“Not at first. But now I’m convinced. The guy Sloane and I chased with the lifeboat intentionally killed himself rather than risk me getting my hands on him. He wasn’t trying to avoid an African jail. He was a fanatic willing to martyr himself so we didn’t discover the heaters. And we know Merrick’s kidnapping isn’t about ransom, its political — i.e., he’s pissed off somebody bad enough to snatch him.”

“Environmentalists,” Linda stated flatly.

“Has to be,” Juan said. “We’ve stumbled into a two-pronged attack of some kind. On the one side they want Merrick, for some reason, and on the other they’re trying to disrupt ocean currents with those big generators.”

Eddie cleared his throat. “I don’t get it, Chairman. If these people care about the environment, why would they mess with the ocean like this?”

“We’re going to find out tonight when we rescue Merrick and grab us a couple of kidnappers.”

RIGGERS had laid out the insertion team’s parachutes in one of the Oregon’s empty holds. The shiny black nylon looked like spilled oil on the deck plates. When Juan entered after a twenty-minute conversation with Langston Overholt at the CIA, Mike Trono and Jerry Pulaski were already there, carefully folding their parachutes so when they deployed twenty-five thousand feet above the Namib Desert they wouldn’t foul. Mike was a former para-rescue jumper from the Air Force while Ski had come to the Corporation after fifteen years as a recon Marine. Max was chatting with Eddie and Linc as they checked equipment and weapons arranged on trestle tables set up along one wall of the hold.

Cabrillo knew that every member of the Corporation could work with anyone else without the slightest problem, but there were a few dream pairings among the crew. Linc and Eddie were one, and Mike and Ski were another. When together, each team was absolutely devastating under fire and could operate at an almost telepathic level.

Next to the tables were four rugged-looking motorcycles. These were what the Oregon had gone to Cape Town to pick up. Designed for hard desert riding, they had fat balloon tires for crossing soft sand and extra-powerful shock absorbers. In the past few days a team of mechanics had stripped them down to bare essentials to save on weight and covered up their once garish colors with a desert camouflage paint job.

His ship’s cell phone rang as he walked across the cavernous space. “Cabrillo.”

“Chairman, it’s Eric. Just want to let you know that we’ll be in range of Swakopmund in twenty minutes. I’ve already alerted George so he’ll have the chopper fueled and ready. Mark’s getting our gear together now. Tiny will be at the airport with the Citation by the time we reach him and I’ve even been able to charter a plane in Kinshasa.”

“Good work.”