Skeleton Coast

“How about Overholt at Langley?”

“He likes the idea of us being here so long as it doesn’t interfere with any upcoming missions. Also, he confided that Merrick has been a big contributor to the president in the past and that the two of them had skied together a few times. We do this right and our stock in Washington’s on the rise.”

Cabrillo gri

Max feigned a hurt expression. “I can’t believe you’d say that about the slipperiest agent at the CIA.”

“And if we fail,” Juan added, “he disavows all knowledge blah, blah, blah. Escort Sloane down to the Pinguin so she can explain to Reardon that she’s remaining aboard, and get someone to unlimber the portside lifeboat. I need to shower and pack.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Max said as he started down the hallway, “but even standing upwind you’re pretty gamey.”

Juan peeled off the graying uniform shirt he’d worn for Sloane’s benefit as soon as he was through the door to his real cabin and had his shoes kicked off by the time he reached his bathroom. He turned the gold taps in the shower stall to a comfortably cool temperature and removed the rest of his clothing. He leaned against the glass enclosure to pull his leg from his prosthetic limb’s suction socket.

The powerful multihead sprays of water cascaded over him and while he’d like time to think through his decision to help Sloane Macintyre, he knew enough to trust his instincts. He doubted there was a treasure ship in these waters as much as he doubted the seas were infested with monstrous steel snakes.

But, there was no denying the fact that someone wanted Sloane to suspend her investigation. That was what he wanted to discover for himself—who they were and what they were protecting.

After toweling off and refitting his artificial leg, Juan threw some toiletries into a leather dopp kit. From the wardrobe in his bedroom he tossed a couple changes of clothes into a leather bag, and some sturdy boots. Next he went back to his office. He sat at his desk and spun the chair around to face an antique safe that had once sat in a train depot in New Mexico. His fingers on the dial were well practiced and fast. When the final pin clicked in place he spun the handle and heaved open the heavy door. Besides bundles of hundred-dollar bills, twenty-pound notes, and stacks of a dozen other currencies, the safe contained his personal arsenal. There was enough firepower in the big safe to start a small war. Three machine pistols, a couple assault rifles, a combat shotgun, a Remington 700 sniper rifle, plus drawers containing smoke, fragmentary, and flashbang grenades as well as a dozen pistols. He gauged the possible situations he could be facing and grabbed a Micro Uzi submachine gun and a Glock 19. He would have preferred the FN Five-SeveN pistol, which had quickly become his favorite handgun, but he wanted interchangeability of ammunition. Both the Glock and the Uzi used 9mm.

The four magazines were stored empty to preserve their springs, so he took a moment to load them. He stuffed the weapons, magazines, and a spare box of ammo under the clothes in his bag and finally dressed in lightweight duck trousers and an open-collared shirt.

He caught his reflection in the glass covering a picture on one wall. His jaw was firmly set and behind his eyes he could almost see the embers of anger stoking into a fire. He owed Sloane Macintyre nothing, nor did he owe anything to Geoffrey Merrick, but he would no more abandon them to an unknown fate than he’d strand a little old lady at a busy intersection.

Cabrillo snatched the bag off his bed and started topside, his body already responding to the first tingle of adrenaline.

12

ITwas inevitable that sand fleas would learn that the once abandoned prison deep in the desert was occupied again. Drawn by the scent of warm bodies, they had returned to the prison to act as a natural torture to the man-made ones meted out there over the years. Capable of laying sixty eggs a day, the first few that had entered the penitentiary had quickly grown to an infestation. The guards had been prepared with chemical sprays to keep the loathsome insects at bay. Their prisoners weren’t so lucky.

Merrick lay with his back propped against the hard stone wall of his cell scratching furiously at the bites that seemed to cover every inch of his body. In a perverse way it was good they had found him because the painful welts and constant new stings kept his mind focused on something other than the horror that had already taken place and the even greater calamity to come.

He cursed as a flea bit deep into the back of his ear. He caught the insect and crushed its body between his fingernails, grunting with satisfaction when he heard the carapace snap. A small victory in a war he was losing.

Without the moon, the darkness in the cell block was a tangible presence, a spectral ether that seemed to rush down Merrick’s throat whenever he opened his mouth and filled his ears so he couldn’t hear the whisper of wind he knew had to be blowing. The prison was slowly robbing him of his senses. The pervasive sand had choked his nose so he could no longer smell the food he’d been given, and without smell his sense of taste was but a dull suspicion that the meals were something other than dust. He was left only with his hearing and sense of touch. And with nothing to listen to and his body aching from so many days spent on a stone floor and now stinging with flea bites, they did him little good.

“Susan?” he called. He’d said her name every few minutes since being returned to his cell. She hadn’t once responded and he suspected she might have been dead but he continued anyway for no other reason than calling her name was more rational than giving in to the overwhelming urge to scream.

To his amazement he thought he heard her stir, a mewling sound like a newborn kitten and the rasp of cloth against stone.

“Susan!” he said more sharply. “Susan, can you hear me?”

He distinctly heard her moan.

“Susan, it’s Geoff Merrick.”Who else would it be? he thought. “Can you speak?”

“Dr. Merrick?”

Her voice was ragged and weak and yet it was the most glorious sound he had ever heard. “Oh, thank God, Susan. I thought you were dead.”

“I—um.” She faltered and coughed and that made her moan all the more loudly. “What happened? My face, it’s numb, and my body, I think my ribs are broken.”

“You don’t remember? You were beaten up, tortured. You said they never asked you any questions.”

“Did they hit you, too?”

Merrick’s heart squeezed. Through her pain and confusion, Susan Donleavy could still care about his condition. Most people never would have asked and just gone on about their own injuries. He wished, God how he wished, that she hadn’t been dragged into this nightmare. “No, Susan,” he said gently.

“They didn’t.”

“I’m glad about that,” she replied.

“I learned who kidnapped us, and why.”

“Who?” There was hope in her voice when she asked, as if putting a name and face to their captors would make their situation better.

“My former business partner.”

“Dr. Singer?”

“Yes, Dan Singer.”

“Why? Why would he do this to you?”

“To us, you mean. Because he’s sick, Susan, a twisted, bitter man who wants to show the world his warped vision of the future.”

“I don’t understand.”