River of Ruin (68 page)

Parada met them at the top of the stairs. “What have you found?”

Like a dog, Mercer shook himself. Mud flew from him and splattered the group. Miguel laughed, Parada gasped, and Roddy whooped when he caught an emerald. “What we have found,” Mercer proclaimed, “is success.”

With the rest of their flashlights on shore, the group had no option but to return to the camp in the waning light. Carmen had started a fire to guide them, although they had to hike several hundred yards through the mud to reach the camp. The lake continued to drain through the shattered falls. By morning, it might be possible to walk to the cave, though they wouldn’t know until dawn.

Carmen had also had the foresight to recruit the two Panamanian guards to gather water in drums, one of which she’d placed near the fire to warm. Taking a five-gallon pail with them, the expedition members retreated to private tents for a quick sponge bath before returning to the fire for dinner and a great many celebratory drinks. The party went on long after midnight, with sleeping children curled on various laps.

Mercer helped Roddy gather his brood to take them to the tent he had commandeered for his family. Standing at the flap, Mercer took Roddy’s hand and held it palm up. Into it he dropped seven of the best emeralds he’d found in the cave. He’d hidden them in his pocket when he and Lauren were crawling for the surface.

“What’s this?” Roddy asked, a little drunk.

“For you.”

“No. I can’t. I have my job back now. I can provide for my family.”

“Then take them for Miguel. Use them to give him the kind of life he deserves.”

Roddy was subdued by alcohol and emotion. “I will take them for when he and my children go to college.” He put his arms around Mercer, hugging him tight. “You will always be like a father to him too, you know?”

“I know, but I can’t give him the stable home life you can, the love, the sense of family. This is the least I could do.”

Walking back to his tent, Mercer felt pride tinged with regret. He doubted he’d ever have children, but if he did he hoped to be as good a father, as good a man, as Roddy Herrara.

Lauren was waiting for him in his tent. She sat cross-legged on the bed, her back to him. With her T-shirt bunched at her hips, he was afforded a view of her bare backside where the beginning of the cleft divided the two hemispheres.

“If you’re here to turn down the bed,” Mercer said, startling her, “could you leave a few extra mints?”

She turned, peeking over her shoulder, her magical eyes glowing in the gauzy light thrown from a hurricane lamp. “I’m sorry, sir, only one per customer. I can get you extra pillows.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I’m a deep sleeper. I never notice my pillows.”

“You really think you’re sleeping tonight?”

Mercer kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head. He went to her, leaned close and kissed her mouth, pressing something he’d palmed against her lips with his tongue. Lauren recoiled and reached for the object. The stone was wet from their saliva, glinting and glittering. She sucked a quick breath and held it up to the light.

“I can’t keep this,” she asked in a little-girl voice, “can I?”

“I just gave a bunch to Roddy. I think you taking the best one we found is only fitting. You can make it into a ring.”

“Ring? You might know how to mine gems but you don’t know the first thing about setting them.” She continued to examine the fifty carat stone, delighting in the flashes of light that sparked through it. “For God’s sake, I could use it as a paperweight.”

Mercer kissed her again. “You can use it for anything you want.”

She drew him down to the bed so that he was next to her where she sat. Even without support, her breasts were perfectly formed and strained her shirt. “By the way,” Mercer said, “I’m inviting Roddy and his family to Washington for Christmas. Miguel wanted to know if you’d be there.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Just Miguel, or do you want me there too?”

“Well.” He drew out the word. “I was also thinking of inviting Foch and his boys. If you didn’t come the reunion wouldn’t be complete.”

She gave his shoulder a playful slap. “Is that the only reason you’d want me there?”

“I can’t imagine another,” Mercer deadpanned, and she struck him again. “Seriously, would you like to come?”

Lauren’s eyes clouded. “As much as I’d love to say yes, I can’t.”

Mercer blinked, stunned that she’d say no. “I thought you’d . . .”

“You forget I’m not like you,” she said softly, knowing she’d hurt him and wishing she hadn’t. “The army takes a dim view of soldiers who take off whenever they like. They even have a word for it: AWOL.”

“Yeah, but you do get vacations, and besides I think they’ll cut you some slack after what we’ve been through.”

She looked away. “Just the opposite is true. Army intelligence is already swarming this country helping the locals look for others involved in Liu’s operation. Felix Silvera-Arias is cooperating but it’s going to take a lot more than just him to take down President Quintero. I doubt I’ll be getting away for a long time.”

“Come on, Lauren, Christmas is months away.” Mercer couldn’t understand why she was being so obstinate.

“I managed to get away this weekend so we could spend some time together. We’ve both earned it, but after this I can’t make any promises.”

Mercer thought he understood. As strange as it was, and as much as it hurt, he was grateful for her honesty. This wasn’t about her job. It was about them needing time to put the past weeks into perspective. The roller-coaster ride was coming to an end, and both were too shaky to commit to ride another one together. He’d been in this situation before. However, he was usually the one making the excuses to get away. He understood a little better the pain he’d caused other women, but that didn’t make him think he’d made the wrong call then or that Lauren was wrong now.

“Then if a weekend is the best I can get from you,” he said more brightly than he felt, “I have no choice but to take it.”

She touched his cheek. “Are you hurt?”

“A little,” he admitted. “But I’ll get over it.”

Her hand drifted down to his bare chest, and lower still. “I know just what to do to speed your recovery.”

“Why, Miss Lauren,” he said in an atrocious parody of her Georgia accent. “I thought fine antebellum women such as yourself don’t do such things.”

Throwing one leg over his waist, Lauren stripped off her shirt and purred, “Now, Mr. Philip, hasn’t anyone ever shown you what they really mean by Southern hospitality?”

River of Ruin
wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of assistance. Most important is my wife, Debbie, who let me go on a two-week cruise without her only a month after our wedding. How I pulled that off will remain a professional secret. I need to thank Captain Attilio Guerrini and his crew aboard the
Dawn Princess.
And in Panama, Jose Luis Fernandez and canal pilot George Allen for answering innumerable questions. What licenses I took in this novel are the result of my imagination, not their information.

I want to thank my nephew, Miguel Saunders, for letting me use his name, and my uncle Peter for teaching me how to turn a napkin into a rabbit, a trick he showed me when I was seven years old and have never forgotten. I also need to thank Doug Grad, my editor at New American Library. Not only did he know about the sewers of Paris, he’d taken his wife there. Talk about your true romantic.

The reader might be interested to know that the VGAS cannon is currently under development. If anything, I’ve toned down its capabilities because what it can really do is almost too much to believe.