by Ted Bell
He saw Homer’s car.
It was parked in the trees down near the black, slow-moving river and covered with snow. He started down toward it, an unreasonable uneasiness suddenly pinging at his brain. He’d last spoken to the boy, what, five hours ago? Still, that was a long time to sit in your car, waiting, snow blanketing your windows.
Homer had the bone in his teeth now, and Franklin knew how it felt. You wanted to see how it ended. You wanted to end it. Still, the sight of that car made him uneasy. He quickened his pace, slipping and sliding, holding onto branches to stay on his feet.
Homer was not in the car. The driver’s side door was hanging open. There was a lot of snow on the seat. On the dash and on the floor. Something was missing besides Homer. Yeah. The Mossburg shotgun was not in its mount under the dash.
Franklin stood up, breathing hard. There had been a small access road to the river, he’d crossed it coming down the hill. He started moving back up in that direction, the only one that made any sense, until he reached the road. The road angled through the woods down to the river. And there was the boat ramp. And there was the trailer truck they’d stopped that night outside of Prairie. Homer’s ghost rider, the Yankee Slugger. The trailer was backed down the incline, the rear wheels a few feet from the water’s edge. The tractor was facing this way, uphill, and the headlights were on. A few feet away, an idling forklift was parked on the slope.
On the ground in the pool of light was his deputy.
He was on his back, staring blindly up into the light from the truck’s headlamps. The snow on the ground around him was soaked bright red. About a foot from his outreached hand, the Mossburg was almost buried but still visible. This had happened just before he’d pulled off the road. Within the last fifteen minutes or so. Maybe while he was spinning into the ditch.
Homer was still breathing.
Rapid, shallow breaths, but he was alive.
“Homer?” he knelt down and cradled the boy’s head in his arms.
“You made it.”
“Don’t talk. We have to get you to a hospital.”
“Too late for that, Sheriff. Don’t worry about it.”
“Who did this?”
“It was—the son. I was watching them unload the truck. Putting the thing in the river. Tried to stop them. The older one, on the forklift, saw me come out of the woods. He—he yelled something and the son just turned around and shot me. I shot back. I think I killed him. That’s all there is to it.”
Homer’s eyes were going far away.
“You’re going to be okay, Homer. You hold on, son.”
“No, listen. You have to…wait. You have to hear about the thing they put in the river. It’s—bad.”
“What is it, Homer?”
“Some kind of—what. I don’t know. A baby submarine. High tech. Nobody inside. Leastways nobody got in the damn thing. Just like the truck…remote control.”
“Still there? The thing in the river?”
“Hell, no. Hit the water and started to submerge. Headed upriver. Going pretty fast, too, and it—it—”
“Which way? Which way was it headed?”
“North I think.”
“Towards Washington?”
“I can’t…I’m not…”
“Don’t talk, Homer. Stay with it. Stay with me.”
“Can’t. I got to go.”
“Homer?”
FRANKLIN SAT in the snow with the dead boy for a good five minutes. Just let the tears come since they wouldn’t stop no matter how hard he tried. Teardrops and snowflakes fell on the boy’s cheeks, still tinged pink with the icy cold. Then Dixon got to his feet and took his duster off. Covered his deputy with it. Watched the snow softly falling on the still form of his deputy for a minute or so. Bent down to grab a handful of the white stuff and rubbed it all over his face, knuckles digging into his eyes.
He stood and saw Homer’s hand sticking out under the duster. Boy’s pistol still in his hand. Franklin gently pried the gun from Homer’s cold fingers and stuck it in the small of his back, inside his jeans. He stood for a second, breathing deep, put his head back and looked straight up into the dark sky full of snow. There was maybe a half hour of daylight left.
After a minute, he picked up the Mossburg and walked around the truck to where a dead Arab kid lay face down in the snow. There was a wide pool of blood similar to the one spreading beneath Homer’s body. Bright red, but that’s where the similarities ended.
He jacked a fresh round into the shotgun’s chamber and looked up at the farmhouse on the hill. He smelled smoke. They must have a fire going inside now. It was certainly cold enough outside.
