Down the hill a few miles away, another explosion sent fire and a dense cloud of smoke into the air.
“Viper One, second aerial target eliminated.”
“So much for their air force, Viper Two. Now let’s hit their infantry.”
“Cobra One here,” Sam Fargo cut in. “The trucks and armored cars are continuing toward the village.”
“How can they think they still have air cover?”
“They didn’t see your destructive nature. You were out of sight in the village, and Viper Two was hidden in the trees.”
“Thanks, Cobra,” said Viper One’s pilot. “Keep active as our spotter.”
“Will do,” said Sam. “Glad to be back in the saddle again.”
“Okay, Viper Two. We’ll start from opposite ends with the armored cars and work toward the middle of the trucks.”
“Engage before they recover. What do you want to lay on them?”
“Begin with the Hydra missiles to knock out the armored cars and then switch to the M230 cannon against the trucks and infantry. Viper Two, you take on the front armored car. I’ll engage tail-end Charlie.”
“Just watch our line of fire so we don’t kill each other.”
“Roger, Viper Two. We’ll be as careful as ladies at a tea.”
“Roger that, Viper One.”
With a touch of a button, he sent a Hydra missile across the village square into the armored car as it reached the top of the hill. Flames enveloped the disintegrating vehicle as it vanished in a vast fireball.
Sam laughed to himself. “I’ll ring the church bell every time you guys take out a truck.”
“I’ve never forgotten your sense of humor.”
“Nothing’s changed,” said Sam.
“Ready to squeeze the pumpkin, Viper One?”
“Let’s ride the dragon,” came the answer.
The Apaches showed their stuff by flying barrel rolls over the hill and turning loops through the village, passing a few feet from Sam’s observation post.
* * *
“Where are our Mi-8 copters?” asked Russell. He pulled himself back inside the armored car. “I don’t like the looks of this. There’s no sign of them, only two plumes of black smoke.”
“Could they have collided?”
Russell shook his head. “They came at the village from opposite directions. The smoke must be from targets they destroyed in the village.”
“Then why don’t they answer our transmissions?”
“That I don’t—” Before Russell could finish, the vicious AH-64E Longbow helicopter appeared thirty meters above, the pilot smiling and waving. The Longbow suddenly rolled upward and turned to a firing position. It not only looked deadly, it was deadly.
“Get out!” shouted Russell. “Jump!”
Ruiz didn’t have to be told twice. They burst from the armored car, leaving the gun crew inside. They dropped to the ground and rolled into a ditch on the side of the road.
Less than three seconds later, Russell heard the short scream of the Hydra 70 rocket as it impacted the armored car and blew its turret to pieces. In the black killing machine, the gunner had turned the muzzle of the M230 automatic cannon, mounted under the bow of the fuselage, toward the first truck in the convoy. Called a chain gun, it could spurt six hundred fifty thirty-millimeter rounds a minute. The blast of shells tore through the first and second trucks’ canvas-covered benches, carrying the twenty-five armed killers hired by San Martin, that quickly became fiery charnel houses.
There was no time for a warning. The third truck drove off the road, spilling out the men as soon as it rolled into the ditch. One man on the fourth truck threw back the canvas cover and began to shoot a mounted gun at the Apache.
“I’m taking fire, Viper Two. I could use help to take him out.”
“I’ll send him to dreamland. Just stay on your side of the convoy.”
Viper One could hear shells thumping into the rotor blades and fuselage, which was protected by twenty-six hundred pounds of shielding.
Viper Two dipped under Viper One and unleashed a torrent of fire that smashed the man in the truck bed and his heavy machine gun to a pile of morbid junk.
“Obliged to you, Viper Two.”
“You still in one piece?”
“Roger. Engaging truck five on my goal line.”
“Let’s finish the game.”
The flames from one truck, and the explosion and concussion from another, were still tearing the air when the last truck tried to escape across the field. It was quickly smashed to a halt. The survivors spilled to the ground, followed by a hail of shells pouring from the Apache like water from a fireman’s hose.
