Spy (42 page)

D
eep below ground. In La Selva Negra’s heavily fortified underground communications bunker, Muhammad Top and Dr. Khan were silent eyewitnesses to history. Neither said a word. It was cold in the Tomb, but it was the safest place in the jungle. The walls were steel reinforced concrete, six feet thick. Hardened steel blast doors could be found on both the dormitory level and the one above it, where the electronic heart of Top’s world buzzed day and night. A massive antenna tower, disguised down to the rough bark and air roots as a tree, rose directly above the compound. It was, Top thought, a brilliant work of sculptural art.

The two men, bathed in soft blue light, stared with greedy eyes. They embraced the vision displayed on the monitors: a humbled America, blown apart at the heart. There, on multiple flat-screens mounted on a curving, twenty-foot wall, were images of violence, hatred, and destruction. A hot wind was blowing through America. Few realized yet that it was coming up from the south.

The bunker building had been designed by Khan. Men manning the five rows of ten monitor stations were facing northeast toward Mecca. Before dawn, each man in the room had washed himself according to ritual, then knelt and bent his head to the floor, praying for martydom. An attack could come at any time. They were ready.

It was succeeding. Top knew, because the hand of Allah was with him, lifting him toward the sun. Top had seen the future. All was going according to Destiny. His destiny. His alone.

Various monitors depicted units of the American National Guard units now manning the borderlines of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. Too little, too late, in the eyes of Top and Khan, this vain effort to suppress the violent eruptions along those fragile 2,000 miles.

It was only a feint, at any rate. Khan had predicted a full-blown war with Mexico over the border. For all they knew, it still might happen. Two nations, one border. Always an opportunity. For two years, Khan had held secret meetings with the Mexicans. These had been arranged with the help of a certain German Ambassador, a man named Zimmermann, now dead. Zimmermann, accompanied by certain high-ranking members of the government in Mexico City had traveled to Sao Paolo and brokered a deal with Khan.

The Mexicans’ motives were clear. It wasn’t the spread of Islam that ignited them. Or drew them into Khan’s coterie. With the exception of the German, it wasn’t even money. It was the chance to avenge the abuse and perfidy suffered at the hands of their northern neighbor. And to reclaim precious northern territories seized by the Yankees in the bitter U.S.-Mexican War of 1848.

The movement of the few remaining American reserves to hotspots along the southern border meant major cities, including Washington, DC, were woefully exposed to the impending attack. When the time came for the second wave of his planned attacks, there would be plenty of fireworks in Chicago, New York, Boston. But the Big Bang, as Top gleefully dubbed his first strike, was reserved for the sacred capital.

The only real misfortune thus far was the loss of the Muammar Massaouri family, three of the faithful, devoted sleeper comrades, who seemed to have been sacrificed at the farm in Virginia. The Massaouris had missed a scheduled sat com call with the UCB. This was to be an internet data burst, subsequent to the successful launch of the unmanned vehicle. The message never came. All attempts to contact them had failed. It was assumed Dr. Massaouri and his family had been killed.

To their everlasting glory, the Massaouris had successfully launched the unmanned underwater weapon. Even now,
Bedouin
was en route to the target thirty miles north of Morning Glory Farm. The video images streaming from the submarine’s nose camera were murky and dark but of no crucial importance.

The sophisticated UUV, an unmanned underwater vehicle developed over the years by Dr. Khan for littoral area incursions, was transporting the 150-kiloton nuclear weapon. After undergoing months of successful sea trials here on the Igapo River,
Bedouin
had been preprogrammed with GPS waypoints for navigating the Potomac en route to her destination in Washington. Every hour, a needle-thin antenna broke the surface for a data burst to the com sat traveling far overhead.

So far, God willing, the little torpedo-shaped craft was performing perfectly.

She weighed just less than two tons. She was powered by a large bank of lithium batteries, quiet and undetectable. In the busy river, the noise of
Bedouin
’s propulsion system would also be unnoticeable. The underwater robot’s forward-looking radar allowed it to make constant course corrections to avoid obstacles or other craft in its path. At its current speed, twenty-two knots, it would reach the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, well ahead of schedule. The thick lead shield inside the hull would prevent its detection by any nuclear-sensitive probes along the way.

Once inside the basin,
Bedouin
would remain there, inert and immobile, buried in the mud a few thousand yards from the White House until the appointed hour.

The Appointed Hour. It was drawing nigh. Top sighed, and gazed at the over-sized digital clock above the monitor bank. It continued to roll down inexorably to the zero hour, now a thousand minutes away. He was thinking in minutes now. Even seconds. And every one counted.

