River of Ruin

Cristobal, Panama

It wasn’t claustrophobia that bothered Mercer as the large shipping container was shunted around the cargo terminal on Panama’s Atlantic coast and loaded onto the flatbed rail-car. The enclosed blackness didn’t affect him at all. If it did he never would have become a miner. What he hated was the disorientation of not knowing what was coming next. A sudden turn by the heavy-duty forklift slapped him and Lauren against the container’s wall and the slam of the box dropping onto the train came with spine-jarring abruptness that left the steel confines echoing.

“What next?” Lauren complained from across the darkness where she’d tumbled.

The diesel locomotive two dozen cars ahead lurched forward to test the couplings. Mercer had just gotten to his feet and had the floor pulled out from under him. He landed on his backside, cursing.

“I should have known.” She turned on a flashlight with a red filter lens. In its glow, her dark hair looked like ink.

“Didn’t Roddy tell the forklift driver to take it easy?”

“I think he was.” Lauren crabbed across the floor to sit next to Mercer as the train jerked again. “I feel like we’ve been stuffed inside an industrial clothes dryer.”

The train’s motion settled to the metronomic clacking of wheels over rails. It was a rhythm Mercer had always enjoyed. For a moment he could forget where he was, what he was about to do, and the Beretta 92 hanging in a nylon shoulder holster.

He and Lauren had ninety minutes before the freight train reached the Hatcherly terminal at Balboa. There, the last three cars would be decoupled while the remainder of the train continued to the larger container terminal farther along the canal. They had gone over their plan for two days straight, knew the layout of Hatcherly’s facility from diagrams drawn by Roddy’s cousin, Victor. Lauren had even taken Mercer to a pistol range to test his assertion that he knew how to handle a weapon. Though she’d beaten him at distance shooting, he had an intuitive aim for pop-up targets that she couldn’t match.

They had nothing to do for the next hour and a half and neither seemed willing, or able, to make idle conversation as the miles stretched out behind them. Mercer’s mind drifted back twenty hours, when he’d been eating off a teppanyaki grill at a Japanese restaurant with Maria Barber.

The meal had been delicious. The company remained as a bad taste in his mouth.

By the time Mercer had felt strong enough to attempt the infiltration, Victor Herrara wasn’t scheduled to work until the next night, leaving Mercer with a free evening. He’d hoped to spend it with Lauren but obligation had forced him to call Maria. A week had passed since she’d learned of her husband’s death, and while he got the impression that the loss wouldn’t cast her adrift, he felt he owed her a call. He didn’t like Maria, didn’t trust her and wouldn’t have called if she hadn’t been the wife of a friend.

She’d answered her phone so cheerily that he’d almost cut the connection. “Hello, Maria. It’s Philip Mercer.”

“Who? Oh, Mercer. Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for your call for ages.” The exaggeration in her voice made him think she’d been drinking.

“I had a little stomach trouble,” he answered warily.

“You’re feeling better now, yes? You promised me we’d go out when you got back.” Mercer recalled they were supposed to meet for a church service for her husband but that wasn’t what she was talking about now. “Are you free tonight?” she asked.

Why he’d said yes would remain a mystery, but he did.

“Wonderful. Where are you staying? I’ll pick you up.”

Mercer knew exactly why he didn’t answer that question. Their earlier conversations had pegged her as a gold digger, and if she learned he was staying at the Caesar Park he’d never get rid of her. “I’m at a hostel loaded with peace corps volunteers near some bus stop. Pretty nasty place, I might add.”

“Oh. Well, do you like Japanese food? I just love how they cook in front of you and do all those tricks with the knives.”

“Sure, that’d be fine.”

She gave him the address of Ginza Teppanyaki on Calle D and said she’d be there at eight.

Maria was sitting at the bar when he arrived and she leapt to her feet when she saw him, squealing like a long-separated lover. Her blouse was open low enough to allow her lace bra to peek out as her breasts slid against each other. Her jeans were so tight that the deep valley where they rucked between her buttocks carried around to the front in an obvious display of her sex. Mercer felt a flash of animal arousal, then annoyance at himself. Not only was she Gary’s widow, but such overstatement was truly vulgar. He had to wipe a smear of lipstick and saliva from his cheek and mentally brush aside her look of annoyance that he’d turned his face at the last instant.

In minutes, they were seated at a large grill table with some German businessmen who swilled thimble-sized sakes. At first Maria delighted at the chef’s skill with a knife and spatula, but when the young Asian missed flipping a shrimp tail into his hat she berated him in angry Spanish.

She would have caused a scene had a waitress not arrived with her third Mai Tai. Mercer had barely touched his beer.

“Do you want to know about Gary’s funeral?” Mercer asked, because she hadn’t.

“I suppose.”

