by Jack Du Brul
“Haven’t forgotten, Angel. Out.”
With Lieutenant Foch leading them, they reached one of the pilot boats without being seen. The door lock was a puny affair that the Frenchman kicked apart with one blow. Sergeant Rabidoux, their electronics and arms expert, went straight to the cockpit to get at the ignition wires under the automobile-like dashboard. Never one to do more work than necessary, Harry followed him and found the keys in a cup holder.
He jingled them near his waist and the young trooper slithered back to his feet, mildly embarrassed.
“Don’t start the engine yet,” Mercer cautioned. “We’ve got a good enough view of the boatyard to see anyone coming. No sense drawing attention to ourselves.”
“Now what?” Bruneseau asked.
“We wait to hear from Devil One,” Lauren said. She moved next to Mercer and kept an eye on the rain-lashed marina. “And when they succeed we all go home.”
Out the stern window and across the small aft deck the canal ran green and turgid. On the far bank, the earth had been recently sculpted into a gentle slope to slow the remorseless landslides that continuously threatened to re-bury the canal. Where open grassland gave way to the concrete locks, the Mario diCastorelli sat motionless between the seawall extensions, presumably awaiting word from the divers that the diverter submarine was in place. Next to her, the Robert T. Change waited a few lengths from the lock. Behind her floated the Englander Rose, an almost exact copy of the tramp freighter preceding her through the canal.
Lightning danced in jagged tributaries that came dangerously close to the ground. Thunder pealed across the hills in crashing blasts that would certainly mask the sound of gunfire.
“Angel!” The cry came in Lauren’s headset so loudly that she winced. “This is . . . Oh, screw it. Lauren, it’s Roddy. Put Mercer on fast.”
She gave him the earpiece and attached throat mike. “Something’s wrong. It’s Roddy.” Her hands were no longer so steady.
“Go ahead.”
“Mercer, I’m on the diCastorelli’s bridge. There’s no one on the ship. I mean no Chinese agents. The crew are all Greeks and Filipinos. The pilot’s a Panamanian friend of mine. Patke’s down in the hold right now. Just like the manifest says she’s carrying scrap steel and cement powder.”
Oh Jesus! “Could the explosives be hidden in the cement?”
“There isn’t that much of it for one thing,” Roddy shouted, on the edge of panic. “Patke says he’s already had his men tear into a few of the pallets. It really is just bags of Portland. I’m telling you, this isn’t the ship!”
Mercer looked around the crowded pilot boat. “We’ve got the wrong freighter.”
Rene Bruneseau was the first to react. His face turned crimson and he lunged for Harry, pinning the old man against a bulkhead. “You senile fool,” he screamed. “This is your fault.”
Foch launched himself at the spy, prying his hands from Harry’s collar and tossing the Frenchman onto the deck. “Touch him again and you’re dead,” he snarled.
“What do we do?” Roddy cried over the radio.
“How about it, Harry?” Mercer’s voice was grave, laden with frustration.
Harry White made no apologies for being wrong. He’d made his best guess and the others had readily agreed. Castor was one of the Gemini twins and there were no other vessels with such a name or anything containing Pollux, the other brother. His assumption that Liu Yousheng chose the code word Gemini based on the name of the vessel had been dead wrong. Without a reference point, there was no way he could deduce the right ship.
For all he knew the bomb ship had already passed the lock and was in position in the Gaillard Cut, ready to take down the massive Contractor’s and Gold Hill in an explosion that wouldn’t be much smaller than an atomic bomb.
Or the incendiaries were on one of the ships still to come; maybe on the Robert T. Change, which was just passing the pilot boat, or the Englander Rose steaming in her wake. Hell, it could be on the cruise ship for all he knew or any one of the tankers, container ships, or bulk carriers still crossing Miraflores Lake.
Harry had given it his best and failed. No, he had nothing to apologize for except letting Liu get away with destroying the Panama Canal and opening the way for nuclear missiles to threaten the United States. Fucking Chinese. The thought was so bitter that the inspiration springing from it took a second to hit. Chinese, damnit. He’s been thinking like a Westerner. Liu had been clever but not clever enough.
