Spy

“I don’t drink. But I’ll make an exception. Yeah, give me a hit of that stuff. Might help if you poured some on my arm.”

Sharkey reached inside the box and grabbed the half-empty bottle of Bacardi. Luis was handing it to Stoke when he got shot.

Stoke had heard the muffled crack of a serious gun. At the same time he looked up and saw Luis spin around, blood spraying from his right shoulder. What the hell? Luis kept spinning around, arms spread out like some wounded paraplegic ballet dancer, trying to figure out where the damn bullet had come from.

“Get down before he shoots you both in the head!” he screamed at Luis Sr. on the flying bridge.

Two more rounds thudded into the thick wooden topsides. Harmless, but for sure attention getting.

“Shit, man, I’m hit! My good arm!” Luis said, dropping back down to the deck. “Damn! Where is he? Where’d that shot come from? I didn’t see anybody.”

He started to raise his head above the gunwale, but Stoke grabbed his belt and yanked him back down, looking at his shoulder. Just a scratch, a little red furrow in his skin.

“Stay down, damn it! And tell your father to do the same!”

“Look at him, man, he’s a sitting duck up there on the bridge! If he comes down that ladder, he’s dead.”

“Yeah, so tell him to stay put and stay down. Maybe the shooter can’t see him up there because of the angle. Tell that old man to sit tight up there and keep his head down.”

Luis shouted words to that effect in Spanish. His father nodded his understanding and then smiled down at Sharkey.

“Courage, my son,” the old man said in English. “God helps those who trust in him. He can save us if he will. Nothing is impossible to him. But if he thinks it is good to call us to him, do not be afraid. We will not be separated.”

Stoke just looked up at the scrawny geezer and shook his head. You never knew.

“Where’s the shooter, boss?” Luis asked, the two of them peering over the gunwale.

“Got to be that little island over to port,” Stoke said. “See? Where all that debris is washed up. I thought I saw something moving over there just before we splashed. Shit! You got any weapons on this boat?”

“Yeah. We keep a gun up forward, under Papa’s berth.”

“Pistol or rifle? Say rifle.”

“We got semiautomatic rifle. It’s mine. Special stock and grip so I can fire it with one hand. A Ruger mini-14. Mags hold thirty rounds.”

“Perfect. I want you to go up there and get it. But you stay down below the gunwales, Luis. I don’t want any heroics here. Just go forward and get me that gun.”

Sharkey crawled on his belly toward the open door. Stoke hadn’t liked the look on his face. The kid was obviously scared shitless.

In case Luis needed any more incentive to keep his head down, the shooter fired two more rounds and took out the portside windows in the pilothouse, showering the two men with bits of glass. The shooter was either a lousy shot or he had a shitload of ammo and didn’t care. In any case, he had to be dealt with in a hurry. Stoke did not want to pass out and leave Luis and his father to deal with this alone.

Two minutes later, Luis was coming back with the rifle and a soggy cardboard box full of shells. His hand was shaking so bad, when he handed Stoke the ammo, the whole thing disintegrated and all the cartridges spilled out all over the damn deck. What were you going to do? Luis was his partner and he was getting some high-level on-the-job training, that’s all. Call this the live fire exercise. Stoke checked the chamber and the mag. Loaded.

“Hey, I got it,” Luis said. “Don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. This way I don’t have to get shot again.”

“Think of what?”

“We just split, man!”

“Split?”

“Leave! Papa’s up there at the helm! He cranks her up and we split. Leave this bastard out here to rot in the sun. Fuck him, you know?”

“What about the hook?”

“You mean the anchor?”

“Yeah, I mean the anchor. Who gets to go up on the bow and stand there to haul up the anchor? Papa? You?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right, the anchor. Man, I forgot all about that.”

“You got to think this stuff through under pressure, Luis. Business you’re in now.”

“Right. So what do we do?”

“I’m thinking about that. Give me a second, I’ll come up with something.”

“Just keep me out of it,” Sharkey said.

23

LA SELVA NEGRA

S turdy hemp bridges had been built connecting the numerous roundhouses that comprised Muhammad Top’s domain. The largest of bridges was the one that spanned a ribbon of black mirror snaking through the middle of La Selva. This bridge spanned the river and was built of steel.

The river was named Igapo, Black Water, and it fed into the great Rio Negro. The Igapo divided the Top’s fortress compound neatly in half. It provided a natural boundary for the two discreet sections of the terrorist village. The river also formed a very necessary lifeline with the outside world. Save an isolated airstrip or two, camouflaged and hidden deep in the jungle, it was the only way in or out of his world. A vicious stretch of rapids protected the approach from the east. And seamines had been deployed to both east and west.

Top had chosen this site carefully. La Selva Negra had to be erected where no man would dare to venture, even if he were able. First, because of the canopy, it was completely invisible from the air by day. At night, strict blackout rules were enforced on the odd chance that an airplane would ever stray over this trackless expanse.

No drones or spy satellites would ever differentiate this green patch from the trackless millions of acres that surrounded it. Because of the great height of the trees, even thermal imaging could not accurately pick up the living creatures below. Yet here below the canopy lay another world entirely. A world of his own making.

A primary village, Centro, stood at the center of this hidden universe. Arrayed around it, over a span of many miles, like great orbiting moons, were the various camps. Military camps where his troops lived and worked. And also secret training camps and forced labor camps that sustained his armies and protected the center.

And then the river. Although dark in color, the waters of the Rio Negro and its tributaries, like the Igapo, were pure, in fact, very nearly distilled. Because of its extremely low salt content, the river had the softest waters of any large river in the world. But that’s not why he chose this exact location. His sensibilities were too refined for that. No, it was just here, at this precise location, where the waters ran deep and cold, here, that the low nutrient content and the high acidity so greatly decreased the number of biting flies and mosquitoes.

Papa Top was a passionate man, but he was also a supremely pragmatic being who happened to loathe bugs.

The Black Water was spanned by a steel bridge strong enough to support the small, unmanned tanks which patrolled continuously. This bridge, a vital link, connected the two halves of his world. One side was about sustaining life and worship, the other death and destruction. This bridge that connected the two sides of his equation he had named La Qantara in honor of a mythical bridge connecting his beloved homeland of Syria with its neighbors Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. Qantara was the fantastical bridge of unity that one day, God willing, he himself would build between these nations.

This mission of Qantara, the bridge of the holy, was his life’s work. But Papa Top had sworn he would only complete it at the end of his life. He would turn to this effort only after he and his armies had rained death and destruction upon his enemies to the north and brought them begging God’s mercy to their knees.

Now the wide, flowing river was quiet beneath the nearly invisible leafy camouflage netting strung above it for miles in either direction. Here in Centro, the primitive existed side by side with the latest technology. Dugout war canoes, rafted together, were moored at the eastern ends of the docks. Later in the day, Indian war parties who served Papa Top would board them to begin patrolling the vast network of tributaries that fed into the Igapo. Intruders were discouraged or killed if they got too close.

Farther along were wider canoes, riding deep in the water and loaded with vegetables and other supplies. They had arrived some time during the night and were still waiting to be unloaded.

SLOWLY, the sleepy village below came to life. Shaded windows glowed faintly with light from within. The proud House Guards, in their uniforms of forest green, streamed across wide bridges and descended by trams to the jungle floor below. There waiting generals and lesser commanders ordered them massed in formation for the drills.

In a nearby clearing could be seen the headlights of a convoy of armored ATVs forming up. This motorized group would be traveling to the airstrip to receive an important visitor when he arrived at mid-morning. His first business of the day was to prepare to receive his honored guest.

Papa Top took great satisfaction that this supremely powerful being, Mullah Khan, was coming to him. Khan, the brilliant Iranian physician and scientist, was making his way on a long journey from Tehran. He would enter the country with counterfeit passports he himself had issued. He would arrive at Buenos Aires and then be ferried to a small air-field on the outskirts of the city. From there he would be flown at treetop level to the concealed landing strip that served La Selva Negra.

“The mountain is coming to Muhammad,” Top laughed aloud to himself, his rumbling voice deep and soft. History in the making. He took one last look at the wheels of his teeming clockwork empire and stepped back inside to dress himself. There was still a great deal of personal preparation to be done before the official reception for the visitor in the Great Room of the Blue Mosque.

Surely today, he thought, gazing at his powerful naked body in a full-length mirror flanked by flaming torches, was the beginning of the most important period of his life. As such, it was a kind of birth. And a man must dress accordingly for such triumphant moments.

Top was a man of oversize features. There was the great head from which gazed his deep-set dark eyes, steady and penetrating. His eyes radiated power and intellect and when they rested upon something or someone, it was as if they could possess all of it, devour it. His skin was dark and yellowish, taut and shiny, like something that had just popped to the surface after some weeks in the river. His head was entirely hairless. There were neither eyebrows nor eyelashes. The lips below the long wide nose were mottled and thick.

His lips opened only when he spoke and then they flared wide, revealing strong, feral white teeth and baby-pink gums. When he spoke in anger, his eyes bulged, more animal than human, and they seemed to blaze with some kind of otherworldly fire.

His great head rested upon a wide and thickly cordoned neck supported by heavy shoulders of epic proportions, the shoulders of a giant. He had no idea how much he weighed and he didn’t care. He knew there was not an ounce of fat to be found. He took care of himself. He drank his cup of bull’s blood every night before retiring. This had been his habit for the years he’d spent in the jungle. He was soon going into battle after all.

He chose a black burka woven with golden thread. He had seen a drawing of such a one in a dog-eared book on the life of Genghis Khan. He’d had his seamstresses copy it exactly. He saw that it draped perfectly over his bulging shoulders. Yes. It was perfection. Now. He would need a covering for his head. A turban of gold? No. Not today. Something far less obvious. Nothing in his wardrobe would do, he feared, until something caught his eye.

Under one window of Papa Top’s spartan room stood a large black wooden cross. A death’s head was painted in white near the base of the thing and over the crossbar were pulled the sleeves of a ragged and torn morning coat, its black tails trailing on the simple wooden floor. Adorning the cross was a battered bowler hat, the top of the cross projecting through a tear in the crown. Around the base the cross, a ring of white and black candles had been burning all night.

This totem, seldom found in the homes of the sons of Islam, was Papa Top’s secret weapon. He had carried it with him all his life. The bizarre effigy had been passed down from his all-powerful mother, a powerful Haitian Voodoo priestess named Mama Top. This totem represented the God of the Cemeteries, the Chief of the Legion of the Dead, embodied on earth in the human figure of Papa Top. In this part of the Amazon, Top was a figure paramount in all matters related to the grave. He was the dark Voodoo god who had long ago conquered the indigenous inhabitants of the jungle, and he still held them in his sway.

Muhammad Top was, of course, a true believer in the all-powerful rule of Allah. He depended on Allah’s guidance in all things. But, being prudent and practical, Top had always thought a man should have a backup religion. The fear inspired by Voodoo served his purposes well. After all, he lived surrounded by noble savages who bowed only to Papa Top.

He placed Papa Top’s perforated black bowler atop his head and gazed into his mirror. Unsatisfied, he cocked it to a more flattering angle, and saw that it was good. He showed his teeth. Flashed his eyes.

Let kingdom come, he thought, and be damned.

Soon, together with powerful brethren from abroad who would be arriving shortly, Papa Top would set in motion the irrevocable doomsday clock of the future.

He would set the clock for January 20 at noon.

High noon, he thought, chuckling to himself, a joke the cowboy in the White House might appreciate.

The Day of Reckoning.

24

MADRE DE DIOS, BRAZIL

H arry Brock woke up in a bed he did not recognize with a girl whose name he could not recall. She had a gun in his mouth. She was starkly naked, sitting astride his chest, her pendulous breasts glistening with sweat in the hot buggy light of morning. He found that none of these things made it any easier to think straight. She was very pretty this girl, and somehow during the night she’d managed to handcuff his wrists to the painted iron bedposts he was now banging against the plaster wall in a valiant effort to free himself.

He vaguely remembered she’d told him she was a nurse in Manaus. That explained a lot. Harry had a thing for nurses.

After a while, he stopped whipping his head from side to side and banging his wrists against the bed-frame because (A) it hurt, (B) it wasn’t doing him any damn good at all, and (C) it felt so good when you stopped. Harry was so happy about being relatively pain-free he tried to smile but found that it was tough to do with the muzzle of an oily snub-nosed .357 scraping the roof of your mouth.

Relax, Harry told himself. Be professional about this for crissakes. It wasn’t the end of the world. It was another of life’s endless lessons. Today’s lesson: stay the hell out of backstreet bars in towns where life was exceedingly cheap and you had a huge price on your head. Stay sober and avoid strange women at all costs, even gorgeous ones.

