Skeleton Coast

Merrick had yet to see any of his captors’ faces. They’d worn ski masks when they rammed his car off the road just outside his laboratory and on the flight to this hellhole. There were at least three of them, he knew, because of differences in their bodies. One was large and hulking, and wore nothing but sleeveless athletic Tshirts. Another was slender and had bright blue eyes, while the third was distinguishable because he wasn’t the other two.

In the three days since the abduction, their jailers hadn’t spoken a single word to either of them. They’d been stripped in the van that had smashed into their cars and given jumpsuits to wear. All their jewelry was removed and instead of shoes they had rubber flip-flops. They were given two meals a day and Merrick’s cell had a hole in the floor for a toilet that blew hot air and sand whenever the wind picked up outside. Since being dumped into the prison the jailers had only come around to feed them.

Then this morning they came for Susan. Because her cell was on another row within the block, Merrick couldn’t be sure, but it had sounded as if they’d yanked her to her feet by her hair. They had bundled her past him on their way out the room’s lone door, a thick metal affair with peepholes.

Susan was pale, her eyes already sheened over with despair. He had called her name and rushed his bars in an effort to touch her, to give her a token of human compassion, but the smallest guard smashed the bars with a nightstick. Merrick fell back helpless as they dragged her away. Estimating the heat that had built in the room he believed four hours had passed since then. It had been quiet at first and then the screams came. And now Susan was well into her second hour of torture.

In the first hours of their kidnapping, Merrick had been certain this was about money—that their captors would demand cash in exchange for their release. He knew the Swiss authorities had a zero-tolerance policy when dealing with hostage takers but he also knew there were companies that specialized in negotiating with kidnappers. Because of the recent spate of abductions in Italy, Merrick had instructed his board of directors to find such negotiators if he were ever taken and secure his freedom no matter the cost.

But after being flown blindfolded for at least six hours, Merrick didn’t know what was going on. He and Susan had whispered to each other late at night, speculating on their captors’ intentions. While Susan insisted it had to be about his money and she was caught up in the abduction as a witness, Merrick wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t been asked to speak to anyone in the company about getting a ransom together or been given any indication that his people even knew he and Susan were still alive. Nothing so far fit what he knew about kidnapping. Admittedly, the rudimentary executive security course he’d taken had been years ago, but he recalled enough to know his abductors did not fit the usual profile.

And now this. They were torturing poor Susan Donleavy, a loyal, dedicated employee who knew little beyond her test tubes and beakers. Merrick recalled their conversation a few weeks back about her idea of ending oil spills with her trick plankton. He hadn’t told her that while her goals were indeed lofty, her concept seemed a bit outlandish. His whole speech about revenge being a great motivator was just that, a speech, one he’d given an hundred times in a hundred variations. She’d have better luck overcoming a childhood trauma with a psychiatrist than in her laboratory.

Thinking about her project made him consider all the other research currently under way at Merrick/Singer. He’d done this many times since landing in the cell. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, they were working on that would warrant what was happening if this was a case of industrial espionage. They weren’t close to patenting anything new or revolutionary. In fact, they hadn’t had a really profitable patent since he and Dan Singer first marketed their sulfur scrubbers. The company was basically a vanity project for him now, a way to keep his hands in the world of research chemistry and to get invitations to speak at symposiums.

The screaming stopped. It wasn’t a slow wind down, but a sudden cessation of sound that was more horrifying in its implications.

Geoff Merrick shot to his feet, wedging his face into the iron bars so he could see a sliver of the cell block door. A few minutes later the bolts shot back and the heavy slab of metal creaked open.

They had to drag her in with her arms draped over two of the guards’ necks while the third held a set of large keys. As they drew near, Merrick saw blood caked in Susan Donleavy’s hair. Her jumpsuit had been torn at the neck and the skin of her upper chest and shoulder was livid purple. She managed to look up as they dragged her past his cage. Merrick gasped. Her face was a pulped ruin. One eye was swollen closed while she could barely lever open the other against the weight of bruising. Blood and saliva ran in ropes from her split and slack lips.

There was just the slightest flicker of life in her eye when she glanced at him.

“Dear God, Susan. I am so sorry.” He didn’t try to fight his tears. She had become so pitiable a figure that he would have cried even if she were a total stranger. That she was an employee and that he was somehow responsible for what they had done to her tore at his soul.

She spat a red glob onto the stone floor and croaked, “They didn’t even ask me any questions.”

“You bastards!” he raged at the guards. “I will pay you anything. You didn’t need to do this to her.

She’s innocent.”

They might as well have been deaf because they gave no reaction to his outburst. They just dragged her from his view. He heard her cell door open and her dumped roughly inside. The iron door was slammed shut and the lock reengaged.

Merrick decided that when they came for him he was going to fight them with everything he had. If he was going to be beaten he wanted to inflict some punishment first. He waited in his cell for them, his fists balled, his shoulders tense and ready.

The slightest guard, the one with the bright blue eyes, appeared. He held something in his hand and before Merrick could identify it or react, the guard fired. It was a Tazer that pumped fifty thousand volts into his body and overrode his central nervous system in a blaze of pain. Merrick went rigid for a second and then collapsed. By the time he regained consciousness they had him out of the cell and almost to the main door. In such agony from the blast of electricity, he’d lost all thought of fighting them.

9

SLOANEMacintyre wore a baseball cap to tame her hair against the twenty-knot wind generated by the fishing boat’s forward speed. Her eyes were protected by a pair of wraparound Oakley’s on a gaily colored cord and what skin lay exposed to the sun was slathered with SPF 30. She had on a pair of khaki shorts and a loose bush shirt festooned with pockets. On her feet she wore canvas boat shoes. The glint of a gold anklet shone in the sun.

Every time she was on the water she felt like a teen again, working her father’s charter boat off Florida’s east coast. There had been a few bad incidences when she’d taken over for her ailing father with drunken fishermen more interested in catching her than billfish or snapper, but all in all it was the greatest time of her life. The salty tang of sea air seemed to calm her very soul while the isolation of being on a hard-charging boat helped her focus her mind.

The charter boat captain, a jovial Namibian, sensed in her a kindred spirit and when she glanced at him he threw her a knowing smile. Sloane returned it. With the twin Cummins diesels bellowing under the transom it was nearly impossible to speak, so he stood from his chair and gestured for Sloane to take the controls. Her smile turned into a grin. The captain tapped the compass to indicate their heading and stepped from the wheel. Sloane slid into his position and rested her hands lightly on the worn wheel.

He stood by her side for a couple of minutes, checking that their wake continued in a straight line.

Satisfied that he was right about his passenger being able to handle the forty-six-foot cruiser, he slid down the short ladder; nodded at Tony Reardon, who was slouched in the fighting chair; and went to use the head.

Sloane would have given up on their search if those men hadn’t come after her the previous night. Their actions convinced her she was on the right track to find the HMSRove . Why else try to scare her off?

She hadn’t told Tony about the attack, but first thing this morning she’d phoned her boss and laid out the whole story. While concerned for her safety, he gave her permission to extend their stay another day so they could investigate the section of sea where Papa Heinrick had seen his giant metal snakes.

She knew she was being reckless. Any sane person would have heeded the warning and left the country on the first plane out, but that wasn’t in her nature. In all her life she had never left a task unfinished. No matter how bad a book was, she’d read it to the last word. No matter how difficult a crossword, she’d work it to the last clue. No matter how difficult the job, she would see it through to the end. It was this dogged tenacity that probably kept her in doomed relationships long after she should have ended them, but it also gave her the strength to face whoever was trying to prevent her from finding her ship.

Sloane had been cautious when hiring the charter, making sure the captain wasn’t one they had spoken to when she and Tony were putting together their map. Leaving their hotel, they had blended in with a large group of tourists who were headed to the waterfront for a charter fishing trip of their own and on the bus she made certain that no one was following them. Had she seen anything suspicious she would have called off the whole thing, but no one paid their vehicle any attention.

It was only when they were several miles from shore that Sloane told the captain where she really wanted to go. He’d told her that the section of the sea where she wanted to fish was devoid of any marine life but since she was paying he hadn’t put up much of an argument.

That had been six uneventful hours earlier, and every mile they put behind them without incident allowed Sloane to relax that little bit more. The men who had chased her must have assumed she had taken their warning to heart and given up.

The seas were building slightly with a wind out of the south. The beamy boat rode them well, rolling to starboard with each swell and returning to an even keel smartly. The captain returned from below and stood a little behind Sloane, letting her maintain the helm. He reached for a pair of binoculars from under a bench seat and scanned the horizon. He handed them to her and pointed a bit south of due west.

Sloane adjusted the binoculars to fit her face and brought them to her eyes. A big ship coasted on the horizon, a single-funneled freighter that appeared to be heading toward Walvis Bay. At this extreme range it was impossible to see any detail other than get a vague sense of her dark hull and a small forest of booms and derricks on both her fore and aft decks.

“I never see a ship like that out here before,” the charter captain said. “Only ships come to Walvis are coasters or the cruise ships. Fishermen are all closer to shore and tankers rounding the Cape run four or five hundred miles further out.”

The world’s oceans are divided into sea lanes that were almost as clearly marked as interstate highways.

With deadlines always tight and the price of keeping a vessel at sea running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars a day for supertankers, ships invariably followed the straightest line between destinations, rarely varying a mile or two. So while some parts of the ocean teemed with marine traffic, other regions never saw a single ship in a year. The charter boat was in such a dead zone—far enough from the coast to avoid regional freighters supplying Walvis Bay but well inside established routes used for rounding the Cape of Good Hope.

“There’s something else odd,” Sloane said. “There’s no smoke coming from her funnel. Do you think she’s a derelict? Maybe she was caught in a storm and the crew had to abandon her.”

Tony came up the ladder. Sloane was pondering the presence of the mystery ship and the fate of her crew and didn’t hear him so when he touched her shoulder she started.

“Sorry,” he said. “Look behind us. There’s another boat coming this way.”

Sloane whirled so fast that her hands on the wheel caused the boat to lurch to port. It was notoriously hard to judge distances at sea but she knew the boat driving hard for them could not be more than a couple of miles astern and for it to catch up to them it was running faster than the charter boat. She tossed the binoculars at the captain and eased the chrome throttle handles until they hit their stops.

“What’s going on?” Tony shouted, leaning forward as the boat picked up speed.

The captain had sensed Sloane’s fear and for the moment said nothing as he scoped the approaching craft with the binoculars.

“Do you recognize it?” Sloane asked him.

“Yes. She comes into Walvis every month or so. A yacht. Maybe fifty feet long. I do not know her name or her owner.”

“Can you see anyone?”

“There are men on the upper bridge. White men.”

“I demand to know what is going on!” Tony roared, his face flushing.

Again Sloane ignored him. Without having to see them, she knew who was in the boat behind them. She gently eased the wheel and started racing for the distant freighter, praying that her pursuers would back off if there were witnesses. Out on the open ocean she was sure they’d be killed, the fishing boat scuttled. She pressed more firmly on the throttles but the diesels were already giving her everything they had. Her lips worked as she silently prayed that she was wrong about the freighter being abandoned. If it was, they’d be dead as soon as the yacht caught up.

Tony grabbed her arm, his eyes blazing. “Damn it, Sloane, what is this all about? Who are those people?”

“I think they’re the same men who chased me back to the hotel last night.”

“Chased you? What do you mean, chased you?”

“What I said,” she snapped. “I was chased back to the hotel by two men. One of them had a gun. They warned me to leave the country.”

Tony’s anger turned into fury and even the captain looked at her with an unreadable expression. “And you didn’t see fit to tell me. Are you out of your mind? You get chased by men with guns and then lead us out here to the middle of nowhere? Good God, woman, what were you thinking?”

“I didn’t think they would follow us,” Sloane shouted back. “I messed up, all right! If we can get close enough to the freighter they won’t do anything.”

“What the hell would have happened if that freighter wasn’t here?” Spittle popped from Tony’s mouth with each word.

“Well, it is, so we’ll be fine.”

Tony turned to the ship’s owner. “Do you have a gun?”

He nodded slowly. “I use it on sharks if they come round.”

“Then I bloody well recommend you get it, mate, because we might just need it.”

The boat had been taking the waves on a gentle broadside but now that Sloane had altered their course they were cutting into them, the bow sawing up and down and sea foam exploding each time they plowed through a crest. The ride was rough and Sloane kept her knees bent to absorb each impact. The captain returned from below and wordlessly handed Sloane a worn twelve-gauge and a fistful of shells, intuitively knowing she possessed a strength Tony Reardon lacked. He retook his position at the helm and made subtle corrections as each wave passed under them so as not to lose speed. The luxury yacht had gained at least a mile while the freighter looked no closer.

She scanned the big cargo ship through the binoculars and her heart sank. The vessel was in poor repair.

Her hull was painted in myriad dark shades and looked like it had been patched with steel plates a dozen times over. She saw no one walking the decks or manning the bridge and while it looked like foam creamed off her bows as if she were making way it couldn’t be possible because there was no smoke from her stack.

“Do you have a radio?” Sloane asked the captain.

“It is below,” he replied. “But doesn’t have enough range to reach Walvis if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Sloane pointed to the freighter over the bow. “I want to alert them what’s happening so they can lower a boarding ladder.”

The captain glanced over his shoulder at the fast-approaching yacht. “It will be close.”

Sloane slid down the steep steps using just her hands, and ran into the cabin. The radio was an old transceiver bolted to the low ceiling. She powered it up and worked the knob to channel 16, the international distress band.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is the fishing vesselPinguin calling the freighter en route to Walvis Bay.

We are being chased by pirates, please respond.”

A burst of static filled the cabin.

Sloane adjusted the radio dial and thumbed the microphone. “This is thePinguin calling unidentified freighter en route to Walvis. We need assistance. Please respond.”

Again she heard static, but thought she caught the ghost of a voice in the white noise. Despite the boat’s violent pitching, Sloane’s fingers were as delicate as a surgeon’s as she moved the dial in fractional increments.

A voice suddenly boomed from the speaker. “You should have listened to me last night and left Namibia.” Through the distortion Sloane was still able to recognize the voice from the previous night and her blood went cold.

Sloane mashed the microphone. “Leave us alone and we will return to shore,” she pleaded. “I will be on the first plane out. I promise.”

“That is no longer an option.”

She looked over the transom. The yacht had cut the distance to a couple hundred yards, close enough for her to see two of the men in the bridge holding rifles of some sort. The freighter was a mile or more away.

They weren’t going to make it.

“WHAT do you think, Chairman?” Hali Kasim asked from his seat at the communications station.

Cabrillo was leaning forward in his chair, an elbow on the arm of his chair, a hand cupping his unshaven chin. The forward display screen showed the view from the mast-mounted camera. The image from the gyro-stabilized video was rock solid and zoomed in on the two boats fast approaching theOregon . The fishing boat was making a solid twenty knots while the motor yacht was easily closing in at thirty-five.

They’d been watching the two craft on radar for the better part of an hour and had given their presence a low priority since the waters off Namibia’s coast were known fishing grounds. It was only when the first boat, which they now knew was calledPinguin , German for penguin, altered course to intercept the Oregon that Cabrillo was called from his cabin where he was just about ready to hit the showers after an hour in the gym.

“I don’t have the foggiest idea,” Juan said at last. “Why would pirates use a million-dollar yacht to chase an old fishing boat a hundred and fifty miles offshore? Something’s hinky. Wepps, zoom in on that yacht.

Let’s see who’s aboard her if you can.”

Mark Murphy wasn’t on duty, so the crewman manning the weapons station worked a joystick and trackball to bring up the image Cabrillo wanted. At such extreme zoom even the computer-assisted gyroscopes had a difficult time holding the picture steady. But it was good enough. Sunlight glinted off the expanse of sloping glass below the bridge but through the glare Juan could see four men on the sleek yacht’s bridge, and two of them held assault rifles. As they watched, one of them brought the weapon to his shoulder and fired a short burst.

Anticipating the coming order, the weapons officer panned back to show the fleeingPinguin . It didn’t appear she had been hit but they could see a copper-haired woman crouched behind the flat transom cradling a shotgun.

“Wepps,” Cabrillo said sharply. “Spool up the Gatling but don’t lower the hull plate. Bring up a firing solution on that yacht and pop the starboard thirty calibers from their redoubts just in case.”

“Four men with automatic weapons against a woman with a shotgun,” Hali mused. “Won’t be much of a fight if we don’t do something.”

“I’m working on it,” Cabrillo said, then nodded to his communications specialist. “Patch me through to her.”

Kasim hit a button on one of his three keyboards. “You’re live.”

Cabrillo settled his lip mike. “Pinguin,Pinguin ,Pinguin , this is the motor shipOregon. ” On the screen they could see the woman’s head whip around as she heard him over the radio.

She scrambled back inside the cabin and a moment later her breathless voice filled the operations center.

“Oregon, oh, thank God. For a minute I thought you were a derelict ship.”

“Not far from the truth,” Linda Ross deadpanned. Though not on duty, Juan had asked the elfin Ross to join him in the op center on the off chance he would need her background in intelligence.

“Please state the nature of your emergency,” Juan requested, pretending they didn’t have a bird’s-eye view of what was happening. “You mentioned pirates.”

“Yes, and they just opened fire on us with machine guns. My name is Sloane Macintyre. We’re on a fishing charter and they just suddenly appeared.”

“Didn’t sound that way to me,” Linda said, sucking her lower lip. “The guy on the yacht said he’d already warned her about something once.”

“So she’s lying,” Juan agreed. “She was just fired at and she’s lying. Interesting, don’t you think?”

“She’s gotta be hiding something.”

“Oregon,” Sloane called, “are you still there?”

Juan keyed the mike. “We’re still here.” He sized up the situation with a quick glance at the screen, projecting where each craft would be in another minute and then their locations in two. The tactical picture was grim. But worse than that was the fact he’d be acting blind. For all he knew Sloane Macintyre was the biggest drug dealer in southern Africa and was about to be greased by a rival. She and the others on thePinguin might be getting everything they deserved. On the other hand she could be totally innocent.

“Then why lie?” he whispered to himself.

If he was to preserve theOregon ’s secrets, the margin for action would be razor tight—in fact too tight.

He thought through a dozen scenarios in the time it took to scratch his chin again and made his decision.

“Helm, bring us hard to starboard; we need to cut the distance between us and thePinguin . Increase speed to twenty knots. Engineering, make sure the smudge boiler is online.” When alone at sea the Oregon produced no pollution, but when they encountered traffic a special smoke generator was switched on to create the illusion the remarkable ship was powered by conventional diesel engines.

“I fired it up a couple minutes ago,” the second engineer reported from the back of the op center.

“Should have done it as soon as they reached visual range but I forgot.”

“No big deal. I doubt anyone noticed,” Juan said before activating his mike. “Sloane, this is the master of theOregon .”

“Go ahead,Oregon .”

Juan marveled at how coolly she was handling herself and thought briefly of Tory Ballinger, an Englishwoman he’d rescued a few months back in the Sea of Japan. They had the same kind of mettle.

“We have turned to intercept you. Tell thePinguin ’s captain to take us down the port side, but don’t let on that’s the way you’re going to go. I want to trick the yacht to pass us to starboard. Do you understand?”

