River of Ruin

Panama City, Panama

It was the alien feeling of crisp sheets that Mercer first noticed when he regained consciousness. He hadn’t lain on a bed since ... he thought it was Utah ... no, Paris ... but how many days ago? The question remained unanswered as sensations overloaded his body again. He slept.

The next time he came awake, he felt a presence nearby but couldn’t turn his head or even open his eyes. He smelled something pleasant, a combination of flowers and a sweet odor like mint, before the darkness overwhelmed him.

It wasn’t until the third time he remembered coming awake that he could crank open his eyes. From the fog, he saw a square of light to his left. He thought it might be a window, but he couldn’t make out details. A noise drew his attention to his right. A shape. A figure. He tried to wet his mouth with his tongue.

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling weaker than he could ever remember. When he opened them again, the shape had moved closer and resolved into a man wearing a dazzling white suit, with a solid red tie and elegant straw Panama hat. The eyes were kindly blue and his skin glowed from the light streaming into the room. Mercer’s vision was too blurry for him to tell if he knew the man. It was only when the mysterious person spoke that Mercer felt the jolt of recognition.

“How’s it going, Mercer?” Normally the voice was like gravel pouring through a rusted steel chute, but Harry White asked the question so gently that Mercer wasn’t sure it was him.

“That you, Harry?”

“In the flesh, so to speak,” Harry replied, lighting a cigarette from the tip of the one he was just finishing.

“You aren’t supposed to smoke in a hospital,” Mercer said after Harry gave him a sip of water through a straw. In the dim background, he could hear the sound of harps being played.

“We’re not in a hospital, but I’ll put it out.” Harry nonchalantly ground his Chesterfield into the palm of his hand.

“Jesus,” Mercer rasped when White dropped the crushed cigarette on the floor.

Harry looked at his watch. “Not for a few minutes.”

Confused by that statement, Mercer tried to shake the fuzziness from his mind. His body seemed to be floating freely under the sheets. “Did you use my credit card to buy the suit? You look like a million bucks.”

At eighty years old, Harry White was in better shape than he had any right to expect considering his daily alcohol and nicotine intake. He held himself ramrod straight and Mercer saw no sign of the walnut sword cane he’d given his friend for his last birthday. Regarding him through eyes that refused to focus, it appeared to Mercer that Harry’s face was unlined and the silver razor stubble that normally blurred his strong jawline had been shaved clean. Harry took off his hat and the backlighting looked like a halo around his head.

“This place tends to make you look good.” Harry took a long breath, then reached for his cigarette pack before remembering where he was.

“This place? Where are we?”

“Oh, God. Listen, pal, there’s no easy way to do this so I’ll come right out and say it.” Harry fiddled with his hat, procrastinating for another second. “On the cab ride to the airport to come meet you, an eighteen-wheeler jackknifed on the Dulles access road. My taxi hit the truck doing about seventy miles an hour. The cabbie just couldn’t avoid it. He, ah, he made it out okay, but I didn’t.”

Muzzily, Mercer said, “What the hell are you talking about? Are you trying to tell me you’re dead?”

“I’m trying to tell you we’re both dead, Mercer. Whatever you picked up in the Paris sewer was a lot worse than dysentery. The doctors did everything they could for you, but they just couldn’t save you. It’s funny. Considering all the crap you’ve faced in your life I thought you’d go before me. Now I’m glad I could be here for you. When I woke up from the car crash and realized where I was, my guide was a twenty-year-old kid who blamed me for getting him killed in World War Two.”

Mercer couldn’t comprehend what Harry was telling him. He heard the words, but they made no sense. Dead? He was dead. He felt like shit. Wasn’t pain a sign that he was very much alive? His confusion was written across his face and Harry spoke again as if he could read Mercer’s mind. “It doesn’t work the way you think it does. You’ll feel woozy for a while longer. Jesus or Saint Peter will be here in a while to explain everything. I’ll let you get some rest.”

Harry opened a door at the head of Mercer’s bed. A dark streak brushed by him and leapt onto the bed. It was Miguel. He hugged Mercer fiercely. What the ... ?

