the Silent Sea (2010) tof-7 Read online

  Maybe the hard part is over, Juan thought, but he knew not to say it aloud.

  The fates heard him anyway.

  A big black town car raced into the intersection and slid to a stop a few feet from their bumper, forcing Cabrillo to jam on the brakes. Doors were thrown open, and a large bald man wearing a dress uniform erupted from the back of the Cadillac. He had a pistol in his hand and opened fire immediately.

  The people in the sedan ducked as bullets cored through the windshield. Juan cranked the transmission into reverse and reached up to adjust the rearview mirror. A bullet whizzed close enough to his wrist that he could feel its hot passage, but now he could see behind them without exposing his head.

  They backed up for fifty feet, beyond all but an expert's ability with a handgun, before Juan mashed the emergency-brake pedal and spun the wheel. The wet asphalt helped him pirouette the woefully underpowered car in a slide worthy of a Hollywood chase.

  He released the brake, dropped the car into first, and accelerated away. One more bullet hit the car, a wild shot that mangled one of the wing mirrors.

  Is everyone okay? he called without taking his eyes off the road. It was like driving through a continuous waterfall.

  Yeah, we're fine, Mark replied. Who was that?

  General Philippe Espinoza, whose house we just raided. He must have been on his way back from dinner when the doorman called.

  That was the man asking me questions, Tamara told them, him and the creepy Chinese guy named Sun. I could tell he was from Beijing, and I'm pretty sure he was State Security.

  Here in Argentina on a diplomatic passport, no doubt. The sirens were getting closer. Juan slowed. The only way out of this was to not attract attention and hope they could lose Espinoza, because the General was surely coming after them. Mark, are you ready with our bag of tricks?

  Say the word, Chairman.

  Juan was thinking about chain of command. Espinoza doubtlessly knew someone in the police a chief or commissioner, most likely. Fifteen minutes would pass by the time the General called his friend, who would in turn call someone lower in the police hierarchy, and so on, until a description of their car made it to the patrols out on the streets. If they could elude Espinoza and not draw attention to themselves, they would be halfway across the city before the APB went out.

  He glanced in the mirror just as the town car careened around the corner one block back. Juan was driving an overloaded Mitsubishi and had no illusions that he could outrun the big American V-8 even if the car was carrying armor, which it probably was.

  Juan made two quick turns, and slowed as a police car with lights flashing went streaking past followed closely by another unmarked car.

  His confidence evaporated when he saw both cars brake heavily in his mirror. It took them a few moments to turn around on this narrow street, forcing Espinoza to stop completely. Obviously, the General knew someone a lot lower down on the food chain than Cabrillo had estimated. He should have figured a man like Espinoza would know the neighborhood precinct's commander.

  In seconds, all three cars would be in pursuit, and the little Mitsubishi's description would be on police radios all across Buenos Aires. He'd been right about one thing. Getting Tamara out of the apartment was the easy part of the night's work.

  They turned into a narrow alley, and Juan shouted, Now, to Mark Murphy.

  Murph already had his windows down, and he began pulling pins on smoke grenades as fast as he could. These were of the Corporation's own design and produced faster and denser smoke than even those used by the U.S. military. After the third one hit the street, Juan could see nothing behind him but a thick haze that even masked the streetlights and the illumination from second-and third-floor windows.

  Enough, Juan said, and he made another series of random turns. His throat felt as dry as dust, but his hands remained loose on the wheel and his focus never wavered.

  Just curious, Linc said from the backseat. Does anyone know where we are?

  Linda? Cabrillo said.

  She had a handheld GPS and studied the screen intently. Yeah, I've got a pretty good idea. We're heading in the general direction of the docks, but up ahead is a maze of streets. We need to cut to our left where there's a pretty big avenue.

  The town car emerged from a cross street without warning. It slid neatly behind the sedan, pressing so hard on its suspension and tires that a hubcap came loose and spun across the sidewalk like a Frisbee. The driver knew this neighborhood better than even the police who patrolled it, and had outguessed Cabrillo.