He’d already decided not to tell her the truth, knowing that she wouldn’t care. Also he didn’t want her to have any excuse to see him again. “It went fine. The police arrived a few hours after you left and determined it was a guerrilla attack. My mugging in Paris and Gary’s murder really was just a coincidence. When I escorted Gary to El Real, those three guards I hired stayed behind. I’m not sure why. No one told me.”

“And no sign of Gary’s treasure?” She failed at hiding her avarice behind a neutral tone.

Mercer shook his head. “Listen, I always liked Gary. He was a good man. But I never believed there was a treasure. I’d told him that when he sold his gold mine in Alaska and started looking for lost cities and quick wealth. I think deep down he knew it too, and just kept looking for the fun of it. It was the kind of thing he’d do.”

“Yes, it was,” she agreed with a trace of regret. For herself, Mercer thought, not her quixotic husband. “What about the book Gary wanted?”

“Oh, that,” Mercer said indifferently. “It’s in Washington. I got kind of paranoid and didn’t want to bring it to Panama until I knew what had happened to Gary so I mailed it home from Paris. It seems ridiculous now. If you want it, I can send it to you when I get back.”

Maria’s eyes drifted around the room as she considered her answer. “It meant something to Gary. Not me.”

“I understand.”

“It was in El Real you got sick?” she asked to change the subject.

“On the flight back to Panama City. I went straight from the airport to a hospital. I only got out two days ago.”

“Poor baby.” She placed a hand on his leg. “Are you going to stay in Panama?”

Mercer shifted away as much as the cramped seating would allow. “No reason to. I’ve got a flight tomorrow morning.”

“That leaves us tonight.” The implied invitation made Mercer more than uncomfortable. It made him ill.

Struggling to keep revulsion out of his voice, he replied, “I don’t think so. My flight’s early and well ...” He trailed off, hoping she’d get the hint.

“Because I was Gary’s wife?”

“Well, yes.”

She lit a cigarette. “Did he think of me when he was out in the jungle wasting money that should have been mine?”

“Maria, I don’t know what happened between you and Gary, but I just want to go home and remember him the way I knew him.”

“And what about me?” The alcohol glint in her eyes turned feral. “How will you remember me? Or will you even think about how he left me nearly penniless? A widow with no future?”

Mercer had had enough of her petulance. Recalling her tears when they reached Gary’s camp, he knew this spoiled image of her was the correct one. Typical Gary. He’d wanted to save a barrio kid and got himself a grade-A bitch. Mercer slapped money on the table edge and stood. “Something tells me you’ll be okay.”

He left the restaurant followed by her shrill curses.

The train’s distant whistle snapped Mercer back to the present. He rubbed his cheek where she’d kissed him as if he could still feel her lips and the tip of her tongue. He shuddered.

“You okay?” Lauren Vanik asked. “Even in here I can tell something’s bothering you.”

He looked to her. How different the two women were.

Thank God. The crimson light distilled her face to ruddy highlights and impenetrable shadow. Her hair was now tucked under a watch cap that matched her black BDUs. She had a mirror poised to begin applying greasepaint.

“Just thinking about my friend Gary and his wife.” He readjusted the fifty-foot coil of climbing rope secured to the back of his web belt.

“I take it your date didn’t go well.”

Mercer hadn’t told her many details. “Not a date. Just a very sad get-together. I wonder if Gary knew what kind of person she was or if she hid it from him on those days he was back home.”

Lauren handed him the wax stick so he could dull any shine from his face and hands. “A woman that manipulative can hide her true self so easily it becomes second nature. And I hate to say that most men wouldn’t pick up on the subtle signs. Another woman can spot a phony in a second, but it’s not in a guy’s nature to look for the small clues. Believe me, your buddy died thinking he had the perfect wife.”

The conversation ended when they felt the train decelerate, the play in the couplings snapping closed like a string of firecrackers. “We’re close,” Mercer whispered, even though a shout would barely penetrate the container’s walls.

Another ten minutes trickled by as the last three railcars were detached from the train and shuttled into Hatcherly Consolidated’s main yard. They heard an occasional muffled yell from outside and the blast from a signalman’s whistle as the train was positioned for the forklifts to unload the two containers placed on each of the cars. Then came a metallic crash and suddenly they were in motion again as the crate was lifted from the train. Hopefully by Victor Herrara. If something went wrong, and he wasn’t the one driving them through the terminal, Mercer and Lauren could easily find themselves trapped in one of a hundred containers lashed to the deck of a ship on its way to the West Coast or Asia.

After bouncing over numerous sets of tracks and kidney-punishing rents in the pavement, the forklift eventually reached its destination and the container was lowered to the asphalt with a hydraulic sigh. Lauren extinguished her light. They waited for what seemed like an eternity until Victor rapped on the container with a hammer—his signal that it was clear.

