Spy

“How far do you think these falls were from the landing strip?” Caparina asked, suddenly much more interested.

“I didn’t get very far from the strip,” Harry said. “The jungle was so thick and I only ran for about an hour. Probably less than three miles.”

“We’re probably here,” Saladin said, pointing to the map. “And with this flood, we’re not going any further right now. Let’s track the water buffalo on foot along the river. There’s still a lot of light left in the day and it’s better than turning back.”

“I agree,” Caparina said. “Let’s follow this river and see what we see.”

“Go with the flow,” Harry said, smiling at her. Even soaking wet, she was a babe.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s get the weapons.”

A half-hour later, trudging in the rain through knee-deep mud behind a herd of meandering buffalo, Harry was feeling more than a little discouraged. But he began to notice that the current was speeding up dramatically. It was beginning to at least look more like a run of rapids. And, maybe it was leading to a waterfall.

Suddenly, Saladin, in the lead, halted.

“Listen,” he said.

“What?” Caparina said, pausing to hear.

“That dull roar. Up there, not too far. Hear it?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, his face showing some life. “That sounds like it.”

“All waterfalls sound the same, Harry,” Caparina said. “Some are a little louder, that’s all.”

“I know, but this one sounds like the one I found, that’s all I can tell you.”

Fifteen minutes later they were standing near the top of a very large waterfall, watching it cascade down into an almost circular pool some forty feet below.

“Yeah,” Harry said looking down and nodding his head. “I dove in that pool and swam under those falls. Let’s go.”

“You’re sure about all this, Harry?” Caparina asked.

“It’s a hell of a difficult climb down there,” Saladin said.

“Almost positive,” Harry said.

32

MIAMI

T his mystery man you’ve kidnapped,” Hawke said to Stokely Jones, “tell me more.”

“The Mambo King? You’re going to be talking to him yourself in about ten minutes. You want me to go faster?”

Hawke glanced at the big sixties style chromium speedometer centered behind the steering wheel and said, “Not really.”

The two men were rumbling loudly across the causeway spanning Biscayne Bay, strapped into the black leather-pleated front seats of Stokely’s outrageous new automobile.

Hawke, who favored more understated forms of conveyance, was fascinated by the GTO Pontiac. This street-legal racing machine, he had just learned, was capable of running the standing quarter mile in a shade under seven seconds. A small miracle. Hawke, for all his racing automobiles, had never owned anything that could touch this metallic beast off the line.

Alex Hawke was eagerly anticipating his meeting with the Venezuelan officer. Stoke had arranged the rendezvous at the Key Biscayne home of his intended, the beauteous Fancha. He had somehow forged an agreement with the Coast Guard honchos in Key West to maintain custody of the man for forty-eight hours. Or, longer if necessary, since, as Stoke told the commander, it was clearly a matter of national security. The man was now parked temporarily in a staff apartment located above Fancha’s boathouse.

“What’s he like, your Venezuelan colonel?” Hawke asked.

“You know it’s funny.”

“What is?”

“Well, like I told Tommy Quick this morning, it’s weird, but I feel like I’ve known this guy all my life. Even though we only met two days ago.”

“Really? Why is that, do you suppose?”

“To tell you the honest truth, when we were out there in the Tortugas, I encouraged the man to let his hair down. You know, seeing as how I’d saved his life, I said to him, and this is a quote, ‘Fernando, if you got any frijoles, spill ’em now, hombre.’ ”

Hawke laughed. “So, he’s talking, is he? What the hell does he want?”

“Asylum for him and his family up here in the big Magic Kingdom, I think. That’s the best card we got to play. Anyway, I told him you were a big-time government guy and would listen to what he had to say.”

“You say which government?”

“Hell, I don’t even know which government. I can’t keep up with you anymore. You ought to wear those little flag pins, so folks know who they’re dealing with at the moment.”

Hawke smiled, and realized just how much he’d missed Stoke’s company. He looked affectionately at the big man out of the corner of his eye. The sixties steering wheel looked small in his big brown hands.

Hawke said, “You say you encouraged the colonel to let his hair down? Is that right?”

“Yes I did.”

“You mean you told this poor guy you’d leave him alone to die out there in the Tortugas. If he didn’t immediately agree to tell you everything you wanted to know.”

Stoke smiled and shook his head, “C’mon, now. You’re in America now. We have rules and regulations when it comes to interrogations.”

“War is war,” Hawke said quietly.

“Tell me about it,” Stoke said.

Hawke shifted his eyes to a beautiful old ketch heeled over and beating to windward, a golden blonde lying spread-eagled atop her cabin house. Hawke could make out a tiny triangle of red material below her waist and nothing above it. What a glorious view that skipper had.

Something, perhaps the sight of such a lovely boat under sail, triggered unpleasant thoughts of the anti-ship weapons Stoke had found on the submerged airplane. The fact that they were Russian-built was troublesome enough. Unfriendly Latin American strongmen in possession of these things was a huge problem. Especially in the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the oil America imported traveled up through the Gulf and entered at the Port of New Orleans.

“So, your new best friend has agreed to share his deep dark secrets with me?”

“Said he would. Just before breakfast this morning. I told him I wouldn’t make my world famous five-cheese omelet for him again if he didn’t.”

“What did you get out of him this morning?”

“He likes to mambo.”

“That’s a joke I hope.”

“You’ll see.”

STOKE SMILED at Hawke, downshifting to pass an old couple tooling along in a green Volvo covered with “Save the Manatee” stickers. Stoke had nothing against Volvos, or the elderly, but he had almost zero tolerance for manatees. All the fat sea-cows did was eat and get fatter. Didn’t even eat anything bad like mosquitoes or snakes. Just hung around clogging the waterways and ate grass all day. They were totally useless. But, hey, what did he know? He was just saying.

“Hold on to your hat,” Stoke said, blipping the throttle.

Just before the intersection of Crandon and Harbor Drive, Stoke braked and downshifted once more, then took a hard right on a narrow, unmarked road. The street was barely visible amidst the thick foliage of an overgrown hedge. They crossed a small coral bridge, barely wide enough. The road became crushed shell beneath an arch of severely sculptured ficus hedge. Once over the bridge and through the hedge, the feeling was quiet and cool and withdrawn.

“Does this place have a name?” Hawke asked.

“Place called Low Key,” Stoke said. “Get it?”

“That’s why there’s not even a street sign.”

“That’s it exactly.”

They drove slowly past one or two manicured estate entrances with vine-covered gatehouses. On either side of the gently winding lane were walls of mossy ivory and, visible above them, a few rose-colored crenellated rooftops, peaked, all at various elevations. The few mostly hidden homes, some festooned with exploding bougainvillea, were tucked away in riotous gardens of emerald, blue, and mauve. An old gardener they passed removed his floppy straw hat and held it reverently over his heart as Stoke’s American icon rumbled by.

Alex Hawke suddenly found himself thinking about Fancha. He had never set eyes on Stokely’s lady friend. He understood that Fancha was lovely to behold. And, judging by this brief sample of her neighborhood, he also had to assume the nightclub singer from the Cape Verde Islands had enjoyed an extremely successful musical career.

Glints of sun bounced off wave tops now visible through the thick palm groves as the bay came back into view. The shell road had turned to brick. It was cool and shady and the air was heavily scented with jasmine. This small and very private road, Stokely said, was called Via Escondida.

The Hidden Way.

33

V ia Escondida led to a small peninsula that jutted into the bay. At the brick road’s end, they came to a broad cul de sac bordered with sharply tailored hedgerows and stately palms.

Stokely had slowed almost to a crawl as they approached an apron of mossy brick marking an entrance. Here was a very impressive set of wrought iron gates cloaked with heavy vines and streamers of bougainvillea. The gates were framed on either side by stands of tall coconut palms and a wild profusion of birds-of-paradise in full flower. Hollywood could not have done a better job.

“This is it?” Hawke asked.

“God’s little acre,” Stoke said. “Actually, she’s got about ten of them back in here. Do you have any idea how much a square foot of dirt costs in this neighborhood?”

“One hardly dares ask. How’d she manage it?”

“She was married to the owner back in the late nineties. A serious club owner from Chicago. Bought this place back in the eighties. He died somehow.”

“Somehow?”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“Another American regulation.”

Stoke turned into the gravel drive and stopped just outside the gates beside a crumbling stone column with a shiny keypad mounted on top. He reached out and pressed several buttons. The engine was ticking over nicely and Hawke enjoyed the deep burbling note of the muffled exhaust. It was a lovely sound combined with the tinkle and zing of invisible insects.

He’d had just time enough to read the cracked and peeling painted tiles set into the vine-covered wall. A colorful plaque declared that this was Casa Que Canta. The name roughly translated into something like “The House That Sings.” Appropriate enough, he supposed, considering the current owner’s occupation.

A second later, the gates swung slowly and silently inward revealing a twisting crushed stone drive that disappeared into the wild yet perfectly maintained jungle. On the other side of this faux wilderness, a monstrous white palazzo sitting atop a gracefully sloping lawn that ran down to the water’s edge. The house was a blend of Spanish, Moorish, and Italianate influences. A three-story-tall tower dominated one end, which Hawke imagined gave spectacular views of the bay and Miami skyline at night.

The large center portion of the house, which included an ornate entrance portico, was a long colonnade of graceful white arches covered with red barrel tiles. Beyond the arches, a large tiled fountain splashed in a tranquil garden courtyard. Tropical birds of various colors and sizes flitted about the garden.

“How many bedrooms?” Hawke asked, knowing it was the required question.

“She stopped counting at eleven,” Stoke said.

Stokely eased the rumbling machine to a stop under the porte cochere and switched off the engine. As they climbed out of the Pontiac, a manservant in a white jacket swung open a tall cypress door, carved and studded with hammered bronze nails. The man, who had flaming red hair swept back in a pompadour, saw Stokely coming around the front of the car, stepped outside, and said, “Lovely morning, Mr. Jones.”

“Isn’t it, Charles?” Stoke said, beaming.

“Indeed, sir.”

“Very laird of the manor these days, aren’t we, Mr. Jones,” Hawke whispered to him as they walked up the flagstone path to the arched entrance.

“Almost as bad as you,” Stoke said, laughing. Hawke, shaking his head, followed him through the door.

Inside, it was dark and cool. A salt breeze filled Hawke’s nostrils. The central hallway of blue tile and stucco led all the way through the house. At the far end, the brilliant blue bay and silky green lawn were plainly visible. Hawke, unable to contain his curiosity any longer, slipped away to open a very grand door to his left. He stepped inside. It was the living room, a great barrel-shaped affair with a fireplace at the near end that was surely Carrara marble and must have weighed eleven tons or more.

“Alex?” Stoke said from the open door.

“Sorry, just looking.”

“We don’t want to keep the Mambo King waiting.”

“Where’s the lady of the house?” Alex asked the butler as their footsteps echoed down the length of the hall. He was now even more curious about this woman who might one day marry one of his closest friends.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, Madame said to tell you she had an emergency appointment at the studio. Overdubbing, I think was the expression she used.”

“Charles calls Fancha Madame,” Stoke said. “Says it all the time. He doesn’t mean anything derogatory by it.”

“Quite normal, I assure you my good man,” Hawke said, suppressing a smile. He wouldn’t have missed this for the world.

“Well, we won’t be here too long anyway,” Stoke told Charles.

“This is Mr. Hawke. He and I are going out to the Boat House to check on our houseguest. How’s he doing, Charles?”

“The colonel seems much better this morning, sir. I just took him some tea. Would anyone else like a chilled beverage? Mr. Hawke? Mr. Jones?”

“Maybe later, thanks,” Stokely said, and led Hawke out into the sunshine on the lawn. The ruffled blue waters of the bay lapped at the grass and a Great White Heron picked its way along the shore. Hawke caught a glimpse of a large stucco structure just visible through the grove of coconut palms by the water.

“That’s the Boat House?” Hawke asked, surprised at the size of the thing. It would have made a nice pensione on the Grand Canal.

It was an old two-story building, clearly built at the same time as the main house. The architecture was more Venetian and a long dock extended out into the bay. On the landward side, a beautifully tiled exterior staircase led to an upstairs apartment, probably used at one time by servants or the owner’s dock master.

There was music coming from the apartment. Loud, but with a lot of static, as if from an old wireless set. Tito Puente and his Mambo Kings were singing, “Hernando’s Hideaway.”

Stoke led the way upstairs and used a heavy key to unlock the weathered wooden door. They entered a small sitting room with old varnished bamboo furniture and a leafy green wallpaper that was tired and water-stained. Shafts of smoky sunlight through the many windows provided most of the room’s illumination. An open door on the far wall led to a small Pullman kitchen; and a second door revealed a slightly larger bedroom containing a single unmade bed.

In the corner, a man in white pajamas was sitting in a sagging armchair reading the Miami Herald, tapping his toes to the mambo beat. An old RCA Victor radio set, sun-bleached blond wood cabinet, stood by his chair. He was young for a colonel, Hawke saw, probably not more than thirty years old. Beneath his pajama top, heavy bandages were visible. He had a lean coppery face, busy black eyebrows, and no moustache above the white teeth.

The man spread his paper across his thighs and smiled around his cigar as his host and the visitor approached.

“Colonel,” Stokely said, “this is Mr. Hawke. I’ve been telling him all about our exciting meeting in the Tortugas. Mind if I turn this music down a little?”

The man grinned, showing a lot of teeth. “Señor Hawke, it is an honor. I am Colonel Fernando de Monteras, of the Fuerza Aéreo Venezolana. I am honored by your presence. Forgive me for not standing. Won’t you please sit down?”