Both Apaches obliterated the rest of the convoy and circled the area, picking off any survivors who did not throw down their weapons or hold their hands up in surrender.
* * *
As Russell and Ruiz watched from the cover of the ditch along the side of the road, the heat from their flaming armored car was like torture to them. They lay there, staring in fascinated horror at the total destruction of the convoy by the phantom black helicopters.
“It makes no sense,” Russell muttered. “Who are they and where did they come from?”
“They are not Guatemalan military,” said Ruiz.
“Let’s not wait to find out,” Russell grunted, crawling away from the burning vehicle toward the nearest forest undergrowth.
“We have to find a place to lay low ’til it’s dark.”
“Sound thinking, my friend,” Russell said. “Follow me and keep low.”
“Where to?”
“Estancia Guerrero,” answered Russell. “We’ve got to get to Miss Allersby with a story to save our hides before another survivor makes it back.”
* * *
Remi’s heart sank when she heard the explosions and saw the black billowing clouds expanding in the sky above the village. She was helping the mothers with young children, distracting them from the turbulence below.
The silence that followed was even worse. The fear and anxiety finally got the best of her and she ran desperately out of the fortress and down the trail until she reached the village square. She stood there, dazed, after seeing the smoldering wreckage of a helicopter.
Remi saw no sign of Sam and closed her eyes to keep from crying in grief. She could not but think the worst.
She sensed a presence behind her. Then Sam’s voice. “How could our love affair not have a happy ending?”
Remi turned, her eyes flashing in excitement as they locked with Sam’s, and he kissed her lovingly on the lips. With his arms wrapped about her, Remi’s fear melted.
“Oh, Sam,” she murmured in his ear as she looked over his shoulder at what was left of the Mi-8.
At that moment, Viper One, followed by Viper Two, hovered over the square and gently touched down. The engines hummed, and the four-bladed main rotors slowed and crept to a stop. Sam grinned as four men in flight suits climbed out of the cockpits and approached.
The first reached out his hand and shook Sam’s. “I’ve missed you, old partner.”
“I’m amazed an old geezer like you is still flying the globe and getting into trouble.”
The pilot from Viper Two laughed. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your talent for wheeling and dealing.”
Remi stood by as the five men hugged one another and started telling war stories and catching up on old times. Remi thought it odd that none of them called one another by name. Finally, she looked at Sam and interrupted, “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
They all looked at one another, surprised, and then broke into laughter.
Sam took a confused Remi in his arms, and said, “This is a very, very unusual group. It’s on call around the world for operations such as the Estancia Guerrero. It’s also the finest and least-known secret operations force in the U.S.”
“That’s why our names and backgrounds are known only to ourselves,” said the pilot of Viper Two.
The gunner of Viper One looked at Remi, and said, “So is this beautiful woman the reason you left the force?”
Sam smiled with a twinkle in his eye. “That goes without saying.” He gave her an affectionate squeeze around the waist. “Sorry, I can’t give you her name.”
* * *
The villagers were cautiously returning to the village. They had an expression of disbelief at seeing the Apache Longbows, the wreckage of the Mi-8 Hip, and their village completely intact. Father Gomez and Dr. Huerta stood in awe.
Viper Two’s gunner nodded at the growing crowd, and said, “I think it’s time for us to fold our tents and silently steal off into the sunset.”
“Thank you,” said Sam as he shook their hands. “You saved the lives of over two hundred men, women, and children, and shut down one of Central America’s biggest drug operations.”
“Don’t wait so long for the next tournament,” said Viper One with a salute.
“Don’t change your phone number,” Sam said, holding Remi’s hand and giving her a kiss on the cheek. She looked squarely into his eyes, and said, “You told me you were with the CIA when we met.”
