The Land of the Free (16 page)

Jess followed the contour of the
ridge to an apex point, where the ridge started to decline towards the tidal
flat below.  From this location, she had an unobstructed view of the structures
around the harbor.  She knew that she had the far easier role, but was mindful
about staying out of the sight lines of the developed area around the harbor. 
The structures made maximum use of the flat land at the water’s edge, and that
this was truly a massive barracks complex.  The east slope of the ridge was
steeper with less vegetation, so the risk of being seen was elevated.  She
crossed to the west side of the ridge and took in the details.  In the harbor,
the gray converted cruise ship started disembarking passengers. 
Those
aren’t your typical tourists
, she said under her breath.

They were all young men, North Korean
or Chinese she thought, carrying rucksacks, wearing light T-shirts, loose
fitting cotton shorts, and sneakers.  They made their way from the cruise ship
to the barracks area where others met them, directing each to a particular
barrack.  Jess took photographs of the ship, the disembarking men, the barracks
and the harbor.  She tried to estimate the number of barracks by arranging them
in a series of grids, like she would if she were sampling vegetation.  She
disregarded dissimilar looking buildings scattered among the complex that
appeared to be mess halls or toilet facilities.  She estimated 1,000 buildings,
with a small margin of error.  There was a section she could not clearly see
without hiking down the ridge, a needless risk in her mind.  She tried to
imagine the organization inside each barrack, and felt comfortable that each
could house 100 men, with some crowding.

If her calculations and assumptions
were correct, and she was confident that she was in the right ballpark, there
could be 100,000 troops in this complex. 
But why here?
 
If America
was the target, it was too far away, and transporting that many troops would be
obvious.

Jess hoped that what Lyle found
might shed more light on her questions.  She decided she could do no more, so
she backtracked to where they had first split up and back down the hill to
their landing spot.  While in the dense foliage on the slope of the hill, she
froze when she heard the sound of a gunshot.  It was nowhere nearby, so she did
not think she’d been spotted.  There was a second gunshot.  Both came from over
the hill, so it had to be –
Lyle
!

Had he been caught?  Executed?  She
felt her stomach tighten, and she became jittery as she struggled with the
thought that Lyle was in danger.  Or worse.  She couldn’t bear to lose him. 
Her presence of mind returned in short order and she knew she had to get away. 
This would all be for nothing if Lyle was caught or shot and she was not able
to get her evidence into the right hands.  She hurried to the landing spot, got
her gear back on, swam to the outcrop, and waited. 
Any time now would be
really good, Luis,
she said to herself.

Luis’ boat came into view around
the shoreline of a distant island, and soon arrived at the outcrop.

“Where’s Mr. Josh?” asked Luis. 
She suddenly had to make a decision.  To stay and risk being captured, or
possibly leave Lyle stranded on a hostile island, where he would surely be
captured in time.  She imagined that Lyle could be 10 minutes or so behind her
if the shots were fired as he was making his retreat.

“Let’s give him five minutes,
Luis.”

“I was afraid of this.  You were on
the island,” said Luis.  “We can’t stay here if they know you were there.  They
might kill us.”

At that moment, they noticed a
small unit of armed men advancing down the beach from around the end of the
ridge.  They were taking the much longer perimeter route, which gave Lyle an
advantage, if he was still alive.

“Come on, Lyle,” said Jess mostly
to herself, her agitation obvious.

Morningstar Security had no true
headquarters building, but Derek Ellis maintained what could be considered the
equivalent in his home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Front
Royal, Virginia.  He had plenty of land and kept horses as a hobby.  The house
was otherwise impractically large for a single man with no family, and it was
lavishly appointed.  He could both entertain large groups of people and run
Morningstar Security from his office and adjacent large conference room with
grand views of the Blue Ridge.  He was close enough to Washington that he could
brave the traffic and drive there when the weather was not conducive to travel
by helicopter, his preferred means of travel.

There were two guests in the
conference room, and a third on a large video conference screen.  “General Kim,
please update me on the status of your forces.  If you’re not ready in time,
I’ll have to order Tilbury to delay their operation.  Without telling you the
reasons for it, simply understand that there is absolutely no flexibility in
their time line once we launch our operation.”

