Corsair

He estimated there were only another ten or so miles to the coaling station and the dock where the Oregon would be waiting, and they were home free.

The only thing he didn’t know, and couldn’t understand, is what had happened to the Mi-8 helicopter that he was certain he’d heard before they’d escaped the mine depot. The tangos hadn’t tried coming after them with it, which to Cabrillo made no sense. True, a cargo chopper wasn’t the most stable platform to mount an assault, but considering the lengths the terrorists had gone to in order to stop them he would have thought they’d have launched the helo at them, too.

For the next five minutes, the train eased around several smooth turns, each so gentle that Juan barely had to work the brakes. He was just switching comm frequencies to patch through to Max aboard ship when they rounded another bend that had hidden his view of the tracks ahead.

His blood went cold.

The rail line left the relative safety of the mountain’s flank and angled off over the valley across a bridge straight out of the Old West. It resembled a section of a wooden roller coaster and towered a hundred or more feet off the valley floor, an intricate lattice of timber beams bleached white by decades of sun and wind. And at its base, its rotors still turning at idle, sat the Mi-8.

Juan didn’t need to see exactly what the men moving gingerly along the framework were doing to know they were planting explosives to blow the bridge to hell.

TWENTY-FIVE

WHEN THE PHONE WAS FINALLY ANSWERED, ABDULLAH, THE commander of the terror camp they irreverently referred to as East Gitmo, wasn’t sure if he should be afraid or relieved.

“Go,” a voice answered, a voice that in just one word conveyed a malevolence that was dredged up from a dank well which contained normal men’s souls.

There was no need for Abdullah to identify himself. Only a handful of people had the number to this particular satellite phone. He hated to think the equipment was made by the cursed Israelis, but the phones were one hundred percent secure. “I need to speak with him.”

“He is busy. Speak to me.”

“This is urgent,” Abdullah insisted but vowed he wouldn’t press further if he was rebuffed. In the background, he could hear a ship’s horn and the merry clanging of a buoy’s bell. Other than those noises, his response was silence. He honored his promise to himself. “Very well. Tell the Imam that the prisoners are attempting to escape.”

Abdullah didn’t know the details himself, so he kept his briefing vague. “It appears they overpowered the guards and stole one of the small trucks designed to ride on the old rail line as well as a boxcar.” Again, the man on the other end of the call said nothing. Abdullah plowed on. “Attempts to stop them at the mine failed, and a few trainees from the camp haven’t been able to stop them either. I dispatched some of our elite forces in the helicopter. They are going to blow up the trestle bridge. That way, we are certain to get them all.”

The terrorist commander swallowed audibly. “I, er, thought that with the information we learned from the American archaeologist our presence here is no longer necessary. We now know that our belief that the original Suleiman Al-Jama’s hidden base was in this valley, to the south of the “black that burns,” as the legend goes, is wrong. Al-Jama and the Saqr based out of another old riverbed in Tunisia. The men we sent there should have found it anytime now.”

Again, all he could hear was the buoy clanging and an occasional blast of an air horn.

“Where are you?” Abdullah asked impetuously.

“None of your concern. Continue.”

“Well, since we no longer need the pretext of reopening the coal mine, the burning black we mistook for the legendary sign, I figured blowing up the bridge was the best course of action. Two for the price of one, as it were. We kill all of the escapees and begin to dismantle our operation here.”

“How many of our elite forces remain there?”

“About fifty,” Abdullah answered at once.

“Do not risk those fighters on something as trivial as prisoners. Send more of the less trained men, if you must. Tell them that to martyr themselves on this mission will find them in Allah’s special graces in Paradise. The Imam so decrees.”

Abdullah thought better of explaining that there wasn’t time to withdraw their crack troops from the bridge. Instead, he asked, “What about the woman Secretary?”

“Helicopters should be arriving there in about thirty minutes. One of them has orders to take charge of her. Your primary concern is the prisoners’ deaths and making certain that our forces in Tripoli are at full strength. There will be legitimate security personnel at the gathering who they will have to overcome to gain entrance to the main hall. Once inside, of course, the targeted government officials aren’t armed. It will be a glorious bloodletting, and the end of this foolish bid for peace.”