Skeleton Coast

Hux grabbed some supplies from the OR and led Cabrillo through to the recovery rooms. Where once Geoffrey Merrick had a room to himself, he now shared the space with three wounded Africans. His sunburned face was covered in gel to help his skin heal, but beneath it Juan could see the scientist remained pale. After checking his vital signs Julia injected a stimulant into his IV drip.

Merrick came around slowly. At first his eyes remained closed and the only sign of movement was his tongue attempting to lick his dry lips. Julia moistened them with a wet cloth. Then his eyes fluttered and opened. His looked from Julia to Juan and back to the doctor again, obviously disorientated.

“Dr. Merrick, my name is Juan Cabrillo. You’re safe now. You were rescued from the people who kidnapped you and are now in the sick bay of my ship.”

Before Merrick could reply, Julia asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Thirsty,” he rasped.

She tipped a glass of water with a straw to his mouth and he took several grateful sips. “How’s your chest?”

He thought about his answer for a moment. “Numb.”

“You were shot,” Juan told him.

“I don’t remember.”

“Susan Donleavy shot you during the rescue.”

“She wasn’t beat up,” Merrick said as a fragment of the memory came back. “I thought they had tortured her, but it was all faked with makeup.”

“Daniel Singer showed up one day when you were being held prisoner. Do you remember that?”

“I think so.”

“He did and you two spoke.”

“Where’s Susan now?” the scientist asked.

“She killed herself, Doctor.” Merrick stared at him. “She did that to prevent us from learning what Singer intends to do.”

“Oil rigs.” Merrick’s voice was fading to a whisper as his body fought the drugs in an attempt to return to unconsciousness.

“That’s right. He pla

“You have to stop him. The oil is especially toxic.” His last words were slurred.

“We have,” Juan said. “His assault failed. The slick will be contained.”

“Ship,” he said dreamily.

“There was a ship at the terminal but it wasn’t attacked.”

“No. Singer has a ship.”

“What is he using it for?”

“It was Susan’s discovery. She took it to him. I thought it was only a test, but she had already perfected it.” His eyes closed.

“Perfected what, Geoff? What did Susan perfect? Dr. Merrick?”

“An organic gel that turns water into pudding.”

“Why?” Juan asked desperately, fearing Merrick was slipping away. “What is it used for?”

Merrick said nothing for nearly twenty seconds. “Heat,” he finally whispered. “It gives off a lot of heat.”

And there was the co

Juan knew the seas off Africa’s west coast were the logical place Singer would dump the gel, but the area was vast and there wasn’t enough time to conduct a search. He had to narrow the parameters.

“What kind of ship is Singer using?” A tanker was the most likely candidate, but Juan wouldn’t lead the semiconscious man with his suspicions.

Merrick remained mute, his eyes closed and his lips slightly parted. Julia was watching his monitor, and Juan knew the look on her face. She didn’t like what she was seeing.

He shook Merrick’s shoulder. “Geoff, what kind of ship?”

“Juan,” Julia said in a warning tone.

Merrick’s head rolled to face him but he couldn’t open his eyes. “A tanker. He bought an oil tanker.”

The monitor started to wail as his heart rate slowed dangerously. Julia pushed Juan aside, shouting,

“He’s crashing! Get the cart in here!” She threw aside the sheet covering his chest as one of her staff raced into the room with a portable defibrillator.

Through it all Merrick managed to open his eyes. They were clouded with pain. He reached out to clutch Cabrillo’s hand, his mouth forming three words he didn’t have the breath to say aloud.

The chirping alarm turned into a continuous tone.

“Clear,” Julia said, the paddles poised over Merrick’s naked torso. Juan took his hand away so Julia could apply the electrical impulse to restart Merrick’s heart. His body convulsed as the charge ran through him and the monitor showed a corresponding spike before returning to flat line.

“Eppy.” The orderly handed Julia a syringe full of epinephrine. The needle seemed impossibly long. She speared the area between two of Singer’s ribs and loaded the drug directly into his heart. “Up it to two hundred joules.”

“Charging, charging, charging,” the orderly said watching the machine. “Go.”

She applied the paddles again and for a second time Merrick’s body jerked partially off the bed. The line on the monitor peaked again.

“Come on. Come on,” Julia urged and then the beat was back, widely spaced at first but improving steadily. “Get a ventilator in here.” She shot a scathing look at Cabrillo. “Was it worth it?”

He met her gaze. “We’ll know when we find a tanker named theGulf of Sidra .”

30

THEweather was turning foul as theOregon raced northward, forcing a delicate balance between speed and the need to keep the wounded from being further injured by the ship’s motion. Julia had torn a page from the nineteenth century by slinging the worst of the wounded in hammocks so they swayed with the swells and were cushioned when the ship was hit by a particularly tall wave. She hadn’t left Merrick’s side for more than twenty minutes since getting his heart started again.

After getting the name, it had taken Murph and Eric less than a half hour to discover that a tanker called theGulf of Sidra had been anchored off the coast of Mauritania for nearly a month but had weighed anchor the day before. The ship had been owned by Libya’s state oil monopoly until a recent sale transferred her to a newly incorporated Liberian firm called CroonerCo., which Murph recognized as a thinly veiled reference to Singer’s last name.

With that information the duo had been able to calculate an ever widening arc where the vessel could be hiding, an area that would soon include a tropical depression swirling six hundred miles off the African coast. They were driving as hard as they dared for that region.

To narrow the odds further, Juan had again called upon Lang Overholt to use the United States’

government’s halo of spy satellites to search the grid coordinates for theGulf of Sidra . Now that everyone was aware of the stakes, Overholt had taken Cabrillo’s findings to the CIA’s director. The president was briefed a short while later and orders went out to the Coast Guard and Navy as well as NUMA and the National Weather Service, which was conducting regular patrols of hurricane alley. A guided missile cruiser returning from interdiction patrols in the Red Sea was diverted and a destroyer paying a courtesy call to Algiers cut short her stay and started out of the Mediterranean. There was also a pair of nuclear attack submarines close enough to the area to reach it in twenty hours.

The British government was apprised of the situation and offered to send two vessels from Gibraltar and another from Portsmouth. They would arrive on station days after the Americans, but their help was greatly appreciated.