“Max,” he called without looking up from his computer monitor, “I’ve got something here that says the pressure in the fire suppression system is down by fifteen pounds.”

“I ordered a test trip in the hold. The system should be back up to full pressure in about an hour.”

“Okay. Hali, what’s George’s ETA?”

Hali Kasim pulled down one side of his headphones. “He just took off from Cabinda, Angola, with Eric and Murph. We should be able to rendezvous in about two and a half hours. He’ll call ten minutes out so we can slow the ship and prep the hangar.”

“And Tiny? Where’s he?”

“Thirty thousand feet over Zambia.”

Juan was relieved. The plan, like so many recently, had been hastily put together. One of the biggest obstacles was getting a hundred of Moses’ best men out of their refugee camp near the industrial town of Francistown, Botswana. Unlike a lot of sub-Saharan Africa, there was very little corruption in Botswana, so getting the men onto a plane without passports had been more expensive than Cabrillo would have liked. Tiny’s bush pilot friend had cleared the way for them on the other end, and ensured that they would have no difficulty landing in Cabinda. The Oregon would tie up to the city’s main pier about five hours after they landed and would stay just long enough to get them aboard.

From there they would proceed north to the oil fields off the coast where Murph and Eric had detected three of the ten AK-47s with the Corporation’s radio tags. The weapons were grouped in a swamp less than five miles from a massive new tanker terminal and within a ten-minute boat ride of a dozen offshore oil rigs.

Juan had contacted Langston Overholt as soon as Murph had reported in. Lang had then alerted the State Department so they could issue a warning to Angola’s government. However, the wheels of diplomacy turn slowly and so far Juan’s information was languishing in Foggy Bottom while the policy wonks hashed out a statement.

Because of the low-grade civil war being waged all across Cabinda Province, the petroleum companies who leased the oil fields had their own security apparatus in place. The tanker terminal and workers’ compounds were fenced off and patrolled by armed guards. Cabrillo had considered calling the companies directly but knew he would be ignored. He also knew that whatever force they had in place was a deterrent for theft and trespassing and wasn’t capable of holding off an army. Any warning he did issue would likely only get more of their guards killed.

Also, he had learned from Murph’s aerial reconnaissance that there were hundreds of people living in shantytowns around the oil concessions. There would be far fewer civilian casualties if the fighting took place well inside the facilities.