After a moment, the original lookout started to move away, but stopped and came back again. A sudden hot spot appeared briefly between them, and Chyrel quickly switched to digital imaging and zoomed in tight on the two, activating the record function. Two men appeared to be sitting together, a flickering light between them. The light disappeared and two small glowing spots became visible, then one of the spots suddenly brightened for a moment.
“They’re smoking cigarettes,” Chyrel said.
Tony chuckled. “Two on a match.”
“Huh?”
“Never light two smokes on a single match,” he explained. “A good sniper can identify you as a target when the match is struck, aim as the first guy lights up and fire when the second guy does. The second guy on a match is the dead man. Why’s Deuce have you watching these clowns?”
“He didn’t say, but I’m taking notes and recording everything. He’s supposed to call at six.”
“Can you play that back?” Tony asked, leaning in closer and going down on one knee. “In slow motion?”
“Sure,” Charity replied and tapped a few keys.
She clicked the button to play at half speed. Initially, the image was distorted, as the camera had been zooming in when she’d started the recording. As the second man lit a cigarette, the first turned his face upward, the glow from the other man’s match and the moon illuminating his face for a moment.
“Go back,” Tony said. “Then go forward frame by frame.”
“This is a high-speed camera, Tony. Frame by frame of just those three seconds is over a thousand frames.”
“Can you go ten frames at a time?”
Chyrel backed up the recording, then moved it forward as instructed.
“Stop,” Tony said. “Now go one frame at a time.”
After clicking a few more frames, Tony stopped her again. “Look there,” he said. “That’s a Russian-made Bizon SMG machine pistol on his lap.”
“And a pretty decent image for facial recognition.”
“A lot of Afghan fighters use those weapons. The Russians left a bunch behind when they pulled out. Pretty good indication that you found a possible terrorist cell, Chyrel.”
“I’ll send the facial image to a friend at Langley,” she said, fingers flying on the keyboard. “And flag it high priority. I should be able to identify at least this one guy before Deuce calls.”
“Think he’ll send one of the teams down there?”
“Into Mexico? I doubt it. Probably just follow them and bust them if they cross into the US.”
“If the volcano doesn’t explode and take them out first,” Tony said with a grin.
Tony exited her office then, leaving Chyrel to monitor the terrorists. The two on the north rim split up, but the one leaving didn’t return to the group. Instead he crossed the crater and started a fire, just inside the south rim.
Chyrel zoomed in tight on the man as he moved around the fire, hoping he would look up at some point. By the fire’s light, she could tell he was the group’s cook as he went about preparing their meal, shielded on three sides by giant boulders. Pinpointing the spot of the fire, she made a note of its precise location, as well as those of the camp and lookout positions. Finally, the cook stretched out on a rock near the cook fire, and she was able to get a fair image of his face by the flickering firelight. She sent that off to her friend as well.
While she watched, the others at the camp begin to stir and, one by one, they made their way to the fire. In less than an hour, Chyrel received an email from her FBI contact at Langley. She read over the two files that were attached and then saved them, to send to Deuce when he called.
One of the men broke away from the others at the campfire and headed toward the high escarpment of the lookout post. The sun hadn’t yet made its way into the crater, but there was enough light now that she had no trouble seeing all of them with the digital camera.
The rest of the group then arranged themselves in a curved line, and it looked like they were all pointing at a large rock. She suddenly realized they weren’t pointing, but were aiming guns, as she saw sparks fly off the boulder.
Chyrel quickly recognized where the huge, round boulder was. She switched back to the thermal imaging camera, and the sight actually made her laugh.
“Better not mess with Mother Nature, guys,” she said as the group of men fired automatic weapons at the dome-shaped hot spot in the center of the volcano crater. Each bullet made a white-hot line from the shooters to the large glowing rock, then ricocheted off to the left or right.
Minutes later, the vid-com icon at the bottom of her screen flashed and she opened it. Deuce’s face appeared, sitting at a desk in a large black leather chair, dark paneling behind him.
