An hour later, Skyler saw the two men come out of the cantina joking and laughing, their words slurred, probably from a great deal of beer and tequila. When the Ford didn't start, the man on the passenger's side got out and lifted the hood. He leaned over and checked the battery connections. Then his fingers touched the dangling ends of the spark plug wires. He started to say something to the driver when the hood slammed down on his head. The other man looked up into the barrel of the Beretta.
“Get out slowly,” Skyler said.
With a stunned expression, the driver opened the door and stood with his hands in the air. “You're making the mistake of your life,” he said in a menacing tone.
Skyler walked over and searched under the man's coat. He found a gun and wallet.
“You got a lot of balls,” the driver said. “You're gonna regret this.”
Skyler shoved the Beretta into the man’s stomach hard. He doubled over and dropped to his knees. Then Skyler heard a moan and raised the hood. Groggy, the second man tried to stand but quickly fell in the dirt holding his head. Skyler searched and found his gun and wallet too, and then he switched on the headlights. Returning to the front of the car, he flipped through the wallets. Each contained Colombian driver's licenses and a small amount of cash. Both had Bogota business cards.
“Okay Señor Llanos of the Colombian Tourist Council, want to tell me what was in the suitcases being off-loaded to the submarine?”
Llanos looked up still holding his head. “Go to hell.”
Skyler leaned over. “Yesterday you were a steward on a cruise ship and today you're a Colombian government official. Looks like you can't hold a job, pal. Now I asked you a question and I want an answer.”
“You'll be sorry for this.”
“I'm already sorry I ever laid eyes on you two.”
“You're not going to kill us,” the other man said, finally able to breathe again.
“You're right,” Skyler said, looking at the second card, “Señor Mendoza. I'm not going to kill you tonight. But if anything ever happens to Candice Stevens, if you ever get within a mile of her again, I'll blow your fucking brains out. Any questions?”
“No,” Llanos muttered.
“Now hook the spark plug wires back up and get the hell out of here.”
“What about our wallets?” Llanos said.
“Go back and tell whoever sent you to buy you new ones.”
Mendoza fumbled around until he had the wires going to the right connectors. Skyler stood back while they got into the blue Ford. Llanos gunned the engine spinning the tires and spraying dirt as the car shot out of the parking lot. Once their lights faded in the distance, Skyler tossed their guns in a trash container. Then he went to the Jeep and headed back to Club Med. The hot desert air blew through his hair as he tapped Llanos' business card on his chin.
THE MINE
“There's a clearing and a road down to the right,” said Captain Harper. He focused the binoculars on the lush green valley below. “That must be it.”
A thousand feet up the side of the mountain, Harper, a mineralogist from the Corp of Engineers along with two Army Rangers watched from a concealed ledge. “No dust kicked up by any trucks, no smoke from their generators. Strange kind for a mining operation.”
“No noise either,” Corporal Brooks added.
Harper turned to Lance Corporal Ferguson. “Check it again.”
Ferguson pressed a button on the STAR-LYNX module — a black box about the size of an external hard drive. A small, inverted, silver umbrella-shaped antenna fifteen centimeters in diameter extended from the top. A few seconds later, a number flashed on the red LED. “Reconfirmed, sir. We should be within sight of the mine.”
“Well, it just doesn't look right to me.” Harper wiped the sweat from his forehead. “And it doesn't help much being in this bug-infested shit hole. This is not what I had in mind when I joined the Corps of Engineers.” He didn’t mention his orders to search for any reference to something called Project Candle Power, whatever that was. And searching for korium seemed a waste of time. He figured that on the face of the earth, there was probably only enough to fill the bed of his F150.
“What now, sir?” Ferguson asked.
“It'll be dark in a few hours. We'll check it out then.”
“It's time to send a fix,” Brooks said.
“Do it.” Harper continued watching the valley below while the Ranger entered a series of numbers on the STAR-LYNX numeric keypad and pressed the send button.
A hundred meters away, a Cuban soldier lay concealed in the underbrush. He focused his field glasses on the spot where he had just seen movement and watched it intently. Then, when he was certain of what he saw, he keyed his radio and whispered, “The Americans are here.”
Harper slipped on his night vision goggles. Instantly the black jungle transformed into a surreal world of shimmering emerald green. He could see the flash of moth wings, and the gentle brush of the breeze across the tops of leaves made his surroundings come alive with movement. The damp smell of decay reminded him of the plant nursery he worked at in high school. He hadn't liked the smell then and he didn't like it now.
The gradual slope grew easier as Harper and the two Rangers moved down into the valley. He heard the sound of a small stream from somewhere off to his left. Insects buzzed constantly. After ten minutes, the men came to a single lane dirt track that ran like a jagged wound through the jungle. Harper checked the direction finder in his goggles heads-up display and pointed to the right. Ferguson and Brooks acknowledged with a nod. Then Corporal Brooks took his assault rifle from his shoulder and cautiously moved along the road, his boots crunching on the gravel surface. Harper waited until the soldier was about thirty yards in front of him before he followed. Ferguson brought up the rear.
An opossum waddled across the road ahead. Brooks paused the group until the animal disappeared into the jungle. Moving on for another ten minutes they finally came to a large, circular clearing about a hundred meters across, carved out of the jungle at the base of the mountain. To the right was a house trailer that probably served as the mining company office while to the left sat a military dump truck. A wooden building stood nearby that may have served as equipment storage. Lumber, chemical drums, pieces of plastic sheets, paper, metal, and garbage littered the area as if the crew had left in a hurry. On the far side of the clearing a pile of rocks stretched forty meters up the side of the mountain.
“Looks like we're too late,” Brooks said when the others joined him.
Harper picked up a candy bar wrapper lying in the dirt and brushed away some ants. “Not by much. This hasn't been here all that long.” He gazed around the clearing before pointing to the pile of rocks. “The mine entrance must be over there. Let's have a look.”
They walked across the clearing. If the entrance was beneath the mound, Harper thought, it would take some serious equipment to dig it out. They'd come a long way for nothing. “I'm going to look around and see if there are any other openings to the mine. You two check out the trailer and the shack.”
The Rangers headed back toward the house trailer while Harper investigated the pile of rocks. Finding nothing, he moved to the other side. Still nothing. He glanced over his shoulder to see Brooks and Ferguson standing on each side of the door to the trailer. While Ferguson covered him, Brooks reached for the handle and pulled.