Clive Cussler - Skeleton Coast

“Hiya, boys,” Juan called cheerfully when they were within earshot. “Any chance you could lend me a hand here?”

AFTER being stripped of their weapons, radios, and gear, Eddie, Mike, and Ski were dumped into adjoining cells in the block the Zimbabwean soldiers were using to guard Moses Ndebele. Geoffrey Merrick had been taken by a group of civilians who matched what Eddie thought a bunch of environmentalist fanatics would look like. You couldn’t discern their gender by judging hair length alone.

The stench of patchouli oil barely masked the odor of marijuana that permeated their clothes.

Eddie massaged his jaw where Susan Donleavy had sucker punched him after her friends had woken her. A guard who’d seen the blow walked by his cage at that moment, saw what he was doing, and smirked.

Eddie estimated there were about a hundred armed men in the prison, and now that the adrenaline had been flushed from his body and he’d had time to think through his situation he understood why there were so many. Moses Ndebele was seen by many as a potential savior of his country—the ruling regime would do anything to silence him. If they held him in a prison in Zimbabwe, it would become a rallying point for his followers. But out here nobody knew where to find him. They could hold him indefinitely.

He wondered about Merrick and Ndebele being here at the same time and assumed there was a connection but couldn’t see what it was. Daniel Singer must have made some sort of deal with the government of Zimbabwe to use the old prison or vice versa.

A couple of hours had passed since they’d been discovered. Because Linc hadn’t been brought to the cell block, that meant the former SEAL must have gotten away on one of the bikes. Eddie was relieved.

The officer in charge of the garrison had announced that the Corporation team would be executed at dawn. There was no sense in Linc sacrificing himself needlessly if he had a chance to escape.

But with the chairman stuck out in the desert, Lincoln on his own except for Tiny Gunderson and Doc Huxley, and theOregon more than two hundred miles away, Eddie conceded the chance of rescue was slim. They would need a fleet of helicopters to pull off an aerial assault and the only vehicle currently aboard ship was Linc’s Harley, so crossing the desert was out.

Eddie had gone into the CIA immediately after college and spent the majority of the next fifteen years flying into and out of China, cultivating a network of informants who in turn allowed the United States to maintain its uneasy relationship with the mainland. He’d been inserted via a submarine onto Hainan in the spring of 2001 when the Chinese were holding the crew of an EP-3 spy plane and passed on information that kept the crisis from becoming a war. He’d maneuvered around China’s secret police, one of the most efficient in the world, with near impunity because he was so good at what he did. The irony of being caught by a third-rate dictator’s Praetorian guards wasn’t lost on him.

Despite the odds, Eddie still had faith that Juan Cabrillo would find a way to save them. Though the two served in the CIA at the same time, they hadn’t met until after leaving government service. That didn’t mean Eddie hadn’t heard of Cabrillo. Juan had singlehandedly pulled off some of the most difficult assignments in the agency’s history. And because he was fluent in Spanish, Arabic, and Russian, his missions had been in some of the toughest countries on earth. He was a bit of a legend at Langley. His reputation, along with his white-blond hair, had earned him the nickname Mr. Phelps, the lead character from the oldMission: Impossible television show. Whether tracking drug smugglers from Colombia into Panama or infiltrating a terrorist group in Syria planning to blow up the Israeli Knesset with a hijacked airliner, Cabrillo had done it all.

So if anyone was able to spring them from this hellhole with only a couple of hours to go before dawn and limited resources, Eddie was sure Juan was the man.

A flashlight beam stabbed out of the darkness and blinded Cabrillo. Behind the glare he distinctly heard the sound of rifle bolts being cocked back. He held still. The next few seconds would determine if he lived or died. One of the men moved closer, covering Juan with a massive revolver, an old Webley if he wasn’t mistaken. The man was older than Juan, pushing fifty, with white shooting through the tight curls on his head and wrinkles lining his forehead.

“Who are you?” he asked suspiciously.

“My name is Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.” Judging by the man’s age, the fact they were all armed, and that they were headed in the general direction of the Devil’s Oasis, Juan gambled his life by saying, “I want to help you rescue Moses Ndebele.”

The man’s fist tightened around the antique pistol, his dark eyes unreadable in the shifting light.

Juan plunged on, praying he was right about the identity of this group. “Three of my men are at the prison now, trying to rescue an American businessman, when they were captured by troops guarding Ndebele. One of my guys managed to escape and is waiting with an aircraft about forty miles from the prison. If I’m going to save my people I am willing to help you save your leader.”

The gun remained rock steady. “How did you find us?”

“My main parachute fouled and when I was drifting down on the reserve here I saw your headlights. I jury rigged a para-ski and have been following you.”

“Your story is just strange enough to be true.” The man lowered his pistol and said something in a native dialect. Another of the Africans stepped forward and withdrew a knife from his pocket.

“Just so you know, I have a Glock automatic in a holster and an MP-5 machine pistol strapped around my back.”

The man with the knife glanced at the group leader. He nodded and the second African cut a slit into the nylon, allowing Juan to take his first deep breath since tumbling down the dune. He stood slowly, keeping his arm well away from the holstered Glock.

“Thank you,” he said and extended his hand. “Please call me Juan.”

“Mafana,” the headman said, and clasped Cabrillo’s thumb in a traditional greeting. “What do you know of ourbaba , our father, Moses Ndebele?”

“I know that he is to be tried and executed very soon and if that happens any chance of you overthrowing your government is gone.”

“He is the first leader to unite both major tribes in Zimbabwe, the Matabele and the Mashona,” Mafana said. “During our war of independence he held the rank of general before the age of thirty. But after the war the ruling elite saw his popularity as a threat to their power. He has been imprisoned and tortured often. They have had him in custody this time for two years and will kill him if we do not rescue him.”

“How many men do you have?”

“Thirty. All of us served with Moses.”

Juan looked at the men’s faces. None of them were under forty, yet there was a lean hunger in their eyes, a measure of confidence of men who had tasted combat that made the years since irrelevant.

“Can you fix your vehicle?” he asked, taking a step forward, but forgetting he was still attached to the main chute’s plastic back plate. He promptly fell on his face. A couple of the men chuckled.

Chagrined, Cabrillo turned around so he was sitting and pulled up his pants leg. The chuckles died on their lips when they saw the gleaming artificial leg. He yanked it off, saying, “Just think of it as the biggest Swiss Army knife in the world.”

The laughter returned. Mafana helped Juan to stand and gave him an arm to steady him as he hopped across the soft sand toward the temporary camp.

“To answer your question, yes it can be fixed. Dirt has entered the fuel pump and stopped it from working. We should be ready to go in another few minutes but we have lost a great deal of time.”