“Homer?”
FRANKLIN SAT in the snow with the dead boy for a good five minutes. Just let the tears come since they wouldn’t stop no matter how hard he tried. Teardrops and snowflakes fell on the boy’s cheeks, still tinged pink with the icy cold. Then Dixon got to his feet and took his duster off. Covered his deputy with it. Watched the snow softly falling on the still form of his deputy for a minute or so. Bent down to grab a handful of the white stuff and rubbed it all over his face, knuckles digging into his eyes.
He stood and saw Homer’s hand sticking out under the duster. Boy’s pistol still in his hand. Franklin gently pried the gun from Homer’s cold fingers and stuck it in the small of his back, inside his jeans. He stood for a second, breathing deep, put his head back and looked straight up into the dark sky full of snow. There was maybe a half hour of daylight left.
After a minute, he picked up the Mossburg and walked around the truck to where a dead Arab kid lay face down in the snow. There was a wide pool of blood similar to the one spreading beneath Homer’s body. Bright red, but that’s where the similarities ended.
He jacked a fresh round into the shotgun’s chamber and looked up at the farmhouse on the hill. He smelled smoke. They must have a fire going inside now. It was certainly cold enough outside.
69
RIVER OF DOUBT
H awke stood alone at the stern, hands clasped behind his back. It was early afternoon, just half past one, local time, and the sun was blazing overhead. He gazed at the twisting wake trailing behind his stern, his feet planted wide against sudden yaw or pitch. He was thinking on how matters stood aboard his vessel. It was now twelve hours since they’d departed Manaus.
He’d managed a few hours sleep in his small cabin, then gone once more into the tiny and hastily organized “war room” to confer with Stokely, Gerard Brownlow, and his Fire Control Officer, a Welshman named Dylan Allegria. One problem, now remedied, had been the engines. Minor mechanical issue with one of the three, overheating, but troubling all the same. With two engines, the performance parameters of this boat went to hell.
The bloody River of Doubt was living up to, even beyond, expectations. The mood aboard Stiletto had degenerated from restless to apprehensive. Now, it was tense. They were late, that was part of it. Some aboard would argue privately they were lost as well. The sheer density of the forest and the endless uncharted tributaries spiking off the cocoa-colored river was creating confusion and sensory overload among his men.
This was certainly not abnormal for men going into battle. It was, Hawke knew, unusual for this handpicked group of warriors.
These men were, for the most part, seasoned fighters, battle-hardened veterans, recruited for their experience in modern guerilla warfare. Many had been flown to Key West from Martinique, home of Thunder and Lightning, a mercenary outfit without parallel in modern jungle warfare. To them, this was just another opportunity to beat unbeatable odds and snag a hefty paycheck.
The ante was raised, however, when it suddenly became a hostage rescue operation to boot. And it was no secret to anyone aboard that the hostage needing rescue was the closest man on earth to Alexander Hawke.
Hawke had overheard bickering in the crew’s mess. It wouldn’t do. In an hour’s time, he would gather them all in the wheelhouse. Show them his belief in them and this mission. His optimism. His absolute conviction that they could and would overcome every obstacle and succeed despite any difficulty. They would find Congreve alive and get him out. They would destroy Top. Put an end to his intentions, whatever the hell they were.
Nec aspera terrent, as the lads of the King’s Regiment have it. That’s what he would tell them. Difficulties be Damned.
They’d been slowed by the bloody engine repair; but now they were slowed by the very river itself. Twisting, turning, endless. They’d been steaming nearly fourteen hours on the smaller rivers now, since they’d left the wide Amazon. Many hours on the much smaller Madeira, and now they were headed due south on the comparatively narrow Rio Roosevelt.
Many natives still called it by its original name, the River of Doubt. Now he could see why.
The wilderness had closed in on the crew of Stiletto just as the sea closes over a diver. Hawke and his men felt cut off from all they’d ever known; each man felt as if he were on a journey back to the beginning of time. They had entered a brooding world of plants, water, and, except for the deep rumble of the engines, silence. Everywhere you looked, a riot of vegetation. The big trees were kings of the earth this deep in the jungle. The forest air was thick and sluggish. The only sunshine was directly overhead and little comfort.
He’d forgotten, or erased, his well-stocked stores of bad memories of this hellish place.
All afternoon they’d been butting against shoals, trying to find the channel. Hawke had posted two men on the bow, looking for signs of hidden banks and sunken stones, some sharp, unseen edge that would rip the bottom out of this otherworldly craft and doom what was left of his hopes. To make matters worse, he heard the roll of drums inside the curtain of jungle now. And whether they represented war or peace or prayer he had no idea.
Xucuru scouts, maybe. Announcing his return.
Kill you, kill you.
Hawke tried to tell himself he was only imagining a vengeful aspect to nature here, but he couldn’t do that either. Couldn’t shake the notion that even bloody nature was deliberately conspiring against him. He’d felt this dreamy notion during his captivity. And, the deeper Stiletto traveled into the jungle, the more reality seemed to fade. He pressed his fingertips deeply into his eye sockets and willed himself to stop this foolishness. Only looking into Top’s eyes would end this bloody nightmare. And that moment could not come soon enough.
Suddenly, Captain Girard Brownlow was standing beside him at the stern rail.
“Skipper, sorry to disturb you.”
“Not at all, Brownie.”
“At roughly 0330 we will be approaching a stretch of river where Brock has indicated submerged mines may be protecting the main enemy compound. I’m ordering the crew to deploy the mine probes in half an hour.”
“Good. Take her speed down to fifteen as well, Captain. Mr. Brock has been known to be less than precise.”
“Aye, sir. Anything I can do for you?”
“The PAM system,” Hawke said, his eyes scanning the thick green vegetation, “Death from above. Missiles armed and ready?”
“Aye. Fire Control Officer Lewis confirms both PAM and LAM systems up and functioning normally, Skipper. We are currently mapping and tracking two targets.”
“What targets?”
“Appear to be two small unmanned vehicles, sir. Couple of bots pulling guard duty, I’d say. Mr. Brock’s recon report identifies these vehicles as Ogres. Mobile machine guns on tracks, really. Operating on either bank, parallel course, equidistant from the river, outbound range one mile. Our companions for the last ten minutes, sir, matching our speed and corrections. We did heat signatures on both vehicles. They definitely appear to be unmanned. Scouts, we think.”
“So. The enemy already knows we’re coming.”
“That’s accurate, sir.”
“Tell fire control to monitor the scouts. As long as they’re running parallel courses, leave them alone. They turn toward us, threaten the boat, take them out.”
“Aye, aye, sir. I’ll inform Fire Control Officer Lewis immediately.”
Brownlow saluted smartly, left the stern, and went forward to convey Hawke’s orders to Lewis. Hawke looked at the two ungainly black boxes mounted side-by-side on his stern. State of the art, Harry Brock had told him, missiles in a box. He just hoped the bloody things were all they were cracked up to be. Brock was convinced they’d need them where they were headed. And Brock had procured them.
