Two orderlies were waiting with a gurney when the retractable helipad was lowered into the hold and Sloane was whisked to sick bay, an infirmary that rivaled a metropolitan level-one trauma center.

Hux’s treatment of Juan had been a quick pronouncement that he was fine, a liter bottle of a vile-tasting sports drink, and a couple aspirin. At least Max was in the hangar with one of Cabrillo’s spare legs.

Juan dropped onto a work bench to unseat his mangled prosthesis. The Oregon had slowed her mad dash from Cape Town in order for George Adams to land the helicopter, and now, as he accepted the artificial limb from his second in command, he could feel the ship begin to accelerate again.

He angrily yanked down his pants cuff and started walking quickly, calling over his shoulder, “Senior staff in the boardroom in fifteen minutes.”

His team was assembled by the time he finished a quick shower and a shave that left his face raw from the straight razor he used. Maurice had prepared a coffee service and had a steaming cup at the head of the cherry conference table for him. The armored covers for the boardroom’s windows were opened so the room was brightly lit, contrasting sharply with the dark look of the men and women seated around him.

Juan took a sip of his coffee and bluntly said, “Okay, what the hell happened?”

As chief intelligence officer, Linda Ross took point. She hastily swallowed a mouthful of Danish. “Yesterday morning members of the Kinshasa police raided a house outside the city, believing it was a drug distribution center. They made several arrests and found a cache of arms as well as a small amount of drugs. They also found a heap of documents linking the dealers to Samuel Makambo and his Congolese Army of Revolution.”

“The guy that bought our weapons,” Mark Murphy reminded unnecessarily. He didn’t look up from his work on the laptop Juan had taken from the wave-powered generator.

Linda continued. “It turns out that Makambo was using the proceeds from the drug sales to further finance his activities, which isn’t a big stretch. What caught the police off guard was how Makambo had managed to use bribery to infiltrate the upper echelons of the government. He had a ton of bureaucrats on his payroll, including Benjamin Isaka in the Defense Ministry. For fifty thousand Euros a year paid into a Swiss bank account, Isaka fed information to Makambo about the government’s attempts to locate his secret base of operations. He continually tipped off the rebel leader so Makambo’s army was always one step ahead of government troops.”