Plague Ship (Oregon Files 5)

the Oregon’s moon pool at night when the underhull lights were turned on.

Despite his size, Lincoln moved through the jungle with the easy grace of a predatory cat, finding the tiniest openings between the dense vegetation so as not to disturb anything. His feet seemed to barely brush the loamy ground. He was so stealthy that the background symphony of insects and bird cries never dropped in volume or rose in alarm.

Cabrillo walked in his wake, constantly scanning behind them for any sign they were being followed. The air was so humid, it seemed that his lungs were filling with fluid with each breath. Sweat ran freely down his back, and soaked the band of his baseball cap. He could feel it cold and slick where his stump met his artificial leg.

After two hours of stalking silently through the rain forest, Linc held up a fist, then lowered himself to the ground. Cabrillo followed suit, crawling up next to the big SEAL. They were at the edge of the jungle. Ahead of them was open grassland that stretched for a quarter mile before dropping to the sea in a line of near-vertical slopes and eroded cliffs.

With the sun behind them, Cabrillo didn’t worry about reflections off his binoculars as he scanned his surroundings. The Responsivists had built a single metal building a short distance from the cliffs. It was as large as a warehouse, with a gently sloped roof to deal with the thirteen and a half feet of annual rainfall. Opaque panels in the roof would let in diffused sunlight, as there were no windows. The sides were bare metal painted with a red oxide anticorrosion paint, and there was just a single door facing a parking lot big enough for fifty or so vehicles.

About thirty yards from the warehouse were four rows of rectangular concrete pads. Cabrillo counted forty of the empty pads per row.

Linc tapped him on the shoulder. He drew a rectangle in the dirt and pointed at the warehouse. Then he made a second rectangle and pointed at the field of concrete. Cabrillo was with him so far. Then Linc drew a much larger square around the whole compound and pointed across the open field.

Juan studied the area through the binoculars and noticed a slight variation in the grass, which ran in a straight line before abruptly turning ninety degrees. He looked at Linc. The Navy vet placed the edge of his hand on the line he’d drawn, indicating he thought there had once been a fence running the perimeter of the field. He then used his fingers to rather crassly raise the corners of his eyes.

Cabrillo nodded his agreement. This had once been a Japanese compound of some kind, most likely a prison camp. The fence had been removed years ago, and all that remained of the cell blocks were the concrete pads. He wondered if the Responsivists chose this location because there was already an existing foundation for their building.

The duo watched the structure for another two hours, passing the binoculars back and forth when their eyes began to tire. Nothing moved in the clearing except when a breeze blew in off the ocean and made waves ripple through the knee-high grass.

Juan suddenly cursed and stood. “That’s it. Nobody’s home.” His voice seemed unnaturally loud after so many hours of silence.

“How can you be so sure?” Linc asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Listen.” His tone made it clear he was angry with himself.

Linc cocked his head. “Nothing but the ocean hitting the base of the cliffs.”

“Exactly. See the empty brackets on the roof? It’s got to be ninety degrees out here, which means it’s at least a hundred and twenty in that building. Those brackets once held some pretty big air-conditioning units. They took them when they bugged out. Unless that building is packed to the rafters with water, a guard detail wouldn’t last an hour in there, let alone the weeks it’s been since they abandoned this place.”

Cabrillo held out a hand to haul Lincoln to his feet. It was a testament to Juan’s time working out aboard the Oregon that the effort didn’t tear the muscles in his back.

Although he was reasonably certain of his deduction, they approached the structure carefully, keeping well away from the door until they were tight up to the metal side. The building’s skin was hot enough to singe Juan’s fingertips when he touched it.

With their pistols drawn, they approached the door. Juan set his pack on the ground and fished out a length of rubber tubing. He wrapped it around the knob and handed one end to Linc while he kept the other. They stood on opposite sides of the door, and Juan pulled at the tubing. The friction of the rubber against the metal knob caused it to turn, and the door clicked open. Had it been set with explosives, Cabrillo’s trick would have kept them well out of the blast radius.

“Not even locked,” Linc commented.

Juan peeked inside. “No reason it would be. Take a look.”

With pearly light shining through the skylights, the warehouse remained murky, but there was enough illumination to see the vast interior was completely empty. There weren’t even support columns for the roof trusses to break up the monotony of the expanse of concrete. If not for the small door, Juan would have thought this had been an aircraft hangar. The floor had been painted a uniform gray and was spotlessly clean. When Juan stepped inside, he caught a trace scent of bleach.

“Looks like the Merry Maids beat us here, eh?” Linc joked as he stood at Juan’s shoulder.

Cabrillo remained silent. He knew in his heart that they would find nothing to incriminate Severance, so there would be no leverage to get Max back. The Responsivists had removed any hint of what had gone on inside the building. The air-conditioning ducts were gone, all traces of wiring and plumbing—everything.

“Waste of damned time,” he finally said in disgust.

Linc was hunched down, examining the floor. He straightened, saying, “This concrete is pretty weathered. My guess is that it was laid by the Japanese when they built the rest of the prison.”

“Why the hell would they need such a large building?” Juan wondered aloud. “The ground’s too hilly for an airstrip, so it’s not a hangar.”

“I don’t know. Storage of some kind?”

“A factory,” Juan said. “I bet they used prisoners of war as slave labor here. God knows, they used them everywhere else they occupied.”

Linc touched the tip of his broad nose with his finger. “Bet you’re right.”

Juan grabbed his satellite phone and dialed the Oregon. With Hali working on the audio from the bug, Juan asked the on-duty communications staffer to plug him through to Eric Stone.