by Jack Du Brul
The pain in his stomach subsided.
He regretted crippling Ping. Shattering the junior executive’s legs was far too harsh a punishment for his error in judgment. A simple reprimand would have sufficed. Liu had done it as a demonstration to the rest of the men rather than retribution for a stupid mistake. If anyone should have suffered, it was Chen for letting the thieves into the container port in the first place. Being forced to use Panamanian troops at the outer perimeter to keep Hatcherly’s local partners happy was no excuse for the would-be burglars getting into the warehouse.
There were no critical junctures to Operation Red Island because every phase was equally important. Now that Liu’s forces were taking more active roles, he couldn’t afford inattention. Ping’s mutilation was a reminder.
He had to maintain control and discipline, and make sure everything stayed on its tight schedule. Any delay could lead to Beijing pulling out of the entire operation. Red Island had been a gamble that few in the highest echelons of the government believed in. They had only allowed themselves to be persuaded to authorize it because Liu had ensured there would be no downside. He could feel the pressure mounting. The gold would last only so long.
The limo dropped into a pothole and Liu cursed. He wasn’t a xenophobe or even a racist, but he had learned to hate all things Panamanian in his months here. From the constant rain that left oppressive humidity when it cleared, to food that made his ulcer roil, to the grubbing bureaucrats who were never satisfied with their bribes, Liu hated it all. But he despised the people most.
Had it not been for the United States’ desire to build the canal, Panama would still be a backwater province of Colombia. The Americans had literally created the country from nothing. Theodore Roosevelt had defended their staged revolt from Colombia with gunboats, and had recognized the fledgling nation even as the ink was drying on their constitution. Since that time the United States had poured in billions of dollars, making Panama a true cross-roads of commerce. Granted, Liu could understand the people’s frustration at being treated as second-class citizens by the gringos, but second class to the most powerful nation in the hemisphere was better than first class in a Third World cesspool. And it was inevitable that Panama would slip that way again.
Singapore was the only country near the equator with a decent standard of living; all others had succumbed to a tropical malaise that left them far behind the industrial world. Liu understood that dozens of factors conspired to make this happen, but the reason he most believed was that the tropics bred laziness. The approach of winter in northern latitudes had created urgency in farmers to plant and harvest in a desperate race to beat the first frost. This work ethic had carried forward into the industrial age and created the prosperity found in Europe, America, Japan, Australia and parts of northern China.
In contrast, the belt surrounding the equator never had such urgency. Dry seasons provided a similar bounty to the rainy ones. There was never a compelling reason to rush. And this too had spilled over into the industrial age. There was no pressure to complete a project because the next day would be the same as the last. Liu didn’t blame the people for how their societies evolved, but he hated that they resisted adapting to northern ways. They expected the world to adjust to their schedule. Bankers in Panama City felt nothing when they made clients wait for hours while they lingered over lunches or mistresses. Such laxity seemed to be endemic and he feared that his own people were being infected. Back home, Ping would have never dared look at the gold.
He felt certain that tonight’s demonstration would buy him a few more weeks of commitment. That would be all the time he needed.
The safe house was located in a quiet neighborhood to the north of Panama City. The building was an indistinguishable one-story cement bungalow with small windows framed in pitted aluminum and a low pitched roof with a long overhang to keep rain from the single door. The rest of the homes on the street were identical with the exception of owners’ tastes in pastel paint. The safe house was a faded pink.
Rene Bruneseau had refused to answer any of Mercer’s questions until they were in the building, but that didn’t stop Mercer from figuring out a few things on his own. One was that Bruneseau worked for one of France’s spy agencies, most likely the DGSE. How else could he explain the presence of the Foreign Legion troops?
Disjointed by the turn of events, Mercer needed to take a measure of control if he was going to reestablish his equilibrium. That was why as soon as the blocky Frenchman turned to face him from across the threshold, Mercer fired a punch to Bruneseau’s unshaven jaw that sent the larger man first into the open door and then onto the floor.
