"You have the coordinates?"
"Yes, sir."
"Send them both back out now. See what's there. I want to know right away."
"Excuse me, sir. Night, in these mountains, in the rain. The pilots can't see. It's dangerous enough just trying to bring more troops up here."
"I appreciate that, Captain. He's our president, not yours. I still would appreciate it if you would send your pilots back out."
Captain Diaz hesitated.
"Would you feel better if the order came from your people in Madrid?"
"Yes, sir."
"So would I. Please send them anyway."
Captain Diaz nodded slowly, then turned away, giving the orders into her headset.
Christ, Strait thought, it can't be them. How the hell could they get out of the tunnels without us knowing?
Abruptly he crossed to the young Secret Service tech working the satellite feed. "Thermal images," he said. "What the hell is the bird reading?"
The tech moved aside so that Strait could see his computer screen. With a dozen clicks he covered the entire mountaintop search area. In each small groups of hot objects stood out brightly from the darkness. "Our own people, sir. Nothing new. Rain and length of time since darkness doesn't help but it's nothing we don't have control of."
"There's a new sector to focus on. Captain Diaz will give you the coordinates."
"Yes, sir."
"Bill," James Marshall was pushing through Secret Service and CNP techs, coming toward him. "I was with one of your agents interrogating the kid Amado, the one who broke. He didn't tell us everything. Two other people were down there too. His uncle, a limousine driver, and somebody who fits Hap's description. He's the one who sent them to us with their story about being lost."
"Hap is down there?"
"I don't know if he is or he isn't. Or what the hell is going on. I want all of his communications signals monitored, his cell, his BlackBerry, everything."
"That order is already standing, sir. I put it in the minute he went missing."
"If he is down there he can't communicate by phone with anyone until he gets on the surface. The minute he's found he's to be brought directly here. I don't want him talking to anyone but me. If it is him, and the president is with him, we're home free. They're on the Chinook and on their way to the CIA jet, and finally we can shut the door on this whole damn thing."
133
• 1:05 A.M.
Demi lay on the stainless-steel bunk, the terror of what lay ahead overwhelming her. More than anything she wanted to sleep, to make it all go away, but she knew that if she did it would be the last sleep of her life, and when she woke all that would be left would be the unspeakable: taken from this cell to the amphitheater or some other arena and burned alive, maybe even alongside Cristina, a featured part of some ancient ritual where—she wished she could laugh at the irony—it was the witches who did the burning.
The idea that by this time tomorrow she would no longer exist brought with it the thought that but for the few articles and photographs she had published there was nothing to mark her existence. No real accomplishments, no contributions to society, no husband, no children, nothing at all. The best she could point to was a string of lovers over the years, not one of whom she had given enough of herself to even to be remembered, let alone wept for. Her life after the age of eight had been one of survival followed by the quest for her mother and her mother's fate, and nothing more. Now she had learned it, and that same fate had become her own.
Suddenly she thought of Nicholas Marten and President Harris, and her own fear and horror became compounded by terrible guilt. If they had fallen into the same kind of trap she had, only God could help them. It was like some biblical reckoning where the profoundly innocent paid for another's driving self-interest with their lives. And there was nothing she could do about it except to cry out "what have I done?" and ask for forgiveness.
She closed her eyes, trying to make everything go away. And for a time it did. She saw only darkness and heard the sound of her own breathing. Then, somewhere far off, she thought she heard the chanting of the monks. Little by little the voices rose. The chanting became louder, and more intense. She opened her eyes. When she did she saw what looked like a large photograph of her mother projected on the ceiling directly over her. It was the same photograph she'd found so long ago in her mother's trunk and had cherished for as long as she could remember. The one taken in the days just before she vanished. She was young and beautiful, the way she would have looked when the witches burned her to death.
In the next instant the ceiling above her erupted in fire and the photograph vanished.
Demi screamed out and leapt from the bunk in terror! Heart pounding she looked back to the ceiling but there was nothing. It was as blank as it had been before. It had been a dream, Demi knew. But if it was, why had she heard the chant of the monks? A sound and chant that still filled the tiny room.
Suddenly the icon of Aradia Minor glowed red in the cell's chapel. At the same time the voices of the monks grew louder, and then the entire wall beside her came alive with a video of her mother. She was seen in close-up, barefoot and wearing a clinging white dress like the one Cristina had worn and was bound to a massive stake on some surreal stage. The camera went to the floor at her feet. A ring of gas jets suddenly ignited. The camera pulled back as the flames grew higher. Slowly the lens crept in. It moved closer and closer until all that was visible were her mother's eyes. In them Demi saw not the peace that had rested in the eyes of the great ox but the pure horror of being burned alive. She saw her mother fight her bonds, saw her try to twist away. Glimpsed her mouth as it opened, then heard the terrible, ghastly shriek that came from within her. In seconds the fire overtook her and she was consumed in flame.
