Текст книги "Skeleton Coast"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

In the kitchen every chef and assistant was on duty preparing combat rations while the dining staff sealed the food in airtight packages as soon as it came out of the galley. In medical, Julia Huxley and her staff were setting up the OR for an influx of casualties.

Juan Cabrillo was in his customary seat in the op center while around him his staff worked at a dizzying pace prepping the vessel, and themselves, for the upcoming battle. He read over every report as it came in concerning the vessel’s status; no detail was too trivial to overlook.

“Max,” he called without looking up from his computer monitor, “I’ve got something here that says the pressure in the fire suppression system is down by fifteen pounds.”

“I ordered a test trip in the hold. The system should be back up to full pressure in about an hour.”

“Okay. Hali, what’s George’s ETA?”

Hali Kasim pulled down one side of his headphones. “He just took off from Cabinda, Angola, with Eric and Murph. We should be able to rendezvous in about two and a half hours. He’ll call ten minutes out so we can slow the ship and prep the hangar.”

“And Tiny? Where’s he?”

“Thirty thousand feet over Zambia.”

Juan was relieved. The plan, like so many recently, had been hastily put together. One of the biggest obstacles was getting a hundred of Moses’ best men out of their refugee camp near the industrial town of Francistown, Botswana. Unlike a lot of sub-Saharan Africa, there was very little corruption in Botswana, so getting the men onto a plane without passports had been more expensive than Cabrillo would have liked. Tiny’s bush pilot friend had cleared the way for them on the other end, and ensured that they would have no difficulty landing in Cabinda. TheOregon would tie up to the city’s main pier about five hours after they landed and would stay just long enough to get them aboard.

From there they would proceed north to the oil fields off the coast where Murph and Eric had detected three of the ten AK-47s with the Corporation’s radio tags. The weapons were grouped in a swamp less than five miles from a massive new tanker terminal and within a ten-minute boat ride of a dozen offshore oil rigs.

Juan had contacted Langston Overholt as soon as Murph had reported in. Lang had then alerted the State Department so they could issue a warning to Angola’s government. However, the wheels of diplomacy turn slowly and so far Juan’s information was languishing in Foggy Bottom while the policy wonks hashed out a statement.

Because of the low-grade civil war being waged all across Cabinda Province, the petroleum companies who leased the oil fields had their own security apparatus in place. The tanker terminal and workers’

compounds were fenced off and patrolled by armed guards. Cabrillo had considered calling the companies directly but knew he would be ignored. He also knew that whatever force they had in place was a deterrent for theft and trespassing and wasn’t capable of holding off an army. Any warning he did issue would likely only get more of their guards killed.

Also, he had learned from Murph’s aerial reconnaissance that there were hundreds of people living in shantytowns around the oil concessions. There would be far fewer civilian casualties if the fighting took place well inside the facilities.

Linda Ross entered the op center with Sloane Macintyre in tow. Sloane stopped as soon as she stepped through the door. Her mouth hung a little loose as she looked around the futuristic command center. The main view screen on the forward bulkhead was split into dozens of camera angles showing activity all around the ship as well as a clear shot of theOregon ’s bow as she powered through the sea.

“Linda said I’d get a better idea of what you all do if I came with her,” Sloane finally said as she approached Juan. “I think I’m more confused now than I was five seconds ago. What is all this?”

“The heart and soul of theOregon ,” Juan said. “From here we can control the helm, the engines, communications, safety teams as well as the ship’s integrated weapons systems.”

“So you are with the CIA or something?”

“Like I told you before, I used to be. We’re private citizens running a for-profit company that does freelance security work. Though I will admit the CIA has thrown us a lot of business over the years, usually with missions best left off their blackest books.

“Originally, our contract was to sell some arms to a group of African revolutionaries. The arms had been modified so the rebels could be tracked. Unfortunately we were double-crossed but we only learned about it after committing ourselves to rescue Geoffrey Merrick. So now we’re back to get the weapons, only it turns out Merrick’s ex-partner has other plans for them.”

“Who paid you to supply the guns in the first place?”

“It was a deal worked out between our government and the Congo’s. Most of the money came from the CIA; the rest was going to come from selling the blood diamonds we were given in exchange for the arms.”

