by Chuck Holton
Frank spoke up. “Here comes the chopper.”
The slick green Huey slid in low over the treetops and dropped into the clearing in front of them. Rip knelt and pulled Fernanda down as the prop wash blasted them with tiny particles of dust.
As soon as the skids touched down, a half dozen soldiers in olive fatigues jumped out and took up positions around the chopper. A short man with captain’s bars on his epaulets jogged toward the team. Rip figured he was the officer in charge of the PSP troops.
Coop put his cap back on. “Let’s pick up and go. Doc, get Buzz ready to move.”
“Roger.”
The captain held a hand out to John. “I am Captain Estevez. My men have—”
Coop picked up his and Hogan’s rucksack and jerked his head toward the chopper. “Let’s go, men.” He ignored the captain and ran for the chopper.
Without a word, the other four men picked up their fallen comrade and hustled after their team leader.
Once Buzz was loaded on the helicopter, Rip looked back to see Fernanda having a hurried conversation with the captain. The man nodded and waved his troops over, calling out commands to them and pointing toward the camp.
Rip jogged back to where the man stood. “Fernanda, we’ve got to go.” He nodded at the Panamanian officer. “You’ll have to excuse my team sergeant, sir. He gets pretty bent out of shape when somebody shoots at us.”
To his credit, the captain was very apologetic. “I am extremely sorry for the mistake,” he said in Spanish. “My helicopter will take your comrade directly to Panama City.”
“I want to stay to see if they find Alex, Zack, and Carlos.”
Captain Estevez shook his head. “It would be better for you to go, señorita. Otherwise there will not be room for all of my men in the second helicopter. Here is my card.” He produced a business card from his pocket. “Call me at police headquarters in Santiago when you return and leave your number. I will let you know what we find.”
Fernanda looked reluctant but agreed. She thanked him, then followed when Rip turned and jogged back to the waiting chopper.
Cooper stuck his head out the door. “Shake a leg, Rubio! We got another problem.” He pulled the intercom headset off of his head.
“Marcel says that Phoenix went missing.”
THE HELICOPTER SHUDDERED as it rose out of the clearing, flattening the tall grass and making the nearby palm trees bend, as if trying to get away from the screaming green machine.
Lord, please help them find Zack and Carlos!
Fernanda clung to the nylon webbed seat next to Rip, who crossed himself as the chopper climbed above the treetops. Seeing him do that surprised her somewhat, but she found it strangely reassuring. When he saw her looking at him, he gave her a solemn thumbs-up. She managed a weak grin in return. It was her first time in a helicopter.
Her heart lurched as the front of the chopper tipped forward and headed straight for the trees at the far end of the clearing. Just when she was ready to brace for the crash, the craft swept up, cleared the trees, and she could see an aquamarine cove ringed by a wide, tan strip of beach, bisected where a sluggish green river emptied into the sea.
Out in the bay, she could make out the dark outline of something beneath the water. At first it looked like a huge submerged rock, but as the chopper got closer, she saw something protruding from the water.
A ship!
The aft section was closest to the surface, and she could just make out M/V Invincible painted on its sunken stern as they passed above it.
The irony of the name struck her as funny, and she was horrified to find herself giggling at a time like this.
The helicopter banked inland, and Fernanda’s giddiness went away as she looked straight down out the open door. Below her, several plumes of smoke rose skyward from still-burning huts, and Panamanian soldiers searched around the edges of the pirate camp for stragglers. In a clearing in the center of camp, the second helicopter sat with rotors stilled.
As their helicopter drifted higher, she could see mountains in the wild interior blanketed with lush forest and the clear blue waters pounding the rocky cliffs at its periphery.
Is the rest of my team still alive in there somewhere? Did they escape, God? And what about Alex? Wherever they are, please, protect them. Let them be found.
The higher the helicopter flew, the less menacing the island looked. When they cleared the tallest peaks and turned north toward Panama City, the island had regained that innocent, idyllic appearance. Like a place where people would go to relax on the beach or enjoy an afternoon surfing. But now that she had experienced the island’s raw malice, she doubted if she’d ever hear the name Coiba again and not get a chill down her spine.
What a horrific few days this has been. She looked down at Hogan, lying on a stretcher on the floor, an IV bag hanging from the barrel of his gun as Doc worked over him. Buzz gave her a weak smile.
These men were amazing. This had been the worst experience of her life, and yet these soldiers signed up to do things like this on a regular basis.
Despite the blood crusted around Rip’s nose and the cut under his left eye, she found him very attractive. It wasn’t about his looks; it was more the way he carried himself, like he knew exactly what to do in every situation, not to mention that he had bested Chombon. And as they sat side by side in the cramped confines of the aircraft, she found she liked the closeness, perhaps because he had come to her rescue and being with him felt safe.
He leaned closer and shouted in her ear over the thwop-thwop-thwop of the rotor blades. “Our embassy just radioed that they contacted your family. Your mother will be waiting for you when we land at Albrook.”
Fernanda nodded. She would be very glad to see her mother, of course, but how long would it be before she heard an “I told you so”?
