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"Well, we reconnoitered, Colonel," Bustamante said. "The place is crawling with detection devices, and put in by somebody who knows what he's doing." After a moment, he added: "Damned near got caught."
Castillo turned quickly and looked at him.
"'Caught'?" Castillo parroted. "By who?"
Bustamante shrugged. "I don't know, sir."
"Some big sonofabitch moving like a cat," Gilmore offered. "At least one guy, maybe more." He shrugged. "If he was a perimeter guard, he sure as hell didn't act like one."
Oh, shit! Castillo thought. Is this a repeat of our run-in at Estancia Shangri-La?
Who the fuck can this guy be-another ex-Stasi?
Or…maybe one of Duffy's goons going in ahead of us?
Who the hell knows?
With drugs and money, anything is fucking possible.
"I swam the hell out of there just the same," Bustamante said. "I was more afraid this guy was going to trigger one of the sensors."
Gilmore moved the cursor on the screen to one of the blinking dots, the one closest to the river. An inset appeared, a photo.
"You can barely see the device," Bustamante said, "but if I had stepped over the grass boxes-or even touched them-it would have gone off."
Gilmore moved the cursor to another of the flashing dots and another inset photo appeared, this one of a trip wire.
"I couldn't tell if it would do anything but set off a Claymore," Bustamante said. An inset of a concealed, barely visible Claymore mine appeared. "But I guess that would be like an alarm bell, right, a Claymore going off?"
"That's about all we were able to do, Colonel," Gilmore said. "We worked our way around their perimeter. I figure there's probably five, six acres of protected terrain. We just didn't have the stuff to try to penetrate it. Sorry."
"You couldn't penetrate it?" Castillo asked, in mock shock. "A couple of trip wires and some Claymores and you just quit? Turn in your Ranger tabs. You're a disgrace to the Hurlburt School for Boys." Then he smiled and finished: "Great job, guys. I never expected anything like this."
"You think that's the place you're looking for, sir?"
"Unless it's some pig farmer worried about piglet rustlers," Castillo said. "What else could it be?"
"The Claymore was made in East Germany," Bustamante said. "I thought that was sort of interesting."
"Roads?"
"One. A couple of clicks from this highway," Gilmore said, pointing. "You want us to have another shot at penetration, Colonel?"
"Absolutely not," Castillo said. "As clumsy as you two are, that would let them know we plan to do terrible things to them."
Both smiled. Neither spoke, but there was a question in their eyes.
"Are we up, Lester?"
"Yes, sir."
"Get me Major Miller."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Put the GPS coordinates on the screen so I can read them," Castillo ordered.
The legend on the handset read: AGNES FORBISON.