Harry’s saintly demeanor changed in an instant and his voice thundered, “Goddamnit, you little pipsqueak! You were supposed to wait for a few minutes.”

“But he is awake, Mr. Harry!” Miguel squealed, burrowing into Mercer’s arms. “You said I could come in when he was awake.”

“I said you could come in after I was finished talking to him. Oh, well, it’s blown now.” Harry used a handkerchief to wipe pancake makeup from his face. The skin below showed his eight decades of hard living. He moved to the window to open the gauzy curtain that had given the hospital room its heavenly glow. He also shut off a portable tape player that had provided the harp music. Lauren Vanik entered a second later wearing baggy shorts and an oversized Oxford shirt.

“What the hell’s going on?” Mercer looked from one to the other.

“Your friend Harry conned us into letting him pull a practical joke. He said if I didn’t help he’d burn that journal he brought.”

Mercer’s stare fell on Harry, noting the flash of merriment in his old friend’s eyes. “How did you do that thing with the cigarette?”

Harry suddenly looked hurt. “I pull the best joke of my life and you ask me about that old gag? I snubbed the cigarette against a coin I’d palmed.”

“I should have known this was a scam from the very beginning,” Mercer said as the full force of what Harry had just done struck home. This indeed was a caper to beat them all. “If I’d come to in a pool of fire with snakes on my bed and you were wearing a red cape and horns, then I would have believed we were both dead.”

“I thought about that but this building has sprinklers. How are you feeling?”

Mercer ignored Harry’s genuine concern. “I am going to get you for this, you bastard.”

The door opened again and in stepped a man of about forty. Medium height and trim, he had a full dark beard and a bush of thick hair. He wore a white robe and sandals.

“You’re too late, Roddy,” Harry greeted the newcomer. “Miguel already ruined it.”

This time, Mercer couldn’t stop the laughter. Harry had really outdone himself, going so far as to find someone to play a Latin Jesus Christ.

“Good, I feel ridiculous.” The ersatz Jesus pulled the robe over his head. Beneath he wore slacks and a colorful open-necked shirt. He smiled at Mercer. “Welcome back to the living. I am Rodrigo Herrara.”

“Roddy’s father served with me for a time as an engineer,” Harry explained. Before the incident that had claimed his leg in the 1950s, Harry White had been a ship’s captain, first for the U.S. Navy and then on tramp steamers in Asia. “After I got to Panama and learned that you were in the hospital from Captain Vanik, who I might add had the courtesy to meet me at the airport, I looked him up. Roddy’s dad died a few years ago, but he knew about me from his old man. Roddy’s a canal pilot. Or was until recently. He has three kids around Miguel’s age so he and his wife have been looking after him.”

Mercer shook the Panamanian’s hand. “I bet now you’re questioning your father’s choice of friends.”

“Sí.” Roddy Herrara smiled.

“Where am I and how long have I been here?”

“You’re in a private room at the Centro Medico Paitilla, Panama’s best hospital,” Lauren answered, giving Mercer more water. “You’ve been here four days. The doctors decided to keep you drugged while they pumped you full of antibiotics because your reactions to the infection were pretty violent. How do you feel?”

“Weak, but not as bad as I should.”

“Because they kept you hydrated they said you’d come out of it in decent shape. Also, you only vomited for eighteen hours, which I guess is pretty short for bacillary dysentery.”

“Considering Paris is the City of Love, why couldn’t you have gotten VD like normal people?” Harry quipped.

Like any child, Miguel intuitively knew he’d heard a bad word. “What is VD?”

Roddy gave a stern answer in Spanish and Miguel fell silent. “They grow up fast enough without your jokes, Harry,” he admonished mildly.

“What do I know about kids?” Harry said, mussing Miguel’s hair. He whispered down to him, “We’ll talk about it later.”

A nurse came in, snapping a terse order to let Mercer sleep. Everyone left after giving a few words of encouragement until only Lauren remained. She placed her hand over Mercer’s. That’s when he recalled the pleasant aromas from one of his moments of lucidity. Flowers and mint. The floral smell was her perfume. The mint was her toothpaste. For those scents to linger, he guessed she’d spent a great deal of time at his side.