He took a few deep breaths like he was trained to do, holding each for a count of six, and tried to stabilize his heart, slow everything way down.

Get your bearings, Harry. He was going to say get the lay of the land but he’d already done that. She was sitting right on top of him. Christ, what a woman. He would kill to know her name but he felt at this point introductions would be awkward. Even if she removed the gun from his mouth, what was he going to say?

Focus, Harry. Okay. He had to be somewhere in the little shitburg town of Madre de Dios. Yeah. He’d wandered into this Brazilian backwater yesterday afternoon because a hungry, pushing forty-year-old guy with back problems just gets tired of not eating and sleeping out in the rain under a different tree every night. It had been a week since he’d taken shelter under an actual tin roof, and the last real bed he’d actually slept in, he had gotten out of about two minutes before Las Medianoches rapped on his door and knocked it down.

What finally happened was, how he came to be here in Madre de Dios, about a week ago he’d started seeing a bad Xerox of his face plastered all over the charming town of Barcelos on the Rio Negro. Printed under his mug was a rather large round number calculated in both pesos and dollars. He’d been deeply depressed with how little he was worth until he remembered that in this part of Brazil you could buy a Mercedes E55 AMG with a sticker price of $81,000 for less than $10,000. Dom Perignon was three bucks a magnum, and you could snag a fresh pair of Nike Air Jordans (he had) for a dollar.

Hell, that meant his life was only worth about a thousand pairs of Michael Jordan sneakers. Seemed a little on the low side.

This was a tiny spot on the map, but it was the central city in what is known as the Mato Grosso, where about $12 billion, that’s billion with a B, worth of cocaine passed through every year. Harry had asked around, dropping a few names and discreet amounts of cash here and there, and managed to hook up with a big time guy named Osvaldo Sanchez.

Osvaldo, who was president of one of fifty-five international bank slash laundries operating here in town, liked to siphon off a hundred million or so every now and then to buy bargain basement surface-to-air missiles for the glorious pan-American revolucion Hugo and Fidel were dreaming about. Because Harry was pretty savvy about the illegal arms business and both men knew the names of a lot of heavy hitters, he and Osvaldo had hit it off and actually developed a good working relationship.

Good enough for he and Señor Sanchez to arrange a confidential meeting where they would talk turkey and Harry would find out who some of the key players were in what was shaping up as the major drama currently unfolding down here south of the border. Rumors were rampant. Massive terrorist armies moving north to invade Central America. Stuff like that.

But, wouldn’t you know it, at the last minute Harry had had to cancel due to a prior commitment (staying alive) and instead of talking turkey with Don Osvaldo he was running for his life and hopping into the back of a poultry truck crossing a bridge to nowhere. Once safely across the Paran River, he’d taken to the jungle, sleeping rough for a week until, good luck, the heat died down. Hiding in jungles is hot, thirsty work. Harry finally succumbed to his baser desires and hitched a ride with a busload of poppy growers to his current residence, a less than idyllic village called Madre de Dios.

All he’d really wanted was a couple of cold cervezas and a warm bed. Was that too much to ask? Before Saladin Hassan had left to go find the Xucuru tribe that was holding Alex Hawke for ransom, he had given Harry the address of a place (an abandoned mosque) he could use to hole up in, but only, Saladin had emphasized, in a dire emergency. Saladin, reluctantly giving Harry the key to an upstairs room, said, don’t use it. As it happened, he had used it, although in hindsight, maybe that wasn’t a really good idea.

It was a scruffy little town he’d slipped into. Losing himself in the horde of merchants, peddlers, and smugglers hoofing it at a snail’s pace over the Puente de la Amistad (the bridge of friendship) he thought there was something a little incongruous about the sight of golden domes and spindly minarets rising up out of this lush jungle. But what he found out was, back in 1975, after the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon, the Islamic population of this region had swelled rapidly and was now somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty thousand in this one town alone.

Why were they here and what the hell were they up to, you might well ask yourself. Well, money. The more the United States shut down the terror networks’cash flow, the more these guys had to turn to alternative sources of income. And what better source of income than drugs? Human trafficking and guns? Not too shabby either.

What Harry was picking up on was a whole infrastructure in this part of Latam, locally known as the Mafia-Araby, who had taken over all the weapons and narcotic sales and distribution channels down here. This was because the badass Arab sin sheikhs made the local toughs look like a bunch of drugstore gauchos.

And the Mafia-Araby was using all this ill-gotten lucre to finance their Latino terrorist operations. In this region alone, the number of guerilla training camps had to have risen exponentially. And high-tech weaponry was flooding in, some of it experimental technology stolen from the U.S. and Britain.

Now, you had to wonder, as Harry did on a regular basis, how come his bosses at the Pentagon, Langley, and NSA had missed all these interesting developments in Latin America. Just by walking around, looking at faces, you could see there was not a lot of love for the norteamericanos down here, no matter what the race, color, or creed of the people on the streets. What there was a lot of, if you asked Harry, was trouble.

Trouble wasn’t brewing, like Milwaukee’s finest, it was fully brewed. And, some day real soon, somebody around here was going to pop the top on a whole six-pack of shit.

The funny thing was, all this snooping around he was doing wasn’t even Harry’s assignment. He’d been ordered down here with a couple of other CIA guys for one specific reason: find Alex Hawke and if he was still alive get him the hell out. Harry had gone to his boss, Charley Moore, at the JCS and volunteered for this assignment when he’d heard about it. He owed Alex Hawke a big favor.

He had met Hawke a year or so ago. Hawke had pulled him off a Chinese steamer just before it sailed Harry back to the Chinese prison hellhole where he was scheduled to spend what was left of his life begging to die. He owed Hawke big time and had planned to repay that debt if he ever got a chance. Now, he had it.

This town was busy, busy, busy. Really hopping. In addition to the group of young Shiite Muslims he’d seen outside a mosque (raising money for the imminent jihad, no doubt), there were countless good citizens packed into the narrow streets, hawking everything from designer jeans and leather jackets to plasma TVs, computers, and laser tools. There was some other stuff, too, including tons of choice Colombian marijuana, hashish, and cocaine for the guys who made a living transshipping the stuff to Puerto Paranagua over on Brazil’s Atlantic coast.

Harry didn’t pick one up, but he’d heard on the street you could buy a counterfeit Brazilian passport from Brazilian officials for a measly $5,000. And that passport, under the current waiver program created by some benevolent genius in Washington, opened the portals to the fabulous Magic Kingdom lying immediately to the north of the Mexican border. The waiver made a valid Brazilian passport all you needed to travel throughout the United States.

Think about that one for a minute and your head will explode.

He was pretty sure the blossoming suicide bombers hanging around the mosque had figured that one out long ago. If you could afford five grand for a passport, you didn’t need to worry about sneaking across the Mexican border to blow shit up in Houston or Chicago or wherever. Just hop a flight to Miami. That’s pretty much what Harry was thinking about when the girl had showed up on the stool right next to his.

He’d gone into the first bar he’d seen that looked air-conditioned. No windows, so it was dark inside, too, and he’d felt all safe and cozy inside sipping his cerveza fria with a whisky back at the bar. Then, at some point, a girl was sitting next to him. A nurse, she said. It was her day off. What was her name? Caparina. Yeah, that was her name, pronounced like that Brazilian drink he liked, the one made with limes and Cachaca, grain alcohol distilled from sugar cane. Lethal.

Caiparinha. Some kind of butterfly, she’d said it meant in English.

So, what the hell, he’d bought her a few beers, not many, only a hundred or so. She’d asked him if he wanted to get busy and he said, yeah why not?

Why not? Jesus, he knew why not now. She had a torn Wanted Dead or Alive poster in her free hand and Harry immediately understood that he was up creek number two without a paddle. Now that the sun was up she was comparing his face with the Xeroxed one on the wanted poster. There was a small painting of the Holy Virgin stuck on a nail just above Harry’s head. Caparina smiled at him, then reached up and slapped the poster over the painting, the nail head sticking right through Harry’s forehead.

A warm breast brushed his cheek as she settled back down, kind of squishing herself onto his lap.

“Mmm-pf!” Harry said, and she looked at him for a long minute and then pulled the gun out of his mouth. The oily aftertaste was pretty bad, but at least he could work his jaw. He thought she was being a good girl, but then he saw her reach for the cell phone on the night table.

“Don’t do that!” Harry said.

“Porque no?” she replied, looking again at the poster with the big fat number prominently displayed on the bottom. Harry tried hard as he could but he was darned if he could come up with a zippy and compelling answer to that question. Why shouldn’t she call the telephone number on the poster and collect the reward? Seriously. Why the hell not? In fact, there were many thousands of reasons why she should do exactly that. Hell, if their roles were reversed he would do exactly the same—

“You’re pretty,” he decided to say, letting her have both the pearly whites and the sleepy brown eyes. Harry was an okay looking guy. He’d been told he looked like Bruce Willis with hair. He didn’t see it, but frankly, whatever. Some times it worked, some times it didn’t. This time, thank you Jesus, it did. She hesitated, then put the phone back and looked at him, that cute little smile on her face. Caparina could obviously tell Mr. Happy was back in town and restless; maybe looking for a place to settle in for a spell.

She got busy. You know, one for the road, after all she had nothing to lose and Harry certainly did not. He was reduced to thinking of turning himself in, getting the reward, and then escaping again. Admittedly, it was a plan with a lot of holes.

He meant what he said. She was pretty. She was a drop-dead babe even sober, meaning when he was sober not her. He looked at her face, too, as she started rocking back and forth on top of him, grinding away at him until he was hard as stone. She had what Harry the world-traveler called a pretty version of the U.N. face. Part Chinese, part Indian, part mestizo, part brown skin gal. She had long purplish black hair, full lips, and amazing breasts that were now swinging dangerously close to his lips.

“Hey,” he said, “C’mon on.”

“What?”

“You know what.”

“Beg me,” she said.

“What?”

“Beg.”

“I don’t beg.”

“Oh, yes you do, Mr. Harry Brock.”

“All right, I’ll beg.”

“I don’t hear you.”

“Please.”

“Louder.”

“I can’t. Somebody will hear us.”

“We’re in a deserted mosque, Harry. No one can hear us.”

“Wait. We’re at my place?”

“Of course. You don’t remember?”

“No. I mean, yeah. I sort of knew. I guess I forgot. All mosques look pretty much the same to a guy like me.”

“You want to kiss my titties, Harry? This one? Or, this one?”

“Yes. Both.”

“Beg me, Mr. Brock.”

“Please. I beg you. I’m not kidding. I am sincerely begging here. This could be it for me. The swan song of Harry Brock.”

“There. Happy?”

“Oh god, yes. Now the other one.”

“Be gentle, Harry. That’s a good boy.”

WHEN HARRY WOKE up for the second time that morning he realized he had a cigarette in his mouth and involuntarily took a puff. Nothing in recent memory had ever tasted so good. The girl reached over and plucked it from his lips so he could expel the smoke. Shit. He was still cuffed to the damn bed. He must have dropped off for a couple of minutes. The girl took a drag herself and then she said, “I know a joke.”

“Yeah? What?”

“A man is in bed with a woman. After they make love, the man says, ‘Do you smoke after sex?’ and the woman smiles at him and says, ‘I don’t know, I never looked.’ ”

Harry burst out laughing.

“That’s pretty good,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Fell asleep, huh?”

“For about twenty minutes.”

“Did you call?”

“Mmm.”

“You called? Holy shit. Aw, Christ, Caparina.”

“Calm down, Harry.”

“Calm down?”

“I didn’t call who you think I called.”

“The number on the poster. For the reward.”

“No.”

“Ah. Well, okay, who did you call?”

“My ex-husband. He’s on his way.”

“Your ex-husband is coming here? Now?”

“What are you doing down here in Brazil, Harry? You’re obviously an American. You have no identification. No passport. Nothing. Only this gun and a few thousand pesos. You don’t speak Portuguese. Or even Spanish.”

“I’m a tourist.”

“You came all this way to buy those shitty Nikes? Six hundred tourists die every year in this crappy town. And that’s only the reported number.”

“That’s why I’ve got the gun.”

“I’ve got the gun, Harry. Last night, when you were drunk, you said something about las Medianoches.”

“Really? What’d I say about them?”

“That the jihadistas had your friend. You came down here to look for your friend, Harry? Who is your friend?”

“Why is this important to you?”

“Hassan can help you I think.”

“Hassan? Who the hell is Hassan? Every second guy you meet around here is called Hassan.”

“My ex-husband. He’s a good guy, speaks perfect English. Very tough. Not everyone in this country is intimidated by the Mafia-Araby.”

“How can he help me?”

“You can help him.”

“Why the fuck should I do that?”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“Not necessarily. Anyway, who’s your enemy?”

