Clive Cussler Fire Strike (The Oregon Files)

Clive Cussler Fire Strike (The Oregon Files)

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. A USA Today Bestseller 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 for a year. 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 ar