“Once we climb up over this small rise, you’ll see a steep gully at the base of the hill where the cave entrance is. We’ll have only scraggly trees and some blackberry bushes for cover, and we’ll use them as much as possible. Be aware that if they have lookouts high up on the hill, they could see us at any time. Stay quiet.”

Brannon motioned to his agents, and they formed a single line behind Dix.

Dix crawled up to the edge of the rise, waved everyone to stop. He went down on his stomach in the snow, pulled out binoculars, and passed slowly from the top of Lone Tree Hill down into the deep gully in front of them some thirty yards away, then up the other side of the gully where the entrance was, some six feet up a gentle slope, thick with snow-covered scraggly trees and bushes, just as he remembered it. He didn’t see a guard, but he did see lines of boot prints in the snow, partially covered with the fresh snowfall but still visible, forming a trail going up Lone Tree Hill and disappearing over it, and coming back down the hill and across the gully to the cave entrance. Foot traffic, recent and heavy. Were they moving drugs out, or were they out of tuna fish? He scooted back to where the agents were squatted on their haunches, bunched together.

He said, “The entrance is about six feet up the hillside. The boot tracks lead right up to it. They’ve covered the entrance with tree branches, so they have a limited view out. We’ll split up and come at the entrance from both sides of the gully.”

Ruth said, “Dix and I will go in first, because it gets hairy real fast inside the cave. Remember, push hard to the right, because you’ll be on a ledge with a nearly sheer wall of rock below you about two feet to your left. I’ve told you about this already, but let me emphasize again, this entrance is dangerous. When you go into the cave, hug the wall on the right. If we take gunfire, hit the ground and stay away from the ledge on your left.”

Mac Brannon looked around. “If I had to pick the perfect hidey hole, this’d be it. Easy to access from the highway and not more than an hour and a half from Washington.” He grinned like a bandit.

While the agents crawled down the side of the bowl, fanning out, Dix whispered to Brannon, “You need to stay back, and trust that Ruth and I will take care of things.” Dix knew to his boot heels there would be at least one guard, probably right inside.

The agents came in from the sides, silent figures clothed in black, now dusted with white. There was no movement they could see, no voices they could hear. There was no sign of anyone.

Dix stood on one side of the entrance, Ruth on the other, his MP-5 in his hand. He smiled at her, then lifted the branches out of the way.

Winkel’s Cave

Team One

Anna and her team held perfectly still in the winding passage and listened. It was a ghostly sound that echoed to them from the distance off the cave walls, an alien and frightening sound to some of them as it fell and rose and wailed in the silent air. To Anna, it sounded familiar and beautiful, and she knew immediately what it was.

“Bingo,” she whispered.

It was the distorted sound of a guitar being tuned. Soon they were listening to a classical guitar being played with incredible technique, the notes frenetic but perfectly controlled. Anna recognized it as “Rumores de la Caleta,” one of Salazar’s signature pieces.

She turned off her headlamp and tunneled the flashlight between her palms so only a narrow beam of light aimed at her feet to show her where she was stepping, and made her way to the front of the line. She motioned for everyone to cut their lights and keep back. She walked forward ten steps through inky blackness, turned a sharp corner, and nearly walked into a huge stalagmite shaped like an eight-foot spear. She realized she’d seen it because it was illuminated from behind by an artificial soft gray light. So they’d brought in a generator, or batteries. There was light ahead. She switched off her flashlight, went back and beckoned for the team to follow her. They slipped to their knees, flattened, and looked down a path that curved sharply to their right.

She motioned for them to stay still while she shimmied on her elbows to get a closer look. It was the huge vaultlike limestone chamber Ruth had told them about, illuminated by electric lanterns that threw distorted shadows on the walls. Its ceiling soared upward, with groups of stalactites fashioned in incredible shapes hanging down like chandeliers. But many of the limestone formations within reach had been wantonly torn apart and hurled carelessly across the chamber, and now lay in scattered chunks across the cave floor.

Anna started when she saw a low limestone arch that covered an indented niche in the far wall of the cavern, stacked floor to ceiling with what had to be kilo bricks of cocaine. She’d made her share of drug busts and she’d seen bricks of pure cocaine before, straight from Mexico or Colombia, cocaine that hadn’t yet been cut by local dealers. But she’d never seen so much of it in one place, except in a picture. It had to be worth millions of dollars.