A moment later the door swung open and Mercer stepped out into the moist night. In front of them loomed an enormous crane specially designed to move freight containers, its boom like a medieval battering ram. All around them towered ranks of containers like steel building blocks. In the distant glow of gantry lights Mercer could see one of the warehouses Victor had drawn on his map, orienting him to the layout of the terminal. Victor had placed them where Hatcherly stored their empty containers, a paved field that stretched for acres.

Victor was larger than his cousin, with dirty hair tied in a ponytail and a rather dim expression. Through the smoke of a dangling cigarette, he and Lauren spoke in low tones. Victor kept looking over his shoulder to where the bulk of the facility’s work was carried out, troubled that he had no excuse for driving the container so far away if a foreman questioned him.

“Sí, sí, sí. Gracias.” Lauren turned to Mercer while Victor looked longingly at the cab of his Kalmar 3500 reach-stacker crane. “We’re in luck. Victor says that there’s some big operation going on in the smallest warehouse. In the past couple of weeks Hatcherly’s completely emptied the building and no one other than a few Chinese workers have been allowed in. Last night a special cargo was brought in from a Chinese freighter. He thinks it’s being transferred out tonight.”

“Does he know what it is?”

“No idea, but he said that security around the building’s been beefed up.”

Mercer recalled Victor’s detailed drawing. “Wait, the smallest warehouse is the one that sits by itself surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire.”

“Yup.”

“Damn.” He thought furiously, finally looking up when he got an idea. Lost in the darkness above them were the guy wires for the cableway crane system, a grid of heavy-gauge steel lines that crisscrossed the terminal like a spider web. “Ask Victor if the cableway goes near the warehouse.”

“Yes,” she translated. “One of the cables passes in front of the building.”

“Can we climb up a support tower to reach the main cables and then crawl over the security fence to the warehouse?”

Lauren asked the stevedore and translated his answer. “Yes, but the cables are eighty feet off the ground so they don’t interfere with the stacked containers or vehicles.” Victor said something else and Lauren blanched under her camo paint. “Damn. The main cableways are made of three wires, two for holding the container grapple and one to supply electricity. It’s always hot.”

Their high-wire act just got doubly dangerous. “Ask him if there’s another way.”

Victor looked Mercer in the eye and said no.

“You afraid of heights?” Mercer asked. Lauren shook her head. “Electricity?” She nodded. “We’re in the same boat. How long until the train comes through to take us back to Cristobal?”

“Two hours.”

“Tell Victor we’ll be waiting.” Before setting off to find one of the support towers, Victor gave them each a pair of leather gloves he kept in his giant forklift.

Once they left the relative security of the deserted container storage area, Mercer began to feel the tension. There were thirty guards patrolling the facility and dozens more workers. Any one of them could shout an alarm. Considering what he knew of the company, he doubted Hatcherly would let them go with a stiff warning. More like a one-way ticket to China in a sealed container.

He drew his pistol and checked that the silencer was screwed on tightly. Lauren padded silently at his side.

Fighting the instinct to climb the first tower they came across, Mercer and Lauren needed to get closer to the warehouse in order to cut the distance they’d need to shimmy along the cableway. Lauren tapped him on the shoulder, pointing to a line of trucks that would provide partial cover. Step in step they moved across an open expanse of cracked asphalt, ever alert for a roving guard. In the distance, a large freighter secured to the quay was lit like a cruise ship, and gantry cranes methodically lowered cargo containers into her hold. The air was sharp with the smell of bunker fuel and diesel smoke.

Bent double, they edged along the row of silent trucks, careful not to let their motion draw attention. Once they reached the lead vehicle, they saw they next had to cross multiple sets of rail spurs. Longshoremen in dark overalls and hardhats worked on coupling a locomotive under the glare of pole-mounted arc lights.

Mercer slid onto his chest and crawled across the filthy ballast rocks, angling to pass on the far side of the train. He rolled off the last rail and into a wild tangle of bushes that had somehow taken root in the oil-soaked ground. Lauren reached him as a small forklift raced past.

“Jesus,” she breathed. “He came out of nowhere.”

“The closer we get to the warehouse, the busier it’s getting.” The approach of another truck forced them deeper into the bushes. The risk of discovery was growing too great and Lauren suggested they climb the next tower they came across. Mercer agreed.

The nearest support structure for the cable crane was fifty yards away. They dodged from their cover, racing hard for another group of containers that was halfway to their goal.

Thirty feet from the closest container, Mercer saw a figure suddenly emerge from around its far side. He raised his pistol just as a dockworker looked up.

Mercer dropped his aim, unable to shoot an unarmed man. He quickened his pace so his boots slapped. He was just ten feet away when the Panamanian opened his mouth to yell a warning. Without slowing, Mercer threw himself in a cross block that slammed into the worker’s chest, crushing him against the container. The man was doubled over, gagging to catch his breath when Lauren ran up and clipped the side of his head with her Beretta. He fell silent.

