Skeleton Coast: 4 (The Oregon Files)

Chairman of the Corporation Juan Cabrillo and his mercenary crew steer theOregon into battle against a militant leader and his cult-like followers in this #1 New York Times-bestselling series.

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. Still smarting from a weapons-trade gone bad and a double-cross, Cabrillo takes action. He manages to save the beautiful Sloane Macintyre, who's on a mission of her own, looking for a long-submerged ship that may hold a fortune in diamonds. But what surprises Cabrillo is her story about a crazy fisherman who claims to have been attacked on the open sea by giant metal snakes in the same area.

What begins as a snake hunt leads Cabrillo onto the trail of a far more lethal quarry—a deranged militant and his followers who plan to unleash the devastating power of nature itself against all who oppose them.

Clive Cussler is the author of more than fifty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files, Isaac Bell, and Fargo. His life nearly parallels 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 have discovered more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much press publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collects classic automobiles. His collection features more than eighty examples of custom coachwork. Cussler lives in Arizona and Colorado.

Jack Du Brul is a graduate of the Westminster School and George Washington University. Du Brul has climbed Masada at noon, swam in the Arctic Ocean off Point Barrow, explored war-torn Eritrea, camped in Greenland, and been gnawed on by piranhas in the Amazon River. He lives in Burlington, Vermont.