Mercer turned his back and called to Miguel to sit on his lap. To save Lauren further embarrassment, he whispered in the boy’s ear and they began belting out “Row Row Row Your Boat” at the top of their lungs. The off-key singing covered the metallic purr of Lauren using the pot.
“Thanks, boys,” she shouted over the cacophony after she’d rebuttoned the fly of her fatigues.
Once they’d all used the pan and its lid was held tight with tape, Lauren and Miguel drifted to sleep, leaving Mercer to continue with the pump. With his stomach rumbling from hunger, it was easy to stay awake through the long night. When his arms became too leaden to work, he pressed the bellows with his foot, tapping out a steady rhythm that kept the dark tent safe. His promised wake-up call to Lauren came and went and still he worked. It was only as a faint stroke from the still-distant dawn brushed their intimate cocoon that he roused her.
“It’s past five,” she complained, checking the man’s Rolex she wore on the inside of her wrist. “You were supposed to get me three hours ago.”
“I know. Sorry. I needed the time to think more than I needed to sleep. I can tell from the top of the trees that the wind’s shifted direction. Whatever gas that’s still pooled on the lake’s surface should get blown down the waterfall in a few minutes.”
“Thank God.”
That last quarter hour until Mercer felt it was safe was by far the worst. Fatigue and hunger made Miguel cranky and his petulant whine grated on the headache that had formed behind Mercer’s eyes. Lauren’s attempts to quiet him were futile. Worse for Mercer, his stomach continued to roil and he began to think it had nothing to do with a lack of food.
The first careful lungful of air tasted sweet when Mercer stuck his nose out of a small cut in the tent, bringing home full force how rancid the interior of their chrysalis had become. With a slash, he enlarged the hole and stepped out. His muscles had cramped from so much sitting. When he stretched his back a sharp stab of pain lanced his side.
“I’d say of the three of us, only you, Lauren, managed to come out of our cocoon looking as good as a butterfly.”
She smiled at his sweet attempt at a compliment. “I’ll give you moth, but not butterfly.”
For a few minutes, each took care of their body’s needs in the first measure of privacy they’d enjoyed in eleven hours and then met back at the skiff for the long row to shore.
The descent to the River of Ruin went much quicker than their trip up to the lake because Mercer carried Miguel for most of the way. Lauren felt that Mercer was trying to make up for the time they’d lost trapped on the island.
She could understand his motivation. The bulk of her military career had been spent in duties that had no set end or beginning. Peacekeeping in the Balkans had taken a year of her life and given back nothing. No sense of accomplishment, no sense of closure. And as a drug liaison in Panama, she felt her job was even more pointless. The Balkans could settle into some sort of peaceful coexistence eventually, but as long as there was despair on America’s streets, drugs would flow north to temporarily dull the pain.
The burned-out liaison officer she’d replaced at the embassy had used the Dutch boy and dike analogy when she’d taken the billet. After her first months on the job she realized that what she did was even more futile than that because no one really wanted the drug problem to end. It kept the disenfranchised medicated, it swelled the budgets of police forces and it gave the government a legitimate excuse to funnel billions of dollars into shaky Third World countries.
Seeing the way Mercer bound down the mountain with Miguel clinging to his back, Lauren could tell that whatever challenge he faced now would have an end. God knew what was really behind the helicopter attack or the attempted mugging in Paris, and yet he eagerly ran down a mountain to face it. That kind of confidence only came from a long record of successes. His victories cost him—she heard that in his voice when he talked about his parents—and still he did not balk from the fight. Her measure of him continued to go up.
She decided right then that she would help Mercer learn what was going on. This was far beyond the scope of her mission, but with such a small American presence in Panama, she felt she had a higher duty to discover the truth. Her instincts, like his, told her that Ruben’s murder and the mutilations were the beginning of something much larger. The drug-related homicides in La Palma she’d been investigating were one more spoke on a wheel of violence without end. Finding that killer would change nothing. In Mercer she saw the chance to end a mission with the kind of fulfillment the rest of her career had always denied her.
Half an hour after reaching the base of the waterfall, they were under way again. Mercer drove Ruben’s cousin’s motorboat down the river at full throttle, barely giving Gary’s camp a glance as they thundered past. He drove in a tight-lipped silence that Miguel and Lauren respected. When they reached El Real at noon, he avoided talking with any of the locals who came down to the wooden pier to meet them. The burial of so many people in the village had raised questions that he didn’t seem willing to answer. Again, Lauren and Miguel followed quietly as he led them to the airstrip where the plane he’d rented for Maria Barber had returned. The pilot was leaning on the wing.
“Give me a second alone,” Mercer asked his companions and climbed onto the plane. Once he and the pilot were in the cockpit, Mercer asked him to have a radio call patched into the phone system so he could call the United States. It took ten minutes and three calls to track down Harry White at Tiny’s Bar.
“Harry, I can’t talk long. Did Tiny get the package I sent to the bar from France?”
“He was hoping you’d include some good European pornography. Imagine his disappointment.”
“Funny. Listen, I don’t have time to go into it now, but I need you to fly down here with that journal.”
“Now you’re the one who’s being funny.”
“No bullshit, Harry. I need that journal and I can’t risk it getting lost by some shipping company. There’s a spare credit card in the center drawer of my desk. Take it and get yourself a plane ticket.” Mercer asked the pilot to name the best hotel in Panama City. “Book a room at the Hotel Caesar Park under your name in case I can’t meet you at the airport.”
“Why can’t you meet me at the airport?”
“Please, Harry, don’t ask me any questions. Just get down here with that journal.”
The seriousness in Mercer’s voice dried up whatever quip Harry had been planning. “You in trouble?”
“Yeah, buddy. I am.”
“I’ll stop by my place for my passport and will be there as quick as I can. For your sake, I’ll even fly coach.”
Mercer crawled out of the plane. The immeasurable relief that Harry would help sapped the last of his resolve. He’d been fighting his body since last night and could do so no longer. He allowed himself to tumble from the aircraft’s wing and barely had time to turn his head before he became violently ill. Lauren was fifty yards away buying Miguel some bananas from a fruit vendor who’d followed them from town. The retching sound drew her attention and she raced to Mercer’s side. His face was streaked with sweat and his lips had gone pale. His hands shook, and when he allowed the muscles in his face to go slack, his teeth chattered as if he were freezing. Lauren placed a hand on his forehead. His fever seemed to scald her hand.
“Jesus, are you okay? What’s the matter?”
“One second,” Mercer said weakly. He turned his head again and vomited even more copiously. His whole body shook with the fever. He tried to stand but couldn’t straighten because of the cramps. “A few days ago I went swimming in the Paris sewer. I think I picked up a few swim buddies. Dysentery’s my guess.”