“Thanks.” Mercer struggled out from under the unconscious laborer. They stuffed the worker in the gap between two containers and waited in the shadows to see if anyone noticed. Everything appeared normal.

The support tower was a skeletal frame resembling a radio mast topped by a set of pulleys and gears for manipulating the cable crane. It reminded Mercer of part of a ski lift. Securing their weapons, he and Lauren climbed the integrated ladder. The machine was so new it had yet to show rust from the tropical humidity. Eighty feet up, they found a precarious perch and a vantage to check their location.

Beyond the terminal lay the main channel of the Panama Canal and on the far bank the lights of another dockside facility. A ship was passing up the canal on its way to the first set of locks at Miraflores, its lights reflected in the black water. Behind them was Quarry Heights, the former headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command. To reach their target, they needed to shimmy a thousand feet and cross over several other towers. The warehouse sat alone in its chain-link redoubt, and all but its roof was bathed in artificial light. Smaller than the other storehouses, it still measured about a hundred feet wide and at least four times as long.

Mercer studied the cableway. The two main lines shooting off into the darkness were about two feet apart. Up close they looked thick and substantial, tight braids of steel wire pulled so taut they felt like iron bars. But when he looked across the port, the wires became like a gossamer lattice over the facility, as insubstantial as thread.

“Are you ready?” he asked Lauren after they’d caught their breath.

“You did notice that they are using this system, didn’t you?” Lauren pointed to where a container glided silently across the night, held aloft by a grapple crane running along the wires.

“Victor said the warehouse is off limits. I doubt they’ll move any containers our way.”

“They’d better not.” Tentatively, Lauren took a step onto the tandem wires, bending over so she could grasp with her hands as well. Just over her shoulder, the electrified third cable seemed to hum.

“Careful not to get too close to the other wire,” Mercer cautioned as he followed her. “Your body may cause an arc.”

The cables were coated in grease and each step demanded attention before weight could be shifted. Their gloves became so slick they took them off, absorbing small cuts from the sharp strands rather than lose the control of direct contact. Like a pair of monkeys they shuffled along the wire, not daring to contemplate the eight-story drop. Below them, workers continued their duties without looking up to see the dark shadows moving along the cableway.

When they reached the next tower, Mercer checked his watch. Half an hour had already passed since their arrival at the terminal. At this pace, they’d only have a couple of minutes in the warehouse.

“I know,” Lauren said when she saw his expression. “I’ll try to push the pace.”

The hunched position cramped Mercer’s back and his legs began to tremble. His hands felt like claws. He looked down and saw an armed guard sheltered by towering walls of cargo pause to light a cigarette. The orange flare of his match looked as distant as a shooting star. That tiny lapse in concentration caused Mercer’s next step to be slightly off. His foot slipped from the wire.

As he fell, his body torqued over, forcing him to release one of the cables to keep his arms from pulling from his shoulders. Dangling one-handed on the greasy wire, Mercer watched horrified as one of his gloves fell from a pocket in his BDUs. It landed no more than five feet behind the Chinese guard. The man looked around slowly then shrugged before continuing his illicit smoke.

Mercer’s first stab of panic had sent enough adrenaline into his system for him to lurch upward to grasp the cable with his off hand. Fortunately his frantic effort wasn’t enough to shake the cables and jar Lauren loose. In fact she didn’t even know he’d nearly fallen. Panting, he hoisted one leg over the wire and muscled himself upright, straddling the two cables for a second to let his heart slow.

Lauren finally looked back. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

“Right,” he muttered, feeling tendons in his shoulders protest every movement.

Ten minutes later they crossed over the fence surrounding the warehouse, noting that guards had been stationed all along its perimeter, especially around its only gate. A string of large dump trucks idled just outside the building’s main doors.

The warehouse’s roof had just enough pitch to channel away Panama’s nearly seven feet of annual rainfall and was studded with air vents. Its peak lay about thirty feet below the cable. Once in position, Mercer pulled the rope from his back and tied a slip loop in one end. He lowered it until it brushed the edge of the building, then swung the loop back and forth until it caught around one of the vents. It took a dozen tries.

“A cowboy you ain’t,” Lauren teased.

He gave her a good-natured scowl and pulled on the rope to tighten the noose then tied his end to the cable. They could now climb down to the roof and be able to extricate themselves the same way.

A shift in the lighting drew Mercer’s attention. He looked up from his work and saw the mammoth grapple carriage trundling toward them like a mechanical spider stalking prey on its web. In its pincers dangled an enormous crate. It glided almost silently on the cables and the spotlight attached to the rig hit Mercer full in the face. The wires began to vibrate.

“Lauren, move!” They had seconds before the crane either knocked them from the cables or ground them under its guide wheels.

Without hesitation, she reached for the rope and slid down far enough for Mercer to follow. “Keep going,” he hissed. “The carriage will cut the rope when it crosses it.”

