“If Braun went to that much trouble to set me up, that means he’s looking to deflect attention and maybe buy a little time. And if he’s still in London,” Dugan continued, “odds are he has more attacks planned.”
“I think so, too,” Ward said. “I’m going straight to London.”
“What about me?” Dugan asked.
Ward looked at Carlucci.
“We’re working on it,” he said.
Luna sat with his subordinates in a room nearby. He’d promised not to record the earlier conversation but said nothing about future surveillance.
“So, señores. What do you think?”
“Their words follow the earlier story,” Juan Perez said, “but they may suspect we listen.”
“True. Manny?” Luna prompted.
Reyes shrugged. “If Dugan is dirty, he’s our only lead.”
“Emotion aside,” Luna asked, “what does your gut tell you?”
Reyes shrugged again. “Ward’s logic seems sound, and this Gardner is an obvious idiot. I think it is possible Dugan is innocent, or at worst, a dupe.”
Luna nodded. “We must face facts. We lack resources to operate overseas. Our only real hope lies with the yanquis and the English.”
Reyes’s face clouded. “And so we let Dugan go and hope our kindly Uncle Sam will come back later to pat our heads and tell us what is going on? This is an atrocity against Panama, and we have a suspect in custody. I do not think we should release him so easily.”
“And what if Ward is right?” Luna asked. “What if this Dugan’s expertise is required not only to prevent more attacks but to bring the perpetrator of this one to justice?”
“I did not say Dugan should not be allowed to go with Ward, Capitán,” Reyes said, “only that he should not leave our custody.”
Reyes settled back in the leather seat of the Gulfstream and glared at Dugan in the seat across from him. The man was already snoring, thanks to heavy-duty painkillers courtesy of Carlucci.
“Thank you for releasing him,” Ward said from the seat beside him.
“To be clear, Agent Ward,” Reyes said, “we did not release him. He is traveling in my custody. I can return with him to Panama at any time. I expect both your government and the British to abide by the terms of our agreement in that regard.”
Ward looked as if he were about to speak and then seemed to think better of it. He nodded instead and turned to stare out the window, leaving Reyes to his own thoughts.
His sons were both awake now, and the doctors said there was no great physical injury, but they were confused and frightened. Leaving them had been hard, made possible only by the presence of his parents and in-laws. It had taken all his resolve, but he knew in his heart his sons would want him to bring Maria’s murderers to justice.
For all his bluster with Ward, his mission was anything but “official.” It was an arrangement hammered out between Ward and Luna, with the Walsh woman on the telephone from UK. Reyes was not even officially assigned to the task. Things were too chaotic in Panama to hope to get such an arrangement approved quickly. Reyes had merely put in for his annual leave, with a promise from Luna that he would clean up the paperwork after the fact.
As the Gulfstream leveled out at cruising altitude, Reyes unbuckled his seat belt and leaned toward Dugan. The man stirred but didn’t wake as Reyes unlocked the handcuffs and slipped them into his jacket pocket.
“Thank you,” Ward said. “I’m sure he will appreciate that.”
Reyes shrugged. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
The watchman at Pedro Miguel Lock raised his eyes as the Gulfstream passed overhead. As he watched the lights fade, he heard a muffled screech and then a gigantic groan as the mass in the lock shifted.
“Central Control. This is Pedro Miguel. The plug is shifting. Repeat, the plug is shifting.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Calderon stood at the rail. Deck lights made Luther Hurd a bright pool on the dark surface of the lake. Sailors swarmed, rigging hoses and lights into tanks with shouts and curses and rough humor, to the din of impact wrenches loosening tank manholes. A launch scraped against the shipside, and he watched two men climb the accommodation ladder toward him.
The shorter man shook his head. “It is not good,” he began.
“Wait, Carlos. The capitán should hear,” Calderon said, leading the men to where Blake stood with Milam, checking off breached bulkheads on a tank layout.
“Go ahead,” Calderon said, nodding at the senior of the two pilots.
“The plug shifted,” said Captain Carlos Sanchez. “The current is increasing. And we have only thirty-feet depth before the lock. It will be difficult, even now.”
“We need to move then?” Blake asked.
“We should heave anchor in an hour to start into the cut at first light,” said the second pilot, Captain Roy McCluskey.
Milam nodded. “I can finish in transit. ETA at the lock?”
“About 0700,” Sanchez said. McCluskey nodded agreement.
Milam checked the time. “OK, we can make that.”
Sanchez raised a hand. “There’s more. We must modify our approach. Señor Milam, may I?” Milam passed him the clipboard. The pilot flipped the paper to draw on the back.
“We block the east lock,” he said, “with the starboard stern against the center guide wall and the bow against the east bank. The problem is here” — he tapped his sketch—”where the east bank narrows to the lock at this diagonal wall. If we cannot hold the bow against the bank while you ballast, it will be pushed down onto the angled wall and funneled into the lock.” He paused. “We must ground the bow fast and hard so it cannot shift. Then the current and tugs will hold the stern to the wall while you ballast down.”
Blake nodded. “What’s the depth near the bank?”
Sanchez and McCluskey exchanged glances. “Ten feet and falling.”
“Christ,” Blake said. “Chief, what do we need aft to immerse the prop?”
“Twenty-one feet, minimum,” Milam said. “And we lose some power at that draft.”
“I can get the bow up to eight feet,” Blake said, “but we’ll be like a fat man in the stern of an empty canoe. She’ll handle—”
“Like a pig,” McCluskey finished.
“It will be difficult,” Sanchez conceded. “The current is over four knots now. We must go in at speed, two to three knots faster than that.”
Blake stared. “You want to put a forty-thousand-ton ship in the worst possible condition, then try to ground at a specific spot at an over-the-ground speed of eight knots?”
Sanchez nodded.
“And if we miss? Or a pressure wave forces the bow to shear? Then we go into the lock ‘at speed,’ with the weight of the whole lake behind us. This is… this is…” Blake stopped, speechless.
“Total lunacy,” Milam finished. “I unvolunteer.”
The pilots exchanged looks. “Gentlemen,” Sanchez said, “there is no alternative. It is not now a case of slowly losing the lake. If the plug fails, thousands will die downstream. We must attempt this. With or without you.”
“You can’t do it without us,” Blake said. “There is no time.”
“Quite a choice,” Milam said. “Risk death or spend the rest of our lives looking at news footage of floating corpses. I’ll go, god damn it, but I’m not happy about it.”