“Hey, Boss,” Chyrel said. “The seat of government looks good on you. But that bare wall needs a woman’s touch. Julie hasn’t been there yet, huh?”
“She’s coming by for lunch,” Deuce said from his new office in Quantico. “Find anything interesting yet?”
“Yeah, but it’s one of those good news, bad news kinda things.”
“I could use some good news, but give me the bad news first,” Deuce said.
“Bad news is, and Tony pretty much confirms it, there’s a terrorist cell of fifteen people, currently training in the crater of a volcano in Mexico.”
The look on Deuce’s face spoke volumes. He already knew this. “What’s the good news?”
“The volcano might erupt any minute and kill them all.”
Deuce’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“I don’t know anything about volcanology,” she said, patching the thermal feed to his computer. “But the thermal imaging camera shows a really hot area inside the crater, and those idiots are shooting at it. Real hot. Like over one fifty. But an eruption is really just wishful thinking. The real good news is, I’ve already IDed two of them.”
“Why does this strike me as ironic?” Deuce said with a wide grin.
“Yeah. And I have the best seat in the house if they blow the mountain up.”
“Good work,” Deuce said. “Shoot what you have to me. How did Tony confirm the people are terrorists and not a Boy Scout troop playing with automatic weapons?”
Chyrel clicked a few keys, and the image appeared of the first man she identified. “He didn’t see the shooting part. I’ll have to get him back in here to see it, though. He’ll get a kick out of that. Anyway, this is Awad Qureshi, age twenty-three. Tony says the weapon in his lap is a Russian Bizon SMG. Qureshi is an Afghan student attending college here in the States, studying physics. Originally from the Arma Mountains region of Afghanistan. I ran a quick background check, and he hasn’t been on campus for two weeks.”
“Who’s the other guy you identified?”
Chyrel made a few more keystrokes and the other man’s face appeared. “This is Fareed Basara, also an Afghan national, but from a nomadic tribe. He’s been seen on the battlefield in northern Afghanistan and was reported entering Guatemala three weeks ago.”
“Good work, Chyrel,” Deuce said. “This is a highly sensitive situation. But is there any way you can have someone knowledgeable in volcanoes look at that thermal image and tell you if it’s normal or if the thing’s really about to blow?”
“Sure, Boss. I know a guy studying volcanology in Hawaii. He might even still be up. It’s like midnight in Hawaii right now.”
“Let me know right away if you learn anything more.”
The screen went blank, and Chyrel went back to the thermal image. The sun was high enough now that she was able to add digital imaging to the thermal scan.
Zooming in to isolate the hot spot and keep the shooters out of the frame, she pinpointed several spots in a circle around the large boulder, each showing up as a number on the image corresponding with a temperature readout for that spot on the sidebar. Then she took temperature measurements of several spots within the hot spot, though they only differed by a few degrees, cooling toward the edges.
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br /> Taking a screenshot of the whole digital and thermal image, she attached it to an email and sent it to her friend in Hawaii.
His response was almost immediate and said that the large boulder was actually the dome of a fumarole that could very well collapse and spew lava into the crater within a matter of days. Chyrel forwarded the information to Deuce.
Halfway to Alvarado, the winds had shifted, just as Charity had known they would. Her speed had slowed to just eight knots, as Dancer sailed a broad reach.
Approaching the harbor as the sun was setting, she doubted she’d be able to rent a vehicle until morning. But she had found a marina that had parking close to the slips. She’d called to see if one of the slips near the parking lot was available.
The marina operator had said they had plenty of slips available and she could take any of the center ones, close to the parking lot. He’d asked if she needed to clear customs, and she’d told him she’d already done so in Progresso and gave the man her alias name and the boat’s name.
Half an hour later, as the sun disappeared over the hills to the west, Charity had the boat tied up, connected to both shore power and water. She hadn’t started the engine until she was approaching the marina, so she hadn’t used more than a gallon of fuel, including leaving Progresso.