“The enemy of my people. The jihadists in the jungle who call themselves Las Medianoches. This bastard Papa Top.”

“What are you, Caparina? Some kind of spy or something?”

“I keep my eyes open.”

“Good. We’ve got something in common. Now, let me go. Okay?”

There was noise coming up the steps beyond the door. Caparina hopped off the bed and pulled her flowered blue cotton dress over her head and smoothed it down over that spectacular body. She was one of those women who look almost as good dressed as they do naked. She stepped into her pale blue panties, wiggled her butt as she hiked them up under her dress, and smiled at Harry.

Harry lifted his head and stared at the door. “Shit. They’re coming up the steps. Get me out of these cuffs, will you? Hurry up.”

“I can’t. No key.”

“No key? What?”

“We were playing a game. ‘Who’s the prisoner?’ You lost when you swallowed the key, remember?”

“Aw, shit, Caparina, they’re at the door. Can you at least throw the damn sheet over me or something? Jesus. This is embarrassing.”

“Say please.”

“No.”

“Harry?”

“Please.”

“Good boy, Harry.”

She was bent over picking the sheet up off the floor when the wooden door swung open and a man stepped inside, looking at the scene on the bed with a bemused smile.

“Harry?” the man at the door said.

“Saladin?”

“You two know each other?” Caparina said.

“Of course we know each other,” Harry said. “Jesus.”

It was Wellington Saladin Hassan. Few months ago, he’d paid this man a small fortune for finding Alex Hawke and returning him safely to England.

“Who’s got the key?” Saladin asked the two of them, a big smile on his face.

25

PRAIRIE, TEXAS

S unday morning just before noontime Franklin was in the cold barn mucking out the stalls. He had just about finished when he heard an automobile driving too fast up the long dirt drive from the highway. He leaned his pitchfork against the wall and moved over to the open window facing the road. It was Homer in the department’s new Crown Vic Interceptor, barreling up the deeply rutted road at about fifty, kicking up a big rooster tail of dust behind him.

Franklin looked up at the cloudless blue sky, any prayer of a quiet Sunday afternoon sliding away from his mind. He walked out of the barn just as the deputy skidded to a stop between the barn and the house.

“Easy, Homer, no fire out here, son.”

Franklin walked over to the car wondering what was so all-fired important on a Sunday. It had been nine days since the incident at the Wagon Wheel. Homer had been beat up pretty bad. Still and all, he’d been back on the job for three days now and, mercifully, things had been quiet since all the hoopla of the week preceding. He’d even had a few afternoons to finish correcting all the errors in that Texas border presentation he was set to give down there in Florida in a week’s time.

Mostly it was quiet because Rawls and a few bike riders had been locked up down at the courthouse. He’d put them there for a few days until everything cooled down. He’d let most of them go. He’d wanted to hold Rawls longer, based on a tip he’d gotten about six months ago.

A paid informant had told the Laredo PD that Rawls was suspected of involvement with some kind of border smuggling operation. Drugs, guns, and even automobiles coming through tunnels under the border. According to the snitch, Rawls was in bed with corrupt Federales and narcotrafficantes and had been for a long time.

But, they couldn’t prove it yet. Franklin just didn’t have enough to hold him. So he’d released Rawls on his own recognizance, as June called it.

Homer climbed out of the car and put his hat on, shading his eyes from the sun.

“Sorry to bother you, Sheriff, I been calling you on the phone.”

“When they get the kinks out of those cell phones, maybe I’ll get one. How can I help you, son? I’ve been out here in the barn all morning. Daisy went to church services and then to her prayer group lunch right after. I was just going inside to make a ham sandwich and some ice tea. You want to join me?”

Franklin started for the house and Homer followed.

He said, “What I’ve been calling you about? Somebody’s fixing to get their selves lynched here later on today.”

“Lynched? Who?”

“I don’t know their names. Three Mexican boys, is what I hear.”

“Come on over here on the porch and set in the shade, Homer.”

Franklin was tired. He stepped up on to the porch and went over to the far end and sat in his rocker. There was a tupelo tree at that end of the porch. He and Daisy had planted it as a sapling when they first bought the place. It gave off pretty nice shade this time of day. He pulled out his bandanna and wiped all the sweat off his face. There was a pitcher of lemonade with all the ice melted sitting on the table and he poured two glasses. Then he leaned back against the old rocker and started rocking, scuffing his boot heels across the dusty floorboards.

He said, “Start at the beginning and tell me.”

Homer took off his hat, tilted his head back, and drained his glass. “Like I say, it’s three Mexican kids.”

“Kids?”

“Teenagers, I’m pretty sure. The banditos apparently broke into Sadie Brotherwood’s place last night, looking for liquor in the ranch house. She came home and surprised them.”

“She lives over there on the river, right? What’s it called?”

“The Lazy B. She stayed on the place when Woody died last spring. She didn’t call anybody about the break-in. She got the drop on the boys, put a shotgun on them, and locked them up overnight out in the tool shed. This morning, here about an hour ago, she didn’t hear any noise coming from the shed and she called her brother-in-law, old Ed Parks. Ed apparently came over with a couple of his boys and told Sadie not to call you, said they’d take care of this themselves.”

“These Mexicans are local boys?”

“No, sir. Illegals. Roy Steerman went over there to Brotherwoods with Ed originally, but didn’t want anything to do with it after he got there and left. Been out there in the desert a while seems like. Skin is burned black, Roy said. All of them dehydrated and probably dizzy from drinking their own urine out there. He said when they got there one of them was swimming in the dirt like he thought it was a stream. Like his brain was baked in his brain pan, Roy told me.”

Dixon looked away. How many times in his life would he have to hear this same sad story? The law was the law. But children locked in a shed and dying of thirst was a painful way to enforce it.

“Maybe they weren’t looking for liquor, Homer. Maybe they were just looking for water.”

“That’s just what I told Roy Steers here not half an hour ago. He said, ‘Nobody over at Sadie’s cares two hoots in hell about that. These damn kids are here illegally, broke into a woman’s house to steal her property, and they’re going to string ’em up.’ That’s a direct quotation.”

Franklin got up without a word and went inside the house. A minute later the screen door opened and he came out with his hat on. “Let’s go, Homer,” he said.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER they turned off on the state road that led to the Brotherwood ranch. Homer took a right on to an unpaved stretch and they drove another two miles of barbed wire on either side before they came to the Lazy B. There was a heavy aluminum gate at the entrance to the drive and somebody had closed it and locked it with a length of chain. Homer pulled over on the shoulder across from the gate and got out of the car. He looked both ways and then crossed the baking asphalt to open the gate.

Franklin saw he was having trouble with the lock and started to climb out of the car. That’s when the two big fellas stepped out from inside a dense stand of pecans just inside the gate.

“Hey,” one of them said. Franklin recognized him as one of the boys from the Wagon Wheel he’d locked up. Had the same sleeveless leather vest and the prison tats covering both arms. If he remembered the arrest record correctly, these two gentlemen’s names were Hambone and Zorro. William Bonner, Hambone, and Bernie Katz, Zorro represented a whole lot more trouble than they were worth.

“Howdy, Hambone,” Franklin said to Bonner. He saw that the gate was padlocked with a big Master lock.

“Can we help you?” Bonner asked.

“You can open that gate.”

“No can do, Sheriff. Private party.”

“Homer,” Franklin said, “take your sidearm out and shoot that lock off, will you please?”

“Yes, sir.”

Homer removed his weapon and fired two rounds into the heavy padlock. The thing blew apart, wide open, which surprised Franklin because he’d seen an old commercial where a slow motion bullet goes right through a padlock without any effect. He reached over and pulled the chain out of the gate rungs and dropped it to the ground. Then he started to swing the right gate inward. Hambone stepped into the path of the gate and crossed his lodgepole arms over his chest.

“Like I say, it’s private.”

“Mr. Bonner, you boys just got out of my jail. If one of those Mexican boys is harmed, you’re going back. If one of them dies, you’re going back inside the system for twenty years as an accessory to murder. How do you want to handle this?”

“It ain’t murder to kill no illegal alien.”

“Murder is murder, Mr. Bonner.”

Bonner didn’t respond. Just looked over his shoulder and spat on the ground.

“C’mon, Billy,” the one named Katz said. “Let it go. We don’t need any more shit from this particular asshole.”

Bonner looked at Dixon and did his best impression of a man staring daggers into somebody’s eyes for a couple a seconds and then he kicked the ground and walked away from the gate.

“Where are your bikes located, Bonner?” Franklin said to the man’s back.

“Over there in the pecan grove,” Katz said, pointing at the trees. You could see pinpoints of chrome back in there among the dark trunks.

“I suggest you fellas mount up and git. I don’t want you in my county any longer. You understand what I’m saying? If you’re still here when I come back this way, I’m going to impound your motorcycles and lock you up again. We clear?”

The two outlaws didn’t say anything, just turned and headed for the pecan trees.

Franklin swung the two aluminum gates inward while Homer went back for the car. After a minute, he heard the deep popping noise of the two Harleys cranking up in the woods as Homer drove through and came to a stop. He climbed inside and they continued up the drive to the ranch house proper.

Homer was staring straight ahead, driving as fast as he could over the uneven ground. He spoke to Franklin without looking at him.

“You recall seeing those fires at Yellowstone on the TV, Sheriff? Burning out of control? Threatening all those little tinderbox towns.”

“Yeah. I remember that.”

“Sometimes I feel like the border is one long tinderbox. Like Prairie is nothing but a tiny oasis in the middle of a dried up pine forest. It’s baking hot day after day and folks are walking around knee deep in pine needles. Bone dry. And everybody on Main Street is striking matches.”

“Some folks think those big fires are natural remedies, Homer. Just nature taking care of itself.”

Homer looked at him. “I have a real hard time believing that, Sheriff.”

“Well, you better slow down, son, there’s the ranch house right over there.”

There were four or five pickups pulled up outside the house. Homer hit the brakes and they got out and knocked on the front door. They waited a minute but nobody came and so they walked around the side of the house and down to the dried up river bed about five hundred yards away.

There was a big live oak tree standing at the bend on the other side of what used to be the river. It had been dead for years, but still had a lot of its lower limbs. Even from a distance you could see that somebody had looped three ropes over the lowest and biggest branch and tied a noose at the end of each one.

“Looks like we’re just in time,” Franklin said to Homer.

The men were standing at the base of the tree and Franklin could make out three small boys on the ground. They were sitting with their backs to each other, probably all tied together at the wrists. The local men, and one woman, were standing in a circle, just looking down at the boys.

“No need for you here, Sheriff,” Ed Parks said, stepping forward as the two lawmen crossed the dusty riverbed.

Franklin said, “Good afternoon, Ed. Boys. You, too, Miz Brotherwood. I hear these kids broke into your house last night.”

“That’s right they did,” Sadie Brotherwood said. “I caught ’em red-handed trying to steal my whisky.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?” Dixon said, brushing past two of the men and squatting in the dirt beside the boys. Their sun-blackened skin was bloody in places and their mouths were crusted with salt. Their black eyes were glazed with fear and exhaustion.

“Police? No need of calling anybody,” Parks said. “Waste of taxpayers’ money. We call the police every time we catch a bunch of these pollos, you wouldn’t have time to hand out parking tickets. No, we like to take care of this business ourselves out here. I told these boys we didn’t need no grass cut either. Hell, they’re just tonks. I reckon that’s why they’re here, brought in by coyotes and looking to cut grass up in Houston.”

“Goddamn pollos ain’t hardly human anyhow,” Mrs. Brotherwood said. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about.”

Franklin looked for some sign of grief in the widow’s eyes but only saw hard-bitten hatred and the dull gleam of self-righteousness. He un-screwed the cap from the canteen he’d brought and held it to the lips of the first boy. After the boy had drunk some water, he moved to the next one and repeated the process. The last boy, the smallest, was too weak to lift his head and drink.

“He’s mighty thirsty, Ed,” Franklin said. “You didn’t give them any water?”

“Why waste good water?”

“Que pasa hombre?” Franklin said to the oldest of the three after he’d gulped down some water. “Where are you from?”

“Nuevo Laredo,” the boy said, his voice a parched whisper.

“How many of you come across?”

“We were fourteen. We walked until we fell. My brothers and I, we are the last ones.”

“What is your name?”

“Reymundo.”

“And your brothers?”

“Jorge and Manuelito.”

Franklin stood up and looked at Parks and Sadie Brotherwood.

“All right, then. Here’s what we’re going to do. Mrs. Brotherwood, I’d like you to apologize to Mr. Parks here for bringing him all the way out for nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” she said, “It was three more wetbacks needed a good hanging.”

“Ed, you and the boys go on home. Homer and I will see these children get medical attention and then we’ll turn them over to the Border Patrol.”