Sam merely shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Chapter 32
THE ROAD TO THE ESTANCIA GUERRERO
Ruiz sat in the cab of a truck beside Russell. “I feel like I fell out of an airplane,” he said. “My shoulder hurts from firing full auto at nothing. My knee feels like it’s broken from falling in that ditch. I can’t believe this.”
Russell kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Consider yourself lucky we snatched a pickup truck from a tobacco farmer. This is really a setback. And we lost ninety men or more who belonged to Diego San Martin. I’ll tell you something else. We’ve got to fix it before San Martin knows or get out of the country fast.”
Ruiz stared at him. “We’re done, man. It’s suicide to go in that town.”
A half hour later, they reached the Estancia Guerrero. As they pulled up the long gravel drive to the space by the countinghouse, Russell saw Sarah Allersby, sitting behind a lighted window. She saw their truck and ran out to meet them.
“Where are they?” she asked. “The helicopters never returned, nor any of the trucks.”
Russell looked down at her through his cab window. “As it turned out, we couldn’t just drive up there and load them on the trucks. When we got there, we were ambushed. We lost most of the men, and what few survived were captured.”
“Lost? You lost a hundred men to a bunch of ignorant peasants,” she said. “How could you do this to me?”
Russell and Ruiz looked at each other and climbed stiffly out of the truck. Ruiz leaned against it while Russell stood in front of Sarah Allersby. “Miss Allersby, I apologize. We were defeated. Not by the villagers but by two mysterious black, unmarked helicopters that blew apart our helicopters, the armored cars, and all the trucks.”
Sarah Allersby felt the heat of Russell’s rage building. It frightened her a little. She was too intelligent not to foresee what could happen next.
Russell said, “I think we’ve come to the end of our usefulness here. We’ll be leaving in a few minutes. I wish you luck.” He turned away.
“Wait,” she said. “I’m sorry, Russell, I didn’t mean to be sharp with you. Please don’t be upset. I know I was being insensitive, and I know things seem bad right now, but we can save this.”
Russell and Ruiz stared at her.
She said, “Those are men we borrowed from Diego San Martin. If you both leave and that’s all I have to tell him, he’ll kill me. And then he’ll have people find you and kill you. Don’t you know he’s a drug smuggler? He has connections and buyers in the United States and Europe. We don’t have much choice but to salvage this situation so we can give him some good news along with the bad. We can’t give up now.”
“We can’t save a disaster.”
“I’ll double your pay. I’ll also give you a percentage of the money I make on the artifacts from that place. The codex makes it look like a fortress and says that refugees from a city retreated there for a last stand. If they did that, they wouldn’t have left their treasures behind to their enemies. It’s going to be a huge find.”
“Miss Allersby,” said Russell, “people died today. If the police are brought in, anybody involved could be charged with murder. Not only were we the leaders but we’re foreigners.”
“We also don’t know where our attackers came from,” added Ruiz.
Chapter 33
THE ROAD TO GUATEMALA CITY
Two days later, Russell and Ruiz were apprehended and shackled to the bench seat of the army truck as it rattled along the road toward Guatemala City. Russell kept up a low monologue in Ruiz’s right ear. “It’s good that they’re taking us right to the capital. I don’t want to rot in some provincial jail for six months while the prosecutors take their time getting there and arranging for a trial. If we’re in Guatemala City, Sarah can bail us out before we’ve spent a night — or two nights anyway. And then she’ll make the charges go away. That’s what has to happen now. If we go to trial as the masterminds of this fiasco she dreamed up, we’re going to need a miracle to see the light of day again.”
“Diego San Martin is hiding out. That’s a plus.”
“True, but he isn’t about to let us off the hook. They resent us. And we’re the only Americans. I am anyway. You look like a native and you speak Spanish. I’ll bet they think you are Guatemalan.”
“If you’re up for huge crimes, it’s better to be foreign. They’ll think you must be working for a government and they might not execute you.”
