"How's she doing, Ken?"
Hiro looked around to find Amanda standing at his shoulder, clad in fresh work khakis and with her still-damp hair pinned up on the back of her neck. She waved away the traditional call announcing her presence on the bridge.
"We're doing okay, Captain. She's running tight and all boards are green. The helo looks like it's riding all right too."
"Good enough. Let's take a look at the course."
They stepped across the darkened bridge to the glowing surface of the chart table.
"Still steering two nine oh, and we have resumed full blackout and EMCON. I've also bent on turns for a couple of extra knots. It'll eat into our fuel a little, but I figured that we'd want to get well clear of that last contact point before first light."
"I concur." Amanda drew her nail across the surface of the chart tank. "We'll hold this heading and get back into the center of Drake Passage. Hugging the pack just isn't going to work for us."
"Yeah. There's more drift out there than we were told to expect."
"That, plus it gives the Argys a fixed geographical line they can hunt along for us. Going out into the Passage will put us closer to the Argentine air bases, but we'll just have to live with it. How about the weather?"
"Latest metsat download indicates that we should be through the worst of this heavy stuff by about zero four hundred."
"Good. We'll call up a work crew and strike the helo below just as soon as the seas moderate." Amanda straightened from the chart table. "Sorry about taking so long to get back up here," she said, rubbing the small of her back. "After that session on the helipad, I had to defrost a little."
"No problem," Hiro replied sympathetically. "It didn't look like much fun on the monitors. Want me to keep an eye on things tonight?"
"No, I'll take it for a while. You can have the middle watch. Go get some rest and be back up here at twenty-four hundred."
"Aye, aye. Good night, ma'am. Captain has the con!"
Amanda made the circuit, checking with each of the duty watch and with the rows of data repeaters. That done, she settled into the captain's chair, wincing slightly. She'd just discovered a few aches and bruises that her shower had failed to erase. Deliberately, she kept her eyes away from the glowing screen faces, letting her natural night vision develop.
"Earl Grey, one creamer, two sugars," a voice said quietly.
The cup materialized from over her shoulder. After a moment's hesitation, she accepted it.
"Thank you, Arkady."
"No. Thank you." She felt his weight come onto the back of her chair as he leaned against it. "I never would have made it to that Russian base tonight. I was running scared because I couldn't figure out anything else to do. You did. Gus and I are alive because of it. I owe you, Captain."
"No, we're even," she replied, looking out into the night. "If you hadn't shaken some sense into me, I wouldn't have made it up to this bridge. And my only excuse would have been that I'd started to buy in to the myth that a commanding officer is supposed to be all-enduring and indestructible."
"Yeah, well, I guess we all have our moments. Tell you what, though. If you bale me out of any further bonehead stunts that I might get involved in, I'll do the same for you."
Amanda sipped the tea. It was just as she liked it, and its comforting warmth began to radiate through her. She closed her eyes and let her breath trickle out in a protracted sigh.
"Deal," she said.
33
Dr. Towers pushed aside the curtain and peered out.
"That's funny," she commented.
"What, Doctor?" Steve Rosario inquired from across their sitting room/office.
"Pardon me if I'm making a cultural assumption here, but I'd always believed that South Americans were a bit more… volatile in matters of politics and statesmanship. I was expecting to see something like the anti-British demonstrations during the Falklands War. But for us, nothing. No rock throwing. No 'Yankee go home!' The streets are almost deserted."
"There's a reason for it."
The State Department man joined her at the window. "Take a look at the roof of the building down at the corner. The one on the other side of the intersection."
Dr. Towers spotted the two men crouched down behind the roof parapet. One was armed with a scope-sighted assault rifle. The other was systematically scanning the surrounding area with a pair of binoculars.
"National Police antisnipers. There's one on every facing block around the Embassy."
Rosario smiled grimly. "I took a little walk earlier this afternoon. I saw at least ten plainclothes officers down at ground level, and I probably missed about twice that number. There's a SWAT team and a couple of armored cars stationed over on the other side of the park, and if you go out a little farther, you start to see the Army patrols. Sparza's brought in an entire airborne regiment equipped for antiriot work. The entire city is locked down tight."
"I didn't think we were that scary."
"I think it's being done for our benefit, and indirectly for the Argentine plan of operations. Sparza is smart enough to know that it's in his best diplomatic interest to maintain a state of extreme propriety when it comes to American citizens just now. If you were local, you'd probably be jumped for raising your voice on the street."
"Could that explain the very low-keyed editorial stance of most of the local media?" Dr. Towers said, turning back into the room. "Government censorship?"
"I suspect so," Rosario replied, lingering at the window. "I also suspect that's why neither we nor the Argentines have gone public with the word that we're already shooting at each other. Everyone wants a nice, quiet, little war."
A black Lincoln town car turned into the Embassy gates, preceded and trailed by a pair of mud-colored Ford Explorers, the ubiquitous "war wagons" of the Secret Service.
"Secretary Van Lynden is back."
The Secretary of State passed through the door of the suite a few minutes later. Setting his briefcase down beside one of the room's easy chairs, he sank down into it, his head cradled in his hands.
"What's the word from the United Nations, Steve?"
"Ambassador DeSantis reports that it looks as if we have a solid majority block assembled for a condemnation vote against Argentina. The downside is that the Argentines have gotten the extension on their recess. All votes on the Antarctic issue have been put off for another two days."
"Aah, God. Why not?"
"Could I get you a drink, Mr. Secretary?" Dr. Towers asked, with sympathy.
"Yes, Doctor. Thank you. You could. A rye on the rocks, please."
"How did it go, sir?" Rosario inquired.
"I've spent the past five hours sitting across the table from the Argentine Minister of State and, for all intents and purposes, we've just been staring at each other. We've hit the wall, Steve. Everybody's made their brag, and now they're stuck with it."
"What happens next?" Dr. Towers asked from the suite's small wet bar.
"Good question. Diplomatically speaking, we've entered a holding pattern. Both sides have established a set of absolute crisis parameters they won't go beyond. Until somebody yields on a point, we've got nothing to talk about. We'll just have to wait until some outside event changes the scenario and kicks the door open again."
"Like the outcome of things down south?" The scientist crossed the room and passed Van Lynden a bar tumbler.
"Exactly," he replied, swirling the glass and staring at the ice as it danced in the amber liquor.
34