“It was loud, all right.” He let Harv go to work on his wound with the med kit. “I’d like to sit here a while longer. How’d you do with Raven’s other men down in town? They dead?”
Harv sat next to him. “One of them. The other’s gonna limp for several months. Estefan’s watching them. I got your message.”
“The footprint?”
His friend nodded.
“It’s really good to see you, Harv.”
“Did you take a knock on the head? You don’t sound so good.”
“It’s incredible. The complete absence of sound. Close your eyes and listen to it for a minute.”
They sat there for thirty seconds, unmoving and utterly quiet. The only sound was Raven’s irregular breathing.
“Wow,” Harv said. “Did it mess with you?”
“Yeah, I felt it. In force.”
“Your safety catch work okay?”
“Just barely… I miss Holly. I wish she wasn’t so far away.”
“Why don’t you check her schedule and go out to DC. I know she’d love to see you.” Harv smiled. “I’ll bet you can even get a free ride.”
Nathan nodded, then waited a few moments, listening to Raven breathe. Then he told Harv what Raven had said about Macanas and Montez, as well as Tobias.
“Incredible. Do you believe it?”
“Yeah, I do.” Nathan looked at the puddle of blood next to Raven.
Harv shook his head. “And Cantrell sent us here, directly into an operation run by the man who helped put you in Montez’s hands?”
“She didn’t know.”
“Know what? That Montez and Macanas had a history?”
Nathan shrugged. “Any of it. I doubt she even knew Macanas was our old Echo recruiter. All it would take is a change of ID, plastic surgery. You know the drill, Harv. If someone wants to disappear with a new ID, they do it. It’s easier with money and connections, both of which Macanas has.”
“I guess.”
“What I’m saying is, I don’t believe she would knowingly do this to us.”
“I admire your faith in her, and I agree. There’s no way she’d do it intentionally. It’s too cold-blooded.”
“Are you just saying that, or do you really believe it?”
“I believe it.”
“Well, there’s hope for you yet.”
Having finished bandaging Nathan’s thigh, Harv asked, “Now what?”
“We go home.”
“We have to arrange for our extraction.”
Nathan reached into his pocket and held out the keys to Macanas’s helicopter.
“I love you, Nate.”
“I know… Just a few more minutes, okay?”
With Harv at his side, Nathan sat there, in the lime glow of a light stick, in the middle of a Nicaraguan mountain, and watched a man die.
EPILOGUE: THIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER
Under a crisp afternoon sky, Nathan felt a little awkward. He had nothing against Congressional Country Club. It was a beautiful place, but it wasn’t his kind of place. He liked greasy-spoon diners, where the coffee tasted like yesterday’s brew and the food needed improvement. Places where people didn’t look too closely at their fellow customers. In truth, Nathan preferred to avoid public places altogether. Too often, people stared. Harv, on the other hand, loved luxury and fine dining. Driving into the country club grounds, he’d said, “Now this is what I’m talking about.”
After dropping their rental car off with the valet, they found Bill Stafford waiting inside the foyer along with several sharply dressed men with bulges under their coats. Stafford acted friendly enough, but he made no effort to engage in small talk. He stayed in pure business mode, acutely aware of everyone and everything within his visual range. They followed him into the restaurant’s lounge where a few tables accommodated small groups of men. Nathan didn’t recognize any of them, and he wondered how many legislators actually came here. He didn’t think his father, the senior senator from New Mexico, showed up with any regularity.
Entering the lounge, Nathan saw two operations officers, one seated at the bar, the other near a fireplace, both in strategically located perches. He thought he recognized them as the same officers who’d met Harv and him at Dulles.
Seated next to a window overlooking the golf course was the only woman in the room. Roughly the same age as Nathan, Rebecca Cantrell wore black slacks and a blue sweater and her brunette hair was secured in a bun. Nathan and Harv wore newly purchased clothes — slacks and golf shirts. Their Nicaraguan civilian attire wouldn’t have allowed them admittance.
She stood when they approached.
“Rebecca, you’re looking lovely as always.”
“Thank you, Nathan. Hello, Harvey.”
“Director Cantrell,” Harv said.
Bill Stafford helped Rebecca with her chair and left the table.
“I thought you were working graveyard,” Nathan said.
“We collared our bad guy. I’m still adjusting to the change in hours.” Rebecca glanced at her watch. “Since we don’t have much paper on your op down there, fill me in from when we last talked.”
Nathan thanked her again for sending in the recons to support their insertion. He also thanked her for permitting them some downtime before being debriefed. After landing at NAS Norfolk, both of them had been utterly exhausted. They’d slept for nearly twelve hours.
It took about five minutes for Nathan to go over the chronology. Rebecca asked a few questions but otherwise listened with genuine interest. Knowing the director’s time was limited and valuable, Nathan kept his update brief and on point.
“Keying in on Antonia clearly paid dividends,” Cantrell said.
“We got lucky. Things could’ve turned out quite differently.”
“Still, you did a good job containing the situation.”
The three of them fell silent for a moment.
“The McClusky’s skipper wasn’t particularly happy about a civilian bird landing on his boat,” said Cantrell, “but he said you made a competent landing. I’m paraphrasing here, but he also said you two looked like you’d been dragged down a dirt road without missing any potholes.”
“That’s probably an accurate assessment. Thank you for keeping her offshore.”
“No problem. She’s been used for drug interdiction, so it was a good fit. I’d just assumed the McClusky would be sending a helicopter for you, not receiving one from you.”
“At the time, it seemed like our best option.” Nathan looked at his friend. “Harv did all of the flying, even the landing. I handled the radio work.”
She looked at Harv with a raised brow.
Harv said, “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The helipad looks tiny at a distance, but it’s actually pretty big. The worst part was flying one hundred miles out to sea without much of a fuel reserve. I gotta tell you, seeing the McClusky emerge out of the darkness was a damned beautiful sight.”
“I can imagine.”
Harv smiled. “Let’s just say I have a renewed respect for naval helo drivers.”
After landing on the frigate, they’d cleaned themselves up and eaten several pounds of chow. The Black Hawk ride over to Gitmo had seemed endless. From Gitmo, they’d hitched a ride on a Herky bird up to Virginia, practicing the old adage, “Sleep when you can.”
“About the gold you brought back with you,” said the director, “it’s entirely your call what to do with it. Did you have something in mind?”
“Estefan has a good idea,” said Nathan. “His wife wants to fund a program to care for people in Santavilla who’re suffering from mercury poisoning. It should make a difference for quite a few villagers, and it’s also a way for Estefan to honor his father’s memory.”