“She just better have all the lawyers out, waiting for us, when we get there,” said Russell. “She swore she would.”
“She said we’d never get arrested too, but, here we are, captured and chained.”
Russell was silent for a few seconds, then said, “She’d better come through after we managed to get his private army wiped out.”
“I know,” said Ruiz. “We’re going to have to take turns sleeping so none of these guys finds a way to kill us.”
They sat in the truck and watched the miles rolling behind the truck into the distance. Russell tried to dismiss from his mind the sight of the few survivors sitting around him in the truck, the hollow look of their dirty, unshaven faces, the sweaty smell of their camouflage battle-dress uniforms, the anger and resentment in their eyes.
He turned his mind to Sarah Allersby. He imagined her in one of those immaculate white silk blouses she wore and a black skirt and high heels. She would be standing by the heavy wooden desk in the two-hundred-year-old building with the thick wooden beams and the big ceiling fans. She would have her golden hair in a tight ponytail, with every strand in place, so it looked like something rarer than hair. She would be holding one diamond earring in her free hand while she clamped the phone to her ear with the other. She would be bringing every bit of her wealth, influence, and reputation to bear on the problem of freeing him and Ruiz. She would say something ridiculous that the government official she was speaking to would want to believe. Russell and Ruiz were just innocent American employees of hers who had gone to the Estancia Guerrero and gotten lost. She would ensure that there were no unpleasant repercussions following their release by flying them out of the country immediately in her private jet. And she would be very grateful to send them away.
GUATEMALA CITY
At that moment, Sarah Allersby was in the master bedroom of the big Guerrero house. She was wearing a white silk blouse, a pair of black slacks, and a tailored black jacket. She chose a pair of pearl earrings and a pearl choker because she’d be dealing with British Customs. Anyone whose job it was to assess the value of jewelry at a glance would recognize a strand like this — round, silvery white, sixteen-millimeter natural pearls with exceptional luster. They had been found by divers in the Arabian Sea in the fourteenth cen
tury. And, for once, the source of a priceless piece wasn’t the fruit of her father’s ancestors’ looting of India. The pearls had belonged to her mother’s family. Her father had bought the earrings in Paris forty years ago.
British officials were the biggest snobs. Even if her name didn’t spring to their minds, they would recognize her as belonging to the class of people who were not to be harassed with petty rules.
She didn’t pack much this trip. Most of her clothes and belongings were still in the closets and the safe. She took only the few things she could gather quickly — the wide, flat jewelry box with the best pieces, a bundle of money in various currencies, and, sealed in its fitted plastic box, the Mayan codex. They all fit in one suitcase. She locked the suitcase, tipped it up on its wheels, and began to roll it toward the staircase.
Her doorman heard the sound, bounded up the stairs, and took it for her. She wondered — did he know? The case held tens of millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry, artifacts, and just plain money. It was worth more than all his ancestors had earned from Adam and Eve until now. She smiled at her thought. It was much better that servants — even loyal ones — not suspect these little moments of vulnerability. She was sure he would have killed her for much less than he was carrying now.
She got into her car, watched him put her suitcase in the trunk, and close it. She said to her driver, “The airport.”
He drove expertly, maneuvering the black Maybach 62 S through the streets of Guatemala City. He never betrayed any stress and seldom even applied the brakes. The ride was smooth and quiet, the way he knew she liked it. As she watched the city slipping past the windows of the car, she felt a small twinge of heartache. She had succeeded in obtaining the Mayan codex — almost certainly the last undiscovered one in existence. By now, she should have been famous. She should have had a warehouse full of gold and priceless pottery.
She would have to persuade Diego San Martin that she had not been the cause of his lost manpower. She would explain that the problem had begun with the man he had met at lunch. Russell had assured her that it would all be easy and safe. There would be no risk of disappointing Diego San Martin because Russell had everything under control. What could she, a young woman, have done differently? How could she have known Russell was so wrong?
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