“I’m gonna tell you something, Sheriff. I’ll go. But its people like you are going to ruin this great country. There are already more of them than us down here in West Texas. Hell, whole towns of ’em without a single white inhabitant. Not one! You want to give them the whole state? Is that your idea of right and wrong? Goddamn it, I don’t understand you anymore. I thought you were one of us. Hell, I voted for you in the last election. Now I ain’t so sure who the hell you are, Franklin.”

“I’m the law, Ed. That’s all. Now go on home.”

“The law. You think these three here give a flying fuck about you and your laws? Hell, they each paid their coyotes five thousand yankee dollars for the privilege of breaking your damn law. That’s the problem, ain’t it? It’s the damn law that’s going to ruin everything, you don’t start enforcing it for real. Come on, boys, let’s get the hell out of here before I puke on somebody’s badge.”

“Sheriff?” Homer said. He was sitting in the dirt beside the smallest boy, Manuelito, who seemed to have fallen asleep in the deputy’s lap.

“What is it?”

“This one here just died.”

26

DRY TORTUGAS

I got it!” Luis said.

“Got what?” Stoke asked.

“I finally figured out the whole anchor thing.”

“Yeah? Good,” Stoke replied, his mind somewhere else, namely his current life expectancy if he didn’t get his arm stitched up soon. “Tell me quick.”

Luis said, “Wait, yeah, I think this will definitely work.”

“Tell me what you got, Luis.”

Luis thought about it another second and then his face brightened. “What I’m thinking, hey, we just leave the anchor here. See? I crawl forward through the cabin up into the bow locker and untie the bitter end of the anchor line. Then we just let the line run out of the boat when we back down and get the hell out of here.”

Stoke just looked at him.

“You see? Fuck the anchor, man, we come back and get it later. Or, not!”

“That’s a very good plan, Luis. Seriously. If we were leaving right now. But we’re not, see? We didn’t come all the way out here to leave that gunrunner alive over there on that island. Who is he? Where’d he come from? Where was he flying home to? We’ve got something big down there in the deep and we need to know who’s dealing these weapons. And, dead or alive, I need to get a look at that shooter in the bushes, okay? And, in the unlikely event that he survives, have a chat with him about where he got those Russian missiles.”

“Cuba.”

“Cuba. How do you know that? You find something you forgot to mention? I thought you said the plane was clean.”

“I don’t know. But it’s a good guess, right? So now what?”

“I’m still thinking.”

Stoke was still feeling woozy. The tourniquet helped a little. But, and it was a big one, could he really get up on his knees with the Mini-14, mark the guy’s location and shoot him before he passed out from blood loss or the bends or whatever his problem was making him so light-headed? Possible, but very low probability of a successful outcome. Normally, he’d slip over the side, swim underwater around the little island and come up behind the guy. But, in his present condition—

He looked at Luis and then he looked at the rifle and then back at Luis.

“Don’t look at me, man.”

“Who’s looking at you?”

“You.”

Damn. Luis was right. He just couldn’t see Sharkey doing this. In any way taking the guy on the island out. No possible way you could expect a one-armed man to try to pull this off. Recently wounded in his one remaining good arm, no less.

Stoke knew approximately where the shooter was, had a rough idea based on the muzzle flash and the angles these shots were coming from. The guy was crouching down in the mangroves on the left side of a little cove near a stand of stumpy cabbage palms. Another thing. He was convinced that the shooter was the copilot. Had to be. No other reasonable possibility. Down at the plane, Stoke had seen what looked like the last remains of blood smears on the right-hand windshield. Like somebody’s head had hit it real hard. So. Copilot bangs his head but survives the crash, cleans up the cockpit and his dead buddy, and swims ashore. Yeah, that had to be it.

The survivor had to be one hurting gaucho after thirty-some-odd hours out on that little spit of land all by his lonesome. It was hot out here. Lots of skeets to keep him company. Maybe hurt, maybe no food or water. Hungry. Thirsty. And seriously pissed off that the pretty blue fishing boat he’d seen steaming to his rescue had not come to his rescue after all. Hell, anybody would be upset.

Well, one thing was sure, Sharkey was in no condition now to take the guy out. He was curled up in the stern with his one bandaged arm wrapped around his knees. Sitting over in the corner by the bait box forward of the transom. Staring at Stoke and wondering what he was going to have to do next. But there was another way out of this. Stoke had an idea.

“Take the rifle,” he said to Luis.

“Me? I’m doing it? I told you! I can’t.”

“Yes you can. Listen, okay? Relax. I’m not asking you to stand up and shoot anybody, Sharkey. I got a much better idea. Just slide over here and take the damn gun. Now.”

“Aw, shit, man. This is so messed up.”

“Do it.”

He did it.

“Now,” Stoke said, in a very soothing way, “I want you to take this gun over to the bridge tower ladder.”

“Climb up?”

“No, not climb up. You think I’m crazy? No, what I want you to do is, scoot over there to the foot of the ladder. Okay? Stay down. Then you take the gun by the muzzle, reach it up high enough so your old man can reach down and grab it by the stock end.”

Luis lit up one of those lopsided grins that went on and off like a neon light. Relief flooded his face as he took the weapon. “Papa’s going to shoot him?”

“That’s right. He’s got the high ground and the best angle. But he can’t afford to miss, tell him, because he’s probably only going to get one shot off before the guy starts blasting him. Papa a good shot? Say yes.”

“Good? I’ve seen that old hombre put a mako’s eye out at one hundred yards. Fish was leaping twenty feet in the air at the time, right off our transom. Blam, he dropped him.”

“Well, see what I’m saying, this’ll be cake then. Easy-peasy-Japanesy.”

“You check is it loaded?”

“Damn! Didn’t you see me check it a few minutes ago? Yeah, it’s loaded. Now, listen up, this is important. Tell him to stay down. No heroics till I say so. He’s not to do anything right now except take the gun. He’s got to keep his head down until you’re back in the water.”

“I’m going back in the water?”

“Damn right. You’re going over the transom. Soon as you give Papa the gun. You’re going crawl astern, get your ass up and over that transom on the double, and then you’re going to start swimming like a one-armed bandit, get as far away from this boat as possible.”

“What about the mako?”

“Screw the mako.”

“You’re messing with me, man. Right?”

“How else you think we’re going to draw his ass out so Papa can shoot him?”

“I’m already hit once. How many times I got to get shot today?”

“That’s the whole idea, Sharkey. That’s how we’re going to draw him out. Get him to reveal his position. It’s the only way your old man has a chance of getting a shot off without getting his head blown off.”

“Aw, shit, Stokely, man, I dunno about this. Can’t you think of another plan?”

“We haven’t got a lot of time for tactical discussion here, Luis. You might have noticed I’m slowly bleeding to death. You wanted to get involved in this stuff, now you’re involved in it. Welcome to my world. You’re tuned into the Stokely channel now, brother. All shit, all day, all the time. This is not unusual. Shit just exactly like this goes down all the damn time. All the time.”

“Jesus, I don’t know, Stoke.”

“Luis! Pay attention. You can do this. Now snake your one-armed ass over to that ladder and hand your old man the damn rifle. Okay?”

“Yeah. Fuck. I’ll do it.”

“Gimme your hat first.”

“My Yankee cap? For what?”

“Another idea. I’m going to stick it on top of this rod and jiggle it up and down while you’re crawling. Help distract him.”

“This sucks, man,” Luis said, handing him the cap.

“You’re going to be good at this shit, Luis, I’m serious. You’ve got all the right components. Trust me. I’ve seen ’em come and I’ve seen ’em go.”

“Lots of turnover on your personal life channel? Is that right? Jesus.”

Luis muttered the whole way across the deck. He snaked along using the rifle in his good hand and his left arm fin for propulsion. It looked a little weird but it was effective.

Stoke looked up at the flying bridge. Luis Sr. was crouched up there, staring down at him, screwing the cap back on his bottle of Triple X. His eyes were bright and he had a huge smile on his face. He wasn’t drunk. He just knew damn well what was going on. And he had faith.

Stoke took heart.

The old man of the sea was into it.

Papa reached down for the butt of the rifle when his son managed to raise it high enough for him to grab hold. Once his father had the gun securely in his grasp, Shark dropped back to the deck and instantly started crawling aft. Sharkey was scared but Stoke could see he was going to do the thing, go over the stern and swim away from the boat even though it was the last thing on earth he wanted to do.

Stoke had moved himself aft, crouched in the corner of the cockpit on the port side. He had Sharkey’s faded Yankee baseball cap on the end of the fishing rod and now, his eyes on Papa up on the bridge, he raised the navy blue cap above the gunwale, jigging it up and down a few times.

Shots rang out instantly and one of them put a neat hole in Sharkey’s Yankee cap. The cap spun but stayed on the rod. The guy could shoot. Stoke scrambled forward a few feet, bouncing the hat around and the rounds kept coming. Luis was huddled by the transom, waiting for Stoke’s signal.

“Go, Sharkey, go, go, go!” he said to Luis.

Sharkey didn’t say anything, he just did it. He pushed up off the deck and over the transom, hitting the water with a big splash, kicking and using his good arm to paddle furiously away from the stern. Stoke kept moving the cap around as best he could, holding the shooter’s attention until the guy figured it out which Stoke knew wouldn’t take much longer.

He looked up at Papa on the tower. The old man looked ready and now was as good a time as any. Most of the rounds were aimed at the Yankee cap and a few were zinging off the stern, going into the water aft where Sharkey was once more unfortunately swimming for his life.

“You see the shooter?” Stoke shouted up to the old man. “You know where he is?”

“Si, señor, yo se!” Papa said, a huge smile on his face. “I got this fish in my sights. In the bushes beneath the coconut palm tree.”

“You got the angle? You ready?”

“Si. Es muy perfecto.”

“Do it.”

PAPA SHOWED HIMSELF then, stood right up, bringing the rifle up into firing position and aiming it even as he got to his feet. He swung the barrel to his left and started firing furiously on semiauto into the mangrove bushes. The rounds were aimed at the base of the tiny island’s lone coconut palm tree, splintering it and sending debris into the air.

“Aieeee!”

A scream came from the island. A long dying wail. Papa kept firing, expended the whole mag, and then the screaming stopped for good.

“Bueno, amigo!” Stoke said, hauling himself up to the gunwale so that he could see for himself what the hell was going on. Smoke was rising from the badly shot up mangrove.

“You think I did it?” Papa asked, grinning. “Es muerto?”

“Yeah,” Stoke said, grinning, “I think he’s muerto all right. We’ll know soon enough.”

“Luis!” Papa cried out, waving his arms at his son in the water about twenty yards astern. “It’s okay! It’s okay! Come back!”

He nudged the throttles, backing down slowly toward his son.

“Your boy was very brave, Papa. Help me get him aboard.”

“What we do now, señor?” the old fella said coming down the ladder with the rifle.

“We got to reel in your catch over there. Identify what make and model he is. Then we put him on ice in the fishbox and take him back to the dock.”

“No catch and release, señor?” Papa said with a smile.

STOKE FELT LIKE he was going to puke or pass out getting to his feet and taking the boathook from its holder underneath the gunwale to help Papa fish Luis out of the water. He stood there a minute, watching Sharkey approach the boat. His head seemed to clear and he thought maybe he was going to be okay here, long as he didn’t try to do too much.

“We did it,” Luis said, climbing into the boat, smiling his ass off. “Hey, Papa, you are some action hero, man!”

“De nada,” the old man said, still holding the rifle tenderly.

“OK, Luis. Now you get up on the bow and get the hook up. Let’s go see what we caught.”

Papa went inside to the lower helm station and ran the boat right inside the little cove going ahead dead slow. As soon as the bow touched sand he killed the engines. Stoke figured they were in about four feet of water. Sharkey stood on the bow, swinging the hook, and heaved it into the mangroves where it snagged in some thick roots. He jumped in, started wading ashore, headed for the smoking palm tree.

Ten minutes later Stoke was bending over the copilot. He had a couple of holes in his light blue uniform, flesh wounds. He was still alive. Barely. Stoke leaned in close to see the patch on his shoulder.

It bore the emblem of the FAV.

The Fuerza Aérea Venezolana.

The Venezuelan Air Force. That’s who was buying the missiles.

Now why the hell would Venezuela be doing that? If the wounded guy lived, he’d just have to ask him that question.

Suddenly, the guy shuddered. His eyelids fluttered and his lips started moving, too, but nothing was coming out. Stoke bent down, but all he could hear was garbled Spanish.

“Luis,” Stoke said, “put your ear down here and tell me what this guy is saying,”

Luis leaned over and listened for a few seconds, a puzzled look on his face.

“He says ‘Thank you.’ ”

“What?”

