RULES OF COMMAND
by
C. A. Mobley

BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK
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RULES OF COMMAND

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY Berkley edition / October 1998

All rights reserved.

Copyright't 1998 by C. A. Mobley.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
My thanks to the rest of the team: Jake Elwell, brilliant agent and
trusted friend, for tolerating my occasional mutinies and letting me
steal his last name for the book. There really is an Uncle Billy. George
Wieser, who frisked me for weapons during my last trip to New York. Tom
Colgan, the world's best editor-naval aviation's loss is my gain.

Laura Blumenberg, the newest star in Berkley's publicity department. And
Joe Sullivan, the copy editor who caught me thinking in Marine when I
was writing in Army.

Lynnette Spratley and Linda Coffman, who heard the story first. Doug
Clegg and Andrew Harper, who talked me through the hard parts. Mom and
Dad, to whom the real thanks are due for good genes.

Most of all, my family: Heather, Daniel, and Ron. Your patience,
tolerance, ideas and proofreading made the difference. Thank you.

My e-mail address is: CAMMOBLEYCA)aol.com. Two Ms.

Spelling counts.

Snail mail address is:

C.A. Mobley c/o Tom Colgan 375 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014

Drop me a line.

Warriors, when irretrievably trapped will be fearless, in inextricable
position will be resolute, when deeply penetrated will consolidate, and
without other alternatives will fight.
... On the day orders are given, the seated warriors' tears moisten
their collars, and the prostrate ones' tears streak
down their cheeks. And when they are launched into inextricable
positions, the valor of great heroes will arise.

Sun Tzu, The Ari oj war (514-513 B.C.)

Direct all the armies' legions as if exercising authority over one
person. Direct them onto missions without explanation.

Direct them into hazardous situations without revealing other prospects.

Launched into annihilative places, they will survive. Trapped in lethal
places, they will then live. Only troops perilously caught will have for
victory sought.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War (514-513 B.C.)

Concerns in commanding armies are: scheming in impenetrability and being
impartial in supervision; having the capability to subjugtte the eyes
and ears of warriors and soldiers, making them suppress their senses.
modifying their assignments and adapting their plans, making the people
suppress their judgment; modifying their campsites and winding their
routes, making the people unable to think-. leading them on joint
operations as if climbing to a high spot and removing their ladder;
leading them into deep penetration of other lords' lands and pulling
their trigger; herding them as a flock of sheep, being herded to and fro
without ascertaining the destination...

Sun Tzu, The Art of War (514-513 B.C.)

RULES OF COMMAND

FIFTEEN MILES OUTSIDE THE GULF OF PANAMA: 23 SEPTEMBER 2003

NIRU 3 T'sing Lin was running out of air. The metallic taste tainting
the last drops of precious oxygen, the tightness in his chest, and the
urge to breath faster were warnings he'd come to recognize.

It wasn't right. One hour for transit and attack maneuvers, ten minutes
for the final approach, then thirty minutes for recovery. Two hours of
air. More than enough if everything had gone well.

It hadn't, of course. The objective had been three thousand yards away
from the briefed position. steaming north instead of west. By the time
T'sing Lin had puzzled out the sonar anomalies and compared his contacts
to the mission profile, he'd wasted fifteen precious minutes. It had
taken him another ten minutes in an expanding search pattern to locate
the contact, set tip for the final approach, and slant the niru into the
hull of the merchant ship. Now, vectoring back to the recovery location,
not entirely sure that his grease-penciled track plot was accurate, and
still dazed from the full-speed impact against the objective, T'sing Lin
was beginning to suspect that he was lost.

But if the niru-the arrow, in the Manchu dynasty vernacular-missed the
training target, it would simply claim another victim, one who already
had so much to pay for. T'sing Lin would die now, rather than at the
time and place the Chinese Navy would decree. And his failure would
simply compound his dishonor, not absolve it.

He took shallow breaths, forced himself not to pant, and tried to slow
his pulse by sheer willpower. There was no reason to panic, none at all.

This was simply one more mission, the last in the six-month training
course.

A short period, but longer than any deployment he'd made to date with
the Chinese Navy.

Too long. And not long enough. He steered his thoughts away from that
train of thought, focused on a calm and peaceful image. Not now-not with
air at a premium. Not with absolution, the all-forgiving Tao of
redemption, within his grasp.

Twenty minutes of air left, according to the clock mounted on the
console. He could hear it click quietly, the hands methodically creeping
around the dial to mark the passage of the minutes. An irrational flash
of resentment at it, that it could move without worrying about oxygen
use.

Indeed, if one ignored the needs of the human inside, the niru had a
combat radius of well over fifty miles.

Four massive banks of batteries connected in series, a compact, powerful
electric motor to drive a highly efficient propeller, all the propulsion
and sensor equipment fitted neatly inside an advanced torpedo design.

The warhead took up another three cubic feet in the blunt, rounded nose
of the niru. The piloting compartment was wedged in between the
batteries and the explosives.

Nineteen minutes.

T'sing Lin checked the gyro, deflected the niru slightly to the west
using the smallest movements possible. Successfully navigating an
intricate course within the allotted time-and, he now realized, within
the alloted air supply-was the goal of this final training dive. The
last mission-except for one that would truly be the last. e could fail.

Purposely. Two of his classmates had already chosen that route, one only
last week, preferring the quick bullet in the brain to the terrors of
niru. The first failure had left T'sing Lin stunned-the second, slightly
envious.

Eighteen minutes. T'sing Lin nudged the throttle forward. The reassuring
whine of the electric motor overshot the ordered speed, then groaned as
the governor dragged it back down.

Yes, the air was definitely getting worse. It was not just one of the
waking nightmares that had increasingly plagued his time in the niru,
one of the visions of cold, hungry deep water swallowing the twenty-foot
vessel. It was out there still-he could feel it, the pressure against
the hull, the seeping cold that robbed him of thought.

Perhaps that was how it would be in the end, that the cold would kill
him before the No. Do not think about it. Concentrate only on the
mission. They do not intend me to die. Not now.

Soon. But not now.

uss SEAWOLF USS Seawolf slipped silently through the water, barely more
than a black hole in the churning ocean. Three hundred feet above her,
the decreasing temperature in the ocean finally leveled off at a frigid
forty-four degrees Fahrenheit, and the ocean settled into that stable
configuration known as the isothermal layer.

The temperature gradient was of significant interest to Seawolf's
commanding officer, Commander Ernest Forester. Below the thermocline,
sonar waves would be bent back up toward the surface before they ever
had a chance to ping off the acoustically quietened hull of his ship. It
was like a black cloak drawn close around his ship, and he welcomed the
silence.

Tracer fire works both ways, and so does the protection of the
isothermal layer -remaining below the layer, as it was known. While no
curious sensors located above them could see the submarine, the Seawolf
was equally blind. Still, on balance, safety was preferable to complete
knowledge.

Until now.

"We'll have to come shallow, Captain," Lieutenant Commander Carl Dunning
said. "No way we can copy the broadcast from this depth."

"Tell me something I don't know." Forester studied the message already
decoded from the ELF net. The communications personnel had already
translated the short combinations of letters into the plain-text message
before him.

FROM: COMMANDER, SUBCRUONE TO: USS SEAWOLF QUERY BROADCAST ASAP Short
and to the point-and no more enlightening than trying to decipher the
muted crackling sounds a school of shrimp made. Why exactly was Subgru
willing to risk Seawou@being detected? So far, there was every
indication that they'd managed to slip out of harbor unobserved, enter
the patrol area, and fulfill their mission with only the families of the
crew members noticing their absence.

Not that staying covert was critical just now for any particular reason.

Their mission was an odd one, all the more so for its lack of clear
objectives. Someone somewhere-who knew who?-in the American intelligence
community had spotted an anomaly just outside the Gulf of Panama.

Forester grimaced, remembering just how hard he had tried to get more
information on this mysterious anomaly. The closest thing to an answer
he'd gotten was Subpac's final, exasperated answer. "It's underwater,
okay? And it's hinky. Now go find it."

"Well. It's not like we have a choice, is it?" Forester crumpled up the
message and tossed it to his XO, who caught it easily with one hand.

"Still, they ought to tell us enough to let me exercise some of that
command discretion they keep talking about."
"Life in a blue suit," the XO said easily. "When do you want to make
this happen?"

"Now would be a good time. There's not a damned thing that would count
as a contact of interest out here, although it would sure help if Subpac
would tell us exactly what we're supposed to be looking for."

"Maybe they don't know," the XO suggested.

Forester shot him an annoyed look. "That's what worries me most of all."

NIRU 3

Ten minutes.

His chest heaved, trying to draw oxygen out of the stale air inside the
niru. T'sing Lin fought down panic.

The tips of his fingers were blue and numb, and his vision was graying
out at the edges.

Because he'd stolen an orange from his unit's commissary. Why was he
here? He knew the answer.

Because a sailor convicted of a felony while at sea could be executed.

Because the nirus needed pilots to compensate for the lack of advanced
microcircuits for independent guidance circuits. Because the
Commander-Admiral had promised him that his wife and son, his parents as
well, would die if he did not "volunteer." Too many answers.

And too little air. T'sing Lin squinted at his chart and fought for
consciousness.

USS SEAWOLF

"Conn, Sonar! Subsurface contact, bearing 140, range 9,000 yards.

Bearing constant, range decreasing!"

Forester swore violently. "What the hell is it?"

"No classification, Sir. It's submerged and it's doing fifteen knots.

Recommend course two-two-five to avoid.

"Two-two-five," Forester ordered immediately.

"Permission to go active, Sir?"

Forester traded a puzzled look with his Exec. "What do you think?"

"Not yet. Not unless there's some indication she's detected us."

"Not likely."

"Not likely there's another submarine out here either."

"I'll be in Sonar." Forester stepped back into the black curtained-off
area and crowded in behind the Sonar Supervisor.

The jagged lines tracing down the green screen were fine and discrete,
showing only occasional perturbations in frequency. Another line fuzzed
around the edges, indicating it was probably a propeller source.

"We're going to clear him by four thousand yards, Captain. At least."

Forester nodded. "But that doesn't answer the more important
question-what -the hell is it?"

NIRU 3

Three minutes.

His chest was hurting now, demanding that he breath faster, harder, Pump
oxygen into the starved tissues of his body- He could feel cold sweat
trickling down his back. His vision was almost completely gone now, only
a small circle of fuzzy light in the center of his field of vision
remaining. The fact that he was almost blind seemed unimportant. Most
things did now. Dimly, he wondered what really did matter.

Two minutes.

He squinted, forcing the slim, glowing hands of the clock into focus.

Divers could hold their breath for two minutes, maybe even three. If he
had stayed on course, hadn't missed a turn or a speed change, he would
make it to the recovery net streaming out behind the mother ship. Just
barely.

USS SEAWOLF

"Trailing exercise," the XO suggested. "Captain, that's the only thing
we've seen in the last two months that could possibly count as a contact
of interest. It has to be it. "

"You think I don't know that?" Forester demanded.

"But you saw the message. ASAP, it said."

"I know, it's just that-"

"We grab our traffic and get back down after her.

Tell Sonar they damned well better regain contact as Soon as we get back
down below the layer."

Seawolf rose smartly to communications depth, deployed her trailing
antenna, and broadcast her access code and identification to the
satellite. Still completely submerged, she picked off the messages
waiting for her and headed back down to follow the contact.

NIRU 3

One minute.

He was barely conscious now, panting despite his determined efforts to
stay calm. Time, the passage of time-it was critically important,
although he could not have said why. The clock in front of him held some
particular significance. As the seconds ticked by, he became convinced
that it was the clock of heaven, counting off the seconds until the
world would be destroyed. He was uncertain as to whether that was
something he should be glad about or worry about.

His suspicions were confirmed a few moments later.

His entire world shuddered, tilted, then shifted ninety degrees to the
right. The chest straps bit into his flesh as the tail of the NIRU
jumped up, throwing him toward the console. He pawed ineffectually at
the straps, wondering dimly where the release latch was, running his
hands repeatedly up and down the length of flat nylon until it
disappeared out of reach behind him.

He was upside down now, hanging from the straps, and he wasted a few
precious molecules of oxygen to moan. The darkness that had been edging
up around his field of vision surged forward, gobbling up the last bits
of dim light. He fought it, praying and crying, trying desperately to
keep the clock of heaven in view. But the world was ending, there was
nothing he could do to prevent it, nothing anyone could do. The noise
alone was driving him mad, along with the ceaseless rotation of his
world spinning about on all three of its axes, until he no longer could
tell whether the straps held him or he held the straps in place.

The noise increased, louder and louder, rhythmic and demanding, as the
world was torn apart. At the last second, he screamed as light flooded
in, certain that the sun was consuming him.

Light. Light and air. He lost consciousness for a moment, still
screaming, while his body fought to suck oxygen in and pump it to the
starved tissues. The anoxia receded quickly.

Finally, he was able to focus again. He looked up, barely able to move,
into the faces of the crew.

His crew. The one that had strapped him into the niru just two hours
ago. Hands behind his back unbuckled the hated straps, peeled them back
from his flesh. They came away with a slight sucking sound, leaving
bloody strips on his white jumper.

"You did well," a low, resonant voice said calmly. "A little slow on the
first leg, but within standards. You are now qualified."

The crew broke into a cheer. T'sing Lin struggled to focus on the face
behind the voice, wanting to see yet already knowing who had spoken.

There was no mistaking Won Su's voice, especially not for one who'd seen
the clock of heaven.

USS SEAWOLF

"Where the hell did it go?" Forester asked. Seawolf was safely back
inside the isothermal layer, searching for the contact.

"Furthest-on circle search-now."

"I don't know, sir." The sonarman sounded worried. on

"I was holding contact on it, that same little shitty propeller going on
and on.

Look-it spun up, then faded out right after that. it doesn't make any
sense. If it was going faster, it Ought to be easier to detect. Not go
away. , Forester swore quietly.

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, WASHINGTON, D.C.: 24 SEPTEMBER Jerusha Bailey
scrolled through the message traffic queued up in her computer. Much of
it had to do with events outside her area of responsibility. As Division
Head for Western Europe, she paid particular attention to the traffic
from those areas.

But not exclusively. The modern world was far more interconnected than
her predecessors would have ever dreamed. Political power trickled
through the various areas like water through cracked rocks, surfacing in
the most unexpected of locations. What at first appeared to be random
events often proved to have a connection to other world events-a
revolution in Pakistan would spark food shortages in Argentina,
inflation in Mexico would decimate the trade balance in France, and so
forth and so on. Sorting out those connections and making plans for U.S.
policy abroad was the job of Bailey and the other teams of area experts.

She paged through the database quickly, looking for anything out of the
ordinary. Europe seemed relatively quiet, with Germany regrouping after
their last aggressive onslaught and the rest of Europe hovering around
like vultures, picking up concessions and reparations like buzzards.

That's the way it had always been in Europe, a seething cauldron of
political tensions fomenting revolutions and insurrections. A relatively
small land mass, as political entities went, Europe nonetheless
possessed the highest concentration of ethnic nationalities and
political systems of any part of the world. Regardless of all attempts
to unify it into the European Economic Community, issue a single
currency, and otherwise solidify the fractious population into a single
entity, there was little hope for real and lasting peace, Europe seemed
quiet for the moment. Oddly quiet, in a way. For the last two Years,
Bailey had been expecting to see some reaction to the Chinese
repossession of Hong Kong, but so far had been unable to discern any
connections. There were the usual turmoils in central Europe, the
influence of a surging German economy on the Common Market, but both
trends were so historically predictable that they hardly warranted
comment.

The subject line of one message caught her attention: SUBSURFACE
CONTACT, PANAMA. Ever since her first days in the Navy, Bailey had been
fascinated with submarines. After her release from active duty and
transfer to the Naval Reserve, she'd stayed active in antisubmarine
warfare. Now, as Commanding Officer of Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare
Unit 106, she had specific professional responsibilities regarding
submarines.

She double-clicked on the message and scanned it rapidly.

A report from a U.S. submarine on special operations off the coast of
Panama, with prosecution interrupted by the receipt of an ELF message.

She shook her head, continually amazed at the effect of the fog of war.

The fog of war-a German term, coined by the mi Iitary genius Karl
Clausewitz. It was a concept that surfaced repeatedly in military
operations. In the U.S., it was known as Murphy's Law: What could go
wrong, would.

When the submarine had returned to prosecute the Contact, it was gone.

And Subpac's critical message, the one that the submarine had
interrupted prosecution to download from the satellite? A warning about
the tendency of a particular main coolant pump to overheat and smoke. A
pump that wasn't even installed on the boat.

She grimaced, imagining the sub skipper's mood shortly after receiving
that particular message. it wouldn't have been pretty.

But still, this submarine contact off the coast of Panama intrigued her.

She toggled over to a different screen, a geographic representation of
all the U.S. ships and deployed military assets around the world, As the
names of the ships and their positions quickly painted across her
screen, she swore quietly. Coincidence? Probably-but then again, maybe
not. The map showed one particular ship just off the coast of Panama,
located near the Pacific entrance to the Canal: the USS Jouett.

Jouett. Collins's ship. At least I think she's still there.

Surprised that she even got the Executive Officer slot after what
happened in the English Channel. Terry must have had a hand in it.

Terry-that had to be it. Terry Intanglio, her boss and protector inside
the NSA, the one who'd both hired her and kept her on after Germany,
over the strong objections of her immediate superior, Jim Atchinson.

Bailey had been surprised when she'd had a job to come back to after
Germany, but Terry had explained that there was little that anyone could
do about it. After all, Bailey was a decorated national hero after both
leading the U.S. defeat of German forces in the English Channel and
exposing the machinations of a renegade faction inside the U.S. military
itself. Heads had rolled, several promising military careers had been
cut short, and the President himself had pinned the Meritorious Service
Medal on her uniform shirt. Evidently, the grant of immunity had been
extended to June Collins as well, since the short blond Naval officer
who'd fought Bailey every step of the war had been selected soon after
for the Executive Officer slot.

But what was the connection here? Jouett and Collins in the immediate
vicinity of an inexplicable subsurface contact? Or had there been a
submarine there at all? She frowned and picked up the phone. If anyone
could come up with an alternative explanation, it would be Peter
Carlisle.

A few moments later, Carlisle's smiling blond head popped up on the
screen of her computer. His eyes were slightly unfocused for a moment,
until her image resolved itself on his own screen.

"Jerusha? What's up?"

"Maybe nothing. You got a minute?"

"Sure, shoot."

"In person, I think."

The smile faded into a puzzled look verging on concern. "Serious?"

"I don't know. Call it a hinky feeling. It has to do with some of the
players in Germany two years ago."

She waited, giving him time to absorb that.

"On my way," he said after a moment's pause.

Pete headed up a section of the electronic-intercept support division,
an esoteric collection of acoustic and computer experts who specialized
in extracting discrete signals embedded in noise. After her first two
weeks at NSA, once it became clear that Atchinson was not going to be
leading her fan club, Pete had offered to have Jim's office wired for
sound. At the time, she'd thought he was joking. After six months at
NSA, watching and being the target of several sophisticated electronic
practical jokes, she was no longer sure he had been.

Apart from a warped sense of humor, she and Pete shared one other common
interest: the Naval Reserve Pete had spent five years on active duty as
a sonar technician on board a ballistic-missile submarine. When she'd
learned he'd maintained his Reserve affiliation, she'd promptly
recruited him to fill a vacant billet in her own unit. While Pete had
more seniority than she did at NSA, he filled a senior enlisted billet
in the unit Bailey commanded.

Minutes later, Carlisle appeared at her door. "What is so secret that
you don't want to use taccomm?" he asked, referring to the
computer-based tactical communication system. "And, before you ask, I'm
not going back to Europe. My fun meter pegged way out last time.,,
"Collins. She's on Jouett." Bailey moved the computer screen around so
that he could look at it. "You read that report on the contact down by
Panama?"

He nodded. "You know I would have taken a look at it. Based on what the
sub sonarman reported, I'd guess it was a real contact."

"That's what I thought. But whose? And is it just coincidence that
Collins happens to be in the same area?"

He smiled slightly. "Probably. What, you think there's a worldwide
conspiracy to put her in the immediate vicinity of anything that
interests you?"

Bailey shrugged. "Maybe not. You don't find it odd that she's down
there?"

"No." Carlisle's voice was firm. "I do not. Yes, there was some sort of
subsurface contact down there, but I find absolutely no connection with
Jouett."

"So what kind of submarine?" Bailey asked, dropping the question of
Collins and Jouett.

"Diesel, probably. I checked known deployments and didn't come up with
any candidates. But there are a lot of submarines out there that we
can't track. I'm betting diesel based only on how hard she was for the
nuke to pick back up. The only nuke in the area aside from ours was a
Chinese one in port, and it's a piece of shit. And old Soviet Victor
boat-Seawolf would have seen her.

Besides, I've got imagery of her tied up at that time."

Noting her surprised look, he said irritably, "Yeah, of course I
checked. I even halfway suspected we'd be having this conversation,
although I didn't know about Collins and Joliett. And before you ask,
I've got acoustics, too. So there."

"So now what do you think?" Bailey persisted.

"Knowing Collins is down there?"

"Get off it, Jer. The same thing I thought before-an unknown diesel
submarine in the area. Maybe even Chinese. God knows those little
bastards are hard to keep track of."

Bailey leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

The feeling that somehow this was a connection she should see, a power
surge she ought to understand, was virtually irresistible. China had a
long-standing interest in Panama. Most of the traffic through the Canal
was still going to and from America, but China's takeover of Hong Kong
had expanded her international trade role far beyond anything the U.S.
had anticipated.

And soured many of her relations with the rest of the world. Especially
since China shows no sign of loosenin- up her human-rights policies. Not
that she seems to care much. China had not even filed a formal protest
over losing most-favored-nation status with the U.S. "Maybe China's
interest in Panama is more that just friendly," Bailey mused.

"Maybe she feels a bit more comfortable down there with a few submarines
around."

"Maybe. But that's a hell of a reach, Jerusha." Carlisle hesitated, then
continued slowly. "I can't brief you on the particulars, but there's
nothing in the electronic intercepts that would indicate forward
deployment of an additional submarine."

Bailey nodded, appreciating his difficulty. Carlisle's field of
expertise was so highly classified and esoteric that the results were
rarely available to other divisions unless there was a demonstrated need
to know. And under the circumstances, there was little reason that the
Division Head for Western Europe would need to know about electronic
intercepts around the Panama Canal.

He'd stretched the limits of his releasability guidelines just telling
her that much.

"Trouble never starts how or where we anticipate it," she said finally.

"While Panama isn't exactly in my backyard, this whole thing concerns
me. If you find out there's anything you can tell me, let me know."

He nodded. "I will. And I'll keep an open mind about the Jouett
connection too. You never know."

And that, Bailey thought as she watched him leave the office, was the
essence of the problem with U.S. national security policy. One planned
for the known problem areas of the world, but in the end one never knew
exactly where or how the world would start to come unglued next.

GULF OF PANAMA: 25 SEPTENBER USS Jouett Lieutenant Commander June
Collins, Jouett's Executive Officer, made it a habit to tour Combat
every night just before turning in. Tonight was no exception-it was 0130
and she could hear her rack calling to her, promising the prospect of
four hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Collins shook her head, trying to clear away the dull pounding induced
by too little sleep and too much coffee. There were ways to survive
mid-watches, methods of coping with the sleep deprivation and distorted
circadian rhythms that were the hallmarks of a United States Navy
officer. She'd learned to nap when she could during the day, stealing a
few precious minutes during chow hours, skipping meals, knowing that the
cooks would leave leftovers in the reefers for watch-standers.

As a final option, there was always the ubiquitous peanut butter and
jelly.

Tonight, she'd been lucky. Pork chops on the menu, a main course that
was well suited to pre-watch snacking.

She could still taste the grease at the back of her mouth, feel the
tough, fibrous feel of the meat as her teeth cut through it.

Jouett was steaming within a box just off the coast of Panama, enroute
to drug-enforcement operations in the Caribbean. Tomorrow at 0900 she
would transit the Canal, outchop into the Atlantic, and begin the
frustrating and often futile mission of trying to hunt down the myriad
small craft that ferried drugs between Central America and the U.S.

Collins nodded to the TAO, Lieutenant Garland Williams, and slid into
the console seat next to his. "Any problems?" she asked as she slipped
the communications headset on.

"Would have called you if there were, XO," he drawled.

Collins stopped her sharp reply. It wouldn't do any good. Hadn't for the
two months that the new Lieutenant had been on board. His remarks
consistently carried a subtle undertone of sex, words and phrases
fraught with double entendres and insinuations. She'd tried confronting
him before. Hurt innocence was something else he did well, although she
could see a vicious sort of amusement playing at the corner of his mouth
as he protested his innocence, her misunderstanding. All a confrontation
would do now would be amuse the rest of the watch section.

