Skeleton Coast

Singer kept glaring at Cassedine until the captain backed off, as he knew he would. Singer believed most alcoholics were weak, and this one was no different. He was so far gone he would do just about anything he was told in order to keep up a constant state of inebriation. He felt no qualms exploiting such weakness, just like he’d felt no qualms exploiting the naïveté of Nina Visser’s eco-crusaders or Samuel Makambo’s greed. If that was what it took to make people stand up and notice the destruction they were doing to their planet, so be it. Hadn’t Geoffrey Merrick exploited Singer’s own genius to create their invention? Singer had done the lion’s share of the work while Merrick had taken the credit.

All along everyone believed Singer preferred to stay out of the limelight and in the background. What a load of junk. What person wouldn’t like to receive the praise of their peers, the accolades, the awards?

Singer had wanted all that, too, but it was as if the media only saw one half of Merrick/Singer, the telegenic half, the half with the easy smile and the charming anecdotes. It wasn’t Singer’s fault that he froze at the lectern and looked like a cadaver on TV or came across as an idiot savant in an interview.

He’d been given no choice but a shadow existence—only it was under Merrick’s shadow he’d had to live.

Again he cursed that his former partner wasn’t here, denying him the opportunity to lord it over him. He wanted to look Merrick in the eye and scream, “It’s your fault! You let the polluters keep destroying the environment and now you are going to see the consequences.”

He spat over theGulf of Sidra ’s side, watching his saliva fall until it became part of the ocean, a drop in the biggest bucket in the world. Singer had been like that once, a small piece of something so much larger than himself it was impossible to believe he could make a difference.

He would be insignificant no longer.

CABRILLO’S first order when he returned to theOregon was to send her charging northward, to where Africa bulged into the Atlantic and where the hot winds blowing off the Sahara eventually evaporated enough water to spawn hurricanes. He didn’t return to his cabin until he’d overseen the refitting of his ship. TheLiberty ’s hull was scrubbed and her tanks refueled and she was back on her davit. The two submersibles had had their coating of oil scoured off with solvents and brooms, their batteries recharged, and all the equipment that had been removed put back. The Gatlings, 40 mm, and .30 calibers had all been checked over, their barrels and receivers cleaned and their ammo bins refilled. Armorers were repacking the AK-47s given to Moses’ men and tagging the almost five hundred guns they had taken back from Makambo’s forces. Juan hadn’t forgotten the bounty Lang Overholt had put on those weapons’ return.

But as busy as he’d been, he couldn’t come close to the work Dr. Julia Huxley and her team were performing in medical. They had twenty-three patients to look after, a total of thirty-one bullets to remove, and enough organs and limbs to put back together it seemed she’d never leave surgery. The instant she stripped off one pair of bloody rubber gloves an orderly snapped on a fresh pair for her to tackle the next injured man. At one point her anesthesiologist quipped he’d passed more gas than a judge at a chili contest.

But after fifteen straight hours of work, she sewed closed a bullet graze on Mike Trono’s shoulder, a wound he didn’t even remember receiving, and knew there were no more. When Mike had hopped off the table Julia had rolled onto it with a theatrical groan.

“Come on, Hux,” Mike teased. “Getting the injuries is a lot tougher than fixing them.”

She didn’t open her eyes when she replied, “First of all, that little scratch you got doesn’t even qualify as an injury. The cat I used to have clawed me worse than that. Second, if you don’t appreciate my work I’ll be more than happy to pull the stitches and let you bleed a while longer.”

“Tsk, tsk, what about your Hippocratic oath?”

“I had my fingers crossed when I took it.”

He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Sweet dreams, Doc. Thanks.”

No sooner had Mike left the OR than a shadow blocked the lights hanging over the table. Julia levered open her eyes to see the chairman looming over her. By the grim look on his face she saw he knew.

“I want to see her.”

Julia got off the table and led Cabrillo through to another part of the medical bay, a small chilled room with a single table in the center. Four stainless-steel drawers were built into one wall. Without saying anything, she slid open one of them to reveal a nude body enclosed in an opaque plastic bag. Juan tore the plastic covering the head and stepped back to study the pale gray face of Susan Donleavy.

“How’d she do it?”

“It was a nasty way to die,” Julia said, ten times more exhausted now than she’d been a moment earlier.

“She stuck out her tongue as far as she could and let herself fall forward. Her chin slammed the deck and her teeth severed her tongue. She then rolled over and basically drowned in her own blood. I can’t imagine what it takes to fall like that and not try to stop it with your hands.”

“She was cuffed.”

“She could have turned her head at the last second.” Julia looked at the body sadly. “For all we know maybe she did it again and again until she got her courage up for a final attempt.”

Cabrillo didn’t say anything for a moment. He was remembering the boat chase in Sandwich Bay after he and Sloane had found Papa Heinrick murdered. The driver he’d been following had intentionally crashed his boat into the shore rather than risk capture. He had thought maybe it was out of fear, that he didn’t want to face an African prison, but the truth was the guy had sacrificed himself for the cause. Just like Susan Donleavy.

“No,” he said with certainty. “She did it right the first time.”

“You’ve reviewed the security tapes from her cell?”

He turned to face her. “Don’t need to. I know the type.”

“Fanatic.”

“Yup. Biting off the tongue was an acceptable alternative to hara-kiri for captured Japanese soldiers during World War Two.”

“I’m sorry, Juan. Scuttlebutt around the ship is that she might have known some more useful information.”

“She did.” He looked at Julia. “And I think Geoff Merrick knows it, too. I need you to wake him.”

“Forget it. His blood pressure’s still too low. I’ve barely checked his wound for fragments and am only now getting his infection under control. I admit his coma’s much shallower, but his body’s refusing to come around.”

“Julia, I don’t have a choice. Singer ordered the raid this morning at a specific time because he’s got something else pla

“Are you willing to bet his life?”

“Yes,” Juan said without hesitation. “Whatever Singer’s up to is likely to involve a hurricane. I think he’s devised a way to shape them somehow. Do you need me to lay out what that means? You took leave to volunteer in New Orleans after Katrina.”

“I was born there.”

“We can stop another city from suffering the same fate. Julia, you have full autonomy over medical decisions on this ship but only because I say you do. If you would prefer me to give you an order, I will.”

She hesitated, then said, “I’ll do it.

Juan knew he should ask Linda to conduct the interview, it was her area of expertise, but he wasn’t extracting information from a reluctant captive, only talking to a half-conscious victim. “Let’s go.”