Chapter 50

50

The Island of Sorrows

The Celebes Sea

Juan’s first thought wasn’t how to get to his assigned flag but rather for he and Linc to get enough distance away from the others to call the Oregon on his sat phone. If the mercs knew he had it, their cover would be blown. The last thing he wanted was for that pack of wolves to turn on them.

Their target flag was located in the jungle at the base of the city, on the side directly opposite the ocean front it bordered. He and Linc purposely ran at an oblique angle from the air control tower to their target to avoid Osipenko, who had set out directly behind them. As soon as the Russian had pushed through the foliage and deeper into the trees, Juan and Linc found cover in a grove of towering bamboo.

Juan opened up his combat leg and removed his satellite phone, one of several devices inside the secret compartment. He wasn’t worried about detection by Rahul’s drones. Unlike the comms units the team deployed, his sat phone utilized frequency-hopping to avoid detection.

He powered it up, hoping to see a couple of voicemails or texts from the Oregon, but there were none. That’s odd, he thought as he hit the auto dial for the Oregon number. But the phone never acquired a signal. Instead, an error message popped up: “SEARCHING FOR SATELLITE.”

“Problem, Chief?” Linc whispered as his eyes scanned the area.

“Can’t get a signal.”

“Something wrong with the unit?”

Juan checked the battery indicator. It read eighty-nine percent. He then turned the unit over in his hands looking for any kind of damage, but found none. He powered it down and then brought it back up to clear the cache and still it didn’t work. Finally, he ran a self-diagnostic. All clear.

“It’s solid as a rock. Just can’t get the signal here.”

“If the phone’s good, then the link is bad. You think we’re being blocked?”

“If we are”—Juan unconsciously touched his hip—“then our trackers are offline, too.”

“So the Oregon has no idea where we are.”

“Just like us.”

“And our merc friends. Forgotten warriors on an unknown rock fighting some sort of ghost soldier.”

“Except I don’t believe in ghosts,” Juan replied. “We’ll push on toward our flag. It’s a couple of miles from here. We’ll try again for a signal along the way.”

---

★The rawboned Nigerian chose one of the flags in the decaying ruins of the island city. He had spent years crawling through the rubble of Libya’s ruined buildings hunting whatever targets got him paid the most. He far preferred the haunted city to the claustrophobic mines or the suffocating jungle.

The Nigerian’s keen eyes scanned for trip wires and hidden cameras as he made his way up the crumbling cement staircase toward the top floor. Reaching the top of the landing, he popped his head in and out of the first room, but saw nothing. The blistered cement scrunched beneath his boots and a light wind rattled the sheet metal roof above his head. He glanced up at the noise and saw that half of the rusted metal sheeting had been torn off or blown away, probably years ago.

He stepped carefully forward, his senses on full alert, his eyes fixed on the next doorway. A glint of purple at his feet crept into his peripheral vision. Incredibly, the stem of a single petaling flower grew out of a crack in the cement floor. How is that even possible? he asked himself as he edged closer to the door. He felt the cool damp of a light breeze pouring out of the doorway.

He peered around the corner and there it was—the flag, standing on the far side of a glassless window. The Nigerian felt a drop of water hit the back of his neck, but he ignored it. He did another three-hundred-sixty-degree sweep with his eyes to make sure he was clear, then dashed into the room.

---

★The surveillance drone circled five hundred feet above the apartment block, one of dozens on patrol over the island. Its downward gaze first caught sight of the Nigerian as he bolted into the building. Now that he was on the top floor, the bird drone caught a second, fleeting glimpse of his coal-black hair as he ducked his head into the first room.

Its sensors now alerted, the drone tightened its circle and its telephoto-lense eyes locked onto the figure. Programmed to recognize human forms and movement, the surveillance drone easily tracked the Nigerian through the partially covered roof and sent out an alert signal to the other drones in its network.

When the Nigerian approached the second room, the drone acquired a much clearer image that instantly broadcast in real time to the rest of the network. The image was so clear it captured the glimmer of sunlight radiating in the single drop of moisture that fell onto the man’s neck.

This fuller image triggered the attack algorithm.

---

★The Yari drone fixed on the building at the first alert of the surveillance drone. Its computer brain was linked by swarming algorithms to every other drone in the network including both surveillance and attack drones in the air and on the ground. Like every other model of lethal drone in the network, it flew fully armed, and now that the surveillance drone had confirmed its target, the drone’s AI-powered controller gave it the ability to make an attack decision independent of Rahul’s command.

When the second, clearer image of the Nigerian appeared on the attack drone’s image sensor, the AI-networked brain engaged in a series of precise mathematical calculations predicting the location of the merc as he entered the room. The drone could have done this even if the Nigerian were no longer visible, but the fact that he’d dashed into a room with a large and glassless window made its task just that much simpler.

The Yari’s display put a red target reticle on the running Nigerian. Just as the big man reached the flag, the drone plunged through the window and erupted.

---

★Rahul grinned with delight as he watched the attack drone’s first-person video image fly into the Nigerian’s broad back. The crystal clear video turned to snow when it exploded. Of course, there was no audio of the blast, but Rahul didn’t need one. The crack of the explosion echoed in the distance just moments later. A second explosion followed within the span of a heartbeat.

Rahul rewound the attack footage on his display and let it play through one more time. He wanted to know if the Nigerian had secured the flag.

But the Nigerian’s body blocked the view of the flag before the explosion and his wrist device was turned away from the camera. It wasn’t at all clear if the Nigerian had succeeded in capturing the flag.