  Gunfire spat from the passenger's window, where a bodyguard leaned out with a big pistol in his hand. Linc twisted his considerable bulk and unleashed a full magazine from his machine gun. The rubber bullets were useless against the Caddie, but the psychological impact of a full-auto attack forced the chauffeur to brake hard and crank the wheel over. They scraped against a series of parked cars and set off a chain reaction of shrieking alarms and flashing lights.

  Linc dropped the H&K and unholstered his Beretta. If the town car was armored, the pistol would do no more damage than rubber bullets, but it was better than nothing.

  What about more smoke? Mark suggested.

  This street was too wide to block with the grenades, so Juan said nothing and watched his mirrors. By the time the Cadillac took up the chase again, it was being tailed by the police cruiser. There would be dozens more converging on the elegant streets of the Recoleta District. They needed to ditch the car and find another.

  There was a construction site to their left. The street had been torn up by large yellow excavators, and scaffolding spiderwebbed across the fa+oade of a columned building. Juan looked closer and realized it was a large ornamental gateway. He assumed there was a park through the closed gates and turned for it, pushing the little four-cylinder for everything it had.

  The car maintained traction across the muddy ground, and Juan lined up the nose.

  Brace yourselves!

  They flashed through the scaffold latticework, bounced up one low step, and slammed into the gate. Cabrillo had expected a cataclysmic impact, but the gates were being repaired and had been leaned into place at the end of the work shift. The chain holding them together stayed in place, but the ornate wrought-iron panels crashed to the ground, and the Mitsubishi roared over them. The collision didn't even deploy the air bags.

  Juan realized his mistake instantly. This wasn't a park, and it took a few seconds to understand what it was. Laid out in neat grids like a Lilliputian city were thousands of beautiful buildings made at about one-fifth scale. They were as ornate as any they had seen all night, with marble columns, bronze statues, steepled roofs, and all manner of religious iconography.

  This wasn't a park. It was a cemetery, and those weren't miniature buildings but, rather, grand mausoleums.

  After Arlington National in Washington and P+?re Lachaise in Paris, the Cementerio de la Recoleta was perhaps the most famous cemetery in the world. All of the city's most wealthy and prominent figures, including Eva Per+|n, were laid to rest in some of the most decorative and stunning aboveground crypts ever built. It had become a tourist destination almost as soon as it had opened.

  It was also a maze too tight for a car and was walled in on all four sides.

  Juan had led them into a dead end.

  The Silent Sea

  Chapter TWENTY-ONE

  THEY HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO MAKE THE BEST OF HIS mistake.

  Mark, pop smoke! Everything you've got.

  As Murph started heaving more smoke grenades in their wake, Juan committed them to one of the wider lanes through the ranks of mausoleums. The cobbled path was tough on the car's overtaxed suspension, and the path was so narrow that a slight miscalculation cost the Mitsubishi its remaining wing mirror.

  They had gone no more than fifty feet when the footpath narrowed even further because of an oversized marble crypt. They couldn't turn around. Juan glanced over his shoulder. Another path met this one at a diagon
al. He put the car in reverse and backed into it, scraping paint off the doors against the statue of some politician or other. The only saving grace was that the rain was finally letting up a bit. Visibility was still poor, especially with the smoke drifting eerily around the tombs, but it had improved. The other consolation was neither the police car nor the Cadillac would be able to follow them.

  He wondered if they would chase after them on foot and decided they probably would. The rage he had seen on Espinoza's face could only be slaked with blood.

  The car clipped a marble bust and tore it off its memorial. The stone head rolled across the cobblestones like some misshapen bowling ball. It took all of Juan's defensive driving lessons to keep the car from caroming into the crypt on the opposite side.

  He saw the path divide again and backed into the wider-looking route. It narrowed almost instantly, with a mausoleum that looked like a replica of a local church. He pulled forward and then backed down the other way. With so little light, it was next to impossible to keep straight, and again they scraped against one of the decorative monuments. He said a silent apology to the person's ghost and kept going.