Hawke and Stokely pulled up two bamboo side chairs.

“Pleased to meet you, Colonel,” Hawke said amiably. “Sorry to hear about your accident. Where were you flying from when your plane went down?”

“Cuba. The Isle of Pines. A big island off the southern coast. Do you know it?”

“Well enough. I believe El Jefe landed there with his boat Granma prior to his glorious revolution in 1959.”

“He is a great politician.”

Hawke said, “You’re an admirer of Fidel, Colonel de Monteras?”

De Monteras shook his head. “No. I said only that he is a great politician, Señor Hawke. Politics is the art of enriching oneself, the art of robbery; that is the very definition of politics for an immense majority of Latin American people.”

Hawke leaned forward and spoke carefully. “I would like to help you, Colonel. I understand from Mr. Jones you seek asylum. I may be able to arrange that. In return I want you to tell me why your government is buying Russian anti-ship missiles from the Cubans. And, of course, a great deal more.”

“Señor Hawke, please believe me. If you can provide a safe haven for me and my family now living in fear in Caracas, I will tell you everything I know.”

“Why do you want to leave Venezuela, Colonel?”

“I believe my government, in league with others in the hemisphere, is stoking a confrontation with the United States. They are fanning the fires even now as Chávez calls for a communist jihad against American influences in the region.”

“You don’t support this thinking?”

“Señor, I think such confrontation as Chávez imagines would lead to the ruin of my country and the death of many millions of people. I am a warrior who loves his homeland. But I am not a suicidal fool.”

Hawke turned to Stokely. “Could you please call Charles and ask him to send some iced tea and sandwiches out to the Boat House? I think the Colonel and I are going to be here awhile.”

Stoke rose from his chair and went to the phone.

“Tell me something, Colonel. Are you really a pilot?”

“No, señor. I am a commandant in the secret police. I wear the FAV uniform sometimes for travel on unofficial business.”

“Business that takes you to Cuba. How deeply are Fidel or other Latin American leaders involved in this business of yours?” Hawke asked the Colonel.

“Up to here, Señor Hawke,” Monteras said, making a slashing motion across his neck. “If not to their eyeballs.”

“I saw pictures of the two missiles on your airplane, Colonel. Unless I’m mistaken, those are EMP warheads. Electro Magnetic Pulse devices. Am I right?”

“They are, señor. New weapons to destroy command and control centers.”

“I know what they are. Only two countries have the technology to generate EMP without the concurrent use of nuclear weapons. Britain and America. So those warheads were stolen. I want to know where and by whom. Now.”

“I don’t know, señor.”

“You don’t? Then I don’t know if I can help you, Colonel. My very best wishes for a safe trip home.”

Hawke stood up and looked at Stokely, shaking his head.

“Please! Señor Hawke, please sit back down, I beg you. I am aware of one name. A man now in England who may have been deeply involved in the illegal purchase of these restricted devices. Perhaps he can be of some help to you.”

“His name?” Hawke said, remaining on his feet.

“He’s German. A former ambassador in Brazil.”

“Zimmermann,” Hawke said quietly.

“Yes. You know this name? Rudolf Zimmermann. He negotiated the sale of the EMP technology to my country. Something went wrong during the negotiations. A large sum of money disappeared. Chavez wanted his head. He fled to England, leaving his wife behind at Manaus. I don’t know where he is now.”

“I know where he is now,” Hawke said, returning to his seat and looking at the Venezuelan with narrowed eyes.

“Where is that, señor?”

“He’s en route to Manaus in a small urn,” Hawke said. “No matter. I want you to tell me absolutely everything you know about this Zimmermann transaction.”

“You’ll get my family out? What do you want to know?”

“Not what I want to know, Colonel. What I need to know.”

“I understand the distinction, Mr. Hawke.”

“Good.”

34

MADRE DE DIOS, BRAZIL

H arry Brock slung his gun over his shoulder and started down the nearly vertical gully that descended beside the waterfall. The narrow muddy ditch ran all the way to the pool at the bottom. The footing was nonexistent but he made it safely down, mostly on his butt, by grabbing at low-hanging branches and exposed roots to ease his rapid descent. He wasn’t entirely successful in slowing his fall and made it to the bottom in no time.

Caparina and Hassan followed right behind. Harry watched the girl and was amazed at how much more graceful she was coming down. It had started to rain again, hard, and that didn’t make things any easier.

When they had all three finally reached the slope’s bottom, Harry cupped his hands and screamed at the top of his lungs, “Yeah, I think this is it all right!”

You had to scream, even though the people you were screaming at were standing only a foot away. They were standing on a rocky ledge at the very bottom of the towering waterfall. The heavy mist made it tough to see more than a foot ahead, and the falling water sounded like God’s drum solo.

“Let’s go inside,” Harry said, edging along the outcropping. Then he left them and disappeared into the swirling mist, pushing through the curtains of white water.

A second later, he had entered the sudden wet stillness at the cave mouth. It was the same one, he saw, the place where he’d hidden. He’d stood right here, terrified, waiting for the dogs to find him. A piece of sheared-off bamboo he’d planned to use as a weapon lay just where he’d left it three weeks earlier. He’d never gotten to use it when they’d burst inside and dragged him away.

Caparina and Hassan waded in, stamping their sloshing boots and wiping the water from their eyes.

“This is it?” Caparina said, hope rising in her voice.

“Definitely,” Harry said, fingering his bamboo shaft. “See? My trusty spear.”

“This way,” Hassan said.

Saladin had wandered off, running his hands over the cave walls. He pulled a rubber-coated flashlight from inside his waistband and clicked it on. Caparina did the same with her own flashlight and Harry followed. Their beams disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, a gentle incline leading away from the mouth.

“The cave is natural,” Saladin said, “the tunnel is not. Hurry.” Harry got the feeling he’d been looking for this place for a very long time.

“Come on, Harry.” Caparina disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel on the heels of her ex-husband.

They were forced to walk single file through the narrow tunnel. Water dripped from above, annoyingly cold when it spattered on your head and ran down your back. They had to stoop, and sometimes crawl, to climb through some sections. Harry guessed they’d ascended a good fifty feet from the entrance, perhaps passing under a river at some point the dripping was so bad.

“A cavern!” he heard Saladin shout from up ahead.

It was the size of a large church. The rock walls soared twenty feet overhead forming a natural dome. The air was so damp and cold you could see your breath in the flashlight beams. Precariously balanced towers of stone, each as big as small cottages rose into the darkness. An underground river, swift and silent, bisected the interior. Brock knelt beside it and plunged his hand into the water. It was a few degrees cooler than the air.

Harry straightened up and stretched for a moment, raising his hands above his head, trying to get the kinks out. He played his flashlight beam on the stone formations overhead.

“You think this is man-made?” he asked Saladin, who was inspecting another connecting tunnel on the far side.

“Not this part, no. But a good deal of this tunnel, yes. Look over here. See where the big grinding bit chewed the rock leading inside the tunnel?”

“Bit?” Harry asked. “This was all bored out? Even Mexican drug smugglers can’t dig tunnels this big.”

Harry knelt and ran his hands over the scarred rock beneath his sandals. He couldn’t really feel any difference in the rock here. But when he shifted his weight to stand, a loose piece of shale six inches long angled up from the cave floor. He bent down again and removed it, uncovering an opening. He stuck his hand down inside without thinking.

“Ow!” Harry said, yanking his right hand out quickly. He felt as if a razor-toothed animal had snapped at him.

Saladin aimed his beam at Harry’s hand. Blisters were already forming on all of his fingertips.

“What the hell?” Harry said. “Something burned me! Christ, that thing’s hot.”

“Thing?” Caparina said, taking a step forward to see. “What thing?”

Hassan now had his flashlight pointed down inside the hole. After a second, he stuck his own hand inside. Then he looked up at Brock and Caparina and smiled. “It’s not hot, it’s cold.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a power line,” Hassan said, a grin spreading across his face.

“Power line? In a cave? How come it’s so cold?”

“It’s a new kind of superconducting cable. Cheap, but very high tech because these things carry five times the electricity of aluminum or copper. Made of a ceramic core surrounded by a sleeve of extremely cold gases. The thermal insulation coating was damaged here, that’s why we found this repair hole.”

“How’d you get so smart?” Harry asked him.

Caparina said, “He’s got his master’s in engineering.”

“That helps. And where in God’s name do you suppose this power line runs to? And, what would you do with all this power out here in the jungle anyway?”

“Let’s find out, Harry Brock. Come on, the cable runs north.”

TWENTY MINUTES later, the threesome emerged from a well-disguised hole in the hillside. They stood for a moment, trying to get their bearings in a small patch of sunlight.

“This is it?” Harry said, looking around and unable to hide his disappointment. There was nothing but jungle replicating itself in every conceivable direction.

“That cable doesn’t come all the way out here for nothing,” Caparina said, logically enough. “Let’s keep looking.”

“Get down!” Saladin cried as he dove into the green thicket. “Shit!”

Harry and Caparina instinctively followed him, diving under the thick green foliage.

“What is it?” Harry asked, seeing Hassan’s wide-eyed expression. “What did you see?”

“Up there,” he whispered. He was pointing skyward at a wide hole in the canopy.

“Holy shit,” Harry Brock said. “A drone. What the hell are drones doing out here in the middle of nowhere? There’s nothing to spy on.”

“Oh yes there is,” Saladin said, watching the silent thing approach.

The twelve-foot-long Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV drone plane, was headed right toward them, skimming the treetops. The fuselage was matte silver, and there were slender red missiles mounted at the wingtips. A single silver bug-eyed camera hung mounted beneath the nose. Harry Brock knew the thing was a late-generation endurance craft. It could probably stay aloft for twenty-four hours or longer.

“Is it looking for us?” Caparina asked, watching the thing approach. “Or, at us?”

“Neither,” Saladin said, “it’s coming in for a landing.”

“I think maybe this is it,” Harry said, excited. He pushed a leafy frond aside so he could see beyond the vegetation. “The airstrip.”

“Right,” Saladin said, peering over his shoulder. “Let’s get closer.”

They moved quickly through the jungle and hid in the thick growth alongside the middle section of the airstrip. The tiny aircraft made its final descent, touching down at the far end of the weed-cracked asphalt runway. The drone sped along right past them, slowed, and then accelerated and lifted off.

“What the hell?” Caparina said.

“Touch and go landings,” Harry said. “Whoever’s flying that thing is getting in a little practice.”

“Is the pilot in that little shed?” Caparina asked.

A small corrugated building painted in camo colors was situated at the far end of the runway. Harry borrowed Hassan’s binocs and scoped it out. No movement that he could see behind the dirty windows, no sign of anyone at all. But there was a very odd-looking vehicle parked out on the rain-wet tarmac.

“The UAV’s not looking our way,” Harry said. “Keep well inside the tree line till we’re just opposite the shed. Check weapons.”

Harry checked out the weapon Hassan had given him earlier that morning. It was an interesting gun, a PP-19 Bizon submachine gun with a pistol grip and a folding butt. The gun had a high-capacity ‘helical’mag with 64 rounds. Harry was pretty happy with it. The gun had been made in Russia in the early nineties and was still in use by Spetsnaz and other law enforcement forces. It was comfortable to carry and would provide a lot of firepower.

They checked up opposite the shed, staying low in the undergrowth. There had been no movement and Harry was pretty sure nobody had seen their approach. The UAV was off doing loopy-loops in the wild blue yonder and no current danger to them.

“Okay,” Harry said. “Let’s go. I’m going over there. Then I’m through that door. You two wait here till I give the all clear. Understood?”

They nodded. Harry thumbed his selector switch to full auto fire and sprinted the few hundred yards across open ground to the shed. As he ran full tilt toward the door, he checked out the strange vehicle. It was a small tank, weighed maybe a ton. It was about a fifth the size of an Abrams M-2. Main Battle Tank. No turret, just a video camera pod atop a center periscope mount and twin 7.62mm machine guns front and rear. The single hooded camera lens was pointed away from him now and it stayed that way.

He flattened himself just to the right of the door, catching his breath and listening for any sign of life inside. He imagined the conditions inside would be near intolerable in this baking heat. The windows on either side of the door were filthy and caked with mud. He considered peeking through but decided it wasn’t worth it. His gut told him the shed was empty.

But you never knew. His gut had been wrong a few times.

He stepped back, turned toward the shed, and planted his foot hard in the middle of the door. The force of the kick sent the thin aluminum door flying inward. Harry rushed inside, staying low, gun out front. He saw the door lying on the dirt floor. His eyes were having trouble adjusting to the sudden darkness inside. But he sensed movement.

“Down!” he screamed.

Against the far wall was a long table stacked with electronic equipment. Mounted on brackets above, there were three small monitors displaying black and white aerial views of the canopy. Seated in an old swivel chair, wearing headphones, was a man in fatigues. Harry immediately saw that this one was alone in the dark room. The guy was just starting to swing around. Harry knew he had a gun in his hand before he even saw it.

“Drop the weapon!” Harry barked. “No pistola!”

The guy kept coming around.

“Death wish!” Harry said, low menace in his voice. “I mean it, partner!”

Harry saw the guy’s shaded face in profile and his stubby black gun coming up and he squeezed the Bizon’s trigger. A short deafening burst. The guy, still in his chair, was slammed back into his equipment and then slumped to the floor, sending his empty chair skidding toward Harry. Brock took a few steps forward and stuck his foot under the guy’s shoulder, lifting him up a foot or so, then set him gently back down dead.

