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Zusatztext "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 Informationen zum Autor Clive Cussler Klappentext In the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Oregon Files series, Chairman Juan Cabrillo and his crew are hired by the US government to free Tibet from Chinese control... The Corporation, a group of highly intelligent and skilled mercenaries, under the leadership of Juan Cabrillo, board a brand new ship. It's a state-of-the-art seagoing marvel with unthinkable technology at its disposal. And it's designed to look like a rusty old lumber hauler. But if Cabrillo and his team plan to make this spy ship their new headquarters, their first mission had better be a success. With the secret backing of the US government, Cabrillo sets out to put Tibet back in the hands of the Dalai Lama by striking a deal with the Russians and the Chinese. His main negotiating chip is knowledge of a golden Buddha containing records of vast oil reserves in the disputed land. But first, he'll have to locate-and steal-the all-important artifact. And there are certain people who would do anything in their power to see him fail...1 THE PRESENT DAY EIGHT IN THE evening. From out of the south, like a dark insect crawling over a wrinkled blue tablecloth, a tired old cargo ship pushed her way through the Caribbean swells toward the entrance of Santiago Harbor on the isle of Cuba. The exhaust from her single funnel drifted in a blue haze under an easterly breeze as the sun settled below the western horizon and became a ponderous orange ball magnified by the earth's atmosphere. She was one of the last tramp steamers, a cargo ship that traveled the sea anonymously to the exotic and far-flung ports of the world. There were few left in operation. They did not follow a regular shipping route. Their schedules depended on the demands of their cargo and its owners, so their destinations changed from port to port. They coasted in, unloaded their freight and sailed away like wraiths in the night. Two miles from shore, a small boat slapped over the rolling sea, approached the ship and swung around on a parallel course. The pilot closed on the rust-streaked hull as a boarding ladder was thrown down from an open hatch. The pilot, a man in his fifties with brown skin and thick gray hair, stared up at the ancient ship. Her black paint was faded and badly needed to be chipped away and repainted. Streams of rust flowed from every opening in the hull. The huge anchor, pulled tightly in its hawsehole, was completely covered by corrosion. The pilot read the letters, barely discernible on the upper bow. The weary old freighter was named Oregon. Jesus Morales shook his head in amazement. It was a miracle the ship hadn't been scrapped twenty years ago, he mused. She looked more like a derelict than a cargo carrier still in service. He wondered if the party bureaucrats in the Ministry of Transportation had any idea of the condition of the ship they had contracted to bring in a cargo of chemical fertilizer for the sugar and tobacco fields. He could not believe the ship had passed maritime insurance inspection. As the ship slowed almost to a dead stop, Morales stood at the railing and the pilot boat's bumpers squeezed against the freighter's hull. Timing the crest of a wave as it lifted the boat, Morales leaped agilely from the wet deck onto the boarding ladder and climbed to the hatch. It was a function he performed as often as ten times a day. A pair of crewmen were waiting beside the hatch and helped him up on the deck. The two were both burly-looking individuals, and t...