General Kim answered from the
conference screen.  “We are almost ready, Mr. Ellis.  The landing strips are at
maximum capacity, accepting incoming cargo flights around the clock.  There
have not been any delays, and I am assured that everything is ready to be
shipped that is not already here.  I check on this daily, and there are no
issues to report at present.  Even bad weather is not stopping the flights.  I
understand your logistical concerns, but we will be ready.”

Ian Rennson’s telephone rang. 
Ellis had a flexible
no cell phone
policy at his meetings.  Only phones
with numbers known to few people and used sparingly for important
communications were permitted in meetings.  Rennson answered, and after
speaking for a few moments said, “I’ll call you back.”

“Derek, I think you’ll want to know
this.  Can we finish up with the General later?”

Ellis shook his head.  “I think
we’re all set for today.  General, I’m going to disconnect, but if anything
comes up that would cause you not to be ready, you have three days to stop me. 
After that, if you have to stop it will scuttle the whole operation, and I’ll
kill you myself.  Do you understand?”

“That won’t be necessary Mr.
Ellis,” said Kim, who knew that Ellis was not speaking only for effect.

“What’s up, Ian?”

“They’ve captured the two of them. 
Alive.  They’re holding them up in New Jersey.  The question is do you want
them executed or turned over to the Feds.”

“Don’t do anything with them yet.
I’d like to have a word with them myself.”

Ellis pushed the intercom button on
his phone.  “Gas up the helicopter.  I’m going to New Jersey.”

Lyle descended the hill after
splitting off from Jess, and made his way towards the port.  He paused several
times to look for guards.  He saw the occasional armed man but there were no
lookout towers or specific sentry locations.  This was a complication, since he
couldn’t predict when he would encounter the next armed man.  Overall, the
facility was only lightly guarded.
 No doubt they paid off the right people
in Panama and don’t expect any troubles,
he thought to himself.

Lyle reached the edge of the
clearing in a few minutes.  Across the clearing was the warehouse and behind it
a field of shipping containers that stretched beyond the edges of the harbor. 
Lyle looked around and seeing nobody, ran to the back of the warehouse.  He
noticed that the workers had cut large holes in the aluminum walls of the
warehouse, and since he could see no vents elsewhere, assumed the holes were
for ventilation.  He walked over to one of them and looked inside.  The place
was full of shipping containers, no surprise there.  But he could see they were
refrigerated containers, normally used for shipping perishables.  Each
container had a panel on the outside monitoring the climate inside. 
You
don’t need to refrigerate missiles
, he thought to himself.

Lyle slipped through one of the
ventilation holes into the warehouse, careful to stay at the back behind a
stack of boxes.  He maneuvered himself into position to have a look into one of
the shipping containers.  He stayed low, crawled to the container and peeked
in.

Bunks
! He said it with
considerable surprise.  The container was loaded with bunks, four across and
five high, maybe five deep.  The front of the container had a small open area
from which two narrow aisles led through the bunks.  This container was
designed to hold 48 men in conditions he guessed would be hellish.  Those
refrigeration systems would be essential.  As he walked back to the opening in
the warehouse, he saw hundreds of toilets along one wall, and next to them what
looked like cisterns, each the size of 3 or 4 bathtubs.  He slipped back out of
the warehouse and walked further along the wall, where he thought there was
some other activity going on.  He looked in through another hole and saw
containers being loaded with light armaments.  There were automatic rifles,
rocket propelled grenades, an assortment of handheld rockets and small
missiles.  He thought he recognized a Chinese Type 56 assault rifle.  He spent
a few more minutes making a mental catalog of the weapons he could identify. 
He saw rocket propelled grenades, tear gas canisters, and a lot of ammunition,
but no heavy weaponry.  The armaments were designed to outfit light infantry. 
He froze in his tracks, exclaiming almost out loud,
Trojan Horse
!