The last few days had given her lots of time to think, and she decided that if she ever got off that island, she would try harder to get along with her mom. Fernanda never really talked to her mother about her father’s death. What a strain it must have been to lose a husband. Something about her ordeal on Coiba helped her to see that she and her mother had allowed their grief to drive them apart instead of closer.
She shouted at Rip, “How long is the flight?”
He held up an index finger and told her to hang on. He squeezed the button on his headphones and spoke to the pilots. Then he pulled the microphone back out of the way. “We have to stop in Santiago to refuel, so it will be at least two hours until we get to Panama City.”
She sighed and looked out across the vast expanse of the Pacific. She had lots to sort out from the last few days. She had to call Tía Magali, Carlos’s mother, and get a message to the Oasis at Santa Catalina to tell Hedi about the ordeal. The expedition wasn’t due back for two more days, so Hedi probably had no idea what had transpired.
But that would have to wait. For the next few hours there was nothing she could do, and suddenly she felt very, very tired. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and let her head droop onto Rip’s muscular shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t mind too much. The rhythmic beating of the helicopter’s blades and the warm breeze coming through the open door lulled her to sleep.
Fort San Lorenzo National Park. 2000 hours
It is almost time.
Oswardo listened to the barely audible hum of the generator as he stood looking at the woman through the tiny window into the massive steel door. He was sweating, despite the fact that the temperature in the dimly lit hallway never rose above 68 degrees.
The smoke from his cigar mingled with the earthy smell of old concrete and the strong odor of new paint. He looked at his watch again. It would never give him the answer he sought.
But how much time is left before it is found out?
He was so close to the payoff. He wanted nothing more than to be done with this phase of his life—to be rid of the spoiled wife and children, the responsibilities, all of it—and start a new life, unencumbered. If only he co
uld hold things together for another twenty-four hours or so.
The American woman sat unmoving in the corner of the room, head on her chest and arms handcuffed to a metal pipe running up the wall. It wasn’t immediately clear if she was conscious, but she was alive.
Kidnapping the American woman had been a desperate move, something he regretted doing. It would certainly mean the US government would be out in force trying to find her.
That was bad, but not as bad as if they weren’t looking for her. Because then they would be looking for the pirates and might discover his shipment, which he still hoped to recover.
He had never harbored any delusion that he’d be able to keep his operation a secret forever. But all he needed was a bit more time, enough to finish this last batch of product, which even now was being extracted from its diluted state in the lab one level above him.
The final shipment of his new product had been purchased sight unseen by one buyer, and at a price six times what the first batch had sold for. That kind of profit exceeded his wildest expectations since the product’s spectacular debut in Lebanon recently. Once this shipment was processed, he could afford to walk away and disappear. He already had his new name chosen and had been shopping for a nice, large rancho in Argentina or Ecuador—someplace where enough money could ensure privacy and comfort for the rest of his life.
He had little choice about where to hide the American. He had to keep her away from his legitimate businesses and the many workers he employed. He could have hired someone to take her, but few who would agree to such a job had the fortitude to do it right and keep it a secret. Besides, everyone had a price, and there were few he trusted enough not to bail if the stakes got too high.
No, he had decided to bring the girl here himself.
She probably expected someone to come soon and interrogate her. Or draft a ransom note to send to her superiors. But if she held any such hopes, she would be disappointed.
Nothing personal, gringa. Just business.
He looked down at the device in his hand, and adrenaline surged as it always did when he completed a prototype. Oswardo had always been good with his hands, a tinkerer, but when he learned that men would pay him handsomely for his creations, his hobby took on a whole new dimension. It made him feel potent, like a god, with the power of life and death in his hands.
As for the woman, this latest device would bring death quickly. She should be thankful, really. Which was worse? To die old and feeble, fading away in a home for the aged, nothing but a worn-out version of your younger self? Or to be living in this world one minute and enter the next in the space of a microsecond? She would feel no pain, and she would have served his purpose for her—to delay the gringos until he could finish his work and disappear.
Oswardo had put forth an incredible amount of resources to keep his real business private. Why not take advantage of that privacy and use it to safeguard this secret as well? The place was undetectable by air, unreachable by sea, and forgotten on land. If it was good enough for the lab, it would do to hide the girl.
The United States had always used Panama like a cheap mistress. After conducting their hazardous live-fire exercises here for decades, they pulled out in 2000, leaving behind training areas so contaminated that the land would never again be arable. They left ranges littered with unexploded ordnance and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of abandoned structures, many of which had been left to rot in recent years.
But Oswardo saw it as a good thing.
Because when the product was completed, he would destroy the entire operation, and it would look like yet another example of American carelessness. The environmentalists would wring their hands and call for an investigation, and they would find little more than a smoking hole in the jungle. And if they managed to find the woman’s DNA in the rubble, there wouldn’t be anyone left to blame because Oswardo would have ceased to exist.
He turned the handle on the door, pulled it open softly, but didn’t enter. The woman’s head jerked up, revealing the dirty rag that had been over her eyes since the street thugs he hired to capture her had put it there.
