Manny and Heath took first turn at the controls. The others drew in the snorkels and locked the vents closed. Manny turned the switch and the motors at the aft purred into life. But the gentle thrumming sound became a whine after the Carp jerked forward a few feet and came to a lurching stop.

  "Grab a handhold," Manny said and threw the engines into reverse. Another jerk. Another lurching stop.

  Manny used their compressed air tanks to blow ballast. They heard the bubbling rush to port and starboard. The Carp rocked side to side. Manny fired up the motors. Once. Twice. No go. Two more tries and Manny cut the motors to keep them from burning out. They were stuck.

  "The way I see it," Heath said. "We have one option. We drop some weight or we're never going to break out of this mud."

  "We can't lose gear," Chili said. "We don't know what we'll need."

  "We only need to lighten the load enough to float off the bottom," Manny said. "A thousand pounds would do it."

  "You got to be shitting me, bro," Flame said. "Didn't Re-Pete say the crocs hunt at night?"

  "If those monkeys can do it, we can," Pig said.

  "Not at night!" Flame said. "You see any monkeys now? Why is that? Because maybe a monkey's got more sense than you."

  "Crocs hunt along the banks," Re-Pete said. "We stay in the middle of the lake and they won't mess with us. In the middle."

  Flame studied Re-Pete's expression to see if the big man was telling it straight. But there was nothing to read in Re-Pete's earnest, sad-horse face. He looked like the last pony left in the barn.

  "Fuck it," Flame said with a shrug.

  To get out of the SDV they had to open the turnout hatch set under the deck boards. That meant moving the hundreds of pounds of gear piled there to uncover the boards and reveal the hatch. That made the already close confines of the Carp even tighter as they shifted the gear onto their seats and pulled up the decking. The hatch was undogged and pulled open. A hump of water gushed up and filled the turnout recess but rose no further, forming a sort of miniature moon pool.

  There was only about two feet of clearance between the hull and the riverbed and all the SEALs but Heath wriggled through and clawed their way over the bed and then up alongside the hull of the Carp to break surface among the water plants that formed their concealing cover. The rain swept over the broad leaves above them, creating a pattering white noise. The air was thick and hot. They tread water with a minimum of movement. They breathed shallow as they cast eyes around for the splash of a tail. The oily reflection of muted moonlight on dozens of crocodile eyes could be seen at the waterline and along the shore.

  Heath stayed behind to take the pilot's seat because he was just too big to make the passage between the turnout hatch and the lake bed. The skids were sunk too deep in the ooze to allow him to squeeze through. And someone had to stay behind to take the controls and work the mini-sub free.

  He started up the motors and gently backed and filled until he felt the sucking mud release its grip on the craft and the Carp began to rise. He kept the motors turning at minimum forward speed to keep the Carp above the lake floor. He could hear the gasp and splash as the five SEALs pulled themselves up through the turnout hatch and then secured it closed.

  "We all back with our nuts intact?" Heath asked from the wheel.

  "Shitdamn!" Flame said. "I forgot all about the ball-snatching fish!"

  Re-Pete didn't feel the need to tell them that the pacu, the scrotum-snacking fish of legend, was actually a species at home in Papua New Guinea almost two thousand miles east of where they were. He also would never tell them that the Bujang Senang crocodile didn't only hunt on the banks either.

  CHAPTER 32

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  "There's activity at Tombstone," the voice on the phone said. "You'd better come down and take a look."

  Dana Morton left her mini-war room and took the trip in the elevator four levels down to the Sat-Res solutions room. The room was the size of a basketball court and had its own energy source and ventilation system. The walls were six feet thick and the room was heavily shielded from the possibility of an electro-magnetic pulse; it was set on rockers to ease the room through any tectonic activity up to a Richter 9. The entire level was carved from bedrock for added coverage. This was one of the CIA's facilities that was built to stay in business following a full nuclear exchange.

