but in the moonlight she spied at least two dozen ships to her left. Each was waiting for its turn to enter the Gatun Locks and descend to the Caribbean Sea. Together they formed a crowded flotilla. Layla steered the Zodiac sharply to the left, aiming for the Caribbean-bound ships.
The sniper took another shot, and the bullet plunged into the water a few feet behind the Zodiac. Then another Guoanbu agent in the speedboat opened up with an assault rifle, but at that moment Layla reached the flotilla and zoomed behind a cruise ship. The bullets slammed into the ship’s hull, scattering the tourists on the promenade deck. Once she passed the ship, she steered around an oil tanker, and then around a racing yacht. Slaloming between the hulls, she maneuvered through the flotilla as if it was an obstacle course.
But she couldn’t shake the speedboat. It gradually closed the distance as she zigzagged toward the locks. She was a hundred feet from the Caribbean-bound lock when the Guoanbu bullets finally punctured the Zodiac. The rubber gunwales crumpled and Layla lost control. She dived off the boat just before it flipped over.
She couldn’t see a thing as she glided underwater, but she could hear the whine of the speedboat’s propellers. The sniper and rifleman were probably scanning the lake, searching for her, so she stayed under until her lungs were bursting. When she finally surfaced, she was in front of the closed gate of the Caribbean-bound lock. As she gasped for breath, she saw a container ship entering Gatun Lake from the parallel lock, the one for boats going in the opposite direction. She dove again and swam furiously toward the open gate.
By the time she reached it, the massive steel doors were closing. Thinking quickly, she grabbed the edge of the right-hand door as it swung past. Then a bullet banged against the steel. The Guoanbu agents had spotted her hanging from the door. With a yelp, she clambered around the edge to the other side. She got inside the lock just as the gate clanged shut.
More bullets banged against the gate, but Layla was safe now. The Guoanbu agents couldn’t follow her into the lock until they found a landing point on the lakeshore. She treaded water in the concrete bathtub, looking for a ladder. Fortunately, the lock was brightly lit at all hours, and after a few seconds she spotted a vertical notch in one of the bathtub’s walls. It was located about halfway down the length of the lock, a few hundred feet away, and inside the notch was a ladder. She felt a surge of relief. That was the way out.
As she swam toward the ladder, though, she noticed that the water level was dropping. Thousands of gallons streamed down the valves at the bottom of the bathtub, pulled by gravity to the Caribbean Sea. Then she saw movement at the gate on the other end of the lock. The steel doors opened, and a Panamax freighter cruised into the bathtub.
She swam faster. The “mule” locomotives on either side of the lock were towing the freighter into position. The ship was very nearly as wide as the bathtub, and as it came closer it looked like a moving wall. Layla swam faster still. If she didn’t make it to the notch, she’d be crushed by the hull. The ship’s prow pushed the water ahead of it, forcing Layla to fight the current. She stroked as hard as she could, but she barely moved forward. Someone on the freighter saw her in the water and shouted a warning, but no one could stop the ship in time. It was so close, Layla could see the barnacles on its hull.
At the last moment, a lucky countercurrent swept her toward the notch. She grabbed one of the ladder’s rungs just as the freighter went past. Flattening her body, she squeezed into the notch. The rusty hull slid by, just inches from her nose.
She clung to the ladder, cold and exhausted. She had barely enough strength left in her arms to hang on. The freighter finally stopped moving, and Layla looked up. The top of the ladder was about fifty feet above her. Her muscles were cramping, but if she moved slowly and carefully, she believed she could make it. And then she heard a rushing, frothy noise coming from the valves at the bottom of the bathtub. They were filling the lock with water now, raising the freighter to the level of Gatun Lake. In seconds the water rose to Layla’s neck. She grabbed a higher rung on the ladder and pulled herself up, but the water surged over her head.
