"We're not sure how tall those trees are, or what the wind currents might be in there. We'll pull back a mile, or two or three, if we have to, and keep everyone safe. The f.u.c.king bomb isn't going anywhere."

"Anybody else looking for it?" Senior Chief Neal asked.

"That could be a problem. Fouad must have had a cell here in town helping him. Just what they are doing now, or what they know about the crash, is uncertain. If they know the plane went down, it's almost certain they will try to find it."

"So we go in with all of our firepower intact," Lam said.

Murdock nodded. "Okay, we have food, a couple of beers and sleeping bags. Sack out wherever it's best. We have a dawn date with a Seahawk. I'll take five people with me. If we can be lowered down on the winch, three of us will go and inspect the crash. If we have to hike in, all six of us will go. For the drop I want Bradford with his SATCOM, Canzoneri, and Mahanani in case anyone is still alive."

"You think there are survivors?" the medic asked.

"I'd say no, but strange things can happen in an airliner crash. Also suited up for the game will be Lam and Prescott. That's it; let's get some sleep. There will be food here three times a day. Go easy on the beer. We might have a hot firefight before this is over."

Murdock told Bradford to set up the SATCOM and keep it turned on all night. Stroh might want to get in touch.

The next morning at 0515 Murdock came awake to the thumping whine of a chopper rotor. He ran outside in time to see a U.S. Navy SH-60 Seahawk land thirty feet in front of the hangar. The side door popped open and two men jumped out with sub guns at their sides. The motors shut down and the rotors swung slower and slower.

"We're friendly here," Murdock called. The two men trotted over. One had silver railroad bars on his collar.

"Murdock?" the lieutenant commander asked.

"Right, you're early. Glad you could make it. You have juice enough for a three-hundred-mile round trip?"

"Plenty, Commander. We're ready when you are."

Murdock found a pile of boxes outside the large hangar door. Inside were axes, machetes, ropes, and two dozen MREs (meals ready to eat).

Three of the SEALs came out of the small door pulling on their combat vests. Each had his weapon. They looked at the boxes and Murdock told them to put them in the chopper.

Three minutes later all six SEALs were in the Seahawk. The door closed and the bird took off at once. Murdock went to the cabin and showed the pilot where they had found the crash.

"For a hundred and fifty miles, we'll have a flight time of sixty-one minutes," the pilot said. His name was O'Malley, and Murdock liked him immediately. He gave the pilot a Motorola and showed him how to use it.

"That's good for about five miles. Be a way for us to keep in contact. We'll call you back when we're ready to come out or if we get in trouble."

"I'll pull back and find a cleared spot where I can set down and wait for your call. Just so I keep it within five miles, right?"

"Right."

"Not too sure how close we can get you to the actual crash, but we'll get in as close as we can, and winch you down and up if possible. We want to find out if the package is there just as bad as you do. Take a rest. I'll let you know when we sight the crash."

Murdock went back into the SH-60 and found a spot to sit on the hard metal floor. Maybe now the chase would be over. Maybe. They would know for sure in the next hour and a half.

28.

The SH-60 U.S. Navy helicopter flew straight down the heading that the GPS had recorded when Murdock was at the crash site the day before. The SEAL commander remained seated for what he figured was a half hour, then he stood and looked out the window. Trees, mountains, green stuff down below. He saw some towering trees and hoped there weren't a lot of them around the crash site. He knew there were some.

The crash had ended in a gully with a small stream running down it. The slopes on each side slanted up sharply to high ridges that led to higher peaks in the distance. That much he remembered. How close they could come to the site and find a landing spot, he didn't know.

The second pilot, a J.G., tapped Murdock on the shoulder.

"Two-oh minutes to the LZ," the man said and returned to the c.o.c.kpit. Murdock followed him and looked out the slanted windscreen of the Seahawk. More trees, more ravines and ridges. The craft slanted higher to follow the upthrust of the land.

"Our elevation?" he shouted to the pilot.

"Near six thousand," the pilot shouted back. "Our target is about seventy-two hundred according to my map."

Murdock watched the wet-looking slopes drift under the chopper. It was doing a hundred and forty-five miles an hour, its normal cruising speed. He had no idea what any wind would do to their actual ground speed.