But there was no doubt whatsoever that he was the first pawn wiped off the board.

---

★“Did you see that?” Juan whispered, his eye fixed to his spotter’s scope.

“Looked like a couple of drones took him out.” Linc had observed the action through his rifle scope. He checked his watch map. There were only nine flags left. “At least he got his flag.”

“I think that’s an example of ‘Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?’ ”

“You know my mother’s name was Mrs. Lincoln, right?”

“It never gets old.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Linc scanned the sky for more drones.

“At least we know what we’re up against.” Linc’s view was partially blocked by the umbrella-shaped canopies of the towering acacia trees high overhead. He didn’t mind that his vision was obscured, since it was those leaves that also kept them from being seen—and no doubt had saved their lives.

“Why not just stay here? We could let the other mercs assume we’re dead.”

“No doubt, but I’m not sure that’s our best bet.”

“How so?”

“First off, the mercs won’t know we’re alive, but the Vendor will—he’s tracking our vital signs, remember? He might get suspicious if we stay put. Might even send someone our way.”

“Even during the test?”

“Maybe, maybe not. If the others are all dead, though, he certainly will. Remember? He said anyone still alive after forty-eight hours and with flags on the board would be killed.”

“So you’re saying we should go after the flags?”

Juan grinned. “You always could read my mind. Our best shot at surviving this thing is getting all ten flags, and the best chance we have of doing that is teaming up with the others. But there’s an even better reason.”

“Which is?”

“If we don’t rally with the others, there’s a better than even chance those guys will get killed off—and that means the Vendor wins. And that’s something I can’t stomach.”

Linc nodded. “If we win the game, the Vendor loses—and loses his contracts with his clients. Yeah, I like that.”

“More importantly, our job is still to get the Vendor. If he wins quickly, he’ll likely take off. But if he loses, he’ll hang around to assess the damage and try and figure out what went wrong. He might even hang around long enough for the Oregon to get here and then we can snatch him.”

“There’s one big, ginormous fly swimming in the ointment of your infallible reasoning,” Linc said.

“And that would be?”

“That plan of yours only works if we don’t get our heads blown off by that Terminator spider—or whatever other murder toys the Vendor has cranked up out there.”

“A minor detail.” Juan slung his rifle.

Their assigned flag was still half a mile away. They had opted to take the more arduous route, preferring to stay under the cover of the jungle canopy with its thick roots and fallen logs rather than using the well-worn, open-air footpath just beyond it.

They had both ducked for cover and drew their pistols twenty minutes earlier when they heard the thundering footsteps of a man approaching from behind on the footpath. But it was only the Nigerian racing toward the entrance to the city.

Fascinated by his bold approach, Juan and Linc opted to watch his episode unfold. The twin explosions several minutes later told them it hadn’t gone his way.

While Linc continued scanning the sky, Juan pulled out his sat phone and powered it back up. It was now at eighty-eight percent. Plenty of power. The screen flashed the same “SEARCHING FOR SATELLITE” message.

“Still a no-go?” Linc asked.

“Yeah.” Juan pocketed the sat phone, but didn’t power it down this time. His mind was fixated on an engineering puzzle.

“Problem?” Linc asked.

“You mean other than the fact we’re trapped on an island with eleven—strike that, ten—psychopathic killers and an eight-legged Terminator spider robot?”

“Yeah. Other than that.”

“Our sat signals are blocked, but those drones took out the Nigerian.”

“So I noticed.”

“But drones normally use sat signals—GPS, GLONASS, whatever—for navigation and remote operations.”

“Our radios work fine. Plata hasn’t shut his yapper since we left. He’s had more airtime than Wolfman Jack.”

“Exactly. That means those drones are on radio frequencies.”

Juan opened up his combat leg and pulled out a sandwich-sized device. He unfolded it, forming a small tablet with a titanium backing and ultrathin bendable glass. He lifted it for Linc to see.

“Behold the Mini-Sniffer, Murph and Stoney’s latest invention.”

Linc’s eyes widened with disbelief. “Mini-Sniffer? As in the Oregon’s electromagnetic vacuum cleaner?”

“Precisely. Doesn’t have the range and can’t process as wide a variety of signals, but it should do the trick when it comes to radio frequencies.”

Juan powered up the Mini-Sniffer. Nanoseconds later the display booted up and automatically searched for signals. A huge number of hits popped up.

“We’re loaded with two point four and five gigahertz signals,” Juan said. “Both are perfect for cameras and remote controls. The five gigahertz is even better for first-person video.”

“The kind that drones use,” Linc said. “Can you access any of those signals? Give us a chance to see what they’re seeing?”

“That’s the plan.” Juan scrolled through the list.

“But…can’t the drones lock on the sat phone signal?”

Juan grinned as he scrolled. “You worried I’m painting a target on our backs?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

Juan shook his head. “Not an issue. This phone uses advanced signal hopping. No way for a drone to lock on it. Wait. There.” Juan finally reached the 5 GHz signal list and selected one of them.

“Crap. Should’ve seen that coming.”

“What?”

“The signal’s encrypted.” Juan tapped a few more buttons on the screen. “So are the rest.”

“What can we do?”

Juan punched another button. A circling wheel and processing appeared on the screen.

“We need to give the Mini a chance to decrypt the signal. It’s not as good as the Cray on the Oregon, but Murph said it should do the job. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“We should get going if we want to snag that flag before the rally.”

“Agreed,” Juan said. “Head on a swivel, and stay out of sight.”

“Goes without saying.”

“Tell that to the Nigerian.”