The French spy went pale. “Where did you see this?”
“There are eight of them about ten miles from where we’re sitting,” Mercer answered.
“You know what this is?”
“I do now, thanks to Harry.”
“What is it? What’d I do?” the octogenarian asked, not liking that they were talking like he wasn’t in the room.
Bruneseau held up the picture so Harry, Roddy, and Foch could all get a look. Only the Legion officer recognized it. He sucked a breath through his teeth. “That’s the transporter for a DF-31 intermediate-range nuclear missile.”
“Road portable,” Rene added, borrowing the pen to sketch in a rocket sitting on the back of the big truck, “with the ability to cold launch a missile with about two hours’ notice. Guidance package automatically compensates for wherever it’s erected. New intel reports give it a range of thirty-two hundred kilometers because of an improved solid propellant.”
“About two thousand miles,” Roddy said. “Such a missile could hit New Orleans, Dallas, Atlanta. Or Washington, D.C.”
“China doesn’t have the technology to hit us with weapons from the mainland so they’re going to park eight of these shorter-range missiles here. Once they control Panama’s economy and the canal all we can do is lodge diplomatic protests.”
“We could blockade,” Harry offered, “like Kennedy did with Cuba.”
“No way,” Mercer replied, once again in awe of Liu Yousheng’s audacity and genius. “This isn’t some isolated Caribbean island. Eleven thousand ships a year pass through the canal, representing flags from just about every maritime nation on earth. With the canal out of action for a couple of years, Hatcherly Consolidated will still be able to move roughly seventy percent of that cargo on their railroad and oil pipeline. We’d disrupt the entire global economy by enforcing a blockade.”
“But it would be China’s fault,” Harry persisted.
“Yet we’d be the ones sending cargo ships on a ten-thousand-mile detour around South America. How long do you think world condemnation is going to remain focused on China’s acts when it’s a U.S. fleet costing countries their seaborne commerce?”
“By making their temporary stoppage of the canal look like an accident, Hatcherly can deflect an American reprisal,” Roddy said, “so long as they have my government under some sort of control. No doubt President Quintero is involved. My question is what happens when the waterway’s reopened after a year or two? By treaty, the United States could come in and take it by force to ensure nothing ever happens to it again.”
Bruneseau answered, “The question should be what the Chinese want to accomplish in those two years by stationing nuclear missiles here.”
“Well, they’re always going on and on about Taiwan,” Harry said from the mini-bar, where he was dumping Jack Daniel’s onto the thin film of Coke he’d already dribbled into his glass.
“You mentioned Cuba,” Mercer said to his old friend. “I think you’re on to something. The whole reason Khruschev put missiles there in the sixties was to get the United States to pull our recently deployed Atlas rockets out of Turkey. While history records that Bobby and Jack won the particular game of nuclear chicken, few people remember that shortly afterward we brought those missiles home. In effect, the Russians got exactly what they wanted. And apart from a few sleepless nights, it didn’t cost them anything.”
“You think China is putting missiles here only to offer to remove them again if America promises not to interfere with the takeover of Taiwan?”
“That’s precisely what I’m thinking,” Mercer answered Foch.
“But in our case, China is paying a very high price. They’re going to have to subsidize Panama with hundreds of millions of dollars once they take out the canal.”
“It won’t cost them a dime, Rene. They’re getting the right to plant nukes here and they’re paying for it with gold looted from an ancient treasure.”
“If Liu finds it.”
“You saw the equipment he had at the volcanic lake above the River of Ruin. He’ll find it.”
“And if it’s not there?”
Mercer looked him in the eye. “It’s there, all right. If I had a few hundred pounds of dynamite I could show it to you.”
“What?” the four men said as one.
“I know where the treasure is,” Mercer said coolly. “There’s a clue in the Lepinay journal that jogged my memory about something I saw at Gary’s camp. But that’s not important right now. We need to focus on Liu.”
It was testament to their professionalism that a billion dollars in gold and precious gems couldn’t hold their interest beyond a couple of sighs and a few thoughtful grunts.
“You’re right. The treasure can wait.” Bruneseau made his decision. “By identifying ICBM launchers at Hatcherly’s warehouse you’ve given me enough to take to my director. Getting Maria Barber to admit she told Liu about tonight will only add to the evidence.” He turned to Foch. “You’ll help Mercer pick her up.”
“No need to make it an order,” the Legionnaire replied. “Tough part will be keeping my men from killing her for what happened to Vic.” He caught Mercer’s concerned scowl. “Don’t worry. I can keep them in check.”
They spent the next half hour, before Mercer fell asleep on the couch, formalizing a plan to grab Maria the next morning. Harry chuckled to himself after the others had gone. With Mercer on the sofa, he got the bed, the opposite of countless nights he’d crashed at Mercer’s home.
He covered his sleeping friend with the comforter from the bedroom. “I hope that couch’s more comfortable than the damned leather thing at your place.” His voice was as gentle as he could make it. “Sleep well. You deserve it.”
El Mirador West of Panama City
Built by a narco-trafficker currently serving the first of eight consecutive life sentences in a Miami prison, the elaborate estate called El Mirador, the Lookout, had been purchased by Liu Yousheng for a fraction of its value. There were dozens of such abandoned luxury homes in Panama.
Overlooking a sugar sand beach, the main house loomed atop a promontory and resembled a piece of modern sculpture, all angles and primary colors. Because the odd-shaped house had sat unoccupied for several years before Hatcherly acquired it, the landscaping had become overgrown, ragged with encroaching jungle. Liu had had a one-hundred-meter perimeter around the house and its outbuildings mowed flat. While not unappealing aesthetically, the open area was meant to give guards open lanes of fire if the house were ever assaulted.
Liu cared nothing for the architecture of the place, didn’t even bother to repaint the exterior to hide its outlandish silhouette. What drew him to this particular abomination was its isolation—the driveway was eleven miles long—and that the estate had a heliport with a hangar.
Approaching the well-lit porte-cochere, his limo’s headlights swept over two cars parked a short distance from the house’s front door. He recognized one from Hatcherly’s motor pool, and the other belonged to Omar Quintero, Panama’s president. There was also a black van in the driveway near the two vehicles. Sergeant Huai and Captain Chen stood by the van’s open rear doors as the limo purred to a stop. Beyond them all was darkness and shadow. Even the moon remained hidden.