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An image popped up on the computer screen in front of Kurt. It showed the island and the primary coverage zones of the three radar stations. The narrow corridor on the back side only arose twenty miles out. He studied it and then handed the laptop to Joe. He was the one who’d have to fly it.
“What are we supposed to do before we get to this blind spot?” Joe asked.
“According to Max, flying at wave-top height will keep you off the scope until you reach the coverage gap. From there you can maneuver more freely the rest of the way.”
Joe looked the map over and nodded. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You’ll also have to avoid the patrol boat, which cycles past every forty-five minutes or so, and watch out for patrols on the beach,” Rudi said. “Men with dogs usually. They don’t come at regular intervals.”
“I’ll make sure to bring some kibble,” Kurt said. “What about paths to the other side of the island?”
“I’m sending you what we have terrain-wise,” Rudi replied. “You’ll have to hike through a lot of volcanic terrain, but the bigger problem will be the wall. For reasons unknown, Vaughn has built himself a structure that would make Hadrian or the East Germans of the Cold War period proud. Razor wire, cameras, guard posts.”
“We’ll deal with that once we get there,” Kurt said. “You haveanything on the guy we keep running into? Something tells me we might see him again, and I’d like to know his name before things get heated.”
Rudi sighed audibly. “We’re not sure, but we think he might be a former mercenary named Kellen Blakes. We’re basing that off your descriptions and a single photograph taken on Reunion by someone with an old-fashioned, non-internet-connected camera.”
“What’s his story?”
“Late fifties, bounced around Africa and Asia, less a soldier of fortune and more of an enforcer/big-game-hunter type. A number of his employers were mining concerns and collective farms that needed a tough foreman who would keep their people in line. At least three countries have warrants out for his arrest and Interpol would like to talk to him about some arms shipments that were intercepted.”
“How does a guy like that end up working with Vaughn?” Joe asked. “They seem like opposites.”
“Sometimes opposites attract,” Rudi said. “And sometimes they need each other. The last confirmed location we have on Blakes was a prison hospital in Nigeria. He and his men had put down a protest outside an ore-refining facility, but things got out of control, at least forty people were killed, cars burned, parts of the facility smashed. Blakes ended up caught in an explosion. His ribs had been crushed, his internal organs damaged.”
“He looked pretty spry when we saw him,” Kurt noted. “Are you sure this is the same guy?”
“Not totally,” Rudi said, “but Blakes was taken off his prison deathbed and whisked away in a private jet. And guess whose jet registered a landing and takeoff in Lagos on the very day Blakes disappeared?”
“Vaughn’s,” Joe said.
“You win the blue ribbon,” Rudi said. “It’s a little circumstantial,but it fits, and considering he can grow entire humans from scratch, there’s no reason to believe Vaughn couldn’t give Blakes a new liver, kidneys, set of lungs, or anything else he needed.”
“This guy Vaughn should just go into the medical business,” Joe said. “He’d make a fortune…Never mind. I hear what I’m saying.”
Kurt laughed. Men like Vaughn didn’t think about money anymore. It was just a way to keep score. They wanted immortality. In Vaughn’s case it appeared he wanted it literally.
“Wish we could ship you some equipment,” Rudi said. “Jammers and scanners and some weapons of ‘moderate destruction.’ But it would take days and it would tip our hand. We need to move before Vaughn expects anything is up.”
Kurt agreed, but was honestly surprised by Rudi’s haste. He was normally the voice of restraint. “Not like you to push the itinerary,” he said. “What bad news aren’t you telling us?”
“TheIsabellahas gone missing,” Rudi said grimly. “No distress call, no emergency beacon, no lifeboats in the water. A Royal Navy patrol overflew their last known position this afternoon, but found no signs of wreckage and only a possible oil slick. That kind of disappearance suggests a catastrophic explosion.”
A heavy silence hung over the room. Joe shook his head lightly and exhaled. “Damn,” he whispered.
Kurt clenched his jaw, the heavy responsibility weighing on him. He knew what the clues suggested, and it wasn’t a good outcome. He also knew that wasn’t the only possible answer. “Diesel-powered ships don’t blow up.”
“They do if they’re hit with something designed to take down a much bigger vessel,” Rudi suggested. “An anti-ship missile or a heavy torpedo would obliterate a vessel that size. We know Vaughn and Blakes have access to such items.”
Kurt understood Rudi’s reasoning. “Any idea why he’d attack them?”
“Paul and Gamay just reported their first major find,” Rudi said. “They’d come upon a previously unknown type of organism in the waters north of Madagascar that was consuming everything it encountered and reproducing at a phenomenal pace. Gamay thought it probably caused the whales and other creatures that stranded themselves on Reunion to flee the area, until they went right up on the beach.”
“What kind of organism?”
“We’re not sure,” Rudi said. “Gamay and Chantel were still doing some tests, but their initial suggestion was that it might be a genetically modified jellyfish or a colony animal like the Portuguese man-of-war.”
“Hard to imagine whales and other animals fleeing a trove of jellyfish,” Joe offered.