“We are to pass you down your port side but only at the last minute.”

“That’s right. Don’t cut it too close, though. The yacht won’t be able to make tight turns at the speed she’s doing, so avoid our bow wave as best you can. I’m going to lower our boarding stairs but don’t approach them until I give you the word. Got it?”

“We won’t approach until you signal,” Sloane repeated.

“You’re going to be fine, Sloane,” Juan said, the confidence in his voice carrying over the crackling radio link. “These aren’t the first pirates me and my crew have come across.”

On screen he saw the gunmen try to rake thePinguin again with their assault rifles but the range was still extreme from such an unstable firing platform. It didn’t look like any of the rounds came close to the charter boat, yet it firmed Juan’s resolve that they were doing the right thing in helping Sloane and her party.

“Hali, get some hands on deck to lower the boarding stairs and extend the ladder. Wepps, be prepared to fire the bow thirty caliber.”

“I have it locked on.”

ThePinguin was coming on gamely, now less than three hundred yards from the hulking freighter, with the yacht a scant hundred yards further back. Juan didn’t want to use the machine gun but he saw there wasn’t going to be any choice. The charter boat would be in range of the yacht before he could slip the Oregon between them. He was about to order the weapons officer to fire a short burst to slow the yacht when he noticed Sloane slithering out to thePinguin ’s stern. She raised her head and shoulders over the transom and let loose with the shotgun, firing the second barrel as soon as she regained her sight picture.

She had no chance of hitting the yacht but the unexpected volley forced the luxury craft to slow and make a more cautious approach. It bought her the seconds they needed to implement Cabrillo’s plan.

“What’s going on?” Max Hanley appeared at Cabrillo’s side smelling of pipe tobacco. “I’m trying to enjoy my day off while you’re up here playing chicken with what, an old fishing boat and a floating bordello?”

Juan had stopped wondering years ago how Hanley’s sixth sense brought him out of his cabin when trouble was brewing. “The guys on the yacht want the people on the fishing boat dead and it doesn’t look like they care if there are any witnesses.”

“And you want to spoil their fun, I see.”

Juan shot him a lopsided grin. “Have you ever known me to not stick my nose in other people’s business?”

“Offhand? No.” Max was looking at the view screen and cursed.

The yacht had put on a burst of speed and autofire raked thePinguin , tearing chunks of wood from her thick stern and shattering the glass panel on the door to her belowdecks cabin. Sloane was protected by the transom, but the captain and another man on the bridge were horribly exposed.

Trading speed for protection, the Namibian skipper began to weave his boat as they careened toward the oncoming freighter, slewing it from side to side as he tried to throw off the gunmen’s aim. Sloane added her own contribution by firing both barrels again. The shots were so off target that she never saw the little geysers where they hit the sea.

A fresh burst from the yacht forced her down. From her vantage on the rough plank flooring of the aft deck she couldn’t see the freighter, but the boat behaved differently as it encountered waves that had been disrupted by her massive hull. Her shoulder aching from firing the gun, she knew it was now up to thePinguin ’s captain and the mysterious master of theOregon . She lay against the transom, panting with fear tinged with exhilaration—the same sense of defiance that had put her in the predicament in the first place.

Back aboard theOregon Juan and Max watched the two small craft coming closer. ThePinguin ’s skipper was keeping her on track to race down the starboard side with the yacht actually running a bit further to the right and fast approaching the range where the gunners would have their quarry dead to rights.

“Wait for it,” Max said to no one in particular. Had he been in charge of this situation he would have told Sloane to stand by the radio and given the order to turn himself. Then he realized Juan had been right to let the skipper make the call. He knew his boat’s capabilities and would know when to make the cut.

ThePinguin was thirty yards from theOregon , so close that the mast camera could no longer track her.

The weapons officer switched to the gun camera on the bow thirty caliber.

The little boat was raked with yet another burst of fire from the yacht and had they been further away Juan would have abandoned his plan and blown the luxury craft out of the water with either the thirty caliber or the Gatling gun that was still tracking the target even hidden behind her steel plating.

“Now,” he whispered.

Though Cabrillo hadn’t activated his microphone it was as if thePinguin ’s captain heard him. He cut the wheel hard to the left just fifteen yards from the knife-edge prow of theOregon , riding up on the swell that curled away from her hull like a surfer catching a wave.

The helmsman on the yacht jerked the wheel as if to follow, then corrected his course when he realized they were going too fast to stay on thePinguin ’s tail. He’d pass the freighter down her starboard side and using his superior speed reach the stern abreast of his target.

“Helm,” Juan said calmly, “on my mark I want bow thrusters to starboard at full power and give me right full rudder. Increase speed to forty knots.” Juan clicked through camera angles until he caught a glimpse of thePinguin . He had to make sure she didn’t get crushed as he made his turn. He expertly judged speeds and angles, knowing he was risking lives to preserve his ship’s secrets. The yacht was almost in position, thePinguin almost out of danger, but time had run out.

“Mark.”

With just the click of a few keys and a subtle twist of a joystick, the eleven-thousand-ton ship did something no other vessel its size was capable of. The athwartship thrusters came to life, forcing the Oregon ’s bow laterally through the water, fighting the inertia of her own speed and the increased thrust of her magnetohydrodynamic engines as they ramped up even faster.

One second the yacht and the freighter were running parallel if opposite courses, and the next theOregon had turned forty-five degrees and rather than racing down her long flank, the yacht was headed directly for her bow at a combined closing speed of sixty knots. Like a whale protecting its young, Juan had put his ship between the yacht and the charter boat. He glanced at the screen showing thePinguin . The Oregon had turned just past her, cutting through her wake and sending her bobbing on the rollers peeling off his ship.

As if racing to cross train tracks ahead of a locomotive, the yacht’s driver tried to beat the surging bow of theOregon by turning to port and outrunning what he believed to be a relatively slow ship. Had he seen the boil of water erupting under her fantail he would have cut his own engines and prayed he survived the impact with her hull.

The vectors in place were a matter of simple mathematics. TheOregon continued her turn, cutting across the bow of the yacht even as it desperately tried to turn a tighter circle than the freighter.

At the last moment one of the gunmen on the yacht lunged forward to yank back the throttles but the gesture was too little too late.

The gleaming prow of the yacht slammed into theOregon ’s scaly hull a hundred feet from her bow.

Fiberglass and aluminum were no match for the old ship’s tough hide and the luxury boat accordioned like a beer can hit with a sledgehammer. Her twin turbo diesels were ripped from their mounts and tore through her hull, shattering the structural ribs that held the boat together. In a burst of glass and plastic shards the vessel’s upper-works came apart as if she’d exploded. The four men who were confident moments earlier that they would complete their mission died instantly, crushed into oblivion by the tremendous force of the crash.

One of her fuel tanks exploded in a rising ball of dirty orange flame that licked theOregon ’s rail as she continued to turn, as unaffected by the impact as if she were a shark being charged by a goldfish. A spreading pool of burning diesel coated the ocean, giving off clouds of greasy smoke that obscured the remains of the yacht in her final moments before she slipped below the waves.

“All stop,” Cabrillo ordered and felt the instant deceleration as the pump jets were disengaged.

“Like swatting flies,” Max said and patted Juan’s shoulder.

“Let’s just hope all that wasn’t to protect a hornet.” He hit his microphone switch. “OregoncallingPinguin

, do you copy?”

“Oregon, this is thePinguin .” They could almost hear Sloane’s relieved smile over the comm. link. “I don’t know how you did that, but you’ve got three very grateful people here.”

“It would be my pleasure to have you and your shipmates aboard for a late lunch to talk about what just happened.”

“Ah, wait one minute, please,Oregon .”

Juan needed to know what had just occurred and wasn’t going to give her the time to come up with a cover story. “If you don’t accept my invitation I will have no choice but to file a formal report with the maritime authorities at Walvis Bay.”

He had no such intention but Sloane didn’t know that.

“Um, in that case we would love to accept your offer.”

“Very well. My boarding ladder is extended on the port side. A crewman will escort you to the bridge.”

Juan looked at Max. “Well, let’s go see what another fine mess I’ve gotten us in, Ollie.”

10

FIGHTINGto stay in the warm embrace of unconsciousness, Geoffrey Merrick moaned aloud as the numbing effects of the Tazer shock wore off. His extremities tingled down to his fingers and toes and the spot on his chest where the electrodes had struck burned as if he’d been splashed with acid.

“He is coming around,” a disembodied voice said as if from a great distance away, but Merrick somehow knew the person was close by and it was his own addled brain that had drifted so far.

He became aware that his body was in an uncomfortable position and tried to move. His efforts proved useless. He was manacled at the wrists, and while he could barely feel the metal digging into his flesh, he couldn’t move his arms more than a couple of inches. He still didn’t have enough control over his legs to determine if his ankles were similarly bound.

He tentatively opened his eyes and immediately shut them. Wherever he was had to be the brightest room he’d ever been in. It was almost as if he were standing on the surface of the sun.

Merrick waited a beat and opened them again, squinting against the harsh light that scoured the room. It took a few seconds for details to come into focus. The room was roughly fifteen feet square with walls made of dressed stone exactly like the walls of his cell, so he knew he hadn’t been taken from the prison.

There was a large picture window along one wall. It was securely barred and the glass looked like it had been recently installed. The view outside was the most desolate he’d seen, an endless trackless sea of fine white sand baking in the glare of a remorseless sun.

He turned his attention to the people in the room with him.

There were eight men and women seated at a wooden table; unlike the guards, they weren’t wearing masks. Merrick didn’t recognize any of them, though he believed the big one to be one of the guards and the handsome youth with blue eyes to be another. They were all Caucasians and mostly younger than thirty-five. He had lived in Switzerland long enough to recognize the European cut of their clothes. On the table was a laptop computer turned toward the eldest of the group, a woman in her late forties judging by the silver threads shot through her hair. A web camera jacked into the computer was focused on Merrick at the foot of the table.

“Geoffrey Michael Merrick,” an electronically filtered voice intoned from the computer’s speakers. “You have been tried in absentia by this court and have been found guilty of crimes against the planet.” Several heads nodded grimly. “The product your company patented, your so-called sulfur scrubbers, has pacified governments and individuals into believing the continued burning of fossil fuels is a sustainable option—especially the burning of so-called clean coal. No such thing exists, and while this court admits that power plants so fitted with your devices have made a slight reduction in sulfur emissions, that in no way mitigates the billions of tons of other noxious chemicals and gases poured into the atmosphere.

“Your tactical victory in producing these devices is in reality a strategic defeat for those of us who truly strive to save our world for future generations. The environmental movement cannot allow itself to be swayed by the parlor tricks of individuals like yourself or energy companies who profess to be green while continuing to peddle their poisons. Global warming is the single greatest threat this planet has ever faced and every time people like you develop a slightly cleaner technology the public believes the threat is being diminished when in fact it grows worse every year.

“It is the same with hybrid cars. True, they burn less gasoline, but the pollution expended in their development and production far outpaces what the consumer saves by driving such a vehicle. They are merely a ploy to give a handful of conscientious people a sense that they are doing their share to help the environment, when in fact they are doing the opposite. They believe the misguided notion that technology can somehow save the planet when it was technology that doomed it in the first place.”

Merrick heard the words but couldn’t get his mind around what they meant. He opened his mouth to speak but his vocal cords were still paralyzed so he gave a sort of croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Who—who are you people?”

“People who see through your charade.”

“Charade?” He paused, trying to gather his wits, knowing the next few minutes would determine if he walked out of here on his own or was dragged like poor Susan. “My technology has proven itself time and again. Thanks to me there is less sulfur being produced now than since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.”

“And thanks to you”—even through the electronic filter the voice from the computer managed to impart sarcasm—“levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate ash, mercury, and other heavy metals have never been higher. Nor has the sea level. The power companies hold your scrubbers as proof of their environmental concern when sulfur is only one small component of the filth they produce. The world must be shown that the environmental threat comes from all sides.”

“And to show them you kidnap me and beat an innocent woman half to death?” Merrick said without thinking through his predicament. He had debated this issue hundreds of times. Yes, his work had reduced sulfur levels but as a result more power plants were being built and more pollution was pumped into the atmosphere. It was a classic catch-22. But he was familiar with the arguments and felt a surge of confidence that he could talk his way out of this.

“She works for you. She is not innocent.”

“How can you possibly say that? You didn’t even ask her name or what she does.”

“The specifics of her job are unimportant. That she is willing to work for you is proof enough of her complicity and culpability.”

Merrick took a breath. He had to find a way to convince them he wasn’t their enemy if he was going to get out of this alive. “Listen, you can’t hold me responsible for the world’s continued demand for more energy. You want to clean up the environment, convince people to have fewer children. China will soon pass the United States as the world’s biggest polluter because they have a population of one point two billion. India, with its billion citizens, isn’t too far behind. That is the real threat to the planet. And no matter how clean Europe and America become—God, we could go back to horse-drawn carriages and plowshares—we would never be able to counteract the pollution produced in Asia. This is a global problem, I totally agree, and a global solution is what is needed.”

The men and women at the far end of the table sat unmoved by his speech and the computer’s silence stretched ominously. Merrick fought to remain strong, to not give in to the fear sliding like oil through his gut. In the end he couldn’t do it—his voice turned strident and fresh tears came to his eyes.

“Please, you don’t need to do this to me,” he pleaded. “Is it money you want? I can give you all the money your organization will ever need. Please, just let us go.”

“It is too late for that,” the computer said. Then the electronic filter was switched off and the person on the other end of the link spoke in his own voice. “You have been tried, Geoff, and found guilty.”

Merrick knew that voice all too well, though he hadn’t heard it in years. And he also knew it meant he was going to die.

11

CABRILLOdidn’t have time for his shower and only barely managed to change out of his workout clothes and get to theOregon ’s bridge before Sloane and her group were escorted in by Frank Lincoln.

He glanced around quickly as he heard them mounting the outside stairs. The bridge was in its normal state of disrepair and neglect; no one had left any of their high-tech toys lying around to belie the true nature of the vessel. Eddie Seng was again playing helmsman, wearing a battered one-piece utility suit and a baseball cap as he stood casually behind the old-fashioned wheel. Seng was perhaps the most meticulous planner on the Corporation payroll, someone for which no detail was too minute. Had his temperament not been one that thrived on danger he would have made a great accountant. Juan noted Eddie had set the fake telegraph handles to All Stop and had even changed over the unused carts to show the coast of southwestern Africa.

Juan tapped the faded and stained map. “Nice touch.”

“Thought you’d like that.”

Juan had given no thought to what Sloane Macintyre would look like until the moment she walked through the door. Her hair was coppery red and in a tangled bush from so much wind and sun, giving her a wild and untamed look. Her mouth was a bit too wide and her nose too long, but she had such an open look to her face that these minor flaws were nearly indistinguishable. With her sunglasses dangling at her throat he could see she didn’t have the green eyes of a romance novel redhead but wide-set gray ones that seemed to take in her surroundings with a quick glance. She carried a little extra weight that made her body more curvy than angular, but the flesh under her arms remained taut, which made Juan think she was a swimmer.

With her were two men, a Namibian who Cabrillo assumed owned thePinguin , and another Caucasian with a prominent Adam’s apple and a sour look on his face. Juan couldn’t imagine many scenarios that would place an attractive woman like Sloane in his company. And by their body language he could tell that while Sloane might be in charge, her partner was extremely angry with her.

Cabrillo stepped forward, extending a hand. “Juan Cabrillo, captain of theOregon . Welcome aboard.”

“Sloane Macintyre.” Her grip was sure and firm and her gaze was level. Juan saw no trace of the fear she must have felt when they were being fired on. “This is Tony Reardon and Justus Ulenga, master of thePinguin .”

“How do you do?” Reardon surprised Juan with a crisp British accent.

“By the looks of you no one appears to need medical attention. Am I right?”

“No,” Sloane said. “We’re all fine, but thank you for asking.”

“Good, I’m relieved,” Juan said, and meant it. “I’d take you to my cabin to talk about what just happened out here but it’s a bit of a mess. Let’s go down to the galley. I think I can get the cook to whip up a little something.” Juan asked Linc to find the steward.

The truth was, the master’s cabin he used to greet inspectors and harbor officials who came aboard was a disaster zone, and had been designed to make visitors want to get off the ship as quickly as possible.

The walls and carpet had been chemically infused with a stench of cheap cigarettes that was guaranteed to leave even a chain-smoker gasping; and the sorrowful gaze of the velvet clown paintings made most people extremely uncomfortable, as they were supposed to. It simply wasn’t the proper setting for an interview. Although the topside galley and adjoining mess hall couldn’t be held to a much higher standard, at least they were reasonably clean.

Juan led them down a flight of internal stairs with treads of chipped linoleum and cautioned them about a handrail that was kept purposefully loosened. He ushered them into the mess, flicking one of two light switches to snap on the banks of fluorescents. The other switch only turned on a couple of the lights and two of them would constantly flicker and emit an annoying buzzing sound. Most Customs inspectors going over manifests preferred sitting on the bridge floor rather than working in the dining room. There were four mismatched tables in the spacious mess hall, and of the sixteen chairs only two looked even remotely similar. The walls were painted in a color Juan called Soviet Green, a dull mint hue that never failed to depress.

Two decks below this room was theOregon ’s real mess, as elegant a dining area as any five-star restaurant.

He indicated where he’d like them to sit, placing them so they faced a pinhole camera hidden in a picture on one wall. Linda Ross and Max Hanley were in the op center to monitor the interview. If they had any questions they wanted Juan to pose they would be passed to him by Maurice, the steward.

Cabrillo folded his hands on the tabletop, glanced at his guests but let his eyes settle on Sloane Macintyre. She returned his gaze without blinking and he believed he saw a hint of a smile at the corner of her lips. Juan expected fear or anger after what they’d been through, but she almost appeared amused by the whole thing; unlike Reardon, who was clearly rattled, or thePinguin ’s captain, who was pensive, most likely hoping Juan wouldn’t call the authorities.

“So, why don’t you tell me who those people were and why they wanted you all dead?” Sloane leaned forward brightly and was about to speak, but Juan added, “And don’t forget I heard what they said on the radio about warning you off last night.”

She sat back again, clearly rethinking her response.

“Just tell him, for God’s sake,” Tony sputtered when Sloane didn’t immediately respond. “It doesn’t matter now anyway.”

She shot him a scathing look, recognizing that if she didn’t talk openly Tony was going to tell Cabrillo everything. She let out a breath. “We are looking for a ship that sank in these waters in the late 1800s.”

“And let me guess, you think there’s treasure aboard?” Juan asked indulgently.

Sloane refused to let his sarcasm pass. “I am so certain I was willing to bet our lives on it. And someone else seems to think its worth killing for.”

“Touché.” Juan looked from Sloane to Reardon. They didn’t look like treasure hunters, but it was a fever that could infect anyone. “How did you two hook up?”

“In an Internet chat room devoted to lost treasures,” Sloane said. “We’ve been planning and saving for this since last year.”

“And tell me what happened last night.”

“I had gone out to dinner by myself and when I was walking back to the hotel, two men started following me. I ran and they chased me. At one point one of them fired a handgun at me. I made it back to the hotel, which was crowded, and they stopped. One of them shouted that the shot was a warning and I was to leave Namibia.”