Demi screamed again and turned away. But there was no turning away. Every piece of wall, the floor, the ceiling, carried the images she had just seen, played over and over and over. As if to make her witness the hell of her mother's death a thousandfold. She closed her eyes and clamped her hands over her ears, spinning this way and that, doing anything she could to block the chanting. But it kept on. Becoming louder and louder until it occupied every part of her being.
It went on relentlessly. For how long? Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Then suddenly the chanting stopped and silence took over. Slowly Demi opened her eyes, praying to God it was over.
Not quite.
In the absolute stillness came the next. Every photograph she had taken with the Canon digital since she'd first arrived in Malta and secretly transmitted to her Web site in Paris.
One after another. Every photograph.
Merriman Foxx. Nicholas Marten. Cristina. Reverend Beck. Luciana. Foxx's monastery office at Montserrat. Their table at the restaurant when Beck had brought Marten there. Her arrival at the Church within the Mountain. The room where Cristina had come to bring her her dress. The parade of the monks to the amphitheater. The children. Their families. The animals. The owls. The death of the ox.
And then there was the last.
The photographs she had transmitted only a short while before. The photographs of the icon of Aradia Minor taken in the tiny chapel directly across from her. The icon she had so passionately and frantically photographed from every angle and through which she had so desperately hoped to somehow touch the soul of her mother. It was all there, each and every shot from beginning to end.
They had not only known who she was, but what she had been doing and how, all along.
134
• 1:22 A.M.
Hap are you out there? Are you with POTUS?
This is extremely URGENT! Please respond immediately!
Bill.
Hap clicked the BlackBerry off, powering it down as quickly as he could to avoid the electronic detection he knew Bill Strait would have ordered.
What Strait's text message meant was that they had broken the boys' story and were trying to determine if they were out of the tunnels
and above ground. It was the reason for the dual helicopter flyover and spotlight surveillance in the canyon where they had been the first time the helos had come over. By that time they were at the bottom of the trail and already in the arroyo. From the sound, distant as it was, he was sure the machines had set down, meaning they had probably put more ops on the ground.
Dark or not, rain or not, they were already hard after them.
Abruptly he dropped back to Miguel. "I don't know if we've left tracks they can follow but we need to get into some water. Stream, rain runoff, anyplace where we can keep going but not leave tracks."
Miguel nodded and moved ahead to catch up with José.
• 1:25 A.M.
Captain Diaz turned to look at Bill Strait. "CNP detachment. They've found fresh imprints in the ground. Not clear enough to confirm if they're human."
"What do they think?" James Marshall was right there.
Diaz spoke Spanish into her headset and turned back. "Two people, maybe more. The rain's washed most all of it away. Still, it's possible they were made by animals."
"How many men are out there?" Marshall asked.
"Twenty. Two units, ten each."
Marshall turned to Bill Strait. "Quadruple that fast. Secret Service and CIA."
"Yes, sir."
"Still nothing from the satellite?"
"No, sir. 'Cold' read back only. We'd do a lot better without this rain and dark."
"We'd do a lot better without any of it."
• 1:44 A.M.
They were knee-deep in a fast-running wash, normally dry but now nearly a ten-foot-wide river of runoff. The darkness and uncertainty underfoot made progress slow. The Mylar survival blankets seemed to have worked so far, but they made breathing difficult, and seeing through the eyeholes would have been difficult even in daylight. Moreover, deep fatigue was beginning to take over, for the young José as well as the others.
Absently Marten reached into his jacket pocket, touching Merriman Foxx's security card and BlackBerry-like device he still carried. They were both evidence of sorts, which was why he had kept them. He worried now about the water affecting the electronics in the BlackBerry but there was nothing he could do to protect it. Deliberately he dropped back to walk beside the president.
"Mr. President, we need to rest. All of us, José too. We lose him and we're just four guys wandering around in the dark."
The president started to respond but his words were cut off by the thundering, thudding roar of a military attack helicopter as it suddenly twisted through the canyon over the stream and came right toward them. Its twenty million candlepower searchlight swinging back and forth, illuminating the way for the pilot and at the same time lighting up the ground below in swaths as bright as day.
"Down!" Marten yelled.
The five hit the water an instant before the helo passed over.
"Did he see us?" The president lifted his head.
"Don't know," Hap cried.
"The trees!" José cried in Spanish. "There are trees on the bank to the right."
Miguel's translation was shouted.
"Go for them!" Hap yelled, and they moved fast. One after the other scrambling up a steep hillside and into the cover of conifer forest.
• 1:53 A.M.
"What now?" Miguel looked back at the stream, then squatted down next to the rest.
"We'll see in about twenty seconds," Hap said quietly and looked to the president. "Woody," he said.
"I know."
"Who or what is Woody?" Marten asked.
"Major George Herman Woods. Pilots Marine One, the presidential helicopter. Former combat officer. Thinks he's a real man's flier. And he is. Unfortunately."