Hand over hand she dropped down to the roof. Mercer looked up as the first of the large metal wheels reached his knots. The crane didn’t even shudder. The knife-edged rollers simply sliced through the line. The rope seemed to dissolve in his hands. One second he was eight feet above the roof, secure, and the next instant he was falling through open space. He landed on his feet, bending his knees to keep the metal from rattling.

Lauren had had the presence of mind to haul in the severed rope before its free end dangled over the open doors below them. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I am until we have to get out of here.” Mercer looked up as the crane dolly rocked to a stop just past the last of the dump trucks. The cableway was hopelessly out of reach. They were trapped.

Captain Vanik seemed unfazed. “One of the first rules of conflict is that plans go to hell the instant they’re implemented. Let’s see what we can see and worry about getting out later.”

She moved out of the spill of light coming from below and found a roof vent large enough to see through. Feeling powerless by the turn of events, Mercer joined her. Through the vent he saw that the concrete floor of the warehouse was littered with more containers. Several men in military-style uniforms drifted in and out of his view. They appeared to be Chinese. He and Lauren moved from vent to vent, getting an idea of the building’s layout. They found a vent large enough to crawl through at the far end of the warehouse. Below it was a darkened second-floor storage level crammed with trunk-sized packing crates. The top of the nearest crate was only five feet below them.

Mercer twisted the cap off the vent and dropped through. He landed silently, his pistol at the ready. Nothing but murky shadow and dusty boxes. Lauren followed and together they crawled to the railing that overlooked the main floor. Along one wall of the warehouse were several large eight-wheeled trucks of a type Mercer didn’t recognize. He assumed the yellow vehicles were specialty cargo-handling cranes like the one Victor drove. Piled along the full length of the other wall was a towering hill of crushed stone that reached almost to the ceiling and stretched under the second-floor deck. A Caterpillar bucket loader sat at the base of the gravel mountain.

In a clear space at the center of the building, workmen were moving wrapped blocks of something heavy into the back of a van. Around them stood six or so anxious guards with assault rifles. Two men in suits surveyed the work from a short distance off, their heads close together as they spoke. Unlike the multiethnic workforce outside, everyone here was Chinese.

“Those weapons are the new Chinese type-87 assault rifles, a copy of the British SA-80 bullpup,” Lauren whispered so softly her voice was like a ghost’s. “Notice how the magazine is placed behind the trigger grip to make the weapon more compact.”

Mercer remained silent, watching.

Realizing he was more interested in the workers than the soldiers, she asked, “What are they loading?”

Each man took just one object from the stack on the floor, and struggled to carry it to the van. It was the small size and great weight that tipped Mercer off. His voice was suddenly hoarse. “Gold!”

No sooner had he mouthed the word than one of the supervisors stepped over and slid the cloth covering off one of the bars, revealing the unmistakable buttery yellow gleam. Lauren drew a sharp breath. Mercer had seen more gold than most people, rough nuggets and ranks of ingots at some of the big mines on South Africa’s Witwatersrand, and still it held him enthralled. He put a quick estimate of forty million dollars on the blocks being loaded into what he now recognized as a disguised armored car.

“Is that from the treasure your friend was looking for?”

Nodding, Mercer whispered back, “They must have found it when I was in the hospital and have already melted it down. For that much bullion they must have a smelter someplace in this building. That’s why none of the Panamanians have been allowed inside.”

“What about the cargo Victor said came in last night?”

“No idea.” The Chinese superintendent made some comment to the worker and they both laughed. The cloth was replaced and the gold bar went to join the others in the armored van.

“They’re going to smuggle the gold out of Panama?”

To Mercer that scenario didn’t make sense. “Why bother with an armored car when they can put it directly on a Shanghai-bound freighter? No, I think they’re going to transfer it to a bank.” Lauren’s exceptional eyes asked the follow-up question of why. He had no answer.

“Here’s something else to think about,” she said. “Those assault rifles the guards are carrying are only issued to China’s elite forces, like the first troops they sent into Hong Kong after the handover from Britain in 1997.”

He failed to see her point. “Meaning?”

“Meaning this operation has probably been sanctioned by the Chinese government.”

Mercer knew that after the drug trade, the second largest source of illegal revenue in the world came from the smuggling of art and antiquities. It was a multibillion-dollar business that garnered few headlines and even less resources to combat. Much of the activities were art forgery and theft-for-hire, but the plundering of archeological digs was fast becoming a huge business in its own right. Especially in South and Central America, where governments didn’t have the means to protect the hundreds of newly discovered sites. Most of the looting was carried out by locals, who would steal one or two pieces from a tomb then sell it immediately for a fraction of its value.

