The Silent Sea (Oregon Files 7)

The pilot pushed hard on the rudder, pivoting the Eurocopter on its axes as it continued to race up the river. It was flying almost sideways, crabbing across the sky, but more than able to keep up with the speeding RHIB.

In the three seconds Jimenez had lost sight of the boat, the man he thought was injured had gotten to one knee. Behind him was an open space in the deck that had been a covered storage locker. On the man’s shoulder sat an ominous dark tube pointed straight at the chopper. The range was less than two hundred feet.

Jimenez and the man holding the rocket moved at the same time. Mike Trono lit off the Stinger missile the same instant the Argentine soldier unclipped his safety harness. The rocket’s infrared system only had a fraction of a second to come to life, find the heat plume billowing from the helicopter’s exhaust, and make a minute adjustment. Jimenez leapt from the chopper just before the missile slammed into the turbine housing directly below the spinning rotor. The six-pound warhead detonated. The bulk of the engine saved Jimenez’s life, but he was still caught in a flaming overpressure wave that ignited his clothing and slammed him into the water as if he’d jumped from twice the height. Had he not landed feetfirst in the roiling waves churned up by the RHIB’s outboards, the impact would have been no different than landing on cement. The water extinguished his burning uniform and prevented the burns on his face and hands from going past second-degree. He came thrusting back to the surface, coughing up a lungful of river, his skin feeling like it had been dipped in acid.

Fifty feet ahead of him, the Eurocopter crashed into the river, smoke pouring out the doors and blown-apart windshield. Jimenez didn’t have time to fill his lungs, as the craft tipped and the rotors hit the water. They came apart like shattering glass, shards of composite material filling the air. Several skimmed across the river surface inches above Jimenez’s head and would have decapitated him had he not ducked under the waves.

Through the water he could see flames licking at the chopper’s shattered carcass, a wavy, ethereal light that silhouetted the pilot still strapped in his seat. The dead man’s arms swayed in the current like tendrils of kelp.

He struggled to the surface once again, the roar of fire filling his ears. Of the RHIB, there was no sign, and with the chopper down and the border patrol’s two Whalers destroyed the thieves had a straight run to Paraguay. As he started the painful swim to shore, his burned hands screaming with every stroke, Lieutenant Jimenez could only hope they would be stopped before they could sneak across.

“NICE SHOT,” JUAN SHOUTED as the Argentine helicopter fell from the sky in their wake.

“That was for Jerry,” Trono said, laying the Stinger on the deck to reload it with the second missile stored in one of boat’s several secret weapons caches. Mark Murphy was at the bows, watching for anyone else coming at them. He asked, “Are we still going to stick to the original plan?”

Cabrillo thought about it for a moment. “Yeah,” he replied. “Better safe than sorry. The cost of the RHIB will just become one more line item in the CIA’s black budget.”

While Juan continued to drive, and Mark acte

d as lookout, Mike prepared for the final part of the operation, so when they finally cut the engines five miles from the border with Paraguay all their equipment was ready. The men slipped into their wet suits again and strapped the bulky Draeger sets to their backs. Juan overfilled his buoyancy compensators because he would be carrying the power cell.

After slicing open the remaining air bladders ringing the boat, they opened the sea cocks. The RHIB began sinking by the stern, dragged under by her heavy engines. They waited aboard her even after she slipped under the surface, making sure she settled on the bottom. The current had pushed them south another quarter mile, but they needed to ensure the boat stayed under. The bottom of the river this close to the bank was a jumbled snarl of rotting trees. They tied off the bow painter line to one of the more sturdy limbs and then started northward, propelled through the water by near-silent dive scooters.

Fighting the current, it took them the better part of two hours to reach the border, and another two until they judged it safe to surface. The scooters’ batteries were on their last bit of power and the rebreathers nearly depleted. But they’d made it.

The men took a break before starting out on the six-hour slog back to the elevated hut they had slept in thirty-six hours ago. There they had stashed a small aluminum boat with a motor that they had towed into place with the RHIB.

When they reached base, Mike set himself against a tree and promptly nodded off. Juan envied him. Though Trono had been closer to Jerry than Cabrillo, Mike wasn’t shouldering any guilt for his death. Just sorrow. Mark Murphy, with his love of all things technical, studied the power cell.

Juan moved a little ways off and pulled a satellite phone from a waterproof pouch. It was time to check in.

“Juan, is that you?” Max Hanley asked after the first ring. He could picture Max sitting in the Oregon’s op center since the mission began, downing cup after cup of coffee and chewing on the stem of his pipe until it was nothing but a gnarled nub.

The phones were so heavily encrypted that there was no chance of them ever being listened in on, so there was no need for code phrases or aliases.

“We got it,” he replied with such weariness it sounded as though he would never recover. “We’re six hours out from waypoint Alpha.”

“I’ll call Lang right away,” Hanley said. “He’s been bugging me every twenty minutes since you started off.”

“There’s one more thing.” Cabrillo’s tone was like ice over the airwaves. “Jerry paid the butcher’s bill on this one.”

There was almost thirty full seconds of silence before Max finally said, “Oh, Jesus. No. How?”

“Does it really matter?” Juan asked back.

“No, I guess it doesn’t,” Max said.

Juan blew a loud breath. “I tell you, buddy, I’m having a real hard time getting my mind around this.”

“Why don’t you and I take off for a few days when you get back? We’ll fly down to Rio, plant our butts on the beach, and ogle a bunch of hard bodies in string bikinis.”

Time off sounded good, though Cabrillo didn’t particularly relish the idea of leering at women half his age. And he knew that after three failed marriages, Max wasn’t really on the prowl either. Then Juan remembered the crashed blimp and Mark’s suggestion to give closure to the families of men who’d perished on her. That was what his soul needed. Not staring at pretty girls but offering a bunch of strangers a little peace of mind after fifty years of wondering.

“I like the concept,” Juan said, “but we need to work on the execution. We’ll talk about arrangements when we get back to the ship. Also, you might as well go into my office. In the file cabinet should be Jerry’s last will. Let’s get that ball rolling right away. He didn’t have too much love for his ex-wife, but he did have a child.”

“A daughter,” Max replied. “I helped him set up a trust for her, and he made me the trustee.”

“Thanks. I owe you. We should be home by dawn tomorrow.”