The marina operator was disappointed that she wouldn’t need fuel, but when he saw that she’d already connected water and electricity, he brightened up.
“How long will you be staying, Señorita?” the weathered old man asked.
“Two days,” Charity replied. “Maybe three. Do you know anywhere I can rent a car or a truck? I have friends in La Tinaja.”
“I have a truck,” he said. “I let cruisers use it from time to time.”
“You do?” Charity asked, more upbeat.
“Yes, but two men rented it earlier today. They promised to have it back by midnight, so you may rent it in the morning.”
Morning? Charity thought. There had to be a way to get the keys tonight, without raising suspicion.
“I was hoping to leave very early,” she said. “Do you know of a car rental place that is open before sunrise, perhaps?”
The old man thought for a moment. She knew he wouldn’t willingly give up a cash customer to a real car rental company if he could avoid it.
He snapped his fingers and grinned, showing half his teeth missing. “Not early, señorita. But, old Pedro? He has an idea. The men who rented my truck will drop the keys in a box by my office. I will leave a note there for them to park it here near your boat. I have an extra key for it and will bring it to you now, so they will not have to wake you.”
“Thank you, Pedro. That is very gracious. Should I pay the rental fee now?”
“Or later, señorita. When I bring you the key.”
“How much?” She knew there would be some bargaining, but the price he asked was so ridiculously low, she agreed to it and paid him on the spot, along with a deposit for water and electric and three days’ slip rental.
Five minutes later, Pedro returned and gave her a single key on a large carved wooden key chain. “It is just an old flatbed truck, señorita. Mostly blue, but living on the coast, it is also mostly rusty. But the engine? She is good. You will not be stranded on the road.”
Charity thanked him, and after he left, she went back aboard to eat dinner and shower two days’ worth of salt from her skin. She was tired, but still wanted to leave and get up to the volcano tonight.
She’d studied the satellite images and found a winding rutted road over rock and sand that ended near the northern base of the mountain. Two miles before its end, the road dipped into an arroyo and switchbacked around a boulder field. She could park in the arroyo and go the rest of the way on foot. At nearly three miles from the mountain, she doubted she’d be observed, and she planned to wear night vision goggles and drive the last couple of miles in total darkness.
After showering, Charity dressed in rugged black cargo pants and a black long-sleeved shirt, also with cargo pockets. She took her hammock and a plain black ball cap from the closet and went up on deck.
Seeing nobody, she hung the hammock below the boom. Under the port bench, she retrieved her Colt and, pulling the cap over her face, settled in for a short nap. Hopefully, the sound of the truck would wake her. But, just in case, she set the alarm function on her watch for one o’clock, local time. That would give her plenty of time to get there. With the Colt at her side, Charity fell asleep.
Shortly after midnight, the chugging exhaust of the marina operator’s truck woke her. From under the hat, she watched as two men got out and staggered toward the marina office before heading further down the dock.
When the men were out of sight, Charity rose from the hammock and went down to the cabin to get her equipment. Everything she’d need, she’d already put into her backpack, except the rifle. Stored in the black case, she hoped it would be inconspicuous enough.
Before locking up, she checked the laptop for messages. There was a long one, with several attachments. Reading the message and studying the images attached, she had a sudden but fleeting feeling of dread.
The volcano could erupt at any minute? Charity thought.
Pushing the thought from her mind, she studied the terrain map. Someone had pinpointed several places with corresponding geographical coordinates, indicating the locations of the terrorist camp, the sentry, and the cook fire. Another spot was identified as the volcano’s fumarole dome, with a current surface temperature of one hundred and fifty degrees.
The sentry location was a problem. Deuce himself had helped teach her the finer points of sniping. Even McDermitt had given her some pointers, as well as Donnie Hinkle, the Australian sniper on the team. Lastly, the young Marine she’d spent time with and who was killed a few months ago, had said the same thing when she was in a lighthouse with him in Key West.
