“Chairman, I have Benjamin Isaka on the line,” Linda Ross said. “Transferring him to your station.”

“Deputy Minister Isaka, Captain Cabrillo here. I assume you’ve been apprised of our situation?”

“Yes, Captain. Colonel Abala wants his diamonds back.” The deputy defense minister’s accent was almost too thick for Juan to understand. “And he has stolen two of our river patrol boats. I have a report that ten of our men are dead on the dock in Matadi where the boats were stationed.”

“He also has two helicopters from an oil company.”

“I see,” Isaka said noncommittally.

“We could use a little help.”

“Our mutual friend at Langley who recommended you said you are more than capable of taking care of yourselves.”

Juan wanted to scream at the government official. “Mr. Isaka, if I take out Abala’s forces he’s going to be very suspicious about the weapons he just bought. The radio direction tags embedded in them are well hidden but not undetectable. The whole plan was for him to take the guns back to Makambo’s jungle headquarters, giving your military its location once and for all. You can end the insurrection in a couple of days, but not if Abala leaves the weapons on the dock back at the plantation.” It was the third or fourth time he’d outlined his logic to Isaka since Langston Overholt at the CIA okayed Juan to undertake the mission.

The first part of Isaka’s reply was muffled by the sound of mortar fire coming from the Swift boats. They hit close enough to throw a wall of water against the Oregon’s side. “…they leave Boma now they will reach you in an hour.”

“Could you repeat that please, Minister?”

The entire crew in the op center was thrown forward as the Oregon’s keel slammed into the river bottom, the instant deceleration sending expensive china cascading in the mess and shattering a portable X-ray machine in the medical bay that Dr. Julia Huxley had forgotten to secure.

Juan was among the first to his feet. “Eric, what the hell happened?”

“The bottom shoaled suddenly, I never saw it coming.”

“Max, how’re the engines?”

As a safety precaution the computer automatically took the engines offline the instant the huge ship grounded. Max studied his computer screen, his frown deepening by the second. He worked the keyboard a moment longer.

“Max?” Juan said, drawing out his old friend’s name.

“Port tube is jammed solid with mud. I can get twenty percent through the starboard, but only in reverse. We try to go forward and we’ll block up that one, too.”

“Eric,” Juan said, “I have the helm.”

“Chairman has the helm, aye.”

The pulse jet tubes were milled as smooth as rifle barrels from an exotic alloy to exacting standards, eliminating the possibility of cavitation, the formation of microscopic bubbles that induce drag. Juan knew that the mud and silt had likely pitted the tubes already and to force any more muck through them might make them inoperable. He would take the responsibility for further damaging his ship himself.