He stepped back outside into the blazing sun and made a beckoning motion to Saladin and Caparina. They were already running full speed toward him.

“I thought I told you guys to wait,” Harry said, irritated.

Saladin was all over the pint-sized tank, circling it, inspecting the mud-caked tracks.

“Here’s my question about the deceased gentleman in there,” Harry said, using his bandanna to wipe the sweat from his eyes. “A UAV like the one we saw can stay aloft for about twenty-four hours. He’s got three of them up there. So, what the hell? He’s sitting in there day after day looking at a million square miles of treetops? I don’t think so.”

“Probably right,” Hassan said, over his shoulder. He was kneeling to inspect the tank’s treads.

“So what’s he doing?” Brock said, bending down to inspect the rear-mounted machine guns.

“He’s practicing for flights somewhere else,” Hassan said, “that’s what he’s doing. You can fly these things seven thousand miles away from the target zone.”

“The U.S.?” Caparina said.

“Hey!” Harry said, watching Saladin pawing over the tank. “Stay away from that damn thing. It looks dangerous.”

“One camera and its facing the wrong way,” Saladin said. “The UGV can’t see us.”

“UGV?”

“Unmanned Ground Vehicle. Looks like a new Iranian Zulfiqar UGV,” Hassan said. “Liquid fuel. Called a Troll by the Iranian military, a Tomcat by the Israelis. See the angry red Troll face painted on the flanks? Definitely Iranian.”

“A robotic tank. You’re an engineer. How the hell does it work?”

“This UG’s not a true robot by any scientific definition, because it’s not autonomous. Battlebots like this are run by wireless controllers sitting inside virtual reality video displays, like the guy in there was doing.”

“These autonomous ones,” Harry said, “sound bad. They make up their own minds who they want to kill?”

“Right, you just cut them loose. There are rumors about a big one called the Ogre. It’s virtually unstoppable. Ogres use pattern recognition technology to kill anything that moves. Fortunately, those are extremely rare at this point,” Saladin said.

At that moment the robot tank lurched slightly and began moving forward. As it did so, Harry saw the camera lens begin to turn toward them.

“Another controller somewhere has picked us up!” Saladin said.

“Quick! Jump on the back,” Harry shouted to his two companions as he ran toward the vehicle. He leapt aboard the flat section at the rear. There were two grab-rails, one on either side, probably so troops could do what he was doing, hitch a ride.

“Come on, get on,” he said. “Just stay flat on the deck below the camera pod and we should be all right.”

He reached his free hand out to Caparina and pulled her onboard. The tank was gathering speed now. Saladin Hassan had to sprint the last few yards before he was able to leap on the back and grab Harry’s hand. The surveil camera was now cycling through a 360-degree observation rotation. The lens on its stalk was about a foot above their heads. As long as they kept their noggins down, Harry thought, they’d be invisible.

“Where’s this damn thing going?” Caparina said.

“Home to Papa, I hope,” Saladin answered.

“You mean Papa Top,” said Caparina.

“E.T. go home,” Harry said.

Harry Brock looked at Caparina and grinned. Then he banged his fist down a few times on the hot metal surface of the robotic tank.

“You heard me, Ugly. Take us to your leader.”

35

KEY WEST

A lex Hawke was unexpectedly charmed by Key West. He had arrived in these emerald waters aboard Blackhawke late the previous night. Already, he found the place irresistibly alluring. Disembarking on a whim just after his sunrise swim, he had begun an early-morning stroll through the old naval submarine base. Dew still glistened on the well-cut grass and even the early birds were still sleeping in live oak trees draped with Spanish moss.

He had emerged from the base at Olivia Street and then passed though the narrow streets of town. He whistled past the Old City Cemetery and wondered where everyone was. Not the dead, but the living. He assumed Key West stayed up late and slept late and, at this time of morning, the Old City would normally be deserted.

Following his nose, seduced by a powerful aroma, Hawke strolled the shadowy streets until he found the source of the delicious scent. A tiny corner café was dispensing intensely aromatic Cuban café con leche. He found a seat at one of the small tin tables on the sidewalk, chairs and tables still wet with last night’s rain. He zipped up his yellow windbreaker and sat down.

A young man with spiky blond hair and wearing a tight black T-shirt studded with rhinestones came outside and took his order of coffee and croissant. A few minutes later, the waiter, who was still wearing exotic eye makeup from the previous evening, returned with his breakfast and offered him a slim paperback history of the place called Isle of Bones.

“First visit to Key West?” the waiter asked Hawke, looking as if he already knew the answer.

“Right. I’ve been fishing on Islamorada a few times, but never all the way down here. Beautiful place.”

“Hurricanes took their toll, but we’ll bounce back.”

Hawke gave the waiter some money and said, “Town looks great to me.”

“Yeah, well, we’re pretty much back to abnormal now.”

Hawke laughed and picked up the guidebook.

Since he was in no hurry, he decided to delve into the slim volume of Key West lore. Blackhawke would provision here before moving south and the conference was scheduled to run two days. He was not looking forward to his first confrontation with Conch; but he was determined to make his case to the Americans and see a bit of Key West. It would help to have a bit of the local color. He began to read.

THE FIRST MAN who ever stepped out of his boat and set his boots upon this island, Hawke read, found himself knee-deep in bones. Early Spanish explorers, who had somehow survived the treacherous reefs guarding this sun-drenched isle, found an island littered with human bones. Grinning skulls decorated the low-lying mangrove branches as they glided toward shore; more were in the gumbo limo trees, swaying and tinkling in the trade winds.

Bones and more bones. The Spanish explorers had named it Cayo Hueso.

The Isle of Bones.

The island was of course a notorious pirate enclave for much of its colorful history. It was ideally located for the skullduggery of freebooters and privateers, preying on the galleons sailing out of Havana, loaded to the gunwales with gold. Hawke’s ancestor, the infamous pirate Blackhawke, had no doubt sent more than his share of Spaniards to the bottom after relieving them of their booty.

And then there were the reefs.

The razor-sharp spiny coral reefs that surrounded the island offered pirates a prized source of protection; and a source of bounty as the early “wreckers” plundered booty from foundered vessels. By 1835, “wrecking” salvage had made Key West the wealthiest city in America. Treasure still attracts its share of fortune hunters; it seemed no one could escape the tidal pull the island itself exerts on visitors. Even the most casual guest could sense buried riches around this island. Enormous emeralds sleeping deep in the sand, Hawke imagined, or flashing rubies skittering like crabs beneath the turquoise sea.

Heading back, Hawke felt a palpable air of mystery hanging about the place. You could feel it, he had noticed on his walk, lingering back in the shadows, suddenly at your side, then brushing past as you rounded a corner, only to whirl and face you head on, cool upon your cheeks. At night, he imagined, walking along a darkened side street overhung with heavy magnolias and fragrant flowering frangipani, you could feel the steady pull of the past. On every block, softly glowing windows would hint, if not of treachery, then at least of whispered secrets and inhabitants best left undisturbed.

Blackhawke was moored alongside the great arm of a breakwater that enclosed the submarine basin at the Yard. The Navy, in one form or another, had been stationed in these pristine waters since 1823. In the early days, Key West had been the forward base of the Navy’s pirate-hunting West India Squadron. Their mission was to root out the bloodthirsty buccaneers from their hideaways deep in the mangrove creeks up and down the Keys.

When Hawke returned to the docks from his morning reconnoiter, he found the big black ship straining and tugging at her mooring lines. Rain fell, spitting fat drops at first, then coming down in buckets. Greeting the armed security guards both the U.S. Navy and Tom Quick had posted along the quay, he hurried along to Blackhawke’s covered gangway and saluted the Navy officer posted there. The man would be there for the duration. Security was tight all over the yard. Navy choppers buzzed overhead. There were divers down now in the basin. They would be inspecting his hull along with the Navy’s vessels, making sure everything stayed clean of limpet mines.

Hell, half the State Department was down here for Conch’s southern hemisphere security meeting. Brick Kelly, the Director of the CIA, was speaking on border protection in about three hours. “Good fences make good neighbors,” he’d said to Hawke when last they’d met at the White House. The place would be piled to the rafters with American bigwigs plus one reluctant Englishman who’d invited himself.

Heavy purple cumulus clouds had been stacking up along the southern horizon all morning. The predicted blow building up to the south all morning. It was now right on schedule, roaring up out of the Florida Straits, and Alex Hawke turned his collar up as he left the shelter of the gangway and made his way across decks freshly varnished with rain.

Hawke entered an elevator and rode up three decks. Stepping out and into the driving rain, he then made his way forward to the bridge. The broad teak decks were slick with rain. Pausing out on the bridge wing, he checked his watch before pushing inside. It was just past noon. He was scheduled to arrive at the Truman Complex, where Conch’s conference was being held, at three. He had lunch with Ambrose Congreve and Stokely Jones at noon, but he needed to stop by the bridge and have a chat with his captain.

A new boat was scheduled to arrive in Key West this very evening. A sleek Italian powerboat that he’d been having modified for a very special mission. He and Brownlow, her new skipper, needed to go over the ship’s roster. They would hand-pick a crew to man her. Fifteen of Blackhawke’s best would be sailing south with them.

Hawke pushed inside the bridge and saw Brownlow and the captain deep in conversation. Good timing. His pulse quickened. He was getting close. No matter what the Americans thought after hearing his remarks, Hawke was determined to sail deep into the heart of the Amazon.

He was going to return to the crossroads of evil. He was going to find and kill the mad giant standing at the doorway to hell.

And God help the bloody fool who got in his way.

36

T he American Secretary of State, Consuelo de los Reyes, sat back from her temporary wooden desk. She brushed a stray wing of thick brown hair from her high forehead and noticed that her hands, for some reason, were trembling slightly. In an hour or so, she had to give her opening remarks in the auditorium three floors below. But that wasn’t the problem.

She knew precisely what she had to say. She had no need of notes, teleprompters, or cue cards. In Washington, in Senate hearings, and in other capitals of the world she was justly admired as a brilliant extemporaneous speaker; but now she found herself reading her opening remarks for the tenth time, trying to focus. Trying to keep her mind busy. Trying to stop thinking about him.

This was ridiculous. She should be enjoying herself. She was out of Washington for a few days, thank God. Fewer meetings, fewer phone calls, and no mini-crises blowing up in her face at all hours of the day and night. She was in Key West, for heaven’s sake. Her favorite place on earth!

She had chosen Key West as the site of her Latin American security conference for any number of good reasons. The Naval Air Field was strategically and conveniently located for regional State Department, CIA, DEA, and other police and government personnel even now flying in from all over both North and South America. Key West Naval Station was a fairly easy location to secure. Navy fighter squadrons had been patrolling the airspace overhead all week and the perimeter of the old naval base and Truman Complex had been swept and secured for the last ten days.

The news media had arrived, of course, but there was little to be done about that. To be honest, she suspected President McAtee of deliberately leaking a few details about this conference. The president desperately needed good news. The White House needed to be seen as doing something about the growing restiveness along the Mexican border, and in the entire southern hemisphere.

The mainstream media were calling the whole thing a publicity sham. Saying that Key West was an easy terrorist target, the worst possible location for an American security confab. Predicting terror attacks on the island had become a nightly news item. NSA had assured her they’d picked up no terrorist Internet chatter about her impending conference. That was a comfort, she supposed.

Another, more subliminal, reason she had chosen Key West, Conch thought, was the notion of coming home. She cherished any time at all here, however brief.

Her family had been one of the oldest sugar families in Cuba. De los Reyes plantations had dotted that beautiful island for centuries. But her father had been a very wise man. He had seen Castro coming, even when he was considered a mosquito, fighting his sporadic guerilla actions up in the mountains. Gustavo de los Reyes had moved everyone to Florida the day before Fidel rolled into Havana. So Conch had been born and raised right here on the tiny Island Republic of Key West, in a yellow Victorian house just across the way from Truman’s Little White House.

She’d grown up fishing the flats with her brothers. In her teens, she’d become an accomplished bone-fishing guide in these waters. By the time she left for Harvard and a doctorate in political science, she could spot the wily Mr. Bone sliding across the shallows at sixty yards. At twenty, Conch was legendary among the grizzled old charter skippers down at the docks. She still was, she thought, smiling, it was just a different kind of legend.

She was never happier than when she managed to escape down to the Keys, especially when she had a few days to disappear at Conch Shell. This was her small bungalow hidden away on a small bay north of here at Islamorada. Beer, Buffett, and the slippery Mr. Bone. Of course, it was always more fun when he was there. But that was not in the cards right now and so she’d best not think of it.

She sighed and sat back in her chair. She was grateful for these few hours to herself before two days of nonstop sessions got under way.

Save the two Marine guards stationed outside her door, she was alone in her makeshift office. Her temporary quarters occupied a corner suite of offices on the top floor of the old Marine Hospital. Built in the mid-nineteenth century, it was a sturdy brick building, recently whitewashed, with a tin roof and freshly painted plantation shutters. It was also surrounded on all sides by tall palms whose fronds whipped and clawed her windowpanes in the stiff wet wind.

She looked up from the blurry words she’d written on a sheet of notepaper, her eyes refusing to focus. Her view, beyond the rain-streaked windows, was of stormy skies to the west. She overlooked the choppy Sub Basin and the remains of Fort Zachary Taylor guarding the entrance to Key West. To her right, she could just see her old Victorian homestead, Harry Truman’s Little White House, the Truman Annex, and the myriad red rooftops nestled under the swaying palms and lowering purple skies above the old town.

If she raised herself up an inch or two off her chair, and looked straight out her windows, however, as she did now, all she could see in the foreground was that damned black yacht.