  To enter the room, Dana needed to flash her ID to a quartet of armed Marines at an up-armored security station. She also removed any metal she was wearing. She surrendered the tiny silver hoop earrings that were a gift from her father when she graduated Wellesley. She also handed over her shoes in return for a pair of felt slippers. Her belongings went into a plastic tray that was placed on a shelf over a plastic label with her name engraved on it. She visited the room that often.

  The room had thirty-foot ceilings with four observation stations monitoring current missions or missions-in-planning on banks of screens; some as broad as six feet diagonal. Men and women in casual clothing (no belts, jewelry, or piercings) and their trademark slippers sat at consoles. Agency wags called them the Velcro Squad. They were working joysticks and wireless keyboards with their attention fixed on the ranks of screens displaying surveillance video, high-res satellite imagery, and interactive maps. The center of the room was dominated by a row of tabletop touchscreen monitors.

  "Coffee?" Molly Kramer asked, as she stepped forward to meet Dana.

  "No thanks," Dana said. The coffee down here was infamous, even in the Agency where coffee was enjoyed for its restorative properties only. Velcro Squad java was thick enough to float a bullet in. Two sips and anyone would be wired enough for forty-eight hours of staring into monitors literally watching paint dry.

  "The cloud cover over Tombstone is a bitch," Molly said. Molly was one of those tiny, peanut-sized women who could be anywhere between forty and sixty. She moved like a teenager and her pale blue eyes crinkled when she smiled, which was often. Dana was always struck at finding someone so chipper in what was nicknamed the Doom Room.

  They stood at one of the largest monitors in the array, assigned to Tombstone and Operation Bull Rush. On the screen were murky images breaking up in clouds of pixilation. Visible through the digital haze, Dana could recognize the Young-El compound in Sarawak.

  "We've amped the images and stepped them up," Molly said. She worked a joystick to turn the image to super-high contrast. "But there's a miles-high weather system stacked up over the site."

  "You said you had activity," Dana said.

  "There's a vehicle making its way around the perimeter. It's been moving in a methodical pattern around the outside of the compound. It's not a new arrival. There hasn't been anyone in or out. It was stored inside one of the buildings. It's smaller than a truck."

  The images clearly showed a boxy shape moving slowly around on the screen. It would roll along in a straight line then turn and following alongside its previous path. Little detail could be seen.

  "It's a bush hog," Dana said.

  "Excuse me?" Molly asked.

  "A bush hog," Dana said. "When I was a girl my grandfather would let me drive his on the farm in Maryland."

  "You can tell that by looking at that squiggly mess?" Molly asked and squinted at the screen.

  "I can tell by how it's moving. It's cutting down the brush outside the fence. They're making a killing field."

  CHAPTER 33

  TOMBSTONE

  "Son of a bitch," Heath said with a hiss. "They mowed the lawn."

  From his hideout four hundred meters away, Heath was looking through the 30x scope mounted atop his long gun. Chili lay by him and was also scanning the compound from a distance using the optical mounted on his own rifle. Both were carrying a Winchester model 70 chambered for .308 and fitted with suppressors built for them by a private sector weaponeer who knew how to keep his mouth shut. They also wore their modified M4 rifles--combat-slung--and re-hydration packs on their backs, along with sidearms and their combat knives. They were in their body-armor vests, worn over light digital forest camouflage BDUs. Thin, breathable combat gloves on their hands. Their heads were covered with camo bandanas; and in Chili's case a boonie hat. Their faces were painted in ragged stripes of black, gray, and green.

  Chili and Heath lay prone on mats rested on the underbrush and found their own separate lines of sight through narrow gaps in the trees. They could each only view a thin slice of the compound and this was their first glimpse of the collection of buildings; a sad jumble of block, corrugated sheeting, and board buildings with rusting metal rooftops.

  It was close to high noon but the thick overcast and steady downpour made it look like dawn or early evening. There were no shadows, just a constant gloom and the haze of falling rain. Along with the constant background noise of raindrops on foliage, there were the calls of monkeys and rhythmic peeping of a billion toads chirping under the carpet of dead mulch on the forest floor. Jungles were not quiet places.