"Is that it?" the pilot shouted.

Murdock looked ahead where the pilot pointed. He saw a thin trail of smoke rising in the still air over a ravine.

"Two miles to target," the copilot called.

"Looks good," Murdock said.

They flew up to the black gash in the forest green and circled it at three hundred feet. The pilot shook his head.

"Commander, no chance in holy h.e.l.l I can set you down there, even on the sling. Too many tall trees. They're spotted around at just the wrong places. Let's troll for a possible LZ."

The chopper swung downstream on the little gully. Trees and more trees. Some looked shorter here, but there could have been a double canopy sixty feet in the air. Murdock scowled and kept looking.

"There," Murdock shouted, pointing at a blackened section to the left and over the small ridge. "Looks like a fire, lightning strike maybe."

The pilot nodded and swung that way. He dropped down to a hundred feet and circled the area.

"Yeah. I can sit down there. That's a clear LZ. It does look like an old fire. I can stay here. We're not over four miles from the target. Over this ridge, then up the gully."

Murdock tapped him twice on the back and went to the other SEALs.

"Out-a-here in five," he said. He pointed to the door and held up five fingers. The SEALs stood and adjusted their equipment and picked up their weapons.

"LZ?" Lam asked.

Murdock nodded and stood beside the door. He pulled it open and watched the ground coming up to meet them. Thirty seconds later he felt the two front wheels touch the ground and he jumped the two feet to the blackened ground and found it surprisingly solid. He ran out thirty feet and waited for the rest of the men. They came, lugging the boxes with the tools and MREs in them.

When the last man came up, Murdock stopped them. "Let's spread out the tools, ropes, and MREs," he said. "We'll take two axes, all the rope, the MREs, and each one of us gets a machete. Glad they included them. It's going to be tough going through this tangle." When they'd all taken tools, gear, and MREs, they had three axes and a machete left.

"Leave them here," Murdock said. "Move that box into the edge of the jungle and camo it." That done, they headed up the slope toward the crest of the ridge. As soon as they left the blackened area of the fire, they walked into a green wilderness of trees, brush, vines, and dozens of different kinds of plants, even some flowering ones. The ground was damp, and some places seeped moisture out of the hillside.

"This ain't gonna be easy," Bradford said.

"Up to the top and north," Murdock said. "The pilot said not more than four miles, but it could be six."

It was slow, agonizing work. In places they had to hack their way through the growth with the machetes. They took turns leading to spread out the agony.

Almost a half hour had pa.s.sed before they chopped through the final tangle and reached the summit of the ridgeline. They looked down through the trees and saw a small stream bouncing down the gully, which showed about fifty feet wide at the bottom.

Murdock looked to the north, hoping that he could see the wreck or at least some trails of smoke. Nothing. The ravine took a left-hand turn and vanished behind the shoulder of the mountain. The top of the ridge showed lots of rocks, and rock face in places, which cut down the growth.

"Let's stay on the ridgeline," Murdock said. "A h.e.l.l of a lot easier going up here than down in the jungle."

"Amen to that, brother," Lam called.

Before they moved ten feet, a rifle round ricocheted off one of the rocks and whined away into the sky. The six SEALs dove to the ground a second later and rolled to their right off the ridgeline and away from the sound of the shot. At once, four more shots slammed over the rocks and into the trees behind them.

Lam edged back up the slope beside a rock and peered over the ridge at the jungle below.

"Nothing but f.u.c.king trees," he said. "No flash. The sound of the shots came some time after the lead arrived, so they must be at least a half mile off. The AK-47 will do the distance."

Murdock was right beside him a moment later. "No way to see anybody down there. Who the h.e.l.l are they, and how did they get a location on the crash?"

"Who?" Lam repeated. "Got to be a cell of the Arabs who live here and helped old Fouad get in and out of the Mexican airport. Who else? Somebody let out that Fouad's plane had crashed. Maybe one of the guys at the hangar. One of them must have understood English all the time."

The other four crowded up behind but kept on the reverse slope.

"So what is it," Mahanani asked, "a race for the crash?"

"Not from up here," Murdock said. "If they know where it is, they would beat us to it. But see that rocky area ahead? By the time they get there, they'll be so tired, they'll walk across it."

