coming. Luis was huddled by the transom, waiting for Stoke’s signal.
“Go, Sharkey, go, go, go!” he said to Luis.
Sharkey didn’t say anything, he just did it. He pushed up off the deck and over the transom, hitting the water with a big splash, kicking and using his good arm to paddle furiously away from the stern. Stoke kept moving the cap around as best he could, holding the shooter’s attention until the guy figured it out which Stoke knew wouldn’t take much longer.
He looked up at Papa on the tower. The old man looked ready and now was as good a time as any. Most of the rounds were aimed at the Yankee cap and a few were zinging off the stern, going into the water aft where Sharkey was once more unfortunately swimming for his life.
“You see the shooter?” Stoke shouted up to the old man. “You know where he is?”
“Si, senor, yo se!” Papa said, a huge smile on his face. “I got this fish in my sights. In the bushes beneath the coconut palm tree.”
“You got the angle? You ready?”
“Si. Es muy perfecto.”
“Do it.”
PAPA SHOWED HIMSELF then, stood right up, bringing the rifle up into firing position and aiming it even as he got to his feet. He swung the barrel to his left and started firing furiously on semiauto into the mangrove bushes. The rounds were aimed at the base of the tiny island’s lone coconut palm tree, splintering it and sending debris into the air.
“Aieeee!”
A scream came from the island. A long dying wail. Papa kept firing, expended the whole mag, and then the screaming stopped for good.
“Bueno, amigo!” Stoke said, hauling himself up to the gunwale so that he could see for himself what the hell was going on. Smoke was rising from the badly shot up mangrove.
“You think I did it?” Papa asked, grinning. “Es muerto?”
“Yeah,” Stoke said, grinning, “I think he’s muerto all right. We’ll know soon enough.”
“Luis!” Papa cried out, waving his arms at his son in the water about twenty yards astern. “It’s okay! It’s okay! Come back!”
He nudged the throttles, backing down slowly toward his son.
“Your boy was very brave, Papa. Help me get him aboard.”
“What we do now, senor?” the old fella said coming down the ladder with the rifle.
“We got to reel in your catch over there. Identify what make and model he is. Then we put him on ice in the fishbox and take him back to the dock.”
“No catch and release, senor?” Papa said with a smile.
STOKE FELT LIKE he was going to puke or pass out getting to his feet and taking the boathook from its holder underneath the gunwale to help Papa fish Luis out of the water. He stood there a minute, watching Sharkey approach the boat. His head seemed to clear and he thought maybe he was going to be okay here, long as he didn’t try to do too much.
“We did it,” Luis said, climbing into the boat, smiling his ass off. “Hey, Papa, you are some action hero, man!”
“De nada,” the old man said, still holding the rifle tenderly.
“OK, Luis. Now you get up on the bow and get the hook up. Let’s go see what we caught.”
Papa went inside to the lower helm station and ran the boat right inside the little cove going ahead dead slow. As soon as the bow touched sand he killed the engines. Stoke figured they were in about four feet of water. Sharkey stood on the bow, swinging the hook, and heaved it into the mangroves where it snagged in some thick roots. He jumped in, started wading ashore, headed for the smoking palm tree.
Ten minutes later Stoke was bending over the copilot. He had a couple of holes in his light blue uniform, flesh wounds. He was still alive. Barely. Stoke leaned in close to see the patch on his shoulder.
It bore the emblem of the FAV.
The Fuerza Aerea Venezolana.
The Venezuelan Air Force. That’s who was buying the missiles.
Now why the hell would Venezuela be doing that? If the wounded guy lived, he’d just have to ask him that question.
Suddenly, the guy shuddered. His eyelids fluttered and his lips started moving, too, but nothing was coming out. Stoke bent down, but all he could hear was garbled Spanish.
“Luis,” Stoke said, “put your ear down here and tell me what this guy is saying,”
Luis leaned over and listened for a few seconds, a puzzled look on his face.
“He says ‘Thank you.’ ”
“What?”
“Thank you very much, that’s what he’s saying.”
“That’s a first,” Stoke said.
27
LA SELVA NEGRA
K illing Americans en masse,” Dr. Abu Musab al Khan told Muhammad Top, “will be mere child’s play. I am assuming, based on endless reports and assertions by you, that all our military assets are firmly in place and that the phalanxes soon to be moving up into the Mexican mountain range have the ability to achieve this objective.”
“Yes.”
“All is in readiness with the convoy?” he asked, stroking his beard. “Our friend in Caracas is very nervous.”
Muhammad Top had been impatiently awaiting this question since Dr. Khan’s arrival the day before.
“Yes. The assets are in place north of the border. Mexican units, loyal to our cause, await your orders as to when to release the vehicles. As you will soon see, we are fully prepared to strike on all fronts, Dr. Khan,” Top said, locking his eyes on Khan’s. “God willing.”
“Inshallah. I am looking at the clock above the monitor. Some kind of countdown, I presume?”
“Yes, Doctor. The countdown was initiated this morning.”
Top made sure his eye contact with the diminutive scientist was solid for good reason. Khan was now the second most powerful man in the global Islamic terrorist movement. He had known this man for many years. He knew that those shrewd black eyes didn’t just see you, they penetrated your very soul.
“I bring greetings and prayers for your success from on high.”
“Please assure the sheikh I am prepared to do my sacred duty. The aggressors will trouble us no more after the Day of Reckoning.”
Top tried desperately to conceal his surprise at Khan’s mention of Osama. No one in the terrorist community was sure whether or not the sheikh was even alive. A recent tape had been played on al-Jazeerah, but there were doubts as to its authenticity.
The true leader of the movement, the almost mythical prince Osama, had not been actually seen, publicly or privately, in nearly three years. Not since December of 2004, when he had released his last video. He called for his jihadist warriors to strike Persian Gulf oil supplies and warned the apostate House of Saud that they risked a popular uprising. Then he disappeared. Now, rumor had it, Khan was preparing to succeed the long silent leader.
The Western media were strangely silent too. The media simply didn’t know what had happened to the man
