“We know the feeling,” Meyers said.
“Sorry?” Gunn said.
“Rudi,” Sandecker explained, “before Pitt disappeared, he was involved in the recovery of some highly classified plans related to a submarine project called Sea Arrow.”
“The Sea Arrow. Isn’t that a concept for a high-speed attack sub?”
“There is nothing conceptual about it. At least there wasn’t until now.”
“I’m guessing,” Gunn said, “that this relates to the recovery of that boat off San Diego, the Cuttlefish?”
“Exactly,” Sandecker said. “Only things have escalated into a full-blown national security disaster. Elizabeth, why don’t you fill him in?”
The FBI woman cleared her throat. “I should caution you this is classified information. Four days ago, an advanced propulsion motor built for the Sea Arrow was hijacked during transport from the Navy’s research lab at Chesapeake, Maryland.”
“Is that why a recent Homeland Security alert was issued?” Gunn asked.
“It was,” Meyers said. “Our agency has been working around the clock, examining every airport, shipping terminal, and truck stop in the country. I can’t begin to tell you the amount of resources assigned to the case.”
“And still no leads?” Sandecker asked.
“Plenty that have been false or dead ends. The best we have is a description of a Latino male who purchased a derelict Toyota, which was later involved in the hijacking. Beyond that, we’re still grasping for clues.”
“Do you think it’s still in the country?” Gunn asked.
“We’d like to think so,” Meyers said, uncertainty evident in her voice.
“That’s part of the reason you’re here, Rudi,” Sandecker said. “The FBI’s looking at all available resources and would like the NUMA fleet to help. Since your ships are often stationed in out-of-the-way places, they want to be made aware of any unusual behavior that might be seen concerning domestic shipping.”
“We’ve made the same request to the Navy, Coast Guard, and some of the major port operators,” Meyers added.
“Absolutely,” Gunn said. “I’ll pass the word immediately.”
Sandecker turned to Fowler. “Dan, do you have anything to add?”
“No, sir. Just that we’ve confirmed that Ann went missing shortly before the hijacking. We, along with the FBI, suspect that she was either killed or abducted by the same perpetrators.”
“Ann Bennett?” Gunn asked. “She was abducted?”
“Yes, and we fear the worst,” Meyers said. “She’s been missing for five days now.”
Gunn nearly fell off his chair. The garbled e-mail Yaeger had shown him clicked in his head. “Ann’s alive,” he said, “and I know where she is. Or, rather, where she was a few days ago. Lexington, Kentucky.”
“She’s still alive?” Fowler asked.
“Yes. It was a cryptic e-mail we received at NUMA. It must have been a warning or a plea for help. We don’t understand the full text, but I think part of it indicates she was abducted with the Sea Arrow motor.”
Meyers stiffened in her chair. “I’ll get the local field office mobilized.”
Fowler looked blankly at the Vice President. “Why Lexington, Kentucky?”
“Perhaps a local airfield that’s friendly to the thieves.”
“They could still be in transit,” Meyers said. “Perhaps they were on their way to the West Coast or Mexico.”
“Looks like you have your work cut out for you, Elizabeth,” Sandecker said. “All right, let’s get after it. I’ll want an update, same time tomorrow.”
The Vice President’s visitors rose to leave. As they walked to the door, Meyers approached Gunn. “I’d like to see that e-mail as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” Gunn said. But not, he thought, until he and Yaeger had deciphered the full meaning of the message.
61
THE CABIN DOOR BURST OPEN WITH A BANG. ANN was sitting atop a corner writing desk, peering out a small porthole at the sea rushing by. She had spent most of the journey perched there. Aside from an early bout of seasickness after leaving the Mississippi Delta, the trip had been a voyage of tedium. Her only excitement was the two meals a day brought by an ugly bald man who she presumed was the ship’s cook.
