Клайв Касслер - Typhoon Fury

George “Gomez” Adams Helicopter pilot and drone operator aboard the Oregon .

Hali Kasim Chief communications officer on the Oregon .

Dr. Julia Huxley Chief medical officer on the Oregon .

Kevin Nixon Chief of the Oregon ’s Magic Shop.

Maurice Chief steward on the Oregon .

PHILIPPINE NATIONAL POLICE

Luis Navarro Inspector in charge of prisoner transfer.

Captain Garcia Captain of prison transport vessel.

CHINESE MINISTRY OF STATE SECURITY

Zhong Lin Field agent.

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

Abby Yamada Chief computer cryptanalyst.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Langston Overholt IV The Corporation’s CIA liaison.

PHILIPPINES COMMUNIST INSURGENCY

Salvador Locsin Leader of the insurgents.

Nikho Tagaan Locsin’s second-in-command and marine engineer.

Stanley Alonzo Interior Ministry bureaucrat and mole for the insurgency.

Mel Ocampo Biochemist hired by the insurgency.

Maria Santos Biochemist hired by the insurgency.

Dolap Insurgent soldier and Locsin’s cousin.

THAILAND

Beth Anders Art theft investigator and appraiser.

Raven Malloy Beth’s bodyguard and former U.S. Army Military Police investigator.

Udom Leader of drug gang.

Alastair Lynch Interpol duty station official in Bangkok.

Gerhard Brekker Leader of South African mercenary squad.

Altus Van Der Waal Brekker’s second-in-command.

UNITED STATES ARMY

Greg Polten Civilian biochemical weapons expert.

Charles Davis Greg Polten’s assistant.

General Amos Jefferson Director of biochemical weapons testing at Dugway Proving Ground.

PROLOGUE

WORLD WAR II

THE SECOND BATTLE OF CORREGIDOR

THE PHILIPPINES

FEBRUARY 20, 1945

The tunnel exploded.

Sergeant Daniel Kekoa dropped to the ground and covered his head as the M4 Sherman tank that had fired on the ragged entrance was thrown backward a dozen yards by the gigantic secondary blast from inside the tunnel. The thirty-ton tank flipped over and landed on its turret before a loose shell inside tore it apart in a fireball.

When debris stopped raining down around him, Kekoa staggered to his feet, his ears ringing from the deafening explosion. Dozens of American soldiers lay dead or writhing in pain. He turned over the nearest man down. The vacant eyes and chunk of shrapnel protruding from the soldier’s chest showed that he was beyond help.

Kekoa shook his head in disgust at the deadly foul-up. The briefing from Army Intelligence indicated that this particular tunnel sheltered enemy soldiers defending the island fortress strategically located at the mouth of Manila Bay. Kekoa had called in the tank to prevent a suicidal banzai attack, which had become commonplace with the fanatical Japanese. But there had been no indication that the tunnel might also contain large quantities of explosives close to the entrance.

Captain John Hayward crouched nearby in one of the many craters created by the American pre-invasion bombardment, his hands still over his ears. Kekoa reached down to haul him to his feet. The slight man, with brown hair and circular-framed glasses, was shaking.

“All clear now, Captain,” Kekoa said. “I told you I’d get you through this battle in one piece.” Of course, Kekoa could make no such promise, but what else was he going to tell this officer whose safety the Army had entrusted to him?

“Thanks, Sergeant. I appreciate that.” Hayward took in the carnage with wide eyes. “What happened?”

“Must have been an ammo dump inside the cave. Your boys in the OSS told us the ammunition would be stored farther down the tunnels.”

“They’re not my boys. That intel came from a different part of the Office of Strategic Services. I’m not a spy, Sergeant Kekoa. I’m a scientist in the Research and Analysis Branch.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised, given the way you carry that carbine.”

The mission briefing had been just that: brief. The battalion commander had specifically asked for Kekoa to babysit Captain Hayward and follow his orders while keeping him alive. Everything else was on a need-to-know basis only, and as a grunt in the 24th Infantry “Hawaiian” Division, Kekoa apparently didn’t need to know anything. All Hayward had told his unit was that he needed to get inside the underground fortress before the Japanese could destroy it.

The tadpole-shaped island of Corregidor and its howitzers guarded the entrance to Manila Bay, one of the largest harbors in the Pacific. The strategic outpost, also known as The Rock, was four miles long and little more than a mile across at its widest. As a U.S. commonwealth, the Philippines had been the last bastion to fall during the initial Japanese onslaught at the outbreak of the war, holding on until the island’s forces surrendered in May of 1942, two months after Douglas MacArthur had been evacuated.

Kekoa was leading his unit as part of the operation to retake Malinta Hill on the island’s tail. Its vast grid of tunnels was bisected by a twenty-four-foot-wide main passageway that had served as a hospital and MacArthur’s headquarters. Dozens of smaller tunnels branched out from the main one, a bomb-proof network so large that it not only housed munitions, food, and water for a huge garrison that could withstand a siege for months but also had room for the thousand-bed hospital. In the three years since the Japanese conquered Corregidor, they had fortified their positions, digging out additional tunnels to augment the extensive system built by the Americans, some of which had been collapsed intentionally before the 1942 surrender.

Hayward’s target was inside one of those tunnels.

Kekoa took stock of the dozens of casualties and found out that two of the men who had died were in his platoon. Kekoa had served with both of them in the National Guard in Honolulu before joining the Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He then fought side by side with them during the invasions of New Guinea and the Filipino island of Leyte. They weren’t the first men he’d lost, and judging by the insanity of this mission, they wouldn’t be the last, either.

The explosion had closed off the entrance. They had to find another way in. Under Hayward’s direction, Kekoa gathered his platoon and headed toward the south side of Malinta Hill. The sound of rifle fire and artillery blasts continued nonstop from around the island, and Kekoa was bathed in the stench of gunpowder and burnt flesh.

When they reached their new position, Kekoa and Hayward crouched in a foxhole to plan the assault.

When he asked Hayward for orders, the captain hesitated and then asked, “What do you suggest?”

“Have you ever been in battle before, sir?”

“I think you know the answer to that. My office is in the new Pentagon building. This is the first time I’ve been outside the United States, let alone under fire.”