Jack Du Brul - River of Ruin

He made a face. “They will tease me because I can’t read as well as the other kids my age. And I don’t know as much as they do about other stuff.”

“Don’t you think that if you study hard you will learn what they already know?”

“Maybe,” he hedged.

“Maybe, nothing,” Mercer said and laughed. “In a year you will be the smartest kid in your whole school.”

“You think so?” The boy brightened.

“I know so. And do you know what else?”

“What?”

“If you get good grades, you and Roddy’s family can come to my home in Washington, D.C., for Christmas vacation.”

“Wow! Will Mr. Harry be there?”

“Believe me, Mr. Harry is always there.”

“Then I will get good grades.”

He spoke as if merely saying it would make it true. Mercer suspected that with a kid as bright as Miguel that was probably the case. He was an exceptional boy, perceptive and responsible beyond his years. With the love and support that Roddy’s family could provide, he’d get past his trauma with the resiliency only a child possessed.

“What about Lauren? Will she be there too?”

Now it was Mercer’s turn to hedge. The two of them hadn’t discussed plans beyond this trip to the River of Ruin. In fact, he’d seen very little of her in the week since they’d ended Liu Yousheng’s bid to place nuclear missiles in Panama.

The final act of the drama had left dozens of unanswered questions and she’d been sequestered with officials from the CIA, FBI and the Department of Defense trying to answer them. It had taken two days just to learn the civilian Mercer saw murdered on the Korvald was in fact a highly placed general named Yu Kwan. No one yet understood what he was doing on the ship, nor did they understand why the missiles recovered from the ship’s hold by a crane barge were fakes. The outer casings looked legitimate, but inside was nothing but concrete filler to give them the weight of real ICBMs.

“I don’t know if she’ll be there or not,” Mercer finally answered. She was due to arrive this afternoon for a two-day stay at the lake. This would probably be the only opportunity he’d have to ask her.

Mercer himself had been at the lake for three days with Foch and his team. Rene Bruneseau had left for France soon after the coast guard rescued them from the sinking refrigerator ship and he’d flashed his diplomatic passport claiming immunity. Mercer didn’t blame him for avoiding the night in jail the others suffered through until the American and French embassies, along with representatives from the Pentagon, could wade in.

Before their rescue, Roddy Herrara was already organizing men to seal the broached lock doors. Because of the tremendous surge of water, the operators didn’t dare try to close the remaining ones, rightly fearing that the hydraulics couldn’t prevent the flow from twisting the steel and ruining the gates. That meant there was nothing they could do but let the water trapped between the earthen plug in the Gaillard Cut and Pedro Miguel continue to run. The spillway at the dam near the Miraflores Locks could handle the volume, but they needed to close the topmost doors there if they were to prevent Miraflores Lake from draining entirely.

That was where Roddy and a couple of other canal pilots came in. They commandeered a freighter trapped on the lake and ran heavy cables from its stern to hard points on the working gates. Using the ship as a giant sea anchor, they had better control over the inward-closing doors and managed to seal them without the two leaves slamming against each other and warping.

With water no longer escaping, the danger of losing use of the canal for years was past. There was only one set of spare doors kept in the zone and they would soon be installed at Pedro Miguel. A contract was about to be awarded to an American foundry to fabricate another set to replace the ruined doors at Miraflores. It would take several months to get them in position, though it would take much longer to dredge the debris that had collapsed into the Gaillard Cut. However, excavating equipment from the bogus Twenty Devils Mine was already en route to begin the arduous task of clearing the rubble. It would soon be supplemented by dredges and other machines kept by the Canal Authority.

That took care of the physical repercussions of what Liu had attempted. The political ramifications would take years to sort out, though at this stage Mercer couldn’t care less. For him, it was done.

What had brought him to the isolated river in the heart of the Darien Province was his hunch that he could find the Twice-Stolen Treasure. Foch and his men, including the driver who’d been released from custody, and Gerard, the soldier who’d lost part of a finger at the mine, had joined him. He needed their help because to get at where he thought the treasure lay hidden required some heavy blasting first.

Mercer stood and brushed off the seat of his pants. “What do you say we head back up to wait for Lauren.”

It took a little extra time to climb the waterfall since an area where the Legionnaires had been working was strictly off limits. The bodies of the Chinese soldiers who’d gone over in the Zodiac had been removed by their allies, although the shredded remains of the rubber boat remained in a pool halfway up the hillside.

As soon as they reached the top, Miguel ran ahead to play with Roddy’s children under the vigilant eye of Carmen Herrara. They were currently skipping stones from the pier Liu Yousheng’s men had built during their occupation of the lake. All of the Chinese equipment had been left behind when Panamanian police units, backed by the Seahawk helicopters from the McCampbell , descended on the excavation site and arrested everyone.

The Chinese overseers had been deported without trial, while the locals had been allowed to return to their villages.

The children’s laughter dispelled the sense of desolation that had settled over the quiet tents and buildings. Several Panamanian soldiers remained as guards in case guerrillas tried to inspect what had taken place on the mountaintop, but they stayed to themselves mostly, leaving Mercer and the French to do their work. Carmen and Roddy had only arrived this morning with the children.

“There you are,” Foch called from a camp stool. He and his men sat around a dormant fire pit with Roddy. Everyone had bottles of beer. He offered one to Mercer. “Care for one?”

“Damned right.” Mercer collapsed into a canvas chair, winded from the long climb. “Where’s Harry?”

“Taking a nap. The heat’s killing him.”

“Me too.” Mercer rolled the cool bottle across his forehead. He checked the time. “Lauren should be here any minute and we can get the show on the road. Henri”-in a sign of respect, Foch had told Mercer his first name-“did you check the rope securing the boats?”

“Plenty long enough.”

“And you’ve double-checked the charges?”

“I did it myself,” Munz answered.

“In that case, we’re set to go.”

Ten minutes later, a low buzzing sound built into the deep thrum of an approaching helicopter. The SH-60 thundered over the lip of the volcano and settled a short way down the sandy beach, throwing up a fog of grit that swirled until the blades began to slow. Mercer was on his feet and running over when four men in khaki field clothes stepped from the chopper’s open door followed by the slender figure of Lauren wearing cut-off jeans and a cropped T-shirt.

The men were from Panama’s anthropology museum and were here to preserve any artifacts. With Lauren’s help they unloaded several suitcases and a couple of heavy-looking crates. It appeared everything Lauren required for her weekend stay fit in the rumpled knapsack she threw over her shoulder.