Mercer considered himself lucky just for the brief smile she threw him and the dazzle in her eyes.
Back in the sitting room, the men tore into their meals. Lights were on, and out the window the skyline of Panama City resembled a constellation of fallen stars. Harry had given his watch to Mercer after the tenth question about time, so Mercer knew that twelve hours remained before the Mario diCastorelli entered the canal. About four hours after that it would reach the cut. If they didn’t get an answer from General Vanik soon, they would be on their own.
The air was thick with cigarette smoke, mostly from Harry, who was on his fifth Jack Daniel’s and ginger ale. Foch and Rene also added to the fog that made Mercer’s food taste like the bottom of an ashtray. He barely noticed.
They’d discussed countless operational ideas for taking out the Mario diCastorelli in the canal in the event they couldn’t disable her before she entered the waterway. Everything from a fast-rope rappel off the Bridge of the Americas when the ship passed underneath, to a helicopter assault, to blowing it apart with the VGAS cannon on the guided missile destroyer hopefully steaming into the Bay of Panama. All of these were ultimately rejected in favor of launching an attack from a small boat in Miraflores Lake.
Everyone agreed that assaulting the bomb ship before she reached the lake was too dangerous because of the possibility of an early detonation. A blast anywhere before she passed through the first set of locks would certainly level Balboa and likely cause damage as far away as Panama City. Hitting the ship in the isolated lake would drastically reduce collateral damage if the SF soldiers failed and the sailors on the vessel blew the explosives. And by risking a raid, they prevented the certainty of a colossal explosion caused by precision munitions from the USS McCampbell’s VGAS autocannon. It was a calculated gamble they would have taken even if they were assaulting the freighter themselves.
All eyes turned to the bedroom door when Lauren emerged. The bruise on the right side of her face had settled to a uniform plum color that matched a dark shadow under her other eye. The past week was taking a physical toll on her—on all of them.
“Well?”
Her somber mien suddenly vanished as she smiled. “We got ’em. General Horner, head of the Special Operations Command, is sending them down on a commercial flight so as not to tip anybody off.”
“How many?” Bruneseau asked.
“Six. Half a normal team. Horner is afraid a full dozen would alert the Panamanians.”
“That will be enough,” Foch surmised. “Modern freighters don’t carry a large crew. Also I would think Liu would reduce that number further since he only has a small submersible to take them off after the ship is blocking the Gaillard Cut.”
“When do they arrive?”
Lauren bit her lip. “That’s where it gets a little sticky. Their plane touches down at Tocumen Airport at eight forty-five.”
Harry was at the mini-bar again. “Where does that put the Mario diCastorelli?”
“She’d have just entered Miraflores Lake when they land.”
“How long does a ship like the diCastorelli need to cross the lake?” Mercer asked.
“About an hour and a half.”
“Jesus, that’s tight. Any delays at customs and we’re screwed.”
Lauren nodded. “That’s why I said it was sticky. It’s imperative that transportation at the airport is lined up and that a boat is waiting on the lake for them to use in the assault. There’s a small marina called the Balboa Yacht Club on Miraflores Lake near the Pedro Miguel Lock. That’s where we’ll stage.”
“Know anyone with a boat there?” Mercer asked.
“I’ll talk to Roddy,” she answered quickly. “From there, the commandos will be able to motor out to where the Canal Authority keeps a pair of spare lock gates anchored in the middle of the lake. They were put there when the waterway was built as one more redundancy to keep Lake Gatun from draining. Using the gates might give the soldiers a greater element of surprise.”
Mercer chuckled. “Exact same plan we came up with.”
“My father and I talked about it, General Horner agreed. This is the only way.”
“What about the destroyer?”
“The USS McCampbell will enter the Bay of Panama at about the same time the Special Forces land in-country.”
“So if we need serious fire support we’ll have it,” Mercer thought aloud.
“Can’t imagine we’ll need cannons and Tomahawks, but yeah, we’ve got them.”
“What about choppers?”
“She carries two SH-60 Seahawks. They’re antiship platforms. The crew’s stripping equipment out of one to use as a troop transport if we need it.”
Mercer’s grave expression showed how much he knew they were dancing on a razor’s edge. Lauren’s father had come through with commandos, an obstacle that Mercer had doubts could be surmounted, but it seemed that didn’t bring them closer to success. Again, so much could go wrong. Something as stupid as gridlock coming from the airport could derail everything. And that would leave Mercer, Lauren, and six Frenchmen, one of whom, Bruneseau, wasn’t a soldier, to assault the Mario diCastorelli and its unknown number of sailors and guards.
Looking around the room, he saw that everyone felt his level of commitment to carry out the attack if the Green Berets didn’t arrive in time. Remarkably, he noticed that Harry’s most recent drink was ginger ale with only a splash of whiskey for color. Even the old man seemed resigned to do his part if needed, not that Mercer had any idea what his part could be. Harry saw Mercer studying him and saluted with his tumbler.
No matter what they faced, there was no better team to back him up.
They called Roddy up to the suite to bounce their plan off him, using his knowledge of the country and the canal to refine it further. Thankfully, he had a friend who kept a speed-boat at the Balboa Yacht Club. “What can I say?” he said when telling them their good fortune. “I know a lot of people with boats. I’ve got one myself here in the city marina. A twenty-six-foot Sea-Ray. When this is over we can all go out together.”
“Oh, damn!” Lauren suddenly exclaimed. Everyone looked at her. “The weapons. I need ten grand to pay for them.”
“Ten grand?” Foch cocked an eyebrow.
“Ten thousand dollars.”
“Sacre bleu.”
“Anyone have that kind of money?” she asked.
Harry chuckled. “I’ve got it.”
“You?” four voices said in unison. Mercer just covered his eyes, knowing where Harry had the money.
“I opened a fifteen-thousand-dollar line of credit in the casino at the Caesar Park Hotel. I couldn’t have gone through that much.” He didn’t add that he’d opened the credit line with Mercer’s Platinum Card. “I can close it out and take it straight to the cashier. Easy as withdrawing money from a bank.”
“Any idea of the interest rate on that credit line?” Mercer asked with trepidation.
“Stop bitching,” Harry said mildly. “You’ve got the money. Besides, you can keep the guns when we’re done. They’d make great souvenirs for the boys at Tiny’s.”
Mercer conjured a mental image of the guys at his neighborhood tavern with automatic weapons. An M-16 was almost as tall as Tiny, and in Mike O’Reilly’s beefy hand it would look like a toy. He shuddered. “I’ll consider it a business expense and write them off on my taxes next year, thank you very much.”