She slipped the headset on. Soft voices murmured to her, tracker alley
piped into her right ear and surface plot into the left. She
nodded-quiet, calm reports of the merchant traffic in the vicinity, an
occasional update on a contact approaching. It sounded like she'd be
able to get to her rack on time after all, The Captain was in his cabin,
probably asleep, although she could never be certain of that. In her
four months on board Jouett, he'd repeatedly demonstrated his
predilection for roaming the ship at odd hours, apparently taking some
pleasure in catching people at their worst. The one time she'd skipped
her nightly stint in Combat, she been awakened four times in the next
two hours to answer questions from the watch generated by the Captain's
repeated visits. Finally, she'd gotten the hint.

She studied the large-screen display that dominated the forward half of
Combat, noting a relatively slow moving contact that had just popped up.

It tracked erratically for a moment, indicating that the Aegis system
was correlating the contact from several radars. "What the hell is it
doing?"

Williams shrugged. "Who knows? It's commercial air. Course and speed
fit."

"Why's the system boggling on it?"

"Atmospherics probably. Ducting or something."

Lieutenant Williams yawned, took another sip of coffee, then shot her a
pointedly amused look. "Or maybe he's just trying out some aerobatics.

Who knows why Commair does anything? Come on, XO, chill out. This isn't
Germany."

"Nor is it the Pentagon," she snapped. "Maybe you were safe and sound
behind a desk back there for the last three years, but things are a
little different in the real world. You'd know that if you had had
normal assignments."

Williams's eyes grew cold. "You've got a problem with my performance,
XO?"

She sighed, shook her head. If only it were that simple.

Lieutenant Garland Williams, Annapolis '97, originally headed for the
skies as a Naval aviator until a previously unexpected intolerance for
high-performance maneuvers washed him out of the flight program.

Vertigo, he called it.

Puking was more like it. If his father hadn't been Admiral Garland
Williams, he would have been sent home years ago.

But Daddy's influence bought Sonny Boy a cushy job at the Pentagon,
followed by re-designation as a surface warfare officer. Garland Junior
was sent to sea to play catch-up, entering the surface-warfare track
with his first assignment as a department head on board Jouett, an
assignment most officers garnered only after two Division Officer tours.

It was a plum for Junior-and a pain in the ass for the rest of the
wardroom.

"Keep a close eye on it," she said, ignoring his question. "You don't
know what can happen out here."

"It's squawking IFF as Panamanian National Airlines Flight 103,"
Williams said after glancing at his data console. "Since when were we at
war with Panama?"

PANAMANIAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 103

Panamanian President Jose Garcia loosened the seat belt that was cutting
into his midriff, and glanced around the spacious cabin of the converted
C141 transport plane.

The aircraft had started its life as a military cargo vessel for the
United States Air Force. Shortly after the Canal had returned to
Panamanian control, the United States had had it extensively
refurbished, the interior redesigned to accommodate passengers, and
divided this forward portion into a first-class cabin. For the last
three years, it had been part of the small but growing Panamanian
National Airlines.

Most of the other seats in this section were occupied by members of the
President's entourage-three bodyguards, his national security advisor,
two aides, and a few secretarial personnel. The remaining few seats were
left empty for security reasons. A retractable steel-mesh door divided
the first-class compartment from the coach section, and normal paying
passengers occupied those seats.

No doubt, Garcia reflected, it was no secret that he was on board.

Perhaps some of the passengers were wondering, as were the stewardesses,
why he had not taken his Presidential aircraft. Why should they be
inconvenienced with additional security procedures when the President
had other means of transport'?

It was a fair question-and one he wished he didn't have to answer. But
after the two assassination attempts and threatened coup by the military
just two months before, he no longer felt safe trusting the all-military
force that crewed his own aircraft. A sad state of affairs, but not an
uncommon one in the steamy politics that dominated this portion of the
world.

Of all the nations, Panama was particularly susceptible to the whims and
vagaries of hot-blooded Latino politics, straddling the border between
North America and South, and now in sole control of the only expeditious
passage between the Pacific and Atlantic in this part of the world. That
his own Administration had lasted so long he took as a tribute to his
personal leadership.

That, and successfully weathering the transfer of the Canal to
Panamanian control, over not only widespread United States objections
but those of his own countrymen as well. More than half of all
Panamanians had opposed taking control of the Canal, not so much for the
responsibility it imposed on the small nation, but for the resultant
loss of dollars and trade that the U.S. military presence pumped into
the economy. That those dollars had not been substantially replaced by
America's foreign-aid program had been duly noted.

Still, they were making progress-steady progress. A host of Asian
nations had been willing to step into the gap left by America's absence,
and Garcia had had to pick and choose carefully among those offers of
assistance and friendship.

The ones he'd decided to accept-were they a mistake?

He still hadn't decided, not even after eight years of closer ties with
the Chinese government. What had started as a small trade delegation had
expanded into substantial shipping facilities on either end of the
Panama Canal, at Colon on the Pacific side and Balboa, a subdivision of
the city of Panama, on the east. Over two hundred Chinese merchant ships
now flew the Panamanian flag, and a small military assistance group was
a growing presence in both facilities, ostensibly to provide harbor-side
security for the Chinese merchants, but more likely to ensure that the
Canal was always open.

But the final straw had come last month, when a Chinese trade delegation
had announced their intention to conduct routine port visits and
goodwill missions with both military warships and nuclear submarines.

The first of those submarines was already tied up on the western side of
the Canal, and two more were allegedly under way to join it. What had
started as a partnership of equals had metamorphosed into something much
uglier.

That was the occasion for this flight-and the reason for so many
sleepless nights in the past three months.

He'd spent days, weeks, every waking moment welding together a coalition
of political forces that would finally assert Panama's true
independence. And this one was the final result. Of all the forces
operating inside Panama, the only ones not fully in support were the
Panamanian military, long invested with an unreasoning dread of American
occupation. So unreasoning that they were willing to accept the
assistance of a race as alien and cold-blooded as the Chinese.

Well, no more. In this meeting with China's President, he would make
Panama's right to self-determination clear. There would be a discussion,
of course, of the possibility of military shipboard visits, but in the
end this was one point he would not concede. There would be no more
military port visits, most particularly not from the submarines. The one
now tied to the pier would be put under way as soon as possible, and the
other two would be diverted. Panama would not be intimidated could not
be, not after their long wait to free themselves from American
influence.

Garcia felt a flood of confidence and courage as he contemplated his own
determination. Yes, it would be good to step out from under the Chinese
yoke, to stop this unhealthy relationship before it proceeded any
further. He touched the lever on the side of his chair, tilted the seat
back. and wondered if it might be possible to catch a nap.

USS JOUETT

As Collins watched, the speed leader in front of the commercial air
track wavered, doubled in length, and then splintered into four separate
lines radiating out from the contact symbol. The entire contact shivered
momentarily, then resolved itself back into what it was supposed to be.

She glanced at the data display to her left, Eight hundred knots now,
altitude decreasing steadily. The contact changed course slightly, now
headed directly toward Jouett. The track supervisor should have been
squawking about it as soon as it changed course. "Track supe, Xo," she
said. "What's going on with 7408?"

IIXO. track supe. Noise level just spiked up to ridiculous, XO. The
system is-wait, it cleared up. I don't know what it was. Maybe sunspots
or something?"

"Sunspots." Possible, she supposed. Electromagnetic shielding kept
exterior radiation from reaching the sensitive electronics inside the
SPY-IG radar system, but it couldn't do anything about the environment
outside the ship. Noise in the search radars degraded the signal, and
she'd seen a defense-contractor videotape of some spectacular effects
from sunspots.

But never anything quite that well-defined. That hadn't been like any
noise spike she'd seen before. And if not the sun, what was dumping
energy into the atmosphere?

"It's cleared up now at least," the track supervisor continued. "I'll
put a note in the pass-down log about It, though. "

"Is it on a commercial air corridor?" she asked.

"Slightly off-maybe fifteen miles south of it." He was starting to echo
the uneasy tone in her voice. "And opening-ma'am, he needs to turn north
to reenter the corridor. Like now. Look-I'll put it up on your screen. "

A set of narrow red lines blipped up on the screen, delineating the
standard commercial air corridor to their north. The errant airliner was
moving away from it, and if the contact data was correct, making no
attempt to vector back into its assigned airspace.

"All stations, this is the XO. Anyone got anything on this contact?"

Beside her, Williams rolled his eyes. She bit back a rebuke.

A chorus of negatives from the surface track supervisor, Sonar, the
lookouts, and the SLQ-32 electronicwarfare technicians. The speed leader
on the contact wavered again. Collins stood, driven to her feet by the
uneasiness seeping up from her gut and tethered to her console by the
headset cord. "What are you doing, mister?" she said softly, as though
she could reach out and talk directly to the off-course pilot. "Come on,
turn north, north, north... "Crap, it's-XO, AWG-9 radar indications,"
one of the electronic-warfare technicians yelped. "Targeting mode.

Jesus, it's-TAO, recommend unmask CIWS batteries. Now."

Visions of the USS Stark hit by missiles from Iranian P-3 aircraft in
the Persian Gulf-no, she wouldn't be sucker punched like that. Never.

"What's happening?" Williams said. He stared at the large-screen display
as though he could force it to conform to his version of reality by
sheer will alone. "An AWG-9-no, it can't be. That's an off-course
airliner, not an F-14! Track supe, check your-"

Collins cut him off. "General Quarters. Now, Mister Williams. Bridge,
XO-hard right rudder to unmask ciws."

"Stop it," Williams cried. "You can't-it's not-I'm the TAO!"

The speed leader cracked apart into four distinct lines running close
together and almost parallel out from the airliner. She could hear the
track supe screaming now, even without the headset. "Jesus, missile
separation!

XO, vampires inbound. Four-no, it's-oh, shit."

"Seeker head, seeker head," the EW yelled, his voice cutting through the
mounting noise in Combat.

"It's not real!" Williams howled.

"You're relieved. Get out of Combat."

Williams vaulted up from his seat and tried to pull her headset off.

Collins slammed an elbow into his gut and followed it with a closed fist
to his groin. Williams screamed, then crumpled to the deck. He clawed at
the armrest on his chair, trying to pull himself upright.

Collins turned to look at the weapons console. "Assigning weapons to
target. Weapons free now. Take contact with birds."

"Take contact with birds, aye," the weapons chief replied. She heard the
uncertainty in his voice. "XO, that noise earlier-are you sure-?"

"Fire one." She drove one stiff, numb finger down on the button,
manually activating the fire-control circuit. "Fire two."

The hard, shuddering rumble of missile launch momentarily drowned out
the voices on her headset. She reached up to cover her ears, operating
on sheer instinct and training now.

The four missile contacts on the screen vanished. Too so-on to be the
missiles-they couldn't have taken them out, couldn't be there yet-the
last echoes of the launch were still echoing inside Combat, competing
with the incessant gonging of the General Quarters alarm.

The symbols for Jouett's missiles were now on the screen, arrowing
straight toward the commercial air contact.

"Two birds fired," a voice said finally. "Dear sweet God-we just shot at
an airliner."

"You tell me what airliner does Mach one-point-two and radiates
fire-control radar," Collins demanded.

"Tell me."
"None of them," a new voice said. She swiveled in her chair to look up
into the face of the Commanding Officer of Jouett, Captain Dave
Renninger. A look of cold white fury suffused his patrician features.

"And you better pray to God that you were right."

FLIGHT 103

The missile slammed into the joint just where the vertical stabilizer
connected with the rest of the fuselage. It tore through the thin
aluminum outer shell, the continuous expanding-rod forehead of the
missile ripping apart the metal as though it were tissue paper. The
stronger structural supports lasted no longer, disintegrating into
chunks of razor-sharp shrapnel that spattered the passengers in the aft
section of the plane against the walls.

In the first microsecond of the impact, Garcia knew something was
terribly wrong. The aircraft gave an unhealthy, sickening jolt forward,
pitching nose-down at a twenty-five-degree angle almost instantaneously.

Every bit of loose gear within the compartment rocketed forward,
slamming against the forward bulkhead. For just a second, the aircraft
jerked back upward, as if it would find some miraculous way to maintain
level flight absent the aft one-third of the fuselage. The massive wings
fought for lift, but the wildly unstable aerodynamics won out. The C141
tipped back nose-down and commenced an uncontrolled descent to the
ground.

Garcia's face hit the seat back in front of him. Then centrifugal forces
jerked him out of his seat and sent him pelting back towards the aft of
the compartment. He slammed into the metal grating separating the two
compartments, and was held there by the forces of acceleration. Bodies
piled up on top of him. The screams of people dying, injured, and
crushed were just barely audible over the roar of the air.

By the time the first chunks of flesh hit the bulkhead, the aircraft was
already careening down toward the ground in a crazy, death-seeking,
erratic spiral. Debris, bodies, and luggage from the open storage
compartments trailed behind it, mixing with the aviation fuel pumped out
into the air by severed fuel lines. The entire stream ignited into a
convection trail of fire, its path following the clumsy spirals and
twists of the aircraft's death throes. Black smoke billowed after that,
quickly starting to shred and dissipate in what had once been a head
wind.

At ten thousand feet above ground, there was sufficient oxygen in the
ambient air to support life. The passengers who'd survived, including
President Garcia, regained consciousness, slowly at first. By the time
the aircraft was five hundred feet above ground, the screaming had
resumed. It lasted but a few moments longer.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: 25 SEPTENBER THE BELTWAY Jerusha Bailey swung her car
out into traffic and headed for work. The sun was not yet up, but
traffic was already starting to build on the Beltway. Headlights strung
out like a diamond necklace stretched as far as she could see on the
other side of the Beltway as the inhabitants of the myriad government
facilities located in and around the District of Columbia each tried to
beat the traffic in.

The radio spewed its usual patter of dramatized tragedies, weather
reports, and traffic updates. Not that the latter would do anyone much
good-there were few options other than the Metro for getting into D.C.

"Navy officials are now confirming unofficial reports that the USS
Jouett, a guided-missile destroyer, fired on and hit a Panamanian
National Airlines jet earlier this morning. The scheduled commercial
flight was on a normal route between Panama City and Hong Kong. As yet
there is no explanation as to why the ship fired at the aircraft or
whether there were any American citizens on board."
Bailey slammed on her breaks as the report concluded, narrowly missing
the stopped Mercedes in front of her. She took a deep breath,
concentrated on stilling the adrenaline tremor in her hands generated by
the near miss.

Jouett again! Now just what the hell She eased off the brake as traffic
in front of her started moving again.

Collins. An aggressive officer, one who'd never run from a fight even if
a tactical retreat was in order. She'd almost gotten them killed doing
just that.

And now a blue-on-blue engagement, military euphemism for a harsher
word: fratricide. Brother killing brother. It happened in the military,
both in exercises and in real life, far more than anyone was willing to
admit. Usually it occurred under more demanding operational scenarios.

Well, maybe not, she realized, thinking of the USS Vincennes and her
downing of the Iranian airbus a decade ago.

She gunned the engine, veered off onto the shoulder, and raced for her
office.

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, DIRECTOR'S OFFICE Jim Atchinson carefully laid
his pen next to his legal pad and leaned back in the Leatherette chair.

He laced his fingers across his stomach and smiled at the man opposite
him. "Frankly, I think this would be an excellent opportunity for
Bailey."

Terry Intanglio, Director of NSA, looked startled

"Why Bailey? Hasn't she been under the gun enough in the last year?" h
Atchinson took a moment to look around the small conference room before
replying. It was luxurious by government standards, much more
comfortable than the small meeting area on his own floor. Up here,
genuine wood paneling replaced the two-toned white and green high-gloss
institutional paint on his own floor, and the thicker brand of carpet
tugged at the rollers of his chair instead of the industrial
indoor-outdoor floor covering his own department had. Even the chairs
were more comfortable, with marked lumbar support padding and soft,
cushy arms.

In one corner of the room, stacks of china cups and saucers graced the
top of a credenza. Next to that was a plate of crullers and doughnuts,
sent up by the kitchen in anticipation of lengthy morning meetings. The
kitchen was always the first to know, right after CNN, Atchinson
reflected.

Finally, when he judged enough time had passed to give him the
appearance of thoughtfulness, Atchinson shook his head. "You know, I was
wrong about Bailey.

She did a fine job in that German situation last fall."

He paused for a moment to consider how his blatant falsehoods were
playing with Intanglio. Seeing his boss nod, he continued. "Before that
German affair, you had been talking about giving her a broader range of
responsibility. Rounding out her professional education, as it were.

This might be just the opportunity."

Intanglio leaned back in his own chair and looked thoughtful. "I hadn't
realized you'd changed your opinion of her that much."

Atchinson shrugged. "We all make mistakes. I guess I was wrong about
her."

Not like any of you gave me much choice. She was on active duty at the
time, the Navy's responsibility. Not mine. And just how the hell am I
supposed to treat her when she arrives back here with a presidential
pardon in hand as well as a chestful! of military commendations, hmm?

"It would get her out of the European Theater altogether," Atchinson
continued, fighting down a wave of bitter resentment. "And really, with
the high profile she's had since then, it would look like we were
sending our best people out there. Give us some good press for once.

"That's worth considering. Okay, I'll give it some thought."

Intanglio watched Atchinson leave, mildly amused at the self-satisfied
smile on the other man's face. As though he'd pulled something over on
Intanglio, as though his boss didn't understand just exactly what the
division chief was trying to achieve. Bailey's success in Germany had
rankled on Atchinson, beginning with her insistence on doing her two
weeks' active duty while events were heating up in Korea, and ending up
with her unraveling the puzzle of events in the English Channel to
discover that the Germans were behind the Korean war. That he'd been
outsmarted, out-thought, and out-warriored by a mere woman ate visibly
at the man.

Still, there was something to what Atchinson said, Sending Bailey to
head up the NSA detachment in Panama would give Intanglio another set of
eyes on the problem of Panama. Except that it wouldn't happen exactly as
Atchinson proposed.

No. they'd send her in under the cover of her Reserve duties, gaining
the on-scene intelligence they needed without exposing the Agency to
unwanted publicity.

"There's something you forgot, though, buddy," Intanglio said aloud to
the empty room. "Just one small thing. The situation is going to shit
down there and you're worried about our publicity. And that, my friend,
is why you'll never be promoted again. Not as long as I'm here.

THE GULF OF PANAMA: 26 SEPTEMBER USS JOUETT The ship lingered just
outside the twelve-mile limit of the Panamanian coast, steaming back and
forth inside its small box like a tiger pacing a cage. Commander
Renninger's instructions from Third Fleet were explicit exercise his
freedom-of-navigation rights in international waters, but do nothing to
further provoke the Panamanian government. Conversely, he was also
ordered to maintain an American presence in the area as a sign of
continued U.S. support to the Canal Zone.

For the first twenty-four hours after the shoot-down, Collins haunted
Combat, doggedly playing back the engagement time and time again. She
compared her electronic track with the paper track maintained by the
navigator and surface plot in Combat. She watched the data until her
eyes blurred; the white track streaking out from the coast, designated
as commercial air, then suddenly losing altitude and accelerating
through Mach 1.2.

She stared at the screen until she could no longer tell track from the
vague glimmers of phosp florescent green in the screen, desperately
searching for some clue as to the genesis of her mistake.

The intelligence specialist on board kept busy logging the commercial
activity through the western entrance of the Canal. Twenty-eight
Chinese-flagged merchant ships were now in port, taking advantage of the
state-of-the-art facilities built by their owners. The Chinese port
station was almost completely automated, and cargo flowed through it so
quickly that there was constant traffic in and out of the harbor.

The Canal remained open, and the few ships that still flew the American
flag suffered nothing more egregious than bureaucratic delays, lost
paperwork, and general administrative red tape. The Panamanian
government was making their point-not aggressively, but a point it was.

Finally, Renninger cornered Collins in Combat and insisted she get some
sleep. "You're not doing us any good here. "

"I just keep thinking I might have missed something," she said, her
voice hoarse.

He shook his head. "The IFF-that's what you missed. Anything else, it'll
come out in the investigation."

There was an aura of competence that always surrounded large men,
Collins thought, studying her captain. Renninger was a case in point. He
towered over her, which required her to cant her neck back uncomfortably
to stare up into his furious face. He took a step closer to her, an
intimidation tactic she'd seen work all too well on his junior officers.

She stood her ground, hands on her hips.

"You panicked." Renninger's voice was cold. "Just admit it."

Collins' shook her head in denial. "I didn't. You just saw the last four
seconds of the engagement. Prior to that, it was inbound on threat
profile. Under the circumstances, the only option was to shoot."

"The only option you saw, you mean."

"I don't understand."

Renninger hissed a frustrated sigh. "I think you know exactly what I
mean. You've got a reputation around here, lady. The Navy isn't all that
big. I know what you were like on Ramage-and what you did."

Collins's stomach curled up in a knot. Of course he knew-that unspoken
knowledge had lain between them ever since she'd started her Executive
Officer tour on board Jouett four months ago. That she'd been selected
for it at all still amazed her. She'd taken it as a sign that the forces
in power had deemed she was worthy of a chance to redeem herself, and
she hit the decks running for this tour, determined to be the best
Executive Officer that ever graced the deck of a destroyer. Or any ship,
for that matter. Her selection was all the more sweet after her earlier
conviction that she might as well resign then and there from the Navy.

"If you've got any questions about what happened on board Ramage-"

He cut her off with a sharp gesture. "I don't have any questions. I know
exactly what happened. You mutinied.

"That's not how it looked to me at the time," she said. "You don't
understand-you weren't there. We had torpedoes inbound, this Reserve
female commander who was on board was making what I thought were some
extremely stupid decisions. And she was running from a fight-that
submarine wolf pack had both the USS Weeks and our allied British forces
pinned down in a killing field. And she ran."

"Turned out she was right, though, didn't it?" Renninger said, his voice
dripping disgust. "If Bailey hadn't gotten back to the bridge, Rainage
would be sitting at the bottom of the English Channel with Weeks.

Wouldn't she?"
Collins nodded slowly. "As I said, at the time-"

"If you ever get a command tour-which I sincerely hope you never do-how
would you feel about having a mutineer assigned as your Executive
Officer?" he snapped. "Just makes you feel good about the whole chain of
command, doesn't it? About duty, loyalty-all those core values we talk
about." Renninger looked as though he were about to spit on the deck in
disgust. "I should have known better than to let you on board this
ship."

"And what precisely could you have done about it?"

Collins spat out, now goaded beyond all possibility of self-restraint.

"The Bureau makes the decisions about who gets the XO slots, not you.

The last time I heard, the Navy didn't give commanding officers veto
power over those decisions."

"You're right, they don't. I don't know what kind of political pull
you've got to get you special treatment like that, but it doesn't wash
with me. By the time you leave this ship, you'll have fitness reports
that say you ought to be assigned to a tug for the rest of your life.

No, not even that-nothing that floats. How about duty as a pub@- lie
affairs officer?"

Collins turned pale. "You won't even give me a chance."

He nodded. "That's right. You've already had one.

And you blew it."

"I suppose Senator Williams' son would get the same treatment?" she
flared. Now that Renninger had made it clear that she had no future on
board Jouett, there was nothing to lose. She'd finish out this tour, do
the best job she could, and then retire.

"Senator Williams' son is just another lieutenant as far as I'm
concerned."

"Yeah, right," Collins muttered.

"What was that?" he snapped.

Collins stiffened to a position of attention. "Nothing, Captain," she
said, her voice cold and formal. "Is there anything else?" She made a
small movement, as though to leave his cabin.

"Now that you mention it.. He thrust a message at her. "You might as
well read this. I could leave you in the dark-hell, I ought to."

Collins took the message and scanned it quickly. It was dated only two
hours before, and was a flash priority

"Personal For" message from the Chief of Naval Operations to Commander
Renninger.

FROM: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS TO: COMMANDER D. RENNINGER, COMMANDING
OFFICER, USS JOUETR SUBJECT: EXECUTIVE OFFICER; RELIEF AS 1. PER YOUR
REQUEST DATED 251302Z, YOUR REQUEST IS DENIED. LIEUTENANT COMMANDER
COLLINS WILL CONTINUE AS EXECUTIVE OFFICER PENDING A COMPLETE
INVESTIGATION INTO THE ALLEGED INCIDENT. 2. WHILE NOT REQUIRED, THE
FOLLOWING EXPLANATION IS PROVIDED: AT THIS TIME, THE UNITED STATES'
NATIONAL INTERESTS WILL NOT BE SERVED BY ADMITTING U.S. CULPABILITY IN
THIS INCIDENT. RELIEVING LIEUTENANT COMMANDER COLLINS WOULD CONSTITUTE
AN ADMISSION THAT WOULD BE DETRIMENTAL TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY.

PENDING FURTHER INVESTIGATION , AND AUTHORIZATION, YOU WILL TAKE NO
ACTION TO RELIEVE HER.

"So, for better or for worse, you're still the Executive Officer."

Renninger's eyes studied her, cold and malevolent. "I don't expect this
investigation to take long the evidence is too clear. We're minus two
missiles and they're minus one airbus."

