Clive Cussler Fire Strike (The Oregon Files, Band 17) - Softcover

Maden, Mike

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593714946 ISBN 13: 9780593714942

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon must battle an army of genetically engineered mercenaries to stop a hypersonic missile attack in this explosive new adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.

    When Cabrillo is hired to extract an undercover operative in Kenya, he finds himself on the trail of a deadly international plot. A Saudi prince seeks to unleash a deadly assault on U.S. forces, sparking a new war in the Middle East and ultimately destroying Israel.
    Cabrillo’s crew have met their most fearsome adversaries yet: a force of bio-hacked soldiers endowed with extreme strength and stamina and an unquenchable appetite for violence. The Oregon team must journey from the Amazon rainforest to an abandoned monastery in Eritrea before a final showdown in the mountains of Yemen, using every shred of courage and cunning they can muster to disable the ship-killer missile before the Arabian Sea becomes a mass grave.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Clive Cussler was the author of more than eighty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt®, NUMA Files®, Oregon Files®, Isaac Bell®, and Sam and Remi Fargo®. His life nearly paralleled that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers discovered and surveyed more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Civil War submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collected classic automobiles. His collection featured more than one hundred examples of custom coachwork. Cussler passed away in February 2020.

Mike Maden is the author of Clive Cussler's Hellburner, the critically acclaimed Drone series, and four novels in Tom Clancy’s #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Ryan Jr. series. He holds both a master’s and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Davis, specializing in international relations and comparative politics. He has lectured and consulted on the topics of war and the Middle East, among others. Maden has served as a political consultant and campaign manager in state and national elections, and hosted his own local weekly radio show.

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PROLOGUE
Borneo, 1963

A drenching rain in the moonless night was perfect cover for the three Special Boat Section operatives.

The "wet cousins" of the better-known Special Air Service, the SBS was a commando unit of the Royal Marines specializing in coastal insertions-hence the mission tonight running a Zodiac deep upriver.

A stubborn British national named Rawlinson desperately needed an emergency exfil from his family's rubber plantation. The communist Indonesian insurgents raiding across the region were hell-bent on killing all foreigners and seizing their properties. A Dutch family just eight kilometers away had been decimated by the bandy-legged Marxists the night before and Rawlinson and his wife suddenly realized they were next on their list.

Private Desmond "Wraith" Vickers killed the Zodiac's big outboard Evinrude and the three men paddled the last five hundred meters in practiced synchronicity. They were grateful for the splattering downpour that soaked their kits but silenced their efforts. All three men scanned the dim shoreline for any sign of movement-of rebels, certainly, but also for Bornean crocodiles, thick as flies in this part of the country. So far, lady luck had paddled along with them.

The lieutenant gestured with his free hand and the men angled the rubber-hulled boat toward the shore. They slipped noiselessly out of the Zodiac and dragged it into the cover of thick brush. Each man unslung their "Silent Sten" submachine guns and checked their mags by feel. Vickers slipped his hand to his hip and patted the holster of his .38 Webley revolver, then he snaked his fingers down his thigh to the hilt of his razor-sharp Fairbairn-Sykes dagger in its well-oiled leather scabbard.

Good to go.

The lieutenant nodded in the direction of the plantation. Vickers, just eighteen years old and the youngest operator in the entire squadron, took the point, threading his way through the leaves and brush beneath the orderly rows of rubber trees. On base he carried himself with the self-possessed dignity of a landed earl, but in the field he moved with the preternatural grace and cunning of a jungle cat. His inaudible movements and sudden appearances had earned him the moniker "Wraith."

Vickers halted at the edge of the clearing that led to the darkened plantation house looming in the distance and scanned the perimeter yet again. The lights were off as per the lieutenant's instructions. So far, so good.

Confident that the way was clear, Vickers dashed for the house in a crouching run, his Sten up and his finger on the trigger guard. He silently prayed that Rawlinson remembered the lieutenant's order not to fire on them as they approached the house. A nervous British civilian armed with a loaded Lee-Enfield No. 1 could prove as lethal as any Indonesian killer.

Vickers leaped onto the porch with quiet ease and gazed into the front window. The rain hammered the sheet metal roofing like a mad drummer. He saw no signs of movement inside as the lieutenant and Corporal Sterling, a hulking Scotsman, thundered up next to him.

