Perfect.
Mercer stripped off his boxer shorts. Using the sharper end of his screwdriver like a knife, he sliced away the underwear’s elastic band, then cut the band into one-inch segments. Enough elastic remained for him to wrap his index and middle finger. Now came the tricky part.
He got back up on his bucket and loosened the set screw that held the return wire to the light. The rubberized material around his fingers protected him from the electric current flowing through the fixture. Next, he backed off the hot feed, making certain that both wires maintained contact with the light. He took a breath, mentally running through his next motions, then pulled the live feed.
The windowless cell was plunged into a darkness worse than a starless night. There was no need to wait for his eyes to adjust. They couldn’t. Until he was finished, everything had to be accomplished in absolute blackness. By feel, he poked the first of his elastic scraps over the end of the electrified wire, working it a quarter inch along its length before it butted against the plastic insulation coating. He kept adding elastic, like skewering a kabob, until the shiny wire was padded with the nonconductive material.
Very carefully, he stepped off his bucket so the dangling conduit slid down to where he held the two wires. He made sure his insulated pads fit inside the pipe, then slowly drew the conduit over the wires. As delicately as a sommelier pulling the cork from a fine bottle of wine, Mercer eased the pipe away. If any of the insulating scraps came off, the hot feed would arc in the pipe, shock the hell out of him, and trip the breaker. He took five full minutes to slide the conduit from the wires, sucking in his first deep breath when the ends freed themselves and dropped to the floor. Mercer set down the heavy piece of steel, got on all fours, and located the wires by sweeping his hand along the concrete.
Once they were safely out of the way, he retrieved the heavy metal pipe. Moving like a blind man, he located the door. He measured where the knob was, hefted the pipe and brought it down with all the force in his body. His hands stung from the blow. He checked the handle. The direct force of the impact had loosened it.
Four more times he beat on the knob until the tortured metal simply fell away. A beam of light from the hallway shone in on the floor through the mangled lock mechanism, enough illumination for him to use his screwdriver to free the bolt from the door casing. A little hip check to the door and it swung open. He was free.
“Let’s see Houdini top this.”
Mercer had been left naked and armed with only a foot-long shiv and a piece of pipe. He had no idea what lay outside this building. For all he knew, the exit would dump him on a busy street in Panama City or Hatcherly’s terminal facility or some location he wasn’t even aware of. None of this mattered for a few seconds. He’d accomplished more than he had any right to expect.
Gripping his rudimentary knife and club like some post-modern Neanderthal, he set off down the hallway, ready for whatever came.
The scene around Roddy Herrara’s kitchen table couldn’t have been more morose. A gloom had settled over them that nothing seemed able to dispel. Roddy drank black coffee while Lauren sipped from a water bottle. Only Harry drank liquor, Jack Daniel’s from a shot glass he recharged from a bottle he’d bought. The other two adults looked like they wanted to join him but couldn’t make the effort to reach for the bottle. Miguel was the worst of the four.
The boy sat in his own chair but had moved it so he could be closer to Roddy. His face was desolate, inconsolable. His dark eyes, once bright, had dulled from the crying. Lauren would have given anything not to have told the boy that Mercer was gone.
He’d been so excited when they returned from the safe house, expecting that the object of his hero worship would be with her and Roddy and Mr. Harry. Even at twelve he was perceptive enough to read their drawn faces. It was a testament to his inner strength that he hadn’t started crying until Lauren stooped to enfold him in her arms and mutter apologies in Spanish.
His tears brought hers to the surface.
The pall of hopelessness that settled over them back at the safe house had come from a single phone call from the French embassy. When the call came through, Bruneseau, Foch, and the other Legionnaires were planning their operation to infiltrate the Twenty Devils Mine. Much of what they accomplished was based on speculation about the site, but they’d nailed down the details of reaching the facility and getting back out again.
And then the phone had rung. The communications officer at the French embassy located at the very end of Casco Viejo peninsula didn’t even know what the code phrase he related meant. Bruneseau did and told the assembled soldiers and civilians.
“Like I said earlier.” He had a twinge of superiority in his voice. “The missing uranium wasn’t missing after all. That call was the embassy. The team of regulators in Japan found that the fuel wasn’t put aboard the ship. In fact there was no fuel at all. A glitch in the computer that controlled their scales added extra weight to the containment cask in Rokkasho. The scales in France were perfectly calibrated, so it appeared that two hundred kilos were missing, when in fact they were never there.” He lit a celebratory cigarette. “Our mission in Panama is over. We’ve all been recalled. Me back to Paris and Foch and his team to their regular barracks at the Ariane spaceport.”
Lauren gaped. All her work convincing the agent to rescue Mercer, or at least look for him, had been nullified by the call. She could see that Rene Bruneseau would do nothing now except put the whole debacle behind him and hope it didn’t hurt his career. If Mercer had survived the car carrier, she knew he wouldn’t last long in Liu’s clutches. The French represented her only chance at mounting a credible rescue. Now it was gone.
“You won’t do anything to help him, will you?”
“I have my orders,” Rene replied in the classic dodging of personal obligation behind professional responsibility. She’d heard it countless times in her military career. Blindly following orders had doomed millions to senseless deaths and that list was about to include Philip Mercer.
Foch wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“This won’t end here.” She had no idea what that threat meant or how hollow it sounded but she needed to say something. She stormed from the safe house, unable to be around the Frenchmen any longer. A few seconds later, Harry and Roddy joined her and they drove in silence back to Roddy’s house.
For the first hours back at Roddy’s they’d talked about mounting their own rescue. Lauren explained that going to the embassy would be a wasted gesture and that it would take days, if not longer, to hire locals. Her main contacts in the mercenary underworld had all died when the Hatcherly helicopter had used depth charges to release the CO2 stored in the lake.
Now they sat with their thoughts, each feeling empty for the same reason.
Carmen Herrara was in the living room, knitting on the couch while her children played on the floor with coloring books. Framed behind her was an elaborate picture of Jesus, and only slightly smaller and a little lower on the wall was another of famed boxer and local hero Roberto Duran. She put down her knitting when the doorbell rang. Her eyes flew to her husband.
It was after eight P.M. Not knowing who would knock at this hour, he told her to take the children into the back of the three-bedroom home. Lauren moved next to the front door, her Beretta cocked and the safety off. Roddy swung it open and jumped aside.
“If Monsieur Bruneseau knew we were here, he’d kill us.” Behind Lieutenant Foch stood four of his troopers. Parked in the street was a rented moving van. “Mercer might not have taken the Legion oath,” Foch continued, “but he saved my life and Carlson’s. I. .” He looked back at the deadly expectation on his men’s faces. “We won’t leave him behind.”
The pause after his declaration lasted for many seconds as the emotions in the room swung one hundred and eighty degrees. Leave it to Harry to finally shatter it.
“ ’Bout time you sons a bitches showed up,” he called from the kitchen. “Foch, you’re even easier to read than Mercer. Knew you were coming the whole time.”
“If you knew they would help,” Lauren’s challenge was filled with delighted relief, “how come you’ve been sitting there as hangdog as the rest of us?”
Harry recharged his empty shot glass. “Needed an excuse to bend the elbow a few times. Now get your asses in here and let’s figure out how we’re going to get him back.”
