River of Ruin

complained he’d call his friends, yes?”

“Oui, oui, oui,” said Harry, “all the way home.”

Lauren disagreed. “More than likely his squad leader is waiting for a report right now.”

“Devil One to Heaven. Zero minute in two.” Patke’s voice sounded like it came from inside her head.

“They’re going in two minutes,” she told the others.

“Foch, give me your best guess,” Mercer asked over his shoulder without looking at the Legionnaire. He kept his attention on the chain-link fence separating the tourist parking lot from the one used by canal employees. “How long do you think it’ll take them to neutralize the ship?”

“If Liu took off most of her crew like we think, and with the element of surprise, it shouldn’t take more then seven to ten minutes. Figure two men to the bridge, two to the crew’s spaces and two to engineering.”

Mercer started the truck’s engine. “All right.”

“What are you doing?” Lauren asked.

“You are right. That Chinese soldier’s gonna be missed. No way we can wait here for ten or fifteen minutes. Might as well get to the pilot boats early.”

“Should you tell Patke?” Rene asked.

Lauren said no. “He’s got enough on his mind.”

The fence was a hundred yards away, a diaphanous wall of wire mesh that stretched from the water all the way to the Gamboa Highway. Mercer left the big truck in low gear, trying not to appear suspicious. As they rolled across the wet asphalt, his view back to the lock chambers changed and he could see the great doors had parted before the Mario diCastorelli. She was being pulled free by heavy lines running from the towing engines through her fairleads.

When they were twenty yards from the fence, he knew that nothing he did now wouldn’t look unusual to the guards Liu had stationed here during this critical transit. He mashed the accelerator. The truck hummed and the wheels turned shallow puddles into a cloud of mist that rose in their wake like smoke.

All at once, the air around them seemed to explode, a sharp report that pounded on their eardrums painfully.

For a frantic second they all thought the Mario diCastorelli had detonated. A moment later they saw a flash of lightning and another deafening clap of thunder assaulted them. It was just the storm.

“Hold on!” Mercer called as they reached the fence.

He steered for one of the support poles. The truck barely paused as the steel bent under the bumper and a section of fencing sagged and then fell under the wheels. They drove over it and Mercer accelerated again, racing across the large employee parking lot, weaving along rows of workers’ cars.

At the far end of the lot was a dirt road that ran behind a series of low structures. Mercer tore down this road, shielded from the canal by the corrugated metal buildings, slowing only when they reached a boat ramp. Next to the access ramp lay a small inlet with a cement pier where four of the Canal Authority’s utility boats were moored. They were sturdy little craft with black hulls and white upperworks broken up by numerous windows for easy visibility on the busy waterway. Each boat was festooned with orange flotation rings and other safety gear.

Mercer braked hard at the base of the quay. He felt more than heard the Legionnaires pile from the rear. He pulled the.45 from his waistband and jacked a round into the chamber, not that he thought any hapless employee would resist the French soldiers and their wicked-looking FAMAS assault rifles.

“This is Devil One. We are on the target undetected. Switch to channel two.”

Lauren guessed Captain Patke and his men had simply jumped aboard from the seawall and were now hiding somewhere on the deck of the Mario diCastorelli. She changed channels on her small radio as the commando leader continued his report. “Target is being held in position after clearing the lock, possibly for submersible attachment. Ship that just exited the second lock has also stopped while a third vessel is in the chamber about to be raised. Also, be advised the seawalls around the locks are crawling with heavily armed Chinese.”

“Roger, Devil One. Don’t forget that the Canal Authority has stationed two Panamanian guards on all transiting ships. Over.”

“Haven’t forgotten, Angel. Out.”

With Lieutenant Foch leading them, they reached one of the pilot boats without being seen. The door lock was a puny affair that the Frenchman kicked apart with one blow. Sergeant Rabidoux, their electronics and arms expert, went straight to the cockpit to get at the ignition wires under the automobile-like dashboard. Never one to do more work than necessary, Harry followed him and found the keys in a cup holder.

He jingled them near his waist and the young trooper slithered back to his feet, mildly embarrassed.

“Don’t start the engine yet,” Mercer cautioned. “We’ve got a good enough view of the boatyard to see anyone coming. No sense drawing attention to ourselves.”

“Now what?” Bruneseau asked.

“We wait to hear from Devil One,” Lauren said. She moved next to Mercer and kept an eye on the rain-lashed marina. “And when they succeed we all go home.”

Out the stern window and across the small aft deck the canal ran green and turgid. On the far bank, the earth had been recently sculpted into a gentle slope to slow the remorseless landslides that continuously threatened to re-bury the canal. Where open grassland gave way to the concrete locks, the Mario diCastorelli sat motionless between the seawall extensions, presumably awaiting word from the divers that the diverter submarine was in place. Next to her, the Robert T. Change waited a few lengths from the lock. Behind her floated the Englander Rose, an almost exact copy of the tramp freighter preceding her through the canal.

Lightning danced in jagged tributaries that came dangerously close to the ground. Thunder pealed across the hills in crashing blasts that would certainly mask the sound of gunfire.

“Angel!” The cry came in Lauren’s headset so loudly that she winced. “This is. . Oh, screw it. Lauren, it’s Roddy. Put Mercer on fast.”

She gave him the earpiece and attached throat mike. “Something’s wrong. It’s Roddy.” Her hands were no longer so steady.

“Go ahead.”

“Mercer, I’m on the diCastorelli’s bridge. There’s no one on the ship. I mean no Chinese agents. The crew are all Greeks and Filipinos. The pilot’s a Panamanian friend of mine. Patke’s down in the hold right now. Just like the manifest says she’s carrying scrap steel and cement powder.”

Oh Jesus! “Could the explosives be hidden in the cement?”

“There isn’t that much of it for one thing,” Roddy shouted, on the edge of panic. “Patke says he’s already had his men tear into a few of the pallets. It really is just bags of Portland. I’m telling you, this isn’t the ship!”

Mercer looked around the crowded pilot boat. “We’ve got the wrong freighter.”

Rene Bruneseau was the first to react. His face turned crimson and he lunged for Harry, pinning the old man against a bulkhead. “You senile fool,” he screamed. “This is your fault.”

Foch launched himself at the spy, prying his hands from Harry’s collar and tossing the Frenchman onto the deck. “Touch him again and you’re dead,” he snarled.

“What do we do?” Roddy cried over the radio.

“How about it, Harry?” Mercer’s voice was grave, laden with frustration.

Harry White made no apologies for being wrong. He’d made his best guess and the others had readily agreed. Castor was one of the Gemini twins and there were no other vessels with such a name or anything containing Pollux, the other brother. His assumption that Liu Yousheng chose the code word Gemini based on the name of the vessel had been dead wrong. Without a reference point, there was no way he could deduce the right ship.

For all he knew the bomb ship had already passed the lock and was in position in the Gaillard Cut, ready to take down the massive Contractor’s and Gold Hill in an explosion that wouldn’t be much smaller than an atomic bomb.

Or the incendiaries were on one of the ships still to come; maybe on the Robert T. Change, which was just passing the pilot boat, or the Englander Rose steaming in her wake. Hell, it could be on the cruise ship for all he knew or any one of the tankers, container ships,