She brushed aside a lock of his fever-brittled hair. “How long did you have symptoms before you got sick?”

“I started fighting it when we were in the tent. That’s why I raced to reach the plane. If I’d collapsed at the lake it would have taken too much time for you and Miguel to go get help.” He looked into her eyes. “But you getting me to a hospital was what really saved my life. Thank you.”

Lauren leaned in to kiss his forehead, her hair like a wave of silk that brushed his cheek. Her skin was flawlessly smooth and her neck so slender it appeared that it couldn’t support her head. Again he found himself fascinated by her bicolored eyes.

“From what Harry’s told me about you, I think you’d have made it without me.” She paused at the door. “When you’re feeling better, we have a lot to talk about. Roddy knows who owns that helicopter.”

Against his doctor’s orders, Mercer checked himself out of the hospital thirty-six hours later. He’d kept down his bland meals and felt his strength return remarkably fast. Because Lauren refused to tell him more of her findings until he was recovered, his desire to get to the truth more than overcame his shaky limbs. She and Harry accompanied him in the short cab ride from the hospital to Harry’s hotel.

The high-rise Caesar Park was located on the beach south of Panama City, a combination executive hotel and tourist destination. Mercer got stares from both groups as his friends led him across the tiled lobby. He could walk all right; it was his pallor that drew attention. True to form, Harry had used Mercer’s credit card to book a three-room suite near the top floor. A maid was cleaning up the countless room service trays when they arrived. Another attendant was restocking the depleted mini-bar.

Mercer collapsed into a plush captain’s chair. “And what’s this costing me a night?”

“More than the hospital room, I’m sure.” Unconcerned by Mercer’s scowl, Harry fixed them all drinks, triple Jack and ginger for himself, a vodka gimlet for Mercer and Glenfiddich in a highball glass for Lauren. “Roddy’s bringing his family to use the pool. When he gets here we can talk.”

Mercer spent the time in the bathroom while they waited, calling out once for Harry to make him another drink as he soaked in the tub. Lauren and Harry had done some shopping on his behalf, because in one of the bedrooms were clothes in his size. He threw on jeans, a polo shirt, and sneakers.

“I don’t trust your newfound consideration, Harry. What are you playing at?”

“I was hoping you’d cover the line of credit I blew at the casino,” the octogenarian breezed. “And let me use this room for a week or so. I haven’t had a vacation since God knows when.”

“You’ve been retired for years and you practically live in Tiny’s Bar.” Mercer’s tone was sarcastic, but teasing. “Your whole life is a vacation.”

Before Harry could launch a protest there was a knock on the door and four noisy children, including Miguel, tumbled into the room followed by Rodrigo Herrara and an attractive woman a few years younger than he. After quick introductions, Carmen Herrara took the eager kids back down to the swimming pool behind the hotel.

“You are looking well,” Roddy opined to Mercer after accepting a beer.

“The doctors said the best thing for me is rest and food, both of which are better here.” Mercer waved an arm around the opulent sitting room. “Lauren said you know something about the helicopter that attacked Ruben and his men. Thanks for coming over and sharing it.”

“I haven’t worked in four months,” Roddy said, the admission underscored with embarrassment. “Coming to this hotel is like Christmas for Carmen and the children. I should be thanking you.”

Mercer found his eagerness to learn more about the helicopter tempered. Despite the loss of his job, Herrara had taken in Miguel without question and Mercer owed it to the man to hear his story. More than that, he realized, he truly wanted to know. Roddy’s voice and demeanor bespoke of a pride not yet crushed by circumstance—a dignity that Mercer respected instantly. “Didn’t Harry say you worked for the canal?”

“I was a ship pilot until my license was pulled following a suspicious accident.”

“Suspicious?”

“Coming out of the Pedro Miguel Locks headed toward the Atlantic, the ore carrier I was piloting suddenly veered into the oncoming lane. We scraped a smaller freighter, putting a hole in her hull just above her waterline. Fortunately no one was hurt. The inquiry found nothing mechanically wrong with my ship so they determined it was my fault.”