Renninger had a point. As much as it had seemed like the right decision
at the time, she had been wrong about Ramage. Been wrong, and almost
lost the ship as a result of it. Bailey had pulled her ass out of the
fire, had probably even had something to do with Collins's later
assignment to Jouett.

Dead bodies floating in the ocean, patchworks of burn marks and white
flesh, bellies distended and faces bloated beyond recognition. Fish, the
inevitable decay that started so quickly in water.

She shook her head, tried to drive out the pictures invading her mind.

The photographs from the Vincennes incident made it all too clear what
the aftermath of an airbus disaster looked like. This time, she was the
one responsible, the one who had butchered innocent civilians. It would
haunt her forever.

But what could she have done differently? There had been no time, no
time at all. If she'd waited and the targets had been real missiles,
there would be American families mourning their dead instead of
Panamanians.

USS Stark or USS Vincennes? Take the first hit on the off chance that
you're mistaken, or try to protect the crew entrusted to you? Which came
first?

Live with it. That's what she'd end up doing, one way or another, just
as she had with Ramage. No second guessing, no excuses. It was the only
way she could find to cope with the enormity of the results of her
decision.

Collins shook her head, not believing the words on the printed sheet of
paper in front of her. "It was the right thing to do."

"So you say. But I believe you've used that line before-and that time
you were wrong too."

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA: 26 SEPTENBER HEADQUARTERS, PANAMANIAN ARMY Jorge
Aguillar, the interim President of Panama, convened his war council in
the ancient, stately army headquarters located at the eastern entrance
to the Panama Canal. With him were his deputies-those he still trusted,
at any rate-as well as the general and titular command of Panamanian
forces. As Garcia's logical successor, it was time to reevaluate the
deals his predecessor had made, solidify his own power base, and begin
the process of building Panama into a world power.

Garcia's stodgy provincialism, his continuing paranoia over the power of
their trading partners, had frustrated Aguillar for years.

He let them sit around the conference table for a few minutes, savoring
their confusion and fear. Despite the reactionaries who occasionally
fomented for elections, the continuing presence of U.S. forces in the
form of a small Southern Command detachment in Panama, and the pressure
the world community increasingly brought to bear on his small country,
his word was law within the confines of his national borders. No one
knew that better than the men assembled here. It would take but one
word, one small gesture to his personal security force that ringed the
outer walls, and any one of them would have been executed immediately.

When he judged the silence had gone on long enough to establish the
proper mood of cooperation, Aguillar said, "So? Your thoughts, please."

He smiled benignly at the men around the table, knowing that they would
now embark on the delicate game of trying to guess what it was that
their President wished to hear.

"It was the American warship," the general said finally, breaking the
silence. "Our radar tapes are clear on that."

Aguillar nodded reflectively. "So the earliest reports are confirmed.

The question is, then, how do we proceed?" He looked around the table
slowly, deliberately, letting his eyes liner on each one seated there.

"You are my advisors, are you not? So advise."

General Martin Bellerosa shook his head solemnly.

"Security is becoming more and more of a problem.

When it was just the Americans, we could keep track of them." He spread
his hands expressively. "A small country, many informants-it was not a
problem. Our long experience with the Americans gave us the advantage.

But now, now that we own the Canal, we have many others to deal with.

Some of them are not so easy to track. They come from closer, more
insular societies than our own, and we do not have agents that can pass
for friends in their communities, for obvious reasons.

You understand."

Aguillar shot him a knowing look. "The Chinese, of course. They would be
your primary problem."

The general nodded. "The money they bring in is welcome, I know. But it
does complicate matters. With shipping facilities at both ends of the
Canal, as well as substantial military garrisons, they could pose a
problem. One I am not certain we are equipped to deal with."

"What have you not told me?" Aguillar asked softly.

"Are you incompetent?"

The general stiffened. "Not at all. I'm just suggesting that the
problems we face today are more difficult than your predecessor's. And
the answers aren't always as easy." , But there's nothing difficult
about this," the Minister for Economics broke in. "You've all seen the
evidence. The Americans shot down our airliner. What more do we need to
know?"

Aguillar kept his eyes fixed on the general. "You don't believe that?"
he asked in a carefully calculated tone of mild astonishment. "That the
Americans are at fault?"

"I don't know what to believe. I've worked with them for many years-as
have all of you. On acts such as this-well, we would expect to see some
justification for it, wouldn't we? How does this possibly advance the
American interests in our country, to commit such an act of aggression?

What good does it do them

"The general shook his head heavily. "Since I can't answer those
questions, I find it difficult to believe the easy and obvious
answers-that the Americans are responsible."

"Who else could it possibly be?" the Minister for Economics said, his
voice rising in pitch. "Surely you aren't suggesting the Chinese."

The general looked away from Aguillar, and studied the intricately
inlaid surface of the table b@-fore him.

"Not at all. As I said, I know how much money they bring in. It's just
that-"

"It wouldn't be impossible for it to be someone else," Aguillar said
thoughtfully. "I'm reminded of the incident off the coast of New York,
with the TWA airliner.

Witnesses still claim they saw a missile shoot it down, but there's been
no hard evidence to support that theory.

Yet we know how easily handheld weapons could reach to that altitude
under the right conditions."

The general looked back at him, and Aguillar was amused to note a trace
of relief on the general's face.

"Just so. Until the Americans are willing to admit responsibility, until
they've completed their own investigation, I think it's unwise to jump
to conclusions."

The Minister for Economics shook his head. "I don't believe this. Your
own radar tapes show the missile. Just because the Americans have not
admitted it-"

Aguillar cut him off. "We'll wait then," he said, shifting his gaze to
the Minister for Economics. "In the meantime, each of you will prepare a
package of recommendations. Develop two sets of plans-one, in the event
that the Americans admit responsibility or we obtain more hard evidence
of that, and the second if some party or parties unknown are
responsible. Include a full range of possibilities, ranging from
domestic terrorism to the intervention of our good friends the Chinese.

When we decide finally who is responsible, I will tell you what my first
action will be."

His eyes took on a dark, hooded look. "If the Americans wish our
friendship, they will have to earn it. As the Chinese have done."

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY: 27 SEPTENBER WESTERN EUROPE DIVISION The note
from Jim Atchinson was short and sweet: "See me as soon as you get in."

She sighed and slipped her briefcase under the desk. Jouett. It had to
be. Did Atchinson know about the Collins connection? Probably so-he had
an uncanny ability to find her weaknesses, make her look bad, and the
fact that Collins was on Jouett would give him an opportunity to bring
up Germany again.

She pulled the door shut behind her and walked down the passageway
towards Atchinson's office. The honeycomb of cubicles and compartments,
ranging from unclassified secretarial spaces to those with the most
secret vaults and crypto-locks, were starting to fill up as the early
morning crowd filtered in. She heard the undercurrent of excitement
generated by the shoot-down, caught bits and snatches of conversations
as the various divisions and departments went to work on their small
parts of the problem.

The best defense was a good offensive.

She knocked once on Atchinson's door, then pushed the door open. "You
wanted to see me about Panama?"

The fleeting look of annoyance on Atchinson's face confirmed her hunch.

"How did you know?"

She shrugged and slipped into the chair in front of his desk. "Pretty
obvious, isn't it?"

"Perhaps. Did Terry talk to you?"

It was her turn to look puzzled. "No. I guess he thought I would want to
hear it from you first."

"Well, I take it you have no serious objections then."

Silently, she damned her own deviousness in trying to pretend she knew
what his summons was about. Now she'd worked herself into a spot where
she understood only half of the conversation, and that was hers.

"It depends," she ventured. "I don't know the details."

"We're sending you in under the cover of your MIUW unit," he said
bluntly. "The arrangements have already been worked out with the Navy."

Jerusha stared at him. "You must be joking. Panama will never stand for
it, not so soon after the airbus."

"Stand for it-hell, they proposed it. Seems the new President wants a
demonstration of our goodwill, just on the off chance that somebody
besides that destroyer shot down that airliner. Actually, I think he
might be a little grateful. Aguillar and Garcia have been at each
other's throats for the last year over this Chinese business."

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands across his stomach.

"You'll be there to conduct HVV operations-high-value-vessel
protection," he continued. "I understand it's a normal MIUW mission, so
there's no reason for the Panamanians to be suspicious."

"It's only been eight months since our last deployment," she said.

The MIUW-Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfareunit was a small, elite Naval
command, staffed primarily by Reserve officers and technicians. The
unclassified story was that it was comprised of approximately seventy
members and maintained a wide range of advanced surveillance and
detection equipment aimed primarily at intercepting enemy submarines and
other forces inside protected harbors. Insiders-and that most definitely
included Jim Atchinson-knew that the Navy drew on a number of arcane
civilian specialties to staff the units.

Like NSA analysts.

During Desert Storm and Desert Shield, several MIUW units had been
deployed inside Kuwait to assume control of the harbor there as Harbor
Defense Commander.

In the years since then, the MIUW units had become increasingly
sophisticated. They were now equipped with long-range passive sonar
arrays that could be laid on the bottom of the ocean by a small
RHIB-rigid-hull inflatable boat-and terminated back at the
RSSC-radar/sonar surveillance center-van that provided a comprehensive
integrated tactical picture of the area.

Additionally, each unit had several Humvees with radar mounted on
retractable masts that could be deployed at significant ranges from the
van. Data from the remote radar sites was relayed back to the van via
microwave link. With one MIUW unit in place, a harbor defense commander
could effectively control the movement of all traffic inside constrained
waters.

"They'll probably have heard of me. After Germany, I mean," she said,
reluctantly bringing up the very issued she'd hoped to avoid.

Atchinson nodded. "We've considered that. But actually, it works in our
favor this time. We don't want them entirely comfortable with the
situation, and having you in theater will keep them slightly off balance
as to our intentions."

"Like a sacrificial lamb?"

I didn't say that. Let's just call it an additional uncertainty factor."

She nodded, and tried to decide what was really going on. "Who exactly
will I be working for? NSA or the Navy?"

"Nominally, you'll be attached to the Navy. However, once you're back on
active duty, you'll be given additional reporting instructions to
include us as an info addee on any message traffic or intelligence
summaries you generate. Naturally, we'll expect some degree of
cooperation and responsiveness on your part."

"As long as the Navy makes it official with orders," she said, a little
more sharply than she'd intended.

"Just to ensure your own safety, given the political situation, you'll
be deployed with a SEAL team to provide perimeter security. We're also
assigning a Special Forces team from the Army to the mission as well.

Your primary point of contact will be Master Sergeant Billy Elwell, the
Special Forces coordinator at the Southcom detachment in Panama City."

She nodded. The MIUW was well suited to joint operations, and she'd
worked with both the Army and SEAL teams on several occasions. While the
MIUW possessed its own weapons, primarily pistols and shotguns, it was
always something of a relief to leave that to specialists.

"We meet them in-country, or do they deploy with us?"

"In-country." He glanced at his watch. "In fact, the mobilization order
for your unit should be released in about two hours."

She stood, feeling a surprising sense of eagerness to get back in the
field with her unit. "And just what will NSA ever do if I get promoted
and have to leave my billet as commanding officer?" she asked.

Atchinson looked at her somberly, a malicious glint in his eyes. "We
have ways of coping with problems.

You make a very fine commander. I wouldn't plan on going any higher than
that."

THE STATE DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D.C.: 27 SEPTEMBER OFFICE OF SOUTH
AMERICAN POLICY Bradley Jeets twisted uneasily in his chair, trying to
keep his boss in view. Undersecretary Doug Turner paced back and forth
in his spacious office, his feet scuffing rough tracks into the deep
plush carpet. Jeets wished he could do the same. Anything would be
better than twisting his spine into unnatural configurations while
Turner blasted him. The only consolation he had was that the other three
area specialists in the room were experiencing the same discomfort.

As a career civil servant, Bradley was not overly concerned that Turner
could fire him. At most, incurring his boss's wrath would result in a
transfer to a dreary post elsewhere within the State Department. Not
that he'd mind that-not under the circumstances. With only eight months
to go until he was eligible for retirement, Bradley Jeets was more
concerned with avoiding heart attacks and ulcers than he was with
advancing within the ranks of career civil servants. "Why the hell
didn't any of you think of this?"

Turner snarled. He reached the end of his path, turned abruptly, and
started back across the room. "It should have been obvious-obvious!"

The silence in response was deafening. Jeets was careful not to flinch
or in any other way draw attention to himself. Better that Turner get
the anger over with so that they could start looking for solutions. It
was always this way with a political appointee, and no more so than in
this current Administration.

Turner stopped and whirled on them. "Jeets. You're the area expert. Why
didn't you anticipate this?"

Bradley cleared his throat. "We've always had contingency plans for
problems in the Canal," he began, stating the obvious, hoping to work
through a couple of paragraphs and give Turner a chance to calm down.

"Insurrection, riots-ever since we turned the Canal back over to them,
there's always been the possibility that-"

"That an American warship would shoot down a commercial flight out of
Panama?" Turner demanded.

"Exactly the point," Jeets continued. "How could we anticipate a
completely irrational act such as that?"

"At least one person didn't think it was irrational. The officer on that
ship that pushed the button. If he didn't, then you can damned well
bet-"

"It was a she, sir," Jeets interrupted. "She, not he."

"I don't give a bloody fuck who it was, she-"

Turner stopped suddenly. The expression of rage on his face cleared to
something slightly less ominous.

"What's her name?"

"Lieutenant Commander June Collins," Jeets said, feeling a surge of
relief that he'd managed to deflect the tirade off in a different
direction. "Career Navy officer and there's more. She was involved in
the Raniage affair in the English Channel."

Turner stood motionless. so absolutely still that Jeets wondered if his
boss had suffered a cerebral accident of some sort. Turner's face was
blank, lips pursed, deep wrinkles cutting furrows in his forehead.

"Collins," Turner said softly. The energy seemed to drain out of him,
leaving behind a sense of purpose. He walked over and took a seat behind
his desk. He sat silently for a few moments, still lost in thought, then
scanned the faces of his subordinates. "You realize what this means?"

He surveyed the blank faces arrayed in front of him.

"No, I guess you don't," he said wearily.

"We blame it on PMS?" Jeets suggested, only half kidding. The current
Administration had made well known its displeasure with the previous
Administrations that had expanded the role of women in the military.

Now that women were serving on warships, in ground forces, and in almost
every previously forbidden cadre within the military, President Wilson
James had almost given up hope of being able to roll back their inroads
into combat forces.

Almost-but not quite. Private conversations Jeets had had with his
counterparts at the White House suggested that James would not be
opposed-might even welcome-a reason to reopen the issue.

"It might work," Jeets said. "Only Problem is, we have a precedent. The
Vincennes-remember, they shot down that Iranian airbus. In that
situation, the U.S. decided not to scapegoat the captain of the ship.

They left him in command, transferred him off his ship at the normal
time, and even gave him a shore command after that. "

Turner made a Noncommittal noise. "We argue that the circumstances are
hardly the same. Different President-that's the most critical factor.

And the Panama Canal is clearly a vital national security interest. At
that time, the Persian Gulf was not, although it was front burnered
later on. This may be just the angle we need."

Turner stood up. "I'll brief the President this afternoon if I can get
on his schedule." The other three men stood as well, each glad that
Turner's latest tirade had passed without bloodletting. The door opened
to the office just as they were starting to leave. Hank Flashert, the
one area specialist notably missing from the meeting, stuck his head in.

His face was pale.

"I think you're going to want to see this immediately, sir." Flashert
said.

"Something on the Panamanian affair?" Turner asked.

Flashert nodded. "We just received confirmation from the Panamanian
government as to the passenger manifest," he said, his words tumbling
rapidly over each other. "He was traveling under a pseudonym-that's why
we didn't know earlier. But the first rumors were true.

"Who was on there?" Turner demanded, his voice cold.

"President Jose Garcia," Flashert said simply. "The President of Panama
is now officially listed as dead."

"Shit," Jeets said with feeling. "He was one of the most stabilizing
forces in the area. We can look forward to at least a couple of years of
threatened coups and instability while the Panamanians sort things out."

He snorted in disgust.

Turner waved him away. "What works against us can also work in our
favor," he said calmly. "Garcia was okay, but there were problems with
him as well. Now might be an opportunity to show our support for an even
more stable political regime."

Stable? He means a puppet government. Jeets felt a welling of outrage,
which he quickly suppressed. Eight more months-then he was out of it.

After that, his biggest concern would be worrying about what bait would
entice the wily catfish inside the Tennessee Valley Authority lake
system, Panama would be the name of a hat, not the biggest thorn in his
side since he'd joined the State Department.

"We need to get down there immediately," Turner decided. He nodded at
Flashert. "You get back down there immediately. Put together the rest of
your team Jeets, a couple of other idiots like that-I want a list and an
agenda on my desk by the time I return from seeing the President. I'll
be in-country as soon as I can get free from here." Turner smiled with a
disturbing show of teeth. "Get it right this time, Jeets. Screw this up,
and kiss that retirement good-bye."

As Jeets headed his way back to his small office, he felt the uneasiness
that had surfaced during his initial summons to Turner's office blossom
into full-scale paranoia.

No longer was the threat an unstated one. It was indeed possible that
Turner could screw up his retirement, if he tried hard enough. It
wouldn't be easy, but it could be done.

Panama. Things had to go right this time. Everything had to be right.

For another eight months.

BALBOA AIRPORT, PANAMA: 28 SEPTENBER PAN AMERICAN FLIGHT 745

The aircraft circled over Panama for twenty minutes, awaiting clearance
to land. Bailey took advantage of the delay to assess the entire area.

While a site survey of the area had been done several years previously,
the short-notice deployment of this unit had provided no time for a more
accurate site survey of the location chosen for the van.

The coastline was spotted with ports and piers, the land itself bisected
by the thin ribbon of the Canal that widened into a massive lake in the
center of the country.

Seven sets of double-doored locks controlled the movement of waterborne
traffic into the lake from both oceans, pumping water into the locks to
raise the ships 132 feet above sea level. Immediately to the west of the
Pacific entrance to the Canal was the port of Balboa, which Panama had
leased to China on a twenty-five-year contract.

Bailey studied the array of ships there, noting the pervading sense of
orderliness that was a marked departure from most commercial port
facilities.

RO-ROS-roll-on, roll-off containers-were neatly queued in long lines,
and ground-facilities equipment appeared to be similarly well ordered.

As the aircraft turned to make its final approach to the airstrip, she
caught a brief glimpse of the Chinese submarine she'd been briefed on.

It was tied up at a pier alone, again the entire location marked by a
sense of neatness and order.

She sighed and turned to Carlisle, who was seated next to her. They'd
spent part of the twelve-hour flight comparing what they knew about the
situation from their NSA files with intelligence briefings they'd
received from the Navy. After a full day of manifesting the RSSC van and
associated equipment onto a transport aircraft, then loading the people
onto the chartered civilian flight, neither had many useful insights.

Although Carlisle had his suspicions that the unit had been deployed at
NSA's request, he had not been included in that decision-making loop.

Bailey had debated with herself for a moment, then decided not to tell
him.

"Nice boat," Carlisle remarked, pointing past her at the Chinese Victor
submarine moored to the pier.

"Good thing it's a nuke-easier to detect than those diesel bastards."

Bailey nodded. "But more trouble for other reasons, of course. We won't
have a chance to catch her on the surface since she won't be snorkeling.

And the sustained endurance of a nuclear power plant gives them a hell
of a lot more flexibility than the diesel boats ever had."

"All in all, I'd rather be hunting for a nuke," Carlisle said, not
disagreeing with her. "More noise."

Bailey sighed. "Well, let's hope it doesn't come down to that. She's
still in port."

"Doesn't take that long to get under way, though."
"What do you think about the site location?" Bailey said, changing the
subject.

"So far, it looks fine to me." The selected location was on the end of a
large commercial pier that extended almost two miles out in the water.

While it would be a pain in the ass logistically transporting the crew
from the campsite to the site location, the selection promised deeper
water and thus better control of the harbor area they were assigned.

"I like it because it's defensible," Carlisle said. "I've always liked
working off the end of long piers-that is, if you don't get commercial
traffic blocking too much of your field of vision."

"There's that," Bailey agreed. "Some of those merchant ships run in
excess of one thousand feet long.

Some of them are longer than carriers."

Carlisle whistled softly. "We can forget about radar coverage if we keep
the radar on the end of the pier then. Any other high spots around we
could mount the Humvee?"

Bailey nodded reluctantly. "There are a couple of possibilities, but I'm
not sure I want it that far away from the van. As you said,. things arc
unstable enough down there. I don't like our people spread out over too
wide of an area."

Carlisle shot her a sharp glance. "You're expecting trouble? I thought
the Panamanians invited us in as a demonstration of their goodwill."

"The Panamanians are still in an uproar over the shoot-down, and with
the political turmoil they're bound to experience from the death of
their President, there's really no guarantee. That's why it's wise to
take sensible precautions."

Carlisle shook his head. "We built the damned thing and we gave it to
them. It just doesn't make sense."

"President Carter thought it did," Bailey said neutrally. "If they'd
ever been able to reach an agreement on the Panama Canal Treaty, it
might have made sense.

But as it stands now, there are two different versions of the treaty.

Ours requires the Panamanians to guarantee us expeditious access to the
Canal for warships. The Panamanian version says we can only take actions
to protect the Canal if the Panamanians agree to our doing so. Neither
country has ever approved the other's version, and no reasonable
compromise has been worked out.

"Still, the Panama Canal has been back in their hands for years now,"
Carlisle said. "There've been no problems so far, have there?"

"No. But with the growing Asian presence there, there's every potential
for it."

Carlisle shook his head ruefully. "You're paranoid."

Bailey turned and met his eyes with a level stare.

"That's what I get paid for."

Fifty yards away, the five-ton truck was jockeying the surveillance van
into position at the end of the pier. Sailors swarmed around the
ancillary equipment, and the MSP, or Mobile Sensor Platform, was already
in position and operating. At Lieutenant Boston's suggestion, they'd
left the RHIB back at the foot of the pier to deploy from the small boat
ramp there. Carlisle had gone with them to supervise the sonobuoy
deployment and pattern placement.

Bailey stood well out of the way, confident that her people could handle
it. Besides, her second in command, Lieutenant Boston, was on scene
supervising every move. The thin, whippet-like man moved with the grace
that had earned him a slot on Annapolis's soccer team all four years at
the Naval Academy.

The pier was the largest one she'd ever been on, almost two hundred feet
in width. Bollards were spaced evenly down either side. In towards the
shore, two massive merchant ships were moored to either side, and cranes
were already being positioned to start the flow of RO-ROS off the ship.

A small white car made its way down the pier, pulling up next to Bailey.

Two men got out, one attired in a camouflage uniform like her own,
except that it had darkened, subdued collar devices instead of the
bright metal ones she wore. The second man wore a light weight tropical
business suit.

The other commander approached her, and held out his hand. "Commander
Jack Murphy, SEAL Team Three." His fingers crushed around hers. She
winced.

"Sorry." He eased off, then withdrew his hand.

"Your people are already setting up, I see."

She nodded. "Jerusha Bailey, CO. "Have your people done an initial
threat clearance on the area?"

Murphy nodded. "Yesterday. We've had the area under surveillance since
then, so I doubt there'll be any problems."

"Appreciate that. We'll need to talk out our berthing arrangements,
watch bills-that sort of thing." She turned then to the civilian. "And
you are-?"

He held out his hand. "Hank Flashert, State Department. Jack said he was
coming out to meet you, so I thought I'd tag along and introduce myself.

So this is the famous Jerusha Bailey."

Bailey could feel his eyes rubbing over her, studying her carefully.

"Not so famous," she said sharply

"We are just here to do a job."

"So I hear."

Something in Flashen's tone made her bristle.

Murphy made a small movement as though to step between the two of them.

"It's your first deployment down here, Jerusha, but we've been down here
many times. If you're interested in some specific advice on any area,
please don't hesitate to ask. I thought after you get your camp set up,
a couple of my men might make a tour, check to see that everything's in
order." He smiled briefly, his teeth a flash of white against the darkly
tanned skin. "For one thing, you'll want to make sure that you keep the
pier completely unobstructed. That'll give your people a clear view of
anyone trying to make a covert approach."

Bailey nodded. "We always appreciate a second opinion, particularly when
it comes from experts," she said carefully. "We have done this before,
however. Not on this pier, not in Panama, but I've made a number of
deployments with this same group of folks."

Murphy turned slightly away from her to study the people milling about
the pier behind them. "All Reservists, yes?"

"If that makes any difference." Bailey's voice was harsher than she'd
planned. "They're sailors first, civilians second right now."

"Does that apply to you as well?" Flashert asked.

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" she said, her irritation spilling
over. Between Murphy's pointed comments about her camp security and
Flashert's vaguely lewd and insinuating comments, she'd run out of
patience. "You have something specific on your mind, mister?" She let
her voice deepen into the harsh bark she often used with recalcitrant
lieutenants.

Flashert looked startled. "Not at all. It's just that we're aware of
your civilian occupation, and we were wondering-"

"Just exactly who is 'we'?" Bailey asked harshly.

"The State Department?" She turned to Murphy. "Or would that be the
Regular Navy, as you people like to be known?"

Murphy's face hardened into a dark scowl. "This isn't the best way to
start off our working relationship, Miss. Bailey," he said.

"Then perhaps you can tell me exactly what is going on here."

Murphy and Flashert exchanged a silent glance. Finally, Flashert sighed.

"We need to be working together on this, people," he said. "The State
Department, the Navy, the Reserves--don't bristle at me like that," he
added as he noticed Bailey stiffening at the distinction between her
people and the active-duty forces. "It wasn't intended to give offense,
merely to recognize the difference between the two types of units."

"Working to eether to achieve what?" Bailey asked, dismissing the
unintended insult. "As I understand it, we're down here as a
demonstration of goodwill to provide harbor control security for the
Panamanians."

Murphy nodded and started to speak, but Flashert cut him off. "That's
most of it. But you have to understand that there's more to the
situation than merely the military aspect. With the shoot-down of the
Panamanian airbus. and the disagreements over the provisions of the
Panama Canal Treaty, relationships between the two countries are at an
extremely delicate state. The fact is, we need the Canal."

"Then maybe we shouldn't have turned it over in the first place," Bailey
said. She was surprised to see Murphy nod in agreement.

"What's done is done," Flashert said. "I suppose you'd both like it if
we moved in with military force and took it back." A dark expression
flitted across his face. "After fifteen years in Panama, I can tell you
that it might not be that easy. Besides, that's simply not the way
things are done today. Not any more," he continued. "While there is a
very small number of U.S. flag merchant ships traveling through the
Canal, the fact remains that at least ninety percent of the cargo that
comes through here is headed for the U.S.. Any disruption of those
transits has major implications, for our ability to import needed raw
goods, but for our export capabilities, as well. It is vital to American
national security interests that we have continuing and free access to
the Panama Canal. And the best way to do that is through deepening the
bonds of our historic friendship with the Panamanian people.

Bailey and Murphy's eyes met. He shook his head almost imperceptibly, as
though warning her to leave this line of discussion for another time.

Silently, she acquiesced.

"And that's why you're here, Commander Bailey," Flashert continued. "To
contribute to that overall national objective, not just to simply
exercise your military abilities."
"We'll try to be good ambassadors," she said, her voice calm and
professional.

Flashert extended his hand and handed her a card.

"My home phone number is listed as well," he said.

"Please call me at any time if you feel the need to do so." He turned
back to Murphy. "I imagine you two have a lot to discuss. If I can
borrow your car and driver for a moment, I'll get back to the office.

You know where to reach me."

Murphy nodded. "We're at your disposal, Mr. Flashert. Tell the driver to
take you wherever you want, then have him return here." As soon as
Flashert left, he turned back to Bailey. "Now. Tell me what you're
really doing here. No more games, Bailey. Not with me."

"There's no big secret to this, Commander," she said easily, now
determined that he would not provoke her.

"Just doing a couple of weeks of goodwill HVV operations."

"Right." His face was unreadable.

"Look, why don't I give you a tour of our gear," she offered. "You've
probably seen MIUW units before, but we've got some unique toys on this
van."

"Sounds good," he said noncommittally. "Lead on."

Lieutenant Boston saluted as the two approached him, then gestured to
the van behind him. "We're just getting ready to energize communications
circuits," he said.

"Any special instructions?"

Bailey shook her head. "We've got the tactical frequencies for the SEAL
command as well as the standard Navy circuits, yes?"

Boston nodded. "All in our communications plan."

"What about radar?" she asked. "The Humvee should be going up just
about-yes, there it is." Behind him, a scissors-like assembly was
unfolding from the back of a Humvee, slowly straightening out to loft
its radar dish thirty feet into the air. "As soon as they get the
microwave transmitter aligned, we'll be in business.

And the sonobuoys?"

Boston pointed back toward the shore. "The pier is too steep to launch
from here, not until we get the floating catwalk they promised us in
place. I told them to go ahead and launch from shore-it will be a pain
in the ass for a while, but we'll make do. I've launched the first
sonobuoy fifteen minutes ago." He pointed to the left of' the pier.

"There are steel-runged ladders going, down to the water, but it's a
good fifty-foot drop. Until we get the catwalk in place, I didn't want
to risk it."

"Very well." She turned back to the SEAL commander. "In addition to the
normal complement of sonobuoys and antennas to receive their signals, we
also carry a fiber-optic array. Our RHIB can deploy it out to a distance
of about ten kilometers. It sits on the ocean bottom and gives a
long-lasting, self-sustainable sensor asset."

"Unless some ship drags its anchor over it," the commander said. "Have
you had that happen before?"

She nodded. "Generally, though, it won't be a problem in a harbor like
this. No one anchors out, so there's no reason for a merchant to have
anything trailing in the water behind it."

"I understand." Murphy turned back to Lieutenant Boston. "So how long
have you been in the Reserves, son?"

Boston bristled. "I've been in the Navy for eight years," he said. "We
don't make much distinction between active-duty and reserve commands,
sir." He looked over at Bailey for support.

Murphy chuckled. "Got them well indoctrinated, don't you?"

"It's not a matter of indoctrination, it's a simple fact," she said
calmly. "There's not enough capacity in the active-duty Navy to carry
out all of the missions to which we're assigned. Having a fully
commissioned Naval command, such as the MIUW, with most of its manpower
in the Reserves, is the most cost-effective force-multiplier we've ever
come across. We've been doing this job since Vietnam, albeit with
substantially different equipment."

"Lieutenant!" A high-pitched voice cut through the discussion. Bailey
turned back toward the van to see the door open and Carlisle motioning
frantically at Boston.

"You might want to see this, sir."

Boston excused himself and trotted back over to the van. Murphy and
Bailey followed at a slower pace. By the time they reached the open
steel hatch, the reason for Carlisle's concern was clear. Tracing its
way across the sonar scope was a small, ominous-looking blip.

Carlisle himself looked gleeful. "Contact, Captain," he said to Bailey.

"We just put the sonobuoys in the water, and I caught him immediately.

Look at those electrical sources-that's a nuclear submarine."

Murphy scowled. "The only boat in the area is tied up to the pier five
hundred yards away," he said firmly.

"If there were another submarine in the area, our intelligence sources
would know it."

Bailey shook her head. "You ever sneak out of the United States quietly
and undetected?" she asked the commander. "That's a different matter."

"Not at all." She pointed at the mass of lines squiggling across the
paper printout attached to the passive sonar gear. "That, Commander
Murphy, is a submarine.

He's about three miles out, making a quiet and virtually undetectable
three knots. Are you telling me a submarine can't do that?"

"Not without us knowing it," Murphy shot back, his voice adamant.

"There's no way."

Bailey shook her head. "You're dead wrong." She turned to her
lieutenant. "Call Jouett. Tell them what we've got. Get the RHIB back
here now for a fresh load of sonobuoys. "

"I'm going with them, Jer," Carlisle said, pushing his chair away from
his console. He was halfway to the security door when he stopped
suddenly, turned back to her, and said, "I mean, Captain. If it's okay
with you."

"Sure, Pete. Go ahead." She stifled a smirk at the rueful expression on
his face. It always took them a couple of days back on active duty to
fall back into the right roles. And a few days back at NSA afterward
before Pete stopped calling her ma'am.

"You two know each other, I take it?" Murphy asked.

She nodded, almost explained, then caught herself.

She settled for a polite smile-and no further answers.

For a moment, she felt an eerie sense of deja vu. Collins on a ship and
Bailey ashore-and a submarine between them.

USSJOUETT The Captain's head snapped around, and his eyes pinned his
Exec to the bulkhead with his glare. "What the hell is going on out
here?"

"That was Commander Jerusha Bailey," Collins said quietly. "I recognize
her unit call sign. The MIUW unit is stationed on the end of the pier.

They're reporting a detection on a submarine about one thousand yards
astern of us."

"I'm not deaf." Renninger snorted. "Ridiculous."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Collins said softly, as though to
herself. "Captain, if you have no objections, I'm going to go back to
Sonar. Request permission to go active, sir." Her voice was calm.

Renninger shook his head. "You won't find anything in these waters-not
this shallow." Although the channel was well dredged for the heavy-draft
merchant ships that plied it, it was well outside of preferred sonar
parameters. "All you'll get is bottom reverberation. Besides, the
water's crawling with merchant traffic. There's too much noise for any
acoustics gear out there."

"Probably. But the MIUW has some fairly sophisticated experimental
gear," Collins answered. "If Jerusha's right-"

"If Commander Bailey is right," Renninger snapped, "then I'll eat my
ball cap."
"I said the same thing a long time ago," Collins said softly. "And for
the record, I agree with you. But I've been wrong before, Captain, as
you reminded me earlier-and it almost cost me my ship. Are you willing
to bet Jouett on that?"
Renninger continued to glare at her. Finally, he motioned toward Sonar.

"Go ahead."

GULF OF PANAMA: 28 SEPTEMBER SS OCEANIC GLORY

For a merchant ship, the bridge of SS Oceanic Glory was over manned. Two
officers, in addition to a deckhand, stood watch, following directions
from the master as he guided the tugs and the huge tanker into port.

They'd already been assigned a berth at Pier One, and pumping facilities
were standing by to off load their cargo of crude oil.

The master of the vessel himself was on the bridge.

He paced back and forth, monitoring the civilian pilot's orders,
mentally running through the checklist of safety equipment on board.

Why the ship's owners insisted on retaining the American flag, he would
never understand. The extensive requirements of the U.S. Coast Guard,
which had the authority to stop and inspect the vessel at any time,
substantially increased their operating costs. By flagging with another
nation, such as Panama or Liberia, one whose safety requirements were
considerably less stringent, the owners could have realized a far higher
net profit on this vessel.

Oceanic Glory was a Type III merchant with her bridge superstructure
located aft on the deck. This configuration made coming into port and
approaching a pier more difficult than with other designs, but added to
the stability of both living quarters and messing facilities.

Almost all of the modern ships were of Type III design.

Consequently, the master had a fine view of the entire deck area of the
Glory. It was there that he noticed the first signs of trouble.

Under his feet, the deck vibrated reassuringly, the powerful
Allis-Chalmers diesel engines driving the ship forward at bare steerage
way while the tug shoved her bow in toward the pier.

The master saw the forward part of the bow ripple.

Seconds later, the deck quivered under his feet, an ominous grating
sound as though they'd gone aground on a sandbar. Impossible in these
waters, though-the approaches to the Panama Canal were deep and well
dredged, and there was simply no chance that

A huge fireball erupted on the forward portion of the bow. From
waterline to weather deck, roiling flames billowed and curled, too
brilliant to look at, throwing searing black smoke off around their
edges.

The master let out a cry, and staggered forward on the bridge, moving
against the motion of the ship. The bow was pitching up now, and the
motion slammed him into the aft bulkhead.

The ship careened crazily to port, still high up at the bow as the
explosive force tossed the massive ship around as though it were a toy.

The screams of the wounded were barely audible over the noise. Vaguely,
the master had some idea of trying to get to the conn, to get control of
the ship, back her off of whatever sandbar she'd hit, that last notion
lingering in his mind against the creeping darkness.

Long, horizontal cracks streaked down her sides as the double-hulled
construction failed. Tons of fetid heavy black crude poured out,
igniting in the super-hot temperatures of the expanding fireball. Within
two minutes, the remaining hulk was ringed in fire, listing heavily to
port now, with her superstructure only forty feet above the water.

Belowdecks, two damage-control technicians sprawled wounded on the steel
grating in after steering. The compartment had been manned during their
approach on the pier in case of the loss of manned steering. The first
two seconds of the explosion had tossed them around the compartment like
rag dolls, finally leaving them wounded and bleeding on what had once
been the port bulkhead.

Kiley Blair, the more senior of the two, let out a low moan and tried to
crawl forward. His companion, Kevin Adams, lay still and motionless.

Blood gushed from an open wound on his head, and his left leg was
crumpled under him at an unnatural angle. Kiley tried to crawl towards
the ladder, now canted at an unnatural angle across the compartment.

Pain shot through his spine, dimming his vision with its overpowering
presence. He screamed, fought against the blackness invading his
consciousness, and crawled dimly forward. Behind him, Kevin lay
unmoving.

Kiley managed to make it to the lowest rung before the transverse crack
that had already crossed the keel reached the stern. Just as his hand
clung around the slanted rung, an unholy scream of ripping metal filled
the compartment. He had time just to glance back at it before tons of
warm, salty seawater, blood warm and voracious, filled the compartment.

MIUW 106

Bailey cried out in alarm as the smoke and flames billowed up towards
the sky. The tanker's mass made it seem even closer than it was, and she
thought she could feet a blast of heat from the conflagration. Burning
oil flooded the ocean around the ship, creeping slowly towards the
piers.

The MIUW RHIB veered toward the smoke and flames. The fiber-optic array
was still coiled on a massive drum in the stern, the thin filament
glistening in the sun.

Bailey darted into the van and reached for the communications handset.

"Sea Lion One, this is Cayman," she said, using their unclassified
circuit call signs.

"Sea Lion One," Carlisle acknowledged, his voice a thin crackle over the
circuit. "Altering course toward the tanker in order to assist
survivors."

"Stay away from it," Murphy snapped. Bailey turned, surprised to see him
standing there, unaware that he'd followed her out to the van. " oil is
spreading you're liable to get caught in it before you know it."

"We'll keep a close eye on it, ma'am," Carlisle's voice answered. "But
we can't just-"
"He's right, you know," Bailey said. "No sailor could stand by and watch
someone else die like that."

"I know, dammit, but what can they do?" he said.

"This harbor has a disaster force, and they'll be on scene in moments."

"What would you do if you were on that RHIB?" Bailey asked, her voice
cold steel. "Would you turn away?"

Unbidden, a vision of the last ship she'd seen burning at sea flashed
before her mind. It had been in the English Channel, a British warship
that had been the victim of a submarine attack. She hadn't turned away
then-nor would she order her people to do so now.

"Sea Lion One, take every precaution-and I mean every, dammit. Keep us
advised." She replaced the handset in the receiver and locked her eyes
with those of the SEAL commander. "That's the problem with training them,"
she said levelly. "They end up doing exactly what you would want them to
in an emergency."

Murphy nodded. "I have that problem too." He turned to the sailor
manning the communications suite at the end of the van. "Do you have
that circuit up with my forces?"

"Yes, sir."

"I need to talk to them. With your permission, of course," he added,
glancing at Bailey.

"Of course."

Murphy's squad leaders answered the call-up immediately, and the SEALS
were soon vectoring out in their own small boats along with the Panama
Canal disaster team to the burning tanker. After insuring that an
adequate surface plot was being maintained of all the rescue assets,
Bailey turned her attention back to the sonar gear located at the other
end of the compartment.

" submarine-how close was he?" she asked.

"Close enough," the sonarman answered. "Well within torpedo range."

"Do
we have any air assets yet?" she asked.

Lieutenant Boston shook his head. "The helicopter is not scheduled to
deploy for another thirty minutes. I imagine they'll be too busy now to
want to work with us."

"Not if they think we've got a submarine that caused this," she snapped.

"Let me talk to them."

The Panamanian commander on the other end of the circuit seemed less
than completely convinced that the MIUW unit was holding contact on a
submarine. He was harried, and she could hear the sounds of his staff
moving around him, shouting out orders, making urgent demands for rescue
assets to mobilize to the burning tanker.

If only the Navy had seen fit to give them a larger boat, one that was
equipped with torpedoes. She raged at her impotence, her inability to do
any harm to the submarine that lurked outside the harbor. She had only
the RHIB, armed with sonobuoys, and that was

"Ma'am, the RHIB-the submarine's closing on them," Boston said, his
voice high and urgent.

"We need to get them back from there."

"Make the call. I want that RHIB back in here-there are plenty of assets
on-scene now. There's nothing they can do." Boston nodded, and reached
for the mike.

The radar operator turned pale. He started swearing violently. C, "What
the hell is it?" Boston said, still holding the mike.

"It's the lookout, sir. He's lost sight of the RHIB."

Boston turned pale. "Where is it-near the oil?"

The radar operator shook his head, holding his hands over the earphones
that connected him to the surface lookout. "Nowhere near it-he had
visual contact, was tracking them with the binoculars. They just
disappeared."

"Give me an exact range and bearing," Murphy said immediately. He
listened to the information, then related it to the SEAL team that was
deploying. Finally, he turned back to her. "I vectored them over to the
last position of your RHIB. If you've got men in the water, they'll find
them," he said, his voice confident.

Bailey motioned for him to step out of the van. When they were well out
of earshot of everyone else, she said, "How good are your intelligence
sources down here?"

He shrugged. "Good enough."

"Evidently not." She pointed out towards the last location of the RHIB.

"In retrospect, was there any Indications and warnings-about
that sort of attack? Any threats made against your people?"

"Just what are you implying?"

"Absolutely nothing-except that there was absolutely no warning that we
might expect this kind of aggression. None at all. To the contrary, our
briefing-as well as our mission-was billed as a goodwill one.

There wasn't even an indication that terrorist activity might be
expected. Nor that there would be hostile submarines in the area."

The SEAL commander's face was cold. "You expect a schedule of events for
real hostilities? That's not how it works in the real world, lady."

"I expect adequate intelligence support. If there is insufficient
information, that fact alone should be advertised. I don't need
feel-good briefings that leave us vulnerable to attack. We're supposed
to be assigned to a rear support area where there is adequate perimeter
defense or in a protected area. My people aren't equipped for this."

"Then what the hell are you equipped for?" he said, his voice angry now.

"You convoy up here in your olive-green trucks, wearing forest cammies
like you're an operational unit. As far as I can tell, that uniform
you've got on has never even been dirtied. And those," he said,
indicating the bright collar devices she wore, "are an invitation for a
sniper. Do you know just how visible those are at a distance?"

"This is not a front-line combat unit," she snapped.

"And if there has been a fatal mishandling of forward area security
defenses, that's your department."

"If you want predictability, go back to the States," he said
dismissively. "The real world is a little more nasty place than you're
accustomed to, I suspect."

"Commander!"

She turned to see Lieutenant Boston motioning at her.

"I'm needed back at the van," she said. "We'll continue this
conversation at a later date." She stalked off before Murphy could form
a harsh reply.

"What is it?" she said as soon as she was within earshot of Boston.

"It's the SEALS. Our RHIB sank, but they've got the crew." Boston's face
reflected his relief. "They should be back pier side in another fifteen
minutes."

"What happened? Did they say?"

Boston nodded. "They just said there was an equipment casualty. That's all I
could get from them-we'll debrief the crew when they get back here.

Shit-we've lost the fiber optics, though."

She nodded. "I'll want to talk to them myself."

"Of course."

Something in Lieutenant Boston's face made her pause. "What else is it?"
she asked.

He looked troubled. "Something the surface lookout said just before the
RHIB sank. Maybe it's nothing maybe it isn't."

"What?"

"He claimed he heard gunshots. Long range, probably a rifle." Boston's
worried look deepened into real concern. "Captain, if we've got a sniper
out here, we've got serious problems."

Bailey looked back at the SEAL commander, who had broken into a light
jog and was heading towards the shore end of the pier. Two miles would
barely break a sweat on that hard, lean form, she suspected, even though
he was wearing combat boots.

Just then, a loud noise from the pier one quarter mile south of them
caught her attention. She turned to look.

It was the pier at which the Chinese submarine was moored, the one she'd
seen as they were flying in. There was a flurry of activity around the
submarine, with sailors moving rapidly and purposefully.

"Give me your binoculars," she ordered. Boston handed them over.

She focused on the submarine, tweaking the binocs to bring the picture
into focus. The sailors moving about on the pier were indeed Chinese,
clad in the universal working jumpers that most submariners wore at sea,
festooned with red patches on the left sleeve. She saw a curl of hot air
billow out of the open hatch, and sucked in a hard breath. One sailor
tossed off one of the two mooring lines attached to the bow.

"They're singling up all lines," she said unbelievingly. "Christ,
Boston, I think they're getting under way." She handed the binoculars to
him. "Tell me what you think."

He took the binoculars and studied the scene carefully. "You're right,"
he breathed softly. "Now just why would they get under way right now?"

"There's more going on here than we know about," she said thoughtfully.

"But first things first-let's get back to the van and see about our
people. Then we'll worry about the rest of it."

Commander Murphy reached the shore end of the pier; he slowed to a walk
as he approached his car. His instructions to Hank Hashert had been
superfluous-he'd already told the driver to meet him back here at the
foot of the pier. The young man leaped out of the driver's seat as
Murphy approached.

"Where to, sir?" the young SEAL asked.

Murphy grunted. "They get those men out of the water?"

The SEAL nodded. "Just like you ordered."

"Good. Tell the squad leader to find out if they know anything, then
take them back to the MIUW camp." He smiled briefly, a harsh expression.

As the car pulled away from the pier and headed back towards the small
compound the SEALS used as a staging area, Murphy settled back on the
cheap fabric seat.

He closed his eyes, letting his mind wander over the possibilities,
damning the screw up in planning that had led to the MIUW unit being
deployed here. Without them, things would have been much simpler-and
much more clear-cut. Finally, he opened his eyes. "As soon as we get
back to the compound, round up the rest of the squad. I want to see them
immediately in the briefing room. Code Alpha."

The young SEAL looked startled. "Aye, aye, Captain," he said.

An hour later, four sailors climbed out of a SEAL Humvee. They were
pale, already shaking with shock, even in the warm weather and wrapped
in blankets. The SEALS escorting them, to the contrary, looked relaxed
and healthy.

"Just four?" Bailey said, cold fear flooding her body.

"There were five on the boat crew. A sonar tech-Pete Carlisle. He was
with them."

"I'm sorry, ma'am." The SEAL sounded as though he meant it. "We've still
got people out looking. I had to leave to take these guys to the base
medical clinic.

Doc says they'll be fine. But so far..."

The unit corpsman bustled up and took charge of the survivors, leading
them off to the command tent for another checkup. With an effort, Bailey
stilled her mounting anxiety.

"Thank you," she said to the senior man present.

"We won't forget this."

The SEAL nodded. "You can return the favor someday," he said, in a tone
of voice that let her know that he believed nothing could be further
from possible than an MIUW assisting a SEAL team.

She followed the corpsman and survivors into the command tent, and took
a seat on a cot next to Boatswain's Mate First Class Bill Storey. "What
happened?" she said.

The petty officer still looked shaken. "A lot more than we told them."
"What?" Bailey said, startled. "What do you mean?"

Storey exchanged glances with his other boat crew members before turning
back to her. "I told them that we didn't know what happened-that all at
once there was a hole in the RHIB and we started taking on water."

"What do you mean?"

Storey looked directly at her, his face grim. "Just before the hole
appeared in the RHIB, we heard gunshots.

Faint, hard to hear over the noise of the water and the engine, but they
were there. And look." He threw off the blanket that had been covering
him and rolled up his sleeve. An angry, bleeding red furrow creased
across his bicep. " wasn't an equipment casualty-somebody was shooting
at us."

PANAMA: 28 SEPTEMBER MIUW 106

Bailey stared down at the pier a quarter mile away, watching the
activity around the Chinese submarine, now held to the pier by only two
mooring lines. Where the hell was Carlisle? Who had been shooting at the
MIUW sailors on the RHIB, and why were the Chinese getting under way?

None of this made sense-none of it at all. She could conjure up a number
of explanations, none of them reassuring. All of them pointed towards an
inexorably escalating tactical situation, one she was not prepared to
deal with.

She turned to Commander Murphy. He had returned to the MIUW camp to tell
her in person that an extended search of the area had yielded no trace
of Carlisle. "We need more support services in here-now," she said.

Murphy studied her gravely. "I don't see the need for it," he said
finally. "We've got one isolated incident, nothing more."

"And a submarine deployed outside the harbor."

"So you say. Listen, I'll check with the Intel people at Southcom-see
what I can find out. If anything comes up, I'll let you know right away.

If you need us sooner, just call." Leaving her alone with the aching
hole in her heart, Murphy left.

Bailey turned back toward the submarine and lifted the binoculars to her
eyes. A glint of sunlight caught her attention. She focused in, and saw
a lone figure standing rigidly upright in the conning tower of the
submarine, staring back at her through binoculars. His hair was dark,
clipped short, facial bones broad and sharply outlined. His eyes were
masked by the twin black barrels of his own binoculars. As she watched,
the last line holding the submarine tethered to the pier was cast off,
and two remaining sailors scrambled on board. A billow of smoke
indicated the approach of a tug, and she shifted her gaze to it. It
shifted to the bow of the submarine, its mate taking a position astern.

The distance between the submarine and the pier increased measurably.

With a last blast of billowing black smoke, the tugs hauled their lines
in from the submarine.

The long, dark gray shape moved quietly, silently towards deeper water.

