Clive Cussler - Skeleton Coast

SKELETON
COAST

CLIVE
CUSSLER
WITH JACK Du BRUL

BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

A NEW CLIVE CUSSLER NOVEL IS LIKE A VISIT FROM YOUR BEST FRIEND.

Tom Clancy

Clive Cusslers explosive Oregon Files novels have been hailed as honestly fabulous ( Kirkus Reviews ) and action-packed ( Publishers Weekly ). Now, the author of the bestselling NUMA and Dirk Pitt series delivers an explosive Oregon Files novel featuring his unbeatable hero of the high seasJuan Cabrillo

1896: Four Englishmen flee for their lives across the merciless Kalahari Desert carrying a stolen fortune in raw diamonds, and hunted by a fierce African tribe. The thieves manage to reach the waiting HMS Rove only to die with their pursuers in a storm that buries them all under tons of sand

Today: Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the covert combat ship Oregon have barely escaped a mission on the Congo River when they intercept a mayday from a defenseless boat under fire off the African coast. Cabrillo takes action, saving the craftalong with beautiful Sloane Macintyre. Sloane is looking for the now-submerged Rove , and her search has attracted unwantedand lethalattention from unknown forces. But what surprises Cabrillo is her story about a crazy fisherman who claims to have been attacked on the open seaby giant metal snakesin the same area.

What begins as a snake hunt leads Cabrillo to the trial of a far more lethal quarrya deranged enemy whose cadre of followers plans to unleash the devastating power of nature itself against all who oppose them

PRAISE FOR CLIVE CUSSLERS NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING NOVELS OF THE OREGON FILES

DARK WATCH
SACRED STONE
GOLDEN BUDDHA

Ablaze with action.

Kirkus Reviews

Readers will burn up the pages following the blazing action and daring exploits of these men and women and their amazing machines.

Publishers Weekly

Fans of Cussler will not be disappointed.

Library Journal

PRAISE FOR
CLIVE CUSSLERS NUMA SERIES

MARVELOUSsimply terrific fun.

Kirkus Reviews

YOU CANT GET MUCH MORE SATISFYING.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer

A GREAT STORY.

Tulsa World

WILDLY ENTERTAINING.

New York Daily News

PRAISE FOR
CLIVE CUSSLERS DIRK PITT SERIES

[A] NONSTOP THRILLERCUSSLER SPEEDS AND TWISTS through the complex plot and hairbreadth escapes [with] the intensity and suspense of a NASCAR race.

Publishers Weekly

CLIVE CUSSLERIS AT TOP FORM HERE.

Kirkus Reviews

A DELIGHTFUL PAGE-TURNER that is almost impossible to put down.

The San Francisco Examiner

THE FUNNEST DIRK PITT ADVENTURE SINCE RAISE THE TITANIC !

Rocky Mountain News

DIRK PITT ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER

Trojan Odyssey

Valhalla Rising

Atlantis Found

Flood Tide

Shock Wave

Inca Gold

Sahara

Dragon

Treasure

Cyclops

Deep Six

Pacific Vortex

Night Probe

Vixen 03

Raise the Titanic !

Iceberg

The Mediterranean Caper

DIRK PITT ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND DIRK CUSSLER

Black Wind

FICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH PAUL KEMPRECOS

Polar Shift

Lost City

White Death

Fire Ice

Serpent

Blue Gold

FICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH JACK DU BRUL

Skeleton Coast

Dark Watch

FICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO

Sacred Stone

Golden Buddha

NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO

The Sea Hunters II

The Sea Hunters

Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed

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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright 2006 by Sandecker, RLLP.

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PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley trade paperback edition / October 2006

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cussler, Clive.

Skeleton Coast / Clive Cussler, with Jack Du Brul.Berkley trade pbk. ed. p. cm. ISBN: 1-4295-2763-3 1. Cabrillo, Juan (Fictitious character)Fiction. 2. Mercenary troopsFiction. 3. Treasure trovesFiction. 4. Skeleton Coast (Namibia)Fiction. I. Du Brul, Jack B. II. Title. PS3553.U75S54 2006 813.54dc22 2006020588

Contents

KALAHARI DESERT
1896

H E never should have ordered them to leave the guns behind. The decision would cost them all their lives. But had there really been a choice? When the last remaining packhorse went lame theyd had to redistribute its load, and that meant leaving equipment behind. There was no debating the necessity of bringing the water flasks the animal had carried, or the satchels bursting with uncut stones. Theyd had to abandon the tents, bedrolls, thirty pounds of food, and the Martini-Henry rifles each of the five men had carried, as well as all the ammunition. But even with these weight savings the surviving horses were severely overburdened, and with the sun beginning to rise once more to pound the desert no one expected their mounts would last the day.

H. A. Ryder knew better than to agree to lead the others across the Kalahari. He was an old Africa hand, having abandoned a failing farm in Sussex in the heady days of the Kimberley rush hoping to make himself a millionaire in the diamond fields. By the time hed arrived in 1868 the whole of Colesberg Kopje, the hillock where the first diamonds had been discovered, was staked and the fields around it, too, for several miles. So Ryder turned to providing meat for the army of workers.

With a pair of wagons and hundreds of sacks of salt to cure the game, he and a couple of native guides ranged over thousands of square miles. It had been a solitary existence but one that Ryder grew to love, just as he came to love the land, with its haunting sunsets and dense forests, streams so clear the water looked like glass, and horizons so distant they seemed impossible to reach. He learned to speak the languages of various tribes, the Matabele, the Mashona, and the fierce, warlike Herero. He even understood some of the strange clicks and whistles that the Bushmen of the desert used to communicate.

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