by Chuck Holton
He sighed. They wouldn’t get far if they tried. He’d arranged for the pickup near Fort San Lorenzo to save the risk of driving the product past the guards at the entrance of the park and through the security surrounding the canal.
Once the truck was out of sight, Oswardo turned and walked through the still-open steel door of the bunker, which was set into a concrete wall in the side of a small man-made mound of earth.
He made his way through the cramped, acrid-smelling lab and down the concrete stairwell to the lower level. It was time to activate the device he had built just for this occasion.
The woman had somehow worked the blindfold off her head since the last time he left, and it lay crumpled next to her on the floor when he entered. Not that that surprised him. She had been sleeping but woke up immediately when he unlocked the door.
Blue eyes flashed at him from beneath unkempt red hair when the dim fluorescent bulb lit up the room. Apparently the hours since he’d last seen her hadn’t broken her spirit.
“Who are you and why are you holding me?”
He chuckled, savoring the feeling it gave him, being here. He carefully snubbed out his cigar before crossing to the pile of explosives. “My dear, you have been watching too many American movies. There is no reason for me to tell you my business. I will only be a moment, and then will leave you in peace.”
With his back to the CIA agent, Oswardo opened an ammo crate and removed a few RPG rounds from it. On the black market they were worth several hundred dollars apiece, and the rest of the ordnance upon which they were sitting would easily have brought more than fifty thousand. But with the ultimate payoff so close, it wouldn’t have been worth the risk of trying to unload them. Instead, they would serve to ensure that there would be no recognizable evidence of this place.
From his pocket, he produced a simple electronic kitchen timer, which he’d modified for his purposes. He took hold of the electrical leads protruding from the device and connected them to two wires protruding from a control box he’d constructed from an old car alarm.
He set the timer for two hours and ten minutes, then started the countdown. Then he placed the timer inside one of the boxes and closed the lid, unwinding the wires as he carefully set the box on the floor next to the doorway.
Bueno. He hit the timer on his watch. Now he would know just when to be looking back at the horizon from the boat.
Oswardo carried another empty wooden case over to the far corner on the opposite side of the door from the first one. Then he reached into his pocket and removed a small green circuit board to which he’d soldered a tiny photocell, both purchased over the counter in the market in Colón.
Wrapped around the silicon circuit board was six feet of thin wire. He unwound it and ran the twin leads over to the control box. Once they were connected, he carefully arranged the circuit board on top of the box that contained the timer. It was propped up against a block of Semtex explosive with the photocell facing the opposite wall beyond the door. The one-pound weight of the plastic explosive on the wires was enough to hold the tiny photocell perfectly immobilized.
This accomplished, he stood and surveyed his work, steadying himself momentarily on the stack of crates as a bout of lightheadedness overcame him. He needed another dose of the powder, but that would have to wait.
The woman had been watching his movements with interest. “You’re going to blow it up.”
He ignored her.
He checked all of the connections one last time, angry with himself for the difficulty he was having concentrating. Then he walked to the far corner where he’d put the other wooden crate. From his breast pocket he produced a small, simple laser pointer. This device would serve a special purpose—as insurance to make sure she couldn’t escape if she somehow figured a way out of the handcuffs. The chances of that happening were slim, but she was a CIA agent after all. Who knew what they were trained to do.
He smiled and relit his cigar. Perfecto.
He set the laser pointer on the box and secured it with a strip of tape to keep it from rolling. Then he made sure the power button on the device was locked in the “on” position.
Next, he got down on the floor next to the crate and carefully aligned the red dot, which now played along the far wall. The red beam was invisible as it crossed the approximately ten feet of space before showing up as a bright red spot on the photocell.
Oswardo stood once more, sweating. “And now, gringa, I must leave. Please don’t concern yourself with this.” He took in the pile of explosives and ammunition with a sweep of his hand. “You will be free of this place soon.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Please, tell me one thing?” she asked softly.
He turned and regarded her, savoring the feeling of power he had over her. “What is it, my dear?”
“Tell me what time it is.”
He thought for a moment. He supposed there could be no harm in granting her last request. He looked at his watch. “It is three in the morning. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go.”
Chuckling to himself, he left the room. Swinging the steel door closed, he left it unlocked and retrieved the tiny remote arming device that he’d salvaged from the car alarm. Sighting it through the window, he took a deep breath and prepared to press the button that would arm the device.
Adrenaline surged through him. The power of life and death. If it wasn’t set up perfectly, he’d be dead before he knew about it.
He pushed the button.
Over Panama. 0422 hours
FIFTY-SIX MINUTES to first light.
Rip squinted into the wind coming in the door of the unmarked Black Hawk helicopter as it blasted through the night at 165 knots. The chopper was shrouded in mist from the dark jungle below. Forward-looking infrared radar allowed the pilots to fly nap-of-the-earth as the Special-Ops chopper thundered north from Panama City less than a hundred feet above the treetops, flying toward the Caribbean coast and Fort Sherman.
The pilots’ eyes showed as diffuse green circles behind state-of-the art ANVIS Heads-Up Display night-vision goggles that illuminated their tight, emotionless faces. All of their concentration was focused on the dimly lit instruments, since there were no visual cues outside the cockpit to keep the ten-million-dollar aircraft from slamming into a forested hillside on the way to their objective.