Harry interrupted. “Roddy’s said the same thing’s happened to three other pilots in the same place. He said it was like they hit a powerful crosscurrent that forced them off course. The Pedro Miguel is just south of the Gaillard Cut, the canal’s narrowest point, and there are no currents nearby. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“The other pilots were fired too?” Lauren asked.

“Yes, replaced by Chinese men working for a company called HatchCo, Hatcherly Consolidated.”

Hearing the word Chinese jolted Mercer. Jean Derosier said that the man buying up the canal memorabilia at his auction was a Chinese businessman with ties to Panama.

Roddy continued. “That’s how I know about that helicopter. Captain Vanik told me the identification number you saw. It belongs to Hatcherly.”

“Is Hatcherly a Chinese company?” Mercer asked, to verify his suspicion.

“It’s headquartered in Shanghai. The local president is named Liu Yousheng. He’s about my age, but I understand he has a lot of power in the Chinese government as well as an enormous personal fortune. All of the new pilots are Chinese. In fact, most new canal employees are Chinese as well.”

“HatchCo isn’t the company that owns the ports at each end of the canal, are they?” Lauren asked.

“No, that firm is based in Hong Kong, although rumors about their control by the Chinese government run rampant. Hatcherly owns a smaller container port facility in Balboa that was once a United States Navy base. They bought it for one-tenth its value through bribery and intimidation that no one seems willing to investigate. HatchCo also got a lucrative contract to provide pilots and other canal employees. They’re supposed to hire locals but most jobs now are filled by Chinese immigrants.” His tone had become bitter. “Our union makes appeals to the new canal director, Felix Silvera-Arias, but he does nothing.”

“How do you know HatchCo owns the helicopter?”

“The identification number you and Captain Vanik saw,” Roddy answered. “The last letters are HC. Hatcherly owns a number of helicopters. You see them all over the Canal Zone. All have ID numbers ending in HC. They have a huge security force around their complex so I doubt someone stole their chopper.”

Lauren put into words what was burning in all their minds. “They’re the ones behind Ruben’s murder and the mutilation of Mr. Barber’s team.”

“And damned near killed us at the lake with the depth charges,” Mercer added, gratified to finally have focus for his anger. “We can probably add the attack on me in Paris to the list. I can’t believe that the three Chinese professionals who went after me aren’t linked to Hatcherly.” He still didn’t know the identity of the gunman who shot the street kid they’d hired to snatch the journal for them. “Harry, do you have the Lepinay diary?”

“It’s down in the hotel’s safe,” his friend replied, mixing himself a fresh drink.

“Good idea.”

“It was Lauren’s.”

Mercer’s urge was to have Harry fetch the journal so he could read it immediately. Somewhere within its pages there was a key to what was happening. Why else would someone try to kill him to get it? Yet he currently had an advantage his adversaries didn’t know about. The fact that their actions at the lake had been witnessed. They didn’t know he was now on their trail.

Hatcherly’s director in Panama, Liu Yousheng, didn’t have the Lepinay journal, nor could he be sure that the man his assassins had chased into the Paris sewers had emerged on the other side with it. Mercer could imagine Liu writing off the diary and putting the whole affair out of his head. The businessman also didn’t know that the very same witness at the lake had the journal now. This gave Mercer room to maneuver. It would still be a few days before he felt strong enough to pursue Hatcherly Consolidated and Liu Yousheng. He wanted to use that time gathering as much information as he could about the Chinese company and there were two people in the room who could help. If they were willing.

“Roddy, how much has Lauren told you about what happened at the lake?”

“We’ve all had several days waiting for you to regain consciousness to tell each other our stories, even how Harry lets you live in his Washington town house, although I don’t think I believe that part.”

Mercer laughed and shot the innocent-looking Harry a hard glance. “He just acts like it’s his place.”