“That’s for nearly getting me killed in Paris,” Mercer hissed, his pistol magically in his hand. He held his aim steady on the Foreign Legion soldier who was closest to him. “This isn’t your fight,” he warned.
From the threadbare carpet, Rene glared for a moment and then nodded, tension running from his body. He made a gesture to his soldiers to back off. “I suppose I deserved that, Dr. Mercer.” He heaved himself to his feet, cracking his jaw to the side. “Nice punch. Your friend Jean-Paul Derosier said I shouldn’t underestimate you. I think he doesn’t know the half of it. But instead of blaming me, you should thank me for saving your ass twice in two days. Tonight at HatchCo and the night before when two of Hatcherly’s pet Dingbats trailed you from the Japanese restaurant.”
Still reeling from Bruneseau’s rescue, Mercer could only return a blank look.
“Did you think they wouldn’t have you under observation?” the Frenchman continued. “Liu’s people have known every move you’ve made since your arrival in Panama. He’s built a hell of a network in a very short time. But so have I. Remember your dinner companions?”
“The German guys at our grill table?”
“The beauty of the Legion, no? Men from all over the world. They’re some of the troops who pulled off your extraction tonight.”
“Who’s German?” Lauren asked, having just ducked under the curtain of rain falling from the eaves. She hadn’t seen the exchange.
“No one, Captain Vanik,” Bruneseau replied. “An earlier misunderstanding.”
She caught Mercer’s eye and saw he was as much adrift as she felt. The after-action adrenaline hangover and the surprise that French spies were operating in Panama left her shaky. She’d hoped that Mercer could anchor her and sensed for a while that he could not. Bruneseau led them into a cramped living room stripped of everything but a pair of couches and the dirt outline of a crucifix that had once adorned a wall. A coffee table sat between the couches. The ashtrays littering it overflowed. A soldier came in from the kitchen with a box of cold beer bottles and set six of them on the table before retreating to a back bedroom for their debrief. Mercer and Lauren were left alone with Rene Bruneseau.
The spy used a Swiss Army knife to open three of the beers and passed over two. “Okay, to answer your accusation-yes, I did set you up in Paris with Jean Derosier’s help. Do not blame him. My government didn’t leave him much choice.”
“You wanted to flush out whoever was buying up all the Panama diaries?” Mercer already knew the answer and only wanted confirmation.
“That’s right.”
“But why?” Lauren asked. “What’s your interest?”
“To put it frankly, Captain”-Bruneseau lit a cigarette and held it in the underhanded French fashion-“because your country no longer shows any interest, despite evidence that the People’s Republic of China is buying up huge chunks of Panama and will very likely have control of the canal within a year.”
Lauren wasn’t satisfied with the answer even though she knew it to be true. “Again, what is France’s interest?”
Bruneseau suddenly looked at her with renewed interest, as if she’d just passed some unwritten test. He inclined his head in admiration. “Very good, Captain. I think our friend Mercer here would have left it at that, but you want more. Why is that?”
“Because Franc
e has never shown any interest in Central America, nor have you ever seemed particularly alarmed at China’s recent geopolitical growth. And finally because few French ships transit the canal and very little of your GDP depends on raw materials that pass through here. Your geography insulates you from what happens in Panama.”
“Meanwhile,” Bruneseau cut in, “America accounts for sixty to eighty percent of all goods that move through the canal and yet you dismantled your presence here. Actually you abandoned it, leaving behind about three billion dollars in assets, including a rather sophisticated antenna array and listening station atop Ancon Hill.”
Understanding dawned on her. “Ariane.”
Rene toasted her with his beer. “Since I didn’t say it first, I suppose it’s all right if I said yes.” He glanced at Mercer. “Do you understand what we are talking about?”
The Frenchman wanted to treat Mercer like a fool, revenge perhaps for the sucker punch. Mercer wasn’t going to play his game. “Because the European Space Agency launches their Ariane rockets from Kourou, Guyana, in South America, you see a Chinese listening post in Panama as a potential threat.”
