The Jungle (Oregon Files 8)

“You got it.”

“What about me?” Max asked.

Juan got up from the table and winked. “Just sit there and look pretty.”

He was back in his cabin, the drapes closed, the air-conditioning cranked, and his covers pulled up tight less than sixty seconds later. Despite his exhaustion, his mind was troubled with images of Linda Ross being held captive, and the nagging feeling they had all missed something critical. Sleep came grudgingly.

The jangling of an old-fashioned telephone dragged him out of the abyss. He threw aside the blankets and grabbed up the handset. The matte-black telephone looked like it had come from the 1930s, but it was a modern cordless.

“Chairman, sorry to bother you.”

“No bother, Eric,” Juan said. “What’s up?”

“Eh, we just heard back from the helicopter-charter company.”

“I take it it’s not good news?”

“No, sir. Sorry. There’s nothing at the coordinates we gave them. They say the pilot overflew it directly.”

Juan swung his legs out of bed. If it hadn’t been a rig, then Linda had been transported to a ship. A ship that had several days’ head start, and they had no idea in which direction it was heading. Linda was well and truly lost.

“How are you coming along to get better satellite photographs of that area?” he asked after a short pause.

“Well, we, ah, hadn’t really looked. The chopper was our best shot.”

“You’re right, I know, but humor me. Find some recent pictures anyway. There might be a clue. Maybe they took her aboard a drill ship of some kind. If that’s the case, we at least know which needle in the Pacific haystack we’re looking for.”

“Okay.” Stone was about to hang up but remembered his report wasn’t complete. Like anyone, he was reluctant to admit failure. “We’re still drawing blanks on Croissard, and, as for Smith, we can forget it. Just a quick hack into Foreign Legion archives shows roughly fourteen thousand John Smiths have served with the unit over the past fifty years. It’s a popular nom de guerre.”

“I figured as much,” Juan admitted, “but we have to try everything. Keep me posted.”

After a quick shower and shave, Cabrillo stopped in the medical bay. MacD Lawless lay on a standard hospital bed surrounded by some of the most high-tech lifesaving equipment in existence. A heart monitor beeped a strong measured cadence. He was able to breathe on his own, but a clear plastic cannula carrying pure oxygen had been fitted around his ears and under his nose. Juan noted that Lawless’s bruising was fading fast and that most of the swelling had gone down. Along with his good looks, the guy had the constitution of an ox.

Hux came around the curtain separating MacD from the rest of the sleek medical ward. As always, she wore her hair in a ponytail and sported a lab coat. Her face bore a doctor’s professional blankness.

“How is he?” Juan asked, trying not to sound grave.

Julia suddenly smiled, a beaming grin that lit up the already bright room. “He’s asleep.”

“I know. He’s been in a coma—”

“No,” she cut him off quickly. “He came out of the coma about three hours ago. He actually just barely fell back asleep.”

For whatever reason, there wasn’t a doctor in the world that was bothered by waking a patient no matter how badly his body needed sleep. Julia Huxley was no different. She gently shook MacD’s shoulder until his eyelids fluttered open. He stared blankl

y until his jade-green eyes could focus.

“How you doing?” Juan asked warmly.

“Great,” MacD replied, his voice raspy. “But, man, you should see the other guy.”

“I did,” Cabrillo said. “He had some of the worst bruised knuckles I’ve ever seen.”

Lawless started chuckling, but the pain made him moan. “Don’t do that. Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much.” MacD suddenly grew sober as he remembered who he was talking to and how he had crumpled under Soe Than’s torture. “Ah’m sorry, Juan. Ah really am. Ah had no idea it would be so bad.”

“Don’t worry about it. All you gave was my name and the name of the ship—a name, I might add, that rarely graces her fantail. Had you not told them who I was, the Chinese government wouldn’t have made a deal to haul us back to Beijing, and Eddie wouldn’t have been able to figure out a way to rescue our sorry butts. You unwittingly saved our lives.”

Lawless looked dubious, as if there couldn’t possibly be an upside.