Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

Natalie nodded that she understood. For a time, as dawn brightened into morning, the only sound was the forest. When Natalie did speak, the words were from the woman who had stood up to Cliff Renfro and Tonya Levitskaya.

"Luis," she heard herself say, "these people have killed many and also have ruined the lives of many more — including mine. I am not satisfied with just answers, I want satisfaction. I want vengeance. If I die trying, then I die. The one good thing, if you can call it that, of all I have been through, is that there is little left for me to fear. I want to do whatever I must to close this place down for good — to turn it into dust. And I want Santoro and Barbosa behind bars or I want them dead."

"You know," Luis said, "more and more as I think about what was done to my sister, I have been feeling the same way. If it had not been Vargas who had murdered her, it would have been Barbosa or one of the others.

"I agree."

"You must be certain, though, that you are willing to risk everything for your revenge. What advantage we have will rest in that certainty."

"I am certain, Luis. The best I have to look forward to is not a life I wish to lead."

"Then we shall try."

Luis offered his hand and Natalie held it tightly.

"So, what can we do?" she asked.

"Maybe nothing," Luis said, slipping his fingers beneath his eye patch and rubbing at whatever was under there, "maybe everything. First we need some weapons, and then we need some help."

"Where do we start?"

"We start right here."

Luis walked to the hillside behind them and pulled some shrubs from the ground. Behind those, five feet from top to bottom and also across, was the opening to a cave.

"I never noticed that!" Natalie exclaimed.

"That is the point. Very few know this is here. Inside we have guns, explosives, and a place to hide should we need it."

"But why do you — ?"

"In my line of work, it always pays to be careful and to plan ahead."

"Can I look inside?"

"You can, but first I suggest you look over there."

Natalie turned toward where Luis had pointed, toward the southeast, but she saw and heard nothing new.

"Here," Luis said, handing her a pair of high-powered binoculars he had retrieved from just inside the opening of the cave. "Look beyond the hospital, then listen."

Natalie saw immediately. A long runway, very long, lined with alternating blue and white lights, had been carved east to west into the forest some distance beyond the hospital. Nearly a minute later, she heard what Luis had heard some time ago, the drone of an approaching plane. Moments after that, she saw an airliner soaring in low from the east.

Luis and Natalie lay side by side on the rock shelf, trading off the remarkable binoculars, watching as the plane made a perfect landing, then turned at a cul-de-sac that had undoubtedly been created just for that purpose, and taxied to a spot midway down the runway. From somewhere in the trees, both Barbosa and Santoro, accompanied by four people carrying semiautomatic machine guns, materialized to greet the arrivals.

A hydraulic lift lowered from the belly of the jetliner, bearing an unconscious woman on a stretcher, along with an accompanying man and woman in surgical garb. Next trip, the platform bore three men, one of them a huge blond with a ponytail, and a woman. They were followed by a uniformed crew of two. As the procession neared the hospital, the lift made one more trip, bringing down a man dressed as the captain, wearing his uniform hat, and one other man, in shirtsleeves — perhaps, Natalie decided, the flight attendant.

Finally, Barbosa and two of his men entered the jetliner and began unloading luggage and other supplies.

"I make it eight men and two women," Luis said. "Plus Santoro, Barbosa, and four security guards from the village."

"It would seem that our odds of success have just dropped significantly."

"To some extent."

"Please explain."

"One of those men with Barbosa would give his life for me, and one of the other guards, the one with the red hat, is my Rosa."

Ben was pleased with himself- very pleased. He had rolled the dice and had it come up seven. Nearly twenty hours among the enemy, posing as a man he was not, performing a job of which he had no knowledge, and he had succeeded. In fact, he acknowledged, he was actually quite good at serving people cheerfully and obsequiously, and equally skilled at staying out of the way when he wasn't doing that.

The flight was long, but reasonably easy, with a stop in Venezuela to take on fuel, and another one someplace in Brazil, possibly to do business with an immigration official. Never did he see an actual customs agent. It was amazing how smooth the water could be when it was blanketed with an oil slick of money. Ultimately, he watched through the small porthole in the forward door as the jet swept low over dense forest that went on for many miles, banked slightly to the right, and then dropped down on a well-lit runway that seemed to have materialized from the undergrowth.

The landing was textbook.

By far, the most distressing part of the flight had been the several visits he made to the compartment at the rear of the plane, where the woman who had been the prisoner in the Adventurer lay in what had to be a drug induced coma. The night before, she had cried out that her name was Sandy, and that she was a mother. Now, she looked only like someone who was about to die. In a bizarre, horrible sacrifice, she would unwillingly lose a vital organ so that another — probably a totally stranger — might live.

A man and a woman in surgical scrubs with stethoscopes in place were tending to her. The man, swarthy and thick-necked, sounded and looked more like a longshoreman than a doctor, but the woman, silver haired and probably in her sixties, had a cultured manner and speech suggesting she might well be a physician. They called for soft drinks, then on two occasions for meals. The woman on the stretcher had an oxygen mask and IV in place, as well as a cardiac monitor. She was a rather pretty redhead in her forties, and looked serene and at peace, but Ben was nearly overwhelmed by the memory of her pathetic cries.

The chances were slim at best, he knew, but somehow he had to find a way to help her escape.

The man named Vincent was taller and broader across the shoulders than Ben remembered. From the moment the killer stepped onto the plane, Ben was searching for any sign of having been recognized, and replaying, as best he could, every second of their encounter in Cincinnati. It was so dark in the garage, and everything had happened so quickly. It didn't seem likely the man had gotten a solid look at him. By the time they had been airborne for a few hours, Ben's concerns had largely vanished.

For his part, Vincent spent much of the flight asleep on the shoulder of his girlfriend. Connie was most definitely not the girl of Ben's dreams. She was a ferret-faced woman with a barbed-wire tattoo around her upper arm and a tight white tee that accentuated her huge breasts. She smoked throughout the flight, while the other two security guards played cards or slept.

"How're you doing, Seth? Almost finished cleaning up?"

The captain, a burly man named Stanley Holian, was as laid-back and nonthreatening as Vincent and the team of security people were menacing. Ben had been in the cockpit as much as he had been anywhere on the plane, and was grateful for every minute of Sportscenter he had ever watched. A few batting averages and an opinion as to who was going to win the National League pennant, and he was just one of the guys.