He looked at Mercer, stung by the reproach in his friend’s gray eyes. “We’ve got a serious problem.”
“We know that.” The voice cut even deeper than the eyes.
“There isn’t one bomb ship. There are two. The Mario diCastorelli is only supposed to block the canal so Liu can get the crews off of them before detonation.”
“Why are we listening to this idiot?!” Bruneseau raged.
“Tell us,” Lauren invited softly, for her faith in Mercer and Harry, though weakened by what was happening, was still with her.
“Gemini. Twins. But not the ones from our mythology. Robert T. Change. Englander Rose. Change and Englander. Chang and Eng—the famous conjoined brothers commonly referred to as Siamese Twins. They were actually Chinese.”
Harry had just cracked the unconscious mistake Liu had made when choosing a code name. The name diCastorelli had put in his mind the idea of the Gemini twins, although at the time he didn’t fully recall they were called Castor and Pollux. Yet when he saw the names of the two fabled Siamese twins hidden in the names of the two bomb ships and chose Gemini, he’d unknowingly tipped his hand to a man who loved to play word games.
No sooner had Harry finished his explanation than Mercer knew his friend was right. He keyed the radio. “Roddy, the two ships behind you. They’re both floating bombs.”
“Are you sure?”
“No doubt about it.” Iron-hard, Mercer’s conviction carried across the airwaves. “Your ship was held up for the submarine, meaning the Mario is supposed to choke off the canal to give the next two ships a legitimate reason to stop. Once they’re in place, Liu will use the sub to pull off the crews and let them blow.”
“Angel, this is Devil One.”
“Go ahead.”
“Can you come get us? We’ll try an assault from your boat.”
“Ah, negative.” Mercer thought furiously, trying to come up with a plan that would minimize damage. That at least one of those ships would explode wasn’t in doubt. He turned to Harry. “Fire up the engine and ease us into the canal.”
Harry moved with the speed of a man half his age. “Which ship?”
The Robert T. Change had already passed their position while the Englander Rose was almost directly abeam. “The Rose.”
Captain Patke and Roddy had heard the exchange over the comm link. “What are you doing?” the commando asked.
Mercer ignored him. “Roddy, you’ve got to stop your ship from being deflected by the submersible. Get some crewmen on the deck so they’ll see its propwash and give a warning the instant she fires her motor.”
“Okay. Then what?”
“Liu must need both ships to explode either simultaneously or in a pre-timed sequence, like what they do when blowing up a building. Carefully placed charges are more effective than one big blast. Get away from the Robert T.
Change, even if you have to swim to shore and run like hell. We can’t stop that one from going up, but maybe we can get the Englander Rose far enough away so that when she goes she doesn’t complete her job.”
Roddy’s voice became strident. “Even if you separate the boats by a mile or more, you’re still stuck next to the lock. The explosion will blow it into a million pieces. Liu still wins.”
“Can you think of a way to get her back through the lock?”
“Not quickly,” the pilot admitted, thinking about the dozens of Chinese soldiers they’d slipped past to board the ship.
“I can.” It was the female officer aboard Hea
ven, the USS McCampbell. She went on to outline her idea. With the pilot boat fast approaching the scaly side of the Englander Rose, there wasn’t time to debate the merits of her plan, only its chance for success. Roddy, who was the most disturbed by her suggestion, agreed that it would work, adding, “Do you have any idea what this is going to cost to repair?”
“Less than if Liu blows the lock entirely,” Mercer said. “Don’t forget I happen to know where your country can get the money to fix it.”
“The Twice-Stolen Treasure,” the Panamanian breathed.
“A fitting use.” Mercer had moved to look through the windscreen as they neared the lumbering freighter. A wash of disturbed water undulated along her Plimsoll mark as she picked up speed after coming out of the lock. Because pilot boats were so common on this stretch of the canal, none of the men standing around her superstructure paid them much attention.