“Where is Hawke?” he shouted to one of the technicians manning the perimeter defense system. “Get the map up on the screen.”

“The blinking orange dot is Hawke’s vessel,” Dr. Khan pointed out.

“I don’t want a fucking dot, I want a live picture.”

Khan looked at him, but held his tongue. They had come a long way together. It was no time to let the man’s intemperate behavior distract him from his destiny. Any blasphemy could be tolerated now. In a few hours, it would be his finger on the button.

A technician said, “We have no drone on him at this moment, sir.”

“Why not?”

“The enemy shot it down, sir. A missile.”

Silence, save the electronic hum of the equipment, settled over the room.

“He has missiles on this fucking speedboat? Why was I not informed?” Top asked, trying to keep his voice low and controlled.

The short technician with the bushy beard was visibly trembling now. “It only just happened, sir. A few minutes ago. I thought you’d been told.”

Top waved him away. “Assuming the vessel maintains current speed, when does the enemy enter the mined portion of the river?”

“Two hours, perhaps less.”

“Track his speed. Any change, let me know.”

Suddenly, Khan’s hand was on his shoulder and his lips were close to his ear. “I think you should take him out with attack drones,” Khan said softly, eyes up on the screen. “Take him out now, my brother, and be done with him.”

Top’s eyes flashed. “Did you not hear what this man just said? He’s got a missile defense system! The acoustic mines will protect us from this mosquito. Nothing could survive that stretch of water.”

“With all due respect, my dear brother, I imagine we have more drones than he has missiles. His is not a warship, after all.”

“You imagine! What if you’re wrong? What then? I’m left defenseless.”

“Muhammad, calm yourself. We’ve been at this too long without sleep. I’m going to rest in my quarters until the final hour approaches. Please let me know should anything develop that requires my immediate attention.”

Without another word, the robed man strode toward the elevator at the back of the darkened room. Top watched him leave with some satisfaction. He had no need of him now. Destiny was in his hands alone.

“Any word from the Xucurus?” Top asked the room.

“Nothing yet,” a controller murmured, afraid to look up.

Before reaching the small elevator, Khan paused at the last row of flat-screen monitor workstations. Each workstation was a semi-enclosed pod and comprised a small, virtual-reality environment for the controllers. The key components were screens displaying live streaming video from the trailer trucks en route to Washington.

Once the trucks resurfaced inside the cartel-owned garage at Gunbarrel, Texas, they had been driven northeast by diverse routes to the American capital. Live video superimposed upon 3-D situation maps using satellite photos, made the controllers work possible. GPS coordinates and a multidirectional live video feed from each vehicle were fed to a COMS satellite positioned over the East Coast of the North American continent.

Inside each monitor pod sat a controller and a sensor operator. The man on the left actually drove the vehicle; while the other monitored every kind of road, traffic, and weather condition. He ensured all traffic laws were strictly obeyed. In combat, he would also provide constant battleground feedback, giving second-by-second direction to the controller. These were the men who actually operated the remote machines, using a large joystick resembling something in an arcade.

“I’d mind your trucks if I were you, Muhammad,” Khan said, just loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room. “One of them appears to be lost.”

“What?”

“See for yourself, my brother,” Khan said, tapping the monitor in question. “This one appears to be lost in the snow.”

Khan stepped aside for Top who peered intently at the image. There was so much snow whirling around the camera lens that it was difficult to see what was being broadcast. “You’re lost?” he said to the young curly-haired controller, whose name was Yashim.

“Only momentarily, God willing,” Yashim said.

“Shit. Police. Two of them. How did this happen?”

He leaned in to scrutinize the scene. Two uniformed officers could now clearly be seen standing at the rear of the truck. Both were looking up at the rear door. One appeared to have some sort of battering ram in his hands.

Khan said, “The truck was stopped by police? Why? And you alerted no one?”

Yahshim trembled visibly and said, “I am most sorry, sir. In the storm, we lost the route through the park. A wrong turn perhaps. The snow. I thought I could find it again. But, then I—”

“Where is the truck located?” Top shouted, “Now! Put up the GPS map! Show me!”

“Here, sir. In Rock Creek Park,” the sensor operator said, his voice shaky. “About three miles from its rendezvous point in this heavily wooded area.”

“What’s this large building? The one here?”

“Walter Reed Hospital. Veterans’ facility.”

“Blow up the truck,” Top said evenly. “Use the anti-tampering explosive device in the trailer.”