It seemed logical that someone with the contacts and wealth to operate on a larger scale would eventually organize a more systematic pillage. That’s what Mercer thought he’d stumbled across. Beginning with the attack in Paris, he’d always assumed that Gary Barber’s rival for the Twice-Stolen Treasure was a corrupt businessman. Jean Derosier had said a Chinese executive snapped up all the other relevant documents at the auction. That idea was further solidified when Roddy Herrara told them the helicopter belonged to Hatcherly Consolidated, run by a director named Liu Yousheng. Lauren’s revelation that only government troops possessed these weapons threw his assumption on its head.

The intensity of her stare was enough for Mercer to believe her deduction and rethink his earlier conclusions. At the time, Roddy’s suggestion that Liu had influence in China’s government hadn’t made an impression. Now it took on new meaning. Since the dawn of civilization, government officials commonly looted their own nations of treasures. Mercer’s experiences in Africa made him think it was almost a prerequisite. On a vacation to Egypt earlier in the year he’d learned that the tombs in the Valley of the Kings had been sacked shortly after a pharaoh’s interment by a band of thieves headed by the mayor of Luxor, the closest city. History had proven that only King Tut had escaped their well-organized raids.

But if the Chinese government really was behind this, it was no different than the Nazis plucking artwork off museum walls during their occupation of Europe. International law concerning recovered archeological treasures was murky when the origin of the loot was in question. Mercer had no idea who owned title to the Twice-Stolen Treasure—Peru, where it originated, or Panama, where it had remained hidden for centuries? He was damned sure, though, it wasn’t China.

What he was witnessing sickened him. Far from the monetary considerations, he was most bothered by the destruction of the ancient relics that must have been found at the lake. They represented a window to the past that had been melted down to innocuous gold bars so some Chinese commissar could add them to a ledger sheet. Unconsciously his hand tightened on his pistol. Lauren put a hand over his to stop him from doing something stupid. “We have to get out of here.”

“How?”

Lauren surveyed the building once again. Mercer could feel her concentration, almost see her thoughts as she juggled stealth, speed, and odds of success. Her answer came in short seconds. “There’s a shallow trough on top of the gravel pile where it lays against the side of the building. It stretches almost all the way to the front door and will cover us if we stay low and silent.”

“What about the fence outside?”

She had a ready answer. “I didn’t see any insulators so it’s not electrified, and the razor wire on top angles out to prevent people entering, not leaving. We can climb over no problem.”

Mercer glanced over the edge again. The top of the long gravel mound was about six feet from the wall, leaving a gully more than adequate to shield them as they ran for the far doors. The problem was reaching it. Because of the crates, they couldn’t get close enough to the wall to jump over the crest of the pile and land in the trough. No matter how far they leaped, they’d still end up on the mound’s exposed flank in full view of the smugglers. It was a gamble, but he could see no other option.

“All right,” he agreed. “Wait until they’re looking the other way and go. I’ll be right behind you. But be careful, the gravel doesn’t look like it’s settled so you may sink in it like quicksand.”

“Gotcha.”

She waited for the right moment with preternatural calm, her whole body coiled. When she launched herself, her movements were as graceful as a gymnast’s. Her leap took her to within five feet of the hill’s summit, but the impact sank her up to her knees in the loose stones. Even as she began struggling up the mound, Mercer jumped after her. He absorbed a brutal blow by intentionally landing spread-eagle to disperse his weight. Chest aching, he hauled on Lauren’s arm and scrambled for the crest. Dust powdered his clothes and stuck to his greasepaint. A sheet of gravel slid to the concrete floor in a hissing wave.

Mercer rolled over the top and almost had Lauren to safety when he heard a shout over the sound of the idling trucks outside. They’d been spotted.

He expected a few seconds for the guards to organize. He didn’t get it. Two soldiers opened up with their assault rifles the instant the alarm was raised, their weapons echoing in the building’s confines. Lauren began to slither along the trough. The 5.8mm rounds kicked divots in the gravel and blew wedges from the hill’s sharp peak. A shower of pebbles pinged off the metal wall and peppered her back.

He took off after her, feeling the jagged edges of the stone dig into his hands and knees. The air was full of shrapnel and cloying dust. The deafening fusillade suddenly ended. Lauren stopped moving and Mercer was about to prompt her on when a figure loomed to their right, a guard who’d climbed the sloping bank of gravel. Her silenced Beretta spat once and the man tumbled into the trough, prompting a fresh barrage. It sounded like a hundred guns were screaming to get at their rocky defile.

“There’ll be more,” she warned savagely.

Each foot they wriggled forward brought them no reprieve from the scathing attack. The Chinese raked the entire pile, holding their aim only where several of their comrades assaulted the hill to fire down the channel along the wall. Trusting Lauren to keep their front clear, Mercer concentrated on their flanks and rear.

A head appeared over the crest twenty yards behind him. He took a snap shot that plowed into the crest of the mountain and prepared for counterfire. Instead of a burst from his type 87, the Chinese soldier heaved a grenade in a long parabola. The bomb smacked the top of the hill and bounced back down its long face. It landed near the armored car. There was a scream followed by a sharp explosion that rocked the building to its foundation.