Mercer looked farther up the waterway, where the stern of the Mario diCastorelli was just vanishing around a curve. A towering promontory of granite loomed over the ship where men and machines had once cleaved the path through the mountains. The other shore had been leveled further to a sloping plain that dropped into the water. He knew from what Roddy had told him, the ship would be in the canal’s tightest choke point in about fifteen minutes, a narrow gut at the exact center of the continental divide. There is where Liu intended to set off his explosives-laden vessels.
Between him and the Mario was the dark shape of the second bomb ship, the Robert T. Change.
“Oi!” The voice was amplified by a loudspeaker and came from above the pilot boat.
Harry throttled back to keep pace with the huge ship. Mercer stepped aft, emerging from the cabin onto the small rear deck space. He looked up at the ship’s rail twenty feet over his head, steady rain drumming his upturned face. It was hard to tell but the man with the megaphone appeared Chinese.
“We no need another pilot.” His accent was the same as the guard Foch had knifed in the parking lot.
Moving slightly so the man above couldn’t see, Mercer asked, “Foch, any ideas?”
“We’ve got him sighted,” the Legionnaire said. “As soon as I finish fashioning this anchor into a grappling hook, we’ll take him.”
Foch sat on the deck out of view of the sailor. He worked to replace the heavy chain secured to a foot-wide anchor with rope he’d pulled from a locker. Behind him, two of his men peered through the windows, their eyes screwed into their assault rifles’ scopes.
Mercer turned his attention back to the Chinese crewman. “We had a report that you needed us. It’s not true?”
“No.”
“Let me speak with Guillermo, the pilot,” Mercer bluffed.
“No Guillermo. Pilot is Mr. Lin.”
“Wait,” he cried as if making a sudden realization. “Is your ship the Mary Celeste?”
“No. That ship behind. You go back.” The guard showed the butt of a pistol.
“I’m ready,” Foch announced.
Mercer dropped to his knees behind the gunwale. “Take him.”
It took just one shot that sounded quieter than the shatter of the glass the bullet had gone through. The soldier had aimed perfectly, compensating for angle, deflection of the glass, and the wind that raced up the canal. The round caught the lookout in the soft part of the throat so that most of its energy was carried beyond his corpse. Rather than fall back, he slumped forward, draped over the rail as if he were studying something on the water.
Foch was in motion an instant later, racing out into the open, the anchor ready to throw, loops of rope hanging from his left arm. Mercer recalled trying to snag the vent stack on the Hatcherly warehouse with Lauren and was amazed at how effortlessly the Legion officer heaved the heavy anchor over the Rose’s rail.
It hooked in the shelter of one of the overhanging lifeboats on the first toss. Foch handed the free end of the rope to Mercer. With his FAMAS slung over his back, the soldier shimmied up the line using knots he’d tied as grips. Even before he reached the top, Rabidoux was ready to climb, and the others were lined up behind him.
Mercer held the rope steady as one by one the Legionnaires strained their way to the deck of the Englander Rose. So intent on their mission, Lauren didn’t give him a passing glance as she muscled herself up the rope followed by Rene Bruneseau. For a moment Mercer considered taking the trailing end of the rope with him, stranding Harry on the pilot boat, but with what they were going to attempt, they desperately needed the old bastard’s seamanship skills.
“Harry, come on,” he called into the cabin.
Still at the helm, Harry jiggled the throttles until the two craft were perfectly in sync before looping a bungee cord around the wheel to keep her on course. He snatched up his cane and joined Mercer on the aft deck.
Mercer handed him the rope, pointing out that Foch had tied a loop at its end. Knowing what to do, Harry placed his prosthetic leg into the loop and did something behind at his ankle to lock the joint. He held the line steady as Mercer climbed to the looming ship, his assent covered by two of the Legionnaires.
Hands grabbed at him as he reached the railing and they dragged him over. He landed in a heap, swiveling around even as the Frenchmen began to haul Harry up the side of the ship. He added his strength to theirs, and seconds later Harry’s silver crew cut appeared. Harry steadied himself for the final effort and then he was with them. He unlocked his ankle and gave it an experimental flex.