  To his left flashed a larger alleyway. The turn was so tight that it took him several tries, and a lot of smashed marble and crumpled sheet metal to make it. If they somehow got out of this, Cabrillo promised himself that the Corporation would make an anonymous donation to the cemetery's keepers.

  A cat, for which this place was famous, dashed out of its hiding place right in front of the car, its fur soaked to its skin, in the glow of the only functioning headlight. Juan slammed on the brakes instinctively. The feline gave him a contemptuous look and slunk off.

  The world suddenly went white. It took a second for Juan's eyes to adjust. Overhead, an unseen helicopter had thrown on its searchlight and created an oasis of daylight in the otherwise stygian cemetery. An amplified voice echoed down from above.

  Cabrillo didn't need to translate for the others. Any order from a police chopper was pretty universal.

  Linc, do something about him, will you.

  Franklin cranked down his window and thrust his machine pistol skyward. There wasn't enough room to lever his big torso out of the car, so he opened fire without sighting in on his target.

  Seeing the tongue of flame flickering from the car was enough to convince the chopper pilot to back off, much like Espinoza's chauffeur had done. The searchlight vanished for only a moment before the helo came back again, flying aft of them and at a greater altitude.

  The trail through the tombs turned sharply, but Juan managed to scrape the car through without having to stop.

  If there was any coordination between the air and ground units, the pilot would be vectoring the cops from the patrol car to their position. Juan kept a sharp eye out, craning his neck left and right, as they sped past narrow passages. He saw nothing, and was moving fast enough that even had an officer been approaching from the side he would only have time for one snap shot that would surely miss.

  Then they caught a break. The path branched, and they found themselves driving on the perimeter walkway that bordered the cemetery's exterior wall. After negotiating such close quarters, it seemed as wide as a highway.

  Their second break came almost immediately. As part of the cemetery's refurbishment on the main gate, a section of wall had also been removed. A temporary barrier of plywood and wooden studs stood in the opening. The angle was all wrong to get any sort of speed, but Juan went for it anyway.

  Brace yourselves, he warned for the second time in five minutes.

  The car hit the barricade with its front fender and splintered the wood but couldn't punch through. The wheels spun furiously on the slick cobbles, bowing the partition more and more until some critical point was met. The plucky little Mitsubishi tore through the wall and raced across a deserted sidewalk before Cabrillo could throw it into a four-wheel drift.

  They had escaped the cemetery but not the chopper, which was doubtlessly radioing their position.

  Linda, get us back to the docks.

  She was hunched over the GPS with her fingers dancing across the screen. Okay, turn left at the second cross street, then get into the right lane for another sharp turn.

  Juan did as she ordered, but, no matter what they did, they drove in a corona of hard-white light from the chopper. In his mirror, he saw two patrol cars suddenly appear. They were racing hard, their sirens rising and falling like banshee wails. There was no way on earth to outrun them.

  Linc smashed out the rear window with the butt of his H&K and sprayed a fusillade of rubber bullets. The cops kept coming. Either they knew about the nonlethal ammo from previous attacks or they just didn't care.

  The lead car came up on their rear corner and tried to bump them into a skid. Juan countered the maneuver, his hands a blur on the wheel. Linc switched to his pistol and put two rounds through the patrol car's passenger's window. There was only the driver, and his courage failed him. He dropped back to a more respectful distance.

  Cabrillo was beginning to recognize his surroundings. They were getting closer to the docks. Mark, show Tamara how to use the pony.

  Already on it, Murph replied.

  Juan tapped his radio. Mike, are you in position?

  I await your arrival, Trono said breezily.

  We're coming hot.

  The sub operator became more serious at hearing the Chairman's tone. I'm ready.