“The diamonds you gave to Moses Ndebele for his help?”

“You got it. Hey, I guess the story wasn’t so long after all,” Juan quipped.

“And you make a living doing this?” she asked and then answered her own question. “Of course you do.

I saw the clothes in Linda’s closet. It’s like Rodeo Drive in there.”

“Chairman, can I talk to you privately?” Linda asked.

Juan didn’t like the tone in her voice. He got up from his chair and offered it to Sloane with a flourish.

“The ship’s yours.” He guided Linda to the far corner of the op center. “What’s up?”

“I was going over my interrogation notes and, while I’m not positive, I think Susan Donleavy withheld something.”

“Something?”

“Not about what Singer’s attempting here. I got everything out of her about this that I could. It’s something else. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

“It’s about the timing of this whole operation,” Juan stated.

“It could be. I don’t know. Why would you say that?”

“It kept me up for most of the night,” he admitted. He laid out his concern. “Singer’s had this in motion for years, with the generators and the heaters, and suddenly he’s striking at an oil facility in order to release a couple million tons of toxic sludge. Why? Why now? He’s expecting hurricanes to carry the vapors across the Atlantic but he can’t predict when and where a storm will form.”

“Do you think maybe he can?”

“What I think is thathe thinks he can.”

“But that’s impossible. At least with any degree of accuracy. Hurricanes grow randomly. Some never get stronger than a tropical depression and simply blow themselves out at sea.”

“Exactly, and that wouldn’t work for his grand demonstration.”

“You think he knows there’s a major storm coming and that it will carry the oil vapors across the ocean?”

“I’ll do you one better,” Juan said. “I think he knows the storm’s track will slam it into the United States.”

“How could he know that?”

Juan brushed a hand through his crew cut. It was the only outward sign of his frustration. “That’s what kept me awake. I know it’s not possible for him to predict a hurricane, much less its path, but Singer’s actions can only lead us to that conclusion. Even without us here Makambo’s men will eventually be overrun and the oil shut off. So Singer can’t guarantee the fumes would drift far enough and remain airborne long enough to be sucked into a forming hurricane, or that if they do that the storm wouldn’t dissipate on its own. Not unless there’s another element to all this we don’t know about.”

“I can try again with Susan,” Linda offered. “I ended the interrogation after I learned what I needed to know about the attack on the oil terminal.”

Juan regarded her with pride. She was giving up even more of her soul. And as much as he wanted to protect her from the toll questioning Susan Donleavy had on her, he knew that she would have to do it again.

“There’s something there,” he said. “And I know you can find it.”

“I’ll do my best.” Linda turned to go.

“Keep me posted.”

TEN miles north of where Tiny Gunderson sat in his plane at the Cabinda airport with a hundred eager soldiers, Daniel Singer was talking with General Samuel Makambo of the Congolese Army of Revolution. Dawn was two hours away and the jungle was finally quieting as the nocturnal insects and animals bedded down for the day. Though, with the glare of so many oil rigs burning off natural gas both offshore and along the coastline, it was a wonder how the creatures maintained their circadian rhythms.

Around them in the lean-to were the most senior soldiers Makambo was willing to sacrifice for this mission. Leading the four-hundred-man expeditionary force was Colonel Raif Abala. He was here for two reasons: punishment for the debacle on the Congo River when he let the arms merchants get away with the diamonds, and because Makambo suspected the colonel was skimming stones from their blood diamond trade. He wouldn’t be too put out if Abala didn’t return.

The rebels had been hiding in plain sight near the squatters’ camps that had sprung up around the facility belonging to the oil giant Petromax. They wore regular, albeit ragged, clothing and acted as though they were here seeking employment. Their weapons and outboard boats had been easily concealed in the mangroves, with guards posted nearby to dissuade fishermen or people looking for bush meat to stray too close.

“Colonel,” Makambo said, “you know your duty.”

With his sheer size, Samuel Makambo was a commanding presence. And while what had once been battle-hardened muscle was slowly jelling into fat, he still possessed incredible strength. He favored mirrored sunglasses like his mentor, Idi Amin, and carried a swagger stick called asjambok made of plaited hippo hide. The pistols in his twin holsters were custom-made by Beretta; their gold inlays alone were worth a small fortune.