“Wouldn’t you? Not all of what Ariane does is civilian and a great deal can be learned of our capabilities with a tracking station that can intercept our rocket’s radio instructions.”
“So France is finally willing to stand on the wall to guard against China’s growing influence.” An angry flush had risen on Lauren’s face. “About damned time some of our allies saw what was happening.”
Bruneseau let the insult pass, watching Mercer’s reaction.
Mercer had yet to respond to this explanation because it seemed off somehow. Until he and Lauren could speak alone, he let it pass. “How does all this involve me?”
“To answer that I need to explain a few things. In the years since your country turned over the canal, Panama has been bought up bit by bit. It started small, a few businesses, a couple of deals, but the pace has accelerated. The principle telecommunications company recently sold a forty percent stake to a Chinese firm. Only Chinese companies are given mineral exploration rights. An American railroad corporation was forced out of their ownership of the trans-isthmus line by Hatcherly Consolidated, who are also about to complete an oil pipeline that runs from coast to coast. Hatcherly has even muscled a quasi-legitimate Hong Kong firm for control of one-third of the Balboa container port.”
“Quasi-legitimate?”
“The company’s called Hutchinson Wampoa. There are unsubstantiated rumors that they are controlled by the government in Beijing. Who knows? However, there are no such rumors about Hatcherly. Their ties to COSTIND, and thus China’s military, are well documented. Another fact not in dispute is when mainland companies invest in a country, those nations soon switch their diplomatic recognition away from Taiwan in favor of the communists.”
“You see that happening here?” Mercer asked.
“Never would have happened under former president Ochoa. He was a rabid anti-communist. No one is sure about Quintero because no one knows who really engineered his suspicious election. We can’t ignore that the promise of free markets hasn’t reached the poorest and most disenfranchised and that Marxism is on the rise in Latin America all over again because of this. Perhaps Quintero may yet lean that way.”
“So you’ve established that China is showing a lot of interest in Panama and that the United States has done very little about it. That still doesn’t explain why you involved me.”
“Because for months I never knew who was pulling the strings here. Up until Hutchinson Wampoa was forced to give up part of their harbor, I thought they were behind the systematic expansion. Afterward I realized it was Hatcherly. Liu Yousheng is China’s point man.”
“So you concentrated your investigation on him?”
“Precisely. By the time I knew it was Liu, he’d already made overtures to buy the journals from the family who owned them, just weeks before the auction. We had to scramble, which was why the operation in Paris got away from us. We had to get Hatcherly to show themselves in such a way to start an aboveboard criminal investigation, trapping Liu’s agents in France as a way of exposing him in Panama.”
“Using me as bait.”
“Monsieur Derosier said you could look after yourself. Also we had agents at the gallery and at the Crillon Hotel where he said you normally stay. When you told Derosier that you had different lodging, the best I could do was follow you.”
“When the punk tried to steal the journal you knew it was Liu’s men making their move.”
“Correct. I also didn’t think you’d catch him so I shot him.” That answered one of the many questions that had dogged Mercer since that night. But still dozens more swirled in his head. Bruneseau continued, “Before we could secure the area, you’d ducked into the catacombs trailed by the Chinese assassins. I wasn’t aware that you’d survived the sewers until your name was flagged at Charles de Gaulle airport when you left France. I assume the gunmen are. .?”
“Down the drain.” Mercer’s deadpan joke was lost on the spy. “How did you know those men came from Liu and Hatcherly?”
“Because we’d followed them from Panama. Liu’s interest in old journals and diaries was something we couldn’t explain. It was an anomaly in his actions that we felt was somehow important. Honestly it was just a guess since all other attempts to infiltrate his empire have been disasters.”
“Are the journals important?” Lauren asked.
Bruneseau gave a Gallic shrug. “We don’t know why he wanted them or what he’s done with the ones he bought. Like I said, his organization has proved to be impenetrable.”
