Skeleton Coast

Halfway up the stairs the quiet of the night was shattered by gunfire erupting from below them. Shrapnel, bits of concrete, and bullets whizzed all around them as they stood exposed on the steps. Both men dropped flat and immediately returned fire. Down below two native boats had pulled up to the jetty.

While rebels fired from the dock more began racing up the stairs.

“I guess Abala’s guy had a radio after all.” Eddie said, dropping his spent M-4 and drawing his Glock.

He fired rapidly as Linc hosed the dock with 5.56 mm rounds from his assault rifle.

The three rebels charging the stairs went down with double taps from Eddie’s pistol, their bodies tumbling off the steps in a tangle of limbs and blood. By the time he’d changed out magazines for his M-4, the fire from the dock had withered to a single AK-47 and Linc silenced this gun with a sustained burst that blew the rebel off the dock. The current took him almost immediately and he vanished down the river.

Above them an alarm horn had begun to sound.

“Let’s go,” Linc said, and the two men raced up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

They reached the top of the dam. Beyond it was the large reservoir and at the far end of the structure was a squat building with light spilling from its windows.

“Control room?” Linc whispered.

“Has to be.” Eddie pulled his throat mike into position. “Chairman, its Eddie. Linc and I are on the dam and about to approach the control center.” There was no need to tell him their presence had already been detected.

“Copy that. Advise when you’re in position to open the gates.”

“Roger.”

Keeping low so they didn’t silhouette themselves against the starry sky, they raced silently across the top of the dam. To their left spread the reservoir, a calm lake bisected by a white slash of reflected moonlight. To their right was a hundred-foot drop to a jumble of boulders littering the base of the dam.

When they reached the blockhouse, a boxy one-story concrete building with a single door and a pair of windows, they could see that beyond it were the sluice gates and penstock that diverted water to the facility’s turbines that were housed in a long building at the bottom of the dam. There was only enough water passing through the cha

With Linc on the other side, Eddie reached out and tried to open the blockhouse door. It was securely locked. Eddie motioned to the keyhole as if he had the key and cocked an eyebrow at Linc. Franklin Lincoln was the Corporation’s expert at lock picking and was rumored to have even broken into Juan’s gun safe on a bet from Linda Ross, but all he could do was shrug at his partner and pat his pockets. He’d forgotten to bring his picks.

Eddie rolled his eyes and reached into one of the pouches hanging from his belt. He molded a small amount of Semtex plastic explosives around the handle and inserted an electronic detonator. He and Linc moved a short way off.

Just before he keyed the detonator, a guard emerged from around the blockhouse. He wore a dark uniform and carried a flashlight and a pistol. Linc aimed instinctively and was an instant from firing before adjusting his site picture. He shot the pistol out of the guard’s hand. The man went down, screaming and clutching his arm to his chest. Linc ran over to him, pulling a pair of flex cuffs from his combat harness.

He checked the wound quickly, relieved that it was superficial, and bound the guard’s hands and feet.

“Sorry, buddy,” he said and rejoined Eddie.

Eddie fired off the charge. The explosion blew the handle apart and Linc threw open the door, Eddie covering him with his M-4.

The control room was brightly lit, an open space with banks of dials and levers along the walls and counters mounted with outdated computers. The three night operators immediately thrust their hands in the air when Linc and Eddie rushed into the room shouting for everyone to get down. They gestured with their rifles and the men sank to the concrete floor, their eyes wide with fear.

“Do as we say and no one gets hurt,” Eddie said, knowing how trite it sounded to the terrified workers.

Linc did a quick recon of the building, finding an empty conference room behind the control space and a closet-sized lavatory that was also empty except for a cockroach the size of his middle finger.

“Do any of you speak English?” Eddie asked as he cuffed the three Africans.

“I do,” one said, the tag on his blue jumpsuit showing his name was Kofi Baako.

“Okay, Kofi, like I said we’re not going to hurt you, but I want you to tell me how to open the emergency floodgates.”

“You will drain the reservoir!”

Eddie pointed at a multiline telephone; four of its five lights were blinking. “You’ve already contacted your superiors and I’m sure they’re sending additional people. The gates won’t be open for more than an hour. Now show me how to open them.”

Kofi Baako hesitated for another second, so Eddie yanked his pistol from its holster, making sure it was never pointed at the three men. His voice went from reasonable to savage. “You’ve got five seconds.”

“That panel there.” Baako nodded at the far wall. “The top five switches disengage the safety protocols.

The next five close the circuits to the gate motors and the bottom five open the gates themselves.”

“Can the gates be closed manually?”

“Yes, there is a room inside the dam with big hand cranks. They need two men to turn them.”

With Linc still at the front door watching for any more guards, Eddie flipped the switches in turn, watching the jeweled lights that were built into the control panel switch from red to green with each toggle thrown. Before he started on the last row he rested his throat mike against his neck. “Chairman, it’s me.

Be ready for it. I’m opening the gates now.”

“Not a minute too soon. Abala transferred the mortars from the Swift boats and has set them up on shore. A couple more rounds and they have us ranged.”

“Stand by for the big flush,” Eddie said and threw the last set of switches. With the last toggle in position a noise began to rise, low at first, but building to a rumble that shook the building. The gates were coming up and water was thundering down the face of the dam in a solid wall. It hit the bottom and exploded in a roiling cauldron that grew into a solid wave eight feet high that swept down the river, inundating the shoreline and ripping out trees and shrubs as it accelerated.

“That ought to do the trick,” Eddie said and emptied his clip into the control panel. The rounds punctured the thin metal and shredded the old electronics in a blaze of smoke and sparks.

“And that ought to buy us some time,” Linc added.

They left the technicians cuffed to a table and made their way back down the staircase. The sound and fury of the water pouring over the dam’s face was a palpable sensation while spray soaked their partially dry clothing.

By the time they reached the bottom and dragged the Zodiac to the river’s edge, the water had settled enough for them to launch the inflatable and start heading downstream for their rendezvous in Boma.

Back aboard theOregon , Juan was getting concerned. Abala had realized the Swift boats were too unstable for the mortars so he’d unloaded them and now his men were dialing in the range. The last explosive had hit less than twenty feet from the starboard rail.

To add to his problems, more and more native boats were arriving from upstream, loaded to the gunwales with rebels. While the water ca