“Thank you very much, that’s what he’s saying.”

“That’s a first,” Stoke said.

27

LA SELVA NEGRA

K illing Americans en masse,” Dr. Abu Musab al Khan told Muhammad Top, “will be mere child’s play. I am assuming, based on endless reports and assertions by you, that all our military assets are firmly in place and that the phalanxes soon to be moving up into the Mexican mountain range have the ability to achieve this objective.”

“Yes.”

“All is in readiness with the convoy?” he asked, stroking his beard. “Our friend in Caracas is very nervous.”

Muhammad Top had been impatiently awaiting this question since Dr. Khan’s arrival the day before.

“Yes. The assets are in place north of the border. Mexican units, loyal to our cause, await your orders as to when to release the vehicles. As you will soon see, we are fully prepared to strike on all fronts, Dr. Khan,” Top said, locking his eyes on Khan’s. “God willing.”

“Inshallah. I am looking at the clock above the monitor. Some kind of countdown, I presume?”

“Yes, Doctor. The countdown was initiated this morning.”

Top made sure his eye contact with the diminutive scientist was solid for good reason. Khan was now the second most powerful man in the global Islamic terrorist movement. He had known this man for many years. He knew that those shrewd black eyes didn’t just see you, they penetrated your very soul.

“I bring greetings and prayers for your success from on high.”

“Please assure the sheikh I am prepared to do my sacred duty. The aggressors will trouble us no more after the Day of Reckoning.”

Top tried desperately to conceal his surprise at Khan’s mention of Osama. No one in the terrorist community was sure whether or not the sheikh was even alive. A recent tape had been played on al-Jazeerah, but there were doubts as to its authenticity.

The true leader of the movement, the almost mythical prince Osama, had not been actually seen, publicly or privately, in nearly three years. Not since December of 2004, when he had released his last video. He called for his jihadist warriors to strike Persian Gulf oil supplies and warned the apostate House of Saud that they risked a popular uprising. Then he disappeared. Now, rumor had it, Khan was preparing to succeed the long silent leader.

The Western media were strangely silent too. The media simply didn’t know what had happened to the man who’d ignited the worldwide Islamic jihad. They didn’t know if the much-vaunted prince of darkness had simply gone deeper into hiding as the American troops closed in on him; or, perhaps, he had simply died. It was still entirely possible he was only lying low, lulling the West into a false sense of complacency while planning some great Armageddon.

In truth, even so important a figure in the global movement as Muhammad Top did not know the answer to that puzzle. But he knew that it was Abu Musab al Khan who had recently stepped into the media limelight as the “brains” of the organization. If Khan didn’t hold the reins of power, surely he was in the business of seizing them. Top knew that his own success in this current initiative would consolidate Khan’s position in the Arab world.

And, so did his esteemed guest.

In any case, Khan was not a man to be trifled with. He was clearly capable of running the movement’s global terror operations. Besides, it was common knowledge that Dr. Khan had personally eviscerated men on the spot for failing his particular kind of eye test. It was said that Khan secreted a viciously curved scimitar within the folds of his robes for just such a purpose.

For all of Top’s judicious planning, his guest had arrived two hours late. He had been delayed by bad weather, a storm front moving over Buenos Aires. After a good deal of hand-wringing over arrangements to receive them, the man had finally arrived at the jungle compound.

After his arrival at the landing strip, and travel to the central village, Top escorted him to his temporary guest quarters. He enjoyed the man’s reaction as they climbed into a sturdy woven basket to be lofted upward to the large two-story guesthouse situated some two hundred feet up in the treetops. Shortly afterward, the new arrival had descended and begun a guided tour of the bustling complex.

Top had decided to start the tour with the subterranean Command and Communication center secreted in the very heart of his compound. Even Dr. Khan could not fail to be impressed by all the stunning long-distance warfare technology he would see this day. Already Top could sense that Khan was secretly delighted with the Swiss-clock workings and precision perfection of the teeming terrorist enclave.

The two men were now standing before an array of surveillance monitors, their upturned faces bathed in incandescent blue. Each of the flat screens carried a live digital satellite feed from the cameras of Muhammad Top’s fleet of tiny UAVs now circling above Manhattan and Washington, DC.

On site pilots flew the two-foot-long birds, using joysticks and input from sensor operators seated next to them. Each ground control workstation received feeds via a Ku-Band satellite data link for beyond line-of-sight flight.

Khan smiled his approval. He had designed these UAV systems and it was the first time he’d seen them in a war-footing operation.

The large central monitor was currently dedicated to lower Manhattan. The Staten Island Ferry was just nearing the wharf and lights were coming on in the office towers near the Battery. A row of smaller monitors to either side showed aerial views of Washington, the Chicago lake-front, the port of Miami, and central Los Angeles. Beneath these screens, a secondary grouping of monitors showed views of various border towns along the Texas-Mexico borderline.

“And how go the preparations for the Lone Star State?” Khan asked Top, his eyes fixed on a view of the International Bridge connecting Laredo with its sister city across the border.

“The convoy is assembled, Doctor. It has moved north of the border.”

The two men were certainly a study in contrasts. Khan was a small, modest-looking intellectual. Save the keen intensity of the black eyes, the Iranian would be indistinguishable at any gathering of Muslim elders in Tehran. Of less than medium height, he had a great beak of a nose, with tiny eyeglasses perched on the end of it. He had very small hands and feet that always seemed to be still. He was surprising only in that he had changed into jungle fatigues for the tour.

“Listen carefully,” Khan said, taking a step backward and looking up at his giant host. His black eyes flashing with the reflections of America on the screens above, he said, “I am bringing you a message from on high. Killing Americans is secondary to our true mission. It is only icing on the pudding. Do you understand that?”

“Doctor, with your kind permission, I must argue—”

“Listen! Don’t speak! I am talking about attacking the foundations of the corrupt state these faithless pawns serve. God willing, I am determined to scrape America’s bucolic soil down to the tainted bedrock it is built upon! If you don’t agree, tell me now.”

Top silently nodded his understanding. Patience was required. Khan was having trouble assembling a “coalition of the willing” in the Latin American capitals. More and more it looked as if Top’s righteous legions might be marching north alone. Top was willing to go it alone. But if Khan’s shaky coalition were convinced to step up, it would seal America’s fate.

Khan, visibly tired by the long journey, removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was secretly fighting a crippling headache. He had been anxious to see his military field commander in the flesh. Everything was riding on this one man. As the final hour approached, Castro was waffling. So was Chávez in Venezuela. Both men needed to see if Muhammad Top’s brazen attack could succeed before joining the fray.

Venezuela, in Khan’s view, could seal the victory over the Americans. Chávez, despite all Khan’s assuarances, was taking a wait-and-see attitude. If Tip and Khan succeeded, and brought down the U.S. command and central, Venezuela might decide to strike in the ensuing chaos. Chávez had been secretly building a powerful air force. He had amassed squadrons of the latest Russian fighter jets, the Sukhoi 27 Flanker. Armed with the unstoppable Yahkont antiship missiles, Venezuelan fighter jets could destroy America’s vital oil shipments in the Gulf of Mexico.

It wouldn’t be the end of America, but it might be the beginning of the end.

Top alone, of all his commanders, had the best chance of finally bringing the Americans to their knees. Reports reaching his own mountain hideout from his emissaries were uniformly positive. They all indicated that Muhammad Top had at last built the jihadist juggernaut that would humble the world.

Maybe.

Khan also received monthly intelligence reports from leaders of his South American cells. They provided a more balanced approach to developments in the southern hemisphere. He had carefully monitored Top’s progress over the last few years from afar. Read reports from their brethren in Havana and Caracas and Lima. Now he was here to see for himself exactly what had been accomplished here at La Selva Negra.

And what kind of man he had created in the person of Top.

Papa Top had risen to power and prominence in the wake of the 1991 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. Top and Khan had both had a hand in the planning of this deadly attack. But it was Top’s brilliant execution that brought him to the notice of the early al-Qaeda leadership.

After the early success of that Argentine mission, Muhammad Top and his followers had moved north. There, they melted into the Mata Grosso jungles surrounding the Falls at Madre de Dios. Once he had surveyed the jungle and picked his ideal location, Top, always with Khan’s guiding hand, began the long and exceedingly difficult process of building a great terrorist army. At the same time, work was begun in earnest on Khan’s very advanced robotic warfare technology and surveillance drones in complete secrecy.

Khan was the wise and patient mentor, the man who had stolen Western technology and put it into the hands of North Korea, Pakistan, and his secret terrorist operation in the rain forest. Top was the able and willing protégé who worked tirelessly to build a massive fighting force of Holy Warriors. Khan only stole from the best. He studied Japanese work in robotics and applied their learning to military applications. His endless hard cash ensured a flow of information out of top secret U.S. Defense related firms as well.

Early on, the doctor had urged Top, when his army was at strength, to take the war out of the jungles and mountains and bring it directly to the urban population centers of Latin America. Khan had sent this message to his young lieutenant via a courier in 1995. Along with orders from Khan’s mountain headquarters, the messenger had hand-delivered a small gift to Muhammad’s jungle headquarters, then in Venezuela. It was a very special book by Carlos Marighella.

Until he was ambushed and killed by Brazilian police, Marighella was one of South America’s greatest revolutionary heroes. Just before he died, he had written a handbook offering very practical advice for creating a modern guerilla unit. His slim volume, far ahead of its time, had been written at the dawn of terror. The well-thumbed volume soon became Top’s personal bible. He studied it to the point of memorization and often quoted from it to his staff and field commanders. Marighella’s book, Manual for the Modern Guerilla, had been Top’s Koran.

Papa Top’s sphere of influence now included terrorist cells and guerilla units across the length and breadth of South America. Each of these was a curious amalgam of drug dealers, arms dealers, and common street criminals. Each one had undergone rigorous paramilitary training under Top’s commanders. His melting-pot army consisted of a seething blend of radical leftists, radical Muslims, and common street criminals whose loyalty was vouchsafed only to him.

“Our next stop is across the river,” Top said. “The Robotic Weapons Research Center. Is everyone ready to move on?”

“Yes,” Abu Khan said, eyes glittering in the electric blue light. “Weapons. Let us go and see our glorious Robot Warriors.”

28

OVER THE ATLANTIC

G in!” exclaimed Ambrose Congreve, splaying the winning hand upon the patch of green baize in a perfect fan: three queens, three jacks, and a royal straight. Ambrose, already looking tropical in a three-piece suit of rumpled seersucker, sat back in his seat, took a small sip of his spicy Bloody Bull, and relished the expression on his vanquished opponent’s face.

“Gin?” Hawke said, startled out of his reverie by his opponent’s sudden declaration of victory. He stared at the winning cards magically appearing on the table for a moment and then said, “Impossible.”

“Improbably swift, perhaps, but hardly impossible. Read them and weep, dear boy, for n’ere shall you see their like again.”

“How can you gin? We’ve hardly begun this bloody hand. You only drew three cards.”

“Indeed, I drew three cards. To wit, the third queen, the ace of diamonds, and the jack of spades filling in a lovely straight. Gin is the name of the game, my good fellow, now tote me up. Let’s see what you’re hiding. Unless I’m very much mistaken, I believe I’ve caught you with a gross surplus of costly royalty in your hand. Am I correct?”

Hawke sighed in frustration, and reluctantly began showing his cards. Congreve bent forward, smiling eagerly as out they came. He was not disappointed. Two kings, two jacks, pair of nines, pair of sevens, and some other cats and mice. The hand was worth eighty and change. Not bad, Congreve thought.

“Well, well, well,” Congreve said, picking up the score pad and gleefully adding up the totals. “That puts me ahead by a comfortable margin. Just time for one more hand. I spy something that looks suspiciously like Florida down there.”

Hawke glanced out of his window and experienced a pleasurable shudder of anticipation. The Atlantic far below was shading from a deep blue to a lovely aquamarine near the shoreline as the small jet began its gradual descent toward the eastern coastline of the sprawling peninsula. For the first time since waking, he smiled.

After the recent weeks of damp cold, Alex had been keenly looking forward to leaving gloomy England astern and spending some time in the warm tropical sunshine. According to his crew in the cockpit, they would be landing in time for breakfast on board Blackhawke. It had been over a year since he’d set foot on his beloved vessel.

“I suppose one of us should wake Miss Guinness,” he said.

“Yes. I have to say C has chosen a most decorous aide-de-camp for this adventure. Don’t you agree?”

“She’s not an ADC, that I promise you.”

“What is she, then?”

“A spy.”

