Page 21 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier
Nothing.
He yanked again. It stuttered, but didn’t start. In his panic he had forgotten to open up the gas valve and to prime the engine. He did both, and yanked the cord again. The motor coughed into life. He gunned the throttle and the small boat charged forward into the surf.
The rubber dinghy braved the crashing waves, its flat, wide bottom slewing sideways in the frothing white surf, but still scuttling forward until he finally cleared the breakers. As the boat raced down the backof the last roller, Guevara laughed for the first time in what seemed like years, sensing he had finally escaped the gravitational pull of the island of death. He turned his dripping-wet face to a warm and forgiving sun, cleansing him of his unspoken sins, or so it felt, as relief washed over him in a wave of delirious joy.
His eyes didn’t catch sight of the flock of seagulls hovering high overhead, nor of the single gull whose unblinking gaze had fixed on the small black boat far below in the crystal-blue waters.
The gull retracted its wings to its sides, increasing its aerodynamic profile and thus its speed. It flew like a god-thrown spear toward the little boat in an unforgiving arc that ended in Guevara’s fiery death.
?
Aboard theIzanami
The Indian Ocean
A thousand miles away from the Island of Sorrows, the Vendor studied the shattered wreck of the burning rubber boat on a single view screen. It was one of an entire bank of monitors tracking his other activities around the world.
A separate bank of monitors displayed the operational departments on his largely automated manufacturing vessel—one of several in his fleet—allowing him to run it from his command center.
The Vendor’s long finger brushed a touchscreen control panel, shutting the island view screen off. He sighed, deeply dissatisfied.
He leaned back in his chair, contemplating his next move. The big diesel engines thrumming belowdecks drummed a tattoo inside of his aching skull. He rubbed his throbbing temples for relief, but got none.
Guevara’s death was a foregone conclusion even before the gull drone snuffed out his pathetic life. He gave the man credit for his ability to elude a wide variety of fixed and aerial sensors for a few days, but he never had any hope of escape. It was bad enough that Guevara and the other men recruited for this test failed to put up a credibledefense. But their inability to mount a viable offense was catastrophic for both them and the test. An effective offense could have provided them a slim hope of survival. It also would have proven the combat effectiveness of his new weapon system.
Despite the fact his new technologies had achieved the desired outcome, the Vendor knew his clients were unimpressed. After all, remote killing had been going on since the first human had discovered how to bash another man’s skull with a thrown rock.
His clients were seeking an entirely new class of weapons technology. If the Vendor offered a new demonstration with a similar group of guinea pigs, the same outcome would result and his clients would no doubt accuse him of stacking the deck in favor of his drone-based systems.
What could he do?
The Vendor needed a more robust test to thoroughly convince his clients that a genuine “revolution in military affairs”—the jargon du jour—was at hand. Nothing short of a revolution could hope to unseat the United States as the world’s premiere military power. And until that power was wrested from the hated Americans, Washington, D.C., would continue to dictate the world political and financial order under which his brooding clients were subject. That was why they paid him so very well.
The Vendor swiveled his large frame around in his chair, tugging on his silvering beard. His dark hooded eyes stared into the bulkhead with a deep intensity. How could he improve the test?
It seemed obvious now. He needed to provide a genuine combat team, not just warm bodies with guns.
To be combat effective, such a team would require a brief period of training. And he needed to recruit something better than the riffraff he’d hustled off the streets.
What he needed was a group of the world’s best warriors—ex–special forces operators. But they had to be men without countries; men who would neither be missed nor mourned and all highly skilled in the arms that he would supply.
But how to find such men?
The edges of the Vendor’s dark eyes crinkled as he grinned to himself.
Of course. Something his grandfather had once told him.
The sweetest jar of honey attracts the angriest hornets.
10
Langley, Virginia
Erin Banfield’s dark green eyes were blurry after hours of scrolling through computer databases on her monitor. Her small, cramped desk was littered with hard printouts and bankers boxes stacked like Jenga bricks. She looked like a hoarder rather than a gifted CIA senior analyst. She was located in the basement of one of the older annexes on the campus.
Banfield had attended all of the technical conferences and training seminars required for the job, but she still had a hard time trusting the latest artificial intelligence search programs. Over the years she had caught a few mistakes that the supposedly more efficient—some even said “faultless”—machines had committed. In her line of work, the hardest cases were usually broken open upon discovery of the smallest of details—including the ones missed by the witless computer chips.
“Jeez, Erin. Any chance you can pick up a phone?”
