Beyond the terminal lay the main channel of the Panama Canal and on the far bank the lights of another dockside facility. A ship was passing up the canal on its way to the first set of locks at Miraflores, its lights reflected in the black water. Behind them was Quarry Heights, the former headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command. To reach their target, they needed to shimmy a thousand feet and cross over several other towers. The warehouse sat alone in its chain-link redoubt, and all but its roof was bathed in artificial light. Smaller than the other storehouses, it still measured about a hundred feet wide and at least four times as long.
Mercer studied the cableway. The two main lines shooting off into the darkness were about two feet apart. Up close they looked thick and substantial, tight braids of steel wire pulled so taut they felt like iron bars. But when he looked across the port, the wires became like a gossamer lattice over the facility, as insubstantial as thread.
“Are you ready?” he asked Lauren after they’d caught their breath.
“You did notice that they are using this system, didn’t you?” Lauren pointed to where a container glided silently across the night, held aloft by a grapple crane running along the wires.
“Victor said the warehouse is off limits. I doubt they’ll move any containers our way.”
“They’d better not.” Tentatively, Lauren took a step onto the tandem wires, bending over so she could grasp with her hands as well. Just over her shoulder, the electrified third cable seemed to hum.
“Careful not to get too close to the other wire,” Mercer cautioned as he followed her. “Your body may cause an arc.”
The cables were coated in grease and each step demanded attention before weight could be shifted. Their gloves became so slick they took them off, absorbing small cuts from the sharp strands rather than lose the control of direct contact. Like a pair of monkeys they shuffled along the wire, not daring to contemplate the eight-story drop. Below them, workers continued their duties without looking up to see the dark shadows moving along the cableway.
When they reached the next tower, Mercer checked his watch. Half an hour had already passed since their arrival at the terminal. At this pace, they’d only have a couple of minutes in the warehouse.
“I know,” Lauren said when she saw his expression. “I’ll try to push the pace.”
The hunched position cramped Mercer’s back and his legs began to tremble. His hands felt like claws. He looked down and saw an armed guard sheltered by towering walls of cargo pause to light a cigarette. The orange flare of his match looked as distant as a shooting star. That tiny lapse in concentration caused Mercer’s next step to be slightly off. His foot slipped from the wire.
As he fell, his body torqued over, forcing him to release one of the cables to keep his arms from pulling from his shoulders. Dangling one-handed on the greasy wire, Mercer watched horrified as one of his gloves fell from a pocket in his BDUs. It landed no more than five feet behind the Chinese guard. The man looked around slowly then shrugged before continuing his illicit smoke.
Mercer’s first stab of panic had sent enough adrenaline into his system for him to lurch upward to grasp the cable with his off hand. Fortunately his frantic effort wasn’t enough to shake the cables and jar Lauren loose. In fact she didn’t even know he’d nearly fallen. Panting, he hoisted one leg over the wire and muscled himself upright, straddling the two cables for a second to let his heart slow.
Lauren finally looked back. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”
“Right,” he muttered, feeling tendons in his shoulders protest every movement.
Ten minutes later they crossed over the fence surrounding the warehouse, noting that guards had been stationed all along its perimeter, especially around its only gate. A string of large dump trucks idled just outside the building’s main doors.
The warehouse’s roof had just enough pitch to channel away Panama’s nearly seven feet of annual rainfall and was studded with air vents. Its peak lay about thirty feet below the cable. Once in position, Mercer pulled the rope from his back and tied a slip loop in one end. He lowered it until it brushed the edge of the building, then swung the loop back and forth until it caught around one of the vents. It took a dozen tries.
“A cowboy you ain’t,” Lauren teased.
He gave her a good-natured scowl and pulled on the rope to tighten the noose then tied his end to the cable. They could now climb down to the roof and be able to extricate themselves the same way.
A shift in the lighting drew Mercer’s attention. He looked up from his work and saw the mammoth grapple carriage trundling toward them like a mechanical spider stalking prey on its web. In its pincers dangled an enormous crate. It glided almost silently on the cables and the spotlight attached to the rig hit Mercer full in the face. The wires began to vibrate.
“Lauren, move!” They had seconds before the crane either knocked them from the cables or ground them under its guide wheels.
Without hesitation, she reached for the rope and slid down far enough for Mercer to follow. “Keep going,” he hissed. “The carriage will cut the rope when it crosses it.”
Hand over hand she dropped down to the roof. Mercer looked up as the first of the large metal wheels reached his knots. The crane didn’t even shudder. The knife-edged rollers simply sliced through the line. The rope seemed to dissolve in his hands. One second he was eight feet above the roof, secure, and the next instant he was falling through open space. He landed on his feet, bending his knees to keep the metal from rattling.
Lauren had had the presence of mind to haul in the severed rope before its free end dangled over the open doors below them. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I am until we have to get out of here.” Mercer looked up as the crane dolly rocked to a stop just past the last of the dump trucks. The cableway was hopelessly out of reach. They were trapped.
Captain Vanik seemed unfazed. “One of the first rules of conflict is that plans go to hell the instant they’re implemented. Let’s see what we can see and worry about getting out later.”
She moved out of the spill of light coming from below and found a roof vent large enough to see through. Feeling powerless by the turn of events, Mercer joined her. Through the vent he saw that the concrete floor of the warehouse was littered with more containers. Several men in military-style uniforms drifted in and out of his view. They appeared to be Chinese. He and Lauren moved from vent to vent, getting an idea of the building’s layout. They found a vent large enough to crawl through at the far end of the warehouse. Below it was a darkened second-floor storage level crammed with trunk-sized packing crates. The top of the nearest crate was only five feet below them.
Mercer twisted the cap off the vent and dropped through. He landed silently, his pistol at the ready. Nothing but murky shadow and dusty boxes. Lauren followed and together they crawled to the railing that overlooked the main floor. Along one wall of the warehouse were several large eight-wheeled trucks of a type Mercer didn’t recognize. He assumed the yellow vehicles were specialty cargo-handling cranes like the one Victor drove. Piled along the full length of the other wall was a towering hill of crushed stone that reached almost to the ceiling and stretched under the second-floor deck. A Caterpillar bucket loader sat at the base of the gravel mountain.
In a clear space at the center of the building, workmen were moving wrapped blocks of something heavy into the back of a van. Around them stood six or so anxious guards with assault rifles. Two men in suits surveyed the work from a short distance off, their heads close together as they spoke. Unlike the multiethnic workforce outside, everyone here was Chinese.