“If you are going to ask me if I am willing to help, the answer is yes.” Herrara’s normally affable expression hardened. His brows sharpened over his dark eyes with a chilling ferocity. “Carmen and I talked about this after Captain Vanik first helped Harry find us. When she asked me if I happened to know anything about the helicopter and I realized that Hatcherly is involved, I knew I had to help. That is why she and I have taken in Miguel, so you don’t have to worry about him when you go after these bastardos. It is because of them I no longer have a job. We have been living on savings, hoping the union can get me reinstated. I’m trying to sell my boat and we will lose our house if nothing changes.”

“I can pay you—” Mercer began but saw how he had stepped on Roddy’s pride. He covered quickly. “—to watch Miguel until we can find his relatives in Miami.”

Shaking his head, Roddy replied, “What is one more small mouth when you already have to feed three.” But he knew that Mercer was trying to help his family and he desperately needed the money. “I will accept for the boy’s sake.”

“I need to be honest here, Roddy. These guys are ruthless. I’ll keep you out of danger as best I can, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

“You don’t understand, Dr. Mercer,” he countered. “That I may be in danger is exactly what Carmen and I discussed. I know the risks.”

“Thank you.” Mercer turned to Lauren Vanik. “I know you have duties to perform for the embassy, but we could use all the help we can get.”

Lauren twisted her arm over to look at her watch. “As of three hours ago, I am officially on a one-week personal leave. It means I have to give up a vacation to visit my brother in San Francisco next month, but I think this is worth it.”

Mercer captured her eyes with his. “I’ll make it up to you.” In just a few days, the two of them had been through a lifetime and he felt something more than gratitude.

“As for my part,” Harry said, distracting Mercer and Lauren from the look they’d just exchanged. “I will continue to host everyone here in the palatial suite Mercer has so generously given to me when I’m not otherwise entertaining the señoritas.”

“First of all, you decrepit lecher, the only way you’d get a señorita in here is if you paid her—”

“Ah, but prostitution is legal in Panama.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m paying for the suite so it’s mine. You are welcome to stay but if you bring a hooker in here I’ll hide your Viagra.”

“I do not use Viagra!” Harry roared. “Very often.” He turned to Lauren with a wink. “Actually it’s Mercer who pops those pecker pills like candy. It’s made his blood so thin it takes an hour for a shaving nick to stop bleeding. Quite tragic really, young man like him.”

Mercer could see that it hadn’t taken Harry long to charm Lauren. He had that way about him, part stray dog and part Fred Astaire. Before Harry could go any further, Mercer got them back on track. “What do we know about Hatcherly?”

“Quite a bit.” Lauren pulled a notebook from the knapsack she used as a purse. She opened up to the first page. “Once we knew it was their chopper, Roddy and I hit on our sources.”

“I have a cousin who works at their container facility,” Rodrigo offered. “He’s a forklift driver. One of their token Panamanians who’ll probably lose his job soon.”

Lauren checked her notes. “Their facility is fifty-seven acres, with seven thousand feet of berthing space for ships. They plan to add perpendicular slips to triple the frontage but for now they just have a long seawall. While they can handle about two hundred thousand containers a year, they’ve done very little business since opening. According to Roddy their fees are almost double their competition’s.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Mercer said.

“It gets weirder. Hatcherly just spent a fortune to buy the trans-isthmus railroad from an American company and installed a spur into their port. It’s coupled to an automated unloading and stacking system that can off-load a freight train and move the containers to designated spots until they’re ready to be transferred onto a ship. It’s done with an overhead cableway crane that only requires a few computer operators. They’re currently moving a little cargo by rail but nothing near their reported capacity.”

“That is why my cousin will lose his job. The whole thing is automated.”

“If Hatcherly’s up to something big, they’ll need to do it under cover,” Mercer said. “Do they have warehouses?”

“Several. And they’re huge.”

Mercer turned to Roddy. “Can your cousin get us in?”

“No. They have heavy security, many are former members of Noriega’s brutal Dignity Brigades, the troops responsible for the worst of the Pineapple’s atrocities.” Roddy used the contemptuous nickname of the Panamanian dictator the U.S. military ousted in 1989. The name Pineapple referred to the horrible skin on Manuel Noriega’s face. “The ex-Dingbats”—that name for the Dignity Brigades came from the American soldiers involved in Operation Just Cause—“patrol the perimeter fences, which are electrified and have motion sensors. There are also Chinese guards who regularly sweep the container yard. Somehow Hatcherly got permission to have them all armed with automatic weapons.”

