Page 118 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier

Juan skidded to a stop and pointed to a mound some eighty yards distant in the clearing.

“There, see it?”

“Out in the open,” Linc said, slightly winded. “Not much of a defensive position. But better than a kick in the head.”

They heard shouts in the distance.

“Most things are. Let’s go.”

Juan bolted through the open terrain, praying they were faster than the mercs trying to turn the corner on them from the east. His legs churned up the steep little berm and he threw himself over the top.

It was deeper than he thought.

He fell four feet through the air, and landed with a sickening crunch of bone.

60

Cabrillo’s muscular frame was weighted down with armor plates and gear. Falling four feet from a running jump gave him the force of a battering ram when he hit the bottom of the pit. His boots cracked a set of bleached-white rib bones poking up out of the dry ground.

He glanced around. The thirty-yard-wide crater was a mass grave, its soil eroded away. A sea of bones.

A dozen skeletal hands clawed at the sky as if trying to dig themselves out of the ground.

Perhaps they had—if they’d been buried alive.

Seconds later, Linc landed next to him, his larger frame crushing a pair of skulls beneath his boot heels. It sounded like dried twigs snapping.

Both men exchanged a shocked glance. Neither had ever seen anything so bizarre or macabre. Plata had mentioned there were at least two mass graves on the island. The map didn’t indicate their location.

“Never thought I’d be fighting for my life from the bottom of a grave,” Linc said.

“The ironies of life never cease to amaze.”

Suddenly they heard Plata’s familiar voice shouting behind them.

“Over there!”

The twoOregonoperators moved without a word. Their years oftraining and serving together created a near-telepathic ability to communicate with each other. Commands weren’t necessary. Juan instantly took up the four o’clock position on the rim and Linc the eight o’clock. They were spread out enough to cover a two-hundred-seventy-degree field of fire.

The roar of one of the RHIB outboards suddenly cut off.

“First boat just landed,” Linc said. “More company coming.”

“I hate it when they don’t RSVP.”

Juan scanned the open field. The graveyard was a pit in the middle of a wide-open field. They had clear shots at whoever crossed it. But they were sitting ducks waiting there. It was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.

“How are you on ammo?” Linc asked.

Juan smiled to himself. Linc must have been reading his mind.

“Not great. You?”

“Same.”

“Make every shot count.”

“Always do.”