From her hours of staring out the starboard port, she had determined they were sailing south. Guessing their speed was somewhere between fifteen and twenty knots, she figured that put them roughly a thousand miles south of New Orleans by the second day. Her southern geography wasn’t that great, but she figured they weren’t far off Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
She hadn’t seen Pablo since coming aboard but had braced herself for his appearance. When the door sprang open, she knew it was him. He plodded into the cabin and slammed the door behind him. He appeared more relaxed than Ann had seen him before, and when he stepped closer, she could tell why. He reeked of cheap rum.
“Miss me?” he asked, grinning like a shark.
Ann retreated farther into her desktop corner, pulling her knees beneath her chin.
“Where are we headed?” she replied, hoping to redirect his thoughts.
“Somewhere hot and steamy.”
“Colombia?”
Pablo cocked his head, surprised that she knew—or guessed—his nationality.
“No, but perhaps after we make our delivery the two of us can fly to Bogotá for a long romantic weekend.”
He moved closer to the edge of the desk.
“When will the delivery occur?”
“Always the questions.” He leaned over to plant a slobbery kiss on her face.
Ann raised the soles of her feet to his chest and pushed with her legs. To her surprise, the big man stumbled backward, falling onto her bunk.
Ann shuddered. Would he kill her for refusing him? But the alcohol had mellowed him and he rose from the bed, laughing.
“I knew you were a wildcat underneath,” he said.
“I don’t like being caged like one.” She held up her cuffed wrists. “Why don’t you take these off first?”
“Both wild and smart,” he said. “No, I think that will be the one thing I let you leave on.”
He began unbuttoning his shirt, staring at her with an unfocused leer.
She trembled in the corner, still atop the desk, and contemplated a break for the door.
Sensing her thoughts, Pablo stepped over and blocked the way, then began inching closer.
Ann was about to scream when another sound blared through the cabin.
It was audio static, emanating from a ceiling speaker wired to the shipboard intercom. Then a voice roared through the cabin, as well as the rest of the ship. “Señor Pablo, please report to the bridge. Señor Pablo, to the bridge.”
Pablo shook his head and gazed at the speaker with disgust. Fumbling to button his shirt, he stared at Ann with hungry eyes. “We shall resume our visit later.” He eased out of the cabin and locked the door behind him.
Ann wilted in her corner, tears of relief wetting her cheeks for the reprieve she feared was only temporary.
Leaving her cabin, Pablo climbed to the bridge and approached the captain with irritation. “What is it?”
“An urgent call for you on the sat phone.” The captain motioned toward a waiting handset.
Pablo shook off his alcoholic stupor and spoke into the receiver. The conversation was one-sided. Pablo remained quiet until ending the call by saying, “Yes, sir.” Then he turned to the captain. “How far are we from the canal?”
The captain adjusted the scale on a navigation screen. “Just over six hundred miles.”
Pablo looked at the digital map and studied the nearby coastline.
“We need to make an emergency trip into Puerto Cor
tés, Honduras, to pick up some paint and cargo.”
“A delivery to the estate?”
“No, a requirement on board.”
“But we have only a skeleton crew aboard the Salzburg.”
“Then I’ll need every man’s full effort,” Pablo said, “or skeletons they will become.”
62
PITT HONORED ZHOU’S REQUEST AND HEADED west through the jungle. He thought about circling back and trying to locate the boat that Zhou had most certainly arrived in but ultimately figured it would be well concealed. As he pushed through the brush, Pitt wondered who the man was and why he’d been sent to destroy Bolcke’s operations. Not that Pitt didn’t harbor similar feelings, but he presumed the motive had more to do with the trade in rare earth elements than for humanitarian reasons.
Soon after they had parted, the sun had dropped from the sky, and the canopied jungle turned dark. Pitt stumbled through clouds of mosquitoes that appeared at dusk to feast on his exposed skin. The going became treacherous as the dense world around him gradually faded to black. He found himself walking into sharp branches or tripping over unseen logs, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The dogs continued their pursuit, slow and methodical. Pitt had hoped the trackers would follow Zhou’s trail, but they still tracked his scent. Pitt could tell by the sporadic barking that they were perhaps just a few hundred yards behind. He stopped and listened every few minutes, trying to gauge their position.