Vickers shook his head.

The lieutenant's eyes swept the shadowy perimeter once again before he crossed over to the front door and kicked it open with his muddy boot.

Vickers charged in first, gun up, with Sterling-his closest friend-hard on his heels, and the lieutenant right behind them.

"Rawlinson!" the lieutenant called out. "It's the Queen's own come to get you out of here!"

Nothing.

"Sterling, head upstairs. Wraith, check the back."
 
The two men sped away as the lieutenant pushed open the basement door. He pulled the light chain and called out again. "Rawlinson! Don't shoot. We're here to get you out. Are you there?" He jogged down the wooden staircase and scanned the dank room. All he found were undisturbed storage shelves laden with canned goods and household sundries.

The lieutenant climbed back upstairs into the kitchen. Vickers and Sterling shook their heads.

Nothing.

"Rawlinson may have already bugged out without telling us," the lieutenant said. "But we can't take any chances he's still on the property. Sterling, check the storage shed out back. Wraith, head over to the machine shop. I'll sweep the perimeter. We'll meet back at the drop-off point in fifteen minutes, no exceptions. And give it some rice. Understood?"

Heads nodded. Sterling added, "Sure, boss."

***

The suffocating heat came on as suddenly as the pounding rain had stopped and raised a shroud of fog from the waterlogged ground.

The lieutenant's eyes strained in the dark as he crouched at the drop-off point near the boat. No sign of his two men. He checked his watch. Where were they?

"Boss."

The lieutenant flinched, startled by Vickers's sudden appearance behind him, seemingly out of nowhere. The boy really was a ghost.

"Any sign of the Rawlinsons?" the lieutenant asked, his whisper masked by the din of chirring insects and croaking frogs.

"Behind the machine shop. Throats slashed ear to ear."

"Dear God. And Sterling?"

Both men heard the crash of leaves ahead of them, but didn't see the-

Thump!

A Chinese-made "potato masher" hand grenade splattered in the mud at their feet.

Wraith shoved the lieutenant aside and threw himself on the explosive.

"Vickers!" The lieutenant reached down to grab him, but a bullet plowed through his skull.

His corpse thudded into the mud next to Vickers.

"Boss!"

Vickers crawled to his knees and scrambled over to the lieutenant's corpse. The Chinese grenade was a dud, but the bullets zipping overhead were very much alive and threatened to cut him down, too. No matter.

Vickers slipped away as the Indonesians advanced through the rows of rubber trees. The air echoed with the ripsaw staccato of their automatic-rifle fire as rounds splintered the bark and branches.

Vickers raced perpendicular to their advance, silent as a shadow, then turned north.

Emboldened by the lack of British resistance, the Indonesians shouted and laughed as they emptied their magazines into the bush where the lieutenant had fallen. Moments later, they stood over the commando's shattered corpse.

They had no idea that Wraith had completely flanked them from behind.

Vickers fired his silenced machine gun at the shadowy figures. His bullets found their marks as he emptied the thirty-round mag, stitching across the backs of the Indonesians from left to right, felling them like bowling pins into the mud. Two were left.

Vickers reloaded and angled his gun at the last two rebels ducking behind a tree-one a head taller than the other-and suddenly froze.

Sterling!

Vickers could now see the tall Scotsman was gagged and his arms bound behind his back, pushed along by the shorter communist, who held a pistol to the base of Sterling's spine. The smaller Indonesian hid behind the big Scot, using him as a human shield as he maneuvered between the trees.

Bastard.

Vickers circled through the trees, using the trunks for cover as he closed the distance between them, trying to flank him yet again.

Panicked, the Indonesian spun in circles, keeping Sterling close in front of him, one hand around the Scotsman's neck, uncertain where the next gunshot would come from.

Vickers rested the barrel of his Sten on the side of a tree for stability and sighted his weapon at the spinning figures, waiting for the chance-

Pop!

A single 9mm bullet tore into the Indonesian's chest and dropped him to the ground.

Vickers raced out from behind the tree and straight for Sterling.

His mouth still gagged and his hands still bound, Sterling saw Vickers emerge from the trees and shouted a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593714946
• ISBN 13: 9780593714942
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 448
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar