Clive Cussler - Skeleton Coast

“The diamonds you gave to Moses Ndebele for his help?”

“You got it. Hey, I guess the story wasn’t so long after all,” Juan quipped.

“And you make a living doing this?” she asked and then answered her own question. “Of course you do.

I saw the clothes in Linda’s closet. It’s like Rodeo Drive in there.”

“Chairman, can I talk to you privately?” Linda asked.

Juan didn’t like the tone in her voice. He got up from his chair and offered it to Sloane with a flourish.

“The ship’s yours.” He guided Linda to the far corner of the op center. “What’s up?”

“I was going over my interrogation notes and, while I’m not positive, I think Susan Donleavy withheld something.”

“Something?”

“Not about what Singer’s attempting here. I got everything out of her about this that I could. It’s something else. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

“It’s about the timing of this whole operation,” Juan stated.

“It could be. I don’t know. Why would you say that?”

“It kept me up for most of the night,” he admitted. He laid out his concern. “Singer’s had this in motion for years, with the generators and the heaters, and suddenly he’s striking at an oil facility in order to release a couple million tons of toxic sludge. Why? Why now? He’s expecting hurricanes to carry the vapors across the Atlantic but he can’t predict when and where a storm will form.”

“Do you think maybe he can?”

“What I think is thathe thinks he can.”

“But that’s impossible. At least with any degree of accuracy. Hurricanes grow randomly. Some never get stronger than a tropical depression and simply blow themselves out at sea.”

“Exactly, and that wouldn’t work for his grand demonstration.”

“You think he knows there’s a major storm coming and that it will carry the oil vapors across the ocean?”

“I’ll do you one better,” Juan said. “I think he knows the storm’s track will slam it into the United States.”

“How could he know that?”

Juan brushed a hand through his crew cut. It was the only outward sign of his frustration. “That’s what kept me awake. I know it’s not possible for him to predict a hurricane, much less its path, but Singer’s actions can only lead us to that conclusion. Even without us here Makambo’s men will eventually be overrun and the oil shut off. So Singer can’t guarantee the fumes would drift far enough and remain airborne long enough to be sucked into a forming hurricane, or that if they do that the storm wouldn’t dissipate on its own. Not unless there’s another element to all this we don’t know about.”

“I can try again with Susan,” Linda offered. “I ended the interrogation after I learned what I needed to know about the attack on the oil terminal.”

Juan regarded her with pride. She was giving up even more of her soul. And as much as he wanted to protect her from the toll questioning Susan Donleavy had on her, he knew that she would have to do it again.

“There’s something there,” he said. “And I know you can find it.”

“I’ll do my best.” Linda turned to go.

“Keep me posted.”

TEN miles north of where Tiny Gunderson sat in his plane at the Cabinda airport with a hundred eager soldiers, Daniel Singer was talking with General Samuel Makambo of the Congolese Army of Revolution. Dawn was two hours away and the jungle was finally quieting as the nocturnal insects and animals bedded down for the day. Though, with the glare of so many oil rigs burning off natural gas both offshore and along the coastline, it was a wonder how the creatures maintained their circadian rhythms.

Around them in the lean-to were the most senior soldiers Makambo was willing to sacrifice for this mission. Leading the four-hundred-man expeditionary force was Colonel Raif Abala. He was here for two reasons: punishment for the debacle on the Congo River when he let the arms merchants get away with the diamonds, and because Makambo suspected the colonel was skimming stones from their blood diamond trade. He wouldn’t be too put out if Abala didn’t return.

The rebels had been hiding in plain sight near the squatters’ camps that had sprung up around the facility belonging to the oil giant Petromax. They wore regular, albeit ragged, clothing and acted as though they were here seeking employment. Their weapons and outboard boats had been easily concealed in the mangroves, with guards posted nearby to dissuade fishermen or people looking for bush meat to stray too close.

“Colonel,” Makambo said, “you know your duty.”

With his sheer size, Samuel Makambo was a commanding presence. And while what had once been battle-hardened muscle was slowly jelling into fat, he still possessed incredible strength. He favored mirrored sunglasses like his mentor, Idi Amin, and carried a swagger stick called asjambok made of plaited hippo hide. The pistols in his twin holsters were custom-made by Beretta; their gold inlays alone were worth a small fortune.

“Yes, sir,” Abala replied at once. “A hundred men will use the boats to launch attacks on the offshore loading terminal and the rigs themselves while the bulk of my force will concentrate on securing the compound.”

“It’s essential that you take control of the generating station as well as the pump control rooms,” Dan Singer, the architect of the attack, said. “And they must not be damaged.”

“The attack on those two parts of the terminal will be carried out by my best men. They will take them as soon as we break through the perimeter fences.”

“And your men are clear on how to work the controls?” Singer demanded.

“Many of them were employed at this very facility until our government forbade members of our tribe from working in Congo’s oil industry,” Abala said. “As soon as the tanker that’s currently loading has been decoupled from the terminal they know to turn the pumps on full force and dump the oil into the sea.”

“And on the rigs?”

“They will destroy the undersea pipes that send crude to the storage tanks onshore.”

Singer wished they could blow out the sides of the massive storage tanks, but they were situated in an earthen redoubt that would keep the oil contained. For the oil to properly evaporate he needed it spread over as large an area as possible. He turned to Makambo. “For every hour they hold the terminal and oil’s pouring into the sea, one million dollars will be automatically transferred into your Swiss bank account.”

“That money will go a long way to funding my revolution and improving the quality of life of our people,”

the guerilla leader said with a straight face. Singer knew the lion’s share of the cash would remain in Makambo’s account. “I made this bargain and call upon our soldiers to fight for the greater good of us all.”

When searching for his mercenary force Singer had thoroughly investigated Makambo and his Congolese Army of Revolution. They were nothing more than savage butchers who used torture and the intimidation of defenseless civilians to keep themselves supplied. While there was a tribal element to the conflict, human rights groups estimated that the CAR had killed more of their own people than the government they opposed. Makambo was just another example of the despotic nature of African politics.

“Very well,” Singer said. “Then it’s time for me to leave.”

He had planned on leaving Cabinda a day before the attack, but he’d remained as long as he dared, hoping against hope that he’d get word from Nina Visser. She and the others hadn’t been at the rendezvous site when the plane arrived, although tire tracks next to the runway indicated someone had been there recently. The pilot managed to follow them from the air, but only for only a couple of miles.