“You recognized them as two of the guys on that yacht.”

“Yeah, the two with the machine guns.”

“And who knew you were in Namibia?”

“What do you mean, like friends back home and stuff?”

“No, I mean who knew what you were doing here? Did you talk to anyone about your project?”

“We interviewed a great number of local fisherman,” Tony said.

Sloane overrode him. “The idea was to search areas where fishermen lost nets. The seafloor around here is basically an extension of the desert, so I figured anything that could snag a net must be man-made, ergo a shipwreck.”

“Not necessarily,” Juan said.

“We know that now.” Sloane’s voice was laced with defeat. “We flew over a bunch of possibilities with a metal detector and found nothing.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. The currents have had a few million years to expose bedrock projections that could easily catch a net,” Juan said and Sloane nodded. “So you talked to fishermen. Anyone else?”

Her mouth turned downward as she said, “Luka. He acted as a guide but I never much cared for him.

And there was the South African chopper pilot. Pieter DeWitt’s his name. But no one knew why we were asking about nets and we never told Piet or Luka what ship we were looking for.”

“Don’t forget Papa Heinrick and his giant metal snakes,” Tony said tartly. He was trying to further embarrass Sloane.

One of Juan’s eyebrows lifted. “Giant snakes?”

“It’s nothing,” Sloane said. “Just a story we heard from a crazy old fisherman.”

There came a gentle knock on the door. Maurice appeared bearing a plastic tray. Juan had to suppress a smile at the repulsed look on the chief steward’s face.

In a word, Maurice was fastidious, a man who shaved twice a day, polished his shoes each morning, and would change a shirt if he found a crease. He was right at home in the opulent confines of theOregon

, but get him on the public parts of the vessel and he had the look of a Muslim walking into a pigsty.

In deference to the ruse they were playing on their guests he’d removed his suit jacket and tie and had actually rolled up the cuffs of his dress shirt. Although Juan had a complete dossier on every member of the Corporation, the one piece of information even he didn’t know was Maurice’s age. Speculation ran anywhere from sixty-five to eighty. Yet he held the tray aloft on an arm as steady as one of theOregon ’s derricks and set dishes and glasses down without spilling a drop.

“Green tea,” he announced, his English accent catching Tony’s attention. “Dim sum, pot stickers, and lo mein noodles with chicken.” He plucked a folded piece of paper from his apron and handed it to Juan.

“Mr. Hanley asked me to give you this.”

Juan unfolded the note while Maurice set out plates, napkins, and silverware, none of which matched but as least the linens were clean.

Max had written:She’s lying through her teeth.

Juan looked toward the hidden camera. “That’s obvious.”

“What’s obvious?” Sloane asked after taking an approving sip of tea.

“Hmm? My first officer is reminding me that the longer we’re here the later we’re going to be at our next port of call.”

“And where’s that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Thank you, Maurice, that will be all.” The steward bowed out and Cabrillo answered Sloane’s question. “Cape Town. We’re carrying lumber from Brazil en route to Japan, but we’re picking up a couple of containers in Cape Town headed for Mumbai.”

“This really is a tramp steamer, isn’t it?” Sloane asked. It was evident in her voice she was impressed. “I didn’t think any still existed.”

“Not many. Containerization has all but taken over, but there are a few of us picking up crumbs.” He gestured around the dingy dining room. “Unfortunately, the crumbs are getting smaller so we don’t have the money to put back into theOregon . I’m afraid the old girl’s disintegrating around us.”

“Still,” Sloane persisted, “it must be a romantic life.”

The sincerity of how she said it took Juan aback. He had always felt the vagabond existence of a tramp ship roaming from port to port, living almost hand-to-mouth rather than being a cog in the industrial machine that maritime commerce had become was indeed a romantic notion, a way of unhurried life that was virtually gone forever. He smiled and saluted her with his tea. “Yeah, sometimes it is.”

The warmth of her return smile told him they had shared something intimate.

He roused himself to get on with the interview. “Captain Ulenga, do you know anything about metal snakes?”

“No, Cap’ain,” the Namibian said and touched his temple. “Papa Heinrick isn’t right in the head. And when he gets a bottle, well, you don’t want to know him.”

Juan turned his attention back to Sloane. “What was the name of the ship you were looking for?”

It was obvious she was reluctant to give it so he let it pass. “Doesn’t matter. I have no interest in looking for sunken treasure.” He chuckled. “Or giant metal snakes. Is that where you were headed today, the place where this Heinrick fellow saw his snakes?”

Even Sloane realized how ridiculous she had to look in Cabrillo’s eyes because she flushed a little. “It was our last lead. I figured we’d come this far, we might as well see it through. Sounds kinda dumb now.”

“Kinda?” Juan mocked.

Linc knocked on the mess hall’s door frame. “She’s clean, Captain.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lincoln.” He’d asked Linc to search thePinguin for contraband, like drugs or weapons, just to be safe. “Captain Ulenga, can you tell me anything about the yacht that attacked you?”

“I’ve seen it at Walvis a couple of times. She comes maybe every month for a year or two. I think she’s from South Africa ’cause only the folks down there can afford such a boat.”

“Never talked to her crew or anyone who knew them?”

“No, sir. They come in, fuel up, and go again.”

Juan leaned back in his chair, cocking an elbow over the seat back. He tried to link the facts together and come up with a coherent explanation but nothing really fit. Certain that Sloane had left out crucial elements from her story, he knew he’d never piece the puzzle together and had to decide how much he wanted to pursue this. Rescuing Geoffrey Merrick remained their top priority, and on that front they had enough problems without adding Sloane Macintyre’s. Still, something nagged him.

Tony Reardon suddenly spoke up. “We’ve told you everything we can, Captain Cabrillo. I would really like to get off your ship. We have a long trip back to port.”

“Yes,” Juan muttered distractedly and refocused his attention. “Yes, of course, Mr. Reardon. I don’t understand why you were attacked. It’s possible that there is a lost ship out here loaded with treasure and you got too close to someone’s operation. If they are working without government permission they very well might have resorted to violence.” He gave Tony and Sloane a frank stare. “If that’s the case, I advise you both to leave Namibia as quickly as you can. You’re both in over your heads.”

Reardon nodded at that advice but Sloane looked like she was going to ignore it. Juan let it go. It wasn’t his concern.

“Mr. Lincoln,” he said, “would you please escort our guests back to their boat. If they need fuel please see that it is taken care of.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The group stood as if on cue. Juan leaned across the table to shake hands with Justus Ulenga and Tony Reardon. When he grasped Sloane’s she pulled him forward slightly and said, “May I speak to you in private?”

“Of course.” Cabrillo looked at Linc. “Take them to thePinguin . I’ll escort Ms. Macintyre myself.”

They took their seats as soon as the group left. Sloane studied him the way a jeweler inspects a diamond that he is about to cut, looking for the tiniest flaw that could ruin the gem. She came to some sort of decision, leaned forward, and rested her elbows on the table.

“I think you’re a fraud.”

Juan had to suppress a guffaw. “Excuse me,” he finally stammered.

“You. This ship. Your crew. None of it is what it appears to be.”

Cabrillo fought to keep his expression neutral and the blood from draining from his face. In the years since he’d founded the Corporation and started traipsing around the globe on a succession of ships all namedOregon , no one had ever thought they were anything but what they appeared to be. They’d had harbor officials, inspectors of every kind, even a canal pilot on their transits of Panama, and no one had shown the slightest suspicion about the ship or its crew.

She doesn’t know,he thought.She’s fishing. He had to admit to himself that they hadn’t pulled out all the tricks they utilized when they were in port and about to be inspected, but there was no way an untrained person who’d been aboard for all of thirty minutes could see through their carefully laid deception. His heart slowed as he came to this realization.

“Care to explain?” he invited casually.

“The little things, for one. Your helmsman was wearing a Rolex exactly like the one my father had.

That’s a two-thousand-dollar watch. A bit too nice if you guys are as poor as you say.”

“It’s a fake,” Juan replied.

“A knock-off wouldn’t last five minutes in the salt air. I know because I had one when I was a teenager and working on my father’s fishing boat after he retired from the merchant marines.”

Okay, Juan said to himself,she’s not completely untrained when it comes to ships. “Maybe it is real but he got it from a fence who stole it. You’d have to ask him.”

“That’s a possibility,” Sloane said. “But what about your steward? I’ve been working in London for the past five years and recognize English tailoring when I see it. Between his Church’s dress shoes, custom suit pants, and handmade shirt, Maurice was sporting about four thousand dollars’ worth of duds. I doubt he bought them off a fence.”

Juan chuckled, imagining Maurice wearing anything secondhand. “He’s actually richer than Croesus but is—how would the English put it—dotty. He’s the black sheep of an old-money family who has been knocking around the globe since he turned eighteen and got his inheritance. He approached me last year when we were in Mombassa, asked to be our steward, and said we wouldn’t have to pay him. Who was I to turn him down?”

“Right,” Sloane said drawing out the word.

“It’s true, honest.”

“I’ll leave that for now. But what about you and Mr. Lincoln? There aren’t a whole lot of Americans working aboard ships because Asians are willing to do the jobs at a fraction of the wage. If the company who owns this vessel is as tight as you claim, the crew would be Pakistanis or Indonesians.” Juan made to reply but she cut him off. “Let me guess, you work for a pittance, too?”

“My mattress isn’t exactly stuffed with cash, Ms. Macintyre.”

“I bet.” She raked her hand through her hair. “Those are the little things I figured you would explain away. How about this? When I first saw your ship there wasn’t any smoke coming from the funnel.”

Uh-oh,Juan thought, recalling how the engineer had forgotten to turn on the smoke generator until after thePinguin was in visible range. At the time Juan hadn’t thought it a big deal, but that oversight was coming back to haunt them.

“I first thought that the ship had been abandoned but then I saw you were making headway. A few minutes later, smoke starts pouring from the stack, a good amount of it, in fact. Interestingly, the exact same amount when you were charging toward us at twenty knots as when I was on the bridge and noticed the telegraph was set to all stop. And speaking of your charge, there is no way a vessel this size could turn that fast unless you have isopod directional thrusters, which is a technology developed long after this ship was built. Care to explain that away?”

“I’m just curious why you even care,” Juan hedged.

“Because someone tried to kill me today and I want to know why and I think you can help.”

“I’m sorry, Sloane, but I’m just the captain of a rust bucket not long for the breakers yard. I can’t help you.”

“So you’re not denying what I saw.”

“I don’t know what you saw but there’s nothing special about theOregon or her crew.”

She stood up and walked unerringly to where the tiny camera had been mounted in the frame of an old picture of an Indian actress who’d been famous fifteen years ago. She pulled the picture from the wall and the camera popped free to dangle by its wire. “Oh, really?”

This time blood did drain from Juan’s face.

“I noticed it when you said ‘that’s obvious’ after getting the note from Maurice. I assume someone is monitoring us right now.” She didn’t wait for Juan to reply. “I’ll make a deal with you, Captain Cabrillo.

You stop lying to me and I’ll stop lying to you. I’ll even go first.” She sat back across from him. “Tony and I didn’t hook up through an Internet chat room. We work together in the security division of DeBeers and we really are looking for a sunken ship that might be loaded with about a billion dollars’

worth of diamonds. Do you know anything about diamonds?”

“Only that they’re rare, expensive, and if you give one to a woman you damned well better mean it.”

That made her smile. “Two out of three.”

“Two out of three, huh? I know they’re expensive and I know they’re rare so you must have men casually giving you diamonds all the time. You’re certainly attractive enough.”

Her smile turned into a little laugh. “Ah, no. They are expensive and you should mean it, but diamonds aren’t rare. They’re not as common as semiprecious stones but they’re not as scarce as you’re led to believe. The price is kept artificially inflated because one company controls about ninety-five percent of the market. They control all the mines so they can set any price they wish. Every time a new diamond field is discovered they are there to buy it up and eliminate any chance of competition. It’s a cartel so tight it makes OPEC look like amateurs. It’s so controlling that several executives would be arrested for antitrust violations if they ever set foot in the United States.

“They dribble out stones from their vaults at a very selective pace in order to keep prices at a constant.

If inventories dwindle they increase production and when there is an excess of stones they hoard them in their London vaults. Bearing all this in mind, what do you think would happen if a billion dollars in diamonds were ever to be dumped in the marketplace?”

“Prices would drop.”

“And we lose our monopoly and the whole system comes crashing down. All those women out there would realize the rocks on their fingers aren’t forever after all. It would also ripple through the world’s economy, destabilizing gold prices and currencies.”

That was something Juan knew a little about since it was only a couple months ago that he and the crew thwarted an attempt to flood the world’s gold market. “I see your point,” he said.

“If such a treasure-laden ship existed, there are two ways our office would prevent this from happening.

Number one is wait to see if someone else finds the diamonds and simply buy them all outright.

Obviously this would be expensive, so we would want to take the second route.”

“Check to see if the rumor of a sunken treasure is true and find it for yourselves.”

Sloane touched the tip of her nose. “Bingo. I was the person who first pieced together the story behind the treasure so I was given the lead on this trip. Tony’s ostensibly my assistant but he’s absolutely worthless. This is a big deal for me and my career. If I could find the stones I would probably be named VP.”

“Where did the diamonds come from?” Juan asked, interested in what she had to say despite himself.

“Fascinating story there. They were originally mined in Kimberley by members of a tribe called the Herero. The Herero king knew there was a battle coming with the German occupiers of his homeland and thought if he had the diamonds he could use them to buy English protection. For a decade or so his men worked in Kimberley and snuck stones back to Hereroland when their contracts ended. From what I was able to learn, workers would cut themselves in the arm or leg a couple of months before starting their contracts. When they arrived at Kimberley charts of their bodies were made noting all the old scars they had. Once they were in the workers’ compound a tribesman who had been there for a while and had already pilfered a suitable stone from the pit would reopen the wound and slip it inside. When it came time to leave a year later, the guards at the workers compound would check the chart made when the Herero first showed up. They would often surgically reopen fresh scars to check for hidden stones, a popular smuggling system after the more obvious down-the-throat technique, which was literally voided with laxatives. But the old scar was on their chart and wouldn’t be checked.”

“Damned clever,” Juan remarked.

“According to what I was able to discover they had sacks and sacks of only the largest and clearest stones when the tribe was robbed.”

“Robbed?”

“By five Englishmen, one just a teen whose parents were missionaries in Hereroland. I was able to put the story together from the father’s journal because after the robbery he went to track his son. His journal reads like a torturer’s checklist of things he wanted to do once he caught the boy.

“I won’t bore you with the details, but the teenager, Peter Smythe, hooked up with an adventurer of the old school named H. A. Ryder as well as three other men. As part of their plan they cabled Cape Town to have a steamship, the HMSRove , wait for them off the coast of what was then called German South West Africa. They planned to cross the Kalahari and Namib deserts on horseback and meet up with the ship.”

“And I take it theRove was never heard from again?”

“She left Cape Town right after receiving the telegram from Ryder and was later reported lost at sea.”

“Say all this is true and not another myth like King Solomon’s mines. What makes you think it would be in this area?”

“I drew a straight line west from where the diamonds were stolen to the coast. They were crossing perhaps the worst stretch of desert on the planet and would have taken the most direct route. That puts the rendezvous with theRove about seventy miles north of Walvis Bay.”

Juan found another hole in her logic. “Who’s to say theRove sank after steaming back to Cape Town for a week, or what if the men never made it and the stones are someplace in the middle of the desert?”

“Those are the same two points my boss threw at me when I brought this to him. And to that I said: If I was able to figure all this out, then someone else could, too, and a billion dollars’ worth of diamonds could be sitting a couple miles offshore where anyone with scuba tanks and a flashlight could find them.”

“To which he said?”

“ ‘I’ll give you a week and Tony Reardon to help you. And no matter what, destroy all the evidence you’ve gathered.’ ”

“That isn’t anywhere near enough time to check an area that must be a couple hundred square miles,”

Juan said. “To do it properly you’d need a ship able to tow a side-scan sonar unit as well as metal detection gear. And even that isn’t guaranteed.”

Sloane shrugged. “They didn’t put much credence in my idea. Giving me a week, a little money, and Tony was more than I could hope and why I wanted to tap local sources for information.”

“I’m curious—why did you take this to your superiors? Why not just search for the ship yourself and keep the diamonds if you found them?”

Her mouth turned downward in a deep frown as if he’d just insulted her, which he had. “Captain, the thought never crossed my mind. Those diamonds were mined at a DeBeers facility and rightfully belong to the company. I would no more keep them for myself than I would walk into the vault and load my pockets with loose stones.”

“I’m sorry I said that.” Juan was charmed by her integrity. “That was way out of line.”

Sloane said, “Thank you. Apology accepted. Now that I’ve told you the truth, will you help? I can’t promise you anything but I’m sure the company will reimburse you for your time if we do find theRove .

It’s only a couple hours of your time to check the coordinates Papa Heinrick gave me.”

Juan said nothing for a moment, his blue eyes cast toward the ceiling as he thought through his next moves. He suddenly got to his feet and started for the door. “Would you excuse me a moment,” he said to Sloane, then addressed the hidden microphones. “Max, meet me at my cabin.” He meant the faux cabin they used for Customs inspectors. It was the midway point between the elevator up from the op center and the mess hall.

Hanley was waiting outside the filthy cabin when Juan rounded the corner. He was leaning against a bulkhead tapping his pipe stem against his teeth, a sure sign something was on his mind. He straightened when the Chairman approached. Even with the door closed Juan’s nose wrinkled at the stale smoke smell emanating from the cabin.

“What do you think?” Juan asked without preamble.

“I think we need to stop messing around and get to Cape Town to pick up the equipment we’re going to need if we want to rescue Merrick before he dies of old age.”

“Besides that.”

“The whole thing sounds like a crock to me.”

“I’d agree totally if we hadn’t seen the attack on thePinguin for ourselves.” Juan paused, marshaling his thoughts.

“You think we’ve stumbled onto something?” Max asked to prod his friend.

“Guys on million-dollar yachts don’t go blasting away at someone without a damned good reason. In this case, I believe they’re protecting something. Sloane says no one knew what vessel they were looking for so it’s possible they’re guarding something other than a purported treasure ship.”

“You don’t seriously believe in Papa Heinrick’s giant metal snakes?”

“Max, there’s something here. I can feel it.” Juan turned to his friend, catching his eye so there would be no misunderstanding. “Do you remember what I told you just before we took on those two guys from NUMA headed for Hong Kong harbor?”

“They were checking out the old SSUnited States . That was the mission you lost your leg,” Max said, his voice matching Cabrillo’s introspective tone.

Juan unconsciously shifted, placing his weight on the limb made of carbon fiber and titanium. “The mission that cost me my leg,” he echoed.

Max stuck his pipe in his mouth. “It’s been a couple of years but I believe your exact words were ‘Max, I hate to quote an overused cliché, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’ ”

Juan didn’t blink and held Hanley’s appraising stare. “Max, I’ve got the same damn feeling.”

Max held the gaze a second longer, and then nodded. A decade together had taught him to trust the chairman no matter how irrational the request and no matter how long the odds. “What’s your play?”

