Skeleton Coast

“Those are the same two points my boss threw at me when I brought this to him. And to that I said: If I was able to figure all this out, then someone else could, too, and a billion dollars’ worth of diamonds could be sitting a couple miles offshore where anyone with scuba tanks and a flashlight could find them.”

“To which he said?”

“ ‘I’ll give you a week and Tony Reardon to help you. And no matter what, destroy all the evidence you’ve gathered.’ ”

“That isn’t anywhere near enough time to check an area that must be a couple hundred square miles,”

Juan said. “To do it properly you’d need a ship able to tow a side-scan sonar unit as well as metal detection gear. And even that isn’t guaranteed.”

Sloane shrugged. “They didn’t put much credence in my idea. Giving me a week, a little money, and Tony was more than I could hope and why I wanted to tap local sources for information.”

“I’m curious—why did you take this to your superiors? Why not just search for the ship yourself and keep the diamonds if you found them?”

Her mouth turned downward in a deep frown as if he’d just insulted her, which he had. “Captain, the thought never crossed my mind. Those diamonds were mined at a DeBeers facility and rightfully belong to the company. I would no more keep them for myself than I would walk into the vault and load my pockets with loose stones.”

“I’m sorry I said that.” Juan was charmed by her integrity. “That was way out of line.”

Sloane said, “Thank you. Apology accepted. Now that I’ve told you the truth, will you help? I can’t promise you anything but I’m sure the company will reimburse you for your time if we do find theRove .

It’s only a couple hours of your time to check the coordinates Papa Heinrick gave me.”

Juan said nothing for a moment, his blue eyes cast toward the ceiling as he thought through his next moves. He suddenly got to his feet and started for the door. “Would you excuse me a moment,” he said to Sloane, then addressed the hidden microphones. “Max, meet me at my cabin.” He meant the faux cabin they used for Customs inspectors. It was the midway point between the elevator up from the op center and the mess hall.

Hanley was waiting outside the filthy cabin when Juan rounded the corner. He was leaning against a bulkhead tapping his pipe stem against his teeth, a sure sign something was on his mind. He straightened when the Chairman approached. Even with the door closed Juan’s nose wrinkled at the stale smoke smell emanating from the cabin.

“What do you think?” Juan asked without preamble.

“I think we need to stop messing around and get to Cape Town to pick up the equipment we’re going to need if we want to rescue Merrick before he dies of old age.”

“Besides that.”

“The whole thing sounds like a crock to me.”

“I’d agree totally if we hadn’t seen the attack on thePinguin for ourselves.” Juan paused, marshaling his thoughts.

“You think we’ve stumbled onto something?” Max asked to prod his friend.

“Guys on million-dollar yachts don’t go blasting away at someone without a damned good reason. In this case, I believe they’re protecting something. Sloane says no one knew what vessel they were looking for so it’s possible they’re guarding something other than a purported treasure ship.”

“You don’t seriously believe in Papa Heinrick’s giant metal snakes?”

“Max, there’s something here. I can feel it.” Juan turned to his friend, catching his eye so there would be no misunderstanding. “Do you remember what I told you just before we took on those two guys from NUMA headed for Hong Kong harbor?”

“They were checking out the old SSUnited States . That was the mission you lost your leg,” Max said, his voice matching Cabrillo’s introspective tone.

Juan unconsciously shifted, placing his weight on the limb made of carbon fiber and titanium. “The mission that cost me my leg,” he echoed.

Max stuck his pipe in his mouth. “It’s been a couple of years but I believe your exact words were ‘Max, I hate to quote an overused cliché, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’ ”

Juan didn’t blink and held Hanley’s appraising stare. “Max, I’ve got the same damn feeling.”

Max held the gaze a second longer, and then nodded. A decade together had taught him to trust the chairman no matter how irrational the request and no matter how long the odds. “What’s your play?”

“I don’t want to delay theOregon any more than we already have. As soon as I’m away make for Cape Town and pick up the equipment we need. But on the way I want you to send up George to have a look where the snakes were spotted.” George Adams was the pilot of the Robinson R44 Clipper helicopter secreted inside one of the holds. “I’ll get the coordinates from Sloane.”

“You’re headed for Walvis Bay?”

“I want to talk to Papa Heinrick for myself and also to Sloane’s guide and her chopper jockey. I’ll take one of the lifeboats off the topside davits so Sloane won’t know about the boat garage or anything else.”

Though they looked as dilapidated as the rest of theOregon , the two lifeboats were as high-tech as their mother ship. If they had the range Juan would feel more than comfortable crossing the Atlantic during hurricane season in one of them.

He continued. “This shouldn’t take more than a day or two. I’ll link back up with theOregon when you return to Namibia. That reminds me, I’ve been in the gym for the past hour and haven’t been updated.

What’s the latest?”

Max crossed his arms. “Tiny Gunderson’s rented us a suitable plane, so that’s taken care of. As you know, the ATVs are waiting for us at Duncan Dock in Cape Town and Murph’s got a librarian in Berlin pulling out everything they have about the Devil’s Oasis or, as we now know, theOase des Teufels .”

Their break at finding the location where Geoffrey Merrick was being held had come when Linda Ross guessed that the Devil’s Oasis might be in Namibia, and checked for references using its German name.

But after gathering preliminary data their break seemed short-lived.

At the turn of the twentieth century the Imperial German government decided to copy the notorious French penal colony in Guiana called Devil’s Island, a remote, escape-proof penitentiary for the nation’s most hardened criminals. The German government constructed a maximum-security prison in the middle of the desert in what was their most isolated colonial outpost. Built of native stone and surrounded by hundreds of miles of sand dunes, even if a prisoner were to escape there was no place to go. They would die in the desert long before they reached the coast. Unlike Devil’s Island or even San Francisco’s infamous Alcatraz, there wasn’t even a hint of rumor that any prisoners successfully escaped from the jail until its closure in 1916 because of the drain the remote facility caused to Germany’s wartime economy.

A rail line that once serviced the Devil’s Oasis had been removed when the prison was abandoned, so there was no reliable access except by air or all-terrain vehicles. Both options posed their own challenges and obstacles because even a small contingent of captives holding Merrick prisoner would detect either a helicopter or a truck long before Cabrillo could get his forces into attack position.

By trolling archived databases and using commercially available satellite images, they were well on their way to finalizing an audacious plan to rescue the billionaire.

“Anything from the kidnappers or Merrick’s company?”

“Nothing from the kidnappers and Merrick/Singer is talking with a couple different HRTs.” While normally the job of the military or police, there were private companies who handled kidnappings.

Though it was not the usual kind of job they undertook, Hanley was presenting the Corporation as a hostage rescue team and while they intended to rescue Merrick/Singer’s founder no matter what, it wouldn’t hurt if they could get a little something for their efforts.