Collins took one last quick look before he himself was jabbed in the back. FIM-92 was stenciled on several of the exposed plastic cases. Jack immediately recognized what they were seeing. FIM-92 was a Stinger missile system, an infrared-homing surface-to-air missile developed in the United States and licensed by the Raytheon Corporation to be built by EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company in Germany.
“Shit, there must be over eighty of those cases!” Carl said, as a door was opened and they were led into the hut.
James McCabe stepped in behind them and watched as Jack and the others were placed in seats. McCabe then gestured for the men and women who were sitting at several desks to leave. Once they were gone, McCabe sat on the edge of an empty desk and looked at the four men. He seemed confident, even though none of his captives was restrained. Jack supposed the eight large men in gray security uniforms holding AK-47s were a confidence builder for the former Delta officer.
“Okay, here we are. As you can tell, Jack, there’s nothing much to see here but an old German mining company that was once a promising site for recovering uranium. The mining attempt failed, and the new owner is particularly worried about others digging around and finding something the old boys from the war didn’t. A patriot, you might say, who doesn’t want any undiscovered material falling into the wrong hands.”
“I see, and that makes you a man who is concerned about the well-being of innocent people?” Jack asked, his brows raised.
“Ah,” McCabe said, raising his hand and swiping it through the air, “You know me far better than that, Jack. It’s the money, of course. I’m paid a lot by my employer to keep this place secure. It’s not the rest of the world I care about-it’s my world I’m concerned with, you should know that.”
McCabe stood from the desk and walked up to Will Mendenhall and looked down at him.
“Now, I need to know who you work for.” McCabe looked from Will to Ryan, and then down the line until his eyes rested on Jack. “Any volunteers?”
The room remained silent as McCabe glanced from face to face. He didn’t seem disturbed that all four men kept their mouths shut.
“It’s just a matter of curiosity. It makes no never mind to me. You came, you saw, and now you can report to-” He smiled. “- whomever it is you answer to that there is nothing in Quito that requires American involvement.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Well, I have to be somewhere else in a few hours. I think it’s time to feed you that lunch that my colleague promised you, and then you can get back to wherever you came from.” He slapped Collins on the right knee. “Jack, it was good to see you, old friend. Take care of yourself.”
They all watched as McCabe left the room. After he did, Jack and Carl exchanged a look and their unvoiced thought was that they would never see the light of the outside world again.
The security men gestured for the four to stand. The door was opened and they were escorted out into the massive cavelike gallery. Collins looked to the left at the large gate, and then to the right, where several workers were starting to load the crates and their contents onto the tram. The lead security guard pointed his AK-47 in the direction they had come from. Altogether there were just four of them and they had eight large men with guns. Jack was trying to think as fast as he could as they were led to a small excavated gallery that had been dug into the side of the large tunnel system. He remembered Sarah explaining to him that miners sometimes dug out side shafts for the discarding material that would save them loading it onto a conveyance to take topside. He knew this was where they would be shot and dumped. They were out of time.
“Colonel, I don’t think this is the way to the kitchen,” Ryan said from the front of the line as they were led into the darkened chute. “I hope you have a plan.”
“Nothing comes to mind,” Collins answered from the back. The security men were in two rows beside them, four on the left and four on the right.
“This job really sucks sometimes,” Mendenhall said from behind Ryan.
“Shut up and move forward,” the guard said. He turned around and faced Mendenhall. They could hear that he was one of the Americans in the security group.
As they moved further into the darkness, Jack could see that the excavation was getting smaller, and the walls rougher. He could also feel a much cooler draft on his face. Finally, they could see the end of the small shaft and the drop-off ahead. Jack kept his calm. He allowed his eyes to roam across the walls and the men that were watching them. He saw one advantage; most of the guards were aware of their surroundings and were uneasy in the semidarkness. Their eyes moved from place to place as they drew closer to the edge. Jack could smell water and hear the rush of a river somewhere far below. He closed his eyes as a plan formed. It was a long shot at the least and an expedient way to meet their death at the most.
The guards stopped and started pushing them toward the edge of a large rock outcropping-first Mendenhall, then Ryan, then Everett and Collins. They were being lined up.
“Gentlemen, it isn’t much, but I suggest we keep walking forward,” Jack said beneath his breath.
Before any of the eight guards could react, instead of stopping at the dark edge of the chasm before them all four men kept going and walked right off into the black void.
Falling side by side, Mendenhall cursed and Ryan prayed as the automatic weapons opened up above them. Tracers started filling the darkened shaft as they fell. One round hit Jack in the shoulder, barely grazing his shirt and taking an inch of skin with it into the blackness. Another three rounds struck the wall in front of them and ricocheted in all directions. It was like falling into an abyss with angry hornets buzzing around their heads. As they braced for a crushing impact, the four men were amazed as they kept falling, gaining speed as they fell feet-first into the great unknown death that awaited them.
Mendenhall was the first to strike the water, followed by Ryan. The latter had lost the battle with keeping his body straight and fell face-first into the rush of the river, the impact breaking his nose and shocking him into near unconsciousness. Everett managed to stay upright and hit the underground river with an impact that sent him straight to the river’s bottom, where he jammed both knees on the coarse rock that made up the riverbed. Jack landed right beside him and veered off sharply after going under. The extreme angle allowed his feet to strike the left bank of the river. Collins thought he had broken his ankle as it came into contact with a large boulder, but he was aware enough to see red hot tracers stitch the water around him. He pushed with his legs and pulled with his arms, all the while assisted by the flow of the river. He finally managed to surface to the sound of rushing white water and the pings of bullets bouncing off rocks. In the darkness he bumped into someone who reached out and grabbed his right arm. Then he felt another man’s hands and another’s. Will and Jason were shaken as they coughed and spit out the freezing water.
“Damn,” Everett shouted. “Are we all here?” The words were almost lost in the din.
There was no answer as they picked up speed and the current pulled them around a bend in the river. They struck a rock wall and then spun back into the center of the current. Then there was nothing, the sound disappearing as the walls and ceiling vanished above them. They were completely submerged.
Jack tried to hang on desperately to the man he was holding, but the twisting and rolling water separated them. He knew they had followed the river underground and figured that was it. He thought they could travel for at least three of four miles without the benefit of drawing air into their lungs. As he twirled underwater, he was sorry about leading his men into such a simple trap as the excavation, but knew his people well enough that they would rather die like this than be shot in the back and dumped into the blackness.
As the four men were battered by the twisting river, Jack was amazed to see the clean, cold water brighten. As he registered this in his oxygen-deprived brain, he was suddenly free of the river. He felt a free-falling sensation as he was ejected from the underground river and into thin air. The fall was from a height he would never have volunteered for. The waterfall noise covered the screams coming from all four of the men as they finally struck the white water below the falls. Jack struggled to the surface and realized then that through the entire length of his free fall he hadn’t taken a breath. Finally reaching the surface of the roiling water, Jack took in the most wonderful breath of his entire life.
“Colonel, are you all right?”
As Jack gained his senses he felt hands lifting him up. When he looked to his right he saw it was Will Mendenhall who had taken his shoulder. In his other arm Will held Ryan by the back of his neck, keeping him afloat. There was a lot of blood clouding the water around Jason and that brought Collins back to complete consciousness as he reached out to see how badly hurt Ryan was.
“Mr. Everett?” Jack called out.
“Right here,” came the answer. The Navy SEAL had taken both the fall and the water in stride, great
