“Why are we stopping here?” Neto asked.
“Because this thing won’t float.”
He had to jam the door into encroaching high bushes to get out. The canopy was so thick they couldn’t be spotted from above. Moonlight shone off the surface of the water. Frogs croaked.
Rampant foliage cloaked the lake, making it a good place to hide. He thought, A lake this size is probably fed by a stream or river, which means that there’s some form of town or hamlet nearby.
He looked at Davis’s gaunt, bruised face and said, “Help everyone get out. You’ll wait here while Neto and I get help.”
He pocketed the BlackBerry, then released the truck’s parking brake and with Neto’s help pushed it into the lake. Turning to the four men, he saw they looked weak and dehydrated. He tried the water, which tasted clean.
“Drink,” he whispered. “We all need water.”
The water seemed to revive them. They circled right into even denser foliage and stopped. Cal, who Crocker had been carrying, continued to slip into and out of consciousness. His heartbeat seemed normal, but his pulse felt weak. No apparent fractures to his skull; no major wounds to his body.
Must be some sort of blunt force injury or concussion, Crocker concluded, holding Cal up, giving him water, and washing the shit off his face.
Cal opened his gray eyes, blinked, and asked, “Boss, where are we?”
“You’re gonna wait here with Manny and the others. I’m going to get help.”
“I want to come with you.”
Crocker smiled to himself. “No, you stay here.”
He led the way through the shallow edge of the lake to the other side, then up an embankment to a spot that was heavily wooded and defendable.
Cal looked around and asked, “Where’s Sanchez? We forgot Sanchez. He was with us.”
“Sanchez is dead,” Neto said, clenching his jaw and looking down at his feet.
They left two of the pistols with Mancini and Davis. Crocker and Neto took the other pistol and the knife, slid down the embankment, and found the feeder stream, which they followed for half an hour to a small village.
Crocker said, “You take the knife and see if you can find a phone.”
Neto: “Where should I tell them to meet us?”
Crocker: “Tell them we’ll be waiting by the path that leads into the forest. If you’re coming from the prison, it’s about thirty yards after the first big bend in the road. Tell them to flash their headlights three times and I’ll come out.”
“Got it.”
Two and a half hours later, just as the sun was starting to light up the sky and men with dogs and flashlights were searching the other side of the road, Crocker saw three black SUVs stop about two hundred feet away. After the lead vehicle flashed its lights three times, he stepped out onto the road and waved. They pulled closer, and six heavily armed men dressed in black emerged to start loading them in. No questions asked; no words exchanged. They sped twenty minutes to an airstrip, where the four SEALs and Neto boarded a Gulfstream IV.
A half hour later, Crocker, Mancini, and Neto deplaned in Caracas. Davis and Cal stayed on the jet, which continued to Panama City, where the two men were taken by ambulance to Hospital Punta Pacifica.
Chapter Sixteen
Rectitude is one’s power to decide upon a course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering; to die when to die is right, to strike when to strike is right.
– Nitobe Inazo
Crocker, Mancini, and Neto were examined, X-rayed, and patched up by a doctor and nurse at a clinic, then driven to the safe house in La Florida, where they crashed. Crocker heard Mancini shouting in his sleep, “They’re coming! Quick! Find a place to hide!”
That afternoon after he woke and was limping from the living room to the kitchen, he heard rap music, then saw a big young African American man sitting on the sofa, typing on a laptop.
Recognizing him, Crocker said, “Tré, what the fuck are you doing here?”
Tré’s real name was Dante Tremaine. Why the former marine and University of Nevada, Las Vegas basketball player was called Tré had never been explained to him. Maybe it was because he’d been an excellent three-point shooter in college, or maybe it was because Tré was an abbreviation of his last name, which was pronounced Tree-maine, not Tray-maine. Crocker knew him as an expert munitions and weapons man, a tireless worker, and a fun guy to be around despite his complicated personal life, which involved three children with two women.
“Captain Sutter sent me ’cause of what went down with Ritchie,” Tré responded with a toothy smile.
“How’s Rich?”
“He’s making slow progress, but it’s gonna take a while.”
“How long you been here in Caracas?”
“Two days, one night.”
“Well, it might be a short deployment,” Crocker observed.
“Whatever happens is cool with me,” Tré responded. “Oh, and the Captain wants you to call him when you’re awake.”
“I’m awake now.”
“If you say so.” Tré smiled.
Crocker had suspected he might be hearing from his CO after what had happened in Foz and Barinas. Pointing to the half-eaten protein bar on the wooden coffee table, he asked, “Where’d you find the Promax bar?”
“There’s a whole box in the kitchen,” Tré responded. “Help yourself.”
He gobbled one down with a quart of milk he found in the refrigerator.
Tré pointed to the multiple burn marks and bandages crisscrossing Crocker’s torso and said, “Fuck, man. Looks like someone used you as a dartboard.”
“I ran into some lit cigarettes.”
“Hope you punished them sons-a-bitches.”
Crocker grinned. “Some of them, yeah.”
Tré chuckled. “That’s what I dig about you, chief. The glass might be a drip or so from empty, but you always see the silver lining. Like the movie, right?”
Crocker hadn’t seen a movie in months. He lifted the receiver of the STU secure telephone, picked up the key that lay beside it, inserted it into the hole at the top of the phone, and turned it. Then he pointed at the stereo and said, “Turn it down.”
Tré said, “Those are my brothers Kanye and Jay-Z.”
As Crocker punched in the numbers, he muttered, “It’s all the same nasty rap shit to my ears.”
“Then you need some educating to appreciate where it’s coming from-lyrically, I mean.”
“Turn it down or plug in.”
Captain Sutter picked up in his office at SEAL Six command and spoke in his distinctive Kentucky drawl, “Sutter here. Who’s this?”
“It’s Warrant Officer Crocker, sir, calling from Caracas.”
“Chief Tom Crocker, speak of the devil. Several of us here were just talking about you. We expected you and Mancini to continue to Panama City with the rest of your team.”
“There was no need, sir,” Crocker said. “The two of us are ready and able to continue with the mission.”
“Jesus Christ, Crocker, don’t you ever stop?” Sutter asked.
“Stop, sir? What for?”
“Stop, as in take a break, heal, attend to your mental health, smell the friggin’ roses.”
“Sir?”
“I know you, Crocker, and I know you push yourself beyond the breaking point. I’ve heard your motto: Blood from every orifice. I admire your dedication and courage, but everyone has their limits.”
Crocker said, “I know that, sir, but maybe my limits aren’t as narrow as you or I think they are. The point is, I only suffered minor cuts and bruises. I’m rested and ready to go.”
Sutter snorted. “Bullshit.”
“Sir?”
“Maybe I heard wrong, but I was told on good authority that you suffered a major concussion, then spent a day and a half being tortured. Now you’re ready to go? Go where? An insane asylum?”