Page 20 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier
“Can’t the Pentagon give you those numbers?”
“You’re speaking of the same DoD that can’t account for trillions of dollars missing from its accounts. What’s a paltry few billion in missing weapons to them?”
“What you need is an auditor, not an operator.”
“Second, I need you to figure out how the Taliban is managing to transport these weapons. If we can determine that, we just might have a way to identify and eradicate their ‘U-Haul’ service.”
“You wouldn’t be calling me if you had any human assets left on the ground,” Juan said. “A run into the Ghan won’t be easy.”
The Pentagon chiefs not only abandoned weapons and gear, they left behind thousands of loyal Afghanis—the people who fought for the Americans and often died in service to them.
Overholt’s voice dropped an octave. “The ones that couldn’t flee on their own have either been killed or gone underground. You’d be entirely on our own.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Overholt,” Max said. “But did Uncle Sam run outof satellites? Why can’t you just monitor Afghani air and ground traffic?”
“Excellent question, Mr. Hanley. We’ve re-tasked multiple birds over the area for just that reason, and we’re monitoring all commercial air traffic in and out of Afghanistan. The bottom line is that we don’t see how or when or where these weapons systems are being transported. Frankly, I think the transport issue is a bigger concern than the weapons themselves.”
“Agreed,” Juan said. “I’m surprised the DoD hasn’t sent in a Delta team to sniff this all out.”
“They did. Two days ago…” Overholt’s voice trailed off. “They were spotted by Black Hawk helicopters piloted by the Taliban and cut down with Vulcan rotary guns. No survivors.”
“And now it’s our turn to go in.”
“I’m afraid so. That is, if you’re willing to take the assignment.”
“Who else is there to do the job?”
“Indeed, whom? Good hunting, my boy. And Godspeed.”
9
The Island of Sorrows
The Celebes Sea
The privately owned island sat seventeen miles southeast of the southernmost tip of Mindanao in a part of the world some people consider to be a tropical Eden. But the miserable rock looming out of the sea had well earned the name “Island of Sorrows.”
The eight high-speed electric motors of the octocopter chirred like an armored insect from a hellish dream as it hovered over the open pit, a mini chain gun slung beneath its frame.
The drone’s optical and heat sensors scanned the tangle of bloated uniformed corpses below for signs of life as its targeting reticle raked a red laser slowly over each pale, unblinking face.
Onboard infrared sensors detected the wavelength emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and hydrogen sulfide—proof of postmortem decomposition, which proceeded rapidly in the island’s high heat and humidity.
Chang!A single bullet from the mini gun plowed into the chest of a bearded soldier. The corpse had shuddered slightly as fermenting gases inside the body suddenly expanded and released. The drone’s onboard AI sensors mistook that movement as a sign of life and acted to terminate it immediately as per the Vendor’s algorithm. The additional release of decompositional gases resulting from the new bullet wound plumed in the drone’s infrared sensors.
The drone hovered for a few moments more. Sensing neither increasing body heat nor movement, its targeting algorithms sent the octocopter racing off in a burst of speed in another direction in search of the final, elusive target. In moments, the din of its screaming electric motors gave way to the sound of the pounding surf a hundred meters away.
The corpse that had been shot stirred again. So did the bald one next to it. A third wriggled awkwardly before its blood-matted chest tumbled over.
A fourth form arose from beneath the pile.
Like all of the other soldiers in the pit, Guevara wore a generic camouflage uniform without unit patches or national identity. His shirt and pants were smeared with blood and gore—but not his own. Unlike the others, his uniform had no bullet holes in it.
Confident he had eluded the hunter-killer drone, Guevara climbed out of the pit, stepping on the bodies to reach the top until he could finally scramble over the rocky lip. He didn’t bother looking back. These men had been comrades only in death, not life—all of them strangers thrown together in a nightmare of slaughter.
He was the lone survivor.
Finally topside, Guevara raced in a crouch beneath the jungle’s heavy fronds and spreading leaves, hoping to evade whatever surveillance devices might be deployed. He finally reached the end of the embankment and leaped into the water, his combat boots splashing in the brackish lagoon fronting the cave. He ripped away the fronds covering the rubber boat tied up inside, climbed into it, and yanked on the starter cord.