ALEX HAWKE WAS ABOARD that sky-blotting boat. Some time, surely within the next half hour, the man was going to disembark. Then he would walk ever so briskly across the Yard. He would make his way to the former Marine Hospital and present his credentials to the Marine sentries and DSS guards stationed at the main entrance security post. He would pass through the X-ray and metal detectors, making breezy chat with the guards.

Would he find a phone downstairs and call up to her office? Or would he go straight to the auditorium to practice his remarks? The meeting would begin in one hour’s time. Knowing Hawke, he’d get right down to business. He was dead serious about his topic and when he focused on something, it was all consuming. She knew that firsthand.

She also knew that, were she to get up right now and post herself at the window, she might catch him striding across the coquina walkway. He’d be oblivious to the foul weather. She’d never seen him wearing a raincoat, or any kind of topcoat. What was the line he’d used the day they got caught in a downpour at Mt. Vernon? Rain’s only bad if you’re made of sugar. That was Hawke, all right. All man, all the time, rain or shine.

She looked at her watch and collapsed back into her chair. The truth was, at any minute, Alex Hawke could blow through that door like a force of nature. She wouldn’t put it past him. Much bowing and scraping, of course. He knew she was royally pissed off and with good reason. The facts of the matter were not obscure. The man had been an absolute shit, and they both knew it.

But.

But, but, but.

Every damned button on his Royal Navy uniform would be gleaming. His curly black hair would be damp with rain. He would be thinner than usual, she guessed, after what had happened to him in the jungle. Tall and thin and deeply tanned. And, then he would say something beguiling or charming or both.

Bastard.

Oh, he would stand there, smiling, and then he would aim those blue eyes at her, looking down at her upturned face as though he were about to snatch her up and…

He was going to walk right through that door and she had no idea how to handle it. Hell, he’d be here any minute now, she was sure of it. What in God’s name was she to do? She could smile, offer her hand, and ask about his voyage down from Miami. Pathetic. No. She would say how delighted she was that he could find time to be here. That she and her senior advisors had all read the insightful report of his time in the Amazon and were sure he’d find a receptive and enthusiastic audience when he spoke and—

Damn it!

She sat back and closed her eyes. She willed her breathing to slow, tried to stop an oncoming tide of images that came rolling in anyway. They broke upon her mind one after another, like waves upon a windswept beach.

TWO YEARS AGO, she and Alex Hawke had spent a blissful week down in these islands, fishing and bathing in the warm sea at Conch Shell. The spinning hands of days unwound quickly, whirling into golden afternoons that dissolved into blood-red sunsets and finished with a sparkle of stars over their sleepy heads. They went about naked and found themselves making love whenever and wherever the notion struck them. She had given her heart to Alex Hawke then, thinking that, finally, she was not misplacing it.

But time and Alex Hawke had a way of breaking that heart, no matter how fiercely she tried to protect it.

Shut the damn blinds, Conch.

Suddenly, she rose from her chair and marched across the scrubbed wooden floor to the west-facing windows. There were four of them, tall casement windows, each with its own set of Venetian blinds. She grabbed each set of cords, yanked each of them to one side or the other until she finally got all four of the damn things to bang down on the windowsills. The office was plunged into deeper gloom.

She turned her back on the windows and stared for a moment with her arms crossed under her breasts, staring at the bad painting of a leaping sailfish that hung on the wall behind her desk. A grinning man with a bent rod stood on the heaving decks of the sport-fishing boat reeling in his trophy.

Hooked, goddamnit.

Ah, well, that’s better, she thought, looking at the shuttered windows and feeling her pulse slacken. No more distractions. Now, she could go back to her desk and get some work done. Who was he, anyway, to ’cause such a hellish fuss around here? There was vitally important work at hand. The next few days would be critical to State’s rapidly evolving foreign policy in Mexico and the southern hemisphere.

She sat down at the desk and considered her opening.

As she’d reminded President McAtee just before leaving Washington, the battlegrounds of the war on terror were constantly shifting. In her view, they were rapidly shifting to the south. Just look at the Mexican border. Cuba. Why, Chávez and the Venezuelan government had only recently—

“Conch?”

She took a breath. Here we go.

She looked up. Commander Alexander Hawke was standing in her doorway, leaning inside the frame and smiling at her.

He raised his hand in mock salute and said, “Reporting for duty, sir!”

She pushed back from her desk and stood, smoothing the pleats of her navy skirt. Finally she met his eyes.

“Oh, Alex. Come on in, please. No one told me you were here.”

He looked toward the shuttered blinds. “Conch, my bloody boat is right out—”

“On your way up to my office, I mean. No one told me.”

“Ah. Sorry about that. I guess I gave them the slip.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“Hmm.”

He stepped inside the door, fingering the scrambled eggs on the white Royal Navy commander’s hat in his hand. She was relieved to see he was a bit nervous, too. She moved to him, trying to avoid those eyes, looking at his epaulets, his buttons, his hands, anything. Without any conscious effort she was taking his hand and remembering how warm his skin felt next to hers in bed.

He said, “I didn’t give you much advance warning, did I? Sorry, my dear girl. I should have rung you, shouldn’t I? I just thought I’d pop up here and surprise you. You know, say hello before the conference got started properly. Under way. I do apologize for inviting myself to your conference, by the way. But you should know it was hardly my idea.”

“Really? That’s a comfort. God knows I’d hate to think you actually wanted to be here. So. How are you, Alex? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Last time I heard from you, you were headed off into the jungle.”

“I did write. Many times.”

“You did.”

“You never responded.”

“I’ve been busy. There’s a war on. Any number of them in fact.”

“Look. It has been too long a while, Conch. I know that. That’s why I jumped at the chance to come to Key West.” If Hawke was aware of his inconsistency, he did his best to conceal it.

“Well—” she began, and then paused, for she thought she’d heard someone tapping lightly at the door.

“Oh, terribly sorry!” a young woman’s voice said. The door hadn’t fully closed and now it was opened about six inches. Yes, there was someone there, pushing the door open.

She turned away from him to see who it was. It was a tall and very beautiful young blonde with silky tresses falling softly to her shoulders. She carried a thin maroon leather satchel tucked tightly beneath one arm. Visible on the briefcase were the tiny letters AH embossed in gold. Her carefully tailored navy blue suit could not disguise a lush, spectacular figure. Somehow she’d made it through the rain with her makeup and wavy coif perfectly intact.

“Awfully sorry,” the young woman said, stepping inside, deftly managing to both look at Hawke but speak to her. “Alex, you forgot this. I thought you might need it in the meeting. I’ve included the newly edited section on Brazilian economy which went missing earlier.”

“How kind of you,” Hawke said, quickly taking the satchel. “Won’t you say hello to our hostess, the secretary of state?”

Conch extended her hand to the girl and said, “Consuelo de los Reyes. So nice to meet you. And you are?”

“Guinness, Gwendolyn Guinness,” the pretty girl said, smiling effusively but offering nothing more by way of information than to add that she was called Pippa.

Conch smiled back at her, but both smiles soon faded in the growing silence.

“Pippa,” Conch said.

“She’s my aide,” Hawke finally said, the pathetic word sounding as if it had been strangled up from the depths of his damnable soul.

No one seemed to have any idea what to say next.

Then Conch broke the spell.

“You call him Alex?” Conch said.

37

MADRE DE DIOS, BRAZIL

T he robot tank tore through the jungle like a wounded animal. It was all Harry could do just to hold on. Low-hanging creeper vines whipped at his face and shoulders. He was on the vehicle’s right rear, one hand on the grab-rail, one leg wrapped around one of the tank’s aft-facing machine guns. Caparina was up front on the left. She was bouncing around, looking back at him, plainly terrified. Hassan was holding on to the right front grab-rail with both hands. Every time the speeding tank hit a deep rut, or strayed from the narrow jungle pathway, the three of them were sure they’d be flung off.

The pint-sized Troll was doing about thirty miles an hour. Because of overhanging vegetation on either side, the passengers felt like they were doing a hundred or more. Dangling creepers constantly lashed their uplifted faces. You had to constantly duck and bob to keep a vine from lassoing you around the neck.

Now they splashed through a shallow brown river and disturbed a number of sleeping caimans. The South American alligators were not happy at the noisy intrusion and everyone aboard struggled to keep their flailing feet away from the snapping jaws.

Harry was glad of their speed and the fact that submersion in the river had not stalled the engine. The amphibious vehicle slowed, but kept moving forward, throwing off a bow wave of white water on either side. Soon enough they were dry and plunging back into the deep green stuff.

The lens remained pointed straight ahead. The human controller, wherever he was located, only wanted to keep the thing on the path. Harry sensed the robot was returning to home base. Speed increased and you got the feeling of riding a bucking bronco with a bad case of stable fever.

A half-hour later, it was tough on the bones. Harry was beginning to think the tank didn’t know where the hell it was going. They were still deep in the jungle but the path was angling upward and had been doing so for some time now. He figured they must have climbed about a thousand feet in the last twenty minutes or so. The air was slightly cooler and very damp at this elevation.

Suddenly, the damn thing slowed to a crawl. The trail had become muddy and deeply rutted.

They were going so slowly Harry was able to get up onto his knees and take a look at the road ahead.

“Big ravine up ahead,” Saladin Hassan called back. “More of a deep gorge.”

“I see that,” Harry yelled. “Are we going to stop, or get off, or what?”

“I don’t think I see any bridge!” Caparina cried. The chasm was looming and she looked like she might jump off. “Do we stay on, Harry?”

It was clearly poop or get off the pot time, Harry saw. The ravine was wide and deep. Hundreds of yards across. Mist was rising out of it so there was probably a river at the bottom. Yeah, he could hear it thundering down there. Rapids.

“Bridge directly ahead!” Saladin shouted. “I’m not sure it will take our weight!”

Harry could see it now. There was a suspension bridge stretching across the chasm. The bridge reached five hundred yards across the ravine and was ten feet wide. A metal grating ran right up the middle of the thing. On the far side, a sheer cliff descended a thousand feet to the river. The bridge angled slightly upward. There was some kind of structure over there on the opposite cliff, barely visible at the edge of the forest. For a second, Harry dared to hope that they had discovered an entry point into Top’s military compound.

“Harry? Jump, or not? Make the call!”

Tough call to make. The cabled bridge looked wide enough to accommodate their stubby vehicle, but could it hold the weight of the one-ton “Troll” plus three pasajeros? That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, and they were rapidly coming up on a drop-dead decision. Think, Harry.

Whoever was driving this thing obviously knew where he was going. If he was taking the bridge route home now, he’d clearly done it before. It had to hold.

Harry said, “We’ve got a better chance on this damn thing than we do on foot. We stay on.”

Both of them looked at him for a second and then turned their attention back to the looming bridge. They were twenty yards away. Harry used the moment to ready his weapon, as did Saladin and Caparina. You could feel the nervous tension aboard. Good nervous, the kind that gave you an edge.

They rolled into a narrow clearing. Clouds of mist were rising from the river gorge, and Harry watched a flock of snowy egrets slowly winging their way across the chasm. A forest of stunted trees grew from the cliff face. The trees were so smothered with the white birds, they gave the appearance of heavy snowfall. His eye picked up movement on the far side. When he looked again, he saw nothing over there but the squat cliff-top structure he’d seen a minute earlier.

“See that building over there?” Saladin asked.

“Yeah. Doesn’t look good,” Harry warned, keeping his voice low for some strange reason. “Everybody be ready.”

“Think we’re expected?” Saladin asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry said. “All we can do is ride the tiger.”

“I’m not liking this,” Caparina said, when they were but a few yards from the bridge. Harry wished like hell she was on the back and he was up front with Saladin, but it was too late to manage anything like that now.

“It’s adventure,” Harry said to her. “Think how dull life would be without it.”

“Yeah,” she said, unconvinced.

They rolled onto the bridge.

It swayed and sagged perceptibly under the weight of the one-ton tank. Harry racked the slide on his PP-19 Bizon, chambering a round. The gun felt good in his hands, and he was certainly glad of it now. So far, the bridge seemed to be holding their weight, no problem. They were already a couple of hundred yards across, nearing the center of the damn thing. The point of no return.

There was some kind of low white building at the far end of the bridge. But no visible human activity so far.

That was the last happy thought Harry had on the bridge.

“Shit, another Troll,” Hassan said.

Caparina said, “What the hell do we do now, Harry?”

Harry looked at the tank coming fast from the other bank. It was a good question. He turned the options over rapidly. The oncoming tank could be on routine patrol. No. That wouldn’t make sense because this new one was sending back a live feed of them right now. Surely the operator on the other side had seen them? If they jumped and retreated, they’d just have to take their chances on foot later.

“Sit tight,” Harry said. Better to stay aboard and try to take out the oncoming enemy vehicle. It was the only prayer they had of ever getting across. Harry needed to find out what was on the other side.

“Go for the camera,” Harry said. “Blind it. Give it another twenty seconds to get in range and open up.”

“What if it shoots first?” Caparina said, reasonably enough.

“We shoot back.”

When the opposing tank was one hundred yards away, the twin barrels of its forward machine guns opened fire.

“Here we go!” Caparina said, loosing a long burst at the tank.

Saladin braced himself and started returning fire. He loosed a long sustained burst and saw rounds ricochet off the Troll. None of this fire seemed to have any effect on the armored tank. Caparina kept firing. She stayed low behind the steel mud-guard which afforded her a little protection. Harry was having a hard time getting a line of sight with Saladin directly in front of him. Then Hassan fell back. He was hit. He’d let go of the grab rail. A leg wound was spraying blood into Harry’s face.