“Bit heavy-handed to protect shipping containers that you can’t steal without a crane and an eighteen-wheeler,” Harry said. “We’ve got to see what they’re up to.”

“My thought exactly,” Mercer agreed. “What about coming in from the water?”

“There are powerful lights on the gantry cranes,” Lauren answered. “When you were in the hospital, Roddy and I went out on his boat. We didn’t get fifty yards from the place before they sent a patrol boat to escort us away.”

“Could we swim in somehow?”

“Maybe, but it would be risky. And we don’t know what kind of security they have on the quay. The whole place really is protected like a fortress.”

“So there’s no easy way in?” The extra security gave Mercer the impression that they were already on the right track.

“There is,” Roddy answered. “Well, not easy. But easier. We can come in the back door, so to speak.”

Mercer raised a questioning eyebrow.

“The railroad. Lauren and I talked about it. We can stow away in a container on a night my cousin is working. They unload the trains with forklifts until their cable crane is fully operational. My cousin Victor can move our container to a secluded spot and let us out. Once we finish looking around, he loads the container back on the train for the return trip to the Atlantic port of Cristobal.”

“How can we get into a container at Cristobal?” Mercer asked, noticing another quirk about Lauren’s eyes for the first time.

When just chatting about nothing of consequence, she turned her head so her warmer blue eye kept her expression candid and laughing. It was as the discussion became substantial that her face shifted so her more intense gray iris dictated her bearing. Her mismatched eyes were the only outward sign of this mental rebalancing. In their own ways, Mercer found both sides of her personality alluring. One was the epitome of Southern grace and deportment, the other a detached coolness that radiated competence. She was like two distinct people somehow reconciled within one.

“I’ve already worked it out.” Lauren leaned forward. “Three months ago an import-exporter I know over in the Colon Free Trade Zone had a son who was getting involved in the drug trade as a courier. He asked me to help set the boy straight. Pretending to be members of the National Police, Ruben and his men broke into his apartment one night. They roughed him up a little, took his passport and said if he tried to get it renewed they’d be back. Needless to say, the kid gave up his dreams of becoming the next Pablo Escobar.” She smiled at the memory. “The old man owes me.”

“And the Chinese guards?”

“Roddy said easier, not easy.”

“We need guns.” Mercer felt his guts slide even as he said it. Once again, he was putting himself in danger for a cause he didn’t yet fully understand. Ever since he’d accompanied a commando team into Iraq to determine Saddam Hussein’s uranium mining capabilities, the threat of violence had dogged him. He never sought it out. It was just there, a circumstance he seemed unable to avoid. But like the other times—Hawaii, Alaska, Eritrea and most recently Greenland—he felt an unnamable obligation to face it.

Lauren thought she recognized the tired look in Mercer’s eyes. Harry had told her some of his past and she knew he did not relish what they may be forced to do. She nodded slowly. “I’ve got that covered too. Roddy, if we’re lucky no one’s going to see us, but if we’re not... . Are you sure you want in on this?”

He didn’t hesitate. “I’m fighting for my family, perhaps a better reason than either of you.”

“No,” Mercer snapped. “You’re not coming. You might have a good reason, but you don’t have any combat experience.” He wouldn’t let Roddy orphan his children and widow his wife for this. “Lauren and I know what we’re doing. We’ve been there before.”

Roddy’s face went red with unsuppressed anger. He looked to Lauren for support.

“We can handle this ourselves.” She understood what Mercer was doing. “Your job’s going to be to learn as much as you can about Liu Yousheng. If we don’t find anything at the container terminal, going after him directly might be our only other option.”

Carmen Herrara and the children returned before he could reply. His three kids crowded around him, vying for his attention as they gushed about their day swimming. Miguel went straight to Mercer to show him the money an English tourist had given him for retrieving her sunglasses after they had fallen in the pool.

Reminded of what he was risking, Roddy caught Mercer’s eye. “I’ll do whatever you say.”