“I feel like a pirate taking a galleon on the Spanish Main,” he whispered, pulling the pistol from the corpse Foch had stuffed behind a ventilator.
“We’ll call you Graybeard the Geriatric,” Mercer teased.
That they had just climbed aboard a ship carrying several thousand tons of explosives hit them all at the same moment. They exchanged nervous glances. A blast of that magnitude wouldn’t blow them apart, or even vaporize them. Such a detonation would atomize them. The concussive force would be enough to render their bodies to their basic building blocks of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and the few others that made up a human.
It would be like standing on the surface of a sun at the moment it went supernova.
“Let’s go,” Foch said, taking point.
The deck planking was slick with rain and twenty years of spilled oil and solvents. The metalwork had been so often painted that the underside of the railings were pebbled with hardened drips as thick as cake frosting. What machinery they could see looked frozen with grime. Had she not been tapped for this operation, the Englander Rose should have been sitting in a breaker’s yard ready for the cutting torches.
With Foch in the lead and Rabidoux covering their rear, they crept under the belly of the lifeboat and edged toward a hatchway. The door was open a crack, probably left by the sailor who’d challenged them. Foch peeked through the opening and then slowly swung the door open with the barrel of his FAMAS, one of his men standing by so he could cover the lieutenant.
“Clear.”
They rushed into a utilitarian corridor that ran the length of the squat superstructure. He led them to the shelter of an open closet reeking of disinfectant.
“Harry,” he asked, “with little space on their submersible, what is the minimum they could leave aboard this ship during a canal passage?”
“I can feel by the way she vibrates she’s diesel powered,” the former ship’s captain answered. “Meaning they could pull everyone out of the engine room. Realistically, there could be as few as three, but no more than ten.”
“D’accord,” Foch said, then lapsed into silence.
“This is your show, Lieutenant,” Mercer prompted. “How do you want to do it?”
He needed only a second to form his plan. “Rabidoux, lead Mercer, Harry, and Captain Vanik to the bridge. The rest of us will sweep the ship to prevent some hidden fanatic from blowing the charges himself. If you need backup pull a fire alarm and we will get to you as fast as we can.”
“Bon chance,” Mercer said to Foc
h as he followed Lauren and Harry behind Rabidoux’s lead.
Lauren walked just a step behind and to the left of the young Legion noncom, her M-16 ready to cover their flank. Harry stayed a few paces back with Mercer walking sideways behind him so he could cover their rear and still add firepower if they came upon any crewmen or guards.
The hallway was deserted, and when they climbed narrow stairs set in an echoing well, they came out on another empty passageway.
“Which way?” Rabidoux asked.
Harry thought for a moment. “Head aft, there’ll be central stairs that run from the bridge to the bilge. It’s the most direct route.”
The halls smelled of salt and rust, aged by a long career tramping around the globe. There was little in the way of amenities on board. The walls were painted metal and the decks were laid with peeling linoleum tile. The lights were bare bulbs in little cages. Passing a door marked “Head” left them moving through a reeking miasma of stale human waste.
The attack came without warning.
One moment they were closing in on the stairs and the next second the hall was filled with automatic fire. Mercer dove to tackle Harry, making sure to hit him in his fake leg. At the same instant Rabidoux pushed Lauren to the floor and counterfired with a sustained burst from his assault rifle.
The soldier who’d fired at them ducked around a corner as the metal edge he used as cover sparked like a Catherine wheel under the onslaught of 5.56mm rounds.
Lauren moved forward under the covering fire, slithering on her belly across the filthy floor. She had her M-16 to her shoulder and crawled using only the wiggle of her hips and what grip she could get with her elbows. Mercer shifted onto one knee, hugging a wall, and waited for the Chinese guard to appear again, his body shielding Harry’s prone form.
The soldier ducked his head around the corner as soon as Rabidoux intentionally drained his magazine. Through the whirling smoke, his eyes naturally locked on the tallest target—Mercer. He never saw the slender shape less than three yards in front of him. Lauren adjusted her aim in the fraction of a second the soldier gave her and put one round through his neck and one into his forehead.