As the jungle enveloped him, he lost any reference for finding direction. The sound of the dogs became his only clue. Fearful of accidentally backtracking into the teeth of the searchers, he kept a careful ear out for their barking.
The jungle came alive at night with a concert of strange hoots, calls, and cries. Pitt kept his sharp stick in one hand in case the cries came not from a bird or frog but from a jaguar or caiman.
The noises helped take Pitt’s mind off his fatigue. Without Zhou’s water and protein bar, he might have collapsed, but the minimal nourishment kept him going. Fatigue oozed from his bones, making every step painful. Being unused to the hot, steamy environment only added to his lethargy. Tempted to stop and lie down, he thought of Giordino and the other prisoners, and his feet kept moving.
Though his clothes had dried after his earlier swim, now they were soaked from endless sweat. He prayed for rain, knowing it would help him elude the trackers. But the normally reliable Panamanian skies failed to cooperate, offering nothing more than an occasional drizzle.
He slipped on a patch of mud, then pulled himself onto a tree stump and rested. The darkness also seemed to have slowed the trackers. A distant barking told him he still held a comfortable lead, but he soon spied a faint glow through the foliage from the searcher’s lights.
Pitt dragged himself to his feet and pressed on into the gauntlet of unseen branches. Hour by hour, the night wore on in a cycle of plodding, tripping, and stumbling through the jungle. Always, the din of dogs overshadowed the jungle’s other sounds.
Moving like a zombie, Pitt staggered through a grove of bamboo—then took a step and felt only air. He collapsed over the lip of a narrow ravine, tumbling headfirst down a grassy hill and into a small stream. He sat there for several minutes, the cool water washing away the pain of his bruises and lacerations. Overhead, a seam of twinkling stars provided a faint but welcome light.
The water would give him the chance to escape the pursuing dogs. After refilling Zhou’s canteen, he shuffled down the center of the creek. The water seldom came past his knees, but it was deep enough to mask his tracks. With the starlight, he found the going easier, even as he slipped and fell in the streambed. He followed it for what felt like miles but was in fact only a few hundred yards.
Reaching a low bank, he hobbled up the stream’s opposite bank and entered a grove of kapok trees. A low branch beckoned, and he shimmied onto it and rested.
The jungle had quieted, and he heard few noises except the stream. He no longer detected the chase dogs, giving him hope that he had finally given them the slip. As he leaned against the trunk, he realized the pursuit had been almost as taxing mentally as it was physically.
He was fighting the urge to sleep when he heard a rustling in the bushes across the stream. He looked over his shoulder as a yellow glow bounced through the foliage. He froze as the silhouette of a large dog materialized above the far stream bank, sniffing the ground.
Pitt cursed his bad luck. Following the streambed, he had inadvertently reversed his track and traveled toward his pursuers.
The German shepherd gave no indication it saw or smelled Pitt. He held perfectly still in the tree, not even breathing. The yellow glow grew brighter until a gunman with a flashlight emerged from a thicket and called to the dog. It turned to its trainer and began to follow, but not before letting out a growl.
Ten feet from Pitt, a roar erupted like a lion in an electric chair. Pitt nearly flew off the branch but caught himself as the gunman’s flashlight scanned the tree. The light found a furry black-and-brown creature perched a little above Pitt. It was a howler monkey, and it let out a second raucous cry before hopping onto another branch and scurrying away from the light.
Pitt sat frozen at the edge of the flashlight’s beam as the dog barked wildly. The beam wavered, then bounced back to capture Pitt dead center. Pitt dropped from the branch and hustled through the grove of trees. A second later, a burst of gunfire chewed up the kapok tree’s now empty branch.
The jungle fell still as the echo from the gunfire receded. Then the landscape erupted in squawks and cries as a thousand animals fled the scene. Pitt headed the pack, scrambling through the maze of foliage with his hands outstretched. The first rays of dawn were creasing the sky, aiding his run. And run he did.