The lone figure in its conning tower stared back her way, having hardly
moved during the whole process except to make his desires known with a
few curt hand motions. He dropped his binoculars finally, and stared at
her. She could see bright, intense eyes, almost glistening in the
afternoon sun. The expression was grave, almost sorrowful. He turned his
back on her and disappeared from view, presumably down into the
submarine. Moments later, the water lapped over the exposed weather
decks, foamed up around the conning tower, and swallowed the submarine.

A small sound behind her made her turn around.

"Not a good sign." The gravelly voice grated across her ears, sounding
as though it came from deep within the man instead of inside his throat.

She finally dropped her own binoculars and turned to confront the
newcomer.

The man was a few inches taller than she was, well over six feet tall.

Short salt-and-pepper hair peeked around the edges of his green utility
cap, and the camouflage uniform he wore was a duplicate of her own.

The insignia indicated he was Army, though, and she studied with some
interest the array of arcane patches and insignia that always adorned
Army uniforms. Something about last unit, current unit, and
specialty-she'd never managed to completely decipher the significance
behind them.

Cold blue eyes met her own, eyes that had seen too much for too many
years. The face was impassive, darkly tanned skin indicating that this
man was a field soldier, thin lips used to withholding comment.

He allowed her a moment of scrutiny, then lifted his nand in an oddly
formal salute. "Master Sergeant Billy Elwell, U.S. Army. I'm the Special
Forces liaison from Southcom."

She returned the salute, then held out her hand. "Glad to have you
aboard, Sergeant. You just missed Commander Murphy." Although she
couldn't be certain, she thought she saw a slight expression of distaste
in his eyes.

"Unfortunate," he murmured politely. "Of course, the SEAL Team is down
here on independent operations, as I understand it. I'm surprised the
Commander made it by to greet you. Still, maybe I can be of some
assistance to your unit. I understand that you had a fatality in
connection with the burning tanker," he continued.

"Let's not call it a fatality so fast," she said, more sharply than she
intended. "He's only been in the water for an hour-in this water, he
could last for days."

The sergeant regarded her, allowing her comments to pass over him
without impact. "Not very far off shore, were they?" he observed. He
turned back to stare at the sea, shielding his eyes with one hand. "I
hope they find him, Commander. It's always hell losing men, especially
during peacetime."

She nodded, suddenly certain that Billy Elwell had lost more than his
share of men in the field. There was something about his manner that
suggested a rock, a solid, dependable, implacable force when deployed.

It was a characteristic missing from Commander Murphy.

No matter that the SEAL looked even stronger than the man standing
before her. In a contest, she thought that she might bet on the sergeant
rather than the commander. For some reason, that made her decide to
trust him.

"Look at this," she said abruptly. She motioned to Storey, who walked
back over, his black face still pale.

She gently peeled back the camouflage blouse to reveal the bullet wound.

Nothing in Billy Elwell's face changed, but she could sense the
heightened interest in the way he stood. It was something almost
imperceptible, a heightened degree of attention, a focusing sensation.

"This happened while you were out there," he said. It wasn't a question.

"I wondered about the RHIB."

"Somebody shot at my sailors," Bailey said. She let her anger show in
her voice. "I want to know why and what the hell is going on down here."

Billy Elwell studied the wound as though he hadn't heard her. He glanced
at the sailor for permission, then gently ran one finger along the side
of it, careful not to hurt the man. Finally, he said, " will heal up
real fine, son. Have your medic take a look at it, but I think you won't
have any damage other than a scar. Be stiff and sore for a few days, but
nothing permanent."

Storey nodded. "Hope so, Sergeant."

Elwell glanced at Bailey. "Did you tell Commander Murphy about this?"

"No. I assumed he knew, since his men pulled them out of the water. "

"Ah. And did you tell them, Petty Officer Storey?"

"No, sir. It's not that serious-I just wanted to get back to the unit."

"Don't call me sir, son. Sarge or Sergeant will do."

Elwell turned back to Bailey with the air of a man taking charge of a
situation. "Ma'am, if you'll take some advice-I think we need to have a
look at your arrangements. Security may be more of a problem than we
thought."

"Murphy already looked at them," she said, unconsciously
leaving out the man's title.

Billy Elwell nodded. "The commander's got more experience with
higher-level tactics and such than he does with actual campsite setup.

I'd like to have another look, if you don't mind. For one thing, you
need to block access to your camp with some physical barriers,
particularly if you've got a sniper around." He looked past her,
surveying the sailors milling about in stunned silence in the camp.

"It'll give your people something to do too-they need that right now. To
feel like they're doing something."

"Murphy said-" Bailey broke off the sentence abruptly, remembering how
the SEAL had mentioned that they needed a clear field of fire down the
pier.

"Maybe you're right."

"Maybe your senior enlisted man?" Billy suggested.

" way I wouldn't have to take up as much of your time. "

Bailey nodded, aware that she was about to be outflanked, and added tact
to the top of the list of things she liked about this strange Army
noncom. The sergeant clearly wanted to deal with a peer, someone who
would understand the necessity of the suggestions he was going to make.

In his mind, he had already dismissed her as an officer, someone who
would be more of a hindrance than a help to what he had in mind.

"I'll introduce you to the chief," Bailey said finally.

Gunner's Mate Chief Petty Officer Frank Templeton looked to be the naval
counterpart of this man, and she had a feeling that they would find they
had much in common. Between the two senior enlisted men, the camp would
be better arranged than anything she could devise herself.

SEAL HEADQUARTERS, PANAMA

Carlisle regained consciousness slowly. The
first thing he noticed was that his hands were tied together in front of
him. He was lying on his back on a government cot, stripped naked and
under two blankets. Already he could feel the sweat beginning to creep
down his forehead.

Everything was blurry and out of focus. He squinted ' trying to make
vague forms and colors resolve themselves into shapes.

He heard a noise, a door opening, and then another shape in the room
moved. "So you're awake finally," the voice said. It sounded not at all
pleased. "It took you long enough."

Carlisle tried to sit up, and groaned as pain lanced through his head
and shoulder. He fell back on his back, that motion hurting even more.

"Where am I? My hands."

"In a medical facility," the same voice replied. "You were out on an
RHIB-there was an accident. You were delirious for a few hours, and we
put you in restraints so you wouldn't hurt yourself. How much do you
remember?" The voice had taken on a more urgent note.

Carlisle started to shake his head, then winced as the motion caused new
pain. "We were going to Panama," he said, vaguely remembering the
details of his deployment. "I remember there was-we were at the airport,
and then ..." His voice trailed off, and he felt a slight sense of
panic. The airport-he remembered landing in Panama, but nothing past
that. He started to struggle up again, tryin- to at least regain some
control over motion if he couldn't have his memory.

"Not so fast-you suffered a nasty bump on the head, as well as a bit of
hypothermia." He felt a hand in the middle of his chest shove him back
down to the bed.

"You stay put."

"What happened?" Carlisle asked again, the sense that he
had to know becoming more and more urgent.

A long silence, then: "Your unit deployed in Panama.

You were out in the RHIB planting sonobuoys when there was an accident.

A tanker-a lot of fire, oil in the water. You and your crew went in to
hunt for survivors.

In the process, your own boat was damaged and you got pitched into the
water. On the way in, you must have hit your head on something. We can
tell you've got a slight concussion, so you're staying here for
observation.

Your commander will be by to see you later, I'm sure."

"I don't remember..." Carlisle's voice trailed off.

"Not unusual-in fact, that's very common in a head wound. Don't worry
about it at all-as soon as the swelling goes down a bit, some of it may
come back to you." The voice took on a new note of command. "As soon as
you start remembering, I want to know. It's important for your recovery
that we know how you're doing."

Carlisle nodded briefly, the motion generating a new -ave of nausea.

"Man, my head hurts."

"I'll give you something for that." Carlisle felt a cool hand on his
shoulder, then warm air touching his body as the blankets were pulled
away, the coolness of an alcohol swab, then the slight jab of a
hypodermic needle.

He turned his eyes toward the person, squinting, and the features swung
vaguely into focus. A man, a white man, clad in a camouflage uniform
like the one he himself had been wearing.

"You're a Navy corpsman, aren't you?" Carlisle asked. "No drugs-you
don't know-the place I work, I can't be knocked out unless you've got
security. I can't-" His voice broke as a wave of darkness surged up.

The man nodded. "You're safe here. We know all about NSA," he said
reassuringly. "I'll check back in on you in a couple of hours. For now,
you need to get some sleep."

Blackness flooded Carlisle's brain, dragging him back down to the
dreamless place he'd been in not so long ago. As the last glimmer of
consciousness faded, one final thought intruded in his drug-soaked
brain.

I have a concussion, he thought. Aren't I supposed to stay awake? They
don't give drugs when you've got a concussion.

And why were his hands still tied?

Before he could fully resolve even the beginning of the answer, he felt
his lips moving, words spilling out.

From far away, he could hear someone asking questions.

Odd questions, ones that he answered automatically and completely.

Another pinprick, and he was out cold.

GULF OF PANAMA: 28 SEPTEMBER MIUW 106

Billy Elwell walked fifty feet down the pier, then turned back to look
at the MIUW encampment. The collection of green tents huffed slightly in
the sea breeze, and two stockpiles of boxes were located too close to
the main thoroughfare for safety. He squinted, studying the tents and
the approaches to the camp more carefully. A bit more tension on the
tent lines ... need an extra support pole on the corner of the one on the
left ... and just how the hell had they planned on rigging the
camouflage netting? Still, not a bad job for a bunch of squids.

He motioned to the driver of the two-ton truck he'd ordered to follow
them down the pier. "Back a little more-there, that's it." He touched
Chief Templeton lightly on the shoulder, drawing him a few feet to the
left. "See how it blocks the line of sight from that building now?"

Templeton nodded. "Appreciate your help on this, Billy. This isn't our
area of expertise-but you can tell that.

"Well nodded. "Takes some time under your belt," he acknowledged. "From
what I've seen, what you people do, you do real good. But for this sort
of setup, you want a ground pounder like myself."

"So where have you spent most of your time?" Templeton asked. "Down
here?"

Elwell shook his head. "Germany. Four tours there, one back Stateside,
and a couple in Korea early on. But I get around to a lot of different
places when there's a need. "

Templeton nodded. " worries me a little."

"It should." Billy stared at the coastline of Panama, assessing their
vulnerability. It was sheer foolishness, forward-deploying a unit like
this under these circumstances. Too much could go wrong-too much he
couldn't control. It was one thing to do it with an experienced unit,
another entirely to take a collection of electronic technicians,
computer geeks, and sonar geeks, and put them in the middle of an
unstable situation like this. "You got any camouflage netting?" he asked
finally, hoping against hope that they did.

Templeton nodded. "Sure. We brought it with us, but I don't know why
we'd need it out on the end of the pier here. Doesn't look much like
concrete-we brought the jungle pattern."

"Can you get some people to break it out?" He pointed at the trucks, at
the clear space between the two of them. "We'll string it between the
trucks, to help obscure the direct view. It won't do much to control
somebody who's determined to use heavy weapons, but it'll make a
sniper's job more difficult. He can't see it, he can't hit it."

Templeton grunted. "I'll get some of my guys right on it.

When he had the sailors working on rigging the camouflage netting,
Templeton came back to stand beside Elwell. "So what is this all about?"
he asked. "This doesn't look like the mission I was briefed on before I
left the States."

Elwell shrugged. "Things have gotten strange down here in the last year
or so. You pull out that much U.S. firepower, you create a vacuum. It
figures that somebody's going to find a way to fill it." He gestured at
the booming coastline and vast shipping complex that crowded up to the
very entrance of the Canal. "This is a one-of-a-kind setup. The big
problem down here isn't drugs, crime, or illegal immigration-it's the
foothold the Asian nations are getting with the people that ought to be
our closest neighbors."

"Those Chinese ports, you mean." Templeton looked thoughtful. "I
understand they've got bases at either end of the Canal now."

Elwell nodded. "Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the
danger is in that. Especially not with the Chinese involved."

"Don't let the Equal Opportunity people hear you talk like that back
home," Templeton said. "The Chinese are some of the smartest people
around, from what I hear. "

Elwell nodded. "In a lot of things, they are. I'm not talkin about
individual people here-I'm talking about culture, philosophy, the whole
racial-identity sort of thing."

Templeton glanced around nervously. "Hard to even talk about those
things these days."

"It is," Elwell acknowledged. "But all the more reason for doing it.

God's honest truth, the Chinese are just people like you and me. But
they're people who've been brought up in a whole different culture, and
they've got a whole different tradition of military thought and war
fighting.That's the part that we have to understand. Otherwise He let his
voice trail off.

"You think they're really a threat down here?"

Billy turned to face the other man. "Don't you?" He gestured at the port
facility. "Look at this. Look how much commerce is trading through here.

Put it in terms of money, and start thinking about how much the Chinese
control right now. Ever since Hong Kong was turned over to them, they've
been even more of a major player in the world. Now, give them a way to
control commerce between East and West, and you see the possibilities?"

He shook his head gravely. "I'm not saying that the Chinese are bent on
world domination, just that we don't know them well enough to understand
what it is they do want. And that's the first step." He pointed up at
the hill. "Just like I understand what kind of field position a sniper's
going to want."

"I take it you've got some experience in that military occupational
specialty?" Templeton said delicately.

Elwell's eyes took on a faraway look. "There are all sorts of career
paths in the Army-some we don't talk a lot about," he said finally.

"Some we never talk about.

Why don't we just leave it at that?"

"So what do you see as the major difference between us and the Chinese?"
Templeton said, going back to the earlier subject. "How are they
different from, say, the Germans?,"

"It's the difference between brute force and strength hard idea to get
your mind around at first. The European tradition of war-fighting is
built around Clausewitzyou know the drill. Center of gravity,
concentrate your forces, strike at the enemy's center of gravity-it's
all about force. The Chinese take a little bit different viewpoint.

Instead of Clausewitz, they look to Sun Tzu. It's a whole different way
of looking at the problem. Where we look at strength, we see something
to counter. The Chinese see strength as something to use against their
opponent. They go for the weakness, they look for a way to make you over
commit, they use your own strength against you. ' That's what's so dangerous
about them they think about warfare in a whole different light than we
do. It's like facing an opponent who is skilled in judo, using your own
motion and force against you to throw you flat on your back on the mat.
make sense?"

Templeton nodded. "I wonder if the boss realizes that," he said,
motioning towards Commander Bailey.

"Smart officer, in a lot of ways."

Elwell let his eyes linger on the tall, slim Navy officer, watching her
talking to her second in command. Her movements were clean, sharp,
confident. She wasn't some fragile vessel, some token to equal
opportunity within the Navy. From the little he'd seen of her, this was
a woman used to command. One who understood its strengths,
responsibilities, and would take it as seriously as demanded.

And from what he'd heard of her, he was even more certain of it.

"Like I said, I was in Germany for a long time," Elwell said. "I've
heard a lot about your boss."

Templeton nodded. "I'm not surprised. She's probably heard a lot about
you as well." He shot Elwell a sly, sideways glance. "Like we all have."

It was Elwell's turn to look mildly surprised. "Flattering, that."

Templeton laughed. "You wouldn't think so, not if you heard all the
stories. But from what I've heard, there's only one Billy Elwell in this
United States Army.

They call you Uncle Billy, right'?"

Elwell grimaced slightly. "Some do," he acknowledged.

Templeton clapped his hand on the man's shoulder, and felt the hard
muscles tense slightly under his fingers through the camouflage cloth.

"Well, let's just keep it Bill and Frank, okay. One thing I know for
sure, Sergeant Elwell-you're a man I want on my side."

PANAMA CITY: 30 SEPTEMBER U.S. EMBASSY COMPOUND

Doug Turner was stretched out on the leather couch, his arms extended
out along the back and one arm. His flight from the U.S. had arrived
just two hours ago, and jet lac, was taking its toll. Dark circles
ringed his eyes, and Hank Flashert had already had first-hand experience
with Turner's foul mood.

Turner's peevishness irritated Flashert even more than his superior's
presence in Panama. Why the hell had it been necessary for Turner to
come down here? He knew nothing of the people involved, even less about
the local politics. It would be up to Flashert, with fifteen years under
his belt in Panama, to keep Turner from stepping on his dick. And would
Turner appreciate it?

Not likely. Flashert's own foul mood, carefully concealed under an air
of brisk efficiency, deepened.

"So that's where we are," Flashert concluded, bringing his boss up to
date on the events of the last two days. "We still have the MIUW sailor.

It's perfectly justifiable, since he still needs medical treatment."

"I see." Turner's words were devoid of inflection, giving Flashert no
clue as to how to proceed.

"You did say that you wanted this affair contained," Flashert pointed
out. "Events were moving fast-there wasn't time to-"

Turner waved him quiet with a gesture of his hand.

"You've explained your reasoning sufficiently, I believe.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the two. The American Ambassador
had long since beat a hasty retreat to his private residence, his
concern over the embassy and its personnel leaving him little time or
desire to inquire into the workings of the State Department officials
descending in hordes on his beleaguered building.

He'd crossed swords once with Turner early on over the Canal situation,
Flashert remembered, and evidently had no desire to do so again. Turner
was welcome to whatever blame-or credit-would be attached to the
resolving of this situation.

"I should have used the CIA," Turner said finally.

"They understand subtlety a bit better than you and the SEALS do. Were
they involved, there wouldn't be these untidy loose ends."

Flashert's jaw almost dropped. The CIA. He'd known his boss had contacts
in all the various agencies within the government, as did most of the
political appointees, but a strong link between the CIA and the State
Department was something that was rarely acknowledged, never spoken of.

"What would they have done differently?". Flashert snapped.

Turner stared at him with cold, hooded eyes. "The job would have been
completed. Do you really want to know how?"

Numbly, Flashert shook his head. No, he didn't. The whole situation was
coming unglued, the lines between black and white becoming increasingly
gray. It had seemed straightforward in the beginning-question the NSA
plant sent to Panama under the cover of a Navy operation. But now,
Turner seemed prepared to go far beyond that. Flashert gave thanks that
he'd withheld the exact manner in which the debriefing was being
conducted from Turner. He now suspected Turner had had something a good
deal less-coercive-in mind.

"This situation is critical," Turner continued, reading Flashert's mind.

"What happens in the Panama Canal will be a model for the same issues
all over the world.

We've drawn back so much from our foreign commitments that many
countries are looking elsewhere for assistance. We have to make them
understand that it comes with a price-loss of American goodwill means
more than just paying heavy tariffs at ports of entry."
"More incidents?" Flashert asked. "Like the airbus, you mean?"

A still, deadly silence enveloped the room. Turner didn't answer.

"We couldn't have-it was a mistake!" Flashert said, his bewilderment
evident. " wasn't intentional.

How can that serve as an example to other nations." Turner sighed. "Not
everything is as obvious as you'd wish," he said cryptically. "You and I
know it was unintentional, as do the men and women on that ship. But are
the Panamanians certain of that?" He waved one hand around as though
taking in the entire surrounding countryside.

"If they truly believe that it was a grievous accident, then why are we
running into these difficulties?

They're not certain-and that's a very desirable state of affairs for us.

And my definition of subtle. Are you beginning to understand how this
works?"

Hashert tried for a look of bewilderment. "Not exactly."

"If the Panamanians think that this was an act of subtle retaliation for
their refusal to agree to Article VI of the treaty, then they may be a
little bit more careful about their demands in the future," Turner said
slowly, as though speaking to a child. "They're not certain it was an
accident-so we use that to our advantage. This game is played on many
more levels than you ever considered, Hank." Turner stretched, and
finally stood.

"The sooner you understand how to use the events of the day to your own
advantage, the faster you'll progress in the State Department. Subtlety,
my friend-subtlety and misdirection.That's at least half the battle."

He waved a hand at the door. "I have a meeting tomorrow, yes?"

Flashert nodded dumbly. "With representatives from the major military
establishments still in Panama," he said, still trying to understand how
Turner intended to use the airbus shoot-down to his advantage. "They'll
all be here.

"Excellent. In the meantime, we need to resolve this question of the
sailor your SEALS have in hand." He cocked his head quizzically at
Flashert. "I suspect he should be making a complete recovery about now,
don't you?"

Flashert turned to leave the room, feeling uncomfortable at having his
back exposed to Turner. As he reached the door and his hand touched the
knob, Turner asked two final questions. "Those sailors-why would the
Panamanians shoot at their RHIB? They're here at the Panamanians'
invitation, aren't they?" He waited.

Flashert turned slowly back to face him. "Probably some separatist
terrorist group," he said mildly. "You know how those things are down
here-so many separate interests and political movements you can barely
keep them straight. We may never know, but that would be my best guess."

"Do you know anything else about it?" Turner asked.

Flashert felt his stomach coil into a tight knot. How the hell had
Turner thought to ask that question? Had he underestimated the political
appointee? Too much could go wrong too quickly.

Flashert smiled. "Of course not. Why would we shoot at our own people?"

USS JOUETT

Renninger studied the chief petty officer sitting across the
table from him. The senior enlisted man in the Operations Department,
Chief debeers knew more about the guts of the Aegis fire-control system
than any other person on board the ship. The chief had just spread out
an array of tactical plots and computer printouts on the captain's
worktable. "Is this everything they asked for?" Renninger asked.

"Yes, Captain," Chief debeers said. "Data log entries, snapshots every
five seconds of the tactical picture, as well as our JOTS printout.

Copies of the duty log, anything else I could think of."
Renninger sighed. "Well, I don't know what else to include. None of this
is going to help us any. Any way you look at it, we still shot the
airbus down."

"Captain, if I wouldn't be out of line... " The chief's voice trailed
off as he waited for permission to continue.

Renninger nodded. "Speak up, chief. You know my policy-open door."

The chief fixed his eyes on a point on the far bulkhead. "There's a lot
of talk going around the ship. About the airbus. And the XO."

"What kind of talk?" Renninger's voice was sharp.

The last thing he needed right now was a loss of confidence in the chain
of command, and that's just what he was afraid the chief was leading up
to.

"Miss. Collins-she's a good officer, sir. Got a couple of rough edges,
but that's par for the course for any XO.

The shoot-down-well, there's one small discrepancy in the data that has
caused some questions. A couple of the junior operators got a hold of
it, and the word spread around the ship a bit. Nobody wants to believe
we did it-that's the bottom line. But I just thought you ought to know
about it."

Renninger nodded, relieved. Better the crew keep their faith in the
unsinkable and unstoppable rightness of their ship than suffer a crisis
of confidence. "This data point-what is it?"

The chief shuffled through the computer printouts arrayed on the table,
and finally paused and indicated one line of text. "There it is."

Renninger turned the sheet around so that it was faceup to him. It was a
printout of the Aegis database, the one that logged all commands entered
at each console.

It would indicate when a target was designated with a weapon, when the
weapon was fired, and the probable results of that. It was a fiendishly
accurate system, and had been used more than once for score keeping in
global war games. He ran his finger down the list of entries just above
the one in question, noting the sequence.

Target identified.

Weapon assigned.

Weapons free.

Fire.

His finger stopped at the next line. It should have read

"Confirmed kill." Instead, it said

"Lost contact," an important distinction in the system.

"Lost contact," he said out loud, saying the words slowly. "That's close
enough for a kill, I suppose." He looked across the table at the chief,
and saw the same doubts mirrored there. "It does happen, you know. Even
the Aegis system isn't perfect. The fact that we lost contact on it
indicates it had ceased to occupy that part of the sky, doesn't it?"

The chief nodded. "That's my interpretation. But then again, if all the
parameters matched up, you know, it ought to say confirmed kill. That's
what's puzzling me, and that's what's gotten the talk started around the
ship-the fact -that it doesn't. A lot of the crew is hoping that this
will show that the whole thing was a mistake and we didn't actually take
the bird out."

Renninger shook his head decisively. "Come on, Chief. You know better
than that. We shoot a missile and the target disappears. How much more
definitive can you get? The only thing more certain would be a live
report from one of those three hundred passengers watching the missile
inbound. And that's not likely to happen."

"I know, Captain, I know. In all probability, it was our missile that
took that airbus out." The chief frowned slightly. "Still, it bothers
me. Why doesn't it say confirmed kill?"

Renninger pushed the sheaf of papers away, suddenly tired of the
discussion. Get used to it, he told himself wryly. It would be the first
of many, many questions he would have to answer, and he had the sinking
suspicion that many of them would involve this same discrepancy.

It would be discussed, analyzed, and finally beaten into the ground for
so many years, just as the Vincennes incident had been. It was not
something he was looking forward to.

The fact that he would probably never be promoted again bothered him far
less than the administrative throes of agony the Navy was about to put
itself through.

He'd had his command at sea, and enjoyed a full eighteen-month tour on
board this superb warship. Had he had a choice, this was not the way he
would have chosen to end his tour, but life dealt out cards without
regard for an officer's dream sheet. He would live with it, as he'd
lived with everything else in his Navy career.

"Let the rumors continue," he said finally. "Not that you could stop
them if you wanted to. It doesn't do the crew any harm, and this thing
is going to drag out forever anyway."