Without the need for stealth, Mercer and Lauren jumped to their feet, running hard for the exit. Another grenade sailed into view, a perfect toss that placed it only ten feet in front of them. Mercer rushed forward to grab Lauren around the waist and threw them both out of the ravine. He landed on his back with her clutched to his chest. As they slid down the pile, Lauren cycled through the remains of her magazine to provide cover fire. The second grenade detonated in a gush of gravel that blew across the warehouse like grapeshot from a cannon.

They hit the floor side by side and raced behind the Caterpillar bucket loader. The warehouse’s open doors were clear and they took off, Lauren changing out her magazine without losing stride. The twin grenade blasts were bound to bring reinforcements and they were still trapped inside two different perimeter fences.

“Now what?” she panted.

“This way!” Mercer said as soon as they were outside. Armed men stationed at the gate were just now coming to investigate. He threw himself under one of the idling dump trucks parked near the warehouse and sprang to his feet on the far side. Keeping low in case there was a driver in the cab, he crept forward until he could see the operator’s seat in the wing mirror. Empty. He opened the door and launched Lauren into the tall truck with a shove to the seat of her pants.

“Stay down,” he said and jammed the transmission into gear.

The dump truck snarled when he pressed the accelerator. The cab shuddered. Pulling out of line, the front fender clipped the dump body of the truck in front of them, the sheet metal tearing as easily as paper.

“You do know what you’re doing, right?” Lauren taunted, much more calm than Mercer.

“Hush.” He ground up through another two gears and raced the truck toward the gate.

By the time the soldiers in the warehouse realized their quarry was escaping, Mercer was almost abreast the break in the fence. The troops caught the fleeing dump truck in crossfire, but the vehicle’s thick hide turned away their bullets like the armor on a tank. In the wing mirror, Mercer glimpsed weapons spitting tongues of fire before a bullet disintegrated the glass. And then they were past the gate, careening across the main part of the Hatcherly terminal.

“We have to get to the fence that rings the entire port.” Lauren used the tail of her shirt to wipe camo paint and sweat from her face.

“Which way?” Mercer swerved around a row of containers, scattering the workmen who’d been helping a forklift driver. As yet, he didn’t think the regular workers knew there was a pair of fugitives running around the facility.

“Back through where Victor first let us out. It seemed more deserted than around here.”

Mercer cranked the wheel over. The tires barked in protest and for an instant the truck seemed light on one side before it settled back on its suspension. All around them, startled workers and guards gawked at his driving. One of the guards must have gotten a call over his walkie-talkie because rounds suddenly sprayed the side of the truck. “They’re on to us.”

They were going too fast for Lauren to accurately return fire, which left evasion as their only course. Mercer weaved the truck as best he could. Even empty the rig was top-heavy and tippy. More guards were alerted and it seemed that no matter where he steered, soldiers were waiting in ambush. The windshield had taken a dozen hits or more. He could feel that several tires had been shredded. He found cover by steering toward a parking area littered with ranks of shipping containers.

It was like running a maze, he thought. The containers had been stacked in rows that intersected at right angles, creating canyonlike lanes that seemed to lead nowhere. He couldn’t see far enough to know if he was heading in the right direction. The track was too narrow to turn the vehicle, so he pressed deeper into the labyrinth of containers, hoping to spot an outlet down any one of the numerous side branches.

“Oh, my God!” Lauren pointed ahead with a trembling hand.

Slicing through the air as if by magic, a bright green container swooped down the chasm directly at the dump truck. Above it Mercer could barely see the grapple carriage of the cable crane. The container had been lowered to just a few feet from the ground on stiff hawsers. There was no way he could avoid the head-on collision. Although their arrival from an unexpected corner of the facility had escaped notice, Mercer realized bitterly that surveillance cameras had tracked their escape in the ten-wheeled truck.

Standing on the brakes so the smell of burned rubber became overpowering, Mercer intentionally crashed the truck into one wall of containers, making sure the rear end broke loose and completely blocked the road. The flying container was fifty feet away, silently speeding toward them.

“Out your door and run toward it.”

“Are you nuts?” she shrieked.

“Do it.” Mercer reached across her lap and threw open the passenger door. As roughly as he’d pushed her into the cab, he tossed her back out, jumping to the ground on her heels.

He took her hand and ran at the cargo box, now just ten feet from them. The gap between the container and the pavement was only a couple of feet, and if the unseen technician remotely operating the cable crane realized what they were doing he could drop the box on them with the force of a hydraulic car crusher. Mercer held his breath and dove for the ground, pulling Lauren after him.

The bottom of the box hurtled an inch over his face, its passage stirring dirt from the asphalt. The air became fouled with the smell of stale rust. And then it moved beyond them. Mercer jumped to his feet and didn’t look back at the collision about to take place.