Each truck was equipped with an anti-tampering system that could be triggered remotely. Or, in the event that the primary contents of the truck were in any way disturbed, the explosive package would destroy both the vehicle and its contents automatically. So far, the police had only broken a window in the cab. It had not been enough to trigger the automatic explosion.

“Now?” Yashim asked.

“You’d like to wait for the two policeman to discover the contents and alert their superiors? Yes, now. Do it!”

The controller pushed a button marked FIRE and the resulting violent explosion instantly caused the screen to go black.

“Your mission is complete,” Top said to the man seated before him. He put the muzzle of his pistol to the back of the controller’s head and fired one round into his brain. The sensor operator seated next to him screamed and shoved his chair back, struggling to get to his feet.

“Yours, too,” he said to the second man before he killed him, putting the muzzle to his chest and pulling the trigger.

Top made his way to the front of the room, every eye glued to him.

“That was unfortunate. But, necessary. Victory is near. I assume there will be no further trucks lost in the snow. Correct?”

“God willing!” the controllers all shouted in unison. It was standard Arabic courtesy to give God the benefit of the doubt.

“God willing you will all be alive to share the fruits of our victory in a few hours. Now, get back to work. All trucks should be at their designated rendezvous locations and unloading their precious cargo in the next hour. Does anyone in this room see a problem with that? Tell me now.”

Silence.

“Good. Let it be.”

“A thousand pardons, sir,” a technician in the front row said, breaking the silence.

“Yes?”

“Hawke’s vessel has stopped. Here. At an abandoned village called Tupo.”

“How long has he been there?”

“Just pulled in. There’s a dock. Could be loading or unloading.”

“Tanks nearby?”

“One, sir.”

“Send it to the location. And order four drones up. Attack drones. Perhaps Dr. Khan is right. Nevertheless. I want to sink that sitting duck. Now.”

Khan smiled and slipped quietly from the room.

An old song popped into his head and he sang a lyric softly as he entered the elevator.

Send in the drones…

B
rock was late for his scheduled river rendezvous with Alex Hawke. He’d been making his way through the jungle to the outpost at Tupo when he got into a life or death race with some tanks. He’d accidentally tripped a sensor and a whole squadron of Trolls had been sent out to find him. He seemed to have confused most of the joystick jockeys when he’d crossed a wide ravine, deftly tightrope-walking a fallen tree to the other side. Now he realized another of the little bastards was still on his butt.

Before he’d found the ravine, this last group almost got him. He’d carved one out of the pack and tried to climb aboard and bull-ride the damn thing like he and Saladin had perfected. The smartass controller had applied full throttle forward to one track, full reverse to the other. The Troll spun like a goddamn top on its axis and flung him off into the bushes.

High fives in the control room, oh yeah.

This new guy was seriously spitting lead. The air was full of tracer rounds, too, the shrubbery getting chewed to pieces all around him as the guy tried to find his range. Head down, pumping his knees high, bobbing and weaving, Harry ran for his life. He was seeing sunlight ahead now. The river was close. There was the dock through the trees. He could make out a boat, a crazy looking black boat, had to be a hundred feet long, waiting at the end.

Had to be Hawke. Nobody else he knew would have a boat like that. He’d almost missed his ride. Fucking Troll remote operators had gotten their shit together, all right. All that practice with Harry and Saladin had made them a lot better at this game. Harry ran for daylight.

He tripped over a big root, cursed as he went down. Now he was up and running for his life again. The tank was still on his ass, spitting lead at him. He dodged and feinted, using the thick undergrowth as cover. He was almost to the clearing.

Now he had to sprint across open ground. There was dilapidated shed at the foot of the dock, about a hundred yards away. As he got closer, he saw machine gun turrets on Hawke’s boat. Shoot back, you assholes! Get this tank off my ass! Fifty cals on the bow and stern. Christ, there was even one up on top of the wheelhouse! What the hell was going on? Were they all asleep?

No, they were just busy.

Unseen by Harry Brock, armed drones were approaching the black gunship moored at the end of the dock. Hawke was up on top of the wheelhouse with Ecclestone who was manning the .23mm cannon. Both men were keenly focused on enemy craft approaching from every compass point. Hawke had his glasses on the tiny black specks dead ahead, another drone flying low over the water toward his bow. Hawke was straining his eyes, trying to determine if there were missiles on the wingtips or if these were just more recon flights. He’d no intention of wasting another PAM on a mere recon.

“Radar showing four small drone aircraft approaching out of the west-southwest, sir, altitude two hundred feet, speed fifty-five knots,” he heard Fire Control Officer Lewis say in his headphones. “Range one mile.”

“Four bogies?” Hawke said.

