“As long as it’s the package tour,” Linc replied, “a mai tai would hit the spot.”
“Sorry, refreshing beverages not included. They’ve got to have trucks for transporting whatever they’re bring ashore. I think we’ll have a better shot at getting close to the cargo on land.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting on dry land.”
Juan leaned toward Linda and said, “Linc and I are getting out on our way to the ship.” He checked the satellite map of the bay. “There’s a nice beach about half a klick from the dock. Linc and I will hoof it the rest of the way.”
“Aye, Chairman,” Linda said. “My checklist is done and we’re ready to rock and roll.”
“Then let’s get moving.”
She radioed that they were departing, and the crane released the Gator. It sank below the keel doors and motored away from the Oregon with a barely perceptible whirr of the electric motors. When it was out from under the ship, Linda brought the Gator to the surface. She cranked up the diesel, which reverberated through the interior but would be inaudible outside except when they were cruising at high speed.
She pushed the throttle forward until they were rocketing toward the shore without any worry that the Magellan Sun’s radar would pick them up.
Just five minutes later, Linda eased the throttle back, which meant they were within two miles of the ship. Any closer and the sound of the engine might be heard. She activated the ballast tanks, and the Gator sank until the water’s surface lapped at the bottom of the cupola. Linda’s face glowed red in the soft light, but it wouldn’t be visible through the tinted windows. They continued forward at fifteen knots, reaching the beach a short time later, where they stopped, with the Gator’s bow resting on the sandy bottom.
Linc popped the hatch and climbed out. Juan handed their gear up, then turned to Linda and said, “We’ll meet back here for extraction when you’re done. See you soon.” Then he looked at Eddie, MacD, and Murph. “Don’t get into too much trouble.”
“Don’t worry about these jokers,” Murph said with a grin. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”
“You’re the real problem. I bet you’re planning to plant a virus that’ll back up their toilet system or something.”
Murph raised his hand in mock salute. “Guilty.”
“Linda, you’re in charge of this motley crew,” Juan said with a laugh. “Just get in and out and back here quick.”
She shook her head at the banter. “Aye, Chairman. I’ll make sure they behave.”
Juan had no doubt about that. He knew as soon as they were away, they’d all get their game faces on and become supremely focused on the upcoming operation.
He climbed out and buttoned up the hatch before walking along the sunken bow as if he were walking on water. Holding his equipment bag over his head, he followed Linc into the gentle surf and was submerged up to his chest. His prosthetic combat leg was designed to withstand immersion in water, but it always felt strange having only one soaked foot.
As soon as Juan was off the Gator, Linda revved the motor and backed away from the beach. In the distance, he could see that the supply ship had reached the Magellan Sun and was pulling alongside. The crane was already in motion off-loading pallets.
After he kitted himself out with his tactical gear and body armor, Juan slung an MP5 submachine gun over his shoulder and lowered night vision goggles over his face. Even with the enhanced imaging, the noiseless Gator had already disappeared from view.
Without a word, he and Linc put on their own serious game faces and began the trek through coastal jungle. Their footsteps were so soft that the only sound was the constant chirp of insects and the shouts of a dozen men at the dock ahead of them.
30
MANILA
Having seen Locsin’s men in action before, Raven knew they were a ruthless group and wouldn’t hesitate to kill her and Beth if they resisted, so she simply did what they told her to do. Beth followed her lead. Still, she was constantly watching for their best opportunity to either escape or call for help. Beth seemed frightened, but her initial panic was gone, and Raven knew she could depend on her when they attempted to make a break for it.
The briefcase bomb had been deactivated as soon as the two of them had climbed into the SUV and were under Locsin’s control. Now they were sitting in a glass-walled warehouse office, unshackled, apparently no threat to the six men around them, including Locsin, who seemed to be studying them. The smell of sour garlic wafted off the guards like a putrid perfume. Raven, not wanting to give them any satisfaction at their capture, yawned and stretched as if she were bored by the whole thing. She looked out the third-story window at an enormous warehouse filled with more fire trucks than she had ever seen in one place.
Two of Locsin’s men were standing guard next to a particular pumper engine with Vietnamese writing on the side that sat on the edge of the warehouse, right between a heavy rescue vehicle destined for the Manila Fire Department and a gigantic yellow airport crash tender with nozzles jutting from its front. Hoses coiled up next to the eight-wheeled truck were still wet, as if its water tank had just been filled.
Locsin, who had been pacing around the room like he had more energy than he could contain, must have noticed Raven looking at the crash tender because he strode to the window and boasted, “They were testing that this afternoon on the proving grounds outside. I saw it myself. Very impressive. The nozzle is so powerful that its water can reach a burning plane from over one hundred yards away.” He spoke English like an educated man, not the brutal thug that he was.
“Skip the ridiculous lecture,” Raven said. “What do you want?”
She got the response she was expecting. Locsin was obviously not used to being sneered at by a woman. He stalked over to her, his face twisted in anger, and smacked her cheek with a vicious open-handed slap. Beth gasped, but Raven merely winced and worked her jaw to get through the pain, which was nothing compared to what she’d gone through when she was caught in the explosion of an IED in Afghanistan. She had endured two abdominal surgeries, and received the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, for two minutes of what the Army deemed a heroic act, even though she just thought of it as her job. The scars on her torso were a daily reminder that she could live through anything, including this.