Lyle turned and ran out of the hole
in the warehouse, accidentally brushing against the aluminum, which made a
ringing sound.  He broke into a run, fairly confident the loud warehouse
interior would not betray him.  But anybody outside –.”

“Hey, stop!” yelled a voice in
American English.  Stopping was exactly the lowest priority thing on his mind
at the moment.  He was halfway across the clearing when he heard a gunshot, but
continued running.  He hadn’t heard the whistling of a bullet or felt
anything.  Another gunshot followed, and this time he heard the whistling of
the bullet.  But it hit the vegetation ahead, and again he felt nothing.  He
made it to the cover of the woods, but he had been discovered.  He ran through
the woods, and up the hill, breathing heavily in the humid air.  His spleen was
cramping, his heart was pounding violently, and his lungs were laboring to get
enough oxygen.  Lyle was a reasonably good runner, but now he wished he had
kept training at middle-distances beyond his college years.

Once Lyle crested the hill and
started downhill, his breathing eased.  That oxygen-rich scuba tank was waiting
for him and he could almost taste it.  The refreshing waters of the Pacific
were waiting for him too, once he got out of this jungle.  Another few minutes
and he would be there. 
Please be ready, Jess.  Please be there, Luis.

Lyle got to the bottom of the hill,
emerged from the jungle and saw the boat waiting for him. 
Thank God for
that
he said to himself.  He quickly put on his flippers and tank and swam
as fast as he could, breathing heavily the oxygen-enriched air in the scuba
tank until he made it past the outcrop and into the waiting boat.

Luis knew not to wait around and
immediately brought the boat to plane, getting them away from the island.  Lyle
looked back and saw the men with automatic weapons coming down the beach.  They
had followed the perimeter of the island rather than chasing him through the
jungle, and they were too late.  They pulled out binoculars and surveyed the
escaping boat, while one pulled out a radio and spoke into it.

“Luis, I hope this boat is as fast
as you say, because we’re about to have company,” said Lyle.  “I’m sorry for
getting you into this, but if you can get us out to safety there’s a bonus of
$5,000 in it for you.”

“It’s okay Senor, I told you I can
handle myself,” said Luis with astonishing calm as he opened the door to the
section of the boat under the bow.  “Take the wheel for a second.”

Lyle held the wheel and watched as
Luis maneuvered into a space full of hydraulic pistons and pumps.  He activated
pistons that pushed outwards through the hull and as he did, Lyle felt the hull
lift out of the water.  The sound of the rushing water faded considerably as
the water resistance dropped.  Luis returned to the pilot’s chair and flipped
another switch, whereupon there was a jolt that felt like a gear change,
followed by a rush of speed as the boat felt like it doubled its pace.

“I activated the hydrofoils,” said
Luis.  And indeed, what looked like skis now kept the bulk of the hull up above
the water, greatly reducing the drag and gaining them precious time to make
their getaway.

“I knew you were up to no good. 
You weren’t looking at sewage runoffs on the wrong side of the island.  I hope
you had good reasons to be there.  They might have killed you.”

Luis then maneuvered among several
islands in the Pearl Island Archipelago before turning into a cove on a small
island, coming to rest under some overhanging rocks.  It looked like an old
lava tube, and he pulled into it so they would not be visible from the air.

“Another couple minutes and our
wake will disappear into the chop of the water” said Luis.  “They won’t find us
here.  They don’t know these islands.  They don’t have an airport on San Marcos
so it will take 10 or 20 minutes to get anything here.”

Before long they heard airplanes in
the distance and within a few minutes the sky was seemingly full of small
planes flying back and forth at various distances from where they were hiding.

“We can’t go back to Contadora,”
said Jess.

“No, that would not be safe,” said
Luis.  “We’ll wait for night time and go to Costa Rica.  Did you leave your
papers back at the hotel?”

Lyle looked uncomfortable, but was
interrupted by a cheerful Jess. “Looking for these?” she asked as she offered a
plastic sealed plastic bag containing the Feldsteins’ papers.

“Whew,” said Lyle.  “But we’re not
clear yet.  They’ll check our identities no doubt.  It might not be safe to use
the passports at computerized scanners.”