Fifteen minutes later, Olivia reported that a CIA satellite pointed at the Specter and awaited the heat signature of his diesel exhaust as it dissipated in the shallowest layers of water.
The Royal Navy had agreed to the plan, and the Ambush’s commanding officer had acknowledged receipt of his new orders to support it.
Jake ordered the Specter’s diesels to run, and ten minutes later, Olivia told him the calibration was complete. He went deep and continued searching for the San Juan, using secure active pulses and hoping that a satellite would augment his efforts.
With no sign of the San Juan by day’s end, Jake drifted to sleep frustrated. His alarm tore him from a deep sleep in the wee hours, and he crept to the control room to come shallow at the appointed time.
During the phone call, Renard sounded half awake, as did Olivia. But the effort paid off after he snorkeled for ten minutes and established a new sensitivity calculation for discerning diesel exhaust heat from the cooler evening waters.
He trudged back to his stateroom and leapt into his rack. When he awoke the next morning, a depression clouded his thoughts since his first thought involved the recognition that time worked against him.
As he ate breakfast in the wardroom with Remy and LaFontaine, a Taiwanese sailor banged on the door and opened it without waiting for permission.
“Petty Officer Kang reports that the Ambush has ordered us shallow,” he said.
Henri had the Specter on an upward trajectory before Jake arrived in the control room. With his submarine bobbing in the shallows, he ordered the radio mast up.
The news from Olivia disappointed him.
A shipping freighter in the channel to Port Stanley fought for its life after a violent explosion had cracked its keel. Opinions differed on the source of the explosion with some experts calling it a torpedo and others calling it a mine.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing until we can sort this out. It could be the San Juan using a torpedo, but it could as easily be mines laid long ago.”
“How will you know the difference? If I assume this was a torpedo and sprint down there, it could end up being just bait to distract me from my hunt or it could even expose me to a shot from the San Juan if I run by it fast enough.”
“I know. Divers are searching the surrounding waters for mines to see if it’s a field or not. That’s the best we can do for now.”
“How long will that take?”
“Four hours. Maybe six.”
“Then I need to decide now if I believe that the San Juan is near Port Stanley and shooting torpedoes. If it is, it’ll be gone in four hours, and I miss my chance.”
“The Royal Navy wants you to ignore it.”
“So do I. The commander of the San Juan is too smart to risk himself for a freighter. It’s a good show of power to remind the world that there is an Argentine naval force, but he wouldn’t risk himself like this. Not for a freighter.”
“Agreed. Get back to your hunting. You’ve used up half your allotted days. You don’t have much time left.”
“You didn’t need to remind me.”
“Good luck, Jake.”
The third day of hunting dragged into the evening, and Jake struggled to choke down his dinner. After the sunset draped the waters above him in darkness, he retired to the solitude of his stateroom. Hope waned until Kang came to him.
“The Ambush has ordered us shallow again.”
When Jake arrived in the control room two steps behind Kang, he saw a Taiwanese sailor at the ship’s control station moving with hesitancy compared to Henri.
“Faster,” he said. “Pump water off faster. Use the fairwater planes and our speed to compensate if you make us too light.”
By the time he slowed himself against the angled deck to reach the elevated conning platform, his French experts had arrived. Henri took his place at the control station.
“Raise the radio mast,” Jake said.
“Radio mast is raised,” Henri said.
“Remind me,” Jake said. “What’s the call sign for the Ambush, in case I need to hail it over high-frequency voice?”
“Romeo.”
“And we’re Juliette, right?”
“That’s what happens when you anger a lion. They get to pick the names.”
Seeing himself as the lion, Jake choked down his pride.
“Let’s see what the news is first. At least that’s encrypted, and I don’t have to call myself Little Red Riding Hood.”
“Establishing the link now,” Henri said.
Jake ripped the phone set from its cradle and listened.
“Jake? It’s Olivia.”
“Yeah?”
“The satellite picked up a telltale heat signature three minutes ago. Put me on loudspeaker. I’ve got coordinates for you.”
Everyone holding a pencil in the Specter’s control room jotted down the coordinates as Olivia recited them. Jake darted to the central navigation plot and shouted them back to her so that she could hear him over the room’s open microphone.
“Correct,” she said.
“Hold on, Olivia. Let me start driving towards it. Henri, left full rudder, steady course zero-six-seven.”
The deck angled away from the turn.
“Olivia?”
“Yes?”
“I’m eighty-six miles from the San Juan.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I can’t get there in four hours. Even with my MESMA power source, I can only make twenty knots for two hours. Then I need to surface and run my diesels. That limits me to thirteen knots. I can get there in five and half hours, but not four.”
“Maybe that’s good enough,” she said. “You’ll have a good starting point for search for it.”
“Do you want to risk your career and many lives on giving that thing a ninety-minute head start?”
“No. But what else can you do?”
“The Ambush can sprint ahead and chase it toward me.”
“I don’t think the Royal Navy will agree to that.”
“There’s no other way.”
“How’s it going to chase the San Juan toward you?”
“With a torpedo.”
“Isn’t it dangerous for the Ambush to sprint near the San Juan?”
“Yeah, but it won’t have to. It can sustain thirty-three knots forever. It has time to drive a wide enough arc behind the San Juan and then shoot a torpedo at it. It can even get far enough behind it that its torpedo can run out of fuel before hitting, just in case the Ambush loses wire control. The point is to drive it toward me so I can use the limpet weapon.”
Jake rethought the geometry.
“Scratch that. I have an even better idea,” he said. “Make it two torpedoes. One to the right and one to the left. It will drive the San Juan down the middle to me.”
“Where will you be?”
“Right now, I’m eighty-two miles from the coordinates you just gave me for the San Juan. Bearing two-four-seven. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Draw a line between me and the San Juan. Four hours after you say go, I’ll be sixty-six nautical miles closer to the San Juan along that line. I’m basically making a beeline there as fast as I can.”
“Okay. “I’ll talk to the Royal Navy’s admiralty about it.”
“Hurry.”
Five minutes later, Olivia’s voice filled the room.