“Who’s there?”
He didn’t answer. Oswardo entered the room and regarded her for a moment. She was strong and beautiful. Her figure was quite feminine but not the stick-thin of models on the billboards. If he had more time, he might make better use of her …
“I am a United States citizen, and I demand to be taken to the embassy immediately.”
He smiled slightly and held his tongue. No. Unfortunately, he did not have the time. He must get back to the city before daylight. He crossed to the pile of boxes and bottles stacked against the far wall of the room, directly beneath the laboratory upstairs.
The crates of Semtex were overkill, considering the number of artillery shells and other ammunition he’d stockpiled, but he wanted to be absolutely certain that when it detonated there wouldn’t be enough left of the lab for them to trace anything to him.
This bunker had been built to withstand a naval bombardment from without, but it would never stand up to a detonation of this size from within. He placed the device on top of one of the boxes and quickly set about connecting detonation cords to the blasting caps he’d already prepared and inserted among the charges. When he was finished, he took one last look at his handiwork and turned to leave.
“What do you want with me?”
Oswardo chuckled, then switched off the light. He walked out of the room and carefully shut the door behind him. The woman said nothing more. Perhaps she knew.
He reached into his pocket and produced a small vial, dabbing the white powder from it onto the back of his hand. He needed to be alert in order to drive back to the city. He put his hand to his nostril and inhaled deeply.
A sense of well-being washed over him.
It won’t be long now.
He trod back up the crumbling concrete stairs, reveling in how alert and strong he was.
The lab was small, occupying only one windowless room that was mostly filled with the nitrogen chamber, a glass-enclosed box where the product was bottled.
Oswardo watched the team of three scientists beginning the extraction process on the last batch of product. A pang of conscience stabbed at the thought that these intelligent men—whom he’d lured with enormous sums of money and in one case, photos of the man with his mistress—would meet their fates in tragic accidents.
His valve-stem caps were already in place on each man’s vehicle, and once everything else was done, the job would be almost an afterthought. It was an unavoidable cost of finishing this business.
He shoved aside his conscience once again. Ah, well, nothing personal.
Five minutes later he was slogging through the mud to his silver Prado, eager to get back to the city before dawn. He had to finish wrapping up the loose ends of his life so that none of it would follow him when the project reached completion.
As soon as he was back in range of the cell tower in Colón, he called to check his messages.
Halfway through the first message, he had to pull to the side of the road because he was shaking so badly.
It was the last thing he ever expected to hear. He had to fish the vial from his pocket and sniff some more of the powder it contained.
It was a good thing he was going to start a new life. This old one was in shambles.
The attack had failed.
AS THE CHOPPER PASSED over the brilliant blue slash of the Panama Canal, Rip watched it winding across the lush carpet of jungle and was amazed at the scale of it. From his vantage point twelve hundred feet above the Bridge of the Americas, it was hard to imagine that the gleaming ribbon of water hadn’t always been there.
Through the headphones he wore, Rip heard the pilots coordinating their approach to the airfield. It wouldn’t be long now. It felt like a punch in the gut every time he looked down at Hogan, lying pallid on the stretcher with an IV in his arm. From the concerned look on Doc Kelly’s face as he wor
ked over the lanky Texan, he knew Buzz’s injury was worse than it looked.
And now Phoenix was missing too. Rip hated the feelings brewing inside him, a toxic mix of anxiety, anger, and helplessness. The helplessness was the worst, which made him want to do something about it. Inside he was pacing like a caged animal.
But outside he sat still because Fernanda was still leaning on his shoulder, asleep. Just like Gabi used to do when they rode in the backseat of his mother’s old Cutlass Supreme on the way to the beach. Mama liked to picnic there on summer Sundays after church. He had looked forward to those days, and it had made him feel like a man when Gabi used his shoulder as a pillow. He missed that.
Fernanda had the same silky black hair too, loose strands of which were whipping about in the wind coming through the open doors.
The chopper hit a downdraft over the canal and shuddered, waking Fernanda. She sat up and looked around. “Are we almost there?”
In answer, Rip pointed to the ships passing through Miraflores locks in the distance.
The aircraft banked hard, and Rip could see the airstrip at Albrook, its hangars nestled up against a forested hill, with rows of red-roofed former military barracks still lined up dress-right-dress along the edge of the airfield. As the Huey shot its final approach, he could see an ambulance waiting at the far end of the tarmac.
The moment the skids touched pavement, Rip and the rest of the team were out of the bird, each taking one corner of the stretcher, fighting the rotor wash to deliver their wounded comrade to the ambulance.
Doc climbed in with Hogan and the doors closed. Then Coop trotted back to the helicopter to retrieve his rucksack.
Rip followed. “Let me help you with that. We need to get that bottle someplace safe.”
Coop nodded. “And cold. Hey, who’s that with Fernanda?”
Rip turned around and saw Fernanda embracing a distinguished-looking older woman and a muscular blond girl standing just inside the hangar with Marcel. He shrugged his own rucksack into place. “I dunno, bro. I’m glad we got her back here in one piece, though.”
