Skeleton Coast - Cussler Clive. Страница 58

And that wasn’t an option.

So long as the wind continued to blow across the desert, Cabrillo grimly hung on to his chute and raced over the sand. His turns were no longer crisp, and when he fell it took him longer and longer to get to his feet. He hadn’t taken a single break since his sat phone had chimed and Max Hanley had told him Eddie, Mike, and Ski had been captured.

From what Linc could hear over the radio when his teammates had been discovered, there was a contingent of troops from Zimbabwe at the Devil’s Oasis guarding that country’s opposition leader, Moses Ndebele. Linda had done some quick research and learned that Ndebele was to be tried for crimes against the state in a couple of days and would most likely be executed. The UN’s formal complaint against Zimbabwe had done nothing except cause the government to further restrict freedoms within their borders. The entire country was under martial law and a dusk-to-dawn curfew was in effect in Harare, the capital.

Linda learned that Ndebele had a large following that crossed tribal lines. His was the first opposition movement that had the slightest chance of overthrowing Zimbabwe’s corrupt government and establishing a democracy in what had once been one of Africa’s wealthiest countries, but was now ravaged by famine and disease. Though once a fierce guerilla leader when Zimbabwe was known as Rhodesia and was governed with an apartheid-like system by its white minority government, Moses Ndebele advocated a nonviolent approach to toppling the current regime and Linda found numerous comparisons to Gandhi.

Max had already passed the information to Langston Overholt. Lang had said just finding Ndebele was an intelligence coup and added that if the Corporation could rescue him it would go a long way to shore up America’s position in southern Africa. It was too soon to mention a price, but Lang assured Max that the bounty to get Ndebele to safety would run into the millions.

Max had also reported that it appeared Susan Donleavy hadn’t been kidnapped at all. She was a willing accomplice to Geoffrey Merrick’s abduction and had put a bullet into the scientist’s chest when she had the chance. Linc didn’t know the severity of the injury.

With the rest of his men captured and being threatened with a dawn execution, Linc had asked what Max wanted him to do. The guards would sweep the entire prison and find him within minutes. He could try to fight it out or make his escape on one of the dirt bikes.

“What did you tell him?” Juan had asked.

“What do you think?”

“He must have hated leaving them, but it’s the right move.” Juan had known that was the only viable option.

“He’s one pissed hombre.”

“Are you tracking him?”

“He’s about twenty miles from where Tiny set down the plane and making about thirty miles per hour on one of the bikes. And for your information you’ve covered about forty miles so far.”

The idea was ludicrous, but Cabrillo had to ask. “How far am I from the plane?”

“Over a hundred and fifty,” Max had told him.

Dawn would hit long before he covered half that distance, and when it arrived Juan would have to hole up or risk dehydration. The other alternative was to find someplace where Tiny could land close by, but so far Cabrillo had seen nothing but soft dunes incapable of supporting even a light plane let alone the twin-engine cargo aircraft they had rented for the drop.

“If Linc wasn’t followed,” Juan said, “I want him to wait with Tiny and Hux.”

“You have a plan?”

“No, I’m just positioning assets for when I do come up with something.”

Neither man doubted Juan would.

That had been two hours ago, two of the longest of Cabrillo’s life.

He eased up on the right toggle when the wind shifted and flew over the top of a sand dune, catching air for nearly thirty seconds before returning to earth. He absorbed the impact with protesting knees and barreled down the far side of the dune. The tire tracks had been to his right but with the change in wind direction he was soon running along them and then slightly to their left. He prepared to tack as he was dragged up another towering mountain of sand, the tallest yet. His momentum dropped as the wind fought the friction of the plastic plate against the sand and he had to struggle to keep from being yanked off his feet.

He was more exhausted than he’d ever been in his life, a punch-drunk tired that dulled his reflexes and made his mind crave sleep above anything else.

The chute continued to slow, forcing him to lean back so far that his body was bent double and his butt was almost touching the ground. Just when it felt the wind would abandon him altogether and force him to slog the rest of the way up the hill a gust snatched the chute and lifted Cabrillo off his feet and over the dune’s summit.

To his horror, he saw four trucks arranged at the base of the dune so that their headlights shone on a fifth that had its long hood opened. Men were clustered around the disabled vehicle with two of them standing on the bumper and leaning into the engine compartment. Several of them cradled assault rifles. Juan had wanted to approach the vehicles carefully and determine who they were and what they were doing this far out in the desert, before making contact.

The gust that had mercifully carried him over the crest of the hill was going to drop him right in the middle of their laager. He hastily dumped the air from his chute and fell back to earth in the vain hope he could scramble back over the dune before he was spotted. He landed in the soft sand and immediately pitched forward, cartwheeling down the face of the hill in a tangle of nylon and riser lines.

He hit the base of the dune with the parachute wrapped around his body as tightly as a mummy’s bindings, his mouth and nostrils full of sand. Cabrillo spat and blew to clear his airways but no matter how he struggled he couldn’t free either arm to cut away the nylon. He watched helplessly as four of the men ran from their camp, their AK-47s held low and at the ready.

“Hiya, boys,” Juan called cheerfully when they were within earshot. “Any chance you could lend me a hand here?”

AFTER being stripped of their weapons, radios, and gear, Eddie, Mike, and Ski were dumped into adjoining cells in the block the Zimbabwean soldiers were using to guard Moses Ndebele. Geoffrey Merrick had been taken by a group of civilians who matched what Eddie thought a bunch of environmentalist fanatics would look like. You couldn’t discern their gender by judging hair length alone.

The stench of patchouli oil barely masked the odor of marijuana that permeated their clothes.

Eddie massaged his jaw where Susan Donleavy had sucker punched him after her friends had woken her. A guard who’d seen the blow walked by his cage at that moment, saw what he was doing, and smirked.

Eddie estimated there were about a hundred armed men in the prison, and now that the adrenaline had been flushed from his body and he’d had time to think through his situation he understood why there were so many. Moses Ndebele was seen by many as a potential savior of his country—the ruling regime would do anything to silence him. If they held him in a prison in Zimbabwe, it would become a rallying point for his followers. But out here nobody knew where to find him. They could hold him indefinitely.

He wondered about Merrick and Ndebele being here at the same time and assumed there was a connection but couldn’t see what it was. Daniel Singer must have made some sort of deal with the government of Zimbabwe to use the old prison or vice versa.

A couple of hours had passed since they’d been discovered. Because Linc hadn’t been brought to the cell block, that meant the former SEAL must have gotten away on one of the bikes. Eddie was relieved.