NINETEEN
Jim and Kirsten raced out of the bunker and saw that all hell had broken loose at Camp Whiplash. Afghan insurgents had surrounded the CIA base and were showering it with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. One of the mortars blew a hole in the compound’s mud wall, and at least fifty Afghans rushed toward the breach, each brandishing an AK-47. The incident in Golbahar had enraged the local jihadis, who were clearly more organized than Hammer had suspected. The twelve Rangers from the 75th Regiment crouched behind the wall with their carbines and attempted to return fire. Meanwhile, Hammer and Dusty bent over a field radio in the courtyard, trying to call in an air strike.
“Damn it!” Hammer shouted into the headset. “We can’t wait thirty minutes! In thirty minutes these ragheads are gonna chop us into dog meat! We need those birds
Jim assessed the situation. He thought of the firefights he’d seen when he was in the 75th, after the Third Battalion sent him to Somalia. He and his men in Bravo Company had fought the Somali clans on the streets of Mogadishu, fending off hundreds of militiamen who took shots at them from every rooftop and alley. During the last and biggest battle he’d crouched behind a wrecked helicopter for twelve fucking hours while one of his corporals slowly bled to death. And halfway through that awful night Jim had made himself a promise: If he survived until morning, he’d make sure he’d never be so helpless again.
Now he reached into the heavy duffle bag he’d brought with him to Afghanistan. He removed an assault rifle and tossed it to Kirsten. “Remember how to use this?” he asked.
She nodded. “What about you? You got a gun for yourself?”
“Yeah, I got something.”
He detached his prosthetic arm from the neural control unit on his shoulder. Then he stowed it in the duffle and pulled out the model he’d designed for combat. He’d hoped he’d never have to use it. He’d killed enough men during his years in the army and didn’t want to add to his total now. But the people in this compound were Americans. Some of them were arrogant shits, but they were his countrymen.
Jim clamped the combat prosthesis to the neural control unit. This mechanical arm was heavier than his normal one because it contained a machine gun and a hundred bullets. The gun’s targeting system was linked to the microprocessors implanted in his shoulder, which relayed the commands from his brain. He’d designed the prosthesis so that it could aim and fire as soon as he identified a target. The signals went directly to the arm’s motors, making the reaction time almost instantaneous.
While Kirsten ducked behind an armored vehicle, Jim ran toward the breach in the mud wall. The insurgents poured through the gap, but he picked them off as they rushed into the courtyard. The prosthesis worked exactly as designed. Jim looked at the targets and they died. By the time he reached the wall, half a dozen bodies sprawled inside the breach. Then Jim started firing through the gap. His eyes panned across the startled faces of the Afghans, who staggered backward as the bullets ripped into them. The deadliest feature of the prosthesis was the intimidation factor. It was scary as hell to face a guy with a machine-gun arm. He mowed down all the insurgents within twenty feet of the wall. The rest turned around and ran back to their trucks.
Jim lowered his arm and disengaged the targeting system. He looked with revulsion at the prosthesis, which gave off waves of heat. Of all his inventions, he liked this one the least.
Turning around, he saw Hammer come toward him. The bastard had a big smile on his face. But before Hammer could say anything, Jim heard a ululating scream from above. A lone Afghan fighter, left behind by his comrades, jumped down from the top of the wall and knocked Hammer to the ground. Kneeling on the agent’s chest, the Afghan pulled a knife from his belt and raised it high. But before the jihadi could slit Hammer’s throat, Jim whacked him in the head with the heavy prosthesis, knocking him out.
Hammer seemed shaken. Eyes wide, he jumped to his feet and backed away from the unconscious Afghan. After a few seconds, though, he regained his composure. He turned back to Jim and pointed at his prosthesis. “That’s a nice piece of equipment.”
Jim knew this was as close as the agent would ever get to saying thank-you. “You’re welcome,” he replied.
Hammer stood there awkwardly for a moment. Then he brushed the dirt off his pants. “You know, as defense contractors go, you’re not so bad. Ever consider doing some work for our Science and Technology division? The pay’s decent.”