The container was traveling at thirteen miles an hour when it hit the truck, but it was its forty tons of mass that did the damage. The box barely swayed at the first impact. It crushed through the corner of the big rig, tore the front wheel off its suspension and then ripped the sixteen-cylinder engine off its mounts. Fountains of diesel from severed fuel lines ignited like oil-well blazes. Inertia tossed the motor through the cab an instant before the huge crate sliced it from the chassis like an enormous blade. Only when the container struck the dump body did it begin to push the twenty-ton truck across the pavement, rolling it over and over once the back axle had snapped. A lake of burning fuel spread like a flickering veneer. Gravel drizzled from where the container’s skin had split.

By running at the container, Mercer had saved them from being caught up in the carnage.

They turned two corners and put a hundred yards between themselves and the collision before pausing. Mercer was more winded than Lauren, his body not as recovered from the dysentery as he’d believed. She recognized that his strength was flagging and immediately took point, leading them from the high walls of the container maze.

“Look.” She pointed ahead to where the port’s perimeter fence stretched across a field of waist-high grass.

“How are we going to get over it? It’s electrified.” Even as Mercer said this, bullets sparked against the trailer providing their cover.

They dashed to a maintenance shed, swinging around its far side. Lauren unscrewed her pistol’s silencer to get better accuracy and took a two-handed stance, her body hidden, her eyes expectant. A moment later, two guards ran from their cover position. She triggered her weapon twice. One dropped and remained still while the other managed to drag himself behind a pallet of roofing shingles.

“He’ll have a radio,” she panted. “We’ve got to go now.”

“The fence?”

Lauren took off without answering. Mercer struggled to keep up. He felt like he was wading through molasses, his legs were so rubbery. A fifty-foot strip had been mowed on each side of the chain-link fence, creating a killing lane patrolled by the Panamanian guards who once did Manuel Noriega’s dirtiest work. At the edge of the strip, Mercer and Lauren both saw four camouflaged men studying their patrol sector over the sights of their M-16s. Keeping to the tall grass, they tried to find an area not so well defended, their route taking them farther from the main part of the facility. After three hundred yards it was apparent that the ex- Dignity Brigade troopers were perfectly spaced and disciplined enough to remain at their posts despite the gunfire they must have heard.

There was no way out of Hatcherly Consolidated.

“We have to go back and try to get on board the ship at the pier,” Lauren suggested in a ragged whisper.

Mercer looked back at the glow from the quay, now a half mile distant. He spotted three vehicles speeding toward them, each armed with a light machine gun on a pedestal mount. They were trapped against the fence. He turned to her, his voice grave. “We’ll never make it.”

The pronouncement collapsed Lauren’s determination. She seemed to deflate. They hadn’t been spotted yet, but the trucks drew closer and the gunners swept the grass with spotlights secured to their weapons. They had seconds.

Without warning a section of the twelve-foot fence exploded inward. The broken electric field arced and hissed before the whole stockade shorted out and fell silent. Automatic fire raked the two Dignity Brigade guards not blown flat by the detonation. The pursuing trucks skidded to a halt and the three gunners opened up. Streams of tracers cut like lasers. A flaming streak shot from the darkness beyond the fence and one of the trucks somersaulted as the shoulder-fired rocket impacted on its hood.

In the seconds before the two remaining gunners recovered, dark shapes slipped through the breach in the stockade. Their gunfire cut down a pair of Panamanians running along the ribbon of mown grass. In less than a minute, the unknown gunmen had secured a beachhead in the facility. Without knowing who their saviors were, Mercer and Lauren scurried toward the gap.

“Allons! Vite! Vite!” a voice called as the rescuers fired past the fleeing duo and pinned the Chinese behind their trucks.

The extraction was well choreographed. The mysterious commandos fell back in twos but always kept Mercer and Lauren moving toward the fence. There were at least ten of them, each moving silently except when their high-tech guns barked. They maintained cover fire until reaching a dark van parked across the deserted road that abutted the Hatcherly port. The side door was open and a driver waited in his seat. Half the commandos followed Mercer and Lauren into the vehicle while the others ran ahead to another van. The two trucks became anonymous after driving a couple of blocks.

“Thank you,” Mercer said after everyone had untangled themselves and found a seat.

“De rien,” the closest soldier said and shrugged casually.

That was when Mercer realized the troops were speaking French. What in the hell ... ? And then he understood. Certain who he would find, he crawled over the second-row bench until he was in the space between the front seats. The driver glanced over and smiled.

“They say the Foreign Legion was always a moment too late for a rescue,” the man joked. “I think maybe they did all right this time.”

Mercer just stared at the man responsible for saving his and Lauren’s life—Rene Bruneseau, the security director from Jean Derosier’s Paris auction house.