“I don’t want to delay theOregon any more than we already have. As soon as I’m away make for Cape Town and pick up the equipment we need. But on the way I want you to send up George to have a look where the snakes were spotted.” George Adams was the pilot of the Robinson R44 Clipper helicopter secreted inside one of the holds. “I’ll get the coordinates from Sloane.”

“You’re headed for Walvis Bay?”

“I want to talk to Papa Heinrick for myself and also to Sloane’s guide and her chopper jockey. I’ll take one of the lifeboats off the topside davits so Sloane won’t know about the boat garage or anything else.”

Though they looked as dilapidated as the rest of theOregon , the two lifeboats were as high-tech as their mother ship. If they had the range Juan would feel more than comfortable crossing the Atlantic during hurricane season in one of them.

He continued. “This shouldn’t take more than a day or two. I’ll link back up with theOregon when you return to Namibia. That reminds me, I’ve been in the gym for the past hour and haven’t been updated.

What’s the latest?”

Max crossed his arms. “Tiny Gunderson’s rented us a suitable plane, so that’s taken care of. As you know, the ATVs are waiting for us at Duncan Dock in Cape Town and Murph’s got a librarian in Berlin pulling out everything they have about the Devil’s Oasis or, as we now know, theOase des Teufels .”

Their break at finding the location where Geoffrey Merrick was being held had come when Linda Ross guessed that the Devil’s Oasis might be in Namibia, and checked for references using its German name.

But after gathering preliminary data their break seemed short-lived.

At the turn of the twentieth century the Imperial German government decided to copy the notorious French penal colony in Guiana called Devil’s Island, a remote, escape-proof penitentiary for the nation’s most hardened criminals. The German government constructed a maximum-security prison in the middle of the desert in what was their most isolated colonial outpost. Built of native stone and surrounded by hundreds of miles of sand dunes, even if a prisoner were to escape there was no place to go. They would die in the desert long before they reached the coast. Unlike Devil’s Island or even San Francisco’s infamous Alcatraz, there wasn’t even a hint of rumor that any prisoners successfully escaped from the jail until its closure in 1916 because of the drain the remote facility caused to Germany’s wartime economy.

A rail line that once serviced the Devil’s Oasis had been removed when the prison was abandoned, so there was no reliable access except by air or all-terrain vehicles. Both options posed their own challenges and obstacles because even a small contingent of captives holding Merrick prisoner would detect either a helicopter or a truck long before Cabrillo could get his forces into attack position.

By trolling archived databases and using commercially available satellite images, they were well on their way to finalizing an audacious plan to rescue the billionaire.

“Anything from the kidnappers or Merrick’s company?”

“Nothing from the kidnappers and Merrick/Singer is talking with a couple different HRTs.” While normally the job of the military or police, there were private companies who handled kidnappings.

Though it was not the usual kind of job they undertook, Hanley was presenting the Corporation as a hostage rescue team and while they intended to rescue Merrick/Singer’s founder no matter what, it wouldn’t hurt if they could get a little something for their efforts.

“How about Overholt at Langley?”

“He likes the idea of us being here so long as it doesn’t interfere with any upcoming missions. Also, he confided that Merrick has been a big contributor to the president in the past and that the two of them had skied together a few times. We do this right and our stock in Washington’s on the rise.”

Cabrillo grinned wryly. “For what we do it doesn’t matter where our stock is. When it comes to ops so far off the books they’re actually out of the library, Uncle Sam doesn’t have many options. And what do you bet if we pull this off there will be a flurry of diplomatic messages between the Administration and the Namibian government and in the end everyone will claim it was an American commando team working with local forces that saved Merrick?”

Max feigned a hurt expression. “I can’t believe you’d say that about the slipperiest agent at the CIA.”

“And if we fail,” Juan added, “he disavows all knowledge blah, blah, blah. Escort Sloane down to the Pinguin so she can explain to Reardon that she’s remaining aboard, and get someone to unlimber the portside lifeboat. I need to shower and pack.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Max said as he started down the hallway, “but even standing upwind you’re pretty gamey.”

Juan peeled off the graying uniform shirt he’d worn for Sloane’s benefit as soon as he was through the door to his real cabin and had his shoes kicked off by the time he reached his bathroom. He turned the gold taps in the shower stall to a comfortably cool temperature and removed the rest of his clothing. He leaned against the glass enclosure to pull his leg from his prosthetic limb’s suction socket.

The powerful multihead sprays of water cascaded over him and while he’d like time to think through his decision to help Sloane Macintyre, he knew enough to trust his instincts. He doubted there was a treasure ship in these waters as much as he doubted the seas were infested with monstrous steel snakes.

But, there was no denying the fact that someone wanted Sloane to suspend her investigation. That was what he wanted to discover for himself—who they were and what they were protecting.

After toweling off and refitting his artificial leg, Juan threw some toiletries into a leather dopp kit. From the wardrobe in his bedroom he tossed a couple changes of clothes into a leather bag, and some sturdy boots. Next he went back to his office. He sat at his desk and spun the chair around to face an antique safe that had once sat in a train depot in New Mexico. His fingers on the dial were well practiced and fast. When the final pin clicked in place he spun the handle and heaved open the heavy door. Besides bundles of hundred-dollar bills, twenty-pound notes, and stacks of a dozen other currencies, the safe contained his personal arsenal. There was enough firepower in the big safe to start a small war. Three machine pistols, a couple assault rifles, a combat shotgun, a Remington 700 sniper rifle, plus drawers containing smoke, fragmentary, and flashbang grenades as well as a dozen pistols. He gauged the possible situations he could be facing and grabbed a Micro Uzi submachine gun and a Glock 19. He would have preferred the FN Five-SeveN pistol, which had quickly become his favorite handgun, but he wanted interchangeability of ammunition. Both the Glock and the Uzi used 9mm.

The four magazines were stored empty to preserve their springs, so he took a moment to load them. He stuffed the weapons, magazines, and a spare box of ammo under the clothes in his bag and finally dressed in lightweight duck trousers and an open-collared shirt.

He caught his reflection in the glass covering a picture on one wall. His jaw was firmly set and behind his eyes he could almost see the embers of anger stoking into a fire. He owed Sloane Macintyre nothing, nor did he owe anything to Geoffrey Merrick, but he would no more abandon them to an unknown fate than he’d strand a little old lady at a busy intersection.

Cabrillo snatched the bag off his bed and started topside, his body already responding to the first tingle of adrenaline.

12

ITwas inevitable that sand fleas would learn that the once abandoned prison deep in the desert was occupied again. Drawn by the scent of warm bodies, they had returned to the prison to act as a natural torture to the man-made ones meted out there over the years. Capable of laying sixty eggs a day, the first few that had entered the penitentiary had quickly grown to an infestation. The guards had been prepared with chemical sprays to keep the loathsome insects at bay. Their prisoners weren’t so lucky.

Merrick lay with his back propped against the hard stone wall of his cell scratching furiously at the bites that seemed to cover every inch of his body. In a perverse way it was good they had found him because the painful welts and constant new stings kept his mind focused on something other than the horror that had already taken place and the even greater calamity to come.

He cursed as a flea bit deep into the back of his ear. He caught the insect and crushed its body between his fingernails, grunting with satisfaction when he heard the carapace snap. A small victory in a war he was losing.

Without the moon, the darkness in the cell block was a tangible presence, a spectral ether that seemed to rush down Merrick’s throat whenever he opened his mouth and filled his ears so he couldn’t hear the whisper of wind he knew had to be blowing. The prison was slowly robbing him of his senses. The pervasive sand had choked his nose so he could no longer smell the food he’d been given, and without smell his sense of taste was but a dull suspicion that the meals were something other than dust. He was left only with his hearing and sense of touch. And with nothing to listen to and his body aching from so many days spent on a stone floor and now stinging with flea bites, they did him little good.

“Susan?” he called. He’d said her name every few minutes since being returned to his cell. She hadn’t once responded and he suspected she might have been dead but he continued anyway for no other reason than calling her name was more rational than giving in to the overwhelming urge to scream.

To his amazement he thought he heard her stir, a mewling sound like a newborn kitten and the rasp of cloth against stone.

“Susan!” he said more sharply. “Susan, can you hear me?”

He distinctly heard her moan.

“Susan, it’s Geoff Merrick.”Who else would it be? he thought. “Can you speak?”

“Dr. Merrick?”

Her voice was ragged and weak and yet it was the most glorious sound he had ever heard. “Oh, thank God, Susan. I thought you were dead.”

“I—um.” She faltered and coughed and that made her moan all the more loudly. “What happened? My face, it’s numb, and my body, I think my ribs are broken.”

“You don’t remember? You were beaten up, tortured. You said they never asked you any questions.”

“Did they hit you, too?”

Merrick’s heart squeezed. Through her pain and confusion, Susan Donleavy could still care about his condition. Most people never would have asked and just gone on about their own injuries. He wished, God how he wished, that she hadn’t been dragged into this nightmare. “No, Susan,” he said gently.

“They didn’t.”

“I’m glad about that,” she replied.

“I learned who kidnapped us, and why.”

“Who?” There was hope in her voice when she asked, as if putting a name and face to their captors would make their situation better.

“My former business partner.”

“Dr. Singer?”

“Yes, Dan Singer.”

“Why? Why would he do this to you?”

“To us, you mean. Because he’s sick, Susan, a twisted, bitter man who wants to show the world his warped vision of the future.”

“I don’t understand.”

Neither did Merrick. He couldn’t get his mind around what Singer had already accomplished and what he was about to carry out. It was all just too much. Singer had already killed thousands of people and no one knew it. Now he was preparing to kill tens of thousands more. And for what? To teach the United States a lesson about environmental control and global warming. That was part of it, but Merrick knew his former best friend all too well.

This was personal to Dan, a way for him to prove to Merrick that he had been the brains behind their success. They had been like brothers in the beginning, but Merrick was the charmer, the one who could turn a good phrase in an interview, so it was inevitable that the media singled him out as the face of Merrick/Singer and marginalized Dan to the shadows. Merrick had never thought this had bothered his partner. He’d been an introvert at MIT so why would it be any different in the real world? He now knew that it had, that Singer had fostered a hatred toward him that bordered on the pathological.

It had changed everything about Singer’s personality, driving him from the company he’d helped build and sending him to the fringes of the environmental movement, where he used his wealth to do everything he could to ruin Merrick/Singer. But when that failed he turned his back on his newfound eco-friends and returned to his home in Maine to lick his wounds.

If only that were true,Merrick thought. But Singer had used his time to let his hatred grow and fester.

And now he was back, with an incredibly audacious and horrifying plan. A plan that had already been taken so far that there wasn’t any way it could be stopped. He hadn’t abandoned his environmental crusade, but had taken it in a new and twisted direction.

“We have to get out of here, Susan.”

“What’s going on?”

“We have to stop him. He’s out of his mind, and the people he’s gathered together are environmental fanatics who don’t give a damn about humanity. And if that’s not enough he claims to have hired a bunch of mercenaries, too.” Merrick buried his face in his hands.

It was his fault. He should have seen Dan’s anger in the beginning and insisted that he get a share of the limelight. He should have recognized the fragility of Dan’s ego and how the attention paid to Merrick tore it to pieces. If he had, then none of this would be taking place. The sting of tears turned into sobs, and all thoughts of his own discomfort vanished as he was overcome by what was happening. He just kept repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” without really understanding who he was apologizing to, Dan or his intended victims.

“Dr. Merrick? Dr. Merrick, please, why is Dr. Singer doing this to us?”

Merrick heard the agony in her voice but couldn’t reply. He was crying so hard it sounded as though his soul was being shredded. The wracking convulsions went on for twenty minutes until he’d cried his tear ducts dry.

“I’m sorry, Susan,” he gasped when he’d finally gained enough control to speak. “It’s just—” He didn’t have the words. “Dan Singer blames me because I was the public face of our company. He’s doing this because he’s jealous. Can you believe that? Thousands of people are already dead and he’s doing it all because I was more popular than him.”

Susan Donleavy didn’t respond.

“Susan?” he called and then louder, “Susan! Susan!”

Her name boomed and echoed, then faded. Silence once again filled the cell block. Merrick was certain that Daniel Singer had just claimed another victim.

13

“YOUcan rest down below if you want,” Juan offered when Sloane yawned.

“No thanks, I’m fine,” she said and yawned again. “But I will take some more coffee.”

Cabrillo pulled the silver thermos from the holder at his knee and handed it across, his eyes automatically scanning the lifeboat’s rudimentary gauges. The engine was running fine and they had more than three quarters of a tank of fuel and only another hour to go to reach Walvis Bay.

When Max had called an hour after they departed theOregon to tell him that George Adams’s helicopter reconnoiter of the area where the crazy old fisherman had seen his metal snakes had turned up nothing but glass-smooth empty ocean, Juan briefly considered simply returning Sloane to her hotel and catching a flight to Cape Town to rejoin his ship. It would have been the logical thing to do. But now, hours later and having a better sense of what made Sloane Macintyre tick, he was sure helping her was the right decision.

She was as driven as he was, someone who couldn’t leave a job half-finished and someone who didn’t back down from a challenge. There was something mysterious taking place in these waters and neither would be satisfied until they learned what it was, even if it had nothing to do with their respective jobs.

He admired her curiosity and tenacity; two traits he also prized in himself.

Sloane poured some of the black coffee into the thermos lid, her body swaying to the rhythms of the waves passing under the hull so she didn’t spill a drop. Still wearing her shorts, Sloane had accepted Juan’s offer of a Windbreaker, one of the two safety orange nylon pullovers that he’d retrieved from a storage bin. He had his tied around his waist.

The vessel was stocked with enough provisions to last forty people for a week and a miniature desalinator to provide potable, albeit still a little salty, water. The bench seats inside the enclosed cabin looked like cracked vinyl, but were in fact soft kid leather that had been distressed to make it look shabby. A panel mounted on the ceiling could be lowered to reveal a thirty-inch plasma TV with an extensive DVD library and surround sound. It had been Max’s perverse idea to cue up the movieTitanic first if the crew ever actually had to man the lifeboats.

Every nook and cranny had been carefully designed to maximize the comfort and convenience of anyone forced into the boat. It was more like a luxury motor yacht than a life-saving vessel. She was also built for safety. When her hatches were sealed the boat could turn completely over and still right herself, and with three-point harnesses for every seat, the passengers wouldn’t be tossed around. And because she was owned by the Corporation there were a few tricks built into her that Juan had no intention of showing his guest.

There were two positions where the boat could be commanded: inside near the bow protected by the boat’s fiberglass and composite cabin, or on a slightly elevated platform at the stern where Juan and Sloane stood so they could enjoy the spectacular sunset earlier and now the star-smeared night sky. A small windscreen protected them from the worst of the salt air, but the cold waters of the Benguela Current flowing north from Antarctica had dropped the temperature into the sixties.

Sloane cradled the coffee in her hands and studied Cabrillo’s face in the muted glow of the dashboard lights. He was traditionally handsome, with strong, well-defined features and clear blue eyes. But it was what lay under the surface that really intrigued her. He had an easy command of his crew, a natural leadership that any woman would find attractive, but she also got the impression he was a loner. Not the walk into a post office and open fire with a rifle loner, or the geek living in cyberspace type, but someone comfortable in their own company, someone who knew exactly who he was, what he was capable of, and found what he saw to his liking.

She could tell he made decisions quickly and apparently never second-guessed himself. That level of confidence only came from being right more often than wrong. She wondered if he had military training and decided he did. She imagined he’d been in the Navy, an officer, but one who couldn’t put up with the incompetence of those above him so he quit. He had traded in the structured life of the armed forces to live like a drifter on the high seas, clinging to an old way of doing things because he was really born a couple of centuries too late. She could easily see him on the bridge of a clipper ship crossing the Pacific with a load of spices and silk.

“What are you smiling at?” Juan asked.

“Just thinking you’re a man living in the wrong time.”

“How so?”

“Not only do you rescue damsels in distress, you also take up their causes.”

Cabrillo puffed out his chest and struck a heroic pose. “And now, fair lady, I gird myself for battle against metallic sea serpents.”

Sloane laughed. “May I ask you a question?”

“Fire away.”

“If you weren’t the captain of theOregon what would you do?”

The question didn’t veer into any dangerous territory so Juan gave her an honest answer. “I think I’d be a paramedic.”

“Really? Not a doctor?”

“Most doctors I know treat patients like a commodity—something they have to work on if they want to get paid before returning to the golf course. And they’re backed by a huge staff of nurses and technicians and millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. But paramedics are different. They are out there working in pairs with just their wits and a minimum of gear. They have to make the first critical assessments and often perform the first life-saving acts. They’re there to tell you everything is going to be all right and make damn sure it is. And once you get the person to the hospital you simply fade away. No glory, no God complex, no ‘gee, doc, you saved my life.’ You just do your job and go on to the next.”

“I like that,” Sloane said after a beat. “And you’re right. My father cut his leg really badly on a charter once and we had to radio for an ambulance and I had to take the boat back in. I still remember it was Dr. Jankowski who stitched up the leg in the hospital but I have no idea of the name of the guy who first dressed the wound on the dock. Without him my dad would have probably bled out.”

“Unsung heroes,” Juan remarked quietly. “Those are the ones I like.” For a moment his mind flashed to the wall of stars in the entrance to CIA headquarters at Langley. Each one represented an agent who had been killed in the field. Of the eighty-three agents represented thirty-five remained nameless, still keeping the Company’s secrets long after their deaths. Unsung heroes, each and every one. “What about you?

What would you do if you weren’t a security specialist for a diamond company?”

She threw him a saucy grin. “Why, I’d be captain of theOregon .”

“Oh, Max would love that.”

“Max?”

“My chief engineer and first officer,” Juan said fondly. “Let’s just say Max put the rump in grumpy.”

“Sounds like I’d like him.”

“He’s a piece of work, my Mr. Hanley. In truth, I’ve never met a more loyal man or had a better friend.”

Sloane finished her coffee and handed the lid back to Juan. He screwed the cap back onto the thermos and checked the time. It was nearly midnight.

“I was thinking,” he said, “rather than tie up in Swakopmund at oh dark thirty and possibly arouse suspicion, why don’t we head south to where you met Papa Heinrick? That way we can catch him first thing in the morning before he goes out fishing. Do you think you could find his camp again?”

“No problem. Sandwich Bay is about twenty-five miles south of Swakopmund.”

Juan checked their GPS, estimated the new coordinates, and punched them into the automatic navigator.

Servos moved the wheel a few degrees to port.

A little over forty minutes later Africa emerged from the darkness with bluffs of sand shimmering in the moonlight and occasionally the brighter white of waves curling onto the beach. The long peninsula that protected Sandwich Bay was a quarter mile to their south.

“Nice bit of navigating,” Sloane said.

Juan tapped the GPS receiver with a knuckle. “Gladys here gets the credit. GPS has made lazy navigators of us all. I don’t think I could compute my position with a sextant and watch if my life depended on it.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Juan backed off the throttle to reduce their wake as they entered the fragile ecosystem. They motored for twenty minutes until reaching the southernmost edge of the bay. Sloane panned the dense wall of reeds with a flashlight as they tracked along the shore looking for the cut in the grass that led to Papa Heinrick’s private little lagoon.

