The tenth message, however—one of the messages from the other team in Chile—seized Race's attention. It screamed with the German word dringendes—'urgent'.
Schroeder saw it, too.
He quickly tabbed down to the tenth message and hit
'ENTER'.
A full-screen message came up. Race saw the words in German, translated them:
MESSAGE NO: 050199010
DATED: 5 JANUARY 1999
RECEIVED AT: 1037 (LOCAL TIME PERU)
RECEIVED FROM: FIELD TEAM (CHILE)
SUBJECT: CHILE TEAM URGENT SIGNAL;
CHILE TEAM URGENT SIGNAL
MESSAGE IS AS FOLLOWS:
ATTENTION PERU TEAM. ATTENTION PERU TEAM.
THIS IS CHILE SECOND UNIT. REPEAT.THIS IS CHILE SECOND UNIT,
FIRST UNIT IS DOWN, REPEAT, FIRST UNIT IS DOWN.
15 MINUTES AGO FIRST UNIT ENTERED COLONIA ALEMANIA IN
CONCERT WITH CHILEAN NATIONAL GUARD, REPORTED ENTIRE
COMPOUND DESERTED. REPEAT. FIRST UNIT REPORTED ENTIRE
COMPOUND DESERTED.
PRELIMINARY TESTING REVEALED HIGH TRACE LEVELS OF URANIUM AND PLUTONIUM ORE, BUT BEFORE FURTHER DATA COULD BE OBTAINED A DETONATION OCCURRED INSIDE THE COMPOUND.
DETONATION APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN NUCLEAR. REPEAT. DETONATION
APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN NUCLEAR.
ENTIRE FIRST UNIT HAS BEEN LOST. REPEAT. ENTIRE FIRST UNIT HAS BEEN LOST.
MUST ASSUME STORMTROOPERS ARE ALREADY EN ROUTE TO PERU.
Race looked up from the message in horror.
Colonia Alemania had been empty at the time the BKA team had arrived. It had also been booby-trapped, set to explode as soon as someone set foot on it.
A sliver of ice ran down Race's spine as he looked at the final line of the message again:
MUST ASSUME STORMTROOPERS ARE ALREADY EN ROUTE TO PERU.
Race looked at his watch.
It was 11:05 am.
'How long till they get here?' Nash asked Schroeder.
'It's impossible to say,' Schroeder said. 'There's no knowing how long ago they left the compound. They could have left it two hours ago or two days ago. Either way, the trip from Chile to here is not a long one. We must assume that they are very close.'
Nash turned to Scott. 'Captain, I want you to get on the horn to Panama and find out when that damned extraction team is going to get here. We need firepower and we need it now.'
'Got it.' Scott nodded to Doogie who dashed off toward the radio unit.
'Cochrane,' Nash said. 'How's the situation with the surviving Huey?'
Buzz Cochrane shook his head. 'It's shot. It took a ham mering when that Apache went wild during the cats' attack.
Stray gunfire damaged both the tail rotor and the ignition ports.'
'How long will it take to fix?'
'With the tools we've got here, we can fix the ignition ports, but it'll take time. As for the tail rotor, well, you can't fly without it, and it's a bitch to repair. I guess we could strip some of the secondary systems and use them, but what we really need are brand-new axles and rotary switches, and we ain't gonna find them here.'
'Sergeant. Get that Huey ready to fly again. Whatever it takes,' Nash said.
'Yes, sir.,'
Cochrane left the circle, taking Tex Reichart with him.
There was a long silence.
'So we're stuck here…' Lauren said.
'With a group of terrorists on their way…' Gaby Lopez added.
