A young man no more than twenty-two, with a crew cut and dressed in black T-shirt and khaki pants, hurried out of the cab, opened the trunk, and tossed a big duffel bag into the back of the Wrangler, even as the Jeep’s driver, a man who could be the first man’s brother, left the Jeep and hurried into the back of the cab. Moore approached.
“You’re all set here, sir,” the kid said, his British accent unmistakable. “Night-vision goggles on the front seat. Garmin GPS has been programmed. Just listen to the nice lady with the sexy voice, and she’ll tell you how to get there.”
Moore shook the kid’s hand. “Thank you.”
“It’s not over yet, right?” He thrust a satellite phone into Moore’s hand.
Moore nodded and hopped into the Jeep, with Towers coming around the other side.
“Great service around here,” he said.
Moore threw the Jeep in gear. “I was just trying to impress you, boss.”
“I’m duly impressed.” Towers tapped a couple of buttons on the GPS, and the sexy lady with the British accent told them they had 30.41 miles to their destination. “Now, then, I’ve just got one more question: What if Borja lied?”
“You mean we get to the safe house and no one’s home? They’re already gone or they weren’t there in the first place?”
“Yeah.”
“I just checked before we got off the plane. The National Reconnaissance Office has had eyes on the house since we called it in. NASA and a whole group of universities are always using satellites to map the ruins here, so the NRO’s got access to quite a few sources. They already spotted two individuals out on the dock. They’re there. And remember: Borja knows he doesn’t get shit if we don’t get Samad. That punk in jail is our number-one fan.”
The sexy GPS lady told them to take the left fork in the road, which Moore did, and they bounced over several potholes and continued on, the headlights pushing out through the swirling bugs toward the narrow passage, the power poles like those grave markers in San Juan Chamula. The dense jungle occasionally grew alive with the shimmering eyes of troops of baboons watching them from the trees. They had to go through a police checkpoint, but the officers there had already been informed of their presence by their British contacts and waved them through.
When they reached the sign for the Howler Monkey Resort, Moore donned the night-vision goggles and switched off the headlights to cover the last eight miles to the house. After they passed the main lodge and cabins, the road grew a little more rutted and uneven, and Moore veered twice around dead turtles taken out by other motorists, although they had yet to see another car.
While it felt like he and Towers were alone, thousands of miles from home and driving deeper into the Belizean jungle, Slater, along with analysts in the counterterrorism and counterintelligence centers, was at this very moment monitoring them, reporting their every move, and he and the analysts were holding their collective breaths.
He and Towers drove on in silence, each man mentally preparing for the raid to come. Moore wondered if Towers was a religious man, or maybe he chalked it all up to fate or a merciless universe. For his part, Moore thought in more simple terms: It was time to say thank you to all the people who’d made the ultimate sacrifice. It was time to capture this bastard Samad and do it for them, in their name.
And yes, the trail had finally grown warm. Very warm.
Within one mile of the safe house, Moore pulled off the road, threw the Jeep into park, and turned off the engine. He and Towers looked at each other, banged fists, then climbed out.
It took a few seconds before Moore realized that his boss was humming a familiar rock-and-roll anthem: Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.” Moore smiled weakly as he wrenched open the Jeep’s tailgate, and they got to work.
45 THE WATER WAS THEIR HOME
After Moore and Towers had gone through the duffel bag, had changed into their black cargo pants and shirts, and had donned their Kevlar vests, web gear, and balaclavas, Towers scrutinized the weapons they’d been provided. The inventory included two bolt-action sniper rifles — the L115A3 (.338) with Schmidt and Bender scopes and five-round magazines — a couple of Browning 9x19-millimeter Parabellum semiautomatic pistols, a very sweet pair of Steiner 395 binoculars, and two Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knives with double edges and ring grips.
Towers held up his blade. “These Royal Marines have some nice toys.”
Moore agreed, and it was fortunate that 45 Commando, a battalion-sized unit of the Royal Marines, frequently had platoons training in the area. Slater had arranged to use them as a backup force. All the Brits knew was that Towers and Moore were CIA agents hunting down some drug smugglers and that they might need a little muscle. The Brits would be happy to oblige.
Moore held up the satellite phone. “Those guys are just a phone call away.”
“Let’s hope we don’t need them,” said Towers.
They slid into their backpacks, then started off, both wearing NVGs against the utter darkness. The grunts, chirps, and rustling noises coming from the jungle beside them were not the most reassuring sounds, and if they were accosted by, say, a baboon, howler monkey, or something, ahem, worse, it was not the animal that Moore feared so much as the racket created by such an encounter.
Consequently, they kept to the edge of the jungle, off the road but not too far, thankful the Brits had included bug spray against the mosquitoes, doctor flies, and chiggers. New operators would call their seasoned colleagues wimps for worrying about bugs, but Moore had been taught in both the SEALs and the CIA that an annoying itch could cause a distraction — and cost you your life.
His brow was already damp with sweat, and he tasted the salt on his lips by the time they reached the water’s edge, where the ground turned muddy and unstable, and roots breached the surface like varicose veins. He led Towers to a stand of trumpet trees, where they dropped to their haunches. He warned Towers to avoid touching the trees, because they were home to wasplike ants called pseudomyrmex. The ants felt vibration and would swarm to attack invaders with painful stings.
About thirty meters north stood the house, no more than a thousand square feet constructed on two-meter- high stilts, with a small porch beneath a gabled tin roof and windows covered by heavy wooden shutters for full privacy. There were no vehicles in sight. The wooden dock was barely ten meters long, with a pair of Zodiacs tied to the north side. Each boat with inflatable tubes around the sides was equipped with an outboard motor and could carry three to five passengers. A trail that the late Michael Ansara would have described as an “excellent single track” for mountain biking wove away from the road behind them and up toward the house. Another path wide enough for a four-wheel-drive cut through the jungle to the north and linked back to the main road. Were they back in the States, a house like this would be mistaken for a fishing camp, not a drug-smuggling way station.
Moore’s watch read 10:44 p.m.
He wrenched off the NVGs and the balaclava in order to wipe more sweat from his face. Towers cursed and did likewise, then he took up the binoculars and scanned the dock. He regarded Moore with an urgent expression and handed over the binoculars.
A man had come out onto the dock with a small kerosene lantern. He was carrying a plastic five-gallon jug of gasoline. He might be one of the
The man, bare-chested and wearing a pair of tan shorts, climbed carefully into one of the Zodiacs and proceeded to fill the outboard’s external fuel tank seated just beneath the motor.
O’Hara had been adamant: Take Samad alive.
So they’d put gas grenades on their wish list, and the Royal Marines had come through with a dozen, along with two gas masks that they’d stowed in the packs. Kick in the door, throw in the grenades, gas them out, stand