“Not exactly,” Mercer said, rubbing in the fact that he and Lauren had gotten in.
The Frenchman’s voice darkened. “We managed to get two men into the terminal two weeks ago. One’s corpse was fished out of Lake Gatun by a sightseeing boat and we think the other had already washed into the Pacific. We’ve kept their facility under observation, which was why we were there tonight to rescue you. I still don’t know how you managed to get in.”
“Locked ourselves in a container at the rail yard in Cristobal and had an inside man let us out when the train reached the port.”
“Clever,” Rene replied after a moment’s consideration. “And what did you learn?”
“Not so fast,” Mercer said. “You still have a lot to answer for. You explained how you used me in Paris, but not why. Why me and not one of your own people?”
“We didn’t have time to establish a legitimate cover, and in discussions with Derosier he mentioned that you would be there to buy the Lepinay journal for a friend already in Panama, a Mr. Gary Barber.”
“Who you know is dead?”
“Yes, we understand you discovered his body and helped organize his funeral.”
That statement told Mercer that Bruneseau didn’t have all the answers he thought he did. He hadn’t been at the funeral, but the agent would have thought so if his dinner conversation with Maria Barber had been overheard. Which the spy had already admitted had happened. He realized that the French had certain pieces of the puzzle and he and Lauren had others. He had to decide if he wanted to share, and to do that he had to slough off his feelings over how he’d been treated. Mercer wanted nothing more than to tell the spy to screw himself and walk out the door, but his heart told him that getting to the bottom of Gary’s death was more important than his anger.
He and Lauren exchanged a silent glance. The brief moment their eyes locked asked and answered the question of trust. They didn’t have a choice. “I lied at dinner,” Mercer said. “I never went to the funeral. Lauren and I were trapped on a lake above Gary’s camp by a helicopter belonging to Hatcherly Consolidated.”
It was gratifying to see he could unsettle the Frenchman. Bruneseau shouted to the back room. “Foch, get in here!” A few seconds later one of the Legionnaire commandos entered. He was a little older than the others Mercer had seen, and while he wore no
rank on his black uniform, Mercer guessed he was the officer in charge of the detachment. He had sandy hair and watchful blue eyes, and a European kind of good looks that better suited a model than a soldier. “Lieutenant Foch, this is Dr. Mercer and Captain Vanik of the U.S. Army. Foch is my number-two man. Tell us exactly what happened at the lake.”
Mercer hesitated, wondering if telling them everything was the right thing, and then he plunged in, recounting the entire story from his arrival in Panama to the discovery of the gold bars in the Hatcherly warehouse and how they assumed they were part of the Twice-Stolen Treasure. Lauren added a few details he’d forgotten. By some unspoken agreement neither mentioned Roddy Herrara or Harry White.
“Can you use the agent at the port again?” Lieutenant Foch asked when the story was done.
“No,” Mercer said at once. “For one thing I won’t risk him, and after tonight whatever Hatcherly’s hiding will be gone. There’s no reason to reenter the facility.”
“You think we should track the gold?” Bruneseau was into his fourth cigarette.
“If Hatcherly has an Achilles’ heel in Panama, it’s that. I think whatever they’re up to here revolves around the treasure. Checking out the lake again is an obvious place to take up the chase. I haven’t had a chance to read the Lepinay journal but it’s clear Liu believes something in it is important.”
“You have the journal with you?” Foch asked.
“It’s in my hotel. I can get it anytime.”
“No, you can’t,” Bruneseau said. “You left Panama this morning.”
The statement was baffling. “Excuse me?”
“After some of my men derailed the ex-Dingbats following you out of the restaurant by smashing into their car, I had a soldier who resembles you take a flight to Miami once he was certain he was being followed by Liu’s people. We weren’t the only people eavesdropping on your conversation. They picked up his trail near where you told Maria Barber you were staying at a hostel.” Rene shifted in his seat. “Also, I read the journal in Paris before Derosier turned it over to you. There’s nothing in it.”
