“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.