69
RIVER OF DOUBT
H awke stood alone at the stern, hands clasped behind his back. It was early afternoon, just half past one, local time, and the sun was blazing overhead. He gazed at the twisting wake trailing behind his stern, his feet planted wide against sudden yaw or pitch. He was thinking on how matters stood aboard his vessel. It was now twelve hours since they’d departed Manaus.
He’d managed a few hours sleep in his small cabin, then gone once more into the tiny and hastily organized “war room” to confer with Stokely, Gerard Brownlow, and his Fire Control Officer, a Welshman named Dylan Allegria. One problem, now remedied, had been the engines. Minor mechanical issue with one of the three, overheating, but troubling all the same. With two engines, the performance parameters of this boat went to hell.
The bloody River of Doubt was living up to, even beyond, expectations. The mood aboard Stiletto had degenerated from restless to apprehensive. Now, it was tense. They were late, that was part of it. Some aboard would argue privately they were lost as well. The sheer density of the forest and the endless uncharted tributaries spiking off the cocoa-colored river was creating confusion and sensory overload among his men.
This was certainly not abnormal for men going into battle. It was, Hawke knew, unusual for this handpicked group of warriors.
These men were, for the most part, seasoned fighters, battle-hardened veterans, recruited for their experience in modern guerilla warfare. Many had been flown to Key West from Martinique, home of Thunder and Lightning, a mercenary outfit without parallel in modern jungle warfare. To them, this was just another opportunity to beat unbeatable odds and snag a hefty paycheck.
The ante was raised, however, when it suddenly became a hostage rescue operation to boot. And it was no secret to anyone aboard that the hostage needing rescue was the closest man on earth to Alexander Hawke.
Hawke had overheard bickering in the crew’s mess. It wouldn’t do. In an hour’s time, he would gather them all in the wheelhouse. Show them his belief in them and this mission. His optimism. His absolute conviction that they could and would overcome every obstacle and succeed despite any difficulty. They would find Congreve alive and get him out. They would destroy Top. Put an end to his intentions, whatever the hell they were.
Nec aspera terrent, as the lads of the King’s Regiment have it. That’s what he would tell them. Difficulties be Damned.
They’d been slowed by the bloody engine repair; but now they were slowed by the very river itself. Twisting, turning, endless. They’d been steaming nearly fourteen hours on the smaller rivers now, since they’d left the wide Amazon. Many hours on the much smaller Madeira, and now they were headed due south on the comparatively narrow Rio Roosevelt.
Many natives still called it by its original name, the River of Doubt. Now he could see why.
The wilderness had closed in on the crew of Stiletto just as the sea closes over a diver. Hawke and his men felt cut off from all they’d ever known; each man felt as if he were on a journey back to the beginning of time. They had entered a brooding world of plants, water, and, except for the deep rumble of the engines, silence. Everywhere you looked, a riot of vegetation. The big trees were kings of the earth this deep in the jungle. The forest air was thick and sluggish. The only sunshine was directly overhead and little comfort.
He’d forg
otten, or erased, his well-stocked stores of bad memories of this hellish place.
All afternoon they’d been butting against shoals, trying to find the channel. Hawke had posted two men on the bow, looking for signs of hidden banks and sunken stones, some sharp, unseen edge that would rip the bottom out of this otherworldly craft and doom what was left of his hopes. To make matters worse, he heard the roll of drums inside the curtain of jungle now. And whether they represented war or peace or prayer he had no idea.
Xucuru scouts, maybe. Announcing his return.
Kill you, kill you.
Hawke tried to tell himself he was only imagining a vengeful aspect to nature here, but he couldn’t do that either. Couldn’t shake the notion that even bloody nature was deliberately conspiring against him. He’d felt this dreamy notion during his captivity. And, the deeper Stiletto traveled into the jungle, the more reality seemed to fade. He pressed his fingertips deeply into his eye sockets and willed himself to stop this foolishness. Only looking into Top’s eyes would end this bloody nightmare. And that moment could not come soon enough.
Suddenly, Captain Girard Brownlow was standing beside him at the stern rail.
“Skipper, sorry to disturb you.”
