“Good to go!” Towers announced.
Moore reached up, and Towers hauled him into the Zodiac. While Towers started the engine, Moore threw off the line. The engine thrummed, and they sped away from the dock as Towers used one hand to tug on his night- vision goggles.
“They’ve got a good lead on us,” Towers said, pointing ahead as they dropped into the first Zodiac’s dissolving wake. “And I got a good look …and that is
“I heard him call to his men.” Moore was fighting for breath, trembling badly, the adrenaline overwhelming him as he riffled through his pack and produced the satellite phone. He thumbed it on and scrolled to the call log. There was only one contact saved there: BOOTNECK FIVE.
He hit the button, waited.
“This is Bootneck Five,” came a distinctly British voice.
“Hey, this is River Team,” Moore said. “Our package is on the move. They’re heading north in a Zodiac toward the rendezvous point. We’re in pursuit. We need your intercept at the rendezvous.”
“No problem, River Team. We were hoping for your call. I’ll contact you once we’re in position.”
“Thanks, bro.”
“You’ll thank us all later with a pint, mate.”
“My pleasure.” Moore returned the phone to his backpack, then sat up and readjusted his grip on the Glock, testing out his firing position from his seat. The wind was whipping over them now, and from the shoreline came pinpricks of light that became darker forms as they approached.
“Hey, did you check fuel?” Towers called.
“Shit, no.” Moore leaned down and rapped a knuckle on the plastic gas tank. Hollow. He dove for a small pocket on his backpack and produced a penlight, which he directed on the plastic so he could see the shadow line of fuel.
“You think we’ll make it?” asked Towers.
“Full-throttle. Just keep going.” Moore estimated their speed at nearly thirty knots, all they could bleed out of the little outboard. He reached down and pulled on his own NVGs, the world transformed from layers of gray, dark blue, and black to glowing green and white. He focused his attention ahead, and there, in the distance, he spotted the Zodiac with three ribbons of whitewater fluttering behind.
A gunshot ricocheted off the side of their outboard.
“Get down!” Moore ordered, throwing himself on top of his backpack.
Towers ducked but had to keep his hand on the tiller. Moore tugged off his NVGs and grabbed one of the sniper rifles. Three more pops sounded above the din of outboards, and a hissing came from the front portside of their boat. Moore crawled up toward the bow, propped his elbows on the tubes, and settled down with the rifle. He sighted the back of the Zodiac, but between all the bouncing of their craft and the target, an accurate shot was impossible. If he gambled and the shot went wide and struck Samad in the head …He cursed and turned back to Towers. “I can’t get a bead. Can we get any closer?”
“I’m trying!”
Moore leaned over, set down the rifle, and tugged out his Glock. Samad had probably called ahead to their pilot for an early pickup. The pilot’s cell phone was already being monitored by the NSA, so the second he got that call, Moore’s people would know. A quick check of his smartphone confirmed that. Text message from Slater: Chopper called. He’s en route to the ruins and rendezvous.
But so was a Sea King Mk4 helicopter carrying up to twenty-seven Royal Marines who would fast-rope into the rendezvous point and secure it. However, if Samad spotted that helo, he and his boys could ditch early and make a run for it into the jungle. The fool could get himself killed if he did that.
Moore checked their GPS position on his smartphone, the signal from his shoulder chip being received and routed to the Agency’s satellites and that information being shot back down to him for a position accurate to within three meters. They were about five miles up the river now, with about four miles to go, which translated into less than ten minutes boat time.
They heard the whomping first, followed by the distant flashes of the helo’s lights. No, it wasn’t the Guatemalan pilot but the Royal Marines, coming in loud, as though announced by trumpets, and if Samad didn’t see that bird far ahead, then he had his head under the water.
Behind Moore, the outboard sputtered, and then he felt it — the bow lowering toward the waves as they slowed, the tube growing softer as more air jetted out.
Samad’s Zodiac was less than fifty meters away. They’d slowed, too, the boat’s pilot distracted by the oncoming helicopter, which, perhaps, confused him. They were expecting a small chopper but were getting a big one. Moore hadn’t considered that.
As the outboard chugged even more loudly, sucking on fumes now, Moore cursed again and looked back at Towers, who said, “Up to the Marines now, I guess, huh? They got orders to take them alive, I hope?”
“Those orders don’t mean shit. If they’re fired upon, they will fire back. I only wanted them as a roadblock.”
A more high-pitched thumping from the northeast joined the deeper baritone of the Marines’ chopper, and Moore lifted his binoculars to spy the tiny R44 whirlybird whose twin-bladed rotor sat atop a dorsal-fin — like platform. The helo could carry a pilot and three passengers, and that’s exactly what its pilot intended to do.
But how would the Guatemalan react to soldiers fast-roping into his intended landing zone? He’d haul ass out of there. And Samad would see that, too.
Moore panned down with the binoculars and focused on Samad’s Zodiac. The man himself was pointing up at the second helicopter, then gesticulating wildly for his man at the tiller to pull over, across the river.
When his man failed to react, Samad himself seized the tiller, and the Zodiac cut hard to the right toward the shoreline, and that’s when the portside tubing struck something in the water. The boat fishtailed suddenly as the outboard was struck and lifted partially out of the water. The violent impact threw Samad and one of his men across the Zodiac—
And over the side. Into the water. The guy at the tiller, who’d been white-knuckling that handle even as Samad had taken over, shouted and broke into a wide arc, trying to wheel around. Moore saw it now — a fallen tree all but an inch or so submerged and nearly invisible in the darkness. Samad’s pilot had run right over it.
Moore stole a look back. Their outboard was down to a gurgle. He took up the sniper rifle, even as Towers released the tiller and lifted his own gun, working the bolt to prepare for his next shot.
The engine quit. They were gliding now toward the other Zodiac and the men in the water. Twenty meters. From the corner of his eye Moore saw movement along the shoreline. Splashes. Glowing eyes. The man in the Zodiac spotted him, thrust out his pistol — but not before Moore sighted his head and took the first shot.
While the pilot might have been a valuable prisoner, keeping him alive decreased Moore’s chances of capturing Samad. They needed to isolate the target. The man’s head snapped back, and he slumped near the outboard. Pilotless, the Zodiac now drove straight for the shoreline.
Samad and the other guy, either Talwar or Niazi, swam back toward the boat, both hollering and well aware they were not alone in the water. While Samad struggled forward, his partner let out a horrific cry before vanishing beneath the waves.
Towers took the butt of his rifle and used it like an oar, trying to steer them closer to the other boat. Ten meters now.
The water moved again.
And Moore spotted the first enormous shadow coming up behind Samad and fired twice. The shadow jerked left and disappeared.
Samad, a man who’d been raised in the mountains and desert, was hardly a good swimmer, and in his panic, he began to hyperventilate and go under.
Towers fired at another shadow just to the left of Samad, and Moore realized what he had to do.
He dropped the rifle, checked to make sure his Glock was still holstered at his side, then dove into the water.
Meanwhile, Towers took up both pistols and began firing all around Samad, trying to create a screen around him. Then he widened his fire as Moore came up and swam hard toward the man.
