"Ship is answering her helm, Captain. Coming about to marked departure headings."
"Very well. Navigation, shift from anchor to running lights."
Amanda looked across the width of the bridge to her exec lounging at his own station. "What time is it, mister?"
She caught the pale flash of Ken Hiro's grin in the screen-glow dimness. "I make it twenty-three, fifty-nine, and thirty-two seconds, ma'am."
"So do I. Close enough for government work."
She buzzed the communications room. "This is the Captain. Get the following off to CINCLANT, please: 'Departing Rio as per schedule. Proceeding as per orders.'"
"Aye, aye, ma'am. Be advised we have just received a blinker message from the Boone. Personal, Captain to Captain."
"Read it."
"Good luck and good hunting, you lucky little bitch."
Amanda chuckled. "Send the following to Captain Stevens, personaclass="underline" 'I take strong exception to your last message. I do not consider five feet seven little.'"
"Will do, ma'am. We're getting a second blinker signal from the Brazilian shore station. They are requesting we respond."
"Ignore it. I've got nothing to say to those gentlemen."
Once clear of the port approaches, the Cunningham put on speed and ran to the southeast, opening the range from the coast. Soon, Rio de Janeiro was nothing but a fading sky glow astern. As she began to angle into the deep ocean swells of the South Atlantic, the big warship started a smooth, slow, pitch and roll, like a great hunting cat stretching out into an easy run.
There is a special intimacy about the bridge of a ship at night. Rank can't be made out in the darkness, and the watch seems to draw close within itself. There is a low murmur of conversation, talk about homes, families, and inconsequential things, interspersed with an occasional, quietly given order. Now and again, an outsider will come up from below, "to see how she is doing," and to look out at the star fire burning in a great arc over the bow.
Amanda liked the night watch, and she had remained bridgeside even after returning the con to the officer of the deck. She half-drowsed in the captain's chair, lulled by the feeling of the sea beneath her.
The bitch box broke that tranquillity. "Bridge, this is the CIC. Is the Captain still up there?"
She came erect and keyed in her headset. "Captain here. What's the problem?"
"Check your tactical display, ma'am. We have an airborne radar contact, a slow mover, just coming over our horizon at medium altitude. Range two hundred and ten miles, bearing one eight three degrees."
Amanda leaned back slightly in the chair and her eyes sought the appropriate monitor. "I see him."
"Target is apparently working north in a surface-search pattern. Elint indicates that the target's emission patterns match that of a Dessault-Breguet Atlantique ANG maritime patrol aircraft, the same-standard model used by the Argentine navy."
Amanda did a fast mental calculation. They had cleared Rio two hours ago. A phone call to the Argentine Embassy in Brasilia, another one from Brasilia south to Argentine Feet GHQ in Buenos Aires, a fast conference, and then an order issued to their base at Esporu to scramble a search plane. That would be just about right.
"Have they painted us?"
"Negative. Their ECM may be picking up our radar, but they don't have a skin track yet. Do you intend to go full stealth, Captain?"
Amanda allowed herself a long moment of contemplation before replying. "No. In fact, put a blip enhancer on-line. Standard image."
"Standard image it is, ma'am."
The blip enhancer was an electronic-warfare system that amplified the return "echo" of a radar wave, allowing a small target to masquerade as a much larger one. In this case, it would be used to mask the fact that the Duke, even passively, had a vastly reduced radar cross-section. The observers at the far end of the radar beam would see an appropriate return for a conventional warship of the Cunningham's size and tonnage. With equal ease she could have mimicked the return of anything from a cabin cruiser to an aircraft carrier.
Amanda settled deeper into her chair and gazed out into the darkness beyond the repeater screens. She would keep the Duke's bundle of secrets to herself just a little longer.
8
Benito Mussolini had a method for intimidating those who wished to confer with him. He had his public office located in a vast, marble-walled chamber, decorated in an aggressively neo-Romanesque style. A dignitary forced to trudge across that chilly stonework expanse to stand before II Duce's desk frequently developed the unnerving feeling of being a sacrificial victim meeting his destiny in some ancient temple of the gods.
Certain lesser individuals endeavored to get the same effect by placing their desks on a low platform so that official guests were forced to look humbly up at them. President Antonio Sparza of Argentina would have none of such crudity.
Instead, his public office in the Casa Rosada had been turned over to a skilled team of interior decorators, who, by the deft use of furnishings and decor, had focused the entire room on the presidential desk and the man seated behind it.
Harrison Van Lynden was grateful for this. It would help to remind him not to take his opponent for granted.
As Van Lynden and Steve Rosario were ushered in, Sparza came to his feet. He was not a tall man. Rather, he was solid and stocky with few indications of middle-age softness.
Likewise, there was little gray in his thinning black hair and narrow mustache. There was a hint of ruddiness beneath the olive of his complexion. This was another warning to take this man very seriously. In a nation that still prided itself on being the most "European" of the South American states, a politician who could overcome the prejudice against "Indio" blood would be most remarkable.
"Mr. Secretary, it is an honor." Sparza's handshake was dry-palmed and firm, and his English was faultless. "Mr. Rosario, it is a pleasure to see you again. Gentlemen, please be seated."
As Van Lynden settled into the silk damask upholstery of the chair he had been offered, he sensed that the great game was about to be played.
"Thank you, Mr. President. I wish that this first meeting could have taken place under more favorable circumstances."
"As do I, Mr. Secretary," Sparza replied, leaning back into his own chair. "And I shall be the first to admit that your nation has every right to be concerned about certain, rather draconian actions that Argentina has taken recently. I hope that I might be able to explain them to your full satisfaction."
"I hope so as well, Mr. President. However, before we delve into that, there is a formality that I must attend to. Mr. Rosario…"
The junior State Department man lifted his briefcase to his knees, unsealed it, and removed a flat, cream-colored envelope bearing the Great Seal of the United States. He passed it to Van Lynden, who in turn handed it to Sparza.
"President Sparza. I must present to you this official note of protest from the President of the United States concerning the following points:
"Point one being the Violation of the Antarctic Treaty of 1961, of which the United States and Argentina are both signatories, by the deployment of armed forces to the Antarctic continent.
"Point two being the forcible occupation of installations belonging to the United Kingdom, an ally of the United States, and the detainment of the installation personnel in violation of international law.
"Point three being the death of a British citizen at the hands of Argentine troops in the process of this occupation."
Sparza didn't bother to open the envelope. Instead, he gazed at Van Lynden with a carefully maintained look of concerned interest.