“Four, roger. Three bogies are breaking formation. Climbing. Looks like they intend to circle around behind us, sir. The lead one, too, seems to be climbing. Appears to be circling. Looks like a holding pattern.”

Why send four when one would do?
Hawke wondered.

“Awaiting further orders, I expect. Keep an eye on them, Lewis.” He told the Fire Control Officer.

Then he heard rapid machine gun fire from the bank and saw Harry Brock emerge from the jungle. He’d been waiting nearly an hour and was about to give orders to shove off. He’d no desire to remain a sitting duck any longer than he had to. But, here Harry came, running flat out toward the clearing. Somebody was shooting at him, but who, or, what?

A tank. Small, but fast and firing twin machine guns at his friend Harry. One of the two robots that had been shadowing them no doubt.

“Ecclestone,” Hawke said to the gunner seated inside the heavily armored Plexiglas turret.

“Sir!”

“Do you think you can take out that little tank without killing Mr. Brock?”

“Aye, aye, sir. I think I’ve got a shot.”

The turret instantly rotated ninety degrees west and the GUN DISH got a lock on the approaching robot Troll. Hawke felt the deck shudder beneath him as Ecclestone squeezed off a burst from the .23mm cannons. The muzzles flashed, spouting flame as they recoiled. Hawke saw the small tank lifted up high in the air by the exploding rounds, disintegrating in a perfectly symmetrical ball of fire and flaming debris.

Harry kept running down the long dock.

“Come along, Harry,” Hawke shouted through cupped hands from the roof, “We’re about to shove off without you!”

“You can’t leave me! I’m your ticket to Paradise, Hawke,” Harry said, pounding down the rotting boards of the sharply canted structure.

“Let’s get out of here!” Hawke shouted, his focus back on the rapidly approaching drone. “Cast off all lines!”

The crew hastily cast off the bow, stern, and spring lines made fast to the dock pilings. Harry Brock, seeing the water opening up between himself and Hawke’s boat, had to leap for it. He made it, arms pinwheeling, and a waiting crewman wrestled him safely aboard.

“Hello, Hawkeye,” he smiled up at Alex who was standing on the cabin top looking down at him. “Permission to come aboard, sir?”

“Hello, Harry. Permission granted.”

A nearby explosion rocked the boat on its beam and a geyser of water shot fifty feet in the air. The dock where Harry had been standing seconds ago, was no more. Harry and the crew stowing lines on the starboard side were knocked to their knees and had to scramble to stay aboard.

“I should have mentioned we’re under attack. You might want to get inside where it’s nice and safe, Harry.”

“Is there no peace?” Brock muttered, getting to his feet.

“We’ve got four confirmed armed drones, Skipper,” Lewis said in the phones. “Fore and aft, and two more on our stern quarters, sir. Closing at eighty knots. Armed with Hellfire-type missiles. Request permission for immediate launch PAM weapons system, sir.”

“Denied. These things are slow moving. Ecclestone and the fore and aft turrets should be sufficient. Save PAM for when we really need it. Fire when ready. I’m going to the bridge.”

Hawke stepped on to the top rung, lightly gripped the stainless ladder rails, and slid down onto the bridge deck. Brownlow was at the wheel, Harry and Stokely were embracing just aft of him, pounding each other on the shoulders.

“Break it up,” Hawke said, clapping Harry on the back. Despite his misgivings about the American, he was very glad to see him. Brock stuck out his hand and Hawke shook it. “Been a while, Harry. Good to see you.”

“Likewise. I didn’t think—”

Harry’s sentence was interrupted by the muffled but still loud chatter of both fore and aft twin fifty calibers opening up at the same time, a metallic cacophony enhanced by the heavy thudding of the cannon directly overhead.

“Incoming!” Brownlow shouted. “Hit the—”

Hawke saw the missile streaking directly for the wheelhouse. A second later an explosion directly overhead rocked the boat, sending all three men inside the wheelhouse to the deck. Hawke scrambled over to the ladder and climbed topside. The cannon turret had taken a nearly direct hit and Ecclestone was slumped forward over his weapon, blood pouring from a deep gash in his forehead. Hawke pulled the man from his station and saw that he was wounded in several places but still very much alive.

“Get below,” he said to the dazed man, helping him to the ladder. Off to his left he saw one drone explode, brought down by fire from the stern gunner, whose turret was now rotating clockwise to take out the drone on their aft starboard quarter.

“Can’t walk too well, sir,” Ecclestone said. Then Stokely emerged at the top of the ladder, lending a hand.

