63
THE SLOW-MOVING FREIGHT TRAIN JOLTED TO A stop, awakening its lone passenger. Stretched out on one of its flatbeds, Pitt pried open his eyes under a bright morning sun.
The Panama Railway train had reached its terminus at a rail yard in the port of Balboa. Near the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal, and just a few miles south of Panama City, Balboa was the key transit point for shipping across the isthmus. Pitt jumped off the flatbed car and found himself surrounded by a steel jungle. Mountains of multicolored shipping containers were stacked in every direction. He looked down a long line of rail cars to see a gantry crane positioned over the tracks and workers beginning to off-load the ubiquitous containers.
Standing near the end of the train, Pitt followed the tracks out of the rail yard, figuring the odds were high that the local rail authorities would treat him as a vagrant. Exiting the yard, he climbed a rusty chain-link fence and found himself in a neighborhood of aged warehouses. A half block away, he noticed a small building with a handful of cars parked out front. It was a run-down bar that catered to the local dockhands. A faded sign proclaimed it El Gato Negro, complemented by a painting of a black cat with crossed-out eyes.
Pitt walked into the dim bar, garnering stares from the few early-morning customers already warming the barstools. Pitt approached the bartender, then caught a glimpse of himself in a large mirror behind the bar. The sight nearly frightened him.
It was the image of a tired, emaciated man with a bruised and bloodied face, wearing soiled, shredded, and equally bloodied clothes. He looked like a man returned from the dead.
El teléfono?” Pitt asked.
The bartender looked at Pitt as if he’d landed from Mars, then pointed to a corner next to the restroom. Pitt ambled over and was relieved to find a battered pay phone. Though all but extinct in America, the venerable pay phone lived on around the world, sometimes in the most unlikely of places.
Reaching an English-speaking operator who balked only momentarily at his request to make a collect call to Washington, D.C., Pitt soon heard the line ringing. Rudi Gunn’s voice jumped an octave after hearing Pitt say hello.
You and Al are safe?”
Not exactly.” Pitt quickly explained the Adelaide’s hijacking, their arrival at the Panama facility, and his escape.
Panama,” Gunn said. “We had calls into the Panama Canal Authority to look out for the Adelaide.”
They changed her name at sea. Probably had phony papers already prepared. Bolcke’s facility is somewhere in the middle of the Canal Zone, so he probably has inside support at the locks.”
Did you say Bolcke?”
Yes, Edward Bolcke. An old Austrian mining engineer who runs the camp of horrors. I was told he’s a major player in the market for rare earth elements.”
He was one of our few leads in your abduction,” Gunn said. “He owns a ship called the Salzburg that was sighted near the Adelaide around the time of her disappearance.”
Probably the same ship that bumped off the Tasmanian Star before it made an appearance in Chile. And maybe the Cuttlefish, too. Apparently she’s armed with some sort of microwave device that proves lethal.”
Bolcke may have an operation in Madagascar as well,” Gunn said. “I’ll get the ball rolling with the Pentagon to go after Al and the others. It sounds like a joint military operation with Panama security forces is in order.”
Listen, Rudi, we’ve got a really narrow window.” Pitt described his encounter with the Chinese agent Zhou and his plan to destroy the facility. Glancing at his Doxa dive watch, he said, “We’ve got less than five hours to get Al and the others out of there before the fireworks go off.”
That’s a tall order.”
Call Sandecker and pull out all the stops.”
I’ll do what I can. Where are you now?”
A bar called the Black Cat, somewhere near the Pacific rail terminus.”
Stay put. I’ll have someone you know pick you up within the hour.”
Thanks, Rudi.”
Pitt felt the fatigue of his escape fade away, replaced with a renewed energy for the task still at hand. Saving Giordino and the others was all that mattered. He walked back to the bar, and the bartender waved him to an empty stool. He slid onto the seat to find, served up in front of him, a full shot glass containing a clear liquor. Beside the glass was a pair of long-handled bolt cutters.
Pitt put his hands to his neck and felt the steel collar. He had forgotten it was still there. He looked at the bartender, who returned his gaze and nodded.
Muchas gracias, amigo,” Pitt said, reaching for the shot glass and firing back the contents. A popular local spirit called Seco Herrerano, it burned with the sweet taste of rum. He set the glass down, reached for the bolt cutters, and smiled at the bartender.
Who says a black cat brings bad luck?”