“Grab the rail!” Harry shouted.

Too late, Harry tried scrambled forward to grab the man. But the tank lurched and Saladin pitched sideways, sliding from the tank. Caparina screamed. Her ex would have fallen into the chasm, too, but he caught the suspension cable and hung on somehow, his feet dangling in air. How long could he hold on like that?

Riding the tank up front was now clearly suicide. “Jump!” Harry yelled at Caparina. “Jump, damn it!” But she didn’t. She stayed with it, riding the damn Troll, leveling ferocious fire at the oncoming tank.

“Last chance!” Harry cried, squeezing his Bizon’s trigger and trying desperately to blind the damn robot.

“Only chance!” she shouted back. “I’m going to knock out that camera!”

“Suit yourself, I’m going back to get Saladin!” Harry screamed at her just before he leapt off the tank. What were you going to do with a girl like that?

He landed hard on the metal grating and scrambled to his feet, bringing his gun up as he whirled around. The tank carrying Caparina now seemed to be accelerating toward the oncoming Troll. It was as if the controllers of both vehicles had finally wised up and wanted to bring this firefight to a speedy conclusion.

Harry raced toward Saladin, saw his white-knuckled grip on the bridge cable. A thousand feet below his dangling feet, the thunderous river waited.

“Saladin! Hold on! I’m coming,” Harry said, looking back once more at the girl. Shit. She was still aboard the tank.

Harry shouted, “Are you crazy? Get the hell off that thing!”

She turned briefly and shouted something to him but her voice was lost in the loud crack of gunfire. He ran for Saladin.

At that moment, an explosion rocked the bridge. Caparina’s fuel tank had blown. Had she jumped? Christ. He’d been concentrating on Saladin and hadn’t seen her. Was she blown off the bridge by the explosion? He couldn’t see anything, just a fiery wreck dangling half off the bridge with black smoke billowing up. He stared into the smoke with disbelieving eyes, the intense heat burning his cheeks. No scent of roast pig in his nostrils, no visible trace of a girl’s charred corpse.

He waded into the black clouds determined to find her or what was left of her. He saw winking muzzles and heard rounds whistle overhead. The second Troll, blinded by smoke, had ridden right up and over the flaming wreck and was bearing down on him.

Harry had no choice in this matter. He turned around and started running back for Hassan. He ran like a madman, which he probably was, dodging this way and that on the swinging bridge; and he kept waiting for the stitch of rounds across his back.

Saladin only had one hand on the cable. But he was still clinging for his life when Brock reached down and grabbed Saladin’s trembling forearm with both hands. He managed to haul him up onto the bridge, the adrenalin doing most of the work for both of them. He got him up. Saladin took a few deep breaths and managed to get to his knees.

“The tank,” Saladin gasped.

“Yeah. We gotta go. Can you walk?” Harry asked, getting an arm around him.

“Why walk when you can run?” Saladin said, ignoring the blood pumping from his torn right thigh.

They ran for the underbrush, back where they’d come from.

Behind them, their wrecked tank was still burning at the center of the bridge. The little one-eyed bastard that had finished them kept coming and they could both feel the lens on them and see the barrels swivel in their direction as they dodged this way and that, summoning one last ounce of energy for the final sprint. Shit. It was going to be close.

“Go left!” Harry said when they reached the end. “I’ll go right. And stay the hell down. The camera won’t be able to pick us up.”

Both men dove into the brush and crabbed away from the bridge. Rounds were splintering the trees above and behind him, but it was pretty clear the robot had lost them and was firing blind. The operator controlling the thing was just trying to get lucky. Harry managed to slither right to the edge of the cliff and peer through the undergrowth at the smoldering tank they’d abandoned.

Somehow, he and Saladin would get through this. If the girl were still alive—doubtful—he and Hassan would somehow manage to get back across that bridge and find her. They had to find this bastard Top. Had to pop this fucking Top.

Harry had always known his strengths and weaknesses. He probably drank too much. Screwed around too much, even now that he wasn’t married anymore. And, as he privately admitted to himself, he knew he probably wasn’t the brightest bulb on Broadway. But Harry was as tough as they come, goddamnit. Hard, his Marine buddies would call it. His whole life, the crazy American from Los Angeles, California, had known one true and good thing about himself.

Harry Brock could take a licking and keep on ticking.

38

WEST TEXAS

H omer Prudhomme never did quite recover from how shook up he’d been that godawful night they found the lost posse. It had been three weeks since all his friends had come back without their heads attached. God knows how he tried to shake that image. But, you know, how was he supposed to forget those boys riding across the plains in the moonlight? Or the look in the sheriff’s eyes when he’d seen them coming toward him, still tied upright in their saddles? He couldn’t, and he wouldn’t, ever, forget.

Hell, nobody should ever forget.

And he couldn’t seem to run away from dreams about that ghost rider either. The man who was (or, wasn’t) behind the wheel of that semi they’d pulled. The “Yankee Slugger” going 140 with no driver behind the wheel. The way that big rig had just got itself in gear and took off down the highway all by itself. If that didn’t beat all he had no idea what did.

Even if the sheriff was right, and there was a driver, where had he gone? Thin air? Nobody in the cab. No tracks leading off into the sand. Nothing. Didn’t make any sense at all.

And don’t you know he’d gone over every last inch of that cab. Stuck his nose in the ashtray. Buried his face in the foam-rubber pillow lying back there on the bunk. Felt for gum up under the seats. He would have known it if there’d been anybody, anybody at all, recently riding up in that cab. He would have felt it, smelt it, and he hadn’t. It was enough to make you crazy. Nobody believed in the ghost rider except the sheriff, but his opinion was the only one that counted anyway.

He took another bite of his Mr. Krispy doughnut and stared at the black ribbon of highway unwinding through the desert below. He was well hidden, about a hundred yards off the road, parked up among some boulders and scrub at the top of a ridge. He hadn’t seen a car in two hours and didn’t much expect to see another one before the sun came up.

It was now three something o’clock in the morning. Even the coyotes had stopped complaining and gone to sleep. He was cold and sleepy, and the Crown Vic’s heater was acting up. Had to be down in the mid-forties tonight he guessed, looking out at the empty stretch of desert. He popped another couple of Vivarin and cranked up the radio, singing along with his dream girl, Patsy Cline.

Sheriff Dixon had been down in Florida for a few days, one more lawman making the case for stopping the chaos on the southwest Texas borderline. Homer hoped Dixon could show the folks from Washington just how bad things really were on the border. The thousands of illegals trashing the ranches on their way through, the pollos and the coyotes, the gunrunners and the drug smugglers, too many to count, all being chased around by far too few Border Patrol guys flying helicopters and driving dune-buggies. Add to that, now you had corrupt Mexican Army troops threatening to come across the river to protect the damn narcos!

It was starting to feel like a war.

Mercifully, it had been a very quiet few days in town. He looked both ways down the empty road, then put his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. He said a silent prayer for Dixon down in Key West. That he would give a good speech. That the brass would understand the truth of what he was telling them. Texas needed help down here on the border. And they needed it some kind of bad.

Homer had been lucky this week, though. Nothing much going on since that bunch of Mexican terrorists on motorcycles had rolled through, shooting up the town. All he’d had to deal with was a drunken Rawls, weaving all over the highway one night in one of his million-dollar custom Chevy Suburbans. Homer threatened to lock him up again and he’d been on good behavior ever since. He’d had a crazy visit from the bikers Zorro and Hambone, wanting to be deputized. And a lady teacher he knew had a baby at the Laundromat.

He’d decided to spend his free nights out here in the desert. The same stretch of highway where they’d pulled the Yankee Slugger guy the first time. Had his radar aimed at the top of the hill and he’d turned the warning buzz way up in case he dozed off. A truck with no driver didn’t make any sense. But it made a whole lot more sense at night on a deserted road than it did in broad daylight on Main Street.

He must have drifted off ’cause the alarm sounded and he sat up so fast he banged his head on the roof. What? Where? He looked at the digital speed bounce back. Well, well, well. He almost couldn’t believe his own eyes.

His radar showed a vehicle approaching a mile south doing over a 135 miles an hour! Hot damn, he thought, reaching for the ignition key, if this ain’t some rich prick from Houston in an Italian sports job, this could be our ghost rider.

He watched the horizon, waiting for the speeder to crest the next hill, silently praying to see a big red, white, and blue semi roar up into view. Once the truck was well past, he’d get on his tail and stay there. He’d planned the whole thing. Stay back, out of sight, follow the ghost rider wherever he went. However long it took, just stay with him and see where the truck took him. Whatever happened, happened was all. It was, he considered, his first case as a full-fledged lawman.

He was disappointed at what came over the hill.

No big eighteen-wheeler like he’d been hoping for these last couple of nights. No, not a trailer rig, just a four-wheeler going like a bat out of Hades. He sat up straight and gripped the steering wheel as the thing roared past him. The vehicle was light-colored. Maybe even red, white, and blue. Hard to tell in the moonlight. Still. Even in that flash of passing by, he had a hunch of what it was, all right. It could be, maybe it was, the “Yankee Slugger”!

The truck cab, anyway, it just didn’t have the trailer hooked up behind it tonight.

He automatically reached for the headlights and then caught himself, letting out a low whistle as he put the cruiser in gear and mashed the accelerator. No lights turning up on the rack tonight. He fishtailed crazily onto the highway and put his right foot through the floorboard, standing on it, watching the needle creep over a hundred. One ten. One twenty. Up ahead, he saw red brake lights flash on and off, disappearing over a dip in the road. He was half-mile, maybe less, behind the phantom trucker. Keep his own lights out, keep the phantom’s taillights visible. Maintain about this distance and he should be okay.

The phantom took a left off of Route 53 and now he was smoking west. Looked like he might be headed for a little ghost town about thirty miles outside Laredo. It was called Gunbarrel. It was situated at a bend in the Rio Grande about a half-mile or less north of the Mexican border.

Gunbarrel used to be thriving community in Texas oil boom times, round about the early 1900s. Did pretty good until about fifty years ago when they come to find out the oil business had all dried up and took its business elsewhere. Other than the little cemetery, which was full, Gunbarrel now had a population of maybe two, and both of them were prairie dogs.

The police radio was hopping. The chatter he was picking up tonight was nonstop reports of illegal crossings. You get down here on the border, the law speaks with a different tongue. Here they start calling the illegal crossers “bodies.” You hear a lot of chitter-chatter and then someone starts saying, “Okay, look alive! I got six bodies moving northwest toward the radio antenna!”

That kind of stuff makes a lawman uneasy on a night like this. ’Cause now the bodies are carrying heavy machine guns and they’re not afraid to use them on anybody in their way.

“Base of the tower! Base of the tower!” somebody on the radio shouted. The desert around Gunbarrel is spider-webbed with irrigation ditches and deeply rutted farm lanes. The only way you can pinpoint any location for another agent is to use some landmark like a water tower or a radio antenna or whatever. Homer didn’t see any tower, nor any bodies crossing the highway.

He saw the truck cab slowing down now and he did the same. They were both doing under thirty at this point, and it was a lot easier to keep track of what was under your four tires. He still kept a good half-mile between the Vic and the ghost rider, As far as he could tell, he hadn’t been spotted. He hadn’t made positive ID yet, either, but he was sure hopeful it was the Slugger.

Couple of minutes later, there was a faded black and white track-side railroad sign, a wooden rectangle with the word GUNBARREL painted on it in block letters. Sure enough, a hundred yards farther on he came to the old brick railway station house, looking pretty decrepit but still standing anyway. He saw some old abandoned oil tanks, overgrown with weeds, and a falling down building that had once housed something called the Shell Peanut Company. Now he passed a cotton gin, a flour mill, and even a few dilapidated mansions with gingerbread trim. All of them long ago abandoned to the rats and spiders and tumbleweeds.

Up ahead, he saw the phantom’s brake lights flash and he hit his own, mashing down on the pedal. There were no side streets so the trucker couldn’t be fixing to make a turn. He was going to stop right here in the middle of a ghost town.

Stop? For what? There was nothing here.

But the trucker was pulling up out front of a big old two-story brick building up ahead on the left. An old factory maybe, covering an entire square block. And with black holes upstairs where all the windows used to be and a wide arched entrance of some kind on the far end, like you might see at a fire station.

He swerved the Vic off the road and nipped in behind an abandoned Texaco gas station that was half burned down, almost hitting the one remaining pump with a busted gumball light on top. The Vic rolled silently over to the empty repair bay and came to a stop right under an old Hires Root Beer sign that had made it through the fire.

Homer shut the Vic down and quickly pocketed the keys, thinking: You can trust your car to the man who wears the star.

Homer wore a star, and, over his head, a faded red Texaco star was swinging in the breeze, making a creaky noise. It was shot through with rusty bullet holes. Time to go. He checked his sidearm. He checked his mini-flashlight, too, just to make sure the batteries hadn’t wore out.

He eased his car door open (even new, it tended to squeak) and climbed out of the Vic. Then he ran quickly toward the street, keeping the crumbling station building between him and the trucker’s cab. He stopped short, and peered around the edge of the building.

The Yankee Slugger was parked just outside the building. Blacked-out windows gleaming in the moonlight.

Damn. He’d been right. The Slugger had turned all its exterior lights off and pulled up outside the arched entrance to the building. Homer figured the guy (or the spook anyway) couldn’t see him now and he started moving along the deserted road beside the burned-out gas station.

