Gunn nearly fell off his chair. The garbled e-mail Yaeger had shown him clicked in his head. “Ann’s alive,” he said, “and I know where she is. Or, rather, where she was a few days ago. Lexington, Kentucky.”
“She’s still alive?” Fowler asked.
“Yes. It was a cryptic e-mail we received at NUMA. It must have been a warning or a plea for help. We don’t understand the full text, but I think part of it indicates she was abducted with the
Meyers stiffened in her chair. “I’ll get the local field office mobilized.”
Fowler looked blankly at the Vice President. “Why Lexington, Kentucky?”
“Perhaps a local airfield that’s friendly to the thieves.”
“They could still be in transit,” Meyers said. “Perhaps they were on their way to the West Coast or Mexico.”
“Looks like you have your work cut out for you, Elizabeth,” Sandecker said. “All right, let’s get after it. I’ll want an update, same time tomorrow.”
The Vice President’s visitors rose to leave. As they walked to the door, Meyers approached Gunn. “I’d like to see that e-mail as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” Gunn said. But not, he thought, until he and Yaeger had deciphered the full meaning of the message.
61
THE CABIN DOOR BURST OPEN WITH A BANG. ANN was sitting atop a corner writing desk, peering out a small porthole at the sea rushing by. She had spent most of the journey perched there. Aside from an early bout of seasickness after leaving the Mississippi Delta, the trip had been a voyage of tedium. Her only excitement was the two meals a day brought by an ugly bald man who she presumed was the ship’s cook.
From her hours of staring out the starboard port, she had determined they were sailing south. Guessing their speed was somewhere between fifteen and twenty knots, she figured that put them roughly a thousand miles south of New Orleans by the second day. Her southern geography wasn’t that great, but she figured they weren’t far off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
She hadn’t seen Pablo since coming aboard but had braced herself for his appearance. When the door sprang open, she knew it was him. He plodded into the cabin and slammed the door behind him. He appeared more relaxed than Ann had seen him before, and when he stepped closer, she could tell why. He reeked of cheap rum.
“Miss me?” he asked, grinning like a shark.
Ann retreated farther into her desktop corner, pulling her knees beneath her chin.
“Where are we headed?” she replied, hoping to redirect his thoughts.
“Somewhere hot and steamy.”
“Colombia?”
Pablo cocked his head, surprised that she knew—or guessed—his nationality.
“No, but perhaps after we make our delivery the two of us can fly to Bogota for a long romantic weekend.”
He moved closer to the edge of the desk.
“When will the delivery occur?”
“Always the questions.” He leaned over to plant a slobbery kiss on her face.
Ann raised the soles of her feet to his chest and pushed with her legs. To her surprise, the big man stumbled backward, falling onto her bunk.
Ann shuddered. Would he kill her for refusing him? But the alcohol had mellowed him and he rose from the bed, laughing.
“I knew you were a wildcat underneath,” he said.
“I don’t like being caged like one.” She held up her cuffed wrists. “Why don’t you take these off first?”
“Both wild and smart,” he said. “No, I think that will be the one thing I let you leave on.”
He began unbuttoning his shirt, staring at her with an unfocused leer.
She trembled in the corner, still atop the desk, and contemplated a break for the door.
Sensing her thoughts, Pablo stepped over and blocked the way, then began inching closer.
Ann was about to scream when another sound blared through the cabin.
It was audio static, emanating from a ceiling speaker wired to the shipboard intercom. Then a voice roared through the cabin, as well as the rest of the ship. “Senor Pablo, please report to the bridge. Senor Pablo, to the bridge.”
Pablo shook his head and gazed at the speaker with disgust. Fumbling to button his shirt, he stared at Ann with hungry eyes. “We shall resume our visit later.” He eased out of the cabin and locked the door behind him.
Ann wilted in her corner, tears of relief wetting her cheeks for the reprieve she feared was only temporary.
Leaving her cabin, Pablo climbed to the bridge and approached the captain with irritation. “What is it?”
“An urgent call for you on the sat phone.” The captain motioned toward a waiting handset.
Pablo shook off his alcoholic stupor and spoke into the receiver. The conversation was one-sided. Pablo remained quiet until ending the call by saying, “Yes, sir.” Then he turned to the captain. “How far are we from the canal?”
The captain adjusted the scale on a navigation screen. “Just over six hundred miles.”
Pablo looked at the digital map and studied the nearby coastline.
“We need to make an emergency trip into Puerto Cortes, Honduras, to pick up some paint and cargo.”
“A delivery to the estate?”
“No, a requirement on board.”
“But we have only a skeleton crew aboard the
“Then I’ll need every man’s full effort,” Pablo said, “or skeletons they will become.”
62
PITT HONORED ZHOU’S REQUEST AND HEADED west through the jungle. He thought about circling back and trying to locate the boat that Zhou had most certainly arrived in but ultimately figured it would be well concealed. As he pushed through the brush, Pitt wondered who the man was and why he’d been sent to destroy Bolcke’s operations. Not that Pitt didn’t harbor similar feelings, but he presumed the motive had more to do with the trade in rare earth elements than for humanitarian reasons.
Soon after they had parted, the sun had dropped from the sky, and the canopied jungle turned dark. Pitt stumbled through clouds of mosquitoes that appeared at dusk to feast on his exposed skin. The going became treacherous as the dense world around him gradually faded to black. He found himself walking into sharp branches or tripping over unseen logs, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The dogs continued their pursuit, slow and methodical. Pitt had hoped the trackers would follow Zhou’s trail, but they still tracked his scent. Pitt could tell by the sporadic barking that they were perhaps just a few hundred yards behind. He stopped and listened every few minutes, trying to gauge their position.
As the jungle enveloped him, he lost any reference for finding direction. The sound of the dogs became his only clue. Fearful of accidentally backtracking into the teeth of the searchers, he kept a careful ear out for their barking.
The jungle came alive at night with a concert of strange hoots, calls, and cries. Pitt kept his sharp stick in one hand in case the cries came not from a bird or frog but from a jaguar or caiman.
The noises helped take Pitt’s mind off his fatigue. Without Zhou’s water and protein bar, he might have collapsed, but the minimal nourishment kept him going. Fatigue oozed from his bones, making every step painful. Being unused to the hot, steamy environment only added to his lethargy. Tempted to stop and lie down, he thought