Rip’s stomach lurched to his throat as the chopper dropped suddenly out from under him. He held on to his safety sling and squinted into the wind coming in through the open door. As the aircraft broke through the cloud cover, he saw off to the right what appeared to be a brightly lit multistory building in the middle of the jungle, which confused him until he saw the reflection of the lights on the water.
A container ship! The canal!
The chopper plunged to within ten feet of the water, hurtling along so close to the surface that the aircraft left a wake, and Rip could smell the fish.
Frank, John, Sweeney, and Doc all broke into grins at the same time. Sweeney, who was sitting next to him, howled in his ear over the roar of the rotor blades. “Hoooo boy! Now this is what I signed up for!”
Rip gave him a thumbs-up and nodded.
The previous several hours had been a whirlwind of activity. Though the mission wasn’t given final approval until six minutes before the chopper’s wheels left the tarmac, the team had used what time it had to check and recheck their equipment, study the plans of the battery, and rack their brains planning for every possible contingency.
After an apparently lengthy argument between the major and Marcel, who was responsible for coordinating with the Panamanian national police, the government reluctantly agreed to send a ground platoon of special commandos to set up a blocking position on the road leading into the national park where the bunker was located and to provide backup support if the team got in trouble. After the foul-up on Coiba, Rip sincerely hoped that wouldn’t be needed.
Coop leaned forward and pulled his headset off one ear. �
�Six minutes!”
Sweeney clapped Rip on the shoulder and removed a magazine from his ammo pouch, tapping it against his helmet before slamming it home in the receiver of his SOPMOD M4 carbine. He shouted in Rip’s ear again, patting his weapon. “I’m glad we’re usin’ these again!”
Rip nodded, reaching over the fourteen-inch circular breaching saw on his lap to load his own weapon. They’d decided to bring the rotary cutoff saw after studying the layout of the bunker with plans that had been hastily dug up in the nearby canal archives by an embassy employee.
Coop tapped Rip’s shoulder and pointed to the thick green polypropylene rope coiled on the floor like an enormous snake.
Rip quickly unfastened his harness and felt around on the rope, which was as thick as his wrist, until he located the chem-lights taped at intervals one foot, three feet, and five feet from its end. He bent the small plastic tubes and felt the glass ampoules inside break, which lit the now-all-business faces of his fellow commandos in a subdued greenish hue.
Then Rip pulled the thick leather work gloves from the cargo pocket on his left leg and put them on. Without the weight of the saw, forgetting the gloves would make the ninety-foot slide to the ground the most painful ninety feet of his life. But with it slung across his back, forgetting the gloves would surely be deadly.
Coop stood and grasped the loop where the rope was attached to a boom on the cargo bay ceiling. The boom extended three feet out the right side door. Once the team had completed their planned fastrope insertion, the pilot would pull a lever to release the rope, allowing it to fall to the ground. He yanked on the loop to ensure the release hadn’t been pulled prematurely.
Coop pressed a hand to the headset he wore, listening to the pilots. He held up two fingers. “Two minutes! Get ready!”
The team struggled to their feet, jostling each other unintentionally in the cramped confines of the aircraft. Rip grimaced when the saw impacted his knee as he swung it around behind him.
He steadied himself against the bulkhead. The helicopter climbed back up to treetop level as they reached the edge of the lake, and he could see the lights of Colón in the distance. But the g-forces from the sudden jump in altitude only added to the weight of Rip’s gear, and his thighs were beginning to burn. After the ship’s reflection on the calm water, the dead black jungle flashing by below looked bottomless and evil.
Coop hung out the open side door, spotting for the insertion point, which from the sat photos was directly in front of the bunker. It was the only clear spot between the objective and the ocean, almost a kilometer away.
Rip didn’t like the idea of inserting this way, even though fast-roping made it possible to put the entire team on the ground in only a matter of seconds, but the noise of the chopper would kill the element of surprise.
Whoever was occupying the bunker would have a bit of time to lock the door, destroy evidence, or—detonate the ITEB, in which case Hogan would be the lucky one for only getting shot.
Coop peered down at the ground, talking to the pilot on his headset, and the helicopter began to flare as the pilots reduced speed. John held up his hand, thumb and forefinger an inch apart.
Thirty seconds … Rip lined up behind his team leader and felt Frank crowding him from behind. The tech sergeant shouted in his ear. “Let’s do this for Buzz!”
Rip nodded and released his weapon long enough to make the sign of the cross. It felt more sincere than it ever had before. So why not try a prayer? Fernanda said God would answer. Okay, God. If You’re listening, keep us safe on this one, please. And be with my family too … over.
The chopper shuddered and flared to a full ninety degrees. He held on tight as the tail rotor pointed at the ground, and for an instant the horizon went vertical. A lighter patch of earth stood out below them, surrounded by trees now waving frantically, trying to escape the powerful ground effect of the helicopter. Then Coop kicked the coiled fastrope out the door.