“There,” she said, pointing.

Juan slowed the boat to a crawl and edged its bow into the reeds. He kept a sharp eye on the depth gauge and constantly checked that floating chunks of vegetation didn’t foul the props. The lifeboat cut through the tall grass and the blades made a hissing sound as they scraped the hull and sides of the cabin.

They had covered seventy yards when Juan caught the scent of smoke. He raised his face and sniffed the air like a dog but couldn’t detect it again. Then it came back, stronger, the sooty smell of burning wood. He grabbed Sloane’s wrist so he could cover the lens of her flashlight with his hand.

Ahead he could see the orange glow of a fire, but not the contained fire pit Sloane had described. This was something altogether different.

“Damn.” He gunned the throttles and prayed the water maintained its depth as the boat leapt forward, knocking Sloane into his arms. He steadied her quickly and tried to peer through the curtain of grass that blocked their way.

They suddenly burst into the clearing that surrounded Papa Heinrick’s island. Juan glanced at the depth gauge. There was less than a foot of water under the keel. He jammed the throttles into full reverse, causing a torrent of water to erupt at the stern, and hit the release for the anchor. They hadn’t yet picked up a great deal of speed, so he managed to stop the lifeboat before she grounded.

He idled the engines and only then did he take in the scene around them. The shack perched at the center of the island was a pyre, with flames and embers leaping twenty feet from its thatch and driftwood roof. Papa Heinrick’s overturned fishing boat was also ablaze, but the craft was so waterlogged that the fire hadn’t really caught. Banks of thick white smoke coiled from under the skiff and wafted from the seams of its wooden hull.

Over the roar of the burning cabin Juan heard the unmistakable scream of a man in mortal agony.

“Oh, my God!” Sloane cried.

Cabrillo reacted instantly. He launched himself onto the roof of the lifeboat’s cabin and raced down its length. The cabin ended five feet shy of the boat’s sharp bow. Cabrillo measured his steps perfectly, jumping off with his artificial leg so his left foot landed on the aluminum railing that ringed the bows and then kicking off from that in a long graceful dive. He knifed into the water, kicking strongly, and came up swimming.

When his feet touched bottom he charged out of the water like a rampaging animal and ran up the beach. That was when he heard another sound, the deep bass rumble of a marine engine.

A white bow runner circled around the far side of the little isle and one of the two men in its open cockpit opened fire with an automatic weapon. Sprays of sand erupted all around Cabrillo as he dove for cover, his hand reaching instinctively for the small of his back. He hit the ground, rolled twice, and came up into a kneeling firing position, the Glock he’d stuck in his pants when he had gotten the Windbreakers held steady in a two-handed grip. The range was thirty yards and widening, and he was firing into the darkness while the gunman had Juan backlit by the burning hut.

Cabrillo didn’t even get a shot off before more autofire poured onto the island, forcing him to roll back into the lagoon. He drew a deep breath at the moment a round blasted into the beach inches from his head, forcing him to inhale the gritty sand.

Ducking underwater and fighting the uncontrollable urge to cough his lungs out, Juan swam about thirty feet, making sure his hands were in contact with the bottom so he didn’t reveal himself. He sensed through the water that the powerboat was coming around, hunting him. He approximated their location and swam a little further, gagging silently as his chest tried to convulse. When he thought he knew where they were he planted his feet firmly on the bottom and raised himself quickly, continuing to hold his breath for a fraction longer.

The boat was ten yards away and the two men aboard were looking in the wrong direction. With water streaming down his face and his lungs ready to explode, Juan raised the Glock and fired. The pistol’s recoil broke the lock he’d maintained on his breathing and he began to cough violently. He didn’t know if he hit anything or not. But he must have been close because the low burbling engine suddenly ramped up and the bow runner made for the channel back out to the open bay, kicking up a rooster tail as she ran.

Juan bent double, his hands on his knees, and coughed until he vomited. He wiped at his lips and looked across the lagoon at the lifeboat. “Sloane,” he croaked. “Are you okay?”

Her head emerged from behind the cockpit coaming. The fire’s shifting light couldn’t hide the roundness of her eyes or give hue to the pallor of her skin. “Yeah,” she said and then firmed her voice. “Yes, I’m fine. Are you?”

“Yeah,” Juan replied then turned his attention to the flaming ruins. He could no longer hear Papa Heinrick’s cries but he forced himself closer. The roof was moments from collapsing and the heat thrown off by the blaze forced Juan to shield his face with an arm as he moved closer. The smoke burned his eyes and sent him into another paroxysm of coughing. His lungs felt like they were filled with ground glass.

Cabrillo used a length of wood to rip down the burning flap of cloth that Heinrick had used for a door.

He could see nothing because of the smoke, and was about to edge into the burning structure when a gust came up and parted the soot like a curtain. For a moment Juan had a clear view of the bed and he knew at that instant the sight would haunt him for the rest of his life.

What remained of Heinrick’s arms were still manacled to a bed frame, and despite the ravages of the flames on the corpse, Juan could tell the old man had been tortured before his shack had been set on fire.

His gaptoothed mouth remained open in his final scream of life while the blood pooled under the bed sizzled.

The roof collapsed in an explosion of flames and sparks that licked at Cabrillo before he could turn away. None of the embers could burn through his wet clothes but the sudden surge of adrenaline galvanized him.

He sprinted back to the water’s edge and dove in, striking out for the idling lifeboat. Because it rode high in the water, he made for the vessel’s bow and used the anchor chain to heave himself up to the deck. Sloane was there to help him slide under the railing. She said nothing about the pistol shoved into the waistband of Juan’s trousers.

“Come on.” He took her hand and together they jogged down the length of the boat and jumped into the cockpit. Juan hit the switch to raise the anchor. He firewalled the throttle as soon as it lifted from the bottom, and used his palm to spin the wheel furiously.

“What are you doing?” Sloane shouted over the roar of the engine. “That was a ski boat. They’ve got a five-minute head start and can outrun us by twenty knots or more.”

“Like hell they can,” Cabrillo said without looking at her, his rage barely in check. He straightened their course when the lifeboat’s prow was facing the little channel out of the lagoon.

“Juan, we’ll never catch them. Besides, they had machine guns. You’ve only got a pistol.”

Reeds whipped at them like switches as they rocketed down the channel. Juan steered with one eye on the depth gauge and a moment after bursting out of the grass he grunted with savage satisfaction.

“Hold on,” he said and hit a switch hidden under the dash.

The forward part of the lifeboat’s hull began to rise out of the water as hydraulics under the boat activated and extended a series of fins and underwater wings. Sloane was a second late to react. She staggered and would have fallen overboard had Juan not clutched for the front of her jacket and held her tight. The hydrofoils began to generate more lift and raised the hull even higher until just the wings and telescoping propeller shaft were dragging through the water. It took just seconds but their speed more than doubled to forty knots.

Sloane looked at Juan incredulously, unsure what to say or how to react to the plodding lifeboat becoming a streaking high-performance hydrofoil. She finally blurted, “Who in the hell are you?”

He glanced at her. He normally would have come up with a pithy remark but his anger at Papa Heinrick’s murder was all-consuming. “Someone you don’t want to piss off.” His eyes were as hard as agate. “And they just pissed me off.” He pointed ahead. “Do you see how the sea is glowing a little bit?”

Sloane nodded. “Their boat’s motion through the water caused bioluminescent organisms to fluoresce.

We never would have found them in daylight but at night Mother Nature’s giving us some help. Can you take the helm and keep us on that trail?”

“I’ve never driven a boat like this.”

“Not many people have. It’s just like your father’s charter only faster. Just keep the wheel straight and if you have to turn do it gently. I’ll be back in a second.”

He watched her for a moment to make certain she would be all right, then ducked through the entrance to the cabin. He strode down the central aisle to where he’d tossed his leather duffel. He rummaged through the clothes and came up with the mini-Uzi and spare magazines. After reloading the Glock he jammed it back into his waistband and slid the magazines into his rear pocket. He stepped over to another one of the benches and activated a hidden button under the cushion. A catch released and the seat pivoted forward. Most of the space under the seats was given over to food and other provisions, but this one was different. He threw aside rolls of toilet paper until the bin was empty then touched another hidden lever. The false bottom sprang open and Juan lifted the lid.

Inside the bilge space the snarl of the engines and the shriek of the foils through the water were deafening. Juan groped for a tube secured in the bilge with metal clips. He got it free and lifted it out.

Made of tough plastic with a waterproof cap, the tube was nearly four feet long and ten inches around.

He unscrewed the cap and slid an FN-FAL assault rifle onto an adjacent seat. The venerable Belgian weapon could trace its roots back to the Second World War but was still one of the best all-around guns in the world.

Juan quickly loaded a pair of magazines with the 7.62 mm ammunition stored in the tube, racked a round into the chamber, and double-checked that the weapon was safed. He recalled Max questioning the need for such a gun on a lifeboat; his reply had been, “Teach a man to fish and he eats for a day, give him an assault rifle and some sharks and he can feed his crew for a lifetime.”

He climbed back out onto the rear deck. Sloane had kept the boat dead center on the feebly glowing wake but Juan could tell they’d cut the distance to the fleeing bow runner. The microorganisms had had less time to settle down so the bioluminescence was brighter than it had been just moments before.

Juan set the FN onto the dash, tossed the thermos down into the cabin, and slipped the mini-Uzi into its place.

“Are you always prepared for World War Three or did I catch you at a particularly paranoid moment?”

Sloane was using humor to try to get him to relax and he was grateful. Cabrillo knew all too well that going into combat without first controlling your emotions was a deadly mistake. He grinned at her as he took her place behind the wheel. “Don’t knock it. It just so happens I was paranoid enough.”

Moments later they could make out the low-slung speedboat arrowing down the bay. And no sooner did they spot the bow runner then the men aboard saw them, too; the boat cut a nimble turn and started edging closer to the marshy shore.

Juan eased the wheel over to stay on their stern, leaning far over to keep his balance as the hydrofoil canted sharply in the water. In just a couple of minutes they had cut the gap to thirty yards. While the bow runner’s driver concentrated on their route, the second man laid himself over the rear bench seats to steady his automatic rifle.

“Get down,” Juan shouted.

Bullets pinged off the bow and whizzed by the cockpit. The hydrofoil was riding too high for him to hit them so the gunman shifted his aim to one of the struts supporting the foils. He managed to slam a few rounds into it but the struts were made of high-tensile steel and the rounds ricocheted harmlessly.

Juan pulled the mini-Uzi from the cup holder, juked the hydrofoil to give himself a clear firing lane around her bows, and greased the trigger. The little weapon bucked in his hand and a shining arc of spent brass rose into the hydrofoil’s slipstream and vanished over the stern. Juan couldn’t risk killing both men so he aimed a bit to the side of the fleeing ski boat. The water exploded along its port side as twenty rounds raked the sea.

He had hoped that would have ended the chase because the men had to realize their former prey was bigger, faster, and equally armed. However, the bow runner kept up its speed and curved even closer to the swampy shore.

Juan had no choice but to stay on them as they zipped by clots of reeds and spindly trees. He soon found himself dancing the hydrofoil around stands of grass and little islands that dotted the coastline.

What the ski boat lacked in speed it made up for in maneuverability, and as they weaved around obstacles in the water it widened the distance to fifty yards, then sixty.

Cabrillo could have turned to open water and closed in again, but he was afraid if he lost sight of his quarry they would escape into the towering sea grass where their shallower draft was the ultimate advantage. And to go in to find them invited walking into an ambush. He knew the best way to end this was to keep on their tail.

They slashed past stands of trees, sending birds shrieking for the sky, and their wakes sloshing through the marsh caused the mats of grass to undulate as though the bay were breathing.

Ever mindful that the foils were vulnerable to underwater obstructions, Juan had to make easier turns than the ski boat, allowing them to continue to widen the gap. Something ahead caught Cabrillo’s eye. He had just a second to realize it was a partially submerged log. Hitting it would tear the wings right off the boat, so with a deft hand on the throttle and wheel, he snaked the hydrofoil around the log. The quick move avoided the log but forced them into a gap between two low mud-covered islands.

Juan glanced at the depth gauge and saw it was pegged at zero. There was perhaps six inches of water between the wings and the bottom. He leaned against the throttle to eke out a bit more power and hopefully raise the boat a few more inches. If they grounded at this speed he and Sloane would be tossed from the hydrofoil like rag dolls; the impact with the water would be like hitting pavement after a fifty-foot fall.

The channel between the islands grew narrower. Juan turned to look astern. The normally white wake kicked up by the foils and propeller was a deep chocolate brown as their passage roiled silt from the seafloor. The boat staggered for an instant as a wing brushed bottom. He couldn’t slow down because the hydrofoil would drop off plane and she’d auger into the mud and he had the engine keening at well above red line.

The channel seemed to grow narrower still.

“Brace yourself,” he shouted over the engine because he knew he’d gambled and lost.

They raced through the narrowest spot on the channel, losing a bit of speed when the forward wings kissed the bottom a second time before the channel widened and the depth began to increase.

Juan blew out a long breath.

“Was that as close as I think it was?” Sloane asked.

“Closer.”

But the maneuver had halved the distance to the bow runner because it had been forced to slalom through a stand of mangroves. The gunman braced himself at the ski boat’s stern. Juan eased off the throttle and cut across the marsh to once again place the hydrofoil directly in their wake, using his craft’s superior size as a shield just as a fresh fusillade poured from the nimble little boat. The rounds peppered the sea and blew out two panes of safety glass that ran along the lifeboat’s cabin.

A straight section of marsh allowed Cabrillo to firewall the engine again. In just seconds the big hydrofoil loomed over the bow runner. In the turbulence of her wake the hydrofoil began to ventilate, to draw air under the water wings and lose lift. Her bow sawed up and down, which is what Juan had anticipated.

The ski boat’s driver tried to dance out from under the crushing bow, but Juan matched him turn for turn.

The bow slammed down on the bow runner’s stern but the blow wasn’t hard enough to slow it, and Cabrillo had to back off slightly to regain lift.

He glanced at the dash to check the RPMs and as soon as he did Sloane screamed.

He looked up. When the hydrofoil’s bow hit the rear of the ski boat the gunman had jumped for the railing. He now stood at the hydrofoil’s prow, clutching the railing with one hand while the other held an AK-47, its barrel aimed directly between Juan’s eyes. There wasn’t time to draw his own weapon so Juan did the only thing he could.

His hand lashed out and chopped the throttle an instant before the AK blazed. He and Sloane were slammed into the dashboard as the hydrofoil slowed from forty miles per hour to almost nothing in an instant, a wild burst from the assault rifle stitching a ragged line across the top of the cabin. The boat came off plane hard, and while the gunman managed to keep his grip on the railing his chest was crushed against the aluminum struts by the massive wall of water that exploded over the bow with the force to douse Juan and Sloane all the way at the vessel’s stern. The hydrofoil’s forward momentum was enough that he slid under the hull and when Cabrillo pressed on the throttle again her wake frothed pink.

“Are you okay?” Juan asked quickly.

Sloane was massaging her upper chest were it had impacted with the dash. “I think so,” she replied and raked wet hair from her forehead. She pointed to his arm. “You’re bleeding.”

Cabrillo made sure the boat was gaining on the bow runner before looking at the wound. A shard of fiberglass torn off the boat by the spray of bullets was partially embedded in his upper arm.

“Ow,” he exclaimed when he felt the first flicker of pain.

“I thought tough guys could ignore a little thing like that.”

“Like hell. It hurts.” He gently worked the postcard-sized piece of fiberglass from his flesh. The shard had cut cleanly and there was little blood. Juan dug out the small medical kit from a bin next to the dash.

He handed it to Sloane, who rummaged through it and found a roll of sterile gauze. He held still as she wrapped his arm with the bandage and tied it off tightly.

“That should hold you,” she pronounced. “When was your last tetanus?”

“February twentieth two years ago.”

“You remember the exact date?”

“There’s a fifteen-inch scar on my back. Days you get a gash that big tend to stick with you.”

In a minute they had regained all the ground they had lost to the ski boat. Juan noted that the marsh to their right was giving way to a boulder-strewn beach that would afford no protection to his quarry. It was time to end this. “Can you take the helm again?”

“Yes, sure.”

“Watch for my signal, then ease back on the throttle. Be prepared to turn. I’ll point which way.”

Unlike before he didn’t wait to see if she was comfortable at the controls. He hefted the FN assault rifle and spare magazine and clambered up the length of the boat.

The bow runner was no more than five yards in front of him. He steadied himself against the railing and brought the FN to his shoulder. He fired controlled three-round bursts. When the first bullets slammed into the bow runner’s engine cowling, the driver sheared away, trying to find shallow water close to shore. Juan raised his arm and pointed to port, and Sloane followed his lead. Her turn was a little steep, but she seemed to have a handle on the hydrofoil’s drive characteristics.

As soon as he regained the sight picture he wanted he loosened another three-round burst into the bow runner’s engine. And a third. The driver tried to throw off Cabrillo’s aim but the chairman anticipated every juke and twist and slammed another half dozen bullets into the boat.

The wisp of white smoke that suddenly appeared from under the engine cowling quickly turned into a black cloud. The engine would seize any second, and Juan readied his signal to Sloane for them to slow so they wouldn’t ram the bow runner.

Between the bow lights on the hydrofoil and the ski boat’s dash lights, Cabrillo could just discern the driver’s features when he turned to look back at him. They locked eyes for just an instant but Juan could feel the hatred across the distance like the heat from a fire. Rather than fear, he read defiance in the man’s expression.

The man cranked the wheel hard over. Juan raised his hand to stop Sloane from pursuing because the bow runner was heading directly for the rocky shore. Cabrillo had wanted to take one of the men prisoner from the very start of the chase, but he felt the chance slipping from his grasp. He fired again, raking the ski boat’s stern, not sure of what he was hitting because of the smoke, but desperate to prevent what he knew the driver intended.

The bow runner had picked up most of the speed it had lost in the turn when it was still twenty feet from the coast. The engine’s shriek stuttered for a moment, but it was too late. The boat hit the shoaling bottom at thirty-plus knots and shot out of the water like a javelin. It arced high through the night air before nosing into the ground and came apart as if a bomb had gone off inside its fiberglass shell. The hull splintered into hundreds of pieces and her engine was torn from its mount as the craft cartwheeled up the beach. The impact burst the fuel tank and the gasoline became an aerosol cloud. The body of the driver was flung twenty feet before the fuel/air mixture detonated into a mushrooming fireball that consumed what remained of the ski boat.

Sloane had had the presence of mind to ease the hydrofoil off plane then slow it to a crawl by the time Juan had scurried back to the cockpit. He double-checked that the FN-FAL was safe and set it back on the dash. After raising the retractable foils he eased the boat as close to the wreckage as he could, idled the engine, and dropped the small anchor.

“He killed himself, didn’t he?”

Cabrillo couldn’t take his eyes off the burning boat. “Yup.”

“What does that mean?”

He glanced at her as he processed her question and all the implications his answer meant. “He knew we weren’t the authorities, so he was willing to die rather than risk capture and interrogation. It means we’re dealing with fanatics.”

“Like Muslim fundamentalists?”

