Clive Cussler's The Sea Wolves

PROLOGUE

Îles du Salut
April 13, 1914

The commandos came ashore under the silvery light of a tropical moon. There were only three men who leapt onto the rocky coast. Two sailors remained with the aluminum boat so that it wouldn’t be lost in the treacherous currents that lashed the forlorn island some nine miles off the South American mainland. The assault team carried pistols but understood if they needed them the mission was likely a failure. Their main weapons were knives crudely fashioned from scrap steel. The blades were ugly, but honed razor sharp, like the weapons they were designed to emulate— the basic prison shiv.

The South Atlantic breeze kept the shore cool, but as soon as the men moved into the thick, inky jungle it was like stepping into a hothouse. Heat and humidity made sweat run from their pores and soon enough their uniforms were soaked through with moisture. Night insects and the occasional cry of a bird drowned out the distant pounding of waves on stone.

Knowing the general layout of the island, the team soon found the path leading to their target. Palm fronds met overhead and blocked the moon’s weak glow. Many months of careful planning and preparation came down to the next few minutes and the elite soldiers were all too aware of what would happen if they were spotted. The French still loved to use their beloved guillotine.

There were three small isles that made up what was known as the Salvation Island chain. It had been so named because the last six hundred survivors of an estimated twelve thousand men and women who’d tried to colonize the nearby territory of French Guiana had fled here from the fever coast to find sanctuary. All efforts to tame the primeval mainland came to naught until the middle of the nineteenth century when Napoleon III decreed that part of the territory would be turned into a penal colony and that prison labor would be used to conquer the land. The Bagne de Cayenne sprawled along the coast in the form of prisons and jungle work camps and utilized thousands of France’s worst offenders as virtual slaves.

The coastal islands too became part of the prison system. Royale Island, the largest, housed four hundred prisoners who had been exiled from the mainland for major infractions of the new penal laws. Another island, Devil’s Island, though ominously named, was the most benign place in the entire prison colony. It was reserved for a handful of political prisoners, like the recently released Alfred Dreyfus, who’d been falsely accused of being a traitor.

In a twist of irony, upon his return to France and recommissioning into the army, Dreyfus told only one confidant all that he’d seen and done during his time in Guiana. He’d explained how the prison system worked and gave detailed descriptions of the buildings and the guards’ routines. This man, a friend, was actually the German spy the French authorities had thought was Dreyfus. The intelligence Dreyfus divulged to his friend had been crucial in planning the commandos’ mission.

The third island of the Salvation group, the one the commandos were stealthily traversing, was called St. Joseph’s. It was hell on earth. This was where the most recalcitrant prisoners were housed in what the French called insolement. Isolation.