Rip braced himself and leaned out of the bird, grasping the rope tightly in both gloved fists. The colored chem-lights were already visible, lying apart from each other, which assured him that the helicopter wasn’t too high above the ground.
“Go!” Coop shouted in his ear, slapping him on the shoulder. Rip swung his feet out onto the rope. He pivoted toward the aircraft so that the saw on his back wouldn’t catch in the door. Gravity took over, dragging him toward the earth. He picked up speed even as he clamped down hard on the rope with hands and feet, trying to slow his descent.
A glance skyward showed Frank already on the rope above him. The chopper’s rotor disk, glowing with static electricity, framed its body with a phosphorescent ring.
By the time his feet impacted with wet earth, Rip’s hands were burning despite the gloves. He hit hard in a patch of tall grass, crumpling away from the rope and doing his best to roll aside before Frank’s boots made contact with his helmet. But the saw foiled his efforts, and when its handle punched him between the shoulder blades, he didn’t even have enough breath left to curse.
Fortunately, Frank let go early and leaped the last few feet, landing next to him instead of on top of him. He rolled and was up and running before Rip gained his feet again. Sweeney landed just behind him, followed by Doc and finally Cooper.
At first Rip wasn’t sure which way to go, then he realized that everything from where he stood was downhill. Apparently they’d been dropped directly on top of the bunker instead of in front of it.
“This way!” Coop dashed down the trail Frank had created. The other men were less encumbered than Rip, which left him bringing up the rear. The helicopter had already dropped the rope and was circling out to sea to await further instructions.
As soon as it was gone, the whirr of crickets replaced the whine of the rotors. Rip was breathing hard as he hustled through the tall grass, encountering the rest of the team stacked up on a concrete wall set into the side of the hillock that they landed on.
“Rubio! Fire up the saw. We’ve got a locked door.”
He quickly slung his M-4 and unclipped the saw from his harness. Setting it on the ground, he pulled the starter cord twice, and the machine roared to life.
Frank’s tactical flashlight illuminated a very large padlock on a steel door, covered by an unlit concrete portico. Rip revved the engine and placed the circular blade against the hasp. A shower of sparks, three seconds, and they were in.
Rip stepped back and cut the engine, then clipped it again to his harness and picked up his carbine. Frank had already yanked open the door, and Coop at the front of the stack charged into blackness, peering inside through the binocular NVGs mounted on his helmet. Immediately following were Sweeney and Doc, who had his .45 caliber pistol at the ready.
Rip dropped his own goggles over his face and went inside, with Frank bringing up the rear.
An eerie silence greeted the team as they cleared a long subterranean hallway. It was completely empty. Coop poked his head through a door on the left, then whispered, “Clear.”
The team’s shuffling feet echoing off the walls was the only sound. It smelled of paint and stale earth. Each man automatically reached up and flipped on the tiny infrared illuminator on his goggles, necessary because of the complete void of ambient light.
They found several other doors, none of which were locked. The doors led to other small rooms that the team cleared in short order. Some had maps on the walls or extra furniture piled in the corners, but few looked recently used.
“Looks like nobody’s home,” Doc whispered in Rip’s ear.
They reached a second thick steel door like the one at the entrance. This time, Coop turned the handle and simply pushed it open. Sweeney ducked inside and cut left. There was a crash and a muttered curse as he ran into a table full of equipment. The rest of the team entered the room single file, weapons at the ready, and Doc remained outside as rear security.
Several quiet exclamations of “clear” were heard. There were no people, but the room wasn’t e
mpty. When Rip stepped inside, his goggles illuminated a thirty-foot square chamber filled with tables piled with flasks, tubes, and other scientific gear. In the corner was a large box with a glass pane set into it, and a row of five-foot steel bottles was lined up against the far wall.
Frank was inspecting them. “I think we may have something here. The writing on these bottles is Cyrillic.”
“I’ve got a stairwell,” Sweeney said.
Coop spoke up. “Frank, you and Bobby check it out.”
Frank hurried to where Sweeney stood, and the two disappeared from sight. Rip moved to the top of the stairs to cover them.
The short stairs led to a dark hallway. Rip could see his teammates’ lights moving around below, but nothing else. Other than his own heartbeat, it was as quiet as a tomb.
Stop them.
Then a shout rang out from below. Adrenaline exploded through Rip’s body as he heard Frank say, “We’ve got a body! I think it’s Phoenix!”
Rip pounded down the stairs. Rounding the corner, he flinched as Frank’s ultrabright tac-light came on, illuminating the entire length of the short hallway and the steel door set into one end.
He flipped up his goggles, seeing his teammates peering through the small window in the door as he sprinted to their side.
“Phoenix! Hey, Mary! Can you hear me?” Frank pounded on the door.
“She moved!” Turning, Sweeney shouted back toward the stairs. “Phoenix is alive!”
“Get the door open.” Frank reached for the handle.
Something shouted in Rip’s head. The easy way is always mined!
The thought was too loud to ignore. “Stop! Don’t open it!”
Both Sweeney and Frank turned to look at him.
“Hold on, bro.” Rip held up one hand. “I have a bad feeling about this. Check the door.”
Frank’s enthusiasm waned a little. “That’s probably not a bad idea.”