“Yes, sir,” Abala replied at once. “A hundred men will use the boats to launch attacks on the offshore loading terminal and the rigs themselves while the bulk of my force will concentrate on securing the compound.”

“It’s essential that you take control of the generating station as well as the pump control rooms,” Dan Singer, the architect of the attack, said. “And they must not be damaged.”

“The attack on those two parts of the terminal will be carried out by my best men. They will take them as soon as we break through the perimeter fences.”

“And your men are clear on how to work the controls?” Singer demanded.

“Many of them were employed at this very facility until our government forbade members of our tribe from working in Congo’s oil industry,” Abala said. “As soon as the tanker that’s currently loading has been decoupled from the terminal they know to turn the pumps on full force and dump the oil into the sea.”

“And on the rigs?”

“They will destroy the undersea pipes that send crude to the storage tanks onshore.”

Singer wished they could blow out the sides of the massive storage tanks, but they were situated in an earthen redoubt that would keep the oil contained. For the oil to properly evaporate he needed it spread over as large an area as possible. He turned to Makambo. “For every hour they hold the terminal and oil’s pouring into the sea, one million dollars will be automatically transferred into your Swiss bank account.”

“That money will go a long way to funding my revolution and improving the quality of life of our people,”

the guerilla leader said with a straight face. Singer knew the lion’s share of the cash would remain in Makambo’s account. “I made this bargain and call upon our soldiers to fight for the greater good of us all.”

When searching for his mercenary force Singer had thoroughly investigated Makambo and his Congolese Army of Revolution. They were nothing more than savage butchers who used torture and the intimidation of defenseless civilians to keep themselves supplied. While there was a tribal element to the conflict, human rights groups estimated that the CAR had killed more of their own people than the government they opposed. Makambo was just another example of the despotic nature of African politics.

“Very well,” Singer said. “Then it’s time for me to leave.”

He had planned on leaving Cabinda a day before the attack, but he’d remained as long as he dared, hoping against hope that he’d get word from Nina Visser. She and the others hadn’t been at the rendezvous site when the plane arrived, although tire tracks next to the runway indicated someone had been there recently. The pilot managed to follow them from the air, but only for only a couple of miles.

The relentless wind had scoured the desert floor. He’d circled the area until he had just enough fuel to return to Windhoek, failing to find any sign of them.

Singer had ordered him back to Cabinda so they could fly to the port city of Nouakchott, Mauritania, where the aged hundred-thousand-ton tanker he’d secretly purchased from a Libyan company waited.

She was named theGulf of Sidra and had spent her career plying the Mediterranean, ferrying Libyan oil to Yugoslavia and Albania.

When he’d toured her with Susan Donleavy she said the vessel’s tanks would make perfect incubators for her organic flocculent. The marine engineering firm Singer hired to inspect the ship signed off on her hull being able to withstand a sustained thermal load of a hundred and forty degrees, although they said in their report they were unaware of any oil terminals in the world where crude retained that much of the earth’s heat. Singer had closed the deal, obtained a Liberian registration for the ship, by far the easiest to get in the world, and hadn’t bothered to change her name.

Susan had then overseen the initial seeding of her heat-generating goo and had checked in on it from time to time before her “abduction.” Her reports showed that everything was working perfectly, so Singer knew she didn’t need to be there when he released it. Still, something could come up that might require her expertise. The loss of Nina and her group was of little concern, he just wished Susan was with him. The flocculent had been her brainchild and when she’d contacted him about her discovery and its potential application she had wanted to be a part of the final act.

And then there was Merrick. Singer had so wanted to see his smug face collapse when he witnessed the creation of the most destructive hurricane ever to hit the United States and realized he and polluters like him were at fault. Singer had told Merrick of his plan, so he was left with the hope his former partner was still alive and would know the truth about what was transpiring.

Because of the specialized nature of running a supertanker, he couldn’t rely on a bunch of long-haired environmentalists, so he’d been forced to hire a professional crew, men whose silence could be bought.

The captain was a Greek alcoholic who’d lost his master’s license after running a tanker aground in the Persian Gulf. The chief engineer was another Greek who couldn’t stay away from the bottle. He hadn’t worked since a steam pipe explosion in an engine room had killed four of his assistants. A board of inquiry cleared him, but rumors of negligence ruined his career.

