Corsair

“Overholt said it had some kind of drill rig on the back, so I’d say it is. How did you know where to find a picture of it?”

“I’m a genius, Max,” Murph replied without a trace of irony. “You know that.”

“Okay, genius, you just bought yourself a detour. I want you guys to check out the truck, and then I need you to interview the fourth member of the search team, a Dr. Emile Bumford. He’s still at the Roman archaeological site that the State Department team was using as cover. He’s already spoken with the Undersecretary at State, who set this up. From what Lang told me Bumford’s useless, but a face-to-face might get us something.”

“What about the Chairman?” Linda persisted. “I feel like we’re abandoning him.”

“Sweetie,” Max soothed, “this is Juan Cabrillo we’re talking about. With his luck that chopper’s headed to some five-star seaside resort, and ten minutes after they land he’ll have a drink in one hand and a woman in the other.”

It took THE BETTER part of eight hard hours to cross the desert to where Eric and Mark had spotted the abandoned drill truck on the satellite pictures. The landscape was a fractured plane of endless hillocks and riverbeds that rattled their organs until they felt their bodies were nothing more than liquid held in check by their skin.

Mark and Linda had switched places so she rode shotgun next to Linc. He drove in a loose-armed, relaxed pose, as if the rough terrain were no more bothersome than an occasional pothole on an interstate highway. As the sun hovered over the distant horizon, they were approaching the GPS coordinates Eric Stone had provided. The Pig was still performing as advertised, and their remaining fuel was just enough to get them across the border into Tunisia. There they would need to find diesel. Linc was hoping they could buy a supply at the archaeological site, but most likely it would need to be choppered in from the Oregon. He would have to call Max about making the arrangements so they could sling a bladder of diesel under the Corporation’s new McDonnell Douglas MD-520N. With its hook-lifting capacity of a ton, George Adams, their pilot, could more than handle the fuel needed to fill the Pig’s many tanks.

Something sticking up from the otherwise barren desert caught Linc’s attention. It was less than a quarter mile off to their left. He wasn’t sure what it was. From a distance and in the uncertain light, it appeared to be pulsating. He pointed it out to Linda and Mark. Neither knew what to make of it. They were a mile from the abandoned truck, but Linc felt it was worth a look, so he parked the Pig behind a low dune and killed the engine.

“Mark, grab me my REC7, will you?” Linc asked. Next to him, Linda drew a Glock 19, the compact version of the 17, one of the most popular combat pistols in the world.

Mark opened the door to the rear compartment and handed Linc his assault rifle. Not as proficient with small arms as he was with the Oregon’s state-of-the-art arsenal, Murph tucked an antique Model 1911 .45 caliber pistol into the small of his back when he unlimbered his lanky frame from the truck.

The three of them kept in a crouch and used natural cover to approach the unknown object thrust up from the ground. When they were fifty yards off, they heard an obscene crying sound, something that wasn’t human but still reminded them all of an infant’s scream.

“What the hell is that thing?” Mark asked with superstitious dread.

Linc was just ahead of the other two, his rifle tucked high against his shoulder, as he peered intently, trying to understand what he was seeing. The object looked like an inverted cross, but there were two dark shapes moving on either side of the cross, shuffling around in an ungainly motion.

Then one of the shapes spread a pair of wide black wings, and Linc knew immediately what he was seeing. A man had been crucified with his head pointed toward the ground, and a pair of bald-necked vultures was sitting on the crux of his underarms. The feathers around their heads were matted with gore, as they feasted upon the corpse. One had torn off a strip of flesh that now hung in its beak. It jerked its head back and forth to force the meat down its gullet.

Linc knew from an experience in central Africa when he was with the SEALs that no warning shot in the world would chase the repugnant birds from their favored carrion. He fired for effect, putting two rounds downrange, and the vultures were blown off their unholy perch. A couple of feathers drifted lazily on the slight breeze and settled a few feet away from their bodies.

“Oh, God . . . Oh, God . . . Oh, God,” Mark Murphy kept repeating, but, to his credit, he stayed with Linc and Linda as they drew nearer.