The German shepherd had been sent to follow but hesitated at crossing the stream, giving Pitt an extra head start. But the shepherd found a narrow place to cross the stream and resumed pursuit. Its incessant barking allowed Pitt to gauge the dog’s steady approach. Although tired itself from the nightlong chase, the shepherd kept coming.
Pitt had little energy left for an extended sprint. He knew he couldn’t outrun the dog, but if he could separate it from its handler, he might have a chance. The question was whether he had enough left in him to fight the dog.
The barking grew closer, and Pitt decided it was time to turn and fight. He realized he’d left his sharp stick by the tree when he fled. As he scoured the ground for a new weapon, he overlooked a low tree branch and ran face-first into it. The blow knocked him flat to the ground. As he lay there dazed, he heard the barking approach. But he also heard a metallic clacking that seemed to vibrate through the earth.
On instinct alone, he crawled forward, past the tree and up a small mound. The sound grew louder. He fought his pain and peeked over the mound.
In the dim light he saw a train—not twenty feet away. He shook off the thought it was a mirage and staggered to his feet. The train was real, all right, crawling through a narrow cut in the jungle, pulling flatbed cars loaded with shipping container after shipping container.
Pitt stumbled toward the tracks as the shepherd crested the mound and sighted him. With a renewed fury, the dog sprinted after Pitt as he staggered on rubber legs for the train.
A half-loaded flatcar was passing by, and Pitt dove for it. His torso hit the bed, and he clawed forward as the dog attacked. The German shepherd leaped and clamped its jaws onto his dangling right foot.
Pitt rolled onto the flatbed as the dog hung from his foot in midair. Pulling Zhou’s canteen from his neck, he flung it at the dog. The canteen struck its snout, and the shepherd whimpered and let go. But a moment after falling to the gravel beside the rails, the shepherd regained its senses and chased after Pitt’s flatbed. For a quarter mile, the dog ran alongside it, snarling and leaping but unable to jump aboard. Then the train crossed
a ravine over a narrow trestle, and the dog was forced to give up. Pitt waved farewell to it as it barked and howled in frustration at the vanishing train. Crawling across the flatbed car, Pitt then curled up next to a rusty container, closed his eyes, and promptly fell asleep.
63
THE SLOW-MOVING FREIGHT TRAIN JOLTED TO A stop, awakening its lone passenger. Stretched out on one of its flatbeds, Pitt pried open his eyes under a bright morning sun.
The Panama Railway train had reached its terminus at a rail yard in the port of Balboa. Near the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal, and just a few miles south of Panama City, Balboa was the key transit point for shipping across the isthmus. Pitt jumped off the flatbed car and found himself surrounded by a steel jungle. Mountains of multicolored shipping containers were stacked in every direction. He looked down a long line of rail cars to see a gantry crane positioned over the tracks and workers beginning to off-load the ubiquitous containers.
Standing near the end of the train, Pitt followed the tracks out of the rail yard, figuring the odds were high that the local rail authorities would treat him as a vagrant. Exiting the yard, he climbed a rusty chain-link fence and found himself in a neighborhood of aged warehouses. A half block away, he noticed a small building with a handful of cars parked out front. It was a run-down bar that catered to the local dockhands. A faded sign proclaimed it El Gato Negro, complemented by a painting of a black cat with crossed-out eyes.
Pitt walked into the dim bar, garnering stares from the few early-morning customers already warming the barstools. Pitt approached the bartender, then caught a glimpse of himself in a large mirror behind the bar. The sight nearly frightened him.
It was the image of a tired, emaciated man with a bruised and bloodied face, wearing soiled, shredded, and equally bloodied clothes. He looked like a man returned from the dead.
“El teléfono?” Pitt asked.
The bartender looked at Pitt as if he’d landed from Mars, then pointed to a corner next to the restroom. Pitt ambled over and was relieved to find a battered pay phone. Though all but extinct in America, the venerable pay phone lived on around the world, sometimes in the most unlikely of places.
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