But she could tell Locsin had held back. He could easily have broken her jaw if he’d wanted to.
“By the time we’re done with you, you’ll give us anything we want,” he said, letting that sit for a moment to stir their imaginations. However, Raven felt sure that any assault would be limited to torture. She knew heavy steroid use often left men performance-challenged.
Locsin reared back to strike Raven again, but Beth shouted, “Wait! I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Locsin lowered his hand. “Which is what?”
“I was the one who planted the tracker on the finial. Don’t take that out on her.”
“You wanted the other paintings, didn’t you?” He sat on the edge of the desk, suddenly calm again.
Beth nodded. “I thought I might be able to follow you to them. Do you have them?”
Locsin grinned. “That would be something, wouldn’t it? Maybe I’ll keep you alive just in case I do. Your services as an art historian might be useful. But I’m still confused about the man with the weaponized truck. Who is he?”
“He’s a friend.”
“Name?”
She looked at Raven, who nodded for her to tell them. Withholding his name wasn’t worth getting tortured.
“Juan Cabrillo.”
“Is he American like you?”
Beth nodded.
“Government?”
“Not anymore,” Raven said. “Former CIA. Now he’s a private contractor.”
Locsin’s grin disappeared. “And what does he want with me?”
“He was working with us to f
ind you.”
“And he just happened to be there to kidnap my scientists?”
Raven shrugged. “We can’t help that you run a shoddy operation.”
Locsin bristled, and his tone got menacing. “Where is Ocampo now?”
“Some safe house somewhere, blabbing his guts out. Anybody who wants to kill or capture you now knows whatever Ocampo and his people know. You really should consider a new occupation.”
Locsin ground his jaw, never taking his eyes off Raven. She seemed to have struck a nerve.
“I think everything you’ve said is a lie,” Locsin said. “I’ve got a helicopter coming to pick you up and take you somewhere you won’t ever be found, but I can’t join you for a few days and I’m not very patient. You remember that airport truck out there? I think a few minutes being blasted by eight hundred gallons of water per minute will change your story.”
Raven smirked at him. “I need a shower anyway. I feel pretty nasty being around you. In fact, I might need two showers to get your stink off me.”
Locsin shook his head slowly. “Not you.” He tilted his head at Beth, then stared at Raven. “You get to watch.”
Two men pulled Beth and Raven to their feet and manhandled them down the stairs. When they reached the main floor of the warehouse, Beth was shoved in front of the airport crash tender while Raven was made to stand next to it, a gun pointed at her knee by Locsin.
The rest of his men fanned out beside them, except for one who climbed into the tender’s cab. All the trucks in the building must have had the keys in them for easy movement around the warehouse because the engine rumbled to life immediately. The nozzle rose from its slumber and angled around until it was pointing directly at Beth.
“If you move,” Locsin shouted at Raven over the din of the monstrous diesel next to their ears, “you will never walk the same again. Now, I’m going to show you what this water pump can do, and then you will tell me the truth about what you and your friend know about us.”
Raven tensed every muscle in her body as the water pump whined, preparing to fire. She was severely overmatched, but she wasn’t going to let them torture Beth, even if that meant getting killed in a futile escape attempt.
She readied herself for Locsin’s signal, but it never came. A single shot rang out from somewhere in the rafters of the warehouse, drilling a hole through the center of the crash tender’s windscreen. Judging by the placement of the headshot, the shooter was an excellent marksman. The operator inside slumped over dead.
Raven didn’t waste the moment. Locsin and his men were formidable, but they lacked high-quality military training, and she took advantage of that. She sidestepped out of Locsin’s aim and rammed him in the gut with her elbow. He pitched backward, firing as he fell. The round missed her by inches.
“Beth, run!” she yelled and dashed behind the heavy rescue truck. Locsin’s men, who had dived for cover, had been so distracted by the gunshot from above that they began shooting at her too late. The bullets pinged off the metal body of the fire engine behind her.
In the side mirror of the truck, she could see Beth, whose face showed a mixture of fear and confusion, running crouched toward her position. She had almost reached Raven when Locsin came out of nowhere and tackled her. In one fluid motion, he hopped back to his feet and pointed the gun at Beth’s head.
Raven cursed under her breath. Trying to get to Beth now would be suicidal. Expecting Locsin’s men to chase her, Raven retreated to consider options for how to help her unknown rescuer. She stealthily began winding her way through the maze of trucks.
“Don’t shoot again, Cabrillo,” she heard Locsin yell, “or your friend dies.” Raven knew it couldn’t be Juan but Locsin didn’t.
She stopped when a disembodied voice boomed over the warehouse intercom system.
“I don’t know who Cabrillo is, Mr. Locsin, and I don’t know or care about the redhead. My name is Gerhard Brekker. I know you’re a devout communist, but I have a business proposition for you.”
