Paul Christopher - Valley of the Templars

“It’s all we’ve got.”

“There are two and they are one and the same,” said Smith. “The Agabama River divides two ranges of the Escambray Mountains. It flows from a place called La Boca on the Caribbean side and after a series of divisions exits into the Atlantic at a small village called San Francisco. A conquistador named Diego Velazquez de Cuellar landed in Cuba near the mouth of the river on the Atlantic side. He’d been sent by Columbus with specific orders to conquer the island and find places where people could settle. He was also told to keep his eye out for any loose gold or treasure he found lying around since his relationship with Queen Isabella was becoming somewhat strained financially.”

Black wanted to tell the nasal little twit to get on with it, but Carrie was right. To go to Cuba blind was to invite failure. Smith continued with his pedantic little lecture. “At first Velazquez de Cuellar wanted to take some of his small boats up the river, perhaps with an eye to seeing if it was a navigable way to reach the opposite shore, but his local Indio guides said that much of the river was occupied by evil spirits that brought on sickness and sometimes death. The symptoms the Indios displayed were close to what the Spaniards knew as vomito negro , black vomit, which we now know was-”

“Yellow fever,” supplied Black, staring at the blank screen in front of him, waiting for something to appear on it.

“Indeed,” said Smith with another sniff. “Yellow fever. At any rate, the Indios called the whole place the Valley of Death.”

“And this was when?” Carrie asked.

“The early sixteenth century.”

“Anything more current?” Black said.

“During the War of the Bandits between 1959 and 1965, the Agabama River Valley was also known as the Valley of Death. Probably because of the number of bodies floating down it as Castro’s teenage army wiped out the last of the Batistinados.”

“Show us the river…whatever you called it,” said Black.

“The Ag-A-Bam-A,” said Smith, enunciating with painful, condescending care. Suddenly an image appeared on the screen of a topographical map and a river running through it, winding like some enormous twisting worm. From what Black could see, there was a narrow plain, foothills and then the mountains themselves. The topographical map was now overlaid with a satellite shot of the same area. The mountains were covered in dense jungle foliage and there were virtually no population centers beyond a scattering of small villages.

“Anything else?” Black asked.

“This was flagged for interest about two weeks ago,” said Smith. The images were overlain again, this time by an infrared night shot. There were several bright blobs of color high in the mountains. “It was interesting enough for an RQ-170 Flying Wing to be deployed from Creech in Nevada to take a look.”

“And what did it see?” Black asked.

“This,” said Smith. The image changed again. This time it was a daylight shot. While the huge ninety-foot-wingspan stealth drone flew at fifty thousand feet, it could give imagery close enough to see the dirt under a man’s fingernails. It was video data from an RQ-170 that gave the president and his friends the overall shots of the late and unlamented Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani pied-a-terre.

The image on the screen showed a collection of large camouflaged tents, what appeared to be a line of four-wheeled ATVs under more camouflage material and a number of men walking back and forth across a compound that had obviously been cleared from the jungle slopes around it. The image then tightened in on a single figure. He was wearing the black beret and camo gear of the Cuban Tropas Especiales, their version of Delta Force.

“Company strength,” said Smith. “We found a few others like it scattered through the area.”

“Who are they?” Black asked.

“They look like Cuban Special Forces on exercise. That’s the general consensus here.”

“They could be something else,” said Carrie, her voice hesitant and thoughtful.

“Who?” Smith asked, obviously irritated. “The army of Haiti invading Cuba?”

“I’m fairly sure I’ve seen those uniforms before.” She paused. “You can’t get any more detail, can you?”

“A great many countries use black berets and that elm leaf camouflage. And no, I cannot get any more detail,” snapped Smith. “The image is at maximum resolution. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Black was about to say no when Carrie spoke up again. “Has there been any recent activity on the Agabama River?”

Smith sighed and began to enter the query on his keyboard. He had the answer a few seconds later. “River pirates operating close to the mouth of the river. Apparently they go after tourists on sportfishing boats.”

“Can we get real-time coverage on that area?” Carrie asked.

“River pirates?” Smith said. “Hardly a matter of national security, Miss Pilkington. You’re trying my patience.”

“And you’re trying mine,” snapped Black in response. “Bear in mind where the request for your cooperation came from.”

Smith’s small mouth opened for a moment as though he was about to speak, then snapped shut, the thin mustache above his upper lip quivering like a frightened caterpillar. He bent over his console and began tapping keys.

“This is from a low-orbit NROL-49 satellite in geostationary orbit over the Caribbean.” Smith hit a key and an image appeared on the screen. It was a high-angle view of a broad river. “From twenty miles up.”

“Can it look for anomalies?” Black asked. MI6 had its own version of the NROL, so he knew a little about the satellite’s performance.

“Yes.”

“Is it picking anything up?”

“There’s a large oil slick about eight miles upriver.”

“Can we see that?”

“It’s four in the afternoon, Mr. Black. Shadows might present some difficulty.”

“Try.”

“As you wish.”

The image fogged out, shifted and then resolved itself.

“One thousand feet,” said Smith. There was definitely a rainbow-hued slick of oil fanning out on the water trailing off as the current pulled it toward the sea.

“Follow it to the apex of the slick,” Black ordered, any pretense of politeness stripped from his voice. Smith did as he was told. The apex of the slick was two miles upriver.

“There,” said Smith. “Two hundred feet.”

“What could have caused that?” Carrie asked.

“I have no idea,” said Smith primly.

“Either someone spilled a large can of outboard motor fuel or a boat sank,” said Black. “Take us upriver please.” Smith zoomed out and the image angled upriver. The man was right; long shadows fell across the river now. “Check for anomalies,” ordered Black.

“Here,” Smith answered shortly after fingering his console. “Five hundred feet.”

“It looks like a boat,” said Carrie, squinting.

“It is a boat,” said Black. “It looks as though it’s tied up to a tree.” He turned back to Smith. “Closer, please.”

“Fifty feet.”

“There’s someone sitting in the stern,” said Carrie. “And there’s something in front of him on the transom.”

“Closer,” said Black.

The image refocused and resolved again. “Twenty-five feet,” said Smith.

“What is that thing in front of him and what is he doing?” Carrie asked.

“That thing, as you call it, is a Browning fifty-caliber machine gun and he’s cleaning it.” He paused. “Closer please, Mr. Smith.”

The image zoomed in. “Ten feet,” said Smith.

“Are we close enough to use that facial recognition program of yours?”

“No need,” said Carrie, staring at the enormous image on the screen. “I recognize him from his file. “That’s Lieutenant Colonel John ‘Doc’ Holliday.”