"Yeah, if they are heading upstream," Lam said. "What if they are waiting to see which direction we go? They could have seen the chopper circle something upstream and then come back and land."

Murdock studied the jungle below with his binoculars. He could see no movement, no armed men, nothing unusual.

"There," Lam said. "Almost straight down the slope and two fingers to the right. A whole flock of birds just flew out of those trees. Something down there disturbed them. Like a squad of men."

"So we wait them out," Murdock said. "They might kick up a few more birds as they move up the ravine."

Murdock checked his Motorola. It was on. "Flyboy One, this is Murdock. Come in."

"Yes, Murdock. Figured you were cutting your way through the d.a.m.n vines out there. How far did you get?"

"We're at the top of the ridge. We can see you. Just got shot at, so we have unfriendlies somewhere below us in the crash gully. Some of them might come looking for you. You'll have no notice if they do. If your petrol is good, you better lift off for a new LZ. If you get out of radio range, fly over this area every two hours. We'll contact you with what we're going to do."

"Roger that. We're out of here. Talk later."

"Another bunch of wild birds flew out down there," Lam said.

"Cap, want us to put a couple of twenties into that last bird fly?" Prescott asked.

Murdock shook his head. "No. Then they would know we were armed and they wouldn't go anywhere near that bald spot. Let's wait awhile longer."

A half hour later, Lam reported. "Cap, I've seen three more bird flyouts. Looks like their lead man must be about thirty yards from the bald spot. So will they cross it or go around in the cover?"

"Cover," Canzoneri said.

"Cross it," Bradford said. "They're civilians not in condition. By now they are dead tired. They'll take any gift they can find."

Prescott snorted. "Yeah, cross the bald spot. I've got a fiver if anyone wants to cover me."

"We have three twenties," Murdock said, "and the sniper rifle. If they cross it in a group, we all fire when they are bunched. Time to play our cards. Let's lock and load."

It took the men below ten minutes to get to the rock face. Then one figure burst out of the trees, ran across the first twenty-yard section, and paused. He looked ahead, then up at the ridge. He carried a rifle. At last he waved the men forward with the cla.s.sic infantry arm motion.

Six men came out of the trees and started running across the rock.

"Now," Murdock said. The four weapons fired almost at the same time. They had been sighted in and the gunners awaited the command. Murdock watched through the scope on his twenty. The first round hit just below the first two men in the group. The blast riddled them with shrapnel and blew them ten feet to the side. Neither moved again.

The other two 20mm rounds exploded on the near side of the men; two more died and one crawled toward the jungle. With the sniper rifle Canzoneri stopped him ten yards short of his goal. Two men were missing.

"The scout ahead got away," Lam said.

"I saw the last man in the group turn and run back the way they came a second before we shot," Bradford said. "He must have figured it out."

"At least we lowered the odds," Murdock said. "Let's move on up this ridgeline to that bend and see if we can spot the wreckage."

Five minutes later they hadn't come to the bend, but the ridge had flattened out into a mesa, which Murdock figured must be two hundred yards wide. Near the ridge edge the trees multiplied and grew much taller and denser. Lam had been out thirty yards in front of them, and he came back now to Murdock, sporting a strange expression.

"Not sure I believe what I'm seeing," he told Murdock softly.

"Why? What did you see?"

"From where I stopped it looked like five or six moss-covered buildings made of rough-hewn stone. One of the buildings is three stories tall and partly in ruins. The other smaller ones are mostly caved in and the jungle is claiming them as its own."

"Might be some old ruins of an Aztec city," Murdock said. "Or were they farther north? I don't remember. Let's take a look at it."

The six SEALs stared in amazement at the stone blocks that some ancient people had hoisted into place, some thirty feet high.

"Blocks must weigh a ton each," Lam said. "How did they get them all the way to the top?"

They saw some doors and openings that might have been primitive windows. "Don't go inside any of them," Murdock said. "They might come crashing down at any time."

Before he finished the sentence, Prescott let out a m.u.f.fled scream and staggered against Mahanani, who almost fell down.

"I'm hit in the leg," Prescott shouted.

Mahanani lowered him to the forest mulch on the clearing around the buildings.

"It's an arrow," Mahanani said softly.