Those two made the rest of the crew look like saints.

“You’ll make your attack at dawn?” Singer asked.

“Yes. You have more than enough time to get to your plane,” Makambo said with a hint of derision. Not that he was going to be here for the fight. He had a fast boat waiting to whisk him down the coast and back up the Congo River.

Singer let his tone pass. He stood. “Remember, every hour is a million dollars. If your men can hold off the security forces and Angola’s police when they get organized for forty-eight hours I’ll throw in a five-million-dollar bonus.” He was looking at Abala. “And another five for you, colonel.”

“Then, cry havoc,” Makambo said using his favorite quote, “and let slip the dogs of war.”

26

JUANstood on the bridge wing and watched the old school buses crawl across the causeway that led to Cabinda’s only pier, each painted in garish colors and belching oily exhaust as their old engines labored.

They threaded their way around a string of shipping containers and some donated farm equipment that had just been unloaded from a Russian freighter berthed ahead of theOregon .

Because his ship was pumped dry of ballast in order to reach the relatively shallow anchorage, he had a good view of the city and the hills beyond. With dawn just breaking he noted that little of Angola’s oil wealth had been spent in the city nearest the fields.

Down on the quay Max Hanley and Franklin Lincoln waited with a Customs official. Both were dressed like a couple of wharf rats in keeping with theOregon ’s decrepit appearance. Tiny Gunderson’s bush pilot friend was with them, too, to make sure everything went smoothly, as well as Mafana, Ndebele’s old sergeant. The Customs man had already given a briefcase to his wife, who’d come down to the docks for the specific reason of taking the bribe money back home with her.

The elevator from the op center suddenly rose up from the bridge floor. Linda Ross didn’t wait until it had come even with the deck before jumping off and rushing toward Cabrillo.

“Juan, you don’t have your phone on,” she said hotly. “The attack’s started. Hali’s intercepting calls from the Petromax facility to their headquarters in Delaware. They estimate at least four hundred armed men have stormed the gates. And the platforms are reporting a large number of small boats are heading their way. Security is being completely overrun.”

He had hoped and prayed that they’d have a day at least to work with Moses Ndebele’s troops, but somehow he’d known he wasn’t going to get it. He would have to trust that time hadn’t dulled the skills they’d honed in their bitter civil war nearly three decades ago.

Cabrillo cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted Max’s name. When Hanley glanced up Juan made a motion with his arm to hurry things along. Max said something to Mafana just as the first of the buses screeched to a halt at the foot of the gangplank. The side door opened and a string of men emerged. The first went to give Mafana a congratulatory hug for rescuing Moses Ndebele, but the African rebel must have told him to get aboard quickly. The men started up to the main deck as the other buses pulled alongside the ship.

Juan activated his phone and dialed down to the hangar where he knew George “Gomez” Adams would be with his chopper. The pilot answered on the second ring.

“Fly By Night Airlines.”

“George, Juan.”

“What’s up, Chairman?”

“Singer’s men have launched their attack. As soon as we clear the harbor I want to send up one of our UAVs.” The unmanned aerial vehicles were essentially commercial model airplanes outfitted with miniature cameras and infrared detectors.

“I’ll get it prepped,” Adams said. “But I can’t fly both if you need the chopper.”

“Tiny’s coming aboard with Ndebele’s men. He’ll fly it. I just want you to get it ready.”

“I’m on it.”

Cabrillo glanced over the rail again. Two lines of men were marching up the gangway. None of them were overweight, which didn’t surprise him since they lived in a refugee camp, but there were a few giants among them. He saw more gray hair than he had hoped, but the former freedom fighters looked capable. These weren’t bowed old men, but lean, hungry soldiers who knew their duty.

He called Eddie Seng to tell him to meet the new arrivals, but his Shore Operations Director was already at the head of the gangway directing the soldiers to one of the ship’s holds where Moses Ndebele was waiting to address them. It was there that they would be outfitted with assault rifles, ammunition, and other gear.

Pressed by the urgency of the attack being under way, Juan’s people seemed to have found new heights of efficiency. He expected no less.