Hawke was only half kidding. British SIS had long used female operators. It was not well known, but, during the Second World War, women had been involved in not a few nasty, physical operations. And, since they had always acquitted themselves quite well, there had been little resistance to getting them involved in elite commando or espionage operations ever since. There were several generations of lady operators out there now. Somewhere in the world, Hawke knew, was a cherubic grandmother with a license to kill.

Congreve was trying to get his pipe lit. “A spy? You mean for C? Yes, that would make perfect sense. Sent to keep an eye on you.”

“What else could she be doing?”

“She’s quite brainy, I believe.”

“I don’t need another brain. I’ve got you.”

“Well, I daresay she’s lovely to look at. Remarkable protuberances.”

“Dishy. As long as she keeps her protuberances out of my way. I intend to admire her from afar.”

“She certainly doesn’t have to stay out of mine. I’m quite looking forward to this tropical holiday you know. There’s something bracing about near-naked females splashing in the surf, don’t you agree? Stiffens one up before the fray, I daresay.”

Near naked? Stiffens one up? Hawke looked for a trace of irony in Congreve’s dancing blue eyes, but could find none.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Constable. You’re practically a married man. I promised Diana I’d keep an eye on you and I intend to do so.”

“You remember what Sherlock Holmes had to say on the subject of marriage, my dear fellow? In the Adventure of the Noble Bachelor?”

“No, I do not. And, frankly, I—”

“Gin,” Ambrose said, a small smile of satisfaction playing about his crinkly eyes.

“Again?” Hawke said, throwing his cards down in disgust.

Hawke sensed someone stirring behind him and collapsed back into his seat.

“Oh! Good morning, Mr. Congreve,” Pippa Guinness said, peeking at Ambrose over the back of her reclined seat. She yawned and wiped the sleep from her eyes with the back of her right hand. Hawke, who was facing aft, had his back to her and chose not to acknowledge this greeting by feigning sleep.

He’d made a troublesome discovery the evening prior at the Con-naught Bar. Over drinks with an old colleague who was recently employed at Legoland, he had learned that the lovely Miss Guinness was the source of many of C’s misgivings regarding his Amazon reports. According to his chum, Barry Donohue, Pippa had provided C with her own assessment of the current threat level in the Amazon Triangle. Apparently, she found it significantly lower than Hawke’s own estimates. Told C Hawke was overstating his case.

Hawke wouldn’t have minded that necessarily, but then he’d learned that the young woman had never set foot in the Amazon Basin. Her summary conclusions, passed along to C, were handwritten in the annotated margins of Hawke’s own carefully prepared reports. According to Donohue, all of her conclusions were all based on the accounts of various low-ranking embassy staffers notorious for collecting dated and even erroneous intel in the comfort of their plush offices in Buenos Aires, Caracas, Santiago, and Montevideo. Going out into the field would rarely even occur to them.

It was precisely the reason C had sent Hawke up the river on his “expedition.”

None of this, however, seemed to have occurred to the lovely Miss G. Or, to be honest, C himself.

Hawke suffered no delusions about C’s assigning Pippa Guinness as his “aide” on this trip. The possibility that she was a bona fide field agent was remote. She was tagging along to keep an eye on him and report back to C on all and sundry that she saw and heard in Key West. HM Government had a big stake in Brazil. He was sure the Foreign Secretary had urged C to keep tabs on its erstwhile field agent whilst he was deep inside the American camp.

Miss Guinness was seated just aft of the forward bulkhead on the left. A flat-screen monitor mounted there showed a GPS map of the lower southeastern United States and displayed their current airspeed, estimated time of arrival, and the time and temperature at their destination. The temperature in Miami, Hawke had noted with satisfaction just before they took off from RAF Sedgwick, was a balmy seventy degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature in London had plummeted into the thirties.

After supper aboard, Hawke’s steward had offered to run a film, presenting Pippa Guinness a choice from the onboard DVD library. She’d chosen Bad Boys, a fairly recent Will Smith comedy shot in Miami. As it happened, the action comedy was one of Hawke’s favorites and he’d watched some of it himself before becoming embroiled in a two-inch thick LATAM file marked MOST SECRET. This he’d been given by C for his in-flight entertainment.

He plowed through his files, studying the charts and tables, mentally rehearsing his upcoming remarks at the Key West conference. It was not as dry as he’d feared. Whoever had prepared it knew their stuff. Having digested three-quarters of the file, he’d nevertheless fallen asleep. Having slept for a few hours, he then resumed studying the thing at first light before falling into Congreve’s sticky web of aces and deuces, kings and queens.

“Good morning, Miss Guinness,” Ambrose said heartily. “How did you sleep?”

“Most comfortably, thank you,” she said. “This certainly beats economy on Virgin Atlantic.”

“Indeed it does,” Ambrose said. “Hawke Air abounds in creature comforts. Would you like some tea, my dear? Coffee? We’re having breakfast on the ground, but I’m sure the galley could scrounge up a scone or two if you’re so inclined. Eggs and toast?”

“Tea would be lovely, thank you. I’ll just pop into the loo and freshen up if I have time.”

“You do. We’re landing in about half an hour.”

“Brilliant,” she said, climbing deftly out of her seat considering the length of her skirt. “How was your gin rummy game? Did you win, Chief Inspector?”

“Handily, my dear, thanks very much.”

After she’d disappeared from the cabin and closed the door to the head, Hawke, who’d been feigning sleep throughout this conversation, brought his seat upright and looked at Congreve.

“Handily?” Hawke asked. “Is that what you said to her, Constable?”

“Mmm.”

“Handily, my arse. Deal the bloody cards.”

29

PORT OF MIAMI

H alf an hour later, Hawke was on the ground. He stepped off the plane onto the tarmac at Opa-locka Airport. The small field handled general aviation overflow from Miami-Dade and was located just seven miles from Miami International. Hawke saw a dark blue Suburban with heavily tinted windows parked just outside the FBO building, about twenty yards away. The familiar figure of Sergeant Tom Quick was striding his way.

“Welcome to Miami, Skipper,” Quick said, extending his hand. The young blond American fellow, an ex-Army sniper, was Hawke’s chief of security and had been overseeing Blackhawke’s refit in Miami these last few months.

“It’s good to see you, sir,” Quick said, taking Hawke’s canvas travel case and slinging it over his shoulder.

“Good to be here,” Hawke said, and meant it. “Cheated death once again, Tommy,” he added, looking back at his gleaming midnight blue airplane. He was always happy to have it on the ground, passengers and airplane all in one piece.

Quick leaned forward and said softly, “A quick update, Skipper. I just got a call from Stokely Jones saying he was on his way to Port of Miami to meet you and wondering if you’d landed. He says he’s got someone he’d like you to meet. A Venezuelan he met down in the Keys. He arrived late last night from Key West where he and his new friend had been in the hospital.”

“Stokely was hurt? How much damage?”

“Nothing life-threatening, I don’t think, but they kept him overnight for observation. According to him, just a scratch. He was badly cut diving on a wreck day before yesterday. Lost a lot of blood. But he sounded upbeat as usual. He says you’ll find his new friend extremely interesting.”

“You have Stokely’s new mobile number here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll call him from the car.”

Congreve had emerged from the plane and, ever the gentleman, was offering Miss Guinness a hand as she descended the few remaining steps to the ground.

“Mr. Congreve, great to see you again,” Tom said, going over to shake hands with Ambrose and relieve him of his carry-on luggage.

“Young Tom, I am delighted to see you as well,” Congreve said, giving Quick his bag. He looked around at the grassy palm-fringed field, stretching his arms skyward and rising up jauntily onto his toes. The man hated flying and was always thrilled to find himself returned to terra firma.

He turned to Quick and said, “Sergeant? May I present Miss Pippa Guinness? Miss Guinness, this strapping young lad is Thomas Quick, formerly of the United States Army and now the man primarily responsible for your security while you’re aboard Blackhawke.”

“Tommy Quick, Miss Guinness,” he said, shaking her hand. “Welcome to the tropics. I’ve got transportation waiting just over there. If everyone’s ready, the stowed luggage will be transferred from the plane while we clear Customs and Immigration. Then we’ll head over to the Port of Miami. We’ve got a piping hot breakfast waiting for you aboard ship.”

“Ship?” she said, eying Hawke. “He owns a ship too?”

“You’ll see,” Quick replied, relieving her of her carry-on luggage.

ABOARD HIS BELOVED Blackhawke at long last, Hawke excused himself shortly after breakfast and made his way forward alone. After an extended journey sealed at high altitude inside an aluminum tube, he was eager for fresh air and solitude. His boat was the only company he needed at present. He wanted to see all of her, feel her, smell her, run his fingers along her varnished rails and gleaming chrome fittings.

Stopping briefly in his aft quarters, he’d gotten quickly out of the gray slacks and black cashmere sweater he’d worn on the flight and slipped eagerly into a familiar old pair of khaki shorts and a faded Royal Navy T-shirt.

The teak decks were warm beneath his bare feet as he made his way toward the bow. Nothing beat the fragrance of freshly scrubbed teak for making a man feel whole again. It signified another trip over the horizon, a new adventure around the next turning. Smiling a salute at passing members of his crew, old friends all, he could literally feel the tension of the last few weeks and months seeping out of him. He reached the deserted bow and gazed down at the sunlit panorama of the great harbor and the blue Atlantic beyond.

Thank God for the sea and the simple light of morning.

Hawke considered for a time how very fortunate he was to be here in this place at this time. And what blessed moments of consolation there sometimes were for all the dark and dangerous hours, the harsh realities of his chosen profession. He was happy to have at least a few days of sun-drenched respite before the grim black work began again. Gray London, the narrow streets shining with rain, was already beginning to recede into distant memory.

Now, standing alone on the foredeck, some thirty feet or more above the water, it was time to widen his horizons a bit. The sun was warm. The clean air, briny with salt, was fresh and cool on his cheek. A tumble of white clouds hid a morning sun climbing the brilliant blue bowl of the eastern sky. Gulls and terns wheeled and cried, diving and swooping over the wrinkled surface of the blue waters of Government Cut.

He took a deep gulp of the salt air, pulled it down the bottom of his lungs and held it until it burned, feeling a purifying fire deep inside his chest.

The boy stood on the burning deck.

Alex smiled at the games his mind played. He was not a man for deep introspection or any kind of angst-ridden self-analysis. He simply didn’t have time or inclination for such stuff. Emotions and feelings were transitory and not to be trusted. Let his actions bloody well define his character, he’d always thought, because, for better or for worse, that’s who he was.

It suddenly occurred to him, as he stood there in the brilliant sunshine, that it wasn’t until a man reached his stage in life that he was ever fully aware of beauty or nature or even changes in weather. It dawned on him that it was only now, in his early thirties, standing here on the very brink of middle age, that one didn’t take such commonplace things for granted. He took little for granted these days. He accepted that, but wondered why.

Perhaps it had been the tragic loss of his wife Victoria on the steps of a small Cotswolds chapel two years earlier. His heart had been shattered into infinitely small pieces when the sniper’s bullet pierced his young bride’s heart and stole her life while he looked on, helpless. He was quite sure the wound would never heal. God knows it still hurt.

Then, he thought, there was the recent near miss in the Amazon jungle and the death of every one of his dear colleagues on the river.

Or maybe the explanation was far less weighty and solemn. Perhaps Florida was simply working its balmy magic upon him again. Whatever it was, Hawke was suddenly aware of a strong sense of being, not at home, certainly, but of being in precisely the right place at the right time.

“Skipper?”

“Yes?” he turned to see Tom Quick descending the steps curving down from the starboard bridge wing.

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but an old friend heard you were aboard. She demanded to see you.”

Hawke’s pet parrot, Sniper, was riding on Quick’s right shoulder.

Hallo, Hawke! Hallo, Hawke! Sniper squawked, flaring her large wings.

“Good idea, Tommy, let me have her, will you? Hullo, you old buzzard, how the hell have you been? Huh?”

Damifiknow. Hellificare! Sniper replied.

“My sentiments exactly,” Hawke said, stroking her beak with great affection. “I don’t know how I’ve been and I don’t much care, either. Pretty sad lot, are we not?”

What a babe! What a bod! Sniper said, apropos of nothing. Probably just repeating what she’d heard one of the crew remark upon seeing Pippa Guinness coming aboard.

Hawke laughed. Sniper’s language grew increasingly salty with the passing years, a result of her hanging out with the loose crowd that inhabited this great barge of his. But the old girl was trained in the ancient pirate’s ways and often had warned her master of hidden or unseen dangers.

Sniper fluttered her wings and settled easily onto Hawke’s shoulder. He’d had the beautiful bird for many years and it was a comfort to feel her resting there again. She’d gotten him out of more than one scrape, sitting on that shoulder.

Quick said, “She hasn’t had breakfast, Skipper. I brought along her Cheezbits.”

Hawke held up a handful and Sniper eagerly snapped them up.

