble they would have taken even if they were assaulting the freighter themselves.

All eyes turned to the bedroom door when Lauren emerged. The bruise on the right side of her face had settled to a uniform plum color that matched a dark shadow under her other eye. The past week was taking a physical toll on her—on all of them.

“Well?”

Her somber mien suddenly vanished as she smiled. “We got ’em. General Horner, head of the Special Operations Command, is sending them down on a commercial flight so as not to tip anybody off.”

“How many?” Bruneseau asked.

“Six. Half a normal team. Horner is afraid a full dozen would alert the Panamanians.”

“That will be enough,” Foch surmised. “Modern freighters don’t carry a large crew. Also I would think Liu would reduce that number further since he only has a small submersible to take them off after the ship is blocking the Gaillard Cut.”

“When do they arrive?”

Lauren bit her lip. “That’s where it gets a little sticky. Their plane touches down at Tocumen Airport at eight forty-five.”

Harry was at the mini-bar again. “Where does that put the Mario diCastorelli?”

“She’d have just entered Miraflores Lake when they land.”

“How long does a ship like the diCastorelli need to cross the lake?” Mercer asked.

“About an hour and a half.”

“Jesus, that’s tight. Any delays at customs and we’re screwed.”

Lauren nodded. “That’s why I said it was sticky. It’s imperative that transportation at the airport is lined up and that a boat is waiting on the lake for them to use in the assault. There’s a small marina called the Balboa Yacht Club on Miraflores Lake near the Pedro Miguel Lock. That’s where we’ll stage.”

“Know anyone with a boat there?” Mercer asked.

“I’ll talk to Roddy,” she answered quickly. “From there, the commandos will be able to motor out to where the Canal Authority keeps a pair of spare lock gates anchored in the middle of the lake. They were put there when the waterway was built as one more redundancy to keep Lake Gatun from draining. Using the gates might give the soldiers a greater element of surprise.”

Mercer chuckled. “Exact same plan we came up with.”

“My father and I talked about it, General Horner agreed. This is the only way.”

“What about the destroyer?”

“The USS McCampbell will enter the Bay of Panama at about the same time the Special Forces land in-country.”

“So if we need serious fire support we’ll have it,” Mercer thought aloud.

“Can’t imagine we’ll need cannons and Tomahawks, but yeah, we’ve got them.”

“What about choppers?”

“She carries two SH-60 Seahawks. They’re antiship platforms. The crew’s stripping equipment out of one to use as a troop transport if we need it.”

Mercer’s grave expression showed how much he knew they were dancing on a razor’s edge. Lauren’s father had come through with commandos, an obstacle that Mercer had doubts could be surmounted, but it seemed that didn’t bring them closer to success. Again, so much could go wrong. Something as stupid as gridlock coming from the airport could derail everything. And that would leave Mercer, Lauren, and six Frenchmen, one of whom, Bruneseau, wasn’t a soldier, to assault the Mario diCastorelli and its unknown number of sailors and guards.

Looking around the room, he saw that everyone felt his level of commitment to carry out the attack if the Green Berets didn’t arrive in time. Remarkably, he noticed that Harry’s most recent drink was ginger ale with only a splash of whiskey for color. Even the old man seemed resigned to do his part if needed, not that Mercer had any idea what his part could be. Harry saw Mercer studying him and saluted with his tumbler.

No matter what they faced, there was no better team to back him up.

They called Roddy up to the suite to bounce their plan off him, using his knowledge of the country and the canal to refine it further. Thankfully, he had a friend who kept a speed-boat at the Balboa Yacht Club. “What can I say?” he said when telling them their good fortune. “I know a lot of people with boats. I’ve got one myself here in the city marina. A twenty-six-foot Sea-Ray. When this is over we can all go out together.”

“Oh, damn!” Lauren suddenly exclaimed. Everyone looked at her. “The weapons. I need ten grand to pay for them.”

“Ten grand?” Foch cocked an eyebrow.

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“Sacre bleu.”

“Anyone have that kind of money?” she asked.

Harry chuckled. “I’ve got it.”

“You?” four voices said in unison. Mercer just covered his eyes, knowing where Harry had the money.

“I opened a fifteen-thousand-dollar line of credit in the casino at the Caesar Park Hotel. I couldn’t have gone through that much.” He didn’t add that he’d opened the credit line with Mercer’s Platinum Card. “I can close it out and take it straight to the cashier. Easy as withdrawing money from a bank.”

“Any idea of the interest rate on that credit line?” Mercer asked with trepidation.

“Stop bitching,” Harry said mildly. “You’ve got the money. Besides, you can keep the guns when we’re done. They’d make great souvenirs for the boys at Tiny’s.”

Mercer conjured a mental image of the guys at his neighborhood tavern with automatic weapons. An M-16 was almost as tall as Tiny, and in Mike O’Reilly’s beefy hand it would look like a toy. He shuddered. “I’ll consider it a business expense and write them off on my taxes next year, thank you very much.”

“Your call,” Harry breezed.