Eric Stone had been watching the procession over the closed circuit television system from the op center; as soon as Max and Linc followed the last soldier up the gangplank it immediately began to rise.

Juan looked up to see a dense cloud of smoke boil from theOregon ’s funnel. The busted looking intercom mounted just inside the bridge wing door chimed.

“We’re ready,” Eric said when Juan answered. He looked down the length of the ship where a stevedore was waiting by the aft line. He threw the man a signal and he heaved the heavy rope off the bollard and let it slide into the water. A capstan immediately started reeling it into the ship. Juan repeated the motion to the longshoremen waiting near the bows. Before he could tell Stone they were free he saw water boil between theOregon and the dock as the athwartship thrusters came online. When they cleared the stern of the Russian freighter Eric powered up the magnetohydrodynamics, keeping the speed down so her forward momentum wouldn’t cause the hull to squat, or settle deeper in the water. It was only when they were a mile from the shallow harbor that he started pouring on the power.

Juan waited on the flying bridge for another couple of moments, knowing it would be his last seconds of peace until the mission was over. The slide of dread he’d felt when Linda told him the attack had begun was giving way to a new sensation, one he knew too well. It was the first feeling of adrenaline being pumped into his body. It was almost as though he could detect each time his adrenal glands secreted a dose into his bloodstream.

His stump was still sore, but he no longer felt it. His back still ached, but it no longer bothered him. He no longer missed the sleep he hadn’t gotten. His mind became focused on the task at hand and his body responded, willing to do whatever he asked of it.

He turned to Linda. “Ready?”

“Aye.”

On the elevator down to the op center he asked her about Susan Donleavy.

“I had planned on talking to her today, but, well…”

“No problem,” Juan said. The elevator doors whisked open. “Hali? What’s the latest?”

“Petromax is trying to reach the provisional authorities to tell them about the attack, but so far the government hasn’t responded. Nothing’s happening in the workers’ compound. The assault is focused solely on the terminal and the offshore rigs. It seems two platforms are under terrorist control while two more are trying to defend themselves using firefighting water cannons. One of the rig’s tool pushers radioed that he’s lost a couple of men to small arms fire and that he doesn’t think they can hold out much longer.”

“Eric, what’s our ETA?”

“An hour.”

“Murph, weapons status?”

Mark Murphy craned around to look at Juan. “We’re loaded for bear, Chairman.”

“Okay, good. Oh, and guys, nice job finding the radio tagged guns. God knows how much worse things would get if we’d been floundering around the Congo River.”

Cabrillo turned to head for his cabin and noted Chuck “Tiny” Gunderson seated at a work station at the back of the room. In front of him was a computer monitor. On-screen was an image of George Adams cleaning the lens of the camera mounted in the nose of the aerial drone.

“Looks good,” Tiny said into his mike. He moved his hands over the computer keyboard. “Step back; I’m firing the engine now.”

The camera began to vibrate as the plane’s little motor caught.

“Okay, green across the board. Up, up, and away.”

The image began to move as the plane sped down a launch ramp, past theOregon ’s forward derricks and then over the railing. Tiny brought its nose down with a joystick, exchanging altitude for speed and then eased back on the stick to send it into the sky.

Juan went to his cabin to get ready. Before changing into his newly refurbished combat leg and dark fatigues, he turned on his computer to get the live feed from the UAV’s cameras. He kept one eye on the monitor as he readied his arsenal of weapons.

The four-foot-long airplane was at about a thousand feet and flying over the large peninsula that the Oregon had to go around in order to reach the Petromax oil terminal. A more powerful transmitter aboard had allowed them to expand the drone’s range from fifteen miles up to forty so it no longer had to stay so close to the ship. It flashed over farmland and jungle and finally the area of mangrove swamps that effectively cut off the port from the rest of Cabinda save for a single road.

Tiny dropped the plane down so it was five hundred feet off the haul road. A few miles from the entrance to the terminal a line of trucks sat idle. Juan guessed why, and in a moment the camera revealed the road had been blocked by felled trees. Because the ground just off the road was so soft the big tanker trucks couldn’t turn around. It would take giant earthmovers or a week of chain-sawing to remove the obstacle. If the Angolan government did send troops they would have to abandon any fighting vehicles well short of their target.

