"I wouldn't worry. You'll nail it down sooner or later."
"I had an idea. When you get into Mayport, why don't you see about getting a couple of days' leave? I could drive down and pick you up and we could go over to the Alabama memorial in Mobile. We could poke around her for a while and maybe I can find the feel I'm looking for."
"It sounds fine, Dad. The thing is, I won't be getting into Mayport for a while. We've been diverted."
"They're finally putting that gold-plated spit kit of yours to work, huh? What have you got?"
"I can't say."
"CNN just broke a story about things going to hell between Argentina and Great Britain in the Antarctic. Are you getting a piece of that action?"
"Sorry, Dad. I can't say."
"Okay, I get you. Can you at least tell me when you're going to sortie?"
"In a couple of hours. I don't know when I'll get back in anywhere. I… well, I just wanted to talk a little."
"I know the feeling, Angel. At least the phones work better now. Sometimes back in the good old days it would damn near require an act of God and Congress to get a call in stateside from Bahrain or the PI."
"We're almost in the same time zone, too. Mom and I would sometimes wait up till two or three in the morning for one of your calls to come in. We never minded, though."
"No, you never did."
There was a remembering kind of silence at the other end of the line, then Wils Garrett went on briskly. "Well, Captain, is that special-effects barge ready to go or not?"
"Admiral Daddy Sir, the Duke came off the ways ready."
"Good enough, just don't let those black boxes do any of the thinking that you should be doing. And another thing…"
In the passageway outside, the MC-1 speakers blared. "Security detail! Lay topside to the quarterdeck. On the double!" Simultaneously, the watch officer's circuit began to blink urgently on the phone control pad.
"Hang on a second, Dad."
Amanda switched across to the new call. "Captain here."
"Ma'am, we've got a problem with the refueling. Could you please come topside?"
"I'm on my way."
She went back to the land line. "Dad, something's come up. I've got to go."
"Okay. Listen, real fast. Project High Jump, 1946. A study was done on destroyer operations in the Antarctic. It's dated, but it's the only one of its kind ever made. Get a transcript!"
"Will do, Dad. I've got to go. I love you."
"Love you too, Angel. Be careful."
Hanging up the phone was one of the more difficult things Amanda had done that day. Like the end of one of those three A.M. phone calls from the Persian Gulf, it was the cutting of a slender thread that had momentarily connected her with someone she held very dear. Only, this time she was the one taking a fast ship into harm's way and her father was the one who had to wait for the next call. She found herself rather urgently wishing that her mother were still alive. Waiting was a little easier when you didn't have to do it alone.
She shook off that train of thought and got to her feet. She had her command to tend to.
Amanda shuddered a little as she stepped out onto the weather deck. She didn't like the blood-colored illumination of the battle lights. She knew that there was a superb reason to use the red-lensed arcs. Red light doesn't destroy night vision. However, there was something eerie and unnatural about standing in that glare and still being able to see the stars.
The Brazilian navy had been exceptionally helpful and efficient about the Cunningham's request for fuel. Just as dusk had settled in, one of their harbor tugs had brought a heavily laden tank barge alongside to receive the destroyer's replenishment hoses. Fueling operations had been going on for some time, but now apparently something had gone extremely wrong.
The deck officer and the gangway watch were peering down over the side and the security team was standing by at the head of the gangway itself. Amanda noted that they had the Velcro retaining tabs on their holsters pulled open.
She took her own quick look over the rail. There was obviously a confrontation of some kind going on aboard the barge. A cluster of blue-coveralled destroyer hands were facing off a smaller group of dungaree-clad Brazilian sailors. At the foot of the gangway, Chief Thomson was apparently having it out with a short, heavyset officer.
"What's going on here, Stewart?"
"I'm not sure, ma'am," the deck officer replied. "There was some problem with the refueling and Commander Thomson yelled up to get you on the double. There was some yelling and shoving going on between our people and the tug crew, so I also called away the security team."
"Right. Stand by, I'll check it out."
Amanda clattered down the gangway to stand beside the engineer.
"Okay, Chief," she demanded quietly, "what's going on?"
"These sons of bitches were trying to sabotage us!" Thomson snarled, as angry as Amanda had ever seen him before. The Brazilian tug skipper replied with a barrage of Portuguese backed by a flurry of gesturing.
"Dammit! You spoke English five minutes ago!" Thomson exploded.
"Stand easy!" Amanda snapped. "What do you mean by sabotage?"
"They tried to slip us a load of contaminated fuel."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, ma'am. I was checking the fuel quality before we took it inboard, like I always do. You know the kind of… stuff you can get in these third world ports. Everything went fine while we were loading from the first four cells, but when I start to test the fifth cell, this… entleman climbs all over me. He tells me to knock it off and keep loading because he's behind sked or something. I tell him to take a hike and I run my check."
"And?"
"Take a look."
The Chief hunkered down beside an open POL testing kit and picked up a half-pint glass beaker. Standing erect again, he took a pencil flash from his shirt pocket and played a beam of white light on the little container.
It should have contained a high-density kerosene compound, optimized for use in marine gas turbine engines and mixed with an explosive-suppression agent. Amanda was surrounded by the waxy, raw petroleum scent of it. It also should have been a clear fluid with a pinkish tinge. The substance in the beaker was murky, except for a half-inch-deep colorless layer at the bottom where fuel and contaminant had started to separate out.
"Water?"
"Uh-huh. The next four cells are all just like it."
Amanda took the beaker from Thomson and turned to confront the Brazilian officer. "I want an explanation for this," she demanded quietly.
The tug captain was taken severely off guard. As the product of a culture where women still deferred to men, he had discounted the arrival of this woman who thought she was a naval officer. Too late, he realized that indeed she was a naval officer.
She faced him now with her back arched, eyes narrowed, and with the air around her practically crackling with controlled anger. The Brazilian fervently wished that he had never heard of this assignment and groped for his rusty English.
"The water in the tanks may have come from damage, Capitão. An accident—"
"Bullshit!" Thomson exploded. "That water isn't leakage."
He gave his testing kit a sideways tap with the toe of his deck shoe. "It's fresh and chlorinated. They were too damn lazy to pump it up out of the bay, so they contaminated those cells with a dockside hose."
Amanda glanced over her shoulder at the engineer. "Chief, could you and your people handle the entire fueling operation?"
"Sure. The valving and fittings are pretty much standardized."
"And is there still usable fuel aboard this barge?"
"Begging your pardon, ma'am. But they likely didn't piss in it all."