“All shipshape below, Tommy?” Hawke asked. He’d been on the bridge for a word or two with his captain, but he’d not yet had time to inspect the engine room or the communications and fire control centers.

He’d placed Quick in charge of overseeing some aspects of the yacht’s refit and weapons systems upgrade. The yacht Blackhawke was in truth more warship than wealthy man’s play toy. She had a gleaming black hull and featured an integrated combat system centered on the Aegis weapon system and the SPY-1 multifunction phased array radar. The whole kit had cost him a bloody fortune, but he took the long view in such matters. Blackhawke was both his fortress and his base of operations when on assignment abroad. He could, thankfully, well afford to have a first-rater beneath his feet when he went to sea.

“I can’t say everything went like clockwork, these things never do, but she’s certainly seaworthy, combat ready, and ready to sail, sir.”

“I had a look at the sea trial reports from the Chief Engineer. Hard to read between the lines but, superficially at least, she seems more fit than I left her.”

Quick smiled. “For a two-hundred-forty foot vessel, she runs like a bat out of hell, I’ll tell you that much, Skipper.”

“I want to be under way by midnight.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“What the hell is that noise, Tom?”

“Sounds like somebody arriving down on the dock, sir.”

“An automobile is making that horrendous sound?” Hawke said, moving to the port rail and looking down at the dock. There was a black convertible just pulling up at the foot of the gangplank, an American muscle car with its rear end jacked up at a very severe angle. A loud blat of exhaust wafted up as the monster’s throttle was depressed.

The convertible top suddenly lifted up off the windscreen and began folding back. It revealed Stokely Jones sitting behind the wheel of the wild machine, waving up at him, a big smile stretched across his face.

Hawke smiled back and handed Quick the bird.

Stoke was back. Ambrose was aboard.

His team was together again. They were headed into the thick of it once more.

Alex Hawke was finally feeling alive again.

30

PRAIRIE, TEXAS

L ook outside, Sheriff! What the heck’s going on out there?” Homer said, slamming down his Pepsi and half getting to his feet to look over the top of the booth.

Franklin looked up from his cream of barley soup and sandwich. He twisted his head around so that he, too, could look out the front windows. He saw a man in dungaree coveralls running past the drugstore windows. He was moving at a pretty good clip for a lazy Saturday afternoon. A second later, he saw an old yellow dog bounding after the man, both of them moving lickety-split up the sidewalk.

“Missed his bus,” Franklin drawled and returned to his soup.

“Prairie ain’t got any buses,” Homer said.

“Well, there’s that.”

The sheriff took a bite of his grilled cheese and smiled. Nobody made better grilled cheese sandwiches than Virgil Buff at the Rexall drugstore. Nobody even came close.

The two lawmen had knocked off around one and left the courthouse. Out of sheer habit, they’d ambled directly across the street to the drugstore luncheonette for a bite. It was a warm December day and the overhead fans inside were spinning lazily. The smell of fried onions in the air made Franklin hungry coming in the door. There was a stack of newspapers set on the table by the screen door and he took one.

From his station behind the long Formica counter, owner Roy Sewell waved them over to the last available booth, halfway down on the right. By the averted looks he and Homer received entering and sitting down, Franklin wasn’t sure he had too many friends left around this town. But, you know, he’d always said, the law wasn’t some kind of popularity contest.

People liked it when the law was on their side and didn’t like it when it wasn’t. No mystery there.

Roy came over and took their order, nodding when both men said, “The usual.” They sat for a few moments in silence and then Homer piped up, “How’s your paper goin’? You only got a few days left before you go to Key West.”

“Almost done.”

“You happy with it?”

“I guess so, Homer. I said my piece anyway.”

“I hear on the news that pretty woman Secretary of State is even going to be there. What’s her name? Consuelo something or other. Cuban, I believe. I’ve seen her on the TV here a lot lately. Say, you nervous about getting up in front of all those fancy Washington folks?”

“I’m nervous about being gone away so long, to tell you the honest truth.”

“We’ll be all right. Don’t worry. We got Wyatt.”

“Yep. We got Wyatt.”

In truth, the town had been pretty quiet since the afternoon about a week ago here that the little Mexican boy, Manuelito, had gone to his reward out at the Brotherwood place. There had been a sizable outpouring of grief in the town’s small but growing Latino community. Even a few demonstrators and more questions raised about the inhumanity of the U.S. immigration laws, and so forth and so on. Some locals, Hispanics and others, blamed the sheriff for the child’s death since the boy had been in Dixon’s care when he passed on. Nothing you could do about that. People think what they’re going to think.

Since the boy apparently had no family left in Mexico, Franklin had arranged for Manuelito to be buried in the small plot behind St. Mary’s. It was the only Catholic church in town, and the priest there was an old friend of Franklin’s. The sheriff had spoken at the graveside and tried to express his true feelings about the loss of a child in these kinds of circumstances. He wasn’t sure he had, but he hoped he’d given some comfort to the folks who mourned. Two families had stepped forward and volunteered to take in Manuelito’s surviving brothers.

“Sit down and eat your lunch, Homer,” Franklin said. His deputy had popped up again, upsetting his water glass and spilling it directly onto Franklin’s plate. Ruined what was left of a perfectly good sandwich.

“Sheriff, something funny’s going on out there. Look at all the people going by. They’re all running. Like they were scared or something.”

Franklin wiped his mouth with the paper napkin and stood up, sliding out of the booth.

“Come on, Homer,” he said as soon as he saw the faces of the townspeople rushing past the drugstore windows. Homer was right. Something about their expressions said they weren’t running to something but rather away from something.

“What’s going on, Sheriff?” Homer said, adjusting his short brim and sliding out of the booth, “A twister or something?”

“That’s what we’re about to go find out. Go ahead. I’ll settle us up with Roy.”

Homer was first out the door and he was almost bowled over by Frank Teague, a big gangly kid who was the all-state center on the high school basketball squad. He had his baby sister in his arms. Right behind Frank were his mother and grandmother. Farther down Main Street was another group of citizens fleeing some unseen danger.

“Miz Teague,” Homer was saying as Dixon stepped out into the street, “where are you running to? What the heck’s going on?”

She paused a second, all out of breath, and said, “It’s some kind of trouble, Sheriff! A whole bunch of outlaw motorcycles. They’ve got guns!”

“How many?”

“Maybe twenty or thirty, far as I could tell. Bad. Looks like the Hell’s Angels or somebody like that. I heard they already shot up some cars. Blew out a store window.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“I don’t know, Sheriff. Everybody kinda panicked.”

“Where are they now?”

“Still down the road a piece, I guess,” the widow Teague said, looking fearfully over her shoulder. “I saw them stopped along the two-lane outside of town. You know, just before you get to Gray’s Mobil station. They’re probably headed into town! Somebody better do something, Sheriff!”

“Yes, ma’am. It’ll be all right. Everybody needs to get off the streets. Right now. You go tell everybody you see. Go on, now.”

“Para Salvados,” Homer whispered to Dixon. “PS 13, right, the same guys we saw down at the bullring?”

“Could be,” the sheriff said. He was already thinking that’s who it was. In the last forty-eight hours, he’d had a few death threats on the phone and one in the mail postmarked Laredo. Daisy’d gotten some very disturbing email. He’d heard rumors from various Latino members of the department that down in Nuevo Laredo, some people were blaming him for the death of the little Mexican boy. Tiger Tejada was no doubt stirring the pot.

The woman set off at a run up Main to catch up with her fleeing family. Franklin stepped aside to let other people go by. You could hear the beginning of a faint and distant thunder to the south. Pretty soon here, they’d be entering town at the bottom of Main Street. That would be about eight blocks to Franklin’s left. A sound like approaching thunder grew perceptibly louder.

“Homer.”

“Yessir.”

“Is Wyatt asleep? Get Wyatt on the radio and tell him to get some officers out here on the street. Anybody he can find in the office and on the radio. OK? Tell him to look out the window. We got a potential panic if he doesn’t already know that by now. I want everybody off the street, now. Tell him I want everybody wearing Kevlar, too.”

“Yessir. How ’bout you?”

“I’m going to try and find out what we’re looking at here.”

“You want this?” Homer asked, pulling out his Smith & Wesson. Franklin looked at it a second. He didn’t carry often, for two reasons. He was trying to set a good community example. And he’d once killed a whole lot of people at close range and was trying to live out the balance of his life without repeating that experience.

Times change.

He took the gun.

“We ain’t got a whole lot of time here, Homer. Now, go on, git over there and help Wyatt.”

FOLKS WERE STREAMING out of Roy’s Rexall now, and Dixon had to squeeze through an onrush of frantic people just to get through the door. He found Virgil, the short-order cook, locking up the cash register and the owner, Roy, breaking the breech of a shotgun he kept behind the counter to make sure it was loaded. Franklin knew he kept it loaded with double-ought buckshot. Wasn’t ideal, but better than nothing.

“Roy, you got a quick way to get up on your roof?” The drugstore was on the ground floor of an old four-story brick building with unobstructed views south down Main Street.

Roy vaulted over the counter. “Out the back, Sheriff. Fire escape steps leading up there. You want to go up there?”

“No. I’d like you up there with your shotgun, Roy. Just in case. Will you do that?”

“You got it, Sheriff. Heck is going on?”

“Outlaw motorcycle gang.”

“We’ll go scope it out.”

“Don’t show yourself unless you see a signal from me. And for Pete’s sake hold your fire.”

Roy nodded and then he and the short-order man headed to the back and the dark hallway that led to the rear of the old Victorian red brick building. Dixon hurried back out the front door and onto the narrow sidewalk.

The crowd had thinned out completely, only one or two still on the street. To the south, as far as he could tell, Main Street looked empty all the way to the edge of town. Looked like most folks had disappeared indoors or gotten in their vehicles and hightailed it out of town. In only a few minutes, the townspeople had evacuated.

The approaching rumble was louder now. Much louder. They were getting close. And there were a lot of them, too, kicking up dust and sending a chalky cloud up into the blue skies over the little town.

Dixon walked out into the center of the empty street. He looked up at the top of the building and saw Roy and Virgil up there on the roof, looking down over the parapet. Across the street, the courthouse had faces in every window. No officers had appeared yet which was probably just as well. Let these boys have their big parade and then just keep on going.

Franklin started walking south down the center of the street. The roar of the engines was getting very close. He’d walked half a block when he saw the first of them coming six blocks away. It was a whole lot more than twenty or thirty of them. From the look and sound, it was more like a hundred of them. Big bikes, too.

They were riding four abreast up Main, moving at a slow speed, maybe ten miles an hour. There were at least twenty or thirty rows of four behind the leaders. The chopper noise, now that there were buildings on both sides, was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think.

He did hear a shout to his right and saw Wyatt and Homer emerge from the courthouse entrance with a couple of other officers. He could see a few more bunched up behind them. All three outside the door had riot guns and were wearing Kevlar sport-coats and Franklin had to make a split second decision about whether or not he wanted uniforms on the street. Their presence could serve to incite what was maybe going to be a peaceful demonstration or show of force or whatever these boys had in mind.

He turned to Homer and Wyatt and cupped his hands.

“Back inside!” he shouted. “Get everybody to stay out of sight and stay down unless you hear different. Let the riders pass on through!”

“What’s that?” Wyatt cried. His hearing wasn’t too good.

“Go back inside!” the sheriff shouted as loud as he could. Homer gave a signal that he understood and the men retreated back into the courthouse building. Twenty seconds later, all the faces had just about disappeared from the windows.

The rumbling machines, mostly stripped down Harleys flashing chrome, were half a block away and showed no signs of slowing or stopping at the sight of a lone man in the middle of the street, standing astride the center line. Franklin scrutinized the outlaws, but they were still too far away to make out the faces of the front four.

All wore polished motorcycle chains, skull earrings and nose rings, wraparound shades, bandannas, and greasy Levis. On their bare torsos, the leather gear of the Para Salvados. Each massive-armed and bearded rider wore the white death’s head symbol plainly visible on the front of his black helmet. They all maintained a very precise formation, with at least three feet separating the bikes, and they kept to a speed of around ten miles an hour.

When the choppers entered the courthouse block, he could finally make out a few of the riders. Most of them he’d seen that night at the Plaza del Toros. Then he made eye contact with the rider on the far right. It was Tres Ojos himself, Tiger Tejada. El jefe, the gang leader, riding low in the saddle, reached down with his left hand and pulled out a sawn-off shotgun from a fringed holster below the seat of his bike.