The chief nodded. "The XO doesn't know about this, Sir," he said
quietly. He lifted his eyes and looked his captain straight in the face.

"Only me, the Ops Boss, and a bunch of the sailors. You know how it is,
sometimes things don't roll uphill as fast as they spread through MDI."

Rennin-er nodded. Mess Desk Intelligence was one of the most effective
communication systems on board.

Within the confines of the steel hull, r@mors spread faster via the
cooks than they did the I MC announcing system. "Just leave it be-it'll
burn itself out in a couple of days," Renninger said.

"Are you going to tell her?" the chief asked bluntly.

Renninger considered snapping the man up short. He was out of line, way
out of line. How the Captain ran his wardroom and what his dealings were
with his Executive Officer was certainly none of his concern. As he
started to form the angry words, he reconsidered. The chief had done him
a favor by pointing out the incident, saving him from getting blindsided
at the first inquiry.

Renninger relented.

"Not right now," Renninger said. "I think we agree, it probably means
nothing. No point in getting her hopes UP."

The chief nodded. "Aye-aye, sir. I'll let the Ops Boss know, if you
like."

"No. I'll speak with him myself this afternoon," Renninger said.

Granting the chief a little leeway was one thing, but this matter
belonged firmly within the wardroom. "I'd appreciate it if you'd spread
the word around the chiefs' mess, though," he added, to take the sting
out of his words.

The chief left, taking the massive sheaf of data with him to package for
shipping. Renninger would carry it off the ship himself when he left for
the State Department conference. He swore quietly as he recalled his
upcoming schedule. The last thing he wanted to do right now was leave
his ship and go ashore. Not with Jouett involved in a shoot-down. And
not leaving Collins alone aboard.

He should have relieved her immediately-the very day that it happened.

But what had begun as a tactical tragedy had evolved into a political
football. His orders were explicit-do nothing with Collins, nothing that
would admit any U.S. culpability in the matter. Relieving her as XO of
the ship would have done just that.

"Well. Miss. Collins, for the time being you're safe.

And there's no way around it-I have to go ashore. God knows I can't risk
sending you. Not when word gets around about who you are, and Ops is
just too junior to handle the firepower. No, it's gotta be me-but you
and I are going to have a frank little talk before I leave.

While I'm on this ship, you'll know exactly what I expect from you. And
I damned well better not see any repeat of this sort of incident. Orders
or no, I'll relieve you myself. Right before I toss you overboard."

MIUW 106

Bailey let her hand rest lightly on the rickety railing that ran around
the boat platform, and concentrated on keeping her balance by flexing
her knees and moving with the motion of the floating dock moored to the
massive pier supports. It was a trick she'd learned long ago. to go with
the motion of the sea rather than fighting it, concentrating on keeping
her center of balance as low as possible. The railing was simply a
secondary source of stability.

Not so, she was amused to note, for both Master Sergeant Elwell and
Commander Murphy. Both men had both hands firmly clamped to the railing,
which rattled and creaked under their grip. The welds that held the
stanchions to the dock were none too secure, she suspected, and she
resolved to get them back up onto the pier as soon as possible. Tragic
enough that they'd lost one man at sea already. She didn't want to see
one of them crushed between the dock and the pier stanchions.

"You can't do it, ma'am," Elwell said, raising his voice to be heard
slightly over the creaking groans of the floating dock and the slap of
waves against aluminum. "It's just too risky."
"Come on," Murphy said. "What is the probability that there'll be
another incident?"

"Too damned high, sir," Elwell said, transfer-ring
his gaze to the commander. He pointed at the RHIB.

The SEAL commander snorted. " mark on the sailor's arm-it could have
been a rope burn of some sort.

"There's no chance that was a rope burn-no chance at all," Bailey
snapped. "I've seen them before."

"And you think I haven't'?" Murphy snarled. "Listen, lady, I don't know
who your sailors are or why they would lie, but I find a rope burn a
damned sight more probable than a sniper attack on an RHIB."

"That's just
the point," Elwell put in. "Until we know what happened, there's no
point in risking these people."

"Fine," Murphy said. "Instead, you want me to send my SEALS out to chuck
these damned sonobuoys into the ocean for them. You'll risk my men, but
not theirs.

Is that it'?"

Both men stag-ered as the platform took a particularly t@ nasty lurch.

Bailey rode it out by leaning into the motion of the dock. "As I see
it," she continued while both men were regaining their balance, "it's
almost a moot point today. The sun's going down, and I don't think
there's any point in any of us running around in small boats after dark.

Do you?"

"If we were going to do it-which we're not-then I'd prefer to have it
after dark," Murphy said. "If these snipers Mr. Elwell is so worried
about are still watching, we make a tougher target. I don't see why you
need more sonobuoys anyway. You're suppose@ to have the latest
electronic gear, aren't you'?"

Bailey nodded. "We do. But they were just starting to lay the
fiber-optic array when the boat went down.We lost it along with the
RHIB-they're going to be mighty pissed about that," she added. "So,
until we can get another one flown in from the States, we're back to
sonobuoys. Doing it the old-fashioned way."

"I agree you need acoustic coverage out there," Elwell said. "You've got
Jouett out there with her tail in the water, but it wouldn't hurt to
have some sonobuoys set for shallow-water operations in place to allow
for the discontinuities in the sound-velocity-profile gradients."

Murphy looked over at him suspiciously. "Just how the hell do you know
that much about sonar operations, Sergeant?"

Billy locked eyes with the man, and Bailey watched as a long, cold stare
passed between the two of them.

"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say," Billy said softly, his voice
barely audible over the noise of the sea. "But I do."

And just how do you know about that scrape on that kid's arm? Elwell
wondered. He didn't tell you-and neither did his boss. Elwell stopped
short of asking the question, certain it would do no good to expose the
SEAL's gaffe. "Well, I for one don't even believe that was a submarine
out there," Murphy continued. " makes no sense at all."

"I'm going to have Southcom resolve this," Bailey said decisively.

"There's no point in the three of us getting into a pissing contest over
it. Commander. - ."

She turned to Murphy. "I'd appreciate it if your men would lay some
sonobuoys for us tonight, but -I'm not going to insist on it until I
know how our chain of command operates. But be advised that I'm making
this a formal request, and that I deem it essential for surveillance
operations in this harbor to have those buoys in the water no later than
ninety minutes from now. After dark, it's going to be as hard for us to
see a submarine snorkel mask sticking up as it is going to be for this
sniper to see your men. And besides, after dark is our best opportunity
for acoustic detection. If it's a diesel, it's going to have to come up
to snorkel some time."

"And if it's not?" Murphy countered.

She shrugged, and started toward the ladder that led back up to the
pier. "Then we take our chances on detecting a nuke, obviously." She
mounted the first rung and looked back at the men still grasping the
rickety railing. "let's continue this discussion topside before one of
you falls off."

The two men ignored her, and watched her climb the ladder. Finally, when
she was out of earshot, Elwell turned to Murphy. "They've got some
pretty advanced gear Nx ith them," he said, his eyes boring a hole in
the SEAL commander. "You know anything about it? Sir."

The last word was obviously an afterthought for courtesy's sake.

"Enough. Do you?"

Elwell shook his head. "Just enough to wonder how concerned the U.S. is
about the Panamanians gaining access to it. Concerned enough to wonder
if they might have some contingency plans in case the situation here
goes to shit.That's what I'm curious about-our role in all of this."

"You ask too many questions, Sergeant. We don't work for Southcom."

"Perhaps not. But just for informational purposes, you might be
interested in knowing that I've done a number of tours with
forward-deployed cryptological units. I know what the drill can be. What
I'm wondering is exactly what orders you're operating under."

The SEAL commander stiffened, a mistake while standing on the lurching
platform. His right foot slipped out from under him, and he had to wrap
one arm around the rickety railing to regain his balance. "If you've
done time in crypto-well, I wouldn't know anything about that.

"I think you would." Elwell's voice was soft and deadly.

"You're out of line, Sergeant."

Billy moved hand-over-hand along the railing to the rungs that led up to
the pier. "Maybe so. If so, I apologize, Commander. But I'm betting that
Commander Bailey up there wouldn't have any clue as to what I'm talking
about, and that you do. Let me say this-if I have the slightest
indication that you're operating under Sanction Alpha, Southcom is going
to be very, very disturbed. Such orders should be cleared through us
this is our area of responsibility, even if the main detachment is
pulled back to Florida."

Murphy studied him for a long moment. "If I were, you'd never know it."

Elwell nodded. "Not until it was too late. Just remember-we had this
conversation." With that, he started up the ladder without looking back
to see if Murphy followed.

U.S. EMBASSY, PANAMA

Murphy moved restlessly about the small office,
touching knickknacks on the credenza, pausing to examine a photo on the
wall. Most of them pictured Hank Flashert with more important people,
shaking their hands and smiling for a staged photo op. Hank sat behind
the desk, impatiently tapping his pencil on the spotlessly gleaming
wooden surface, waiting for Murphy to get to the point.

"It's Elwell," Murphy said finally. "You'll have to deal with him. I
can't."

"I thought you SEALS could deal with anything," Flashert said snidely.

Murphy whirled on him. "Don't give me that crap.

We've worked together for too long. You know what the rules are. You
deal with the political stuff and leave the tactics and operations to
us. But if Elwell gets Southcom involved in this, we're screwed."
Flashert sighed. "How many times do I have to tell you-it's all
arranged. Elwell is there solely for administrative liaison, not as part
of the operational staff. I mean, they have to have someone to get their
MRES from, don't they?"

"Yeah, well, Elwell sounded like he was a whole lot more involved than
that." He glared at Flashert suspiciously. "Are you sure you know what's
going on?"

"Do you?" Flashert's voice was cold and harsh. "So far, I've seen
nothing but screwups on your part, starting with the issue of this
sailor you're holding onto."

"What about him?"

Hank spread his hands out in front of him. "He's recovered, right? So
why not return him to his unit?"
"You're the one who said to hold on to
him," Murphy snapped. "And just how am I supposed to explain that he's
been at the SEAL compound for two days without notifying Commander
Bailey?"

"Well, you should have thought of that before you kept him, shouldn't
you have? I'm sure if you think hard enough, you'll come up with an
answer."

Murphy's eyes narrowed. "It would be better if I didn't have to."

"What are you suggesting?"

Murphy smiled, an expression that made Flashert particularly uneasy.

"Nothing. State is the one who authorized Sanction Alpha. And that
brings me to another point-just how the hell did Elwell know about
that?"

"How should I know? He's military-the Army's had Sanction Alpha granted
from time to time, just like all the other services have. There are
operational necessities, I understand..."

Murphy looked sullen. "Yes, that's what they always called it.

Operational necessity. Those are the words of a man who won't have to
carry it out. mister. You try being on the other side, knowing you have
to kill your fellow service members before you let them fall into enemy
hands. It's one thing to take risks with men who are trained for that
sort of thing-another entirely to exercise it on a forward-deployed
unit."

"You have a problem with your orders, Commander?" Flashert asked.

"Just with the pricks who give them."

GULF OF PANAMA: OCTOBER USS JOUETT

Renninger stood inside the helo hangar, giving Collins her last-minute
instructions before he left. He was still decidedly uneasy about leaving
the ship, but could see no way out of the command performance that
required his presence ashore. The Ops Boss and the Chief Engineer were
standing a respectful distance away, watching them without appearing to
do so, trying to pick up any clues that they could.

"Just stay on the track Southcom laid out for us," Renninger concluded.

"No more incidents, understand?"

A look of pain crossed Collins's face, Renninger took pleasure in
noting.

"There won't be, Captain," she said. The expression passed quickly.

He nodded. "There better not be." He shook his head sadly for a moment.

"I never thought I'd have this kind of conversation with my Executive
Officer. Never." A look of anger crossed his face. "That's the whole point
of having an XO, isn't it? It's the officer you're training for his or
her own command, the one that you can occasionally leave the ship with
and feel some degree of comfort about doing it. I wish that I could say
that I felt that way about you, XO, I truly do. But I don't. I'm sure
you can understand why."

Collins seemed to withdraw into herself, following some private train of
thought. When she spoke, her voice was calm and professional. "I
understand completely, Captain. If our circumstances were reversed, I'd
probably feel just as you do." She attempted a smile. "I can't say it
makes me feel any better. knowing that. But you have my word on it-I'll
do the best I can while you're gone."

"Let's hope that will be good enough."

Renninger returned her salute, then made his way out to the SH-60
helicopter already preflighted on the flight deck. He strapped himself
into the backseat, watching Collins through the small observation window
located next to him. She was talking to Ops and the Engineering Officer
now, looking calm and completely in control of herself.

For a moment, he regretted his harsh words. But not much. The Executive
Officer billet was supposed to be a pressure chamber, weeding out those
who simply could not be trusted with the command of one of the world's
most powerful warships. It was a final test, a last opportunity to cull
out those that were lacking in some necessary ability or character
trait. In Collins's case, as much as he hated the tragedy that had
occurred on his ship, he felt some small degree of relief that they'd
caught her. Caught her before she'd advanced to a command of her own.

Renninger leaned forward and tapped the pilot on the shoulder, giving
him a thumbs-up.

"Aye, aye, Captain," the pilot's voice said over the internal
communications system. "We'll have you there in twenty minutes, sir.

Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

IT By the way, we've got a request from the MIUW unit based at the end
of Pier 36. They'd like us to spit out a couple of sonobuoys on our way
in. Seems they're having a problem with their RHIB."

Renninger toggled the transmit switch. "Have they made a formal request
for us to expend our ordnance on their BEHALF"

"Negative-not that I've seen."

The copilot chimed in with another negative report.

Renninger leaned back on the hard upholstered seat.

"Then fuck 'em."

u.S. EMBASSY COMPOUND

Jerusha Bailey glanced around the room, trying to take the measure of
the men and women assembled there.

There were a few familiar faces-the American Ambassador, of course, on
whom she had made a courtesy call within hours of arriving in Panama.

His aide scheduled the appointment. Master Sergeant Elwell.

Commander Murphy. And that was about it. The rest of the assorted
officers and civilians perched uncomfortably on formal diplomatic chairs
were unfamiliar, a mixed bag of uniforms and specialties.

Southcom was a joint command, and the detachment remaining in Panama
reflected that diversity. Air Force officers sat side by side with
Marines, and one Coast Guard officer was even included in the group.

Most were commanders or lieutenant colonels, the sole exception being
Billy Elwell. She studied his face for a moment, wondering what made him
rate a seat in a meeting composed otherwise of high-ranking civilians
and officers.

Murphy was a big man, far bulkier than Elwell, who looked like a
greyhound standing next to a bull mastiff.

But there was an aura of quiet that seemed to surround the Army noncom,
a calm confidence radiating out from his presence. Despite the disparity
in rank between him and the other members, he handled himself with quiet
dignity, replying courteously and thoughtfully to both civilians and
military alike. She noted a degree of respect in the body posture of
everyone who spoke to him, a quiet acknowledgment of his expertise.

Which was exactly what? Once again, the question begged to be answered.

She would have to ask somebody besides Murphy-he wasn't likely to admit
anything favorable about the other man.

The Ambassador rapped lightly on the top of his desk.

"If everyone has coffee, perhaps we could get started?"

The Ambassador turned to the man standing next to him.

"Allow me to introduce Mr. Doug Turner from the State Department. His
visit has been coordinated with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and we're
hoping that this meeting will have us all working towards one
coordinated end.

Mr. Turner?" The Ambassador gestured politely at him, and Turner stepped
forward.

Another tall man. Very senior, too, judging from the way his suit fit.
certainly didn't come off the rack, she thought. And there's something
about him-this isn't a common occurrence, coordination between State and
the military, yet he looks completely at ease. As though we've already
been assigned to his operational control.

Turner surveyed the room, letting his eyes linger on each person
individually while waiting for the small murmurs and paper shuffling to
die out. "Thank you all for coming on what was relatively short notice,"
he began. "As the Ambassador said, we're all on the same team. Most of
you are senior enough to know that neither diplomatic negotiations nor
military force alone provides the best solution to any situation. I want
you to know, hear it from me personally, that our coordinated efforts
are getting some close attention from the very highest levels." He 'eyed
them all solemnly, then repeated, "The very highest levels. In fact, I
expect to be briefing the President personally upon the conclusion of
this mission.

"Which brings me to my first point." Turner turned to an aide standing
by the door, and the lights dimmed suddenly. A computer-generated
picture flashed onto the white screen that had unfurled behind the
Ambassador's desk. A map of Panama flashed up on it, with substantial
portions of it marked in red. "These are the areas where Asian nations
have established industrial bases, manufacturing plants, or shipping
facilities." The area surrounding the Panama Canal was largely red. "I'm
sure that with all of the experience in this room, you don't need me to
spell out what this means. With the forces they have in place right now,
the Chinese could completely shut down access to the Panama Canal to all
other nations."

He paused and surveyed the room. "How many of you would agree with
that?" A murmur of assents followed.

He nodded. "Good-about what I'd expected. Now, we can talk about the
mechanics of how they might accomplish that-and, incidentally, how we
might prevent it-but the deeper question is why. Why would the Chinese
do that? And why would the Panamanians allow it?" The silence that
followed that question was unbroken.

"So you can see the dilemma." He tapped lightly with his pointer on the
location of the Panama Canal.

"The Canal is simply too important to American commerce to permit any
nation to deny us access to it. includes the Panamanians. And as things
stand today, there is every possibility that the Panamanians will
attempt to do just that. The reason I called you all together is to talk
about ways we might prevent that.

"The problem began with the downing of Panamanian Flight 301. With the
Panamanian President on board, we can expect a period of substantial
instability to start with." He nodded towards the door on the outside
world. "Some of you have already experienced that, I understand." His
eyes roamed the room and then settled on Bailey. "It seems like the Navy
is taking the brunt of the action this time. My condolences on your
loss, Commander."

Bailey nodded an acknowledgment, but remained silent.

"We must prepare," Turner said, speaking slowly and distinctly, "to
enforce our absolute right to transit the Panama Canal at any time under
any circumstances.

is the final objective of all of our efforts. Is that clear?"

"What is our position on the rights of the Panamanians to control their
own country?" a voice from the rear said.

Bailey turned to see Sergeant Elwell standing, his hands politely
clasped in front of him. His rough, gravelly voice was distinctive. "And
how does this fit in with our Wilsonian notions of self-determination?"

Turner appeared a bit taken aback by the questions.

Both were politely phrased, respectfully uttered, and quite to the
point. Bailey herself had been wondering the same things.

Turner paused for a moment while an aide whispered into his ear. He
frowned briefly. Then his face cleared, smoothed over into a
professional diplomatic mask of neutrality. "Master Sergeant Elwell, is
it?" he said politely. "Good questions-both of them."
"I hope the answers will be just as good," Bailey said, the words coming
out of her mouth almost before she could stop them. She heard a quiet
intake of breath behind her at her audacity.

Turner turned his gaze towards her. "It seems the Navy is not only an
active participant in both of the incidents that bring us here today,
but also the most vocal of the military services," he said mildly. "I'll
get to both of those points in just a moment. If you would allow me to
proceed?" There was a slight bite to the last statement as he asserted
his place in the pecking order.

Bailey nodded, then shot a glance towards the rear of the room. Billy
Elwell met her gaze with a calm, thoughtful look.

She caught a flicker of motion, then saw the massive oak door behind her
open slightly. A civilian stepped into the room, motioning discreetly to
the Ambassador.

The Ambassador shook his head, and the aide's expression became even
more urgent.

"Undersecretary Turner," the Ambassador said, "my apologies, but I must
excuse myself for a moment."

Turner nodded politely and turned his attention back to the crowd. "Back
to your question, Miss. Bailey. I could do some fancy tap dancing, but
I'd like to sum it up with an old American phrase-what's good for
General Motors is good for the country. The same goes for the rest of
the world. When American prospers, it affects beneficially every country
within our sphere of influence. When we don't - .." He shrugged
eloquently, as though the conclusion were too obvious to detail.

The door at the rear of the room opened again, and the Ambassador
stepped back in. He was pale, obviously shaken, and trying to stay calm.

One hand rubbed repetitively at the back of his neck. "Undersecretary-if
I might interrupt," the Ambassador said, a slight tremor in his voice.

"Effective at two p.m. today, the provisional government of Panama has
declared its intention to prevent American flagships and all ships bound
to or from U.S. ports of entry from transiting the Panama Canal. They
state," he said, glancing at a message in his hand, "that they're
willing to enforce this decision with military action if necessary.

Until the matter of the airbus matter is resolved, and appropriate
reparations are paid, no U.S. bound cargo will transit the Canal."

A deep hush fell over the room. Elwell's gravelly voice spoke up. "I
guess the Panamanians just answered my questions."

PANAMA: 1 OCTOBER USS JOUETT

Collins paced back and forth on the bridge.
stopping at the navigator's table to check their position for the third
time in the last fifteen minutes. The senior quartermaster sighed,
pointed silently at the round circle that marked their position, and
glanced at his GPS indicator again.

"On course, on station, ma'am." He withheld the sigh she could tell he
wanted to give voice to.

"I know. It's not that I doubt you. But-"

He nodded, offered a small smile. "Always that way when the Captain's
gone, isn't it?" he said quietly.

"Don't worry, XO-anything goes wrong, if we get even two inches off our
track, I'll let you know."

She nodded, grateful for the reassurance.

She paced back and forth on the bridge, scanning the water around her.

She could feel the watch-standers' nervousness, heard the tension in the
Officer of the Deck's voice as he snapped out an unnecessary order to
the port lookout, and knew that there was no point in her presence here.

Nothing had changed in the hour since the Captain had left, nothing at
all. Still, the weight of her responsibility made her restless, kept her
moving constantly in search of anything she might have overlooked. Given
her track record, she was not willing to take the slightest chance on
something going wrong. Not even a pump breaking down, a position not
plotted, or a contact not tracked exactly by the book.

"Roger." The operations specialist charting contact data on the large
Plexiglas display looked startled. He turned to Collins. "Ma'am, they'd
like you back in Combat, please."

She nodded, and walked briskly through the hatch and down one flight of
stairs to Combat. The heavy security door was ajar, as it normally was
during at-sea operations. She pushed it open, and stepped into the cool
darkness, lit only by overhead red lights and the glow from radar
screens and displays.

"What is it?" she asked the TAO.

Williams pointed back towards Sonar. "They think they've got a contact.

The same one that the MIUW was reporting."
"A submarine?" she said, then
wished she could call the question back.

Of course a submarine-she'd just looked around the water surrounding
Jouett not three minutes ago and there'd been no surface contacts of
significance.

Garland simply nodded. "We're tracking it now."

She walked past him and into the small compartment that housed Sonar.

The lights were brighter here, and only three technicians manned
consoles. "What have you got?"

The senior sonar technician pointed at the screen.

"Passive contact, range about ten thousand yards."
"Anything on active?" He looked up at her. "We asked Lieutenant Williams
for permission to go active and he said no. Do you want a ping?"

She nodded. "Go active."

The ship's hull reverberated with the acoustic energy radiating out from
its sonar dome. She watched it trace its expanding circle on the active
scope in front of her, pouring five thousand watts of power into the
water around them. A few seconds later, a musical chime coincided with a
small green phosphorous lozenge lighting up on the active scope.

"Is that it?" she demanded.

The sonar technician shook his head. "Too close and there's a wreck
charted there. No, our contact has got to be further out than that. It
was worth a try, but this water is lousy for active returns."

"Not much better for passive," the other technician said. He pointed to
two faint lines on his chart. "Tenuous contact-but it's there. Bearing
due west, XO. I'd make it a convergent zone contact, although the water
is awful shallow for that."

"But you're certain it's a submarine?" she asked, a hard note in her
voice now. "Or are you?"

Both men looked up at her, their faces neutral. "If I had to bet, I'd be
leaning towards classifying it as a submarine," the older technician
said. "But it's not a hard contact-XO, we need to get a head out on it.
would resolve the problem once and for all."

While the Captain had taken one of the Sea Hawks ashore, the other one
was still in the hangar. "Let's do it. Since the MIUW reported that
contact yesterday, there's no point in taking any chances." Not with the
way things have been going out here.

She walked back into Combat and told Williams to roust the flight crew
and inform her when he was ready to set Flight Quarters. He looked up at
her askance.

"Are you certain you want to do that?" ' "Of course I am. Just do it,
Lieutenant." She bit back a harsher rebuke, aware that the rest of the
watchstanders were listening. Garland's insubordination had gotten out
of hand lately, more so now that her relationship with the Captain was
rocky. Still, there was no point in airing wardroom grievances in front
of the crew.

She'd settle this situation once and for all when the Captain returned.

"I'll be on the bridge," she said. "Notify me when you're ready to set
Flight Quarters."

He nodded. Moments later, on the bridge, she heard the call for the
aviation detachment going out over the I MC. She glanced at her watch,
aware that it would take approximately fifteen minutes to get the crew
briefed and suited up, and another fifteen to twenty to properly
preflight the helicopter. Thirty minutes-a lifetime in the subtle game
of ASW. If there were a submarine out there-and if it were ten thousand
yards away-it had more than enough time to make a silent, deadly
approach on the ship. More than enough time.