“I don’t think he was an Arab jihadi. This is something else.”

“But what?”

Juan didn’t reply because he had no answer. His clothes were still drenched from his earlier swim, so he simply stepped off the back of the hydrofoil and into water that came up to his neck. He was almost to shore when he heard Sloane hit the water behind him. He waited for her at the surf line and together they approached the body. There was no sense checking out the boat since all that remained was melted fiberglass and scorched metal.

The damage done to the corpse by the impact and subsequent roll up the beach was horrifying. Like the vision of a demented artist, his neck and every limb were set at obtuse angles. Cabrillo checked there was no pulse before slipping the Glock into the waistband of his pants. There was nothing in the man’s rear pockets so Juan rolled the corpse, shaken by the boneless way the body moved. The man’s face was severely abraded.

Sloane gasped.

“Sorry,” Juan said. “You might want to stand back.”

“No, it’s not that. I know him. That’s the South African chopper pilot Tony and I hired. His name’s Pieter DeWitt. Damn, how could I be so stupid? He knew we were going to investigate Papa Heinrick’s snakes because I told him. He sent that boat to follow us yesterday and then came here to make sure no one ever questioned the old man again.”

The repercussions of her presence in Namibia hit Sloane fast and hard. She looked like she was about to be ill. “If I hadn’t come here looking for theRove Papa Heinrick would still be alive.” Her eyes were wet when she looked at Juan. “Luka, our guide, I bet they’ve already killed him, too. Oh God, what about Tony?”

Cabrillo knew intuitively that she didn’t want to be hugged nor did she want him to speak. They stood in the night as the ski boat burned and Sloane cried.

“They were totally innocent,” she sobbed, “and now they’re all dead and it’s my fault.”

How many times had Juan felt the same way, taking responsibility for the actions of others just because he was involved? Sloane was no more at fault for Papa Heinrick’s death than the wife who asked her husband to run an errand was responsible if he’s killed en route. But God how that guilt was there, corroding the soul as surely as acid eats away steel.

The tears flowed for five minutes, maybe longer. Juan stood at her side with his head bowed and only looked at her when she sniffled back the last of it.

“Thank you,” she muttered softly.

“For what?”

“Most men hate to see a woman crying and will do or say anything to make it stop.”

He gave her his warmest smile. “I hate it as much as the next guy, but I also knew if you didn’t do it now you’d just do it later and it would be a hell of a lot worse.”

“That’s why I thanked you. You understood.”

“I’ve been there a few times myself. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“But you do know you’re not responsible, right?”

“I know. They would be alive if I hadn’t come but I didn’t kill them.”

“That’s right. You’re just one link in the chain of events that led to their murders. You’re probably right about your guide, but don’t worry about Tony. No one onshore knows that the attack against you failed.

They already think you and Tony are dead. But to be on the safe side we’ll head for Walvis. ThePinguin didn’t look like she had the speed to reach her home port yet. If we hurry we can warn them off.”

Sloane wiped at her face with the sleeve of her Windbreaker. “Do you really think so?”

“Yeah, I do. Come on.”

Thirty seconds after clambering aboard the hydrofoil, Juan had them rocketing down the bay while Sloane changed into dry clothing from the craft’s stores. She took the wheel while Cabrillo changed and broke out some rations.

“Sorry, all I have are MREs,” he said, holding up two brown foil packets. “It’s either spaghetti with meatballs or chicken and biscuits.”

“I’ll take the spaghetti and give you the meatballs. I’m a vegetarian.”

“Really?”

“Why do you look so surprised?”

“I don’t know. I always picture vegetarians wearing Birkenstocks and living on organic farms.”

“Those are vegans. In my opinion they’re extremists.”

Her statement got Juan thinking about fanaticism and what drove people to it. Religion was the first thing that sprang to mind, but what else were people so passionate about they would mold their entire lives around it? The environmental and animal rights movements were the next groups he considered. Activists were willing to break into laboratories to release research animals or burn subdivisions at ski resorts to get their message across. Were some willing to kill for it, too?

He wondered if the polarity of opinion had been so sharpened in the past few years that societal norms of restraint and respect no longer applied. East, West. Muslim, Christian. Socialist, capitalist. Rich, poor.

It seemed every issue could drive a wedge deep enough to cause one side or the other to consider violence.

Of course, it was into this very divide that he sailed theOregon . With the world no longer cowering under the threat of nuclear annihilation from a war between the old Soviet Union and the United States, regional flare-ups had proliferated to the point that conventional means could no longer contain them.

Cabrillo had known this was coming and had formed the Corporation to combat these new threats. It was disheartening to think it, but he knew they would have more work than they could ever handle.

With no ransom demands from Geoffrey Merrick’s kidnappers it appeared more and more likely that his abduction was politically motivated; and given the nature of Merrick’s work, the politics most likely involved were the extreme environmental fringe.

Then he wondered if his kidnapping was somehow connected to whatever Sloane Macintyre had stumbled into. The odds were dead against it despite the coincidental fact that both were connected to Namibia. The Skeleton Coast was far from the world consciousness when it came to the environment.

Brazilian rain forests or polluted waterways, those were what people were familiar with, not a remote strip of desert in a country that many couldn’t find on a map.

Then he thought of another scenario. Diamond mining was one of Namibia’s biggest industries. And considering how tightly controlled the market was, according to Sloane, the likely possibility was that they had stumbled into an illegal mining operation. People were more than willing to risk their lives for the idea of immeasurable wealth. And people committed murders for a lot less. But did that explain Pieter DeWitt’s apparent suicide?

It would if he considered the consequences of being caught worse than a quick death.

“What would happen to a man like DeWitt if he was caught in some sort of illegal diamond mining activity?” Cabrillo asked Sloane.

“It varies from country to country. In Sierra Leone he’d be shot on sight. Here in Namibia it’s a twenty-thousand-dollar fine and five years in prison.” He looked at her askance for knowing the answer so readily. “I’m a security specialist, remember? I have to know the laws pertaining to the diamond trade in a dozen countries. Just like you have to know the Customs laws of the ports you visit.”

“Well, I’m still impressed,” Juan said, then went on, “Five years doesn’t sound too bad, certainly not enough of a sentence for someone to commit suicide rather than doing the time.”

“You don’t know African prisons.”

“I can’t imagine they rate many stars in theMichelin Guide .”

“It’s not just the conditions. Tuberculosis and HIV infection rates in African jails are among the highest in the world. Some human rights groups believe any jail time is tantamount to a death sentence. Why are you asking about all this?”

“I’m trying to get a handle on why DeWitt killed himself rather than risk capture.”

“You’re thinking maybe he’s not a fanatic or something?”

“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Juan admitted. “There’s something else going on that I can’t tell you about, and I thought for a second they could be linked. I’m just making sure they’re not. Understanding motivations is the key to seeing these aren’t two pieces of the same puzzle but two different puzzles altogether. It’s just that there’s a coincidence involved—”

“And you hate coincidences,” Sloane finished for him.

“Exactly.”

“If you want to tell me what else is happening maybe I can help.”

“Sorry, Sloane, that wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Loose lips sink ships and all that.”

Sloane was just being flippant and didn’t know how her words would soon prove to be prophetic.

14

THEde Havilland Twin Otter approached the rough landing strip so slowly it appeared to be hovering.

Although her design dated back to the 1960s, the high-winged, two-engined aircraft continued to be a favorite among bush pilots the world over. She could land on just about any surface and in about a thousand feet. Her takeoff runs were even shorter.

The hard pan abutting the Devil’s Oasis had been marked with orange flags and the pilot set the plane down dead center in a whirl of dust. The blast of her turboprops kicked up more dirt so when she slowed she was enveloped momentarily in a dark cloud. Power was taken off the propellers and in moments they’d juddered to a stop. An open-topped four-wheel drive reached the aircraft just as the rear door creaked open.

Daniel Singer unlimbered his lanky six-foot-seven-inch frame from the aircraft and knuckled his spine to work out the kinks of being confined for the seven-hundred-mile flight from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

He’d flown there from the States because enough money in the right hands ensured there was no record of his arrival in Africa. For all anyone knew he was still at his home in Maine.

The truck’s driver was a woman named Nina Visser. She had been with Singer from the beginning of his quest and had been instrumental in recruiting other members to their cause, like-minded men and women who recognized that the nations of the world needed to be jolted out of their complacency when it came to environmental issues.

“About time you showed up to share in our misery,” she said by way of greeting, but there was a smile on her face and a spark of affection in her nearly black eyes. Born in Holland, like many of her countrymen, she spoke English with little accent.

Singer stooped to kiss her cheek and quipped, “Nina, my dear, don’t you know we evil geniuses need a remote lair?”

“Did you have to pick one that’s a hundred kilometers from the nearest flush toilet and overrun by sand fleas?”

“What can I say, all the hollowed-out volcanoes were taken. I rented this place through a dummy company from the Namibian government on the pretext we’re going to film a movie here.” He turned to accept a bag from the pilot who’d appeared at the door. “Get the plane refueled. We’re only going to be here for a short while.”

Nina was surprised. “You’re not going to stay?”

“Sorry, no. I have to get to Cabinda earlier than I’d planned.”

“Problems?”

“A slight glitch with the equipment has delayed the mercenaries,” he said. “And I want to make sure the boats we are going to use for the assault are ready. Besides, Mother Nature is being more than cooperative. Another tropical storm is brewing on the heels of the one that dissipated a couple of days ago. I don’t think we’ll need to wait more than a week or so.”

Nina stopped suddenly, her face showing joy. “So soon? I can’t believe it.”

“Five years of work are about to pay off. When we’re done there won’t be a person on the planet who can sanely deny the dangers of global warming.” Singer settled himself into the truck’s passenger seat for the short drive to the old prison.

The penitentiary was a three-story stone monstrosity as large as a warehouse with a crenellated rampart on the roof for guards to watch out over the desert. There was just a single window on each wall of the outside façade, which made the structure appear even more solid and foreboding. The shadow it cast was a midnight stain on the white sand.

A set of towering wooden doors with iron hinges mortared into the stone and broad enough to admit a much larger truck gave access to the central courtyard. The bottom floor of the prison was given over to administrative spaces and dormitories for the guards who’d once lived here while the second and third stories were for the cell blocks that ringed the courtyard.

The sun beat onto the exercise yard, reflecting and rebounding so the air was as heavy as molten lead.

“So how are our guests doing?” Singer asked when Nina braked in front of the entrance to the main administration area.

“The men from Zimbabwe arrived yesterday with their prisoner,” Nina said and turned to her mentor. “I still don’t understand why they’re here.”

“A tactical necessity, I’m afraid. Part of the bargain to allow me to enter Africa without having to get visas and all that other junk was that we let them use a portion of the prison for a short while. Their prisoner heads the main opposition party and he goes on trial for treason soon. The government is rightly justified in thinking that his followers would break him out and smuggle him to some other country. They just need someplace to keep him until the trial starts and then he’ll be returned to Harare.”

“Won’t his people just stage their breakout when he goes back?”

“The trial will last less than an hour and sentence will be carried out immediately.”

“I don’t like this, Danny. Zimbabwe’s government is one of the most corrupt in Africa. I think anyone who opposes them is probably in the right.”

“I agree with you, but this is the bargain I got stuck with.” His tone made it clear he didn’t want to be questioned further. “How about my illustrious former business partner? How’s he doing?”

Nina smirked. “I think he’s finally beginning to understand the ramifications of his success.”

“Good. I can’t wait to see the look on that smug bastard’s face when we pull this off and he finally understands he’s at fault.”

They entered the prison and Singer greeted his people by name. While he would never have Merrick’s charisma, among the activists he’d gathered together he was already a hero. He handed out three bottles of red wine he’d brought with him and they drank them down over the course of the next half hour. One woman in particular received special attention, and when he called for a toast in her honor, the others cheered.

He then took the office once occupied by the warden and asked that Merrick be brought down from his cell. He spent several minutes trying to find the right pose for when Merrick entered. He tried sitting behind the desk but didn’t want the height disadvantage so instead he stood by the office’s window with his head bowed as if he alone shouldered the weight of the world.

A moment later, two of Singer’s men led Merrick into the office with his hands bound behind his back.

The two hadn’t physically seen each other since the split, but Merrick had been on enough television interviews for Singer to recognize the physical toll the past days of captivity had taken on his former partner. He was especially gratified at how his once bright eyes had sunken into his skull and gazed at him with a haunted look. But incredibly, he saw them begin to brighten, and once again he felt the mesmerizing intensity that Merrick had always possessed and Singer had secretly coveted. Singer had to fight the urge to sit.

“Danny,” Merrick started in a sincere tone, “I can’t begin to understand why you’ve done what you’ve done other than to get back at me. I just want to say you’ve won. Whatever you want is yours so long as you stop right now. You want the company back, I will sign it away right now. You want all my money, just give me an account number to transfer it into. I will issue any statement you prepare and take any responsibility you believe I deserve.”

God, he was good,Daniel Singer thought.No wonder he could always beat me. For a moment he was tempted to take him up on his offer but he wouldn’t let himself be swayed. He thrust aside the momentary doubt. “This isn’t a negotiation table, Geoff. Having you as a witness is only a bonus I’m giving myself.

You are the sideshow, my old friend, not the main attraction.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Of course it does!” Singer roared. “Why do you think I’m giving the world a taste now?” He took a deep breath and continued a bit more calmly, but with an equal amount of passion. “If we continue on the path we’ve set my demonstration will be nothing compared to natural events. We have to change, only the fools that run the world refuse to see it. Damnit, Geoff, you’re a scientist, surely you understand.

Within the next century global warming is going to destroy everything mankind has accomplished.

“An increase of just a degree of surface temperatures will have untold ripple effects on the environment—and it’s already happening. The planet isn’t hot enough yet to melt all the glaciers, but in Greenland the ice is flowing into the sea quicker than ever because meltwater is acting as a lubricant when it scrapes over the ground. In some places they are advancing twice as fast as normal. This is taking place today. Right now.”

“I’m not going to deny what you’re saying—”

“You can’t,” Singer snapped. “No rational person can, but still nothing is being done about it. People have to see the effects for themselves, in their homes, not on some glacier in Greenland. They have to be galvanized into action or we’re doomed.”

“All the deaths, Dan—”

“Pale in comparison to what’s coming. They have to be sacrificed in order to save untold billions of others. You have to cut off a gangrenous limb in order to save the patient.”

“But we’re talking about innocent lives, not infected tissue!”

“Okay, so it was a bad analogy, but my point still stands. And besides, the death toll won’t be as high as you think. Forecasting has come a long way. There’ll be plenty of warning.”

“Yeah? Ask the people living in New Orleans when Katrina hit,” Merrick spat.

“Exactly. Local, state, and federal authorities had ample time to evacuate and yet more than a thousand perished needlessly. This is what I’m saying. We’ve had two decades of scientific fact as to the effects we’re having on the environment and only token action has been taken. Can’t you see I have to go forward? I have to do this to save humanity.”

Geoffrey Merrick knew his former partner and best friend was insane. Sure, Dan had always been a little odd, they both had been, otherwise they wouldn’t have thrived at MIT. But what had once been quirky behavior had turned into full-blown mania. He also knew he’d never find an argument to get Singer to give up. You couldn’t rationalize with a fanatic.

He still wanted to try one more tack. “If you care so much for humanity, then why did you have to kill poor Susan Donleavy?”

Singer’s expression was unreadable as he broke eye contact. “The people helping me lacked certain, ah, skills, so I had to hire outsiders.”

“Mercenaries?”

“Yes. They went beyond, ah, what was strictly called for. Susan’s not dead, but I’m afraid her condition is grave.”

Merrick gave no outward sign of what he intended. He merely shook off the men who held his arms loosely and launched himself across the room. He vaulted onto the desk and managed to smash a knee into Singer’s jaw before the guards reacted. One yanked at the cuff of his jumpsuit hard enough to topple the industrialist. With his hands bound behind his back he couldn’t cushion the blow and landed on his face. There was no momentarily flicker, no slow fade to black. He was unconscious as soon as his head hit the floor.

“I’m sorry, Dan,” one of the guards said, crossing behind the desk to help Singer to his feet. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

He smeared the blood with a finger, inspecting it as though he couldn’t believe it had come from his body. “Is he alive?”

The second guard checked Merrick’s pulse at his wrist and throat. “Heart’s beating fine. He’ll probably have a concussion when he wakes.”

“Good.” Singer stooped over Merrick’s prone form. “Geoff, I hope that cheap shot was worth it, because it was the last act of free will you will ever experience. Lock him back up.”

Twenty minutes later the Twin Otter took to the skies once again, heading northward to the Angolan province of Cabinda.

15

ASsoon as the harbor pilot had climbed down the rope ladder to his waiting tender, Max Hanley and Linda Ross took the secret elevator from the wheelhouse down to the operations center. It was like stepping from a junkyard into NASA’s mission control. They’d played the roles of captain and helmsman for the benefit of the South African pilot, but Max was officially off duty. The watch belonged to Linda.

“You going back to your cabin?” she asked, settling herself in the command seat and slipping on her headset.

“No,” Max said sourly. “Doc Huxley’s still worried about my blood pressure so she and I are heading for the gym. She plans on introducing me to power yoga, whatever the hell that is.”

Linda chuckled. “Oh, I would love to see that.”

“If she tries to bend me into a pretzel I’m going to tell Juan to start searching for a new chief medical officer.”

“It’ll be good for you. Cleanse your aura, and all that.”

“My aura is fine,” he said with good-natured gruffness and headed off to his cabin.

The watch was quiet as they cleared the shipping lanes and started to ramp up the speed. An unexpected storm was brewing to their north but would likely blow itself westward by the time they reached Swakopmund late the next day. Linda used the idle hours to go over the mission briefing Eddie and Linc had written about their upcoming assault on the Devil’s Oasis.

“Linda,” Hali Kasim called from his communication’s station. “I just got something off the wire service.

You’re not going to believe it. I’m sending it to your display.”

She scanned the news item and immediately sent out a ship wide page for Max to come to the op center. He arrived a minute later from the engine room where he’d been performing an unnecessary inspection. The yoga had taken a toll on him: his gait was noticeably hampered by muscles not used to so much stretching.

“You wanted to see me?”

Linda swiveled her flat-panel display so Max could read the news for himself. The tension in the room had risen as though an electric current had passed between the two.

“Will someone please tell us what’s happened?” Eric Stone asked from the helmsman’s position.

“Benjamin Isaka has been implicated in a coup plot,” Linda replied. “He was arrested a couple of hours ago.”

“Isaka. Why does that name sound familiar?”

Max answered, “He was our government contact in the Congo for that weapons deal.”

“Oh, man, that is seriously not good,” Mark Murphy said. Though there was no need to man theOregon

’s offensive systems he usually took his position whenever the senior staff had the watch.

“Hali, any word on the weapons we delivered?” Linda asked. She didn’t care about Congo’s local politics, but the Corporation had a responsibility for those arms.

“Sorry, I haven’t checked. That report just came through the AP wire service a minute ago.”

Linda looked to Max. “What do you think?”

“I have to agree with Mr. Murphy. This could be a potential disaster. If Isaka told the rebels about the radio tags and they disabled them, then we just handed five hundred assault rifles and a couple hundred grenade launchers to one of the most dangerous group of thugs in Africa.”

