Skeleton Coast (with Jack DuBrul) by Clive Cussler

Author:Clive Cussler [Cussler, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9781429527637
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 2006-04-04T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

RIGGERS had laid out the insertion team’s parachutes in one of the Oregon’s empty holds. The shiny black nylon looked like spilled oil on the deck plates. When Juan entered after a twenty-minute conversation with Langston Overholt at the CIA, Mike Trono and Jerry Pulaski were already there, carefully folding their parachutes so when they deployed twenty-five thousand feet above the Namib Desert they wouldn’t foul. Mike was a former para-rescue jumper from the Air Force while Ski had come to the Corporation after fifteen years as a recon Marine. Max was chatting with Eddie and Linc as they checked equipment and weapons arranged on trestle tables set up along one wall of the hold.

Cabrillo knew that every member of the Corporation could work with anyone else without the slightest problem, but there were a few dream pairings among the crew. Linc and Eddie were one, and Mike and Ski were another. When together, each team was absolutely devastating under fire and could operate at an almost telepathic level.

Next to the tables were four rugged-looking motorcycles. These were what the Oregon had gone to Cape Town to pick up. Designed for hard desert riding, they had fat balloon tires for crossing soft sand and extra-powerful shock absorbers. In the past few days a team of mechanics had stripped them down to bare essentials to save on weight and covered up their once garish colors with a desert camouflage paint job.

His ship’s cell phone rang as he walked across the cavernous space. “Cabrillo.”

“Chairman, it’s Eric. Just want to let you know that we’ll be in range of Swakopmund in twenty minutes. I’ve already alerted George so he’ll have the chopper fueled and ready. Mark’s getting our gear together now. Tiny will be at the airport with the Citation by the time we reach him and I’ve even been able to charter a plane in Kinshasa.”

“Good work.”

“If everything goes as planned we’ll be on the hunt at dawn tomorrow.”

“That’ll give you, what, eighteen hours to search before the batteries die?”

“Give or take. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but we’ll find them.”

Everyone aboard was well aware how personally Juan took being used by Benjamin Isaka and his rebel partner, Samuel Makambo. That he had unleashed so many weapons into a brutal civil war was like a lead weight in his stomach and every second they were in the field increased the likelihood they would be turned on innocent civilians. Despite what he’d said earlier to Sloane about responsibility, he knew if people died because of this debacle part of him would die as well.

“Thank you, Eric,” he said softly.

“No problem, Bossman.”

“How are we looking?” Juan said as he approached the three men. On the table was a scale model of the Devil’s Oasis prison that Kevin Nixon in the Magic Shop had constructed using satellite images and the few grainy photographs they’d been able to find on the Internet.

“Kevin made us a nice toy,” Eddie said, “but without knowing the interior layout and Merrick’s exact location we’re going in blind.

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