Page 112 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier

The Island of Sorrows

The Celebes Sea

Linc surveyed the debris field. TheMak?iwas a smoldering pile of wrecked debris, its legs and various mechanical parts littering the area like so many Legos on the living room floor on Christmas morning. Three distinct craters indicated points of impact beyond the direct hit the spider-bot took. What appeared to be an obliterated HUD helmet and a smashed tablet provided nothing of use.

Linc bent over and picked up what looked like a piece of the machine’s motherboard. It was half-melted, but a large chip was attached to it. He pocketed it. No telling what the boys might be able to pull from it.

“There’s not much left of him,” Juan said, standing thirty feet away. Rahul’s ruined corpse had not only been hit but tossed through the air like a bloody rag doll. The brilliant engineer lay in a mangled, bloody heap, nearly unrecognizable in his current state. Only his shredded one-piece flight suit and the camel-colored Merrell tactical boot affixed to a leg five feet away from the ruined torso gave Juan any confidence in his identification of the corpse.

Juan fished around in the few intact pockets of the bloody flight suit, but founding nothing of interest, not even a fragment of identification. Linc stepped up beside him, his big frame blocking the early-afternoon sun.

“Our dead Indian friend and his grounded drones means the game’s over,” Linc said. “What do you want to do now?”

Juan stood, and wiped his hands against his combat pants.

“Technically, the game isn’t over until all ten flags are captured.” Cabrillo held a hand to his ear. “What do you hear?”

Linc cocked his head. “Birds singing. Haven’t heard that in a while.” A big toothy smile brightened his fearsome face. “Sounds kinda nice, actually.”

Juan smiled. “Yeah, it does. But what you don’t hear is that god-awful horn that’s supposed to signal the end of the game.”

“And if the game’s still on, it means the Vendor will kill us all if we don’t grab those flags by tomorrow.”

“Exactly. The good news is that means the Vendor will still be hanging around, hoping to save his twenty million dollars.”

“Unless he intends to break the rules and murder us anyway.”

“We’ll deal with that, too.”

“What if the Vendor has already left?” Linc asked.

“Then we get whatever intel we can off of Plata. He’s been the Vendor’s contact person for this shindig. Speaking of which, we should contact Plata. Let him know the situation.”

Cabrillo keyed his mic and called for Plata.

“You get your flag?” the surly Guatemalan responded.

“Better than the flag. We killed Rahul and destroyed his monster-bot.”

Several cheers went up over the tactical net. All of the mercs were on the same radio frequency.

Only Plata remained quiet. There was a pause on his end. Finally he asked, “How?”

“Long story. We’ll talk about it later. Better still, all of his drones are grounded.”

“Again, how?”

“Does it matter?”

“So we’ve won? The money’s ours!” McGuire’s throaty laugh roared in Juan’s earpiece. The rest of the mercs shouted and cheered.

“Cálmense, amigos.We haven’t won yet,” Plata said. “We need to grab the rest of the flags.”

“And we only have until tomorrow to get them or the Vendor will still kill us,” the Frenchman added.

“Let him try,” the Russian said.

“Osipenko’s right,” Plata said. “We’ve already proven we can beat him.”