Page 84 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier

“It has been changed.”

The Vendor had known for months that the Americans were bringing an advanced network of air and missile defenses online to protect its most important base in the region. But his intelligence sources indicated the air defense network launch date had been accelerated considerably. Within eight days, Guam would have the most impenetrable airspace in the world. If the Vendor hoped to carry out his plan, he needed to make his attack before then.

“I can’t change the laws of physics, sir. It would take a miracle.”

“I believe in miracles.”

“I can’t. I’m a man of science.”

“Then put your faith in the three-million-dollar bonus I will pay toyou personally, along with the half-million-dollar bonus to each of your team members, if the deadline is met.”

The German smiled. “Well, then. Hallelujah!”

The Vendor darkened. “And carefully consider the agonizing consequences if you fail.”

43

Malaysia

TheOregon’s tilt-rotor circled five hundred feet above the grassy airstrip and its steel-roofed lean-to.

“Looks clear to me,” Linda Ross said over the comms. “Let’s set her down.”

“You got it.”

Ross sat in the copilot’s chair. Eddie Seng was in the cabin. Both were kitted up with 9mm MP5s and pistols in case they ran into trouble, but nobody was down there.

After replacing the damaged stabilizer fin, theOregonfinally made her way to the coast of Malaysia. Lacking any solid clues to where Linc and Juan might be, they were now grasping at straws.

Gomez Adams put the AW tilt-rotor’s wheels down on the airstrip with characteristic finesse and throttled back the rotors, keeping them warm and ready for a quick takeoff.

“Better get a move on,” Gomez said. “Malaysian air traffic control will alert the authorities if we’re not airborne in the next five minutes.”

“Roger that,” Linda said.

She and Eddie hit the grass running. A quick scan of the lean-to was fruitless. The place had been perfectly policed. But it was still worth the effort.

As soon as Juan’s and Linc’s trackers disappeared from theOregon’s screens, Murphy and Stone began their searches. Dr. Huxley had implanted a new tracker on Juan’s other hip after his self-directed surgery on the Vendor’s automated plane. With both trackers in place, it was easy enough to follow both men on their different routes to Kuala Lumpur International Airport following the Vendor’s dark web travel instructions.

After hacking into the airport’s security camera system, both Linc and Juan were tracked on their separate journeys from the moment they deplaned to their arrival curbside. Both men had been picked up by the same white Daihatsu van and both had been delivered to the same location, albeit at different times of the day according to their trackers.

Murph and Eddie both assumed a Google Earth search would reveal the details of the location, but a cloud formation had covered the area the day the satellite image was taken and uploaded to the server. Had the airstrip been revealed at that time, it would have been easy to try and connect the time the trackers disappeared with any departing flights from the area. Once those flights were determined, it should have been a simple matter to find the flight logs and their final destinations.

Undeterred, Murph and Stone initiated a search for flights at the time the trackers disappeared, but they came up short. That either meant the flight hadn’t been officially logged or a plane wasn’t involved. If there was no airfield, that would definitely suggest the latter—hence today’s little excursion.

“Seen enough?” Eddie asked. He saw the concern in Linda’s face. Juan and Linc had been missing without a trace for days and hadn’t reached out to them. They were both hoping this brief hop would have provided at least a clue as to their whereabouts, but no such luck.

“Yeah. Let’s get back to the barn.”

Moments later, the tilt-rotor lifted off and rocketed for the coast.

44

Aboard theOregon

The Malacca Strait

Raven lay elevated in one of theOregon’s clinic beds. She wore a pair of surgical shorts that exposed her muscled leg recently re-bandaged by Dr. Huxley. An antibiotic IV drip snaked into her jacked arm. She was as powerfully built as she was beautiful, but at the moment, she was in need of serious recovery.