She toggled the lever down on the bitch box. "Set Condition 2AS," she
said, referring to the special watchstanding teams that would be
dispatched during ASW operations. If there was a submarine in the area,
she wanted her best eyes and ears in Sonar. She heard that announcement
follow shortly.

"Any word from the Captain?" she asked the OOD, fully aware that she'd
heard no calls come in from the ground center.

He shook his head. "Not yet. Should we call him?"

He held up the cell phone the Captain had left with him.

She paused, undecided, then went back to Combat.

"Show me where it is again."

The operations specialist had just finished penciling in the small point
designating the hostile contact. "On our port quarter now," he said
without looking up.

Jouett had been executing an east-west track in the Gulf of Panama, the
body of water enclosed by the lower half of the S shape of Panama.

According to the sonar data, Jouett was positioned between the coast of
Panama and the submarine. At her current location, Jouett was just
barely outside the twelve-mile limit of Panama's territorial waters.

She swore quietly, wishing the helo was already airborne. There was
nothing a submarine feared more than an ASW helicopter working against
it with a pinging deployable sonar dome. One helo and a destroyers tough
adversary. Two helos would be virtually unavoidable.

Now, however, with one helo ashore and the other still in preflight, she
had only her passive acoustic towed array and sonar dome as sensors.

But maybe not. She turned to the sonar technician.

"Does the MIUW have sonobuoys in the water?"

He nodded. "They deployed them about two hours ago. There should be
plenty of time left on them-I think they were set for extended
operations. From what I hear, they brought plenty of them with them as
well."

"Are we holding contact""

He looked doubtful. "I haven't tried to dial them up, but I could. We
might be out of range."

"How far away are they?"

The sonar technician looked down at the plot and traced one finger along
the ocean floor. "About here just inside the twelve-mile limit."

She nodded, the plan taking shape in her mind. She turned to the TAO,
Lieutenant Williams. "Have the OOD head us towards the middle of the
MIUW's sonobuoy field. And get the MIUW on tactical-I need to talk to
them."

She turned back to the Chief of the Watch. "You understand what I'm
doing?" she asked.

He nodded, a smile tug-ing at the corner of his mouth.

"I do. And I like it-this "just might work."

MIUW 106

Boston greeted her as she returned to camp from the conference. Given
the Panamanians' declaration, continuing the briefing on old information
had seemed futile.

All of the operational commanders had been anxious to return to their
commands, and Turner had eventually bowed to the inevitable. The
sergeant she'd already started to think of as part of her unit had left
quickly, muttering a partial explanation about some sort of preparation
he needed to make.

Bailey went immediately to the RSSC van, and had just stepped inside
when the call came in from Jouett.

She listened to the voice, scratchy over the secure circuit, and frowned
as she recognized it. Before Boston could reply, she reached over and
took the mike from him.

"Lieutenant Commander Collins," she said, ignoring normal radio
protocol. "It's been a long time."

There was a moment of silence, then an all-too familiar voice returned.

"Good afternoon, Commander.

Oddly enough, I was just thinking about you."

Bailey smiled slightly. "I imagine you were. Run me through this plan
again, if you would."

Over the secure circuit, Collins briefly outlined the scenario. Bailey's
analytical mind rifled through the possibilities, then she nodded as she
saw the logic behind Collins's plan. "You can't take overt hostile
action against it-it's done nothing to indicate you're under attack,"
Bailey said. "However, I understand your concern-unknown submarine
contacts would make me uneasy as well."

"You think they'll buy it?" Collins's voice asked.

Bailey gave her points for asking.

"They might. We used the same type of sonobuoys your helo would use,
although the submarine won't confuse the active sonobuoy with the
frequency from a helo sonar dome. Still, it might make them think that
there's a helo in the area. They have no way of knowing you've got one
ashore and one still in preflight."

"That's what I'm hoping. The only thing
I know for certain about this submarine is that it's not Panamanian.

One guess as to who it probably belongs to."
"No bet," Bailey said. "My
money's on the Chinese."

"Me too, Commander."

The circuit fell silent for a few uneasy moments. Bailey watched as
Boston sketched out Jouett's new track on the surface plot, and then
nodded as she saw where it was headed. "At the speed of advance you're
making, it should put you inside our pattern-or at least looking like
you should be there-in about ten minutes. I'm going to give it five more
minutes-, then we'll go active on the DICASS buoys. If they start
picking up speed, turning into you, or you have any indications that
they're targeting you-"

"I know, I know," Collins broke in. "Believe me, we're thinking of
that."

Bailey thought for a moment. "Think it through, XO.

Once we pull this off, we need to figure out why the submarine's
there-and what it's trying to accomplish by announcin- its presence. All
it had to do to escape detection was to stay well away from you, you
know."

Collins's voice was grim. "I know.That's what worries me."

Bailey nodded. "Your Captain will be here in about thirty minutes-he's
having lunch with another commander, and then he's coming by for a
short tour before he returns to the ship. I'll see if we can locate him,
give him a quick update, and send him back out there as soon as he can
get a turnaround."

"Aye, aye, Commander. Let's just make sure between the two of us that
he's got a ship to come back to."

USS JOUETT

The ship heeled sharply as the OOD ordered the new course
toward the sonobuoy field. Collins stayed in Combat, watching their
progress in a series of one minute position marks on the surface plot.

Five minute dots on the chart later, she heard it. It was a tinkling
sound against the hull, the light caress of a distant active sonar
source. Sonar's announcement of contact on the active sonobuoys followed
seconds later.

"What about the submarine?" Collins asked.

"I'm certain they heard it, XO. We hold a slight increase in speed-she's
running at twelve knots now, changing course to follow us. No
indications of hostile acts as yet. And no active sonar from the
submarine."

Collins glanced up at the speed indicator located next to the
large-screen display. Jouett was making sixteen knots through the water,
just at the edge of her sonar detection envelope. Any faster and she'd
be blind herself, running from the submarine without any way of knowing
whether it was following.

If this was going to work, the submarine should do something within the
next few minutes.

The shimmery pings of the sonobuoys were suddenly obliterated by a
harsh. ringing stroke of an active sonar.

"Sonar!" Collins demanded. "What the-"

"Active sonar, source is the sub that's been following us," Sonar
announced, cutting in over her question.

"XO, recommend we set up for an urgent attack torpedo down the line of
bearing."

Collins thought furiously. "Set up for it," she snapped. "But you keep
your hand off the firing key-I repeat, off. No one takes a shot unless I
give the order.

Do you understand?"

"That's affirmative, XO. On your order only. Wait!" the sonarman said.

The few seconds that he was silent seemed like an eternity. Finally, he
spoke. "The submarine is turning away from us. She's accelerated to
eighteen knots and is on a directly reciprocal course. It worked, XO-it
worked."

A few muffled cheers broke out around Combat. She hushed them quickly.

"How fast is she leaving?"

"Eighteen knots. At that speed, she's deaf, dumb, and blind."

Collins started to breathe a sigh of relief. " last ping-that was just
to make a point, I think. She wanted to let us know that she had us-that
she could take us at any time. So she thinks."

Collins relayed the tactical information to the MIUW, who had also
observed the submarine's turn on their passive sonobuoys. Then Collins
secured from urgent attack and ordered Jouett back onto her patrol plan.

Sonar reported that the submarine executed a depth change, went below
the layer, and quietly disappeared off of all their sensors.

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA: 1 OCTOBER

CALLE DE RORAIME, PANAMA Master Sergeant
Elwell pulled the aging Volvo sedan to the side of the road and looked
across the street at the house. It was built in the traditional Spanish
style: white stucco, high surrounding walls, and a red tiled roof.

Flowering bougainvillea crept over the walls, not quite entirely masking
the viciously sharp shards of cut glass embedded in the top of the wall.

A wrought-iron gate coupled with an intercom announcing system at the
front completed the security of the house.

There was probably more, he thought, studying the layout. Cameras
mounted up under the eaves-he detected a telltale glint of sun on glass.

Not too terribly unusual for a wealthy Panamanian family concerned about
personal security, or for an off-the-books Special Forces detachment
that wanted a base of operations away from the scrutiny of Southcom.

Not much escaped Billy Elwell. Although most of his tours of duty had
been in Germany and Korea, he'd spent enough time with the Army in odd
little out-of the-way places in Central and South American to have some
friends in Panama. More than once he'd visited Southcom headquarters,
back when it had been a major command instead of the decimated skeleton
it was now.

Aside from the staff, Elwell had friends-special friends, who operated
in-country and could find out virtually anything he wanted to know.

He put the Volvo in park and considered his next move. This could be a
straightforward game of interservice politics-or something worse. To
date, he had just too little information to decide for sure. But
something about the attack on the MIUW boat and the SEALS' sudden
reversal on deploying sonobuoys for them had struck him as suspicious.

Suspicious enough to ask around.

Suspicious enough to find those old friends, and to check out this
address.

According to his contacts. it had been rented six months ago from a
wealthy Panamanian merchant who'd suddenly fled the country to escape
prosecution for tax evasion and money-laundering. The owner was
reportedly hiding out in Bolivia-perhaps with the assistance of the U.S.
government, if Billy's suspicions were true.

Evil loves darkness. So do black operations. He considered this for a
moment, then decided on a straightforward approach. Locking the car
behind him, he walked up to the high gate and pressed the intercom
button.

In passable Spanish, Billy asked to speak to Sefior el Commander. There
was a pause on the line; then an American voice broke in. "Who is this)"

"Somebody who knows you're here. ought to be enough." Billy waited for
an answer. A long silence followed. He'd learned waiting years ago.

There was a way to do it, and a way not to do it.

Finally, the silence was broken not by a response, but by the metallic
buzzing of the electronic gate latch disengaging. Billy pushed the gate
open, stepped in and swung it shut behind him. He heard the
electromagnetic bolt shoot home.

As he walked up the walkway, the door opened. An

"American, by the look
of him, clad in civilian clothes.

Light shorts, a tank top. Only the muscles and the closecropped haircut
gave him away. "What do you want?" the man said.

"Listen, we don't have time for games," Billy said reasonably. "Just
give me the kid and I'll be gone."
"What kid?" Billy sighed. "Let me explain something to you very simply.

I'm from Southcom-and so far, I'm one of the few that knows. Not the
only one, however. Now, seeing as we're both in Special Forces, we can
do this one of two ways. The easy way, which is that you give me the kid
and I leave and this goes no further. Or we can do it the hard way,
which will do nothing but cause hate and discontent for all of us. And
paperwork. You know how that goes."

The man studied him for a moment, buying himself time to think. To speed
him along, Billy said encouragingly, "In the Army, we try to get our
noncoms to use their own judgment. They're the ones on the scene."

Finally the man nodded. "Wait here."

Again the waiting. Billy stood relaxed, at an angle to the door, trying
to decide whether he regretted not bringing a firearm. No, he finally
decided. If he needed a weapon against the people that he thought were
inside this house, then he was outclassed and needed to come back with a
whole squad. Besides, it defeated the whole purpose of the visit.

The door opened and the man reappeared. With him, standing on slightly
shaky feet, was a young man clad in an olive-green T-shirt and light
khaki swim trunks.

"He had a concussion, but he's okay now," the first man said. "He should
be fine." He laid one hand on the other man's shoulder. "Go on-the
sergeant will take you back to your unit."

Billy stepped forward and closed one hand on the young man's arm just
above the elbow. "Come on, son.

I'll take you back to Commander Bailey."

The sailor- turned to look at him, his eyes slightly unfocused. "Are you
with NSA?"

Billy shook his head, hiding the small trill of interest that went
through him. NSA-now why exactly did that particular set of initials
come to this man's mind? Had he asked about MIUW, the Navy, or any one
of a host of other organizations, Billy would not have been surprised.

But NSA-he reflected on what he knew of Commander Bailey.

"No, I'm just an Army dogface," Billy said, easing the man down the
walkway. As they approached the iron gate. it clicked open. Moments
later, they were in the Volvo. Once Billy ensured the man was safely
strapped in, he turned his attention to driving back to the pier.

He had a feeling that Commander Bailey might have some very interesting
answers to the questions that were coming to mind just about now.

MIUW 106

As Bailey explained the details of the tactical situation, Commander
Renninger became more and more agitated.

Finally, as she described how Collins had made a dash toward the MIUW
sonobuoy field, he burst out, "Dammit, I told her-"

Bailey stopped in mid-sentence and placed one hand on his arm. She and
Renninger were almost exactly the same height. "I'd like to speak to you
outside for just a moment," she said calmly. She tugged lightly on his
arm, and motioned to the security watch to open the door.

Once outside, she led him around the edge of the van and towards the end
of the pier. There, they would be safely shielded from prying eyes,
something she wouldn't have thought of before Sergeant Elwell's
inspection tour of her camp. "What is it with you and your XO?" she
said.

"I'm surprised you have to ask that," he said. "Of all people."

Bailey shook her head. "She wasn't my XO. But under the circumstances,
I'd say she did a damned fine job.

Just what exactly did you tell her before you left?"

Renninger frowned slightly. "I told her not to get us into trouble, and
to stay outside the twelve-mile limit.

She knows she's treading on thin ice with me-hell, I even tried to find
a way to get out of coming ashore to avoid leaving her alone on the
ship."

"Why? Think she'll mutiny?" Bailey's voice was sharp. "Let me remind
you, the only time she got out of line with me was when she thought she
was doing it for the good of the ship. She was a junior lieutenant then,
and didn't understand the full tactical implications.

Something else you might remember-in the end, she did the right thing.
ship is still alive because of her judgment, and don't you forget it."

"But a submarine-"

She cut him off. "And just how is it her fault that there's a submarine
in the area?" she demanded. "Do you think she arranged that somehow?

Waited for you to leave the ship and then called the submarine in? Get
real, Captain. This scared you, and because you're scared, you're
pissed. Collins is a handy scapegoat. But tell me-just what would you
have done if your positions had been reversed?"

He thought for a minute, and finally scowled. "I probably wouldn't have
thought of running toward the sonobuoy field," he said at last. " was
pretty damned smart-make them, think you've got a helo in the area when
all your assets are down."

Bailey nodded. She waited.

Finally, Renninger shrugged. "Okay, I was too hard on her. I admit
it-she did the right thing. There-are you happy?"

Bailey relaxed. "It doesn't matter if I'm happy, Captain. Like I
said-she's not my XO. But if you're going to string her up for
negligence and professional misconduct, I don't think this is the time,"
she said gently. "Of course, it's your ship-not mine."

He shot her a sardonic look. "And hopefully won't be yours ever. I don't
intend to be rude, but the circumstances of your last change of command
leave a lot to be desired."

Bailey nodded. "I've got no designs on your ship, I've got more than
enough to do here, with my civilian job. So," she said, changing the
subject, "when will you head back out to Jouett?"

"As soon as possible. seems only reasonable, under the circumstances."

He held up a hand as though to forestall her objection.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to ream Collins a new asshole. Like you
said, she did okay this time." He caught the dark look she shot him.

"More than okay," he admitted reluctantly. "I give credit where credit
is due, Commander."

Bailey was silent for a moment, then smiled. "It's not easy, being in
command. It never is."

He nodded. "You try to think everything through, try to remember how the
best men and women you've worked for did it. But in the end, when it
comes down to it, you're on your own. Especially at sea. There's nobody
else to ask, nobody else around-damn, it's the moment you've trained for
for years and years, and when it comes, you still feel like you're not
old enough to make the decision. But you have to, so you do the best you
can." He shot her an appraising look. "But I guess you know what I'm
talking about."

She laughed. " I do."

He clapped a friendly hand on her shoulder. "If you'll loan me that
Humvee and a driver, I'll get back to the airfield. Like I said, I'd
like to get back out to Jouett as soon as possible."

"Sure, you want to borrow my Humvee, but you won't let me on your damned
ship. How is that for fair?" she said to break the tension.

Renninger laughed. "Listen, you get some free time, you come on out.

I'll let my XO give you the full tour, how about it?"

She nodded. "I might take you up on that sometime."

As she walked Captain Renninger back to her Humvee, another car pulled
onto the pier. She watched it, the vulnerability of their situation
there sinking in again. But what was also a weakness was a strength-they
were at the end of the pier, and had a clear view of anyone approaching
them. But they were also isolated from supporting forces. It was, as
Elwell would have said, a mixed bag of tricks.

As the car approached, she could make out the details of the interior.

There were two people in it, one in uniform and the other-at
approximately one quarter of a mile, she recognized the other occupant.

She stopped exchanging pleasantries with Renninger in mid-sentence and
waited.

Sergeant Elwell pulled the car up beside her. Before he could get out
and come around, she was at the passenger-side door, pulling it open.

The sailor inside took a shaky step out onto the hot cement. "Jer?" he
said woozily.

Bailey grabbed him into a tight hug. "Dammit, Carlisle, if you'd-oh,
damn, damn."

Elwell stopped in front of the car and watched silently. Renninger
stepped back, as though unwilling to intrude on the moment. Both were
slightly uncomfortable with the public display of emotion between
commander and subordinate, though neither one would deny having wanted
to do the same thing on occasion.

Finally, Bailey pushed Carlisle away. "Are you okay?"

He nodded. He looked back towards Elwell. "Sarge came and got me." From
the slur in his voice, Bailey knew that the rest of the story would have
to come from the Army noncom.

She looked at Elwell. "Is he all right?"

Elwell nodded. "Probably could use a checkup at the base hospital, but I
suspect what the corpsman told me was true-he had a concussion. He seems
to be fine now. Except for one thing."
"What is it?" Bailey demanded.

"By God, you should have taken him straight to the hospital. What's
wrong with-"

She stopped as Elwell approached, grabbed Carlisle's right arm, and
shoved the sleeve back up on his shoulder. He motioned to a pair of
angry red marks. "You know what you're looking at?"

Silently, she nodded. The two needle marks stood out in perfect contrast
to the pale skin behind them. She looked back at Elwell, hoping her
expression wasn't revealing more than she wanted it to.

Elwell lowered his voice. "When I first picked him up, he asked me if I
was from NSA." Elwell shook his head, as though puzzling over a tough
problem. "I didn't ask any more questions-I didn't figure you'd want me
to." He looked at her, his eyes impassive.

With an effort, Bailey regained her composure. "Is he all right?" she
asked again, this time with a different meaning.

Elwell caught it and nodded. "As close as I can tell.

They have some pretty sophisticated drugs these days.

You'll want somebody besides a noncom to figure out what happened."

He related the events of the last hour, concluding with his belief that
the SEAL team had actually had custody of Carlisle.

"But why?" she asked, stunned. "The SEALS THEY're on our side."

Elwell shrugged. "There are all sorts of sides, even within the U.S.
military. I'd want to be careful about who I discussed this with," he
concluded. "I sort of made a promise."

Bailey's mind reeled. Up until now, she'd believed that the SEALS were
her allies-in fact, the force to which she entrusted the security of her
camp and her people. Now, the SEALS' close attention to the MIUW camp
took on a whole new meaning.

Another thought occurred to her, and she turned pale.

"The RHIB," she said quietly. "Did they-?" She stopped, unable to voice
her suspicion.

Elwell regarded her levelly. "I wouldn't have thought so, but who's to
say? We may never know for sure."
"But why?" Bailey demanded. "What
possible sense does this make?"

"It makes sense to someone. Commander,"
he continued, motioning towards Renninger with his head, "how do you
feel about him? Can you trust him?"

Two other MIUW sailors darted up then, having recognized Carlisle.

Bailey paused before answering, giving orders to the men to take
Carlisle immediately to the unit corpsman and then to his rack in one of
the tents.

After the three had departed, she turned back to Elwell.

"I would have thought I could trust Commander Murphy, but evidently
not."

Elwell's voice took on a hard note. "You knew better after you talked to
him, didn't you? What kind of gut feeling did he give you?"

Bailey nodded slowly, remembering her initial discomfort with the SEAL
team CO. Then she looked back at Renninger. "I feel better about
Renninger," she said.

"Better, but not confident. Besides, it's a whole lot more likely that
the commanding officer of a warship is going to be on the righteous
side. I can see how Special Forces can be used to further a different
agenda. Easier for them than a warship."

Elwell nodded thoughtfully. "For what it's worth, I agree with you.

You're going to have to give this some thought, because sooner or later
we'll have to decide who we trust."

"I don't like this. Not one little bit," Bailey said finally. She looked
over at Commander Renninger, who was standing patiently out of earshot.

He had just glanced at his watch, but was clearly unwilling to intrude
on whatever was going on. "How can we be certain?"
As she asked the question, she realized the logical implication-she'd
already included Sergeant Elwell on the short list of people she could
trust.

Elwell shrugged. "We won't know until it comes right down to it, will
we? But I can tell you one thing that's a man who knows how to wait."

GULF OF PANAMA: 1 OCTOBER SEAHAWK 101

Commander Renninger settled back into the hard seat and listened to the
idle chatter of his helo crew. It had taken him another hour to get
back, and get under way to Jouett, and that had been pressing the time
limits on all safety envelopes. He had a sense of being overwhelmed.

Things were moving too fast ashore, the tactical implications and
strategic maneuverings of all the military forces and political entities
involved moving too quickly to be entirely comprehended. He felt an
itch to be back on board his ship, in the isolated world
linked only by radio circuits and weapons ranges to the shore. Even with
an XO that he didn't entirely trust, it was a more certain environment
than ashore.

"Captain? You might want to take a look at this."

The tinny voice of the copilot over the ICS startled him out of his
reverie. He leaned forward and looked out of the front windscreen. In
the distance, he could see Jouett, a stately and impressive sight just
above the horizon. As always, her sleek lines inspired a sense of awe in
him. She was quiet, majestic, and owned every bit of the water around
her. There was a stateliness to her progress that was missing from any
other warship he'd ever seen. Perhaps it was just because she was his,
but that was enough for him.

But the pilot hadn't been referring to his ship. No, it was entirely
something else. This entire area of the ocean was as crowded as he'd
ever seen a port. Massive merchants formed awkward, untidy columns,
lined up to the horizon in paths waiting to enter the Canal. Just inside
the harbor, huge clusters of them were anchored. A light roiling of the
air just above their stacks indicated they were still at power.

"How many of them are there?" he asked, knowing that the pilot probably
didn't know. "How long has this been going on?"

"They started turning away traffic just before we landed," the copilot
answered. "On the way in, I saw the Panamanian patrol craft making
approaches on. a couple of them. From what I could tell from the
ship-to-ship-channel traffic, the Panamanian military is conducting a
complete inspection on every ship inbound.

Those that have cargo manifested to or from the U.S. are not allowed
transit rights. The U.S.-flagged ships there were two-don't even rate an
inspection, just an order to stand off. " cluster to the north-Jim, can
you get us over there?" the copilot said to the pilot. "They're ships
that just left the Canal. Same drill-if they were in the Canal when the
order went down, the Panamanians took custody of them as soon as they
outchopped. They're supposed to be standing by for inspection as well.

Any cargo bound to or from the U.S. will be seized."

"You've gotta be
kidding," Renninger said. "They don't have the resources to handle this.

Hell, we needed a multinational force in the Gulf to do the same thing."

"They've designated a couple of piers as inspection points," the copilot
continued. "They're taking them in one by one. But I suspect you're
right, Captain. This is going to take months and months to sort out."

"We don't have months," Renninger snapped. "And the United States isn't
the only one going to be unhappy about this."

"Look at that one," the pilot chimed in, circling the helicopter around
to get a view of a massive RO-RO steaming majestically by. "Wonder why
she's so special. "

"Take us in and let's rig her," Renninger ordered, asking for a flyby
and identification of the ship's flag and primary structural features.

"Can do." Without further ado, the helicopter descended, vectoring in to
fly at almost eye level with the bridge of the ship. The pilot edged
them in close enough that Renninger could make out figures moving around
on the bridge, including two uniformed figures who came out on the port
bridge wing to stare at his helicopter.

"Type III merchant-RO-RO," the copilot said, and reeled off the
structural details of the ship's superstructure. "I make the name as
Lotus Vengeance. And there's the key to it, Captain-she's flying a
Chinese flag."

Renninger was silent as the helicopter crew finished the details of
rigging the ship. Finally, he said, "Take us home. I have a feeling
there's going to be some mighty interesting message traffic waiting for
me on the ship."

Collins met him on the flight deck, waiting for him as he disembarked
from the helicopter. He motioned her inside the hangar bay and then down
the centerline passageway before speaking. Finally, when they shut the
hatch behind them and the noise of the flight deck dropped abruptly, he
turned to her.

"For the record, XO, damned fine job on that sub marine. As I told
Commander Bailey, I wouldn't have thought of that tactic myself."

Collins looked startled, and a red flush crept up her cheeks. She looked
down at the deck. "Thank you, Captain," she said finally. " means-"

"Enough of that. You only did what any XO would do," he said briskly. "A
good XO. But I don't have time to stand around feeding your ego. Tell me
what's going on. I saw the merchant ships stacked up outside the Canal."

