McHugh lived in a modest ranch house in Rio Rico, close to Nogales. His wife was friendly and talkative, and reminded Sutherland of some of her family back in West Virginia. She was a good cook, as well, and Sutherland asked for seconds on the tamales.
Mrs. McHugh must have noticed her guest’s eyes drooping because she led her to her bedroom even though it was fairly early in the evening. Sutherland’s clothes were grungy and she accepted the offer to wash them and pajamas to wear. She took a long, hot shower and slid beneath the cool sheets.
She closed her eyes and considered her situation. She was a target, and the people who were after her had a long reach. Anyone around her was in danger. She would take a short rest and do what she did best.
Disappear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Hawkins stirred in the cocoon-like warmth of his sleeping bag and glanced at the glowing hands of his wristwatch. He yawned, unzipped the bag, grabbed his computer and stepped out of his tent into the cold night. A welcome scent wafted on the crisp air. The guards were brewing a pot of coffee on a gas stove.
A guard waved Hawkins over and filled a mug for him. The first sip was like hitting the switch on his brain ignition. The potent concoction made the strongest Starbucks brew seem like water.
“Good?” the unlikely barista said.
“More than good,” Hawkins said.
He went over to the lean-to he had erected close to the lake the day before, set his computer on a stack of boxes and booted up. He called up the data Fido had fed into the system after returning to the docking port. An orange-and-black image showed the lake floor moving under the AUV’s camera. Information giving time and depth streamed along the bottom of the screen. A vertical portion of the picture off to the right showed the results of the side-scan sonar.
Calvin had emerged from his tent and followed the scent of coffee to its source. He brought his cup over to the lean-to.
“Man, this tastes like Louisiana crude.”
“Yeah. We can use this stuff in the DPV if we run short on fuel.” Hawkins pointed at the screen. “Have a look.”
Hawkins called up the photographic image of the entire search area. Dotted parallel lines showed the path of the AUV as it moved from the bottom to the top of the slope and back down again.
“Fido was a busy little pup,” Calvin said.
Calvin’s finger traced several dark areas among the layers of rock strata. “These are all potential targets that could be cave openings.”
Hawkins zoomed in on the individual targets, one after another. “There’s one problem. You know what real estate people say. Location times three. None of these openings line up with the camel’s hump or the mine shaft. They’re all off to one side or the other of the mid-line.”
“Maybe someone made a mistake eyeballing the hump.”
“Maybe, but I can’t see Kurtz sinking a mine shaft on the basis of an estimated position. Let’s take a closer look at the slope directly in line with the shaft.”
He went back to the over-view image and called up that section showing the path in line with the shaft. “There,” he said, freezing the image on a huge boulder sitting in a depression. “Notice the shape of the shadow surrounding the rock.”
Calvin squinted at screen. “The hole is rectangular, almost square. Mine opening maybe.”
“That’s my take on it too, Cal. It could be a mine or maybe a cave entrance modified by human beings. Only one way to know for sure.”
“I’ll get the dive gear ready,” Calvin said.
The sun had risen, but the air was still cold and they shivered as they shimmied into their wetsuits. They ran a line down the sloping shore of the lake from the bumper of the personnel carrier. They would hold onto the rope as they made their way down to the water’s edge. A couple of guards carried dive gear and waterproof flashlights to the edge of the lake. With a few strokes of the keyboard, Hawkins programmed the vehicle to return to the boulder it had discovered on its initial search.
Then he and Calvin pulled on their fins and air tanks with the attached Pegasus propulsion units, slipped into the lake and swam over to the floating dock. Fido’s electric motors hummed while the computer went through its positioning procedure. Hawkins and Calvin waved at the guards lined up at the top of the cliff then they dove a few feet and tested their air supply and communications systems.
The AUV slipped below the surface with its headlights on. Propelled by the Pegasus thrusters, Hawkins and Calvin followed Fido, swimming parallel to the underwater slope. The color of the water shifted from silvery blue to navy. Their depth gauges were at one hundred fifty feet when Fido slowed to a stop and hovered with its headlight beams pointed at the massive boulder they had seen on the monitor. The rock was around twelve feet in diameter and wedged tightly into what had been the cave or mine opening.
“This explains why Kurtz sunk the shaft,” Hawkins said. “There was no way he could get by this thing. And from the looks of it, neither can we.”
Calvin poked his sheath knife into the tight seam between the bolder and the edge of the hole. “Where’s that SEAL can-do spirit, Hawk?” He patted a pack harnessed to his chest. “Ol’ Calvin packed some C-4 in his bag of goodies.”
“You want to blast it? You’d need a nuke to pulverize this size rock.”
“Not talking about blasting the rock. I’ll set the charges around the perimeter and see if I can pop that bad boy out like a zit.”
“You have a way with words, Cal. But won’t the explosion bring down the whole slope above the opening?”
“Not if I set the charges right. I’ll blast the ledge at the same time. The pressure will push the plug from behind, the ledge will crumble like an old cookie, and she’ll roll over and out. Hopefully.”
“Hopefully.”
“That’s the best I got, Hawk.”
“Then it’s good enough for me, old pal. Stay here, Fido,” he said to the hovering AUV. “We’ll be right back.”
Hawkins pointed up. They rose up the face of the boulder, and then ascended the slope with strong, steady fin flutters. They were a few fathoms from the surface when they heard what sounded like a jackhammer. Then a buzz-saw went to work.
They hovered, listening as the combined noise grew to a stuttering sound wave that was only partially dampened by the layer of water overhead. A second later there was a flash of light and the water thudded with the vibration of an explosion. There were several more buzz saw episodes, followed by a thrashing, pulsating sound. The surface was stirred up like water in a washing machine and they backed down the slope to get away from the turbulence.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that there had been a fierce attack on land.
From the lack of sound, it appeared, too, that there was a lull. Hawkins signaled Calvin to head up the slope.
They surfaced cautiously through the roiling water. Black smoke drifted over their heads. They shed their tanks, weight belts and fins and crawled up to where they could peer over the edge of the cliff. The encampment was a scene of utter devastation.
Where there had been a dozen or so of Amir’s guards were only broken bodies spread around. The troop carrier was a burning pile of blackened wreckage, and what was left of it was riddled with holes. Through the cloud of greasy smoke, Hawkins could see four helicopters circling the camel hump like hunting raptors. He recognized the slim fuselages of Cobra gunships. The larger helicopter was likely a flying command post.