  Shots rang out from behind them big, concussive booms from a handgun. The passenger in the second cruiser was leaning out and firing his sidearm. A lucky shot punctured the trunk and erupted through the backseat in a flurry of foam rubber. Tamara shrieked. Linc and Mark Murphy just exchanged a look, and the big former SEAL turned to fire back.

  Next right, Linda called over the roar of wind whistling through the car. That's the dock.

  Juan took the turn so fast that the car slid into the guard shack hard enough to shatter the plate-glass window on the side of the building. The men inside dived for the floor, thinking they were under attack. The two cruisers were seconds behind them.

  Lower all the windows, Juan ordered as he guided the car around rows of shipping containers.

  That last impact had damaged something vital. The car rose and fell on its suspension like the swaying of a camel. The rear axle had been damaged by the collision and Cabrillo's frantic driving, and it snapped. The two ends dug into the pavement and threw up fountains of sparks whenever they crossed sections of concrete roadway or the steel railroad tracks for the dock's big overhead cranes. The front-wheel drive motored on gamely despite the damage.

  Juan patted he dash affectionately. I'll never denigrate another Japanese compact again.

  The pier was almost a thousand feet long, half its width shielded by a corrugated-metal roof on an open I-beam framework. Juan wrestled the car down its length. He didn't look over when Linda tapped him on the shoulder and handed him an object about the size of a water canteen but with a hose and mouthpiece attached to one end. He clamped the mouthpiece between his teeth.

  Keeping his foot to the floor, he raced them to the edge of the pier. There was no need to shout a warning. Everyone could see what was coming up.

  The car hit the end of the dock and shot off into the darkness, arcing nose-first because of the weight of its engine. It hit the water in an explosion of white froth, the impact no worse than any of the others they had been put through tonight. Because all the windows were open and the rear window gone, the car filled quickly with frigid water.

  Wait, Juan cautioned.

  Not until the roof had gone under did he lever himself out his window. He hovered at the passenger's door, holding on with one hand and helping Tamara out after she had crawled over Linc. It was too dark to see anything, but he gave her hand a squeeze, and she squeezed back. He could feel bubbles from her regulator rise past his face. Her breathing was a bit elevated, but, given the circumstances, so was Juan's. Remarkable woman, he thought.

 
The pony bottle contained enough air for just a few minutes, so when the others struggled out of the sinking car Juan led them back under the pier, where a tiny speck of light beckoned.

  It was a penlight attached to a pair of scuba tanks with multiple regulators. The tanks themselves were strapped to the top of the Nomad 1000 submersible. Had things gone smoothly, they would have met the minisub a couple miles from shore in the Zodiak, but there was always the contingency that the raid wouldn't go as planned so Juan had come up with an alternative. He had ordered Mike Trono to waypoint Beta under the pier where they had tied the inflatable.

  As soon as the group of swimmers reached the sub, Juan placed one of the regulators in Tamara's hand and motioned for her to switch off from the pony bottle. Given her ease in the water, he rightly assumed she'd been diving before. There was just enough light for him to indicate that Linda should cycle through the air lock and into the Nomad with Tamara.

  As he waited for his turn, Juan could see flashlights playing across the surface of the water where air continued to escape their dauntless Mitsubishi. He wondered how long before the cops sent in divers, then decided it didn't mater. They would be long gone.

  Ten minutes later, with the sub creeping away with the current, Cabrillo released the inner hatch on the minisub's cramped air lock and stepped over the coaming. Everyone was lined up on the benches huddled in foil blankets. Tamara and Linda had toweled off their hair and somehow managed to tame it.

  Sorry about that, Juan said to the professor. We had hoped it would go a lot smoother. Just bad luck the General showed up when he did.

  Mr. Cabrillo

  Juan, please.

  All right, Juan. Just so long as you got me away from those she paused because the invective she was about to use wasn't for polite company horrible people I wouldn't have cared if we had to crawl our way over hot coals.

  They didn't hurt you? he asked.

  I was telling Linda that I didn't give them a reason. I answered everything they asked me. What was the point of holding back information about a five-hundred-year-old ship?