“The Oregon’s tied to the dock in Swakopmund. Max will meet us at the airport with a flatbed truck carrying an empty shipping container. We load the wounded in and hop aboard ourselves. Max will then drive down to the wharf, where a Customs inspector with a pocket bulging with baksheesh will sign off on the bill of lading and we get hoisted onto the ship.”
“And Mafana’s men are going to drive through to Windhoek,” Juan concluded, “where they can fly out to wherever we can find Ndebele a safe haven.” His tone soured. “All well and good, except we didn’t rescue Geoffrey Merrick and have lost any chance to find him again. I’m sure his kidnappers left the Devil’s Oasis five seconds after the guards.”
“Ye of so little fai
th,” Linc said for the second time with a sad shake of his head.
NINA Visser was sitting in the shade of a tarp anchored to the bed of their truck when she heard a buzzing sound. She had been writing in her journal, a habit she’d kept up since her early teens. She’d filled volumes of notebooks over the years, knowing someday it would be an important resource for her biographer. That she would be important enough to need a book written about her life was something she’d never doubted. She was going to be one of the great champions of the environmental movement, like Robert Hunter and Paul Watson, Greenpeace’s cofounders.
Of course the current operation wouldn’t be included. This was one blow she would strike from the shadows. She was only writing out of habit and knew she would have to destroy this journal and any others that mentioned her involvement with Dan Singer’s scheme.
She closed the notebook and slid her pen into the spiral binding. Crawling out from under the tarp was like opening the door of an oven. The afternoon sun beat down mercilessly. She stood, dusted off the seat of her pants, and shielded her eyes from the sun, searching the sky for the plane Danny had promised. Even with dark sunglasses it took her a few seconds to spot the little jewel glinting in the sky. A couple of her friends crawled out from the tarp to join her, including Susan. They were all tired from the drive, and thirsty because they hadn’t packed enough water.
Merrick was faring the worst since he was bound and gagged and left leaning against the side of the truck, where there was only a sliver of shadow. He hadn’t gained consciousness since being injected with the heroin and his sunburned face was rimmed with dried sweat. Flies buzzed around his wound.
The plane made a pass of the dirt runway and everyone waved as it overshot them. The pilot wagged the aircraft’s wings and circled back. It floated along the runway for a hundred feet before the pilot could finally get it down. He quickly throttled back and taxied to where the truck was parked on the edge of the field. The deserted town was a few hundred yards behind them, a clutch of crumbling buildings that the desert was slowly consuming.
A ramp at the rear of the aircraft slowly lowered, reminding Nina of a medieval drawbridge. A man she didn’t recognize emerged and approached the group. “Nina?” he asked, yelling over the engines noise.
Nina stepped toward him. “I’m Nina Visser.”
“Hi,” he said in a friendly tone. “Dan Singer wanted me to tell you that the United States’ government has a program called Echelon. With it they can listen to just about any electronic conversation in the world.”
“So?”
“You should be more careful what you say over a satellite phone, ’cause someone was listening last night.” Even as his words were sinking in, Cabrillo dropped his easy demeanor and whipped a pistol from behind his back, aiming it at Nina Visser’s tall forehead. Three more men charged down the Caribou’s ramp, led by Linc. Each was armed with an MP-5 machine pistol and they swept their guns from person to person. “Hope you guys like it out here,” Juan continued. “We’re on a rather tight schedule and don’t have time to haul you in to the police.”
One of the environmentalist fanatics shifted his weight to lean closer to their truck. Juan fired a bullet close enough to his foot to gouge the edge of his rubber-soled boot. “Think again.”
Linc kept the environmentalists covered, clearing the way for Juan to cut Geoff Merrick free while the other two Corporation men bound each of the kidnappers with plastic flex cuffs. Merrick was unconscious and his shirt was caked with dried blood. Julia was aboard the Oregon tending to the wounded freedom fighters from Zimbabwe, but one of her orderlies had made the flight. Juan turned Merrick over to the medico and stepped back out into the sunlight carrying two jerry cans of water.
“If you ration this it should last a week or so.” He tossed the cans into the back of the truck.
He searched the vehicle and found Nina’s satellite phone in the glove compartment. He also came away with a couple of assault rifles and a pistol.
“Kids shouldn’t play with guns,” he said over his shoulder as he returned to the plane. Then he paused and came back to the group. “I almost forgot something.”
He scanned their faces and spotted the person he wanted trying to hide behind a large bearded kid. Juan walked over and yanked Susan Donleavy’s arm. The guy protecting her made to swing at Cabrillo’s head. The effort was clumsy, and Juan easily ducked the blow, coming up with his nine millimeter pressed firmly between the collegian’s startled eyes. “Care to try that again?”
The kid stepped back. Juan cinched Susan Donleavy’s cuffs tight enough to let her know there was going to be worse to come, and frog-marched her to the plane. At the ramp he paused and addressed the two team members who were going to remain behind. They had manhandled a rubber bladder of fuel for the truck off the plane. “You know the drill?”
“We’ll drive about thirty miles deeper into the desert and dump them.”
“That way the plane Singer sent will never find them,” Juan said. “Just don’t forget to get the GPS coordinates so we can get them later.”
“Then we drive back to Windhoek, stash the truck someplace, and get a hotel room.”
“Check in with the ship as soon as you arrive,” Juan said and shook their hands. “Maybe we can get you out before we go after the guns up north in the Congo.”
Just as Cabrillo was about to disappear inside the Caribou with his prisoner, he shouted at the environmentalists, “See you in a week.”
Linc trotted after him, and as soon as he was aboard Tiny gunned the engines. Ninety seconds after touching down they were aloft again, leaving behind eight slack-jawed, would-be ecoterrorists who never knew what hit them.
23
“WELCOME back, Chairman,” Max Hanley said when Juan reached the top of the Oregon’s boarding ladder.
The two shook hands. “Good to be back,” Cabrillo said, fighting to keep his eyes open. “The past twelve hours have been about the worst of my life.” He turned to wave down at Justus Ulenga, the Namibian captain of the Pinguin, the boat Sloane Macintyre and Tony Reardon had been aboard when they had been chased. Juan had contracted the fisherman at Terrace Bay, where he’d been lying low following the attack on his boat.