Tidal Rip

Then Felix caught glimpses of motion outside the hotel. Kampfschwimmer were dashing for the ruined walkway that led down to the base of the falls.

His ears ached as his men opened fire. The.30-caliber light machine gun used short and steady bursts, punctuated by the booming crack of the heavy.50-caliber sniper rifle. But it was hard to aim accurately from a mile and a half away. Updrafts of wind caused by the crashing of water under the falls made good marksmanship even more difficult.

The kampfschwimmer took cover, unhurt. Felix’s gunners adjusted their fire, and it became more effective. The kampfschwimmer began to rig climbing ropes on the edge of the escarpment. One rope unrolled and jiggled as it hung down to the far bank of the river below the falls. But now the Germans were pinned down.

Their objective crew-served weapon fired again. With its laser range finder and adjustable explosive rounds, it began to probe the rubble, searching for the SEALs with the light machine gun and the sniper rifle. Both crews were forced to pull back and seek new positions, and the Germans knew it. The kampfschwimmer broke cover, and another anchored climbing rope uncoiled down near the first.

They’re going for the bank on the other side. From there they can use old tourist catwalks to get under and behind parts of the falls…. We can’t let them do that.

Felix shouted for his men to open fire.

A German began to rappel fast down the side of the escarpment on a rope. The SEALs’ machine gunner and sniper pursued him with fire. Through binoculars, Felix could see their rounds chip rock from the brownish, grayish cliff face near the rappelling German garbed in black.

Suddenly the man was hit. He lost control of his rate of descent and plunged two hundred feet to the base of the cliff. He bounced once, then lay still. His helmet rolled away and fell in the river.

Felix heard scrambling and scraping as his shooters rushed to different hides within the hotel’s debris.

The German machine cannon fired again, as if in revenge. The SEAL machine gunner and sniper knew better than to return the fire — they’d reveal their newest positions and invite quick death.

We’re in a standoff. We’ve proven they can’t get down the cliff… but if they can’t, neither can we.

Felix saw another blur of movement, on the high ground near the Argentine hotel. Kampfschwimmer were heading toward the upper falls.

The SEAL gunners fired at them, but the line of fire crossed closer to the precipice face of the falls, and the powerful updraft of mist and wind threw off the trajectory of the rounds. The SEALs missed. The German objective crew-served weapon immediately retaliated. Felix heard a scream rise from the rubble of his hotel. The sniper’s spotter crawled up from behind. He said the sniper was dead, and the.50-caliber sniper rifle was smashed.

Whoever’s commanding the kampfschwimmer team is good. He timed the rhythm of those latest moves just perfectly. I’m sure he even used the wind from the falls to give his men better protection.

Now what the hell are they doing on the upper end of the Falls?

Felix’s chief crawled up. “Sir, I think they plan to drop the bomb down the falls!”

Felix stared through his binoculars and thought hard. “No, Chief! Not drop it! Lower it!”

“You mean—”

“Yeah. Underwater they’re protected from our machine-gun fire. Right?”

“Uh-oh.”

“Tell the thirty-cal crew to duel with that cannon, just enough to keep it occupied and distracted. Everyone else into Draegers.”

“Sir?”

“Take all the climbing ropes we’ve got. We’re going into the water after the Germans.”

At the edge of the river on the upper escarpment, just above the falls, Felix briefed his men. He had to shout constantly to be heard over all the noise. Felix pictured working in the falls.

“It’s just like a beach recon under enemy fire! It’s just that the beach is incredibly steep, and there’s an ungodly tidal rip!” A riptide, an undertow.

Felix could tell his men were nervous, frightened, scared.

So am I.

“Look,” he yelled over the steady roaring and pounding sounds of the river and the falls. He tried not to think what those sounds really meant in terms of sheer destructive energy. But the panorama spread before him and his men could leave no doubt. “It’s just as hard for the Germans. Use your submachine guns, or knives. Kill them any way you can.”

The chief and the four enlisted men with Felix nodded.

“Watch out for logs and other debris in the river,” Felix added. “The flow looks stronger since it rained.”

Again the men nodded, grimly.

Felix shared their fear, but he tried not to let it show. SEALs trained hard and realistically to work in water, under fire. But nothing, absolutely nothing, could have possibly prepared us for a situation like this.

Felix looked out across the choppy surface of the rushing, murderous river. Small islands covered with bushes and palm trees dotted the upper edge of the falls where the river suddenly disappeared into space. Rock outcroppings coated with green moss also jutted from that menacing horseshoe-shaped drop-off. All these split the water into narrower adjacent falls, the whole series of which together made up the mass of the Iguazu Falls. Some of these subcomponent falls were so large they even had names of their own, such as Floriano or Santa Maria.

Felix could see fragments of the upper tourist walkways, constructed in parched dry seasons when the river flow was weak, then damaged in previous record-breaking El Nino rainy seasons — or broken up more recently by artillery or demolition charges.

From both the Brazilian and Argentine side of the riverbanks, the islets and rocks and fragments of walkway converged on the central vortex of the falls, the Devil’s Throat. There, a gigantic vertical fracture indented the face of the escarpment, and water poured in and plunged down from three sides.

Way off on his right, Felix heard the chatter of automatic-weapon fire. To his front, he caught a glimpse of movement on the farther riverbank. Two Germans dashed behind a truck-sized boulder on the water’s edge, carrying a heavy package.

American machine-gun bullets found the range and windage, and began to chip at the boulder. Through his binoculars Felix saw white rock dust fly from the near face of the boulder; roundish light tan patches spread amid the mossy green. Too late. For now, the Germans with the bomb were behind good cover.

CHAPTER 35

Jeffrey changed from his dress uniform into dirty gray overalls. He was sneaked out of the underground command bunker near Rio in the cab of a garbage truck, which sped toward Rio proper. While it made another pickup of commercial trash at a shopping mall, he sneaked into the mall’s covered parking garage. There he climbed in the back of a windowless, unmarked van. The van headed south, into a tunnel through the hills that separated Rio from some outlying beach resorts. Once it was in the tunnel, policemen inside halted traffic. Jeffrey pulled on a black ski mask, of the sort SWAT teams might wear, grabbed his waterproof bag with his wet suit and uniform, and a satchel with some other things, and transferred to one of two other identical white vans. He noticed even their license plates were the same.

Traffic resumed, with Jeffrey going back north toward downtown Rio. His original van continued south, as if he were still in it, with a policeman in back in his place. The third van followed the one he was currently riding in, then peeled off and took the highway toward the international airport. Jeffrey’s van went into an office park, where a corporate helicopter sat on a helipad. Jeffrey left the van still wearing his overalls and mask and took the service