He lowers the monocular device, grabs the binoculars, looks over at the target. A white minivan is coming to a halt near the house.
The doors open.
Four young, laughing women emerge, wearing wide-brimmed straw hats and sunglasses and carrying towels and beach bags.
A slim, bearded man wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt and long pants emerges from the stone cottage, waves, smiles, and goes back into the house.
One of the young women waves back, and the four women pull coolers out of the van.
“Fifteen seconds,” Benjamin says.
Liam says, “Break, break, break. Abort, say again, abort.”
“What?” comes Benjamin’s stunned voice.
“Abort,” Liam repeats. “We have civilians on scene.”
Benjamin says, “Liam, we don’t have time.”
“We’re aborting.”
“Liam, that damn patrol boat is coming our way.”
Liam says, “Handle it. It’s an abort.”
Benjamin curses and Liam starts paddling, as fast as he can, to the rocky beach where the terrorist cell is located.
CHAPTER 24
THE MOTION OF the waves helps Liam as he gets closer to shore, and when he’s a meter or so distant, he leaps out, furiously wades in, quickly dragging the paddleboard up onto the rocks and jumping from rock to rock and over the sand to get to the dirt driveway.
There.
The small knapsack is over his back and he moves up the dirt road toward the four young women, dressed in bikinis and sandals with wraparound skirts. He yells out, “Hey,chicas. Wait up!”
One of them turns and replies in English, “Hey yourself.”
He comes closer, smiling, and says, “Look, you don’t want to go there.”
The one who talked to him smiles in return, shakes her head. “What business is it of yours?”
Liam says, “I know those guys. They’re … they’re just lousy. Hairy, don’t bathe, treat nice ladies like you like dirt. C’mon, my buds and I, we’re having a party in an hour, over at Las Tres Loros. Trust me, you’ll have more fun with us.”
Two of the young women start talking quickly in Spanish. Liam knows the language, but not this fast. The apparent lead woman says, “I’m sorry,amigo,we have made a promise here … and …”
She’s ashamed, and Liam knows it. He’s embarrassed for her and her three friends, for what they have to do to stay alive in this country teetering on financial and economic chaos, store shelves empty, lines for gasoline miles long, pharmacies barren of drugs.
Damn it, he thinks, there’s no time.
There’s just no time!
He says, “Look, we’re all adults. And I don’t want you to get hurt …”
Liam unzips a side pocket, pulls out six one-hundred-dollar American bills. He takes a step forward, pushes it into the near woman’s hand. “Take this. See you at Las Tres Loros. All you have to do is have a meal with us, some drinks, and laugh at our bad jokes and bad Spanish. Honest. Please.”
The woman looks at the money, talks quickly in Spanish to her companions, and they move back to the minivan.
She says, “The man here … Abdullah. He’ll be angry. He might come after us.”