“I can’t find anything about weapons being seized,” Hali said. “The story’s still breaking so maybe it will come through later.”

“Don’t count on it.” Max had his pipe in his hand and was tapping the stem against his teeth. “Isaka had to have told them. Hali, is there any way we can check the signals from the radio tags?”

The Lebanese-American frowned. “I don’t think so. Their range is pretty limited. The whole idea was for Congolese army forces to follow the arms back to the rebel base using handheld detectors that could pick up the tags’ signals. They only needed to broadcast for a couple of miles.”

“So we’re screwed,” Linda said, her anger putting a hard edge in her girlish voice. “Those guns could be anywhere and we have no way of finding them.”

“Ye of little faith,” Murph said with a broad grin.

She turned to him. “What have you got?”

“Will you guys ever stop underestimating the chairman’s cunning? Before we sold the guns he asked me and the chief armorer to replace a couple of tags the CIA gave us with some of my own design. Their range is nearly a hundred miles.”

“Range isn’t the issue,” Hali said. “Isaka knew where we hid the tags on the weapons. He’s bound to have told the rebels, and they could disable ours just as easily as the ones we got from the CIA.”

Mark’s smile never faltered. “The CIA tags were hidden in the butt stocks of the AKs and forward grip assembly of the RPGs. I put our tags in the grips of the AKs and modified the sling swivels to hide them on the grenade launchers.”

“Oh, bloody brilliant,” Linda said with true admiration. “Once they find the CIA tags they wouldn’t look for any more. Ours are still in place.”

“And transmitting on a different frequency, I might add.” Mark crossed his arms over his chest and leaned far back into his seat.

“Why didn’t Juan tell us about this?” Max asked.

“He sort of thought he was straying from prudence into paranoia with his idea,” Murph replied. “So he didn’t want to mention it because more than likely our tags would never be needed.”

“How close did you say we need to be to pick up the signals?” Linda asked.

“About a hundred miles.”

“That still leaves us searching for a needle in a haystack without some idea where the rebels were headed.”

Mark wiped the smug look from his face. “Actually, there’s another problem, too. To give the tags that kind of range I had to sacrifice battery life. They’ll start failing in another forty-eight to seventy-two hours.

After that there really is no way to find them again.”

Linda looked to Max Hanley. “The decision to find those weapons has to come from Juan.”

“I agree,” Max said. “But you and I both know he’ll want us to track them down and alert the Congolese army so they can get ’em back.”

“As I see it we have two options,” Linda said.

“Hold on a sec,” Max interrupted. “Hali, call the Chairman on his satellite phone. Okay, two options?”

“One is we turn back and send a team from Cape Town up to the Congo with whatever detection gear they need. Mark, this stuff is man portable, right?”

“The receiver’s not much bigger than a boom box,” the technical wizard told her.

Normally someone would have commented on the size of the boom box he played when he turned part of theOregon ’s cargo deck into a makeshift skateboard park complete with ramps, jumps, and a half pipe made from an old section of ship’s funnel.

Max said, “Going back to Cape Town will cost us the five hours we’ve steamed so far, another couple messing around in port, and a further five to return to this exact same spot of ocean.”

“Or we keep going and send a team in from Namibia. Tiny’s got the jump plane waiting at the airport in Swakopmund and will have one of our jets there by tomorrow afternoon for when we have Geoffrey Merrick. We can chopper them directly to the airport, Tiny can fly them up to the Congo, and be back in time for the raid.”

“I can’t get the Chairman on his sat phone,” Hali told the group.

“Did you try the radio on the lifeboat?”

“Nada.”

“Damn.” Unlike Cabrillo, who could think through a dozen scenarios at a time and intuitively pick the right one, Hanley was more deliberative. “How much time do you think we’d save for the search team by turning back right now?”

“About twelve hours.”

“Less,” Mark said without turning from his computer screen. “I’m checking flights right now between Cape Town and Kinshasa. There isn’t much.”

“So we’d have to charter a plane.”

“That’s what I’m checking,” Eric Stone said. “I’m finding only one company in Cape Town with jet aircraft. Hold on. No, there’s a note on their website saying both their Learjets are grounded.” He looked over at his shipmates. “If it’s any consolation they do apologize for the inconvenience.”

“So we’re looking at saving maybe eight hours,” Mark concluded.

“And costing us twelve and pushing back the rescue attempt by another full day. Okay, there’s our answer then. We keep heading north.” Max focused on Hali. “Keep trying Juan. Call him every five minutes and let me know the instant you reach him.”

“Aye, Mr. Hanley.”

Max didn’t like that Juan wasn’t replying. Knowing how close they were to launching their attack on the Devil’s Oasis there was no way he wouldn’t be carrying his sat phone. The chairman was a stickler about communications.

There were a hundred possibilities why he couldn’t be reached and Hanley didn’t like any of them.

16

CABRILLOsquinted into the distance, not caring for how dark clouds were building to the east. When he and Sloane had motored out of Walvis in the lifeboat there hadn’t been any weather advisories, but that didn’t mean much in this part of the world. A sandstorm could whip up in a matter of minutes and blot the sky from horizon to horizon. Which was exactly what looked like was happening.

He glanced at his watch. Sunset was still hours away. But at least Tony Reardon’s plane from Namibia’s capital, Windhoek, to Nairobi and on to London had left the ground four minutes ago.

The night before they had intercepted thePinguin a mile from the harbor entrance. After explaining what had happened to Papa Heinrick, Justus Ulenga agreed to take his boat north to another town and fish up there for a week or two. Cabrillo took Tony Reardon onto the lifeboat.

The British executive had complained bitterly about the situation, railing against Sloane, Cabrillo, DeBeers, Namibia, and anything else that came into his head. Juan gave him twenty minutes to vent while they waited offshore. When it seemed he would go on for hours more Cabrillo gave him an ultimatum: Either shut up or he’d knock him unconscious.

“You wouldn’t dare!” the Englishman had shouted.

“Mr. Reardon, I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours,” Juan replied, moving closer so their faces were inches apart. “I just saw the body of a man who was horribly tortured before being murdered and I was shot at about fifty times. To top it off I have the beginning of a headache, so you will go below, sit on one of the benches, and keep your damned mouth shut.”

“You can’t ord—”

Juan pulled the punch at the last second so he didn’t break Reardon’s nose but the blow had enough power to send him crashing through the hatch to the lifeboat’s passenger compartment, where he sprawled on the floor in an untidy heap. “I warned you,” Cabrillo said and turned his attention back to keeping the craft facing into the wind as they waited for dawn.

They stayed a couple miles offshore as the Walvis fishing fleet paraded out for their daily catch and only turned to enter the port after Juan had made arrangements over his satellite phone. Reardon remained below, massaging his swelling jaw and even more bruised ego.

A taxi was waiting at the wharf when Cabrillo eased the lifeboat into a berth. He made sure that Sloane and Tony stayed below while he presented his passport to a customs official. Without the need for a visa and with a cursory inspection of the lifeboat and the Britons’ already stamped passports, Juan’s own passport was stamped and they were free to leave the docks.

He paid to have the boat’s fuel tanks refilled, giving the attendant a large enough tip to ensure he did the job properly. He retrieved the Glock from where he’d stashed it in the bilges and made sure nothing looked suspicious before calling over the car and bundling his two companions into the rear seat.

They crossed the Swakop River and raced through Swakopmund on their way to the airport. Being that one of the gunmen from the previous night was the helicopter charter pilot, Cabrillo couldn’t take the risk of hiring a private aircraft to spirit Reardon out of the country. But today was one of the four days a week that Air Namibia had a flight from the coastal city to the capital. He’d timed their arrival in town so Reardon would spend only a couple of minutes at the airport before his flight, and his connection to Nairobi was the next flight out of Kenya.

Juan noted a twin-engine plane sitting idle on the tarmac well away from other aircraft. It was the one Tiny Gunderson, the Corporation’s chief pilot, had rented for their assault. If everything went according to plan the big Swede was en route with their Gulfstream IV. Juan had considered waiting and using their own plane to get Reardon out of Namibia, but he didn’t think he could spend that much time in the man’s company.

The three entered the small terminal together, Cabrillo’s senses tuned to any detail that seemed out of place, though their opposition should still be assuming that their quarry was already dead. While the Englishman checked in for his flight, Sloane promised that she would pack up his belongings still at the hotel and bring them back to London with her once she and Cabrillo finished their investigation.

Reardon muttered something unintelligible.

She knew he was beyond reasoning with and honestly couldn’t blame him. Tony went through security without a backward glance and was quickly gone from their view.

“Bon voyage, Mr. Chuckles,” Juan quipped and the two of them left the airport and rode back to town.

They went straight for the neighborhood where Sloan’s guide, Tuamanguluka, lived. Even in broad daylight Juan was thankful to have the automatic stuffed into the waist of his pants and hidden by the tails of his shirt. The buildings were mostly two-story and lacked the Germanic influence found in the better parts of town. What little pavement remained was potholed and faded almost white. Even at this early hour men loitered in the entrances of apartment blocks. The few children on the streets watched them with haunted eyes. The air was laden with the smell of processed fish and the omnipresent dust of the Namib Desert.

“I’m not exactly sure which building he lived in,” Sloane confessed. “We used to drop him in front of a bar.”

“Who are you looking for?” the cabbie asked.

“He goes by the name Luka. He’s a sort of guide.”

The taxi stopped in front of a decrepit building that housed a hole in the wall restaurant and a used clothing store on the first floor and, judging by the laundry billowing out the windows, had apartments on the second. After a beat, a scrawny man stepped from the restaurant and leaned into the cab. The two Namibians exchanged a few words and the man pointed up the street.

“He says Luka lives two blocks that way.”

A minute later they stopped in front of another building, this one more run-down than most. The clapboard siding was bleached and split and the building’s sole door hung from a hinge. A mangy dog lifted his leg against the corner of the structure then took off after a rat that had emerged from a crack in the foundation. From inside they could hear a child wailing like a siren.

Cabrillo opened the taxi door and stepped onto the sidewalk. Sloane slid across the seat and emerged from his door, not wanting to be separated from him by even the width of a car.

“You’ll wait here,” Cabrillo told the cabbie and handed him a hundred dollar bill, making sure he saw the other two in his hand.

“No problem.”

“How will we know which apartment’s his?” Sloane asked.

“Don’t worry, if we’re right, we’ll know.”

Cabrillo led her into the apartment building. The interior was dim but the heat remained oppressive and the smells were nauseating—the stink of poverty that was the same the world over. There were four apartments on the first floor; one of them housed the crying child. Juan paused outside each door for a moment to inspect the cheap locks. Without comment, he took the stairs to the second floor.

At the landing he heard what he’d most feared, the incessant buzz of flies. The drone rose and fell like a tuneless song. The smell hit a second later, something that carried above the background stench. It was an odor he’d know on a primordial level even if he’d never smelled it before. It was as if the human brain could discern the decomposition of one of its own kind.

His ears and nose led him to a back apartment. The door was closed and the lock didn’t look damaged.

“He let his killer in, which means he knew him.”

“The pilot?”

“Probably.”

Juan kicked the door. The wood around the handle was so brittle that it shattered. The flies hummed angrily at being disturbed and the smell was thick enough to coat the back of their throats. Sloane gagged but refused to shy away.

The room was filled with pale light diffused by the grime covering the only window. There was little furniture—a chair, a table, a single bed, and a packing crate used as a night table. The overflowing ashtray on top of it was made from a car’s hubcap. The walls had been whitewashed thirty years before decades of smoke had turned them a murky brown and they were spotted with dark stains from innumerable insects being slapped against the plaster.

Luka lay on an unmade bed wearing a pair of dingy boxer shorts and unlaced boots. His chest was soaked in blood.

Quashing his own distaste, Juan inspected the wound. “Small caliber, twenty-two or twenty-five, and at close range. I can see powder burns.” He looked at the floorboards between the bed and the door.

Drops of blood formed an easily recognizable trail. “His killer knocked at the door and fired as soon as Luka answered it, then pushed him back on the bed so the body wouldn’t make any sound when it fell.”

“Do you think anyone in this building would care if they heard it?”

“Probably not, but our guy was careful. I bet if we’d stuck around and inspected the bow runner last night we would have found a pistol with a silencer.”

Juan checked every inch of the apartment, looking for anything that might give him an insight into what was behind the murder. He found a stash of marijuana under the kitchen sink and some dirty magazines under the bed but that was about it. There was nothing hidden in the few boxes of food, and nothing in the trash can but rancid cigarette butts and Styrofoam coffee cups. He patted down the clothes lying on the floor next to the bed and turned up a few local coins, an empty wallet, and a pocketknife. The clothing hanging from nails on one wall was empty. He tried raising the window but it was painted shut.

“At least we confirmed he’s dead,” he remarked grimly as they headed out of the apartment. He closed the door behind them. Before leaving the floor Cabrillo took a detour to lift the tank lid on the communal toilet at the end of the hall, just to be thorough.

“What now?”

“I suppose we could check out the chopper pilot’s office,” Juan said with little enthusiasm. He was confident that the South African had covered his tracks well and they’d find nothing.

“What I’d really like to do is go back to my hotel, take the longest bath in history, and sleep for twenty-four hours.”

Juan was at the top of the stairs and saw the light coming in through the wrecked front door flicker for a second as if something or someone had just entered the building. He pushed Sloane back a pace and drew the Glock.

How could I be so stupid, he thought.They must have figured out something went wrong with their attack on the Pinguinand on their murder of Papa Heinrick . Anyone investigating what was going on would certainly show up at Luka’s apartment eventually, so they staked it out.

A pair of men came into view, both carrying wicked little machine pistols. They were immediately followed by a third also carrying a Czech-made Skorpion. Juan knew he’d get one with the first shot but he’d never get the other two without the stairway turning into a slaughterhouse.

He backpedaled silently, keeping a hand on Sloane’s wrist. She must have felt the tension in his grip because she didn’t speak and made sure her footfalls were as quiet as possible.

The hallway was a dead end and in about five seconds the assassins would have them trapped. Juan turned and made for Luka’s apartment once again. He crashed through the door. “Don’t think about it,”

he said. “Just follow me.”

He ran for the window and dove headlong into the glass. The pane exploded around him, daggers ripping at his clothes. Just outside Luka’s apartment was a corrugated metal shed roof he’d noted when he first tried to open the window. He crashed onto it, smearing the skin of his palms and nearly losing the Glock. The steel was scalding hot and his flesh burned. As he slid he rolled himself over onto his back; when he reached the edge he kicked his legs over his head and did a tight backflip. His landing wouldn’t earn any Olympic medals, but he managed to stay on his feet as shards of glass cascaded off the roof like icicles.

He paid no attention to the old man mending a fishing net in the shade of the roof. A moment later he heard Sloane scrabbling across the metal. Her body was launched off the edge and Juan was ready to catch her. The impact drove him to his knees.

At the same instant dime-sized holes were punched through the roof, the sound of a machine pistol shattered the malaise of the street. Bits of hemp were thrown into the air as the big net absorbed a dozen rounds. The fisherman was well back from the roof ’s edge so Juan didn’t have to worry about him. He took Sloane’s hand and together they raced to their left to what looked like a busier street.

When they broke out from under the porch bullets stitched the ground all around them. The Skorpion was designed for close-in work and the gunman was too hopped on adrenaline to tame the notoriously inaccurate weapon. Juan and Sloane found temporary cover behind a ten-wheeled truck.

“Are you okay?” he panted.

“Yeah, just sorry for you that I’ve been eating like a pig since I arrived here.”

Cabrillo chanced a peek around the back of the MANN truck. One of the gunmen was inching his way down the roof, covered by his comrades crowding Luka’s apartment window. They spotted Juan and raked the truck with autofire. He and Sloane raced toward the cab. The tall cargo box hid them from the window, allowing Juan to step from the front tire onto the long hood and then onto the cab. He had his pistol ready and took the shot before the gunmen upstairs could see him in this unexpected position. The range was only twenty-five yards and Juan compensated for the difference in height. The bullet slammed into the gunman on the roof, tearing a chunk out of his right hand. The Skorpion went flying as he lost his grip on both it and the corrugated sheeting. He tumbled down the roof, slamming into the ground hard enough for his breaking bones to be heard across the street.

Juan ducked out of sight before the other assassins could pinpoint his location.

“What now?” Sloane asked, wide-eyed.

“One of them will stay in the window to make sure we don’t make a break for it while the other takes the stairs down.” Juan looked around.

While this was never a busy part of town, the road was utterly deserted now and in a way looked like it hadn’t been occupied for years. Trash fluttered in the gutters and he expected to see tumbleweeds blowing by at any second.

He wrenched open the truck’s passenger door and saw the keys weren’t in the ignition. Franklin Lincoln could hot-wire it in under a minute but Juan wasn’t as skilled. The gunman would be on them long before he got the diesel fired. He took another quick look up at the apartment. The assassin was well back from the window frame but maintained an uninterrupted view of the truck.

“Think, damn it, think.”

The building next to them had once been a grocery store but its windows were shuttered with sheets of plywood. Up the block was an open park with dirt rather than grass while behind them were more apartments and small single-family homes that seemed to lean on one another to stay upright.

He rapped a knuckle against the truck’s exposed fuel tank. It rang hollow: almost, but not quite, empty.

He unscrewed the filler cap and saw waves of diesel fumes rise in the hot air.

There were a few things Juan carried with him at all times: a small compass, a pocketknife, a tiny flashlight with a xenon bulb, and a Zippo lighter that would remain lit once the flint wheel was turned. He used the knife to cut a strip from the bottom of his shirt and lit it with the Zippo. He moved Sloane toward the front of the truck and dropped the burning rag into the tank.

“Step onto the bumper but stay low and keep your mouth open,” he warned and made certain Sloane plugged her ears.

Had the tank been full the explosion would have blown the truck apart. As it was, when the rag ignited the puddle of fuel pooled in the bottom of the tank the detonation was more powerful than Juan anticipated. And even though he was protected from its effects by the cab, and more important, the engine block, he could still feel its searing heat. The truck rocked on its suspension as if struck by a cannon, and Juan’s head rang as if he’d been hit with a hammer.

He jumped back to the ground and looked at what he’d accomplished. As he’d hoped the explosion had shredded the plywood protecting the supermarket’s windows and blown the glass halfway down the denuded aisles. “Come on, Sloane.”

Hand-in-hand they fled into the dark interior of the grocery store while outside the truck burned. At the back of the store was a door leading to a storage area and loading docks. Juan turned on his penlight and spied an exterior door. He assumed that the assassins knew where they’d gone, so he didn’t bother being stealthy. Cabrillo blew the lock off the chain securing the door with his pistol. The chain rattled to the concrete floor and he shoved the door open.

Across the street from the rear of the grocery store was the wharf where they’d docked the lifeboat. It looked right at home tied up amid the broken-down fishing boats and sagging docks. Running flat out they crossed the road and raced along the maze of interconnected jetties while behind them one of the gunmen emerged from the back of the grocery store and continued the pursuit.

Fishermen working on their boats and kids casting lines off the dock were still looking at the smoke rising over the abandoned grocery store as Sloane and Juan ran by. The wooden docks were slick with mold and fish slime, but they pushed their pace even harder.

