Celtic Empire (Dirk Pitt 25)

Elise stirred. “The water sample.”

Pitt and Giordino looked at her quizzically as she patted the satchel around her neck and passed it to Giordino.

“Please hold on to this. Keep it safe.” She barely got the words out before losing consciousness and falling limp into Pitt’s arms.

* * *

• • •

A HALF MILE AWAY, a woman in the passenger seat of an idling black Jeep watched the exchange through binoculars.

“They aren’t police. They don’t even appear to have weapons.” She cursed. “The woman is still alive and just gave them a satchel.”

“I lost her in the cornfield,” said the driver, a square-jawed man with cropped black hair. “You called me off before I could find her.”

“I saw a flashing light on the boat. I

thought they were police.” She shook her head. “I was fooled.”

“We still have all of their computers.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. The backseat was littered with half-melted laptops. “If it’s a concern, let’s go back and finish the job.”

“It’s too late, they’re returning to the boat. But it does appear the woman is wounded.”

“There’s only one place they can take her for medical treatment. Suchitoto.”

“Yes.” She lowered the binoculars and flashed him an angry look. “If we want to be there to greet them, then I suggest you step on it.”

5

With its twin outboards churning the water at maximum revolutions, the workboat leaped across the shrunken reservoir at close to forty knots. Elise had regained consciousness soon after Pitt had carried her onto the boat’s deck. He broke open a medical kit and applied clean bandages to her wounds, while Giordino steered for the town of Suchitoto, radioing ahead for medical assistance.

They reached the town’s lakefront a few minutes later. With a deeper channel fronting its small marina, Giordino was able to run the boat aground just a few yards from the lone pier. Pitt jumped over the side, and Giordino passed Elise to him. He carried her to the wooden dock, where a faded green flatbed truck with a red cross on its door waited. Two young men dressed in white rushed over with a stretcher and loaded Elise onto it and onto the truck.

Pitt looked to the driver. “She needs immediate attention.”

The man nodded. “La clínica está justo en la ciudad.”

Pitt watched the ambulance rumble off the dock toward the town. Had he looked to his left, he might have spotted a black Jeep sitting behind a large boat trailer. A dark-haired man climbed out, then the Jeep followed the ambulance into town.

Giordino crossed the dock with the boat keys in hand and approached Pitt. “Hope she’s going to be all right.”

He nodded. “She looks to have lost some blood, but I don’t think her wound is serious.”

“Seems like a nice kid.”

“We can check on her after we return the boat.”

They hiked along a dirt frontage road lined with local townspeople gawking at the shrunken reservoir. At a wood-frame building that faced the lake, Pitt and Giordino entered a door beneath a sign marked DARIEN CIVIL ENGINEERING. A heavyset man at a desk was hanging up the phone.

“Thank heavens you’re safe.” The man looked out the window at the boat grounded by the pier.

Pitt gave a wry smile. “And your boat, too.”

“I heard some boats went over the spillway and I feared the worst.” He gave Pitt a sideways look when he noticed his clothes were wet.

“We got close to the action to help some people, but your boat was never in peril.”

Eduardo Darien shook his head. “I relayed to the authorities your call about the attack on the aid workers’ camp. The town police are on their way, and an army drug enforcement helicopter from San Salvador is also en route. Can you describe the attackers?”