Suddenly, there was a loud hiss of air brakes and then a big diesel engine growled and he saw that the wide factory door was going up. There still was not a single light shining in that building. But clearly someone was home to open the big old wooden door. Homer couldn’t hardly believe it, this was after all, a ghost town, but now the red, white, and blue cab was backing inside, was through the door, and now the door was coming down again. In the wink of an eye, the ghost rider was gone. Disappeared off the face of the earth.

Homer ran across the street, right up to the heavy door that had just slammed shut. He reached out and touched it, and it wasn’t wood at all. Solid steel. Somebody had painted it to look like old wood. Not only that, made it look like it was fading and the paint was peeling off, too. Now, why go to all that trouble? So no one passing through the ghost town would pay it any mind. That was why.

He ran quickly around the far side of the building, sidearm still holstered, but he had the Mossburg. There was a rusted out fire escape going up to the second floor. Windows up there, open. Maybe the stairs were still strong enough to hold him. No lights showing anywhere in the building. He scanned the building a second and then he saw it.

What looked like a tiny red eye up there in one of the darkened windows.

Somebody was standing up there, having a smoke. You couldn’t see anything but the cigarette’s burning coal floating in the blackness.

Another damn ghost?

A ghost didn’t worry too much about cancer sticks, Homer reckoned.

39

KEY WEST NAVAL STATION

A t three o’clock that rainy afternoon, Hawke, Congreve, and Pippa Guinness stood talking quietly. They stood just inside an alcove off the crowded hallway of the old Marine Hospital. The sleepy naval base was now a beehive of activity. At least a hundred other people jammed the hall. All were moving toward a pair of double doors leading to the cavernous base gymnasium. The crowd was restive, and a certain nervous excitement could be felt in the hall. Overnight, Conch’s Latin security conference had seen a dramatic increase in size. There was a palpable sense of urgency about the meeting. And, as Ambrose was explaining, there was a very simple reason for it:

Mexico had invaded the United States.

Rumors were swirling on Capitol Hill about a possible armed incursion by uniformed Mexican Army forces. A credible witness had reported uniformed troops moving north across his ranch at the Texas border in broad daylight. When confronted by the rancher and two of his hands, the men jumped back in their Humvees and hurried south, retreating across the border.

Meanwhile, a U.S. Border Patrol chopper, on routine patrol, had surprised a convoy of drug mules attempting to cross the border. Someone, reportedly driving a Mexican Army Humvee, had opened fire on American agents. It was common, now, to hear of Border Patrol agents being gunned down by Mexican Federales with AK-47s.

These startling episodes had naturally generated an immense public outcry in the hinterlands and capitals of every southern border state. As a result, a new sense of national urgency now surrounded the secretary’s security conference in Key West.

The voracious radio and TV pundits, and the vast blogger armies, all sensed a huge story. And all were happy to have fresh meat for the insatiable twenty-four-hour media machine. “Let’s go live to the border!” this or that anchorman would say, and then you’d see ruggedly handsome and epauletted correspondents riding right alongside the Border Patrol. The media was flocking to the border, in choppers and Humvees; or, more dashing yet, galloping through arroyos on horseback to the site of the latest attack.

The on-scene reporters noted again the woeful lack of security on America’s borders. Some, naturally, blamed the president for not securing them. Why hadn’t he just ordered a wall erected? How hard could that be? Some blamed government officials in Mexico City. Others blamed the apparent willingness of scattered Mexican field commanders to ignore our borders and accused these officers of being complicit in drug smuggling. A few thoughtful journalists actually understood that a border war with Mexico had been threatening to erupt for more than a century.

And now it seemed imminent.

In a few Washington circles, at Langley and the Bureau, it was an open secret that the vast drug gangs wielded enormous power within some Mexican military units and most certainly the Mexican police. Long simmering resentments, leftover from the War of Independence in 1846, were rising to a boil. And the American people, at least it seemed to Hawke, might be waking up at last to the real dangers along the southern flank.

In Alex’s view, everybody with an earbug and a microphone seemed to be having just a bit too much fun playing Cowboys and Indians along the Rio Grande. So far, no one had documented any of these “military” incursions on videotape. But that didn’t stop FOX NEWS, CNN, and the rest from trying to scoop each other. It was just a question of who would be first to get the story on film.

When the broad auditorium doors at last swung open, Hawke glimpsed a large oval table and rows of chairs inside a cavernous room. This vast, and pungent, location was apparently the only space large enough to accommodate the growing number of attendees. History, it seemed, was going to be played out on the sailor’s newly gleaming basketball court.

The room was filling up. Conch, trailing members of her staff, DSS, and Secret Service agents, had moved inside ten minutes earlier. She had not paused to speak to the aggressive media types pressing in around her. Nor had she even glanced at Hawke as she passed. This was hardly surprising, given recent events upstairs in her office.

Hawke, on a purely personal level, was feeling lifeless and numb, more than ready for the bloody session to get under way. From his own point of view, this pilgrimage, begun at C’s insistence, had already gotten off to a rocky start. He had meant to mend fences. Instead, he’d managed to put up a fresh wall.

He was grateful to have gotten out of Conch’s darkened office alive. Miss Guinness, who did not know the fiery Consuelo de los Reyes, was an innocent moth with no idea just how close she’d come to the flame. Her ill-timed arrival had dashed any hopes he’d had of reconciliation. He had whisked Pippa away as quickly as possible, all the while trying to placate Conch with his eyes. He had failed miserably.

Alex Hawke and Consuelo de los Reyes had endured, to say the very least, a long and complicated relationship. It had always been, he thought, a love affair of sorts, constantly recurring, but lasting for an indefinite time, like some perennial light switch. It’s on. It’s off. It’s on again.

A year ago, the affair had plunged into darkness. After learning of Hawke’s relationship with the beautiful Chinese actress, Jet Moon, Conch had seemingly thrown the switch permanently. His phone calls went unanswered. So did his carefully composed letters. He had finally given up, imagining that he would not see her again. The idea was painful, but he had adjusted to pain before.

And now, thanks to his Chief of the Service, here he was in tropical Key West, in the midst of a brand-new romantic drama. Thanks to the lovely Miss G’s sudden appearance on stage, the long-running tragicomedy starring de los Reyes and Hawke looked to have an even unhappier ending than he’d previously thought possible.

The hallway echoed with a heady hubbub of conversation. Jostling attendees began passing through the final security checkpoint and then filing inside the auditorium. Hawke waved a greeting to his old war buddy Brick Kelly, CIA director. Brick appeared to be enjoying having a serious set-to with a couple of Air Force four-stars. A few feet away stood Peter Pell, the president’s new Defense advisor.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” the young State Department aides kept repeating, gathering people together and gently herding everyone toward the door.

“I suppose we should go inside,” Hawke said to Ambrose. He was dreading, as always, another interminable meeting, trapped inside someone else’s agenda.

“While we’re young?” Congreve said, chuckling at Hawke’s obvious discomfort.

Ambrose took Pippa’s elbow and the two made their way into the gym. Hawke followed a minute later and quickly found his seat at the table. Ambrose sat on his right and Pippa was seated at one of the chairs provided for support staff just behind Hawke. Conch sat directly across the table from him. She wouldn’t return his smile.

Suddenly, Pippa was leaning her blonde head right between Hawke and Congreve, whispering in Alex’s ear. There was a warm scent of Chanel rising from the depths of her cleavage and it was all Hawke could do to stare straight ahead.

“Yes?” Hawke said quietly.

“So sorry to bother you again. Please don’t forget we agreed to soft-pedal the Bogotá station’s role in all this. C does insist we’re not quite ready to let the Americans have that juicy bit.”

“Ah. Didn’t know that. Thanks.”

Congreve suddenly looked over at the two of them and Pippa jumped.

“Will you two please pipe down? Madame Secretary is about to speak and she’s staring directly at you both.”

“Oh, God,” Hawke said under his breath, “you’re right, she is.”

40

C onversation died down as the secretary stood. She cast her eyes about the room, gathering everyone in. Consuelo de los Reyes was a tall, elegant, and very beautiful woman. She could command a room full of star-spangled generals with a single sidelong glance, and her fiery eyes could burn or freeze at will. When she spoke, her words had weight. They seemed to hang for moments in the air before others took their place. As was her habit, she swept a wing of dark auburn hair away from her forehead before she spoke.

“First, on behalf of the president, I’d like to welcome the members of the media who’ve joined us today,” she began. The auditorium erupted into sustained laughter. Everyone present knew the secretary had pitched an all-out battle to have the electronic and print press banned from her conference. The White House, sensing a huge media opportunity, had handed Secretary de los Reyes a very public defeat.

She handled that one well, Hawke thought, sitting forward at the table. She was steaming, but you’d never know it.

“America is at war with Mexico,” she said quietly, and the room went dead still.

“I will come to that unfortunate reality shortly. But, I would like to welcome you to the magic island where I was born forty years ago today. My father and mother are Cuban. I am proud to be Hispanic-American. And grateful for this chance to share my hometown with you.

“As the president says, ‘The best pages of history are written in courage.’ We here stand at history’s front line. While Congress spends its days overreacting to yesterday’s attacks, the men and women in this room know that we must concentrate on the most likely current threats.

“Although few acknowledge it as such, there is a new front in the War on Terror. I believe the gravest danger our country faces sits right on our doorstep. Mexico is openly waging a new kind of war on America. Not just the recent border incursions and drug smuggling. Not the tunnels or the deliberate shooting of our Border Patrol agents trying to enforce the law. No. Something far more insidious.”

She paused a beat, and said, “I believe the Mexican government is using an invading illegal population as the latest weapon of mass destruction.

“I personally believe the Mexican government has encouraged and promoted illegal attacks on our country for decades. In my office, I have copies of comic book brochures, printed by the government, explaining how to violate our sovereignty. Now, the millions of illegal immigrants who cross our borders threaten entire social and economic structures. It grows worse with every passing day. We are under siege.

“Citizens living along the southern border face chaos. Many of you have read the reports from the U.S. Border Patrol. Border state law enforcement officials and agents fear the danger of total breakdown. Lawlessness is already rearing its ugly head on both sides. Borders, once sacrosanct, are under attack even as political concepts. To defend one’s borders, one risks being labeled as racist. I am not a racist. I am an American.

“As always, there are two sides to every story. This is especially true along a borderline. Many Americans want a walled fortress. It’s understandable. The Mexicans want jobs and to provide for their families. It’s understandable. But they have been encouraged by their government to think they have inalienable rights to cross illegally. And so anger and violence erupt daily on both sides of the line.

“Sheriff Franklin W.Dixon of Prairie, Texas, is with us today. I believe I see him. He’s the good guy over there in the white hat.”

The audience chuckled at the sight of the somewhat embarrassed lawman removing his white Stetson.

“In our first session tomorrow afternoon, Sheriff Dixon, as well as members of California, Arizona, and New Mexico regional law enforcement agencies and local sheriff’s departments, will provide firsthand accounts of this tragic story. They will ask for our help in solving this problem. As you know, the president has committed six thousand National Guard troops to the border. He asked me to assure you that other measures are being taken to solve this situation.

“But the broader crisis we face in Latin America is not limited to the Mexican borderline. No, this new threat goes far deeper than that. It reaches into the jungles of Brazil and Argentina and Ecuador. It stretches to Caracas, where yet another Communist dictator joins Fidel Castro in his grand dreams of humbling Uncle Sam. The Venezuelan dictator has the oil reserves, and thus the money, to make his dreams a reality.

“Castro and his kindred spirits are determined to wreak havoc in our hemisphere. Chávez has said so publicly, and we believe him. Our next speaker, Commander Alexander Hawke, will offer dramatic evidence of a Venezuelan scheme to disrupt oil shipments in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Indeed, as you will soon hear from our distinguished guest, Commander Hawke of the Royal Navy, there is a rising tide of anti-Americanism throughout Latin America, fueled only in part by an oil-rich Venezuela. I have read his report carefully. I wish I could tell you this new threat was posed by ragtag guerrilla armies with little training and unsophisticated weaponry.

“But that is far from the truth. Let me summarize briefly Commander Hawke’s findings in his own report to British Intelligence. ‘Since the early seventies, the Amazonian jungles have been havens for al-Qaeda. Radical Islam has made great inroads in Latin America. They have deep connections to groups like the Shining Path in Peru or FARC in Colombia, or the Montaneros in Argentina. They have incorporated organized crime families and street gangs within these countries, converting them from mere criminals to fervent revolutionaries.’

“Using literally hundreds of millions of dollars generated by the sale of Number Four Heroin, these Latin Islamist cells are now financing the creation of well-equipped and well-trained terrorist armies. Hard intel recently acquired by Commander Hawke’s Service suggests these powerful new al-Qaeda operations may have purchased dirty nuclear weapons from Iran and in other markets. They are almost certainly developing biochemical weaponry in sophisticated jungle laboratories. So, where do they intend to use these awful weapons?

“The new Latin American terror armies are transnational. They are beholden to no single country. But they do have one common enemy. America. They are bringing this war to the very doorstep of our American allies. And I believe they are preparing to move and soon.

“I will conclude my personal remarks by saying that America is challenged on many fronts. We face threats from every point of the compass. But, for the next two days here in Key West at least, we will concern ourselves with only one compass point. A veritable tsunami, boiling up from all points south.”

She paused and gazed out at her audience, her eyes finally coming to rest on Alex Hawke. After a moment, she actually smiled.

“Commander Hawke, welcome to Key West.”

41

L ights and cameras swung in Hawke’s direction as Alex rose to his feet and said, “Thank you, Madame Secretary. It’s an honor.”