“Not at all, Brownie.”
“At roughly 0330 we will be approaching a stretch of river where Brock has indicated submerged mines may be protecting the main enemy compound. I’m ordering the crew to deploy the mine probes in half an hour.”
“Good. Take her speed down to fifteen as well, Captain. Mr. Brock has been known to be less than precise.”
“Aye, sir. Anything I can do for you?”
“The PAM system,” Hawke said, his eyes scanning the thick green vegetation, “Death from above. Missiles armed and ready?”
“Aye. Fire Control Officer Lewis confirms both PAM and LAM systems up and functioning normally, Skipper. We are currently mapping and tracking two targets.”
“What targets?”
“Appear to be two small unmanned vehicles, sir. Couple of bots pulling guard duty, I’d say. Mr. Brock’s recon report identifies these vehicles as Ogres. Mobile machine guns on tracks, really. Operating on either bank, parallel course, equidistant from the river, outbound range one mile. Our companions for the last ten minutes, sir, matching our speed and corrections. We did heat signatures on both vehicles. They definitely appear to be unmanned. Scouts, we think.”
“So. The enemy already knows we’re coming.”
“That’s accurate, sir.”
“Tell fire control to monitor the scouts. As long as they’re running parallel courses, leave them alone. They turn toward us, threaten the boat, take them out.”
“Aye, aye, sir. I’ll inform Fire Control Officer Lewis immediately.”
Brownlow saluted smartly, left the stern, and went forward to convey Hawke’s orders to Lewis. Hawke looked at the two ungainly black boxes mounted side-by-side on his stern. State of the art, Harry Brock had told him, missiles in a box. He just hoped the bloody things were all they were cracked up to be. Brock was convinced they’d need them where they were headed. And Brock had procured them.
Harry Brock, Hawke said privately, was a bit of a piss artist.
The two men had worked together a year ago in Oman. Hawke had rescued Harry from a Chinese steamer carrying the CIA officer back to prison in China. Then, to his credit, Brock returned the favor, getting Hawke alive out of the bloody jungle. That made them even, which is the way Hawke liked it. He had never liked the feeling of being beholden to anyone.
But now Hawke would have to rely on Brock’s boots on the ground intel about the enemy’s exact location, defenses, and fortifications. Harry was coming aboard Hawke’s boat for the final leg of the journey. Stiletto would make an unscheduled stop tonight, just after nightfall, at an abandoned river outpost called Tupo. With any luck, Brock would be there as planned.
Hawke had entered uncharted territory. He’d never ventured this far down river during his captivity. Much as he hated to admit it, he needed Harry now. Navigation from this point onward would be exceedingly difficult without someone aboard who knew what physical landmarks to look for on the river. Maps were virtually useless. Because of flash flooding, the beds of rivers changed constantly. The rivers, forks, and tributaries had become indistinguishable. Some rivers were mined and some were not. Harry knew. It was Harry who’d told him about the armed drones and robotic weaponry. Harry who’d sold him the big black boxes on the stern.
PAMs were the fifteen Precision Attack Missiles mounted in a second 4X6X4-foot black container just aft of the wheelhouse. Fire and forget, meaning once a target was acquired, it was dead. Realizing that, in the jungle, there would be many targets the boat’s myriad sensors wouldn’t pick up, Hawke had also ordered this second NetFires missile system installed, the Loitering Attack Missile, or LAM.
These mini-cruise missiles were the same size and weight as a PAM missile. Unlike it, the LAM missile can fly around an assigned area for forty five minutes looking for a target. If none is acquired, the missile simply crashes. If a target is detected by its built-in Laser Radar system, Ladar, and the onboard software recognizes the target vehicle as an enemy one, the missile attacks from above. Its warhead is sufficient to take out all but the largest Main Battle Tanks of any known enemy force.
At that moment, a flying object struck the PAM box, hard, and fell to the deck at Hawke’s feet. Hawke bent to pick it up. It was an arrow. A long one, maybe four feet, which meant the Xucuru warrior who’d fired it was not too deep inside the wall of jungle. Hawke leapt up into the protected Fifty-caliber machine gun turret just in time. The air around the boat was suddenly filled with poison-tipped arrows, a cloud of them, flying from both banks. Most bounced harmlessly off the carbon fiber hull or superstructure and sank. Still, it was unpleasant and there was always a chance someone could get hurt.
