Silent Running - Don Pendleton

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picked up a TV remote from the desk, clicked it and the set mounted on the wall flashed to a San Diego channel. A helicopter-mounted camera was showing a scene of some kind of massive riot with tens of thousands of people involved. It was so large that it filled the entire field of vision of the camera. It took several moments before Brognola recognized that he was looking at what had been the U.S.-Mexican border crossing point at Tijuana.

      The barriers that had controlled the endless streams of traffic coming and going were gone. The buildings that housed the Immigration and Customs offices were being literally torn down by bare hands. The vehicles waiting in line to cross the border when the onslaught struck were being looted or overturned and set on fire.

      A clearly panicked young TV reporter sounded near tears as he did the voice-over. “We have just gotten word that the governor has called up the National Guard, but local authorities say that—” The transmission abruptly ended.

      “Jesus!” Brognola said softly.

      Garcia smiled. “Most of your country was stolen from my people and, as you can plainly see, we are taking it back now.”

      “We have an army, you know,” Brognola said, “and we won’t let something like this happen without responding.”

      “Most of your regular army is overseas fighting the so-called ‘terrorists,’” Garcia stated accurately, “leaving your reserves and National Guards at home to protect you. And, do you really think that those soft, part-time, citizen soldiers are going to fire on unarmed women, old men and children and kill them? You Americans are cruel, but even I don’t think they will do that.”

      Brognola was stunned. The United States military could bring almost unimaginable force to bear on any armed enemy. The stronger the enemy, the greater the force. But firing on unarmed civilians, particularly women and children, went against everything America stood for. America extended a helping hand to such people, not a bayonet.

      Garcia leaned forward, his eyes glittering. “Take a good look, Brognola. You’re watching the fall of the most corrupt government in human history, and it can’t come a minute too soon for me.”

      The Cuban blinked and his hand flew to the side of his head. For a brief moment his eyes went unfocused, but it passed.

      “And,” he continued, “California isn’t the only place where America is feeling the righteous rage of the people.”

      He clicked the remote again and a scene from what had to be the beachfront of a city in Florida appeared. A flotilla of boats, both large and small, were drawn up close to the shore and their decks were filled to overflowing. The smaller boats were heading in through the surf to beach themselves while people jumped from the larger ones to swim ashore.

      A huge crowd had gathered along the beach and were successfully holding the police at bay to allow the boat people to reach land. Tear gas canisters were flying and the riot squads were out in force, but they were too few and were being pushed back. Every time one of the boats ran itself up onto the beach, hundreds more jumped down to join the crowds fighting the police.

      As Brognola watched, one flank of the police line broke and the crowd surged forward. When one of the cops slipped and fell, he was trampled into the concrete. As soon as the mob reached the shops flanking the street, they started looting. As the camera panned, he saw smoke rising over a mall as another crowd blocked the fire trucks.

      “That is right outside Miami Beach, Florida,” Garcia said. “The boats are full of people from all over the Caribbean who have decided to immigrate to America so they can share the fruits of their ancestor’s slave labor. The world is coming to America to take what is theirs.”

      “You’re one sick bastard,” Brognola stated.

      The rifle butt to the back of his head sent him reeling into unconsciousness.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      SS Carib Princess

      The requisitioned storeroom behind the cruise ship’s French café had served well as an impromptu playroom, and Richard Spellman and Mary Hamilton didn’t drift off to sleep until the early morning. Part of their sleeplessness, though, resulted from the occasional muffled gunshot heard in the night.

      When sunlight streamed through the porthole on the two voluntary stowaways and woke Spellman, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was a little after nine. Getting up carefully so as not to wake Mary, he went to the porthole, but only saw open sea. Obviously the ship had passed through the canal into the Caribbean while they’d been in their self-imposed, but-not-completely-unwelcome exile.

      “Richard?” Hamilton said.

      “Right here.” He turned back. “We’re at sea, and my guess from the sun angle is that we’re heading south. At least we won’t starve, though. Hiding in a restaurant storeroom is definitely the way to stow away.”

      “How’re we going to know when we’re safe?” Hamilton asked.

      “Damned if I know,” Spellman admitted. “This sounded like a great idea last night and I’m convinced those were shots we heard, so I think we made the right move. The problem is that locked away like this, we don’t have any idea what’s going on out there. I’ve got a feeling, though, that I’m not going to be presenting my paper today.”

      The gunfire in the night had scared Hamilton as nothing else had ever done, but Richard’d had a calming effect on her and it was still working.

      She smiled slyly. “I guess we’ll just have to find something to keep ourselves occupied then.”

      RICHARD SPELLMAN was no sailor, but later that afternoon he recognized that the ship had reduced her speed and he chanced a peek around the edge of the porthole.

      “Where do you think we are?” Hamilton asked.

      “It looks like we’re coming up to some resort mooring for cruise ships,” he replied. “If I had to guess, I’d say that we’re somewhere in Mexico. Maybe the Yucatán.”

      “What’s going to happen to us?” the woman asked before she could stop herself. She hated playing the helpless woman with him, but she admitted to herself that she was scared. So far, Richard had been very calm, considering the circumstances, and in comforting her, had calmed her fears. Now that they had arrived at some kind of destination, though, the fear came flooding back.

      “I don’t have much experience at this kind of thing,” he admitted, “but my guess is that we passengers have been taken hostage. For what, I have no idea. I don’t know anything about Mexican politics.

      “But—” he snuck another peek “—like it or not, I think that we’re about to go to school for a cram course.”

      She shook her head. “How can you be so damned calm about this? I mean, I don’t mind, but aren’t you scared half to death? I know I am.”

      He turned back. “Sure I’m scared,” he said. “Any rational human in this situation would be. But I’m saving it up for the right time to freak out. You know, a time and place where it might be useful.”

      She smiled in spite of herself and felt her fear ebb again. If she was going to die on this trip, at least she’d found someone she wouldn’t mind dying with.

      “You’re a very funny man,” she said. “And if we can get out of this mess, I think I’m going to want to see more of you. A lot more.”

      “That’s a date.” He grinned. “But first we have to figure out what in the hell we should be doing next. What do you think about trying to sneak off this damned thing as soon as it docks?”

      She glanced around the storeroom. “There’s got to be more room to run out there than there is in here.”

      “Good girl.”

      THE CRUISE SHIP was met at the Cancun moorage by Diego Garcia, a small fleet of buses

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