"Nada."

The deception seemed to work. After agreeing to meet an hour before sundown at a creek they had crossed at the base of the ridge, Artillio donned Jenny's poncho and led the diminished party across the slope to a clearing. Here the helicopter had a good look at seven very angry Indians, and headed on in a circle to the east.

After they had been left alone in silence for a full five minutes, Jed and Jenny continued climbing the ridge. The jungle gave way to bare rock. And, as they topped out in a saddle, it became crystal clear why Rosenbaum had chosen Castle de Oro for his mission. This mountain was the "high ground," strategically important for the defense, or attack, on the canal.

Even to the naked eye, the view stretched out to the Balboa roadstead and ships waiting to enter the waterway. With imagination Jed could almost picture the famous mechanical mules towing a vessel through Pedro Miguel Locks.

The French had tried digging the ditch in 1880 but 20 years of disease and financial trouble had bankrupt the company that had successfully completed the sea level Suez Canal. The French hadn't anticipated the difficulty of broaching a Continental Divide by clawing through living rock.

That task was left to the U.S. Government, who under the command of Teddy Roosevelt, known for charging up hills, took over the project in 1903. Even at that it took another ten years to complete the fifty mile long waterway, three sets of locks, and the largest earthen dam ever built. The hardest task of all became known as the Gaillard Cut, an eight mile excavation through solid granite.

The same rock Jed and Jenny were standing upon, looking down 4,000 feet at a large container ship transiting the canal. Granite.

From this point upward the mountain was completely bald, barren of any vegetation. "Jenny," he asked, without hinting at the answer, "if you were to spend time spying on ship movements through the canal, where would you park your carcass?"

"Right here."

"What about when it rained?"

"Find shelter."

"Where?"

"Back down the hill in the jungle?"