Hap's twenty-second estimate took twelve. This time they heard the thudding chop of the helo's rotors before they saw the aircraft. Again it came through the canyon on the same twisting route it had taken the first time. As quickly it passed and was gone. Up and over a steep ravine, its red tail rotor light blinking as it went.
"If he saw us the first time he would have turned back and hovered," Miguel said.
"No," Hap said, "he took the same exact path as the first time. He was shooting video. Thought he saw something the first time; now they'll look at each pass and compare."
"Miguel," the president said suddenly. "What time is sunrise?"
"A little before eight. First light by seven."
The president looked to José. "How far is it to the resort now? By miles and by time?" he asked in Spanish.
"About eight miles the way we would have to go, keeping under trees and trying to stay to places we won't leave tracks. Nearly three hours more."
For a moment everything was silent. The only sound the rush of the water in the wash below and the pit-pat of the rain as it dripped from the trees. Then, in the darkness, Miguel spoke.
"José," he said quietly in Spanish. "The president speaks Spanish well enough. Can you lead them on your own?"
"Why?" the president asked.
"Who knows what the helicopter camera saw. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe they can't tell. If one man leaves here and makes enough tracks for people to follow and the others go off over the rocks leaving no trail—" His voice drifted off then came back. "Who knows how many they think they are looking for but they want only one. The president. We bought time with Hector and Amado. Maybe I can buy us time this way."
"Miguel, we don't know anything," the president said.
"I think we can guess, Cousin." Abruptly Miguel stood and slipped the Steyr machine pistol from beneath his Mylar blanket. "I won't need this. They see I have a gun, they might get nervous," he handed it to Hap. "Follow José, I will see you again when it is time. Good luck to you all." Abruptly he turned, took his bearings, and walked off without another word.
They watched him go for the briefest moment then Hap looked to the president. "Mr. President, tell José to move us out."
135
• 2:00 A.M.
We're starting our first run down the canyon here." U.S. Marine Corps Major George Herman "Woody" Woods, thirty-five-year-old pilot of the presidential helicopter Marine One and volunteer pilot of one of six attack helicopters scrambled to fly the night reconnaissance for the presidential rescue operation stood in the command post center alongside Bill Strait, National Security Advisor Marshall, and Captain Diaz watching the replay of the dual videos he had shot flying through the treacherous canyons above the fast-moving mountain stream.
"We're coming over the water. Slow it please," Woods said. The Secret Service tech running the video slowed it down. "This section here, the searchlight's off a little but—stop it there, please."
The tech did. And they could see what looked like parts of some kind of reflective material in the water.
"Move it on slowly," Woods said. The tech did. "There's a tree branch. It's not moving. Neither is whatever it is in the water. That current's moving fast. If they were trash bags or some kind of plastic they'd be going with it. Second video please. Same area."
The tech touched a keyboard and Woody's second pass-over started. "Slow it, slow it," he said as the helo came in over the same area. This time the searchlight was focused on the spot where the reflective material had been seen in the first video. "Stop it, please." The tech did. The water where the reflective pieces had been was black. Nothing but water. "There was something there before, second pass it's gone."
"Enhance the video," Strait said, and looked to Woods. "What do you think?"
"I think we ought to get back out there and damn fast."
"Woody," Strait said, "something you should know. There's a good chance Hap is with the president."
"What?"
"A man fitting his description was with POTUS underground. I tried to raise him by cell and BlackBerry. Nothing. We don't know what's going on."
"You don't think he's in on something."
"Woody, we don't know. You find them, just be damned careful. Our foremost objective is the
president."
"I understand."
136
• 2:22 A.M.
The four were tucked under a thick blanket of trees high on a steep hillside when they saw the three attack helicopters. They came in high, then quickly dropped down and out of sight on the far side of the stream a good mile from where they were. Sixty seconds later the helos rose up again and then started slowly, one after the other, down along the stream, their searchlights swinging back and forth, covering the entire area.
"They've landed ground troops," Hap said.
Immediately the president looked to José and spoke in Spanish. "Where do we go from here?"
"Over the top of this hill and then down for about twenty minutes. After that we cross the stream again."
"That's where we hit the open space you were talking about."
"Yes."
"How open?"
"Two hundred yards. Then we are past it and back onto hard rock and through forest, going down toward the resort."
"How far then?"
"You want to go fast, yes?"
"Yes."
"Then we go down a chute between the rocks, a couloir as the French call it. It is shale rock and very steep, but we can save nearly two miles of trail and almost forty minutes of time. And because of the rock formations above, it would be hard for the helicopters."
The president looked to Marten and Hap and translated, then asked. "Do we chance this chute in the darkness, this couloir?"
"Your decision," Marten said.
The president turned to Hap. "How's the shoulder?"
"I'm alright. Go for the chute."
"Want another pain pill?"