Truck and car simultaneously came to a screeching stop. Amir shouted in anger in Pashto. The driver babbled back at him.
Amir listened for a moment, a grim expression on his face, then he turned to Cait and Abby. “This man says smoke and noise are coming from the camp where your friends are.”
He put the touring car in gear and they covered the distance to the lake in ten minutes. He stopped at the edge of the bluff and with Abby and Cait following, he hobbled to the cliff to peer through binoculars at a black cloud rising from the opposite shore.
“What’s going on?” Abby said.
The Amir handed the binoculars to Abby and pointed across the lake.
“My eyes aren’t what they used to be. Tell me if you see anything.”
Abby studied the camp site for a moment, and said, “Too much smoke.” She handed the glasses to Cait, who had no better luck.
Amir rattled off a series of orders to his men. The Russian Jeep continued on the road around the lake and the desert vehicle headed back to the compound.
“I’ve sent some of my men to scout out the camp and others to warn the village. Somehow, someone got past our outposts. It looks as if I will have to make an apology to Mr. Hawkins for doubting his warnings….”
Amir left off the last part of his comment, but his unspoken words hung in the air.
…If he is still alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
As he stepped out of the helicopter and looked around at the scene of death and destruction, the professor felt as if he were spinning down into a black vortex of violence from which there was no escape. He’d failed to come up with a way to save lives.
Marzak exited behind Saleem and inhaled the oily miasma deep into his lungs as if testing the nose of a fine wine. The crackle of flames was music to his ears. His pulse raced with excitement, while his glowering eyes burned with a blue fire.
The mercenaries poured out of the helicopter to mop things up, no more emotional than cattle killers in a slaughterhouse. Marzak noticed the rope leading from the truck’s bumper toward the lake. He strode to the cliff and saw where the line led into the water. He ordered the divers to suit up and get into the lake to find Hawkins.
The professor heard the order and raised his hand. “I was under the impression that we were here to look for a treasure. If we encounter the Americans we will take care of them, but it is not our primary goal.”
“It is my primary goal. The Doctor gave me command of these men.”
“And my cousin gave me control of their paychecks.”
Marzak’s nostrils flared in anger. He drew his pistol from his belt, aimed at a wounded man who was attempting to crawl away and dispatched him with a clean shot to the head.
The cold-blooded murder seemed to calm him down. “My apologies, professor. My brother’s death still preys on my mind.”
The professor was aware, especially after the cold-blooded murder he had just witnessed, that his control over Marzak was an illusion. The best he could do was delay. “I understand your feelings. I only ask that your revenge wait.”
“Yes, of course. But please allow these men to do a quick search before they look for the treasure cave.”
“A reasonable compromise,” the professor agreed, knowing that there was little else he could do.
Marzak nodded and went over to the divers to give them their amended orders.
The four divers had donned black military style wetsuits and air tanks and were checking the loads in their APS underwater assault rifles. Developed by the Russians, the rifle had a folding butt stock and an odd-shaped oversized magazine that could hold up to twenty-six rounds. The weapon fired steel dart cartridges and had an underwater range of more than a hundred feet. Each rifle had a knife-bayonet for close combat.
The divers used the descent line to climb down to the water’s edge, where they plunged in and quickly disappeared below the blue surface of the lake.
Minutes earlier, Hawkins had scrambled down the same slope and grabbed Calvin by the arm.
“We’re going to have company,” he warned. “Four guys packing APSes.”
“Better give me a hand with this, then.” Cal grabbed a strongbox handle.
Hawkins put his doubts aside, took hold of the box, and they pulled it down the slope into the water. Around the fifty feet level Calvin signaled a stop and opened the container. The object inside looked like a turbo-drive hairdryer.
Hawkins recognized the Heckler and Koch P11underwater pistol. The thick handle housed a battery pack that electrically ignited the cartridges tucked into the short, fat barrel unit. The cartridges fired steel darts around four inches long with an effective underwater range of about forty feet. Hawkins had trained on the weapon, but never used one in combat.
Calvin extracted several half-pound blocks of C-4 plastic explosive packed in foil, a time fuse, M-60 fuse lighter and blasting cap from his pack and handed them to Hawkins, who tucked them into his vest pockets.
Hawkins raised his eyes, saw four dark shapes silhouetted against the silvery surface glimmer and jerked his thumb down. They used every muscle in their legs to propel themselves to where Fido hovered next to the big boulder. Hawkins had designed the submersible with an external control panel. He doused the headlights and looked up to see a quartet of falling stars floating down into the dark water. The divers had flicked on their flashlights and were making a cautious descent, four abreast.
“I’ve got a dart for each one of those guys with an extra,” Calvin said.
Hawkins knew from his own experience how hard it was to get a bead on a moving target with the Heckler and Koch. The four APS rifles gave the pursuing divers greater range and more than a hundred chances to make a hit.
“Stay close by and get ready to shoot when I tell you,” he said.
He tilted Fido up at the front so the submersible was directed at the divers who had closed the distance by half. Hawkins waited until they were around twenty feet away, then clicked on the headlights.
The divers were clearly illuminated as they shielded their eyes against the powerful halogens with their free hands.
“Now!” Hawkins said.
Calvin fired his weapon at the closest diver. The dart missed by a foot or more. The divers shot at the AUV’s light array using tracer darts followed by killing projectiles. Three of the darts missed, but one thunked into the plastic housing. Hawkins doused Fido’s headlights. A flight of darts shot past them, missing by inches. While the rifles were recharging, Calvin pumped two shots at the darkness behind the nearest flashlight.
There was no sound to announce a hit, but the light jerked in a dozen different directions. Hawkins turned the lights on again and saw a diver clutching the shaft of the dart sticking from his rib cage. Dark blood flowed from the wound.
His companions saw the same horrible sight and kicked frantically toward the surface.
“Good shooting, Cal.”
“Crap! There are still three of them.”
“What would you do if you were them?” Hawkins asked.
“I’d pop some grenades into the water. Even if they miss, the blast will soften us up for a quick assault. Even better, I’d have a chopper pop a missile down our throats.”
“Now what would you do if you were us?”
“Get the hell out of here!”
“We’ll have to surface when our air runs out. The choppers will be patrolling the lake ready to turn us into hamburger. We need a distraction. Follow me.”
Hawkins swam toward the body of the now dead diver. He grabbed him by a fin and held the corpse steady. With the other hand he pulled the C-4 packets out of his vest and handed them to Calvin who knew exactly what his friend was thinking. While Hawkins used Fido to provide light, Calvin bundled four packets with a couple of turns of time fuse. Then he attached a tubular blasting cap to the free end of the fuse.