The monitors arrayed around the room instantly displayed maps and satellite imagery of Brazil rain forest.

Hawke said, “This the Mato Grosso area of Brazil. I recently had the misfortune to spend a lot of time in this region of the Amazon rain forest. Here is the true epicenter of burgeoning terrorist activity in Latin America. This region is the home of large leftist guerilla army units that include narco-terrorists, criminal gangs, and international Islamist terrorist operations.”

A hand shot up. Hawke saw it belonged to a famous-face CNN reporter, Hardy Porter.

“Why do you say that, Commander Hawke? Since when have Islamic terrorist groups had a foothold in Latin America?”

“Since 1983, when Hezbollah became the first to establish a base here. These were Shiite Muslims funded, armed, and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. These dense jungles were rightly seen as an ideal place to both raise money for jihad and train raw recruits from the countryside. The plan was to forcibly recruit, indoctrinate, and train armed teenage thugs to form a large army of ruthless fighters. The plan has succeeded.”

“You’re saying such camps actually exist? How do you know?”

“I saw work camps with my own eyes. I lived among them for months doing road construction as a slave laborer. These jihadistas are comprised of every nationality, made up of every kind of narco-guerilla and criminal element. The foot soldiers are mere farmboys, recruited with the promise of high pay and cheap narcotics. The officers I saw, however, were Arab and Chinese.”

“Jihadista? Never heard that expression before.”

“I made it up,” Hawke said, suppressing a smile at the ensuing chuckles.

“How do you spell that?” the CNN fellow said, pencil to hand.

Hawke told him. Another hand shot up.

“Sheikhs in the jungle?” someone said. There was some more chuckling from the media contingent. “I thought they preferred desert warfare.”

“Many fled to the Amazon jungles, on the heels of the Lebanese Civil War in the early seventies. During Osama bin Laden’s 1999 visit to Brazil, he spent a good deal of time arousing the faithful. He started terror cells and left his officers in charge. The cells have grown exponentially in ensuing years. One of the men Osama left behind is named Muhammad Top. He poses, I’ve reason to believe, a threat to U.S. security.”

A good-looking newsreader from FOX raised her hand.

“Why the Amazon?”

“It’s a vast, ungovernable area. Little or no law at all. You have a lethal combination of poverty, illicit activity, disenfranchised cocoa farmers and guerillas, and an ill-equipped or nonexistent military. There are countless rural youths, all too ready to enlist. A terrorist’s idea of heaven on earth. Bin Laden knew a good thing when he saw it.”

“These terrorists you unearthed down there, Commander. Are they planning attacks on Rio, Buenos Aires? Bogotá?”

“Anything’s possible. Muhammad Top fancies himself as some modern day liberator who would free South America from the Yankee chains. To that end, he is massing armies and training them exhaustively with the latest weaponry. Attacks on the capitals you mention are a possibility. So is an attack on the United States.”

Then the CNN reporter said, his voice dripping sarcasm, “More weapons of mass destruction, Commander? I’d hate to see a replay of Iraq.”

“I can’t speak to that. I saw no WMD with my own eyes. I would certainly not be surprised to learn that they did. They have limitless resources to buy what they can’t build.”

An air force general raised his hand. “How do these armies of yours move around without attracting any attention?”

“Hidden, General. The forest canopy shields them from prying eyes. A huge labor force is building a strategic military highway. It could stretch as far as central America, and ultimately into Mexico. This highway would allow them to transport men and materiel. And, give them access to the southern borderline of the United States.”

“You saw plans for such a highway?”

“I built a portion of such a highway.”

A pretty blonde CBS news reporter raised her hand. “Commander Hawke, can you offer us any proof of this supposed collusion between Latin American countries allied against America? It’s a fairly preposterous charge.”

“As a matter of fact, I can,” Alex said. “Slide, please?”

The monitors filled with Stokely’s underwater images of the Russian-built Yakhont antiship missiles found aboard the sunken airplane.

“These pictures were shot three days ago in the Dry Tortugas. They were shot inside a downed airplane lying in thirty feet of water. This plane is located about twenty-five miles from Key West. These missiles were being transported from Cuba, where they were purchased, to an air force base outside Caracas, Venezuela.”

“Chávez is buying these from Fidel?”

“Yes, indeed. Venezuela purchases weapons from Castro, who buys them from the Russians directly.”

“How did you learn this, Commander Hawke?”

“The Venezuelan intelligence officer who actually purchased the Russian missiles in Cuba told me so.”

“Any idea what Venezuela intends to do with weapons like this?”

“As I said, every crooked strongman in Latin America sees himself as the new Simon Bolívar. Chávez’s stated goal is to reunite all South America. My source indicates he has ties to the Brazilian terror cells. His primary objective, however, is annexing Cuba.”

“What? Could you say that again?”

“Cuba is mired in Venezuelan debt. Should Castro prove mortal, I think you’ll see Chávez move to annex Cuba shortly after the funeral.”

A flurry of hands shot into the air.

“Commander Hawke, do you really think America should feel threatened by a thug like Chávez?”

“Chávez is determined to humble the Yankee imperialists. Venezuela is spending billions on rearmament. President Chávez is buying helicopters, submarines, and high-tech Su-35 fighters from the Russians. Through secret agreements with Castro, he arranges for thousands of Cuban technicians, who know Russian equipment, to relocate to Venezuela and maintain it. Chávez is Castro’s rich uncle dream come true.”

“So. We got Russian anti-ship missiles built to be carried by Russian fighter jets owned by Venezuela. Who’s Chávez going to shoot at?”

“Venezuela and her allies would use the weapons in wartime against U.S. oil shipping in the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Wartime.”

“Again. That’s what my source said. Wartime. The Venezuelan military war games America all the time.”

“Sink our tankers. Venezuela, Mexico, all of them lining up against us. The south against the north. That’s what you believe?”

“My chief concern now is that Chávez is supporting the jihadistas. He’ll use them as a test for weakness before challenging America in the Gulf of Mexico. If the jungle armies succeed—next question.”

A silence fell over the gymnasium. It was the first time anyone had said out loud what many had perhaps been hearing and thinking privately. That war in the southern hemisphere was a distinct possibility. That the Islamist terrorists could be very willing pawns to an anti-U.S. movement throughout Latin America. Then a fiery old reporter, a former Yank champ at Wimbledon named Clark Graebner, puffed himself up and spoke.

“Commander Hawke, I don’t know you from Adam. I’ll take the secretary’s word you know a little bit about all this. But what you may not know is that the U.S. Navy is stretched pretty thin right now. As is our Army. As are our Marines. Hell, we hardly have enough National Guardsmen left to stop a dogfight and most of them are headed to the Mexican border. Now you waltz in here, stirring up a whole new pot of trouble with this crazy notion of terror cells in the jungle and Brazilian war games. As if we didn’t have enough on our goddamn plate with goddamn Iraq. Now, my question is, what do you have to say about that, Commander Hawke?”

Hawke looked at the red-faced man, his own face devoid of any emotion, and gave his answer.

“Well, sir, I’d say America has fetched up somewhere between Iraq and a hard place.”

42

GUNBARREL, TEXAS

H omer reached up with the idea he would test the fire escape ladder. He wrapped his near-frozen fingers around the cold metal of the bottom rung, but hesitated before he yanked down on it. The damn extension ladder, which was supposed to slide easily down to the ground, was crusty with rust and grime. It might squeak like hell when he pulled on it.

He had to do something. He was tired of waiting here with his back pressed up against the brick wall. The smoker in the window up above him had flipped his butt out into the dark ten minutes ago.

Homer exhaled and saw his breath hang a second and crystallize in the air.

So, was the guy still up at the window, or not?

Hadn’t lit another one, the smoker, so, maybe he was just taking the night air. Hell, it was cold as a witch’s left tit out here. Maybe a little colder. He was freezing his butt off, missing the powerful heater in the Vic. Glad he’d thought to wear his rawhide gloves.

He’d crept around the building twice now, looking for another way inside the big building. There was a tall doorway at the rear, but it was sealed up tight with a heavy slab of aluminum. Padlocked. The door was heavily dented and pried open like a piecrust around the edges. He saw something useful lying almost hidden under a lot of trash. A tire iron. Somebody had tried to get in here a bunch of times over the years and failed.

He didn’t see any sense in trying to pry the door open now. It would be way too noisy for his purposes, but he picked up the tire iron anyway, just in case he got desperate enough later on.

Hell with it. He’d try the ladder. He pulled down slowly on the bottom rung, trying to be quiet about it.

Screeeek.

Damn!

He let it go like a hot poker. The grinding noise had been brief and not all that loud. Still, he waited, his heart thudding pretty good inside his chest, expecting to hear somebody shout from the window over his head. Or shine a light on him and shoot him. His gloved hand moved down to grip the butt of his sidearm. His heart slowed down to near normal after a couple of minutes of nothing happening.

Maybe nobody inside had heard the screeching ladder.

Hell, maybe there was nobody inside to hear anything.

He looked up at the rotted-out fire escape again. Those iron stairs would wake the dead if he yanked that extension ladder down. Hadn’t been used in a few decades probably, maybe more. He looked around the empty side lot, overgrown with weeds. He was looking for a barrel or something he could stand on, maybe reach up and grab the permanent staircase without using the extension ladder. He’d need something pretty high. A couple of big wooden crates would do it.

But he didn’t see anything like that.

There was a bunch of crap laying around in the overgrown field out back. A kind of junkyard back there, surrounded by a barbed wire fence that had seen better days thirty years ago. A couple of old Mack truck cabs and trailers from the fifties were parked right where somebody’d left them sixty years ago.

Maybe he could find something useful back there in the yard. Hell, it sure beat standing here freezing to death. He inched along the wall toward the rear of the building. In the pale moonlight, everything looked silver. Especially the rusted trailer rigs on the other side of the barbed wire fence surrounding the junkyard.

At the rear of the nearest rig, a couple of fifty-gallon steel drums were lying on their sides. Two of those babies stacked up would just be about perfect. Plus, if he ripped some of the old wire fence out, he could roll those drums back around to the fire escape without making any noise at all.

He kept low and made for the fence. He got there quick and knelt in the bushes, looking back at the looming brick building. No sound, no lights in any upstairs windows. No nothing. He grabbed a fistful of wire stands and yanked. The stuff came away nice and easy in his hand and two or three of the rotted posts just broke off at ground level. He stood up and moved at low crouch into the abandoned junkyard.

It was about twenty feet over to the oil drums by the trailer and he got there without any alarms going off.

He snapped on his mini-light and stuck it in the one upright drum. There was about a foot of black gooey stuff at the bottom, maybe just old oil, maybe worse ’cause it stunk. The two other drums were empty although the bottom of one of them was completely rusted out. But, hell, they’d do in a pinch. He’d stack ’em, and then haul himself up on the fire escape.

What the hell was that?

HE’D HEARD something. He whipped his head around, automatically looking back at the factory. No, it had been closer. Not a human sound. A kind of a snickering noise. Rats, he thought. Rats inside this trailer? That must be it.

He found himself staring up at the doors of the funky old trailer. You could still make out (barely) the faded words Tequila Mockingbird over a bottle of cheap Mexican hootch. The rear doors were locked. Not only locked, but there was a heavy chain wrapped through the handles and locked with a large, rusty padlock. Do you padlock an empty truck and leave it in a field for twenty years? No.

So, what the hell was in there was so all-fired important?

He stuck the tire iron through the twin door handles and pulled back hard as he could without making a huge racket. Didn’t budge an inch. He looked at the padlock again, yanked on it. Rusty, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Now, he was curious. He stuck the sharp end of the tire iron up under the corner of the steel door and tried to pry it upward. The rusted metal peeled up about six inches. He shoved the tire iron in deeper and pulled upwards really hard. It gave another inch or so. He dropped the iron and snapped on his mini-light again.

He bent down to peer inside the trailer.

Couldn’t see diddly-squat in there. But there was one thing. He could see blue starlight coming down from above. So, part of the top of the trailer was missing. Rusted out. And there was one of those narrow ladders going up to the roof that looked like it just might hold his weight. He clicked off his light and stuck it back in his Sam Browne belt.

Hell, climb up, see what was in the old truck and then go find what was going on in the building where the Yankee Slugger cab had disappeared.

He was half way up the ladder when he heard somebody shout, “Who’s out there? This is private property! I got a gun and I’ll use it, pod-nuh. I’m comin’ out there.” The voice was raw, raspy, and vaguely familiar. The smoker upstairs? The red-eye? Most likely.

He was coming through the open field along the side of the building. He had a light too, a powerful beam that was sweeping the ground in front of him in great looping arcs. In about two seconds he was going to figure out somebody must be in the junkyard.

Homer was about to shout, “Police! Drop your weapon!” but he was in an awkward position hanging on the ladder and besides he had the feeling this guy was the type to shoot first and ask questions later. Or, not ask any questions, ever. Just bury the evidence out here in the yard.

He could jump down and confront the guy but something told him that was a really bad idea. No. Homer had nowhere to go but up. He stuck his boot in the bottom rung, reached for the highest rung he could, and quickly pulled himself up. He got to the top of the ladder just before the light caught him.

“Stop! Hold it right there! You move and you’re dead.”

Homer swiveled his head around but all he could see was the blinding white light.

“I ain’t moving. I’m the law. Put your weapon down.”

There was a loud pop and a round whistled past Homer’s ear.

“The next one doesn’t miss,” the man’s scratchy voice said. “Throw down that gun and we’ll have us a little talk about what happens to trespassers here in Gunbarrel.”