Hawke pulled the headset on and barked into the mouthpiece, “Nav! You have water under the keel?”
They could easily outrun this attack; it was simply a matter of not running hard aground or ripping the bottom out.
“Aye, Skipper. But not much. Shoals are—”
“Stand by, Helm.” Hawke said, “I’ll deal with it.”
A burst of speed wasn’t worth the risk to the boat. And besides, he owed these Xucuru chaps or their brothers-in-arms big time. Pity his old friend Wajari wasn’t around to see this turn of events.
Hawke gripped the joystick that controlled his turret rotation, turned the bubble to starboard, and squeezed off a long burst. The noise of the twin fifty-caliber guns ripped the silence. The hot rounds shredded the vegetation in a very satisfying manner. Another burst, then he swung the twin-guns over to the portside banks and opened up once more. The guns effect on the hidden Indians was instantly apparent. No more arrows from either side of the river. They were either all dead or had melted back into the forest.
The white devil had arrived.
“Heads up, Skipper, we’ve got a visitor,” Brownlow’s voice said in his earphones.
“What do you have now, Cap?” Hawke climbed down out of the enclosed gun mount and started moving quickly forward toward the wheelhouse.
“We’ve got a drone aircraft coming our way, sir. Flying straight toward us, nose-to-nose. Right down on the deck.”
“Range?”
“Uh, he’s a mile out now and closing. Altitude twenty-one feet. We should have visual contact any second now.”
“I’ve got him,” Hawke said, ducking inside the wheelhouse after spotting the drone’s approach. He moved quickly to the helm and stood beside Brownlow who was driving the boat. Both men were peering through the glass, watching the tiny spec a few feet above the water grow larger. Hawke grabbed the Zeiss binocs sitting atop the binnacle.
The drone looked like an upside down spoon with wings. Made of lightweight metals and composite plastic, driven by a small, propeller driven engine, the craft was painted a dull gray and had a top speed of only 150 mp
h.
Hawke said, “Definitely a drone recon. A UAV, streaming live video back to the command base, wherever that may be. It’s armed. Two Air-to-Ground Hellfire-type missiles on the wingtips.”
“Take him out, Skipper?” Lewis said.
“He’s currently broadcasting our arrival. Let’s give the folks crowded around the telly back home a great big bang.”
“Roger, that’s okay to launch.”
“Affirmative,” Hawke said, “Let’s see if these bloody things work.”
A second later, a red-tipped PAM missile screamed out of its launch container, streaking skyward. At an altitude of one hundred feet, the slender projectile nosed over and dove straight down toward its locked in prey. The men in Stiletto’s wheelhouse held their collective breath. This technology was so new it even smelled new.
Half a mile upriver, the air was split by a sharp crack as an intense ball of flame erupted about twenty feet above the river. The shockwave of the exploding warhead could be felt a second later by everyone aboard Stiletto. Spontaneous whoops of applause and high-fives erupted amongst the crew. The crew now knew that at least they had one effective weapons system aboard this as yet un-battle-tested warship.
“Nice shooting, Mr. Lewis,” Hawke said.
“Ducks in a pond, sir,” Lewis replied.
“That won’t last long, Mr. Lewis. Stow that attitude.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
70
LEE’S FERRY, VIRGINIA
T here was smoke rising above the farmhouse. But it wasn’t coming from the chimneys. Black smoke, thick and acrid, was pouring from the three dormer windows up on the second floor. Franklin could see licks of fire starting to race along up under the eaves, climbing up the shingled roof, pools of flame spreading rapidly up to the peak, like hot liquid running uphill, melting the snow.
Franklin slogged up the hill as fast as he could, the crusty snow up to his knees as he climbed. There was one entrance on this back side of the house. Looked to be the kitchen, a big bow window and one of those double-dutch doors. No lights on in the kitchen, even though it had suddenly gotten very dark on the hillside.
