back, and capture them.
But Moore now saw an opportunity too good to ignore.
“I’ll take this guy, then I’ll meet you around back. We move a lot faster now.”
“You sure?”
Moore nodded.
With Towers’s help, he stripped quickly out of his gear and vest, and was down to his skivvies and belt holster within thirty seconds. Instead of taking one of the pistols the Brits had given them, he chose his Glock 17, which he’d packed upon hearing they were jungle-bound. The pistol was equipped with maritime spring cups for use in water environments. The cups were placed within the firing-pin assembly to ensure that water passed by the firing pin within the firing-pin channel. This prevented the creation of a hydraulic force that could slow the firing pin and cause light primer strikes. The NATO spec ammo Moore used had waterproof sealed primers and case mouths, which of course further increased the weapon’s reliability.
With the Glock holstered at his side, he grabbed the combat knife and slid like one more predator beneath the ink-black water.
The river felt warm and thick in his palms; the vegetation growing from the bottom (which might have been hydrilla; he wasn’t sure) scraped across his bare feet. He estimated the river’s depth at just eight or nine feet in this section. He swam silently, guided by the kerosene lantern light shining down on the waves ahead. Yes, this was home. This was where Carmichael lived forever …
It was only as he neared the dock that he remembered the crocodiles.
He shuddered and came up beneath the second Zodiac, his exit from the water silent, his breath slowly released. Their man was in the first boat, docked farthest out. Moore peered furtively around the boat’s hull. The guy was one of Borja’s
After his container made a louder chugging noise, the
Moore looked back at the house: all quiet, save for the almost electric hum of thousands of insects.
He submerged and swam back around the Zodiac, getting himself in position.
So the plan, formulated anew, was to take out this guy and fall back to the house. He and Towers would have one fewer guy to deal with and could still smoke ’em out. However, as he’d warned Towers, they had to be fast so gas boy wouldn’t be missed.
Moore held the combat knife in a reverse grip, the blade jutting from the bottom of his fist. Three, two, one, he kicked hard and came out of the water, slid one arm around the man’s waist while plunging the blade into his chest and dragging him over the side — and it all needed to happen before the guy yelled, because Moore couldn’t reach his mouth.
Every consideration had been taken. The blade’s tip was sharp, and it had good cutting edges. Moore had discovered the hard way that if you cut an artery with a dull blade, it tended to contract and stop bleeding. A cleanly severed main artery resulted in loss of consciousness and death. Furthermore, holding the man underwater would cause his heart to race, and death would come even sooner.
The snatch itself had gone off perfectly, textbook. Moore could go up to Rhode Island and give lectures about it at the Naval War College. The guy had gone over the side with only a gasp and a barely perceptible groan. Even the splash wasn’t very loud, as Moore had eased him down into the water rather than jerking him.
But in that second, as the water rushed over Moore’s face and he gritted his teeth and sucked in air — that second when every muscle in his body had tensed — he spied from the corner of his eye the back door of the house opening and a figure appearing in silhouette.
That individual had seen a man rise from the water and drag his colleague over the side. And it was all Moore could do to hold the struggling man beneath the water while shaking against the fear that the alarm had just gone off.
His heart red-zoned immediately.
He wanted to scream. They were
One task at a time. First, he willed himself into a moment of calm as he continued choking the man, who abruptly stopped thrashing.
As he released the guy, the first salvo of gunfire tore into the river, the shots punching just behind him as he now swam down toward the dock’s pilings and kept tight to them, on the inside beneath the dock.
Then came another salvo, and another, full automatic-weapons fire hosing down a 180-degree line around the dock, the muffled thumping painfully familiar. Still tight to the piling, Moore ascended until his mouth broke water, and he took in a long breath.
Towers’s sniper rifle thundered from the tree line, and a man up on the dock hit the planks with a double thud, wailing in Spanish. A wounding round, to be sure. Towers knew what he was doing, but he’d also given up his location and would be slower to return fire with that bolt-action rifle.
More footfalls now. Louder. The dock vibrated. AK-47 fire popped again, two weapons. Towers’s gun replied with a formidable crack, then fell silent against an onslaught of withering fire.
A third AK added its voice to the first two.
Then, a break …
“Talwar? Niazi? In the boat, now!”
Moore could barely contain himself. That was him, Samad, speaking in Arabic and standing on the dock above Moore’s head. And there was Moore, in the water, armed with a knife and a pistol. Three versus one. Were the object to kill Samad, he would push out from beneath the dock and surprise attack. Again, he willed himself back into a state of calm. His impatience had already cost them too much.
The Zodiac bobbed up and down as the men climbed aboard, and one of them turned the key on the outboard. The engine started immediately.
Moore couldn’t disable the engine without being spotted and drawing their point-blank fire, but maybe he could sink the boat before they knew what was happening …
While the Zodiac had a rigid fiberglass hull, it still had synthetic rubber tubes constructed in separate sections, six or more chambers, he estimated. The rubber was actually a plastomer bound to a dense polyester cloth and tougher to damage than plain old rubber, but that didn’t mean Moore wouldn’t try.
He pushed off the piling, submerged again, and swam up beside the Zodiac while the motor was still idling. He took the knife and plunged it into the first compartment. The air hissed loudly and sent a steady rush of bubbles into the river. He swam under the boat as the men reacted and thrust his knife up once more, stabbing another section.
The fifty-horsepower engine throttled up, and Moore dove quickly to avoid being hit by the skeg or shredded by the propeller. As the boat passed overhead, he turned, swam hard for the surface, came up, and drew his pistol, lifting it over the waves and targeting the back tubes of the boat, firing once, twice, before the man at the outboard lifted a pistol and squeezed off two rounds. Moore threw himself back under the water, kicking hard for the dock.
By the time he began pulling himself up onto the dock, Towers was sprinting toward him, carrying all their gear. “What the fuck?” was all he shouted.
“Second Zodiac!” Moore answered.
Towers threw the backpacks and rifles into the boat and climbed aboard. “Keys! No keys!”
The guy Towers had hit still lay on the dock in a pool of blood and clutching his hip. Moore dropped to his knees beside the man. “Keys for the boat?”
The man just looked at him, all teeth and agony.
Moore went through his pockets. Nothing.
Moore reached him, felt the man’s pockets, found the keys, and dug them out. He swam back to the Zodiac and tossed the keys to his partner, who fumbled to get them in the outboard.
