AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"What are you going to do, Google Earth it?"
"Yes, sir. I've got the coordinates on this, sir." He held up a USB flash memory device that recorded data. It was the size of a small disposable butane lighter. "I thought I'd start with the big picture."
Within a minute, everyone was looking at the laptop computer screen, which now showed a composite aerial photograph of the river south of Asuncion as it would appear from an airplane at five thousand feet.
"What exactly are we looking at?" Castillo asked.
"I finally learned how to add my own data to the imagery, Colonel. Hold one, sir."
He plugged the flash memory device into one of the USB ports on the side of the laptop. An icon of it immediately popped up on the screen. Thirty seconds later, after he touched several keys, a more or less circular ring of tiny flashing spots appeared on the map on the Paraguayan side of the river.
"I still don't know what I'm looking at," Castillo said.
"Bustamante found it, sir. We were fishing."
"Fishing?"
"Yes, sir, I even caught a couple," Gilmore said with a grin, then sighed. "We had covered a lot of water before we came across it. We noticed something wasn't right."
"How's that?" Castillo said.
"There was something about the riverbank, sir," Bustamante offered.
"What?" Castillo said, gesturing Give it to me with the fingers of his right hand.
Bustamante, anticipating the reaction his answer was going to cause, shrugged. "The grass was too green, Colonel. Twelve feet or so of green grass. The rest was all brown."
"Suggesting?" Castillo asked.
"I didn't know, sir. Maybe it was near a stream. Maybe somebody was watering it. But I figured it was worth a look, so we took one as soon as it was dark."
"How?
"He swam, sir," Gilmore said.
"You brought wet suits with you?"
"No, sir. We have night goggles."
"It was a little chilly," Bustamante admitted.
"Why Bustamante?"
"He found the green fucking grass, Colonel," Gilmore said, reasonably.
"And what did you find?"
"It was planted," Bustamante said. "Plastic boxes, maybe three feet by a foot, four of them, and all mounted on a heavy timber, so they could be moved out of the way and put back easy. I figured somebody wanted access to the river and didn't want anybody to see it."
"And farther inland?"
"Well, there was also a motion sensor on the boxes of grass-I almost set it off-so I went kind of slow. I called Gilmore and told him he ought to have a look, so he came in with the boat."
"You have radios?"
"We bought throwaway cell phones in the airport," Gilmore said. "They work fine."
"And?"