Tejada was maybe a hundred yards away. He aimed his stubby weapon directly at the sheriff’s midsection. Out of the corner of his eye, Franklin saw Homer re-emerge from the courthouse doors. He was carrying a pump action riot control shotgun. Franklin couldn’t wave him away because any sudden movement at this point was a very bad idea. He looked quickly to the rooftop where Roy waited, found his eyes and shook his head “no.” He could only hope the man understood his desire not to provoke a fight. It was then that Tejada suddenly raised his own gun over his head, pointed into the air, and fired twice.

It was a signal for everyone on a motorcycle.

Guns came out. Rifles. Shotguns. Riders in the middle of the pack fired their weapons into the air. Between shots, they shouted “Viva Mexico! Reconquista! Viva Mexico!” It seemed like everybody was shooting. The sound of their shouting, even their gunfire, was almost lost in the deep heavy rumble of a hundred or more growling machines. Franklin held his gun in his right hand, hanging loosely by his side.

He left it there as he stared at Tiger Tejada, shaking his head from side to side as the first row of bikes bore down on him.

He never raised his weapon or took his eyes off Tiger. No, he just stood there in the street and prayed that Homer or Roy up on the roof with his shotgun didn’t do any damn fool thing to disrupt their protest ride or parade or whatever you want to call it. He wasn’t trying to be a hero, a man alone standing his ground or any of that kind of nonsense. He knew he was going to die. He was just pretty sure this wasn’t the way he was going to do it.

Anyway, the bikes were on him before he’d had a chance to move out of the way. Suddenly, Tiger’s right fist shot into the air and all the bikes braked to a stop in unison, kicking up a choking cloud of dust, but staying in formation.

Tiger had stopped a foot away.

“Ola,” he grinned.

“How you doing today?”

“Not bad, man. You know.”

“What can we do for you?”

“Nice town you got,” he said, looking around, the sun glinting off the silver bangle hanging from his ear.

“You’re here illegally.”

“You come to my town, I come to yours. I do what you ask, huh? Return the stinking putas. The next thing I know, a little Mexican boy dies of thirst while in your personal hands. You Anglos place so little value on our lives, eh? Well, this will be a warning to you. No place on this border is safe. Never safe for us. Now, not for you, Mr. Tex-Ass Ranger.”

“Reconquista!” the riders shouted, fists in the air. “Reconquista!”

It was the secret war cry of the millions of illegal aliens crossing the border. Dixon, like a lot of border lawmen, believed the illegals were in fact an invading army, bent on reconquering the American Southwest. Their swelling number included actual armed members of the Mexican Army, mercenaries from North Korea, Russia, and other communist lands. Increasingly brazen, they fired on American Border Patrol officers and terrorized American ranchers. Reconquista was the title of the little speech he’d written for Key West.

“The boy’s blood is on your hands, Sheriff. Remember that in the days to come.”

Tejada twisted the throttle and popped the clutch, roaring away. In seconds the other riders accelerated, and the waves of Harleys roared past the lone man on the centerline.

The first wave brushed him pretty close on both sides, the first few rows of bikers keeping to their tight formation, once again firing into the air. After about five or six rows had passed him by, clipping his arm or his leg, some of the gangbangers started getting cute, swerving their bikes toward him and then avoiding him at the last second. He figured if he moved in any direction, he’d get hit for sure, so he just stood his ground.

It took a long time for the bikes to rumble past him.

Wyatt, Homer, and the rest of the officers stayed put until the last of the big choppers had almost disappeared up Main. Then they came down the brick walkway, weapons at the ready. The deafening roar of the engines was already becoming a distant rumble moving north and out of hearing range.

“You all right, Sheriff?” Homer said, quickly crossing into the street to where he stood.

“Homer, to tell you the God’s honest truth, I reckon we’re about one funeral away from a border war.”

Then he turned and started to walk away, go back inside and finish his lunch.

“Put that in your Key West report, Sheriff!” Homer called out after him. “I mean it!”

DIXON HEARD TWO more bikes coming toward him, big Harleys moving very slowly up the now empty street, headed the same direction as the departed Mexicans. He recognized the two boys he’d chased off the Brotherwood ranch the day the child died. Hambone and Zorro.

The two bikes rolled to a stop a few feet shy of Dixon. The riders stayed in the saddle, Hambone picking his teeth with his knife, both men grinning at the sheriff.

“Thought I told you two to move on,” Dixon said.

“We did,” Zorro said, “Just a couple of scouts, passing through. Keeping an eye on things for you, Sheriff. Looking for Mexicans. Seen any?”

Hambone laughed out loud.

Dixon craned his head around and saw the last bit of dust settling up the road. “You two roughriders are keeping a pretty safe distance, I’d say. You don’t want them to get away, you get on after them.”

Zorro said, “We ain’t necessarily looking for trouble, Sheriff.”

“Leastways, not yet, we ain’t,” Hambone added. “Still rounding up recruits. Getting sizeable, Sheriff. Two or three hundred riders in this county alone. I hear there’s a thousand over to Laredo. You let us know, come time for the last stand.”

“Take your gang violence elsewhere. This is a peaceful community. Now git out of it.”

“You might want to watch your ass, old man. Shooting war starts with Mexico, which side you want us on?” Zorro said.

“Yeah, Sheriff,” Hambone said. “Texans got to stick together in times of war. You need us.”

Dixon looked at him.

“Ain’t gonna be no Mexican war, son. We did that once already. Remember the Alamo?”

He turned and walked away to the sound of laughter.

“He fucking kidding?” he heard Hambone say to his back.

“Hey, Sheriff!” Zorro called after him.

“Yeah?”

“What the fuck do you think this is, if it ain’t war?”

31

THE AMAZON

C ould you please land this thing?” Harry pleaded.

“What? I can’t hear you!” cried Saladin Hassan, who was bouncing around up front, doing the driving.

No surprise Hassan couldn’t hear. Between the bellicose roar of the airborne Toyota’s unmuffled engine and the howl of wind and driving rain, you couldn’t really have a normal conversation. Harry Brock cupped his hands round his mouth.

“I said, try to stay on the goddamn ground!”

“Okay! Sorry!”

Harry sat back and tried to wipe away the rainwater streaming from both eyes and running like a river into his mouth. Unlike Saladin and Caparina, he had not thought to bring along a pair of swimmer’s goggles. He leaned forward and screamed again this time directly into the driver’s ear.

“I. Said. Slow! Down!”

They hit a ditch and launched again and Harry was once more hurled sideways against the thinly padded rear seat.

“Too slow and we get stuck in the mud!” Saladin Hassan shouted over his shoulder.

“What about the fucking mines?” Harry screamed, trying to hold on. “You said a lot of these unmarked trails are land-mined!”

“I don’t think this one is,” Caparina shouted over her shoulder.

“Really? You don’t think so? That’s good, Caparina,” Harry shouted back, “very reassuring!”

Harry was sitting, occasionally, on the narrow bench seat in the back of the mud-spattered Toyota Land Cruiser. This was definitely not your father’s Land Cruiser. There were no windows, no doors, and no damn top. About six inches of water was sloshing around his ankles, one foot in each of the rear foot-wells.

Saladin explained he had cut the roof off years ago. Who needs it? he said. For protection there was only a heavily padded roll-bar overhead. Harry was clinging to it now in hopes of remaining more or less inside the vehicle each time it left the ground. Colonel Hassan, Harry had learned the night before, was with an elite Brazilian spec ops group known as Halcon 4. It means Falcon, Saladin had said. Brock had heard of them. A secret government anti-terrorist unit working this region of the Amazon right now.

“You’re not on the road!” Harry yelled, palm fronds whipping across his face. “The road is to our fucking left!”

Saladin cranked the wheel hard left and they bounced back into the rut. Hassan, his beautiful ex-wife Caparina, and the American spy Harry Brock were careening down a twisting muddy trail full of unpleasant surprises. But at least none of them had been lethal so far.

Unlike Harry, Caparina, who was sitting shotgun and clinging to a grab handle on the dash, seemed to find this mad experience life-affirming and fairly amusing.

Brock tried hard to be philosophical. Be in the moment, Harry, as one of his old girlfriends used to tell him. One of the advantages of this rain was the effect it had on Caparina’s faded red T-shirt with the word Jamaica emblazoned across her lovely breasts in big black letters. He thought Saladin must be crazy. How could a man ever leave a woman like this?

Apart from the distinct possibility that this narrow twisting road was land-mined, you had to take it on faith there was no oncoming traffic from the opposite direction. Every turn was blind, with towering leafy green walls on either side. Every two minutes or so they’d hit another deep rut or streaming gully and go airborne for an eternity, returning to earth with a great splash of mud in all directions.

Caparina had a soggy, disintegrating map of the Mato Grosso region of Brazil in her lap. Periodically, she would try to show it to Harry, looking for some direction as to which way they should go. But, since the twisting gash in the rain forest they were currently following didn’t appear on any maps, it was tough. They’d been driving all morning and Harry was more confused now than when they’d started out.

The driving rain and the mud-splashed windshield didn’t help your visibility either.

“Does any of this look familiar?” Caparina said, turning in her seat to smile at Harry. She put her finger on the map, “This area here?”

“How can you tell?” Harry said, leaning forward to give the map a cursory glance.

“What?”

“I mean, Caparina, that everything looks familiar here! Everywhere you go looks exactly like this!”

“Good point,” she said smiling at him.

The three comrades, who had only recently decided to join forces, had talked into the wee hours over a late supper and many drinks the previous evening. They decided the first thing was to try and relocate the airstrip where Harry’s shot-up airplane had put down three weeks earlier. Harry estimated that, after his capture, he’d been transported over about five miles of rough jungle road, then crossed a river. He’d been taken to one of the many “detention centers” located around the perimeters of the terror training camps. Harry, along with a bunch of rural youths, was there for his “political indoctrination.” Harry listened politely, but it didn’t take. That’s why Top had ordered him shot.

Saladin Hassan was convinced that if they successfully located the secret airstrip, as identified by Brock, they’d be that much closer to finding Harry’s former detention center; and, thus, that much closer to finding Top. Saladin, in his undercover role as one of Papa Top’s henchmen, had never been allowed to visit these sensitive places without first being blindfolded.

“There should be a river around here somewhere,” Saladin said, slowing down and peering over the steering wheel.

“I think we’re in it,” Harry said, kicking his feet and splashing water forward beneath Caparina’s seat.

“I like him,” Caparina said to her ex. “He’s funny.”

Saladin said, “Wait, what’s that up there?”

Brock leaned forward. He saw a dark mass a hundred yards ahead, moving left to right across their path.

“What the hell is that?” Harry said.

“Water buffalo,” Saladin said.

“That’s got to be your river,” Caparina said. “Stop!”

Hassan stood on the brakes and they fishtailed to a halt just shy of the swollen torrent. He raised the little fish-eyed goggles up on his forehead and smiled at Harry.

“See? We made it!”

“Made what? I don’t recognize this. I don’t have a fucking clue where we are!”

“Calm down, Harry,” Caparina said.

EVERYBODY CLIMBED out of the Toyota into slushy mud that came up to their knees. Saladin led the way forward to check out the river. Harry, bringing up the rear, could barely make out the small herd of water buffalo moving away along the flooded bank.

Ahead, Harry saw, the road plummeted and seemed to disappear, dead-ending in a muddy brown river some two hundred yards wide. The heavy rains of the past few days had caused the thing to overflow its banks. The raging stream was churning with submerged kapok logs, most likely from a logging station upriver. Logs and other debris were flowing by from left to right. The rain, mercifully, had subsided a little. For a few moments they were able to speak more or less normally above the sound of the rushing river.

“Take a look at this, Harry Brock,” Caparina said. She had flattened the rain-soaked map onto the hood of the Toyota.

“I think we’re here,” she said, putting her index finger on a small tributary. The unnamed river ran west to east through an area of floodplain and flooded forest.

“Yes,” Saladin said, studying the map. “That makes sense. What’s this larger river over here called?”

“Igapo,” she said, “Black Water.”

Harry looked around and said, “Is there maybe a waterfall nearby?”

“Impossible to say. Certainly not one on the map. There are so many in this part of the jungle. Some big, some small. Some exist only during the rainy season.”

“Why do you ask?” Saladin asked Brock.

“I hid in one. After the plane went down.”

“Tell us,” Caparina said, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“We all survived the plane’s landing. I was the last one off. When Top’s welcoming committee started shooting at us, I made it into the jungle. I was the only one who got more than a hundred yards from the plane alive. After slogging it for about an hour, I found a waterfall. I hid inside when I heard the dogs coming.”

“Inside. You mean, behind the water?”

“Yes. There was a deep indent in the rocks at the base of this waterfall. A small cave with a tunnel leading deeper inside. Unfortunately, they caught me before I could do too much exploring. But it looked interesting.”

Saladin looked at him. “What do you mean, ‘interesting’?”

“It looked like the tunnel could have been manmade.”