“Anyway, Roddy and I waited outside Hatcherly’s gates all the next day and into the early evening before the first of the dump trucks left the container port. They drove out of the city and across the canal on the Bridge of the Americas toward Penonome to the west.” He gave Lauren a significant look. It was the same direction the Gazelle had taken. “About twenty miles past that town they turned onto a private road belonging to Las Minas del Viente Diablos. The Twenty Devils Mine.”
“A mine?” Lauren asked, having never heard of the place. “What kind of mine?”
Harry looked pleased with himself and his detective skills. “We talked to a peasant walking along the highway. Told us it’s a gold mine.”
“I know there’s a big copper mine between Santiago and David but the gold mines in Panama were in the Darien Province and have been closed for a century.”
“The place is little known,” Roddy interjected. “After we discovered that is where the trucks are going, I phoned the ministry that oversees mines. I wanted to question some officials but I was refused a meeting. I got only as far as a low-level clerk who told me that the mine has been in operation for six months and that it’s partially owned by a foreign company. He wouldn’t tell me which country nor would he tell me how much gold they’ve extracted.”
“At the lake,” Lauren said, “we discovered that Liu Yousheng hasn’t found the Twice-Stolen Treasure yet. Is it possible the gold Mercer and I saw at the warehouse came from this Twenty Devils Mine?”
“I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion quite yet,” Harry said enigmatically.
“This is a waste of time,” Bruneseau dismissed the whole line of inquiry. “We don’t know where the Gazelle went after it left the auto carrier. As for the trucks at the port? Hatcherly is a maritime company. They could be shipping ore for the mining company.”
Harry smirked, as if he was setting up the French agent. “A minute ago you said that you’d take no chances if Liu had stolen the atomic fuel and stashed it someplace in Panama. What if the mine is controlled by Hatcherly and that’s where the helicopter took Mercer? Would you be willing to check it out?”
“It could have gone anywhere.”
“Too true,” White agreed. “But we have evidence that something about that mine isn’t kosher, a strange link between it and the warehouse. Remember the gravel in the warehouse?” The others waited expectantly while Harry drew out the moment. “Hatcherly isn’t moving it to a ship from the mine. It’s the opposite actually. It appears that the gravel is brought in on ships and is then transported to the mine.”
“Huh? Why?”
Looking around the room, Harry said, “Only way to find out is to go and see for ourselves.”
He didn’t need to add that his interest was finding Mercer, not why Hatcherly was playing bizarre shell games with dump-truck loads of gravel.
The Twenty Devils Mine Cocle Province, Panama
A blast of icy water exploding against his groin wrenched Mercer from a drugged sleep. The cold and shock following six hours of unconsciousness in a dank cell was like a hit from a runaway truck. Mercer rolled across the floor to get away from the jet of water but whoever directed the fire hose kept the pressure on, tumbling him against a concrete wall like a street cleaner moving a piece of flotsam.
A voice called an order and the streaming water stopped as abruptly as it had started.
Mercer forced open his eyes, blinking into powerful handheld halide lights that burned his vision like lasers after so many hours of darkness. He turned away and the blaze of red behind his lids faded as the lights were dimmed. He heard another command and boots moving away. Tentatively he levered open an eye again. His eyesight came back from beyond the blistering afterspots on his damaged retinas. The room was lit by a single-bulb fixture clamped to the ceiling. The halide lamps had been used to further disorient him. He wiped water from his face, allowing a little to trickle into his mouth.
Since his capture, he’d been given nothing to eat or drink. A hood had been placed over his head on the helicopter after he’d been given a hypodermic of sedative, the Chinese denying him a sense of place as well. They’d left him dressed in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.
His lower belly throbbing from the pulsing blow to his testicles, Mercer shuffled to his feet, watching for a reaction from the single guard left at the cell’s open door. The impassive Chinese soldier was in uniform and cradled a type- 87 bullpup assault rifle, the type Lauren told him meant he was part of an elite fighting force.
There was no furniture in the cell so Mercer leaned against the wall, crossing his ankles and arms in an attempt at a relaxed pose. A vortex of thoughts churned in his mind as more of the drug wore off, but it was important that he give no outward sign of his growing anxiety. He slicked back his hair with the palms of his hands and idly picked at a fingernail. His antics made no impression on the stone-faced guard.
Before he considered his own circumstances, his mind turned to Lauren and the others. He could only assume his sacrifice had guaranteed their escape. The Gazelle hadn’t circled back to the auto carrier and he hadn’t seen any other choppers in the area before he’d passed out. The Chinese couldn’t know how many people were with him, nor their identities. He had to keep that secret, he knew, but wondered how long he could maintain his silence. Mercer had no delusions about what was to come.
He didn’t know where he’d been taken—someplace west of the canal, but that told him nothing. If he didn’t know, it was unlikely Bruneseau or Lauren knew either. Meaning?
Meaning I am in some very deep shit because the cavalry won’t be coming.
He was on his own and about to face an interrogation at the hands of a Chinese organization who seemed more than willing to kill those who got in their way. Thoughts of clichéd water-torture scenes from old movies filled his imagination. Mercer had no idea how long he’d be able to hold out. The reasonably high tolerance for pain he’d developed because of the dangerous nature of his work would do him no good if they used drugs on him. He’d read enough spy novels to know there was no defense against some of the exotic cocktails developed to extract information.
He tried to think if he had any advantages in this situation. Because they didn’t know if the authorities were closing in, the Chinese would probably want information quickly. He didn’t know if that helped, but it was something. He then tried to think what Liu Yousheng would want to know so he could then purge it from his mind. Liu didn’t yet know he had captured the man who’d foiled him in Paris, nor did he know the Foreign Legion was on to him. Mercer felt divulging his own identity wouldn’t matter but he had to protect Lauren and the others.
Why the hell had Rene gone into the camp? Mercer wondered, then forced the thought out of his head. He had to clear it completely—erase the past few days in order to convince Liu that he knew of nothing beyond Gary Barber’s mysterious death.
For ten minutes Mercer made a show of ignoring the soldier, using the time to let his mind calm down and his body to recover from the fire-hose onslaught. Then came a commotion beyond the open door and a moment later another Chinese, this one dressed in an expensive business suit, entered the cell. Mercer gave him a passing glance, noting his slender build and rather tired eyes, before returning his attention to a particularly bothersome hangnail. He finally bit at the sliver of skin and spat it on the floor. A drop of blood welled from the tiny wound.