“I’ll take him below, boss,” he said, and Hawke steered the wounded man to his waiting arms. He heard a nearby explosion as another drone was blown out of the sky by the
Stiletto
stern gunners. The boat was moving rapidly through the water now, thirty knots perhaps, making her harder to hit. The one remaining drone, the one that had fired the initial missile, had circled back again and was now on another approach coming directly at them low out of the sun.

“Let’s see if this damn thing still works,” Hawke said, slipping into the seat inside the damaged turret of the 23mm anti-aircraft gun. The weapon was equipped with its own GUN DISH radar, capable of acquiring, tracking, and engaging low-flying aircraft, like the drone now attacking
Stiletto.
It fired full auto, but Hawke had ordered the gun set at bursts of two to three rounds to conserve precious ammunition. No time to change that now.

He squinted his eyes, trying to use the conventional optical sight, aided by the GUN DISH. The sun was fierce and blinding, but he thought he had the little bugger. A sharp beeping tone agreed. He had target acquistion. He had the bastard in his sights now, centering it in the red crosshairs, seeing the one missile remaining on the port wing, knowing it would be fired at any second…and squeezing both triggers simultaneously, he blew the drone out of the sky.

H
ALF AN HOUR
later, Hawke, Stokely, the Frogman, and Brock were huddled in the boat’s tiny war room, deep into refining their plans with the aid of Brock’s much-needed information. It had already been decided that, instead going in with two squads, Stoke and Froggy would mount a combined operation.

Best of all, Brock had even created a rough but reasonable facsimile of the compound itself, rendered in black pencil on the back of a map of the Amazon Basin’s Mata Grosso region. Because of the canopy, Mick Hocking had been unable to get any aerial recon photos. Now, at least, the team could visualize the objective.

“A large force here to the north?” Hawke asked, studying the crude map.

“Saladin has his scouts tracking the main body of Top’s troops. He has begun moving them out.”

“I’
D SAY THE TROOPS
remaining inside the compound number about a hundred right now,” Brock said. “The hard core Imperial Guards, let’s call them. The vast majority of troops have moved north and west, using these jerry-built highways you helped build in the jungle. I saw three armored divisions pull out late last night.”

“Headed where?”

“Central America is all I know. All the way to Mexico, maybe, join up with forces in the mountains up there. The idea is, once they take the Great Satan out, that’s the signal. Then the troops fan out into the countryside, get the populations to rise up, and they all march together on the cities. Knock them down one by one. Take the capitals.”

“They all want to be the next Bolívar,” Hawke said, rubbing his chin.

“These guys want it all. And they think now’s the time to go for it. Who’s going to stop them?”

“You got inside,” Hawke said, smiling. “Good work, Harry.”

“I’ve still got someone inside. A woman named Caparina. She could probably take Top down all by herself.”

Hawke looked at Brock’s baggy pajamalike fatigues. “Disguised like that?”

“Exactly. Except she’s wearing a fatigue hat pulled down over her ears. And these green camo pajamas like all of Top’s grunts in there. She’d be hard to spot. We all look equally bad.”

“You don’t know where they’re keeping Ambrose Congreve, do you, Harry?”

“Hard to say.”

“Christ, Harry, what’s this woman doing in there?”

Harry spun the hand-rendered chart of the compound around on the table so that it was facing him. He knew this was Hawke’s primary objective now. “Hold your horses. Let me look at this thing a second.”

“Talk to me.”

“All right. Based on Caparina’s last radio transmission, I’d say there is a good chance they might stow any hostages right here.”

His finger was pointing to a cluster of tree houses at the edge of the compound, hard by the main bridge.

“Why there?”

“Caparina managed to get herself assigned to some scutwork on the bridge. Raking debris from all this rain. She said she heard a lot of very unpleasant noises coming from the three houses by the river.”

“When was this?”

“1100 hours. She’s got a radio stashed somewhere.”

“Ambrose was still alive at 1100 hours,” Hawke said, looking at Stokely and then his watch.

“We’ll get him out,” Stoke said to Alex, “Don’t worry.”

“Tell me about this structure here,” Hawke said, pointing to another location a few hundred yards from the river.

“Communications and Control. Call it the ‘Tomb’. About twenty feet underground. Steel blast doors, reinforced concrete walls six feet thick. It’s a bitch, all right.”

“Any tomb will do,” Hawke said, “Where is Saladin now?”

“Moving his squad through the jungle toward this location here. Airstrip I found two miles from the west perimeter. He’ll wait there for our signal before moving into the compound to rendezvous.”

“Rendezvous point?”

“Right here. I told Saladin we’d hook up half mile above the bridge connecting the two sectors.”