“Snipers need to command the high ground,” they’d all advised her.
She’d planned on using the same high cliff for her hide that the terrorists had set up as their lookout post. This meant she’d first have to kill whoever was there. Which meant she needed to know their schedule for relieving one another.
She wrote a quick response, asking for any information on how often they changed sentries and at what times. But, since she needed to get moving now, she asked that her message be sent to Deuce at once. She’d be able to access the email server on her encrypted sat-phone.
Putting on her web belt with several equipment pouches and canteens of water, Charity holstered the Colt and put two loaded magazines in one of the pockets. She tossed a two-hundred-foot coil of black nylon mountaineering rope over her shoulder and went back up on the deck. Kneeling in the cockpit, she watched the other boats and the parking lot for a couple of minutes.
Satisfied that nobody was watching, she rose. Picking up the backpack in one hand and the rifle case in the other, she hurried to the truck and tossed them in the open passenger-side window.
Going around to the other side, she opened the door as quietly as she could and climbed in. Sitting low in the seat, Charity looked around the parking lot again before starting the truck and driving out of the marina.
She’d already programmed the GPS on her sat-phone for the fastest route to the dirt road leading to the north slope of the volcano. Following the directions of the GPS, Charity was soon on the outskirts of town, heading east on Mexico Highway 180.
Once she was in the rural countryside, she found a wide shoulder and pulled over. From her backpack, she took out a white Mexican-style blouse and unbuttoned her cargo shirt halfway, tucking the lapels inside. Then she put the white blouse on over it. There were toll booths on the road, and she hoped to be able to pass herself off as a simple farming woman, heading back to the farm.
Back on the road, she made it past the toll booths without incident, and thirty minutes later, in the tiny town of Tula, she turned left onto Avenida Cesareo Carvajal, the dirt road that wound along the co
ast to the volcano.
Ninety minutes and twenty bone-jarring miles later, Charity reached the arroyo, where she would leave the truck. She hadn’t seen another vehicle since turning off the main road and had driven the entire length of the dirt road with the lights off, wearing night vision goggles.
Pedro had been right—the truck was old and rusted, but the engine chugged its way up and down the ravines with ease, though the suspension could probably use some work.
Charity quickly turned the truck around and backed it behind a large boulder where the arroyo was widest, the transmission whining loudly in reverse. After she shut the engine off, the only sound she could hear was the ticking of the exhaust as it cooled in the night air.
Climbing out of the truck, she shed the white blouse and tossed it onto the seat of the truck, then buttoned her cargo shirt to the neck. She quickly pulled her hair back, secured it with a band, and put her cap on. Looking around, she saw nothing but rocks and fine powdery sand. Off to the east, clouds were building, and there was an occasional flash of lightning.
A thunderstorm would be good, Charity thought.
She pulled her backpack on, opened the rifle case and slung the rifle over her shoulder. Together, they weighed nearly forty pounds, but she’d hiked with heavier packs before. Just not at a mile above sea level. She’d have to be careful to not overexert herself. Before leaving the truck, she checked the email server to see if there had been a reply to her query.
There was one from Deuce personally, telling her the sentries appeared to change in two-hour shifts, close to the even hours. The cell members ate breakfast in the crater before sunrise and conducted live fire practice until noon. He added at the end that most of the terrorists had been seen in satellite images to be smoking cigarettes and several more had been identified.
All those identified were known terrorists, with the exception of the college student. All were to be considered enemy combatants, and she was free to engage at will. Again, he wished her Godspeed in her mission.
Charity checked the time. It was three o’clock. The sentry’s position was three miles away, the last mile being an ascent from two thousand feet to over five thousand feet along a treacherous hiking trail. Traversing the rough terrain on foot would take her more than two hours. She would get there with maybe an hour before the sentries changed and two hours before dawn.
Merciless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 1) Page 13