Homer put his right hand to his sidearm. He wished he could see the man’s face. Judge his intent.

The next round caught him in the upper left arm and almost spun him right off the ladder. It felt like somebody had slugged him hard as they could with a two-by-four, but he managed to keep his footing and hold the ladder tight with his right hand as he climbed the last rung. He could remain on the ladder and wait for the next bullet. He could leap to the ground but he couldn’t outrun that beam of light.

He knew he had to go up, up and over. Inside the truck. Now, while he still could.

In that split second, up on the top rung, he saw why there had been so much moonlight streaming down inside the trailer. The top had rusted almost completely away. And shoot, the truck bed was halfway full up to the top with something. Kind of whitish blue in the starlight, the stuff looked like a load of dried out timber and rocks. Sticks and stones, maybe.

Another bullet whistled a hot tune over his head.

He pitched forward and fell inside.

He landed on top of the pile of rattling baseball bats and tried to scramble to his feet. Except the truck wasn’t full of dried timber at all, Homer saw when he picked one up in his hand.

Hell no, it wasn’t sticks and stones.

It was bones.

43

MADRE DE DIOS, BRAZIL

C an it see us?” Saladin said from the bushes. Harry and Hassan were hiding, watching the battle robot’s steady approach across the bridge.

“God, I hope not. Stay the fuck down,” Harry said, trying to make himself invisible. “Stop moving around! It’s looking for movement!”

“I’m looking for Caparina, damn you,” Saladin said, reluctantly crouching down.

“Right. If she made it across and is still alive, we’ll get her out. How’s the leg?”

“Hurts like hell.”

“Bullets are painful things.”

The approaching Troll was nearing the end of the bridge. Having no targets, it had stopped firing. Harry studied the tall, hooded periscope camera, whipping back and forth, looking for something to kill. Something distinctly alien about this machine, Harry thought. Spooky. It reminded him of the creatures in War of the Worlds. The way they chased fleeing humans around the countryside.

“Let the damn tank roll right by us,” Harry said, “On the count of three, you run jump up on the rear.”

“That tank’s going the wrong way, Harry.”

“Trust me. Here it comes.”

The one-eyed Troll rumbled closer, ten feet away now.

“Wait until it goes by you, goddamnit! Ready? Okay, here we go. One…two…three! Go, go, go!”

Saladin took three or four long strides, grabbed one of the grab-rails, and scrambled aboard.

“You have a plan, Harry?” Saladin said.

“Let me get out in front of the bastard, okay? Let the evil eye see me. Good peripheral vision on this little shit. As soon as the camera starts to swivel, and lock on me, cup your hand over the lens.”

“We’re going the wrong way,” Saladin reminded Harry as he ran along beside the tank. The thing was still moving at five miles an hour, in search mode, so it was easy for him to keep up the pace. Dodging plant life was the tough part.

“We’ll improvise,” Harry said, grinning.

“Meaning?”

“I think it’ll stop when it can’t see,” Harry said, not even breathing hard, pulling dead even with Saladin.

“What makes you think that?”

“What else is it going to do?”

“Good point.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“What if it can hear us?”

“Little late for that thought, buddy!”

Harry was pretty sure whoever was controlling this thing back at the ranch couldn’t hear what was going on aboard the tank or anywhere else. The technology was advanced, but not that advanced. Harry figured, if the thing could hear? They’d be dead.

He gave Saladin the thumbs-up, then sprinted out ahead. On the tank, Saladin got ready. He pulled himself up and forward enough to be able to reach up and cover the lens with his hand.

“Ready?” Harry said, over his shoulder. He was way out in front now, weaving back and forth on the muddy trail.

“Okay,” Saladin shouted, hand poised near the lens. “I’m ready to do this if you are.”

Harry checked up suddenly on the right side of the trail. Both men waited for the lens to start its slow arc back towards where he waited.

The guns started spitting lead about a half-second before the lens got to him. Good information, Harry thought. It meant the fish-eye lens had even wider peripheral vision than Harry thought. Helpful to know.

The firing continued, but Harry had already ducked and started moving in a right-to-left direction as the lens and synchronized guns swept over and past him moving left to right. Bullets were chewing up the thick vegetation on the right, turning it to smoking shreds. Harry dove into the underbrush on the opposite side of the trail just as Saladin wrapped a big hand around the lens, temporarily blinding the robot.

The twin guns ceased fire immediately, just as Harry had anticipated or at least prayed they would. But the tank kept creeping ahead.

“It’s not going to stop, Harry,” Saladin said as the Troll rumbled past Brock. He was getting to his feet and smiling.

He said, “It will.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Should stop any second.”

“Yes, well—”

The robot suddenly ground to a halt, forward progress causing it to slip and slide, the treads smothered in thick brown mud.

“What next?” Saladin said.

“Blindman’s Bluff. You keep the lens covered till I say ‘Ready.’ I’m going to start moving slowly back toward the bridge. I’ll start a count aloud down from twenty, go about twenty yards and do a face plant. When I get to ‘five,’ you take your hand off. The camera will do a recon. Probably a full rotation before the tank starts after me. Then I’ll say ‘ready’ again and pop up in the middle of the trail for it to find me again.”

“I think this machine is omnidirectional.”

“Meaning it goes both ways? Speak for yourself.”

“Are all American spies as crazy as you?”

“Who said I was a spy?”

“Christ, Harry. Trolls do go both ways. They simply reverse the tread direction. Ready?”

“Go.”

“Twenty…nineteen…eighteen…seventeen…” Harry said, picking and groping his way through the vegetation, headed back to the bridge.

“Five!” Harry said. He dropped on his belly and disappeared in the undergrowth.

Saladin took his hand off the lens. The periscope tube started its rotation above his head.

“Ready!” Harry cried, and Saladin saw Brock now standing in the middle of the trail about a hundred yards before the bridge. Without the slightest hesitation, the Troll simply reversed its treads and started moving back toward Harry and the bridge.

“Watch out!” Saladin yelled.

A second later the lens found Harry. The machine guns opened up half a tick later, kicking up clods of black earth. Harry faked left and crouched, then made a hard move right and stood upright again. The lens paused and instantly swung again toward Harry, who repeated his faking maneuver, this time faking right but moving to his left to add confusion. Harry took some pleasure in how crazy he must be driving this guy at the controls.

The idea seemed to be working, much to Saladin’s amazement. Harry didn’t get hit and the tank kept heading back down the trail ever closer to the bridge.

When Harry got to the foot of the bridge, he stopped and turned around to face the oncoming tank.

“You want me to blind it now?” Saladin cried, watching the camera swing around toward where Harry stood.

“Wait! Not until the instant he locks me up.”

“You’ll get shot!”

“I have a plan for that,” Harry said. He didn’t need to shout anymore because the Troll was getting so damn close. The lens was coming around, Harry could see it easily now, another fifteen degrees ought to put him in camera range.

“Say when,” Saladin said nervously, his hand hovering over the bug-eye.

The tank was maybe ten feet from Harry, who stood with one foot on the bridge. The Troll’s beanstalk camera and the silent guns were swinging toward him. Harry stood stock still, smiling at Saladin. If Brock was nervous, Hassan thought, he was doing a very good job of hiding it.

Five feet to go and Harry was still alive and on his feet. The lens was almost on him. It had to be.

Four feet.

Three.

“Now!” Harry said, and Saladin clamped his hand down over the bug-eye.

“Get out of the bloody way!” Saladin said. The Troll was about to run Harry down.

“Clear the lens!” Harry said.

In the same instant that Saladin removed his hand, Harry smiled into the camera, then dove headfirst to the ground, directly in the path of the oncoming tank.

“Harry!” Saladin shouted. But Harry was gone, disappearing beneath the tank.

Face buried in muck, Harry had no choice but to hold his breath as the Troll rolled over him. He flattened himself, arms clenched at his sides, the clanking treads missing him by less than a foot on either side. The width was okay, but the ground clearance underneath? A low-slung oil sump or protrusions he hadn’t counted on? Shit. He closed his eyes and waited. It was only a few seconds. But time is so relative when a tank is passing over your head.

Finally, the tank cleared. The Troll, with Saladin on the rear, rolled across the bridge. It seemed happy to be going home.

“Harry! You okay?”

Saladin saw Brock getting to his feet, wiping the thick mask of brown mud from his eyes, at the same time sprinting in pursuit of the tank. Saladin stuck his hand out.

Harry caught it, grabbed a rail, hauled himself aboard.

“Congratulations, Harry,” Saladin said as they both huddled around the base of the periscope, preparing to face the enemy once more. “Credit where it’s due.”

“Yeah, well,” Harry said, “I’m a professional. Do not try this at home.”

44

KEY WEST

L ucky old sun was hanging in there, low in the evening sky. Franklin W. Dixon walked over to his hotel room’s seaward window, put his hands on the sill, and took a bite of cool, wet air. The brine was sharp in his nostrils. He still hadn’t grown accustomed to the tang in the air. Not that he minded it. He could see how a man could grow to love living hard by water. One of those little houses on stilts he’d seen back in the mangrove swamps, a rowboat tied to the front porch.

He looked and looked at his view. He could hardly believe it. His hotel was the cheapest Daisy had been able to find for him, but it was smack dab on the water. It would have been quiet and peaceful, too, if not for that big neon sign that hung outside above his window.

The Green Pelican. Every few seconds, the giant bird buzzed and flapped his illuminated wings and flooded his room with watery green light. Snap, crackle, and pop went the neon buzzard, three seconds on, three seconds off, all night long.

If Key West were not some fancy resort town, you’d call his hotel a flophouse. But, from his small corner room on the top floor of the Green Pelican, he could see that picture postcard harbor spread out below. There were some small islands beyond the harbor. They were covered with pine trees and dotted with tall radio antennas, red lights up top blinking against the dark purple clouds, low on the horizon.

Every kind of motorboat and sailboat was criss-crossing the choppy water. There was a tall ship, a schooner maybe, full of party folks, whooping it up. She was heeled over and sailing right by his hotel. Only a hundred yards away! Her sails, like the sea, looked bathed in liquid copper.

The big old schooner sailed by so close he felt like he could reach out and touch her. There was music aboard, Jimmy Buffett and it rode in through his windows from across the narrow stretch of water. Franklin tapped his boot heel to the tune and said to himself, Look who wound up in Margaritaville!

Funny thing was, it was just like he’d always pictured it to be when he heard that song the first few times. Most things, in his experience, were not at all like what you pictured.

From another window, directly beneath the Green Pelican, he could look straight up colorful Duval Street. Swarms of folks were filling the sidewalks, busy buying doodads, gewgaws, and T-shirts; people hitting the bars and burger joints. Sunset was a busy time here in Key West, he figured. Well, it was sure pretty.

Dixon snapped on the television and leaned back in the wicker rocking chair. He stretched his boots out on a thin, rosy-colored carpet that smelled of tobacco and spilled whiskey. He was still stiff from sitting in the folding chair all day at the conference. Long day, but he was glad he’d come. Tomorrow, he’d say what he had to say and then he’d head back home.

There was a lot of stuff about Mexico on the news, nothing he didn’t already know. If there was any good news to be had, it was that folks up in Washington were starting to take the border crisis more seriously. Two states had ordered what little National Guard they had left to help the Border Patrol out with skirmishes. The president had ordered 6,000 more Guardsmen down to the border. He just hoped all this wasn’t a case of too-little-too-late. The Border Patrol, the agents he knew personally, were plumb wore out. It was a thankless task.

God help them if it got any worse.

He had a bottle of good bourbon over on the bedside table. His eye lit on it, but he didn’t even feel like getting up and pouring himself one. Ever since he’d spoken to Daisy on the phone here about ten minutes ago, he’d felt kind of let down. Sad and lonely wasn’t a feeling he was all that familiar with.

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you.

That’s what Daisy had said before she hung up the phone. When he was home, that was always the next to the last thing she said before she fell asleep with her long perfumed hair all spread out on the pillow.

Sweet dreams and leave your problems behind you, that was the very last thing she’d say.

He missed her so bad his heart hurt.

He woke with a start and realized he must have dozed off in his rocker. It was dark outside, and rain was blowing in. The window shades were flapping so hard he was afraid they’d bust off the rollers. He got up to shut everything down and realized what woke him wasn’t the wind. It was the phone ringing off the hook on the bedside table. He picked up, wondering who in the world would call him here besides Daisy.

“Sheriff Dixon,” he said out of habit.

“Sheriff ! I’m so glad I got you! Lord, you’re not going to believe this one!”

It was June Weaver, who ran the courthouse switchboard. She sounded all out of breath.

“June, after two days in Key West, I’d believe just about anything anybody tells me. What’s going on?”

“Well, you know today was my son Travis’s big football game? The play-offs for the State Championship?”

He’d forgotten, but he said, “Yep.”

“I was driving home after the game, just minding my own beeswax, you know, like I do, and I said, I saw, I mean, I saw—”

“June-bug, slow down. You sound like you’re about to have a heart attack. Where are you?”

“Yes, sir. I’m home. Just ran in the door.”

“Sit down and tell me what you saw.”

“Well. I was on the highway headed home. I saw something moving on my right. Over where the river makes that lazy loop, you know, where nobody should be that doesn’t have a perfect right to be there.”

“I know where you mean. No Border Patrol around?”

“No, sir. Well, I slowed down fast just to see. At first I thought it was big trucks coming across the river. But that didn’t make sense so I stopped and got out of the car. Luckily, I had my video camera, from taping the football game, laying on the front seat of the Olds. When I got out of the car, I took it with me just in case, it was something, you know, interesting.”