Having studied satellite pictures of the remote port, Cabrillo had anticipated this move because it was exactly what he would have done had he been in charge of the assault.

He watched as Tiny made the model plane gain altitude again as it neared the terminal. From a thousand feet everything looked normal at first. The two-hundred-acre facility sprawled along the coast, with a massive tank farm at its southernmost point and a separate compound for workers’ dormitories and recreational facilities to the north. Between them were miles of pipes in a hundred different sizes twisting and bending together in a maze only its designers could understand. There were warehouses as large as anything Cabrillo had ever seen, as well as a harbor for the tenders and workboats that took personnel to and from the offshore rigs. Shooting off from the facility was a mile-long causeway that led to the loading berths for the supertankers that took the crude to markets all over the globe. A thousand-foot tanker was tied to one, her tanks empty if Juan were to judge by the amount of red antifouling paint he could see above her waterline.

He spotted a large building constructed on an specially hardened pad near one of the terminal’s tallest vent towers. Juan knew from the research his people had done there were three General Electric jet engines inside the structure that provided electricity to the whole instillation. High-tension power lines ran from it to every corner of the port.

Three miles off the coast sat a string of dozens of oil rigs running northward like a man-made archipelago, each connected back to the port by undersea pipelines. Though not as large as rigs Juan had seen in the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, each was at least two hundred feet tall, their superstructures held above the waves on massive support piers.

It all appeared normal except when he started looking more carefully. Some of the flames he saw weren’t from natural gas being intentionally burned off. Several trucks had been set ablaze, and more than one building was wreathed in sooty smoke. The tiny stick figures lying randomly around the yard were the corpses of workers and members of the security force who’d been gunned down by Makambo’s soldiers. What Juan first took to be shadows around them were actually pools of blood.

Tiny Gunderson then swept the drone over the shoreline and out along the causeway. The pipes that fed the floating dock looked as big around as railcars. Juan cursed when he saw the men swarming around the loading gantries. They had removed them from the tanker and now crude oil was being dumped into the sea in four thick streams. The spill already surrounded the pier and was spreading by the second.

One of the men must have seen the drone because suddenly several of them looked up. Some pointed with their arms while others opened fire at the little plane.

The chance of hitting the UAV was remote, but Tiny juked the aircraft and headed for the nearest offshore platform. From a half mile away Juan could see it was ringed with oil. The crude weighed enough to crush the waves that tried to pass under it. All the ocean could do was to make the slick undulate like a lazy ripple of black silk. The prevailing current was already stretching the spill northward even as the slick grew in size from the oil gushing off the rig in a black rain. When the drone approached the second platform under the terrorists’ control, Cabrillo saw that this slick was even larger than the first.

Although it was impossible, Juan felt like he could smell the sharp chemical stench of the crude as it poured into the sea. It scalded the back of his throat and made his eyes water. Then he realized that what he was sensing was his own revulsion to the willful act of environmental destruction and the mindless waste of human life. Singer’s demonstration was the greatest act of ecoterrorism in history, and as much as he professed wanting to save the planet his actions would see the earth pay in a heavy coin.

And if the Corporation failed, the effects could spread half a world away.

He gathered up his gear and headed for the hold. When he arrived, he saw that the room was crowded with more than a hundred men, a few of them his own, the rest belonging to Moses Ndebele. The Africans had already been issued weapons and ammunition as well as clothing to make up for anything they lacked, sturdy boots mostly. They all sat on the floor and listened raptly as their leader addressed them from a dais made of pallets. His foot was swathed in surgical gauze and a pair of crutches rested against the bulkhead behind him. Juan didn’t enter the hold, but rather leaned on the doorjamb and listened. He couldn’t understand the language but it didn’t matter. He could feel the passion in Ndebele’s words and how they affected his followers. It was palpable. He spoke clearly, his eyes sweeping the room, giving each man a moment’s attention before moving on. When they settled on Juan, he felt a tug in his chest as if Ndebele had touched his heart. Juan nodded and Moses returned the gesture.

When he finished his speech the men gave him a thunderous applause that made the hold echo. A full two minutes passed before the cheering started to subside.