Clive Cussler: The Jungle

And that is what brought Cabrillo and this small team here, to one of the few places on earth never to be occupied by a foreign army. Even Alexander the Great had the sense to avoid Waziristan and the rest of the Northern Tribal Regions. They were here because a wealthy Indonesian businessman, Gunawan Bahar, had a son who ran away to join the Taliban, in much the same way youths of a few generations ago back in the United States ran off to join the circus. Only difference was that young Setiawan hadn’t developed mentally past the age of seven, and the cousin who’d brought him here had told the recruiter in Jakarta that Seti wanted to be a martyr.

American runaways became carnies. Setiawan’s fate was that of a suicide bomber.

Hali continued, “Stoney and Murph have been trolling every database they can lay their hands on since you left.” Eric Stone and Mark Murphy were the Corporation’s IT experts, along with their other duties. “Nothing much by way of news out of any of the ’stans.”

“Tell them to keep an eye out. I’m looking at a blond guy in NATO gear who looks like he’s in a world of hurt.”

“I’ll pass it on,” Hali Kasim, the ship’s chief communications officer, said.

Cabrillo switched back to the tactical net. “Recommendations?”

Linda Ross spoke up immediately. “We can’t leave him here. We all know that in a day or two he’s going to be the star of a jihadist beheading video.”

“Eddie?” Juan asked, knowing the answer.

“Save him.”

“Don’t even ask,” Linc rumbled.

“I didn’t need to.” Juan still had the target house under observation and wouldn’t shift his focus. “What are they doing now?”

“They have him up on his feet,” Linda replied. “His hands are tied behind his back. A couple of the village kids have come out to see him. One of them just spit on him. The other kicked him in the shin. Hold on. The captors are shooing the kids away. Okay, they’re leading him up behind the square, heading in the same direction as our target house. And they’re walking, and walking, and . . . Here we go. Three houses left of where Seti’s staying.”

“Linc, take the target,” Juan ordered. He paused a beat for the big former SEAL to get his binocs fixated and then switched his own to where the four terrorists were pushing their blond captive into a mud and stone house that was indistinguishable from all the others.

Two of the Afghans took up guard duty outside the simple wooden door. Juan tried to peer through the open window next to it, but the inside of the humble house was too dark to discern more than vague movement.

The Corporation had been hired to get Gunawan Bahar’s son away from al-Qaeda, not rescue a foreign soldier, but as was the case in the operation in Antarctica, Cabrillo’s moral compass was the primary force behind their actions. Saving that stranger, while not getting paid the million dollars Bahar had already forked over with the promise of another four when his son was on a plane back to Jakarta, was just as imperative in his mind.

Juan recalled the tears in Bahar’s eyes when he had explained during their only meeting about how his son idolized an elder cousin and how this boy had been secretly radicalized in a Jakarta mosque. Because of the mental challenges Seti faced, Gunawan had told him, the boy couldn’t rationally join a terrorist organization, so in effect he’d been kidnapped and brought here to this al-Qaeda mountain retreat.

Cabrillo had seen the undying love in the man’s tormented expression and heard it in his voice. He had no children of his own, but he was president of the Corporation and captain of its ship, Oregon . He loved his crewmates the way a father must, so he could well imagine the anguish Bahar was suffering. If one of his own had been kidnapped, he would move much more than heaven and earth to see them returned.

“YOU MUST UNDERSTAND what a blessed child he is,” the father had said, “a true gift from Allah. Outsiders may look upon him as a burden, but they can’t possibly know the love my wife and I have for the boy. It is perhaps wrong for me to say this, but of our three sons little Seti is our favorite.”

“I’ve heard that from other parents of special-needs kids,” Juan had replied, handing over the white cotton handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit coat so the man could dab his eyes. Like a lot of Muslims, Gunawan Bahar wore his emotions on his sleeve. “He is untouched by the ugliness of the real world.”

“That’s it exactly. Seti is truly an innocent and will remain that way all his life. Mr. Cabrillo, we will do anything to get our boy back. Of his cousin, we do not care. His parents have disavowed him because they know what he has done. But you must return my precious Seti.”

Like many of the private contracts the Corporation handled over the years, this meeting had been set up by a mysterious facilitator named L’Enfant . Juan himself had never met the man who called himself The Baby, but the contracts he sent the Corporation’s way were always legit, more or less, and in order for potential clients to get on the man’s radar, their bank accounts had to be well vetted.

Juan had ordered Eric Stone and Mark Murphy to tear their newest client’s life apart and had additionally run the operation by Overholt at the CIA as a courtesy. Just because Langley was upset at Cabrillo and his team didn’t mean Juan wouldn’t check to make sure Bahar wasn’t under investigation.

The last thing they needed now was to unknowingly work for some terrorist mastermind.

Gunawan Bahar had turned out to be just as he had presented himself, a wealthy Indonesian businessman grieving for his kidnapped child who was willing to do anything to have the boy returned to his family.

Upon their handshake, Bahar’s most fervid desire had become Juan’s, and not only because of the money. He felt a groundswell of anger toward anyone who would exploit a child like Seti, and it was made worse by what they intended the boy to do.

Now Cabrillo had taken responsibility for another life, that of the captured soldier. His desire to rescue him was as strong as his desire to save Setiawan.

Juan flicked his eyes to where the sun was setting over the mountains to the west, judging they had another thirty minutes till dusk and an hour until full dark. “Eddie, Linc, keep watch on the primary target. Linda, you’ve got where they’re keeping the soldier.”

Juan’s binoculars kept scanning the rest of the village and its access road.

The three acknowledged, and their careful observation continued. No detail was overlooked. Linc made sure to point out that there was a gap in the stone wall behind which they were keeping Seti that was big enough for Linda but not his muscled bulk. Linda reported that she’d seen in the flare of a match that there were two Taliban in the house with the prisoner and that he was most likely on the floor, judging by the angle of the Afghanis’ heads.

Just as the last of the sun slipped behind an icy peak and turned the underbelly of clouds blanketing the sky a dazzling shade of orange, Juan saw headlights approaching up the road below him. Three vehicles—the goat truck, the sedan with the prisoner, and now this new one—all in one day. Had to be what passed for gridlock in these parts, he thought.

It took several long minutes for the vehicle to make its grinding ascent to the mountain village, and the daylight was almost gone by the time it trundled into the square. A school bus, though half the normal length, it was painted in fantastical colors, with a string of beads hanging across the inside of the windshield and a rack on top that was currently empty. Garish trucks like this were the workhorses of central Asia, transporting people, animals, and goods of all kinds. When the team had passed through Peshawar on their way here, they had seen hundreds of them, no two exactly alike.