The buzz-saw screech of a Skorpion on full automatic raked the air. Juan and Sloane both fell flat, sliding across the slippery wood and falling off the dock and into a small skiff with an outboard motor mounted to its transom. Juan recovered in an instant but stayed low as wood splinters and lead danced along the edge of the dock.

“Start the engine,” he ordered Sloane, and peered over the edge of the jetty. The gunman was fifteen yards away but would need to walk at least fifty to reach the outboard because of the peculiar layout of the piers. He tried to fire when he saw the top of Cabrillo’s head, but the machine pistol was empty.

Sloane yanked on the starter cord and to their relief the engine fired on the second pull. Juan cut the painter and Sloane torqued the throttle. The little boat raced away from the dock and across to where the lifeboat waited. The assassin must have realized his targets were escaping and that he was too exposed to keep after them. Namibia still had a police force, and after the past few minutes of gunplay every cop in Walvis and Swakopmund would be descending on the harbor. He threw his gun into the water to hide any evidence and ran back the way he’d come.

The prow of the little outboard kissed the side of the lifeboat. Juan held their craft steady while Sloane climbed aboard. He followed her onto his own boat, reached over, and gunned the outboard’s throttle, sending the little boat arrowing back across the marina.

He had the lines cast off and the engine fired in record time. In minutes they had cleared the outer buoy and were racing into open water. He kept a straight course to get them into international waters as quickly as possible in case Harbor Patrol came after them, not that they could catch them once Juan engaged the hydrofoils and the boat lifted from the sea.

“How are you doing?” Juan asked when he had the boat in trim.

“My ears are still ringing,” she said. “That was about the most insane thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.”

“Crazier than helping a woman being pursued by God knows how many assassins?” he teased.

“Okay, second craziest.” Her mouth turned upward into a smile. “So are you going to tell me who you really are?”

“I’ll make you a deal. Once we check out the area where Papa Heinrick saw his metal snakes and determine for ourselves what’s going on, I’ll tell you my whole life story.”

“You’re on.”

They soon crossed Namibia’s twelve-mile territorial border, according to the boat’s GPS and Juan throttled down the engine to take the hydrofoil off plane.

“This old girl drinks fuel at an awful rate when she’s up on her wings,” he explained. “If we’re going to make it out and back we have to keep her to about fifteen knots. I’ll stand the first watch, why don’t you head below? I can’t offer you a bath but we have plenty of water to freshen up and you can get some sleep. I’ll wake you in six hours.”

She lightly brushed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”

TWELVE hours later, they were approaching the region where the metal snakes reportedly lurked. The wind was picking up as a storm swept across the desert and slammed into the moist, cold air above the ocean. Cabrillo wasn’t concerned about weathering a storm in the lifeboat. What bothered him was a reduction in visibility making their search that much more difficult. And to top it off, static electricity building in the atmosphere was playing havoc on the craft’s electronics. He couldn’t get a tone on his sat phone and the radio received nothing but static across all the bands. And the last time he checked the GPS it wasn’t receiving enough signals from the orbiting satellites to properly fix their position. The depth meter was reading zero feet, which was impossible, and even the compass was acting up, slowly revolving in its liquid gimbals as though magnetic north was swirling all around them.

“How bad do you think it’s going to get?” Sloane asked, jerking her chin in the direction of the storm.

“Hard to tell. It doesn’t look like any rain is falling, but that could change.”

Cabrillo settled a pair of binoculars to his eyes and slowly scanned the horizon, timing his movements with the slow undulation of the waves so he had maximum height as he scouted each direction. “Nothing but empty water,” he reported. “I hate to say this but without the GPS I can’t set up a proper search grid, so we’re just blundering around out here.”

“What do you want to do?”

“The wind’s holding steady from due east. I can use it to keep my bearings so we can hold a course. I guess we can search until it gets dark. Hopefully the storm will blow over by dawn and the GPS will come back online.”

By rough estimate, Juan piloted the lifeboat in mile-wide lanes, tracking back and forth across the vast ocean like he was mowing a lawn. The seas built steadily as they searched, so the waves were topping seven feet while the wind freshened, carrying the taste of the desert so far from land.

With each lane searched both became more convinced that everyone had been right about crazy old Papa Heinrick and that his metal snakes were nothing more than a raging bout of the DTs.

When Cabrillo saw a glint of white in the distance he dismissed it as the spume riding atop a wave. But he kept his eye on the spot and when they crested another swell, the speck was still there. He snatched the binoculars from their holder. His sudden movements after so many monotonous hours grabbed Sloane’s attention.

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe nothing.”

He waited until another surge bore the lifeboat up the face of a wave before putting the glass on the distant glimmer. It took him long seconds to fully comprehend what he was seeing. The scope of it defied belief.

“I will be damned,” he muttered, drawing out each word.

“What?” Sloane cried excitedly.

He handed her the binoculars. “Look for yourself.”

As she adjusted the eyepieces to fit to her smaller face, Juan kept an eye on the object. He was trying to judge scale and found it next to impossible. With nothing to compare it to it could easily be a thousand feet long. He wondered how George Adams could have missed it during his aerial reconnaissance of the area.

Then from the white object came an intense burst of light that flashed against the scudding clouds. The range was two kilometers, perhaps a little more, but at a thousand miles per hour the Israeli-made Rafael Spike-MR antitank missile ate the distance so fast it gave Juan just seconds to react.

“Incoming!” he roared.

17

JUAN’SGlock was still secured at the small of his back, so he grabbed the satellite phone in its waterproof bag and tackled Sloane around the waist, throwing them bodily over the rail and into the dark water. They began to swim frantically from the lifeboat, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the impending explosion.

The rocket’s dual electro-optic and infrared seeker stayed homed in on its target as it streaked across the sea, arrowing in on the plume of scorching exhaust from the lifeboat’s engine. It slammed into the hull moments after being launched, punching a hole through the side and detonating just fore of the engine block. Designed to core through a foot of armor, the shaped charge sliced the keel, breaking the lifeboat’s back as debris was blown thirty feet into the air.

The smoking, smoldering ruin folded almost in half as she sank, a gout of steam erupting when the sea made contact with the red-hot engine and manifolds.

The overpressure wave was magnitudes greater than when Cabrillo blew up the truck’s tank back at Walvis Bay and had he not tossed himself and Sloane off the boat they would have been crushed by its force. They floundered in the chaotic waves radiating from the blast site, spitting and sputtering water that they had inadvertently swallowed.

Bicycling his feet to stay afloat, he reached for her to make sure she wasn’t injured.

“Don’t ask me if I’m okay,” she managed to say. “You’ve already asked me that a dozen times since yesterday.”

“It has been an exciting twenty-four hours,” Juan admitted, toeing off his shoes. “We have to get as far away from the boat as possible. They will almost certainly send someone out to investigate.”

“We headed where I think we’re headed?”

“Time to catch a ride on Papa Heinrick’s snake.”

Though swimming a mile wasn’t a difficult feat for two people in shape, battling the waves that crashed into them hampered every movement. It grew more difficult when a white luxury yacht identical to the one that had chased thePinguin nosed its way into their area, the cyclopean eye of a searchlight cutting through the gathering dusk. It was the boat that had first caught Juan’s eye, but it was what that boat had been tied to that commanded his attention.

“Must have gotten a buy-one-get-one deal on those babies,” Juan said.

“Only BOGOs I get are at the supermarket for potato chips,” Sloane quipped back.

After fifteen minutes of them swimming around to avoid the searchlight’s powerful beam, the big yacht roared off into the darkness, giving Juan a bearing on which way to head, not that he thought he could miss their target.

The cool water had begun to sap their strength. To make their job easier, Juan handed his Glock and the satellite phone to Sloane and shucked off his pants. He tied the legs closed at the cuffs and held the open waist into the wind so the pants filled with air. He quickly cinched them closed with the belt. He traded the makeshift flotation device to Sloane for his gun and phone. “Just make sure you keep one hand on the waistband so it doesn’t leak air.”

“I’ve heard about doing that but I’ve never seen it done.”

Sloane’s teeth hadn’t begun to chatter but he could hear the strain in her voice. Juan said, “It was a lot easier practicing in a swimming pool.” Now wasn’t the time to tell her that the maneuver had saved his life on more than one occasion.

Buoyed by the air-filled pants Sloane swam much more strongly. And as they got closer to their destination, its massive size was acting like a damper for the waves.

“Do you feel that?” Sloane asked.

“What?”

“The water, it’s warmer.”

For a moment Juan was afraid that Sloane’s body was no longer fighting the cold but rather succumbing to its icy tentacles. But then he felt it, too. The water was warmer and not just a degree or two but as much as ten or fifteen. He wondered if an active geothermal vent was causing such a temperature increase. Could that also explain the massive structure floating atop the waves? Did it somehow harness its power?

What Papa Heinrick had called a metal snake was in fact a dull green pipe that Juan judged to be at least thirty feet in diameter with all but the top six submerged. The pipe wasn’t solid, however; it flexed along its length with each wave that passed under it. He judged his earlier estimate that the structure was a thousand feet long to be accurate.

The water was nearly eighty degrees when they finally reached the pipe. Juan placed his hand against the metal and felt it was warm to the touch. He could also feel the vibration of machinery from within the structure, massive pistons sawing back and forth with each thrust of the sea.

They swam along its flank, keeping enough distance so a wave wouldn’t smash them into it, and found one of the hinge points after a couple hundred feet. The sound of machinery was louder as the mechanism converted the action of the waves into potential energy of some kind. Rungs were welded to the side of the pipe to allow workers access to the massive hinge. Juan had Sloane climb up first. She had his pants deflated and untied by the time he joined her.

She gasped. There was just enough light for her to see that below his knee his right leg was a prosthesis.

“I’m sorry, that was rude,” she whispered. “I had no idea. You don’t limp or anything.”

“Gotten used to it over the years,” Juan replied, tapping the titanium strut that acted as his shin. “Parting shot from the Chinese Navy a few years back.”

“Ihave to hear your life story.”

Juan thrust aside thoughts about how George Adams could have missed the pipe when he reconnoitered the area from theOregon ’s chopper. Instead, he steeled himself to the practicalities of their situation. He and Sloane were vulnerable as long as the men remained on the yacht tied up on the far end of the structure. There was no other option.

He slipped into his pants and found an access hatch on top of the pipe. He opened it and saw there was a second hatch below. They’d explore later. He wedged the bag containing the satellite phone in the space between the two doors and locked the outer hatch closed.

He took Sloane’s hand so she would look him in the eye. “I can’t afford to take prisoners because I don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck out here. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“You can stay here if you want, but I’m not ordering you to.”

“I’ll come with you and see how I feel when we get closer.”

“Honest enough. Let’s go.”

For the first five hundred feet they could walk in a crouch to keep from being seen from the yacht, but as they got closer Juan ordered Sloane flat, and together they crawled across the undulating pipe, clutching at its smooth surface whenever a particularly large wave caused it to snap like a whip.

Juan, who’d never suffered seasickness in his life, found the odd lurching motion nauseating. Sloane, too, looked a little worse for wear.

Fifty feet from the yacht, he had them slither forward so the crest of the pipe hid them from the boat until they were just a dozen or so feet away. They could see the yacht clearly where it was tied to a dock that itself was secured to the side of a pipe segment. Heavy duty rubber fenders flexed and creaked to keep everything separated. Lights blazed from the yacht’s windows while up on the bridge a lookout was silhouetted against the green glow of a radar monitor. They could see a tripod-mounted rocket launcher secured to the long foredeck.

Had the Corporation been running this operation Juan would have fired the entire crew for poor light discipline. The yacht could be seen from a mile away and an observer in a small boat could easily hide from the radar in the back clutter of the storm.

Though he was forced to admit they had gotten a damned good bead on him and Sloane when they approached.

They clung to the side of the pipe for nearly an hour, their bodies able to withstand their wet clothes and the cold wind because of the warm metal. Juan determined there were four men aboard the yacht and that they took turns monitoring the radar display on the bridge. For a while they took to carrying weapons with them, still hyped up after blowing apart theOregon ’s lifeboat, but soon boredom dulled their vigilance and Juan could see they no longer had their machine pistols slung across their shoulders.

With nothing but the element of surprise to overcome the four-to-one odds, Juan knew his best approach was stealth and then overwhelming savagery.

“I’d better do this alone,” he told Sloane and slowly eased himself over the top of the pipe.

The hard-edged timbre in his voice made her shudder.

Cabrillo slid across the pipe and dropped nimbly to the floating dock, all the while never taking his eyes off the bridge watch stander who was distracting himself by peering into the storm through a pair of night vision goggles. He padded across the dock and lightly stepped over the gunwale and onto the yacht’s aft deck. A sliding glass door led into the cabin while a set of stairs integrated into the boat’s fiberglass shell rose up to the bridge.

The door was tightly sealed against the wind.

Juan crouched low as he took the steps, twisting his head horizontal when he reached the top so only a sliver of his face could be seen from the bridge. The watch stander was still looking out at the sea.

Moving so slowly that he appeared to be standing still Juan inched up the rest of the way. A pistol was sitting on the dash, less than a foot from the man, who Juan noted had him by a good three inches and thirty pounds. The size difference meant strangling him silently was out of the question. He’d fight like a bull.

Cabrillo crossed the ten feet separating them when a strong gust hit the boat. The man was just reaching up to remove the goggles from around his head when Juan yanked his jaw with one hand and used the power of his shoulder to slam his forearm into the side of his skull. The paired forces torqued his spinal column past the breaking point and vertebrae separated with a discreet crack. He laid the corpse gently onto the deck.

“Three to one,” he mouthed silently, feeling nothing for the killing because two hours earlier they had blown his boat out of the water without warning.

He eased himself over the side of the bridge to a narrow catwalk that allowed access to the long forward deck from the aft section of the yacht. There were windows to his right and left. One was dark while the flicker of a television from the second cast an electric hue. He snuck a quick glance into the area where the TV was playing. One of the guards was sitting on a leather sofa watching a martial arts DVD while another stood in the dimly lit kitchenette tending a teapot on one of the gas burners. He had a pistol in a shoulder holster. Juan couldn’t tell if the other man was carrying.

He could tell from their placement in the room that he wouldn’t have a clear shot at either of them from the aft deck, and he had no idea where the fourth guard was. Presumably he was asleep, but Juan knew how easily presuming could get you killed.

Cabrillo leaned back over the polished aluminum railing to give himself a little room on the narrow walkway and opened fire. He put two rounds into the guy at the stove, the impact lifting his body up onto the lit burners. His shirt caught fire instantly.

The guard on the couch had reflexes like a cat. By the time Juan swiveled the barrel and triggered off two more rounds he was off the couch and rolling across the plush carpet. The bullets tore through the sofa and blew wads of ticking into the air.

Juan adjusted his aim, but the guard had found cover behind a wet bar set against the far wall. He didn’t have enough ammunition to blast away randomly and was already angry at himself for the two bullets he wasted on the couch. When the second guard emerged from behind the bar he had his machine pistol ready and triggered off half a magazine in an uncontrolled burst.

Cabrillo dove flat as glass shattered and bullets screamed above him. The spray of rounds ricocheted off the massive steel pipe behind him, zinging harmlessly into the night. He scrambled aft and fought the natural urge to roll off the boat and onto the dock. Instead he gripped a stanchion that supported a retractable awning and whipped his body around it so that he was on the stairs again. He climbed as quickly as he could and leaned over the railing above the shattered window.

The stubby barrel of the guard’s machine pistol appeared, tracking back and forth as he sought his prey.

When he couldn’t see Cabrillo’s body lying dead on the catwalk, his head and upper back emerged. He looked fore and aft and when he still didn’t see Cabrillo he leaned out further so he could look down on the dock.

“Wrong direction, pal.”

The guard twisted his shoulders, trying to raise the Skorpion. Juan stopped him with one round through the temple. The machine pistol dropped into the gap between the boat and the dock.

The Glock’s sharp report gave his position away to the final guard. The bridge floor erupted with ragged holes as the gunman below sprayed the cabin ceiling.

Juan tried to throw himself onto the dash but staggered when a bullet blew his artificial foot in half. The kinetic force of the impact, plus his own momentum, vaulted him over the low windscreen and he rolled down the sloping wall of glass that fronted the lower cabin spaces.

His back slammed into the foredeck, forcing the air from his lungs in an explosive whoosh. He levered himself onto his knees, but when he tried to stand the mechanisms that controlled his foot refused to respond. His state-of-the-art prosthesis was now no more than a wooden peg leg.

Inside one of the yacht’s beautifully appointed cabins he could see the fourth gunman silhouetted against the raging fire burning in the main salon. The propane line that fed the stove had burned through and a roaring jet of liquid fire blasted upward, spreading flames across the ceiling from corner to corner.

Molten plastic dripped onto the carpet, starting numerous smaller blazes.

The guard had heard Juan’s tumble over the roar of the inferno. He shifted his aim from his cabin’s ceiling to the main window and stitched the safety glass with bullets. A dozen crazed spiderwebs appeared in the wide pane and chips rained down on Cabrillo like fistfuls of diamonds.

Juan waited a beat and started to rise in order to fire back, and as he did the guard burst through the weakened glass, slamming into his chest and knocking him flat once again. He managed to wrap an arm around the man’s leg as they tumbled across the deck. The guard ended up on top of Cabrillo but couldn’t maneuver his machine pistol for a shot. He had Juan’s gun hand pinned. The guard tried to smash his forehead against Juan’s nose but Cabrillo ducked his chin at the last second and their skulls collided hard enough to make Juan’s eyelids flutter.

The guard then tried to ram his knee into Cabrillo’s groin. He deflected the blow by twisting his lower body and absorbing the impact on his thigh. When the guard tried it again, Juan wedged a knee between the two of them and thrust upward with every ounce of his strength. He managed to lift the man off of him momentarily, but the guard was just as strong and tried to crush Cabrillo as he came back down.

Juan had managed to lever his prosthetic limb up just enough so the dagger-sharp remains of his carbon fiber foot sliced into the taut muscles of his opponent’s abdomen. Juan grabbed his attacker’s shoulders, drawing the guard toward him at the same time he kicked hard with the leg.

The sensation of the artificial limb sinking into the guard’s stomach would haunt the chairman’s nightmares for years to come. Juan pushed the guard aside as his screams gave way to wet gurgles, and finally silence.

He staggered to his feet. The back half of the yacht was engulfed in fire, flames torn almost horizontal by the powerful wind. There was no way to battle the conflagration so Juan stepped to the side of the boat.

He eased over the railing and lowered himself to the deck. He knelt and quickly rinsed his prosthesis in the sea.

“Sloane,” he shouted into the night. “You can come out now.”

Her face emerged over the top of the immense pipe, a pale oval against the dark night. Slowly, she rose from a crouch and came toward him. Juan hobbled across the deck to meet her. They were two feet apart when he saw her eyes go wide. Her mouth began to open but Juan had already anticipated her warning. He whirled, his damaged leg kicking out from under him on the slick dock yet still he raised the Glock as a fifth guard appeared on the yacht’s foredeck, carrying a pistol in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He was also a second faster than Cabrillo.