Another man arrived a moment later and, although he wore just a pair of fatigue pants and unlaced boots, he had the carriage and bearing of an officer. His face was lean, with a beaky nose and hollow cheeks.

“I had reports that there was a small army coming to rescue Moses Ndebele,” he said in perfect English. “Not a handful of white mercenaries. Still, your execution at dawn will be most gratifying.”

“How would you feel if I told you we were hired to rescue Dr. Merrick and have never heard of Moses Ndebele?” Mike Trono asked, just to be sarcastic.

“In that case your execution won’t be gratifying at all.”

Chapter 20

20

JUAN Cabrillo had never known such pain. It wasn’t the sharp agony of having his leg shot off by a Chinese gunboat, but an overall ache that cramped all his muscles until he was certain he couldn’t go on. His thighs and back took the brunt of the strain of para-skiing and they felt like they were burning from within. His hands were formed into claws that gripped the chute’s toggles and there was no way to rest them. There was no way to rest any part of his body unless he quit.

And that wasn’t an option.

So long as the wind continued to blow across the desert, Cabrillo grimly hung on to his chute and raced over the sand. His turns were no longer crisp, and when he fell it took him longer and longer to get to his feet. He hadn’t taken a single break since his sat phone had chimed and Max Hanley had told him Eddie, Mike, and Ski had been captured.

From what Linc could hear over the radio when his teammates had been discovered, there was a contingent of troops from Zimbabwe at the Devil’s Oasis guarding that country’s opposition leader, Moses Ndebele. Linda had done some quick research and learned that Ndebele was to be tried for crimes against the state in a couple of days and would most likely be executed. The UN’s formal complaint against Zimbabwe had done nothing except cause the government to further restrict freedoms within their borders. The entire country was under martial law and a dusk-to-dawn curfew was in effect in Harare, the capital.

Linda learned that Ndebele had a large following that crossed tribal lines. His was the first opposition movement that had the slightest chance of overthrowing Zimbabwe’s corrupt government and establishing a democracy in what had once been one of Africa’s wealthiest countries, but was now ravaged by famine and disease. Though once a fierce guerilla leader when Zimbabwe was known as Rhodesia and was governed with an apartheid-like system by its white minority government, Moses Ndebele advocated a nonviolent approach to toppling the current regime and Linda found numerous comparisons to Gandhi.