  Heath pulled his eye away from the scope socket and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  "Jackson was right. They got a fifty-meter perimeter chopped down all around the fence line." They'd received an update that morning, relayed to them from the sub waiting off-shore.

  "But no guard towers," Chili said. They spoke in whispers even though their voices could not carry through the constant noise of the jungle. "And no sentries."

  "They only need to see us once, bro."

  "Why'd they do it? You think they knew we were coming?"

  "Would you still be here if you knew we were coming?" Heath asked. "These guys aren't heroes, but they're not dummies either. They don't want what UBL got. If they knew we were in the neighborhood, they'd be gone, gone, gone."

  "Maybe they cut down the bush on a schedule," Chili said.

  "Maybe somebody got bored," Heath said.

  "We stay on post?"

  "No. Let's get back to the team."

  They rose slowly and lifted the mats that distributed their weight and kept them off the wet jungle floor. The foliage flattened beneath them would spring back up within an hour and their hideout would be imperceptible to anyone who happened to come upon it.

  Radio silence was being maintained. They were keeping their personal sets off and ear buds and mini-mikes stowed so they couldn't call back to Manny at the base and give him the bad news immediately. Any radio traffic in a place this remote was high risk. There was a strong chance that the bad guys in Tombstone would be monitoring the frequencies. Even a short exchange in a place this far out would alert them to unexpected activity in their backyard. They'd either split the scene or come looking for the strangers. Either way, the initiative and surprise advantage would be lost.

  Heath and Chili followed a different path back than they used for their approach. They took a long loop through the forest along a declivity that would give the compound a wide berth and hide their movement from anyone at Tombstone who happened to look their way. They followed the lip of a water-filled natural trench. The current led them to the river where Heath gave a low, three-tone whistle. A two-tone whistle answered them and the pair made their way past Pig, nearly invisible in some young trees, covering their back trail with his beloved SAW. They knew Flame was somewhere nearby with his shotgun, covering their six o'clock.

  Manny and Re-Pete were set up on a drier hummock of land above the river banks. In a monsoon forest there is no "dry"; only drier. They'd slung a camo cover from the trees, under which they stacked their gear--covered with additional tarps, staked down. The base camp was situated well away from Tombstone in an easily defended position.

  They'd drawn the Carp up, and submerged and anchored it in a deep pool a quarter-mile downstream just before dawn. They made it a bit over the time they estimated by running on the surface through the narrow snaking channel of the upper Batang-Sadong tributary. Then they spent an exhausting morning humping the quarter-ton of gear to this basecamp through the ankle-deep marsh and steambath heat. They were chilling now, and restoring themselves with a meal and water with lemon powder swirlled into it. But Heath had been restless and took Chili along for a first peek at the target; now they were back with a sorry report.

  "It probably has nothing to do with us," Manny said. "The text burst from the Jackson said someone spent a few hours cutting the grass yesterday afternoon. They also said that there's been no new blog entries or podcasts from Young-El for two weeks. That fits the window. That means it's a near dead cert our target is home."

  "Trapped by the weather," Heath said with a tight grin.

  "Which means we own him," Chili said.

  "We own them all," Manny said. "We rotate recons, work out a timetable, and keep an eye on the place while we decide on our approach."

  "Like 'Nam," Re-Pete said and flashed one of his rare, momentary smiles. "'Nam."

  "Just like that," Manny said. "Re-Pete and I will make the next creep. We'll map the place from the ground and setup two-man posts for the night.

  Four of the team took off to take up observation positions leaving Pig and Flame back to watch over the base and receive any overnight relay bursts from Langley.

  "Tombstone I get," Pig said. "But why is the target designated 'Cowboy'?"

  "The cowboys were the bad guys in Tombstone," Flame said. "So our bad guy is Cowboy." He and Pig were standing down under the camo tarp. They sat back against the gear pile sipping water to wash down their daily dose of preventatives and sharing a bag of dried apricots. Rain pounded on the tarp above them and ran in gouts over the edges.