Mercer looked to Lauren. “How are you getting the weapons?”

“My contacts will bring them by—” she checked her watch “—in an hour.”

“Then I’d better get rolling.” Harry got to his feet and grabbed his cane.

“Don’t think for a second I’m letting you go by yourself.” Mercer moved to head off his friend, who was already halfway to the door. He turned to the others. “We’ll be back as quick as possible.”

“You’re paying for the cab,” Harry was heard telling his friend as the door closed.

They returned fifty minutes later to find three extremely nervous Panamanians huddled in the suite eyeing Foch, Bruneseau and two armed Legionnaires. None of them was over thirty and all had the lean look of desperation. On the sofas lay three large bags opened to reveal a trove of weapons, mostly surplus American arms left over from the Contra War. Lauren maintained a running monologue in Spanish as she inspected each weapon, checking actions, the tightness of magazines, the overall condition. Foch and his two soldiers gave the bricks of ammunition a similar professional examination.

“Damn,” Harry remarked. “This must be what Sly Stallone’s dressing room looked like when he made Rambo.”

“Rambo! Rambo!” the gun dealers parroted when they heard the name.

“Lauren, what are we paying for these?” Mercer asked, keeping the bag full of cash close to his body.

“The pistols are two hundred, M-16s are a thousand. Ammo and combat harness are negotiable.”

Harry had already blown three thousand dollars at the casino so there was twelve thousand in the bag, more than enough to outfit the Special Forces in addition to him and Lauren. Foch had arms left to provide for his men. Mercer asked if he needed ammunition.

“We could use some 5.56mm rounds for our FAMAS assault rifles,” Foch answered. “We’re okay with 9mm for our H&Ks.”

Lauren purchased eight pistols and rifles, and spent the remaining money on ammo and combat vests. The Panamanians seemed pleased with the transaction and joked with her as they packed up the weapons they didn’t sell.

Mercer moved to her side so he wouldn’t be overheard and asked, “How do you know they won’t go straight to the police when they leave?”

Lauren laughed and translated the comment to the arms dealers. They laughed even harder. One of them reached into his wallet and showed off his ID. He was a cop. They all were.

“Call this cross-agency cooperation,” Lauren explained.

“I promised Freddie here the arrest of anyone involved in the plot once we’ve stopped the Mario diCastorelli. In fact, he’s going to take Maria Barber off our hands tonight.”

“But he’s still charging for the guns?” Harry quipped.

“Beesness es beesness,” the Panamanian cop said in a thick accent. He turned to Lauren. “Vaya con Dios, gringa.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow morning when the dust settles,” she told him in Spanish, and they shook hands. One of Foch’s men left with the officers to hand over Maria.

“Now we have soldiers, weapons, a boat, and one of the vans we’ve been renting.” Bruneseau accepted a cigarette from Harry.

“And a target,” Lauren added. “So far, so good.”

“Then why do I feel like we’ve missed something?” Exhaustion had turned Mercer’s voice gravelly. Part of him wanted a drink to relax and another part craved caffeine to keep him going. He settled on bottled water.

“We’ve been over it a dozen times.” Lauren sat on the couch next to him and casually took a sip from his bottle. It was such a familiar gesture that Mercer had to fight not to smile. Her leg was tight up against his and it would be so easy and right to put his arm over her shoulder. She seemed to be swaying into him as if inviting the touch.

“I can’t think of anything we’ve forgotten.” Roddy looked like he was sinking into one of the overstuffed chairs opposite them.

“That’s what bothers me.” Mercer rubbed his eyes and noted the time. Midnight. “We should all get some sleep. Meet here again at six? Will that give us enough time to get in position?”

Everyone nodded. Roddy and the Frenchmen made their way out of the suite while Lauren claimed woman’s prerogative and scooted into the bathroom first. Harry had just come from there so he bade Mercer a good night with a dismissive wave and closed the door to his bedroom.

Mercer remained on the couch, trying to pull together his fragmented thoughts. He gave up quickly, and sat there with his eyes closed.

“You awake?” Lauren whispered a short time later. She was so close he could smell toothpaste on her breath.

Mercer levered open an eye. She was bent over him, dressed in a T-shirt that just reached the top of her thighs. Her unrestrained breasts were at the level of his head and he had to drag his gaze upward. Her dark hair was brushed back from her face and her skin looked luminous from being washed. “If you heard me snoring,” he said, “then I was asleep. If not, I was silently cursing Harry for taking the second bed again.”

“Poor baby,” she cooed. “If it weren’t for tomorrow I’d invite you into mine.”

Mercer managed to keep up the flirting despite his racing heart. “If it weren’t for tomorrow you’d still be disappointed. I’m whipped.”

She smiled. “In that case, why don’t you come with me. I’m warning you that if you snore, I’ll make you sleep with Harry.”

“I’d do the same to you, but the old bird isn’t as much of a gentleman as I am.”

Her eyes danced. “I think I could trust either of you for one night.”

“What happens if I get a chance for another?”

Lauren took his hand. “You won’t be able to trust me.”