31
The Gator pulled alongside the rear quarter of the Magellan Sun with just a whisper of its electric motors, so silent that even someone standing on deck thirty feet directly above the submarine wouldn’t have heard it. Eddie opened the hatch and climbed out, hefting his MP5 submachine gun, equipped with a noise and flash suppressor. MacD and Murph followed, closing the hatch behind them. In their black clothing, they were nearly invisible. MacD notched the bolt with the rubberized grappling claw into his crossbow and nodded at Eddie.
“We’re ready, Gomez,” Eddie said quietly.
“Hold on,” replied Gomez, who was watching the ship on his monitor back on the Oregon. “I’ve got one guard coming toward you. Man, he’s a big boy. I can practically see the veins popping out of his muscles from here.”
Eddie looked up, prepared to take the guard out if he peered over the side. If that happened, they might still be able to salvage the mission by getting up top fast enough to hide the body, but it would definitely make for a riskier operation.
After a minute, Gomez said, “Okay, he’s passed you and turned the corner around a container. The supply ship has just left with a load, and the rest of the crew seems to be getting the next batch of crates ready for another transfer. No one else is close to you.”
“How many guards in all?”
“I count ten Schwarzenegger types on deck. The rest of the crew look like they’re not Typhoon users.”
“Ten-to-three,” MacD said with a raised eyebrow. “I say we keep out of their hair.”
Murph nodded his agreement with that sentiment. “I love having our eye in the sky.”
“They don’t mess with us, we don’t mess with them,” Eddie said and turned to MacD. “Our elevator cable, please.”
MacD aimed the crossbow and fired. The bolt went between the tubular steel railings and hit the container behind it with a dull clang. The prongs snapped out, and MacD reeled in the nylon line until the claw was snug against the railing tubes.
He handed the rope to Eddie, who clamped on a miniature motorized winch, then attached it to his climbing harness and pressed the switch. The tiny gears inside pulled him up with a soft whine until he was able to grab the bottom railing. He checked for hostiles, pulled himself over, unhitched the winch, and put it in his pack before shouldering his MP5.
Gomez would be able to see anyone already on deck, but there was still the danger that someone inside could make a sudden appearance through a door. They’d specifically chosen this spot fifty feet from the superstructure because the nearest door was far away.
Satisfied that they were alone, Eddie motioned for MacD to join him, then Murph, both of them using their own winches. When the three of them were on deck, MacD retrieved the rope and claw so it wouldn’t be seen by a patrolling guard.
“We’re on deck,” Eddie said to Linda.
“Roger that,” Linda said. “Submerging. Let me know when you want a pickup.” Although the Gator was virtually undetectable on the surface, her orders were to take no chances. She would take the Gator down ten feet so that only the radio antenna jutted out of the water and wait for Eddie’s signal.
“Let’s go,” he said.
While the portion of the deck where they were standing was relatively dark, the area around the crane was awash in floodlights, reflecting off the top of the white superstructure.
The three of them crept along the deck in the opposite direction, guided by Gomez. The equipment room was located two decks up, right under the bridge and next to the captain’s quarters. Once they were indoors they’d be on their own, out of Gomez’s view. The door closest to the stairway they needed was right beside the ship’s orange free-fall lifeboat, a bullet-shaped craft locked into a downward-facing cradle for quick escapes in an emergency.
The door had a thick glass window inset into it. Eddie poked a tiny camera above
the sill and watched the wireless feed on a handheld screen. The hallway was empty.
He went inside and listened for footsteps or voices. Hearing nothing, he waved for Murph and MacD to follow him. They moved to the stairs quickly, knowing the longer they were out in the open, the likelier it was that they’d be discovered.
They went up two flights of stairs and found the equipment room underneath the bridge. They would have walked right in except for one small problem—the sturdy metal door was padlocked.
“Looks like someone ain’t too trusting,” MacD said, examining the brand-new combination lock.
“It’s just supposed to be electrical and fiber-optic trunk lines and some control equipment,” Murph said. “Why would they lock it?”
“Only one way to find out,” Eddie said. He dug into his pack and removed a collapsible bolt cutter. He extended the titanium-reinforced handles.
“Guys,” Gomez said, “two guards just walked into the superstructure. They didn’t look like they were in a hurry, but they could be headed your way.”
To punctuate Gomez’s warning, the sound of two guards talking rose from the stairwell and was getting closer.
As Eddie clamped the bolt cutters around the hasp of the padlock, MacD said quietly, “If they notice the lock is gone, we’re gonna have some party crashers.”
The voices got louder. Eddie knew they were committed, and he pressed the strong bolt cutter’s handles together. The hasp of the combination lock snipped in half as if it were made of plastic. Eddie removed it and pocketed the pieces.
They hustled inside the dark room, and Eddie shut the door behind him.
Using a flashlight to guide him, Murph stuck a thick, square panel with a screen the size of a small tablet computer against the inside of the door, held in place by magnets at the corners. He pressed a button, and the screen on the panel came to life. The door was thick, so the voices outside were muffled as they approached, and the footsteps were impossible to hear.
The two guards didn’t slow down. They ambled by, still talking. Soon, even the muted voices were no longer audible.