River of Ruin

minutes.

Bruneseau’s actions at the lake-his reckless need to get into the compound-was an indication that the French mission in Panama went beyond a concern for radio interception antennas. But until she knew what it was they were looking for, she decided not to call the U.S. embassy. The ambassador had bought his post with financial contributions to the current White House administration, so he didn’t have the clout in Washington to forward any report she gave him. The CIA station chief was a hopeless drunk who was marking time to his retirement and Lieutenant Colonel Bancroft, her military superior, wouldn’t jeopardize his chance to put eagles on his shoulders by acting on what Lauren had found out. Maybe if she had concrete evidence-but for now he’d do nothing. That left her with Frenchmen she didn’t trust, an old man and an out-of-work canal pilot.

She was at the front window drinking from a second bottle of water when an older Honda Accord pulled into the driveway. She recognized Roddy behind the wheel and Harry sitting erect next to him. It was only when she opened the door that Rene Bruneseau came out of the back room.

He glared at seeing the two men enter the safe house. “What is the meaning of this?”

His size and intimidating build may have stopped most people in their tracks but Harry White brushed past him with such a casual contempt that the spy retreated a step. “Where’s Mercer?” he asked Lauren in a brusque tone that couldn’t cover his concern.

“Captain Vanik,” Rene snapped, “who are these men?”

Harry wheeled on Bruneseau, poking the heavier man in the chest with every third word. “I’ll ask you the same question in a second, but first I want to know where Mercer is.” It had taken him two seconds to gain control of the situation.

Lauren felt a rush of comfort that Harry was here. More than an ally, the feisty octogenarian was an advocate who wouldn’t stop until Mercer was safe. Had Bruneseau not been in the room, she would have hugged him. “The Chinese have him,” she answered. “They took him away in a chopper.” She paused, unsure how to tell him that she didn’t know Mercer’s condition. “We don’t know if he’s. .”

White ignored the implications of her voice trailing off. “Took him on a chopper from where to where?”

“From a ship in the canal. They were headed west.”

“I thought you guys were going to the volcanic lake?”

“It’s a long story,” Lauren replied.

“That is enough!” Bruneseau snapped. “Captain Vanik, you have compromised our safe house and our mission by inviting these two men. I will not permit you to tell them any more.”

“As of right now,” she said hotly, her well of strength seemingly replenished by Harry’s presence, “your mission, whatever it is, means nothing to me. I am getting Mercer back. I suspect you will do nothing to help me, but you damned well can’t stop me either.”

“What she said,” Harry echoed and settled onto a couch, his body language dismissing Bruneseau. He lit a cigarette. “You said it was a long story. I’ve got all day to hear it.”

The Frenchman wouldn’t let his point drop. “I cannot believe your unprofessionalism. These men are civilians.”

The rage Lauren had been holding in since the canal exploded. “My unprofessionalism? Don’t you dare lecture me. You and Foch were the ones who tried to infiltrate Liu’s camp at the lake and nearly got us all killed. You still haven’t explained what you were looking for, and don’t give me some cock-and-bull story about Chinese listening posts.”

“I will not answer your questions.”

“But I will.” The voice came from the hallway leading to the bedrooms. It was Foch.

“Lieutenant!”

“I am sorry, monsieur. They deserve the truth.”

Although the two men switched languages, there was little difficulty following their argument. Bruneseau’s anger did nothing to blunt the Legionnaire’s resolve, even when faced with what sounded like a direct order. When it was over, the spy leaned against a wall with his arms crossed. It was evident by his expression that Foch was going to pay for what he was about to reveal.

“Eleven weeks ago, a shipment of spent uranium fuel was transported from Rokkasho in Japan to the reprocessing plant in France owned by Cogema.” Foch overrode the startled gasps and the quick looks of confusion directed at him. “The route, like the previous one hundred and sixty times such a load has been moved, took the specially designed double-hulled ship through the Panama Canal. The fuel was stored in what are called type-B casks, huge drums about twenty feet long and weighing over a hundred tons. About six tons of spent uranium are carried in each cask. Since 1971 about thirty-five thousand tons of spent fuel have been transported in these and other types of containers.

“This is all sanctioned by the International Atomic Energy Agency under guidelines drawn up in the 1970s,” Foch explained when Lauren drew a breath between her teeth at the amount of radioactive material routinely shipped around the globe. “When the ship arrived in France, and each cask was reweighed, one came up five hundred pounds light.”

“Jesus Christ! You lost five hundred pounds of radioactive fuel?” Harry said.

Foch nodded. “There are two ways this could have happened. Either it wasn’t loaded in Japan or it was taken from the ship during its run to France. French regulators are working with the Japanese at Rokkasho to see if the problem occurred at the plant-”

“And you’re working with Bruneseau to see if it was somehow taken off when the ship passed through the canal,” Lauren finished for him.

“It is an unlikely scenario,” Bruneseau scoffed. “The ship never stopped on its way through and only three pilots came on board to guide it. Not enough men to open one of the casks and steal a deadly fuel assembly weighing almost two hundred kilos.”

“But you were still given orders to check it out anyway?”

“My government wanted every contingency investigated.”

“How big is the ship that carried the fuel?” Roddy Herrara spoke for the first time.

“One hundred and four meters, about three hundred and forty feet,” Foch answered after Roddy told him he had been a canal pilot.

“A ship that size,” Roddy said, “would only need one pilot.”

“Except for its extraordinary cargo. Surely they’d bring in extras to help.”

“Maybe one other,” the Panamanian replied. “Not two.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bruneseau said. “Even two men couldn’t have done it alone. There’s no way the uranium could have been taken off the ship here. The safety monitors on the vessel never recorded a spike in radiation, the ship’s officers said that the pilots never left the bridge and the security tags on the cask hadn’t been tampered with. The five hundred pounds of missing uranium was not on board. The Japanese screwed up by shorting the load when they put the fuel into the casks. It’s a clerical error.”

“You’re probably right, sir,” Roddy said respectfully, “yet you seem to have stumbled onto something here or you wouldn’t be so vehemently pursuing your investigation.”

Bruneseau remained silent for a moment. “I’ll grant you something’s going on, but it’s not about a lost shipment of uranium. We focused on Hatcherly because of their connection to China’s military, but in the weeks we’ve been monitoring them with gamma detectors we’ve found nothing. Their activities at the lake were something we didn’t know about, and yet there was no evidence of radiation at that location either.” He turned to Lauren. “You’re right when you said my mission has nothing to do with yours. I don’t care that Hatcherly Consolidated is robbing this country blind or that they’re about to complete a Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal. Your country should have considered that when they gave the damned thing away. As I told my superiors when they sent us here, the whole trip is a waste. Nous sommes fini, ici. We’re done here.”

“Senor.” A little of the respect had drained from Roddy’s voice. “I am not saying that it is likely that your ship was tampered with in the canal, but I think you should know it is possible. Many times during a transit, tugboats are used to nose a ship into a lock. Depending on the time of day your ship went through, enough men could have boarded the vessel from the tug and broken into one of these casks.”

“Don’t you think I’ve had men sweep all the tugs looking for residual radiation?” Bruneseau retorted. “That’s the first damned thing we did when we got to Panama. I’m telling you the casks weren’t tampered with. The