Ballistic Research Trip- Part 3

The yacht was called La Sirena, it lay at anchor here seven miles out in the bay, wide of the shipping lanes that ran to the port or the marina, but close enough to shore so that its owner and his entourage could enjoy all that Puerto Vallarta had to offer. It was long and sleek and beautiful, and crowned by a state-of-the-art black Eurocopter helicopter resting on the helipad above the upper aft deck. But Eduardo Gamboa ignored the style of the ship in front of him and focused fully on the substance. After forty minutes under water his night vision was tuned to its peak. With his naked eye he saw two guards on the upper sundeck standing near the bow. He imagined the same number on the opposite side.

A cluster of small, uninhabited islands sit in Bandaras Bay, just a few hundred yards off of Mismaloya. Collectively called Los Arcos, they are named for the archlike formations carved out of the rock by cen- turies of pounding surf. During the day the protected marine reserve around Los Arcos was full of scuba divers, snorkelers, and pleasure boats, but one hour before midnight the only creatures in the waters around the tiny islands were fish, lobster, sleeping blue-footed boo- bies and other sea birds.

 

Fifty yards closer to shore a pair of private boats bobbed in the water. In each boat four men sat with M16 rifles in their laps. Two men in each boat had a M203 grenade launcher mounted on their M16s.

 

He passed the two boats twenty minutes later, traveling sixty feet below them and breathing as slowly and as shallowly as he could to minimize bubbles above. Twenty minutes after that he was below the surf, the ocean floor crept up towards the beach, each wave that surged him forward was followed by an undertow that pulled him back, but he kicked to maximize his progress and, after ten minutes of heavy exercise, he worked his way ashore. He'd let the current push him south of the lights of the building, south of the beach and into the rocks.