  "Cowboys are good guys," Pig insisted. "John Wayne. Clint Eastwood."

  "In Tombstone they were the bad guys."

  "The movie or the town?"

  "Both. Remember the movie?" Flame asked. "They wore those red scarves. They raped that Mexican girl on her wedding day? They shot Wyatt's brother in the back? One of 'em sucker-shot that old man?"

  "I must have watched that movie a thousand times," Pig said. "So we're Kurt Russell and those guys?"

  "Yeah. We're the law. We're bringing it to the cowboys who can't keep their guns in their holsters or their dicks in their pants."

  "I want to be Doc Holiday," Pig said.

  "Fuck that." Flame narrowed his eyes at Pig. "Everybody knows I'm Doc Holiday."

  "So, who am I?" Pig asked.

  "Manny's Wyatt. You can be one of the Earp brothers."

  "Which one? The guy who was in Twister or the one that was in Lebowski?"

  "Knock yourself out," Flame said. "Now eat your 'cots and take a nap, okay? We got a long night ahead."

  Before dawn they were all in the bush.

  The team split into three two-man groups and took positions where they could keep a vigil on the compound from three angles. Under cover of the deep dark of the forest they found secure hides within fifty yards of the edge of the mowed area around the fence line. They'd take up positions closer once they gathered some vital intel.

  Manny and Heath used EMFV scopes to deep-scan the buildings and surroundings, and take a headcount of how many un-friendlies were calling the place home. Their position was set up so they could see through a long section of mesh fence. They checked each other to make sure they didn't miss anyone or double-count.

  Chili and Re-Pete's job was to map the compound. Their hide was well up on a hill on a shelf of rock with a good view of the compound below. Chili used a low-tech notebook he picked up at a Dollar Store in Virginia Beach. In fact, he had bought a dozen. It was a plastic pad that responded to touch by making a white line against a black background with the touch of an attached stylus. You could lift the plastic sheath to clear the image and use it again and again. The team liked them because they were cheap and disposable, as well as waterproof. And they didn't require a pen. You could use your fingertip as a stick if you lost the stylus. The pads' borders were decorated with cartoon characters. Chili picked all the ones with Spider-Man on them.

  He made a rough sketch of the buildings below. Some were stacked cinderblock with a stucco coating. The walls were green with jungle algae and creeping vines. The wires from the putt-putting generator ran to junction boxes on the walls of these structures. The largest had a pair of satellite dishes mounted on one end of the roof and aimed over the tree line. Other buildings were just pole and slat constructions, and slowly rotting away. The roofs on these showed more rust. The block-building roofs were oxidized only at the edges. These were newer buildings; maybe two years old at most.

  All but one of the buildings were bunched together at the center of the compound with narrow lanes separating them. A small pole and rattan shack sat alone against the north fence line. An outhouse; had to be.

  The Toyota 4WDs sat under tarps. Two of the dirt bikes were tarped also. The other two leaned on a wall under the protection of a portico over the single entrance at the end of the largest building.

  Under a kind of carport Chili could see the bush hog parked by a thousand-gallon fuel tank resting up on concrete blocks. There was little movement across the muddy yard the buildings sat in. A few times he watched someone running, hunched over through the rain holding a sheet of cardboard as an umbrella. They ran each time between the largest building and the shack set away near the north fence. The latrine. It was always the same guy, so someone had the runs.

  "Too bad we can't confirm it's Cowboy," Chili hissed. "We could kakk his ass now and go home."

  Re-Pete emitted a low grunt in reply.

  * * * * *

  Flame and Pig were tasked with moving in close to look for detection devices, IEDs, or mines. Pig walked drag and stayed thirty paces behind Flame to cover him with the SAW. Flame belly-crawled with much of his gear stripped off to let him move quietly and swiftly. He kept his sidearm and combat knife.

  Flame breathed in slow and breathed out slower. He needed to stay sharp, not edgy; focused, not frantic. This is where the kinetic energy he hummed with could get him in trouble. He brought the rhythm down to a dirge and entered a state of calm he was schooled in at Coronado.