Collins nodded and cleared her throat. "The order came out shortly after
you left," she began, and briefly summarized the same facts he'd heard
from the helo pilot. "And there's been no further detection of the
submarine," she finished. "That's about it."

Renninger shook his head, puzzled. "What's the response from Third
Fleet? Are any contingency plans being put into operation?"

Collins nodded. "Nothing official, but I got an informal heads-up over
JOTS that we can expect a major deployment of U.S. forces to the south.

Two problems with that, though, as you can probably guess."

"Let's get into Combat-I want a full briefing there.

No point in discussing tactics in the passageway."

Five minutes later, they both stepped into the frigid air of Combat.

Collins led the way over to the JOTS console, and had the operator bring
up the wire note she'd referred to. "It's not as good as formal message
traffic, but sometimes it's just as accurate."

Renninger nodded. "You mentioned two problems, let's see if we're
thinkinof the same two."

Collins held up one finger."First, time and distance.

It's a good four days' transit down here, more if they have to slow down
for resupply ships. With the situation going to crap and so unstable,
we're going to want to have our own resupply assets in-theater. takes
time to set up, and we can't rely on the Panamanian government anymore."

Renninger nodded. "The smart officer thinks tactics, the brilliant one
thinks logistics," he noted. "Go on."

Collins hesitated. Then she pointed at the last known location of the
unknown submarine. "I don't know how much you'll agree with me on this
one, but I'm prepared to analogize this to the Falklands situation. one
submarine-the whole course of the Falklands War was changed by rumors
first of a deployed Argentinean diesel boat, and later by the question
of whether or not there was a British Swiftsure attack submarine in the
area. The mere rumor of the presence of a submarine caused each nation
to alter their tactics accordingly. I suspect we can expect to see the
same thing down here."

"The British killed a helluva lot of whales during the Falklands, as
well as expending almost all of the sonobuoys they had in their
inventory," Renninger noted.

However, it might just be that we're a little bit more capable than our
allies."

Collins's gaze seemed to turn inward. "I wouldn't know about that,
Captain," she murmured. "Some of them are quite competent."

Renninger frowned as he remembered Collins's firsthand experience with
British submarine capabilities.

"You might be right at that. So we have supply problems as well as
submarine problems. Speaking of which, how is our own fuel status?"

"Eighty percent fuel, cruising at economical speeds," she said crisply.

"The thought occurred to me while you were gone that we might have to
make do for a while."

Renninger nodded once again, impressed by how thoroughly she had thought
out their tactical situation.

Maybe he had been mistaken about her-hadn't given her a fair chance.

After all, he'd never really asked her for her account of the events in
the English Channel, just based his judgment of her on what he'd heard
from friends and acquaintances. Maybe it was time he gave her a chance
to explain.

"What do you recommend, XO?"

She studied the JOTS display for a moment before answering. " we do
exactly what we're doing now, Captain," she said. " submarine wanted to
prove a point to us-well, okay, she proved it. But I see no reason to
deviate from our assigned mission. We maintain station down here,
cutting holes in the water at five knots, and wait for something to
happen."

"And hope we're ready for it," Renninger said grimly.

Collins nodded. "We'll be ready, Captain. I'm certain of it.

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA: 1 OCTOBER

THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE, PANAMA Won Su
stepped disdainfully around the puddles that splattered the walkway to
the Presidential Palace. The weather in Panama was one of his chief
complaints about being assigned to this mission, although the potential
career rewards should have made up for the inconvenience. It wasn't the
rain in particular that he objected to-it was the untidy manner in which
it occurred every afternoon, violent thunderstorms appearing suddenly on
the horizon, sweeping quickly through the capital, then dissipating to
leave brilliant azure skies behind again. It was normal weather for this
time of the year in the tropics, but its very predictability offended
his sense of decorum.

And the aftermath. He gazed around with distaste at the daily carnage of
the storm. Leaves littered the cement everywhere, small branches too.

How could they not think ahead? Knowing their weather as they did, the
Panamanians should have designed this walkway with a slight arc to it to
expedite the draining of the water, the restoration of the balance
between man-made structures and nature. At his own estate back in China,
this oversight would never have been permitted. The damage would have
been corrected quickly, efficiently, by a platoon of gardeners kept on
standby for just such an occasion.

Nevertheless, one worked with what one had. In some ways, the Panamanian
weather was a fitting metaphor for the violent maneuverings that passed
for politics in the tropics.

His retinue of assistants and advisors drew in closer around him,
carefully maintaining their prescribed distances. his meandering path up
the walkway put some of them in the middle of puddles was not his
concern-in many ways, what happened to them was simply irrelevant.

He contemplated the metaphor of weather and military power as he made
his stately way towards the building. The delicate power play that had
begun with the twenty-five-year leases on port facilities on either end
of the Panama Canal was now coming to fruition. In the next few days, the
game would have to be played delicately-subtly, at a level the
Panamanians would never be able to either understand or appreciate. He
sighed, regretting already that understanding the full complexity of his
plan would not be part of the Panamanian defeat.

"My friend," President Jorge Aguillar said, stepping forward to greet
the Chinese man. He held out his hand, pulled the Chinese man close in
another of those excessive displays of emotion that Won Su so abhorred.

Yet he tolerated it, as he did so many things here in Panama, for the
sake of his country.

"A momentous day, is it not?" Won Su said in slow, correct Spanish. It
had taken him nearly a decade to completely master the language, so
simple-minded and unfamiliar. The mechanics required to speak Spanish
were another thing he disliked-the flapping lips, rolling tongues,
consonants and vowels missing the subtle meanings that could be conveyed
in Mandarin by a simple change in inflection. The spelling, so
rudimentary and crude.

"It is indeed." Aguillar beamed at him. "A new era of friendship-my
friends, that is what you are first and foremost." He beamed, and threw
an arm across the Chinese man's back. Won Su's advisors drew back
slightly in horror. Aguillar pulled him close. "Come, we will make the
announcement together."

Won Su demurred politely. It was, he insisted, not necessary to provide
such public affirmation of the long and beautiful friendship between
Panama and China.

The world knew of it-those who mattered. And as the game was played in
world politics, it was better to have Panama enjoying this glory alone.

A strong, proud people, one that should never have been subjected to
decades of American domination.

He saw the point, did he not? emphasizing Panama's strength and security
was best done by Panama alone?

Aguillar continued smiling broadly as he gazed fondly at his new friend.

"Of course we understand! But you will certainly be in the official
entourage, will you not?

Perhaps not participating, but yet there as a demonstration of our
friendship."

Won Su hesitated slightly. Aguillar's smile faded, his eyes narrowed. "I
would be honored to have you join us on the platform," he said levelly.

Won Su agreed immediately. Aguillar had just conveyed a message of such
subtlety that he had not thought it possible: that to refuse this honor
would be to insult the Panamanians. He smiled inwardly, delighted at the
small gift this day had brought-evidence that the Panamanians might
prove far cleverer than he had suspected before.

The ceremonial band played loudly, as they always did.

Won Su despaired of ever hearing any indication that the Panamanian
musicians understood that music could be played at different volumes.

When it finally ended, the discordant cacophony of martial music and
sentimental patriotic songs that passed for music in this country, his
head was throbbing.

The four officials, each of increasing importance, that introduced each
other prior to the Panamanian President speaking, simply added to his
discomfort. Finally, Aguillar took the stage. With expansive gestures
and facial expressions bordering on hysteria, he outlined the current
situation in terms his countrymen could understand.

The infamy of the American attack on the unarmed, defenseless Panamanian
airliner. The subsequent demands for righteous reparations by his
government. Overshadowing it all, the tragic loss of a great man, a
great leader-one that Aguillar had been only too willing to assassinate
not a month ago-their beloved President.

After thirty minutes of increasingly emotional rhetoric, Aguillar
finally came to the point. Won Su only hoped that the political analysts
in America had not tuned out fifteen minutes earlier.

"Until reparations are paid, and apologies are made, the great nation of
Panama will not tolerate the use of its most precious natural resource,
a marvel of Panamanian engineering and construction, for the shipment of
goods bound to or from the imperialistic nation of the United States. We
will not tolerate it."

Much cheering, Won Su noted. All the more strange, since nothing that
Aguillar was saying so far was news.

The closure had been announced through diplomatic channels, and carried
extensively by local broadcast media. Still, it did not take much to
arouse the emotions of these people. He sighed, holding his face in a
carefully neutral expression.

"Furthermore, we will enforce this demand with our military might,"

Aguillar thundered. "Let no nation question our determination-challenge
our resolve."

Aguillar turned theatrically to glare at the lone U.S. representative
seated on the stage. Won Su was pleased to note that the other man had
not yet mastered the ability to keep a completely straight face.

But even Won Su himself tensed slightly as Aguillar approached the key
point in the speech. The idea had been planted slowly, the most delicate
of hints sprinkled over the course of several conversations. it had come
to fruition so quickly, so easily, was credit more to the easily swayed
nature of the Panamanian than to Won Su's own doing.

Still, looking at the American representative, Aguillar continued. "It
is America's fault that this situation stands as it is. Accordingly, as
a show of good faith, we request that the American forces now inside our
country be assigned to support and assist in this objective. We also ask
the American flagships voluntarily abstain from requesting entry into
the Canal, thus precluding the necessity for denying those requests."

Aguillar paused to let the full implications of that sink in. Won Su was
delighted to note the look of outraged shock on a number of faces.

MIUW 106

Along with most of her unit, Bailey listened to Aguillar's address in
simultaneous translation over the Voice of America. As he reached the
climax of his tirade, Bailey turned to survey the faces of the other
American soldiers and sailors. She saw the same look of astonished
disbelief on their faces that she felt on her own.

She turned to stare out at the water. Row upon row of merchant ships
queued up waiting for clearance. Her eyes fixed on one ship, noting the
Chinese flag. The Lotus something-she couldn't quite make out the final
word of the name. An oddly configured bright red helo sat on its deck,
the tail rotors longer and more massive than she remembered.

She turned to Sergeant Elwell. More and more, the man was becoming a
mainstay of the MIUW unit operations. "They can't be serious," she said
quietly.

Elwell shook his head. "But they are." He turned slightly to survey the
van, the barricade of deuce-and-a half trucks, and the other gear that
went with the MFUW unit. "And guess who they expect to do most of the
enforcing."

HMS DARLING MOIRA

The Bahamian-flagged dry-cargo ship trudged steadily
through the gentle seas in the approach to the Panama Canal. It was well
inside the massive natural harbor now, and the water was calm, with
long, low swells rising out from the gradually sloping seabed. While
industrial pollution in the vicinity of the Panama Canal was becoming an
increasing problem, as yet the natural currents and eddies up and down
the coast had managed to disperse most of the pollution.

Moira was carrying a cargo of dry wheat transshipped from San Francisco.

Following the announcement of the closure of the Panama Canal to
American traffic, the captain and his crew had worked hastily to alter
their manifest papers. What had once been grain from the heartland of
America was now manifested as wheat on loaded in Victoria, British
Columbia, Canada.

The Bahamian master glanced at the papers and sighed. In places, the
forgery was patently obvious.

However. he was counting on the well-known propensity of Panamanian
customs officials to supplement their income by other means. In other
words, a bribe. It had worked in the past, and he had no doubt that it
would be equally effective this time.

Still, the political turmoil involving the area confused and worried
him. Access to international waterways was one of the fundamental tenets
of freedom of the seas, and Panama's actions boded ill for this passage
as well as for the Suez Canal. But he had no doubt that there would be a
way to conduct business, even under these conditions. There always was.

"Inspection team approaching," his first mate noted.

The Panamanian cutter they'd been told to expect was approaching on the
port bow.

"All stop," the master ordered. He listened to the chatter of orders and
instructions over the handheld walkie-talkie as his crew prepared to
receive the inspection team.

The team made its way quickly to the bridge, and began the formalities
of inspecting the Darling Moira's registration papers. Without comment,
the master handed them his hastily created manifest.

As the senior officer on the team studied them, the master observed the
rest of the team members. He was surprised to note a Chinese civilian
with the rest of them.

The man had not spoken since their arrival on board, but he could well
be a Panamanian. The world got smaller and smaller these days, and
finding someone of Chinese descent on a Panamanian inspection team
should not have surprised him. Still, since the man had not spoken, he
had no way of knowing whether or not he spoke Spanish as a native would.

"We will inspect your cargo," the senior member said finally. He smiled
blandly at the master. "All appears to be in order here, of course."

In order now, the master thought. He'd observed the man take the
registration and cargo manifest to a corner of the bridge, ostensibly to
concentrate on the details there, but in reality to palm the thick
envelope wedged in between two documents. Five thousand dollars-it
appeared to be sufficient. Had it not, he had no doubt that the senior
member would have found some niggling discrepancy, something that
required a private conversation with the master in his cabin.

How and where the money would be dispersed later was of no concern to
the master. The entire amount would be billed back to the ship's owners
and the shipping company as a cost of doing business, either labeled as
a fuel cost or a port charge.

The master accompanied the inspection team down into the bowels of the
ship, and they commenced a brief survey of the cargo contents. Clearly,
this was merely a formality, the more serious business having been taken
care of on the bridge. The grain warranted a cursory examination. Then
the master invited the inspection team to enjoy coffee and doughnuts in
his galley. They all declined, pleading urgent business with the other
ships piling up outside the Canal. As the master watched them depart, he
mulled how little the business of international trade had changed over
the decades. No doubt his predecessors. running the lucrative
tobacco-rum-slavery triangle centuries ago, had had to deal with similar
costs. He was just glad that this particular obstacle had been overcome
so easily.

PANAMANIAN CUTTER

As the team clambered down the access ladder back to
their forty-foot patrol craft, they were silent. Once inside the ship,
the senior member hastily divided the contents of the envelope between
the other officers. It had been tricky, managing to pocket almost half
the fat sheaf of bills himself before having to divide it up, but he'd
managed it.

"So what now?" his second in command said. He waved the bills he'd been
given. "Has she passed inspection?"

The senior member shook his head slowly. He let his fingers curl around
the wad of bills stashed in his pocket. "Sadly, I noted some
discrepancies in the manifest.

Clearly an attempt to conceal his original port." He turned to the
Chinese observer. "The Lotus Glory is next, yes?"

The Chinese man nodded. "And there you will find everything in order.

Absolutely everything," he added with unusual emphasis. He alone from
the team had declined to share in the bribe received from Darling Moira.

"Let's go then." The senior member turned back to the rest of the team.

"We will find everything in order this time."

LOTUS GLORY

"Machinery parts," Lotus Glory's master said. "Onloaded in
Hong Kong, and enroute to Cuba."

The Panamanian nodded vigorously. "Of course, of course," he murmured.

"We have prepared several containers for your inspection," the Chinese
master said. "If you would be so kind to step this way?" He motioned
toward the rear of the ship.

"I hardly think that will be necessary," the Panamanian said firmly.

Sixty feet below the waterline, T'sing Lin edged back on the catwalk,
away from the sleek, deadly cylinder now poised over the well deck. The
metal railing behind him bit hard into his back. He rubbed against it,
focusing on the pain to both distract him from what was happening and
reassure him that he was still alive.

Two engineers popped open the hatch, exposing the crude pilot's seat
positioned in front of rudimentary instruments. T'sing Lin heard Kim
Sung emit a hoarse, strangled sound. A moan, perhaps, or the beginning
of a scream. T'sing touched his classmate on the arm, and felt the flesh
tremble under his fingers.

Would he be courageous when his time came? He and Kim had discussed it
often with joking bravado, each making extravagant claims about their
own bravery and boasting about the damage that they would inflict on
their targets.

But only during the daylight. In the darker hours at night, when their
eventual fates seemed to permeate the stultified air in their quarters,
they'd talked of women, of their families, of anything except this
moment that governed every second of their existence.

The first engineer glanced at Kim Sung and nodded.

T'sing felt Kim suck in a hard breath, then pull quickly away from him.

In one fluid motion, Kim moved forward, vaulted into the torpedo, and
held up his arms to allow the engineers to coil the straps around his
body.

Kim ran through the pre-checks quickly, whistling tunelessly the entire
time. Finally, he looked back at the engineers. "I am ready." These were
the first words Kim had spoken since Lotus Glory's master had announced
his selection as the next pilot. They would be the last as well.

DARLING MOIRA " was easy," the first mate said. "Wouldn't have thought
they'd be so stupid about alterations on manifests. "

The captain was silent. There was no need to share every detail of
commandin a merchant ship with his second, not yet. There were things
he would learn soon enough when he became master of his own vessel, when
his own duties required participating in such schemes.

Better to let him keep the modicum of innocence he now possessed. Not,
the master reflected, that under any circumstances could his first mate
be called innocent. The master had been on odd liberties in too many
strange ports with the man to believe that. Still, the machinations
within a shipping company and the responsibilities of command were
something he would have to learn on his own. He would probably be
eligible for his own ship within the next several years if he kept on
the course he was now going, and the master planned to have a long,
frank conversation with him before he left Darling Moira for his own
vessel.

"Commence the approach on the Canal," the master ordered, forestalling
further conversation. The bridge was fully manned, although an American
military ship would have thought it woefully inadequate. There were two
officers on deck, plus the navigator, as well as the captain.

Darling Moira swung slowly to starboard, lining up for her approach on
the entrance to the Panama Canal.

Access was rigidly controlled by a series of shipping lanes, and extra
vigilance was warranted with the nearby anchorage crowded with foreign
merchant ships waiting to be cleared for transit. Luckily, the weather
was still good, and normal caution and prudence should get them safely
through it.

The master let the first mate handle the approach, as he had many times
before. The ship responded slowly, but the first mate was more than
familiar with her maneuverability characteristics, as the large rudder
angles he ordered at her slow speeds demonstrated. As she completed her
slight course change, Darling Moira ended up exactly in the center of
the approach transit lane. The master nodded, satisfied. The
forty-four-mile stretch of confined waters inside the Canal was normally
a harrowing voyage, as it would be today. He'd lost paint several times
to the old sea walls, as well as garnered a couple of scrapes and dings.

It was to be expected-merely a cost of doing business.

"Five knots," the first mate ordered. Darling Moira slowly picked up
speed and headed for the Canal.

LOTUS GLORY

The two engineers pulled the safety pins on either side of
the deployment mechanism. The torpedo was now firmly cradled in the
metallic frame, held there by its own weight and by the gently curved
supports that curled around its body. The senior engineer nodded to the
other, who activated a small motor at the aft end of the transport
mechanism. Its high-pitched whirring cut through the other noises in the
bottom most compartment of Lotus Glory.

The cradle holding the torpedo crept slowly down the rails, headed for a
structure resembling borne-bay doors located just to the right of the
keel. It took four minutes to complete the fifteen-foot journey.

Finally, when the torpedo was positioned directly over the doors, the
senior technician nodded. The doors swung open, revealing a small. low
compartment just the size of the torpedo. It was half filled with water.

T'sing Lin shivered. Just below, on the other side of the outer doors,
was the sea. Should the lock mechanism fail, the seat spring a leak. or
any one of a hundred possible accidents occur, the sea would come
rushing in without mercy. The only way to preserve the ship would be to
dog down the doors to this compartment and leave the men trapped inside
to a watery grave.

Yet in ten years of operational use, the lockout mechanism had yet to
fail. Stolen from a design built into North Korean Morna AGI merchant
vessels, the design reflected the Chinese philosophy that military force
was not limited to ships of war. Every vessel that floated, every
vehicle that moved on land, could be mobilized for a specific military
purpose.

This design also reflected another trait of Asian thought that would
have chilled the American military even more. Since the days of World
War II, a number of nations had experimented with the idea of kamikaze
pilots as pioneered by the Japanese. In addition to their aircraft, the
Japanese had used manned torpedoes like this one, equipped with
rudimentary sensors capable of seeking out enemy ships when guided by
the man inside it: the niru.

It was truly an honor to be so called to serve one's country. T'sing Lin
had been told that, had believed it when his military commander had
freed him from the dank cell that his minor theft had put him in. It was
a chance to redeem himself, to cleanse away the dishonor that
accompanied the criminal charges pending against him. night, Kim would
be in glory while T'sing Lin tossed and turned restlessly on the hard,
narrow bed in the Lotus Glory.

Kim Sung took a deep breath, stilled his mind, and concentrated his
thoughts. The mission ahead was one that he'd trained for. spending
innumerable hours in simulators and in classrooms studying tactics. The
inside of the torpedo was as familiar to him as the engineering spaces
were to the men who'd just helped him to deploy.

He ran one hand over the sleek inside, giving silent thanks to the men
and women who'd built this remarkable weapon.

For a moment, his mind struggled to break free of the iron discipline
he'd imposed on it. A child's face repeatedly appeared before his eyes,
but he shoved the vision away. A son-his own son, the one that he would
never see again.

His child would be provided for, as would his wi When he became a
national hero, his family would want for nothing. He had only to execute
this final mission as briefed, pilot this vessel to its destination, and
his family's future would be assured more firmly than he ever could have
done himself.

The torpedo lurched as the cradle commenced its final descent into the
compartment. There was a dull clang the doors closing overhead-then the
gurgling murmur of the sea flooding the compartment. A sudden
weightlessness as the cradle retracted, leaving the torpedo floatin
free. He watched the depth gauge, making sure that he was clear of Lotus
Glory before activating the small electric motor aft. The battery-driven
propeller gave forth a reassuring whine as it spun up to speed.

He'd already set the course into the small guidance system. There was
very little to do, except be alert for malfunctions, and to activate the
pinging fire-control sonar as he approached the target. Five
minutes-maybe ten. He tried to clear his mind, to concentrate on the
reassuring sounds he'd heard so often during his training sessions. And
on the mission ahead.

Kim Sung was twenty years old.

NIRU 2

The minutes passed slowly, too slowly. If there was any fault
with the system of kamikaze torpedoes, it was that they relied on the
will of the man piloting them to complete the mission. The Chinese
designers, as their Korean predecessors had, had eliminated at least one
temptation.

The outer access hatch to the torpedo was securely locked-from the
outside.

Eight minutes later, according to his watch, Kim Sung activated the
pinging sonar. It was a low-power, highfrequency sonar set, extremely
accurate but without an extended range.

He heard the reassuring return echo, and made a slight course
correction. Already he could hear the dull sound of the massive
propellers beating the water ahead, driving the gigantic merchant vessel
through the water. The sound radiated in through his thin hull, beating
in time with his heart. He took a deep breath, then slipped the lever
forward that would increase the speed of the torpedo.

Kim Sung had less than ninety seconds to live.

MIUW 106

"Torpedo!" The sonarman's shrill voice echoed inside the
cramped MIUW van. Bailey turned, and was jerked back by the cord that
connected her headset to the console. She untangled it from the console
joystick and got as close as she could to the sonar console.

"Where?" she demanded.

The sonarman pointed at an oddly unstable signature on his screen.

"There-it's not U.S., not Soviet-nothing I've seen before. But look at
that-and here-active sonar pings on passive." He reached up and cranked
the speaker overhead to full volume. Sure enough, she could hear it now.

The light, caressing quivers of sound that were characteristic of a
fire-control sonar. She turned back to Boston. "Tell Jouett-now."

"Captain," the sonarman broke in. "Ma'am, this one isn't headed anywhere
near the Jouett." He pointed at a second set of lines on his display. "
merchant that's the target."

DARLING MOIRA The call came over bridge-to-bridge, and the master picked
up the microphone, slightly irritated at being distracted from the task
of shepherding his massive ship through the anchorage. "Say again?" he
said irritably.

"Ma'am, please slow down-understand you I can't."

He.slipped naturally back into the rhythmic patois of his native
islands. He frowned as she repeated her message. then turned to the
first mate. "A torpedo? Can she be serious?"

The first mate, concentrating on the water ahead, shook his head. "How
could she-they cleared us, did they not? Besides, there's no military
vessel within range." He pointed off toward the horizon. The Panamanian
customs vessel that had visited them earlier was tied up to the side of
a Chinese merchant.

The master shook his head. Whoever the woman was on
bridge-to-bridge-he'd caught her name, and dismissed it as soon as he
heard her message-she had best clear the circuit before any of the
Panamanian officials took notice of her practical joke.

An ominous rumble echoed through the bridge. The master's heart sank.

He'd heard that sound only once before, when he was a very young
merchant marine sailor. It had been on a dry-cargo ship that had gone
aground on an uncharted sandbar. same scraping, sickly squealing had
echoed through that ship then. Now the sound built, reaching
ear-splitting proportions. Darling Moira heeled violently to port,
drawing her crew against the opposite bulkhead. The first mate screamed
once, then fell silent as his head hit a stanchion with a sickening
crunch. The navigator, trapped behind his plotting table, had nowhere to
go. He fetched up against the bulkhead hard, but stayed on his feet and
retained consciousness.

The master felt his feet slip out from under him as the ship rocked, and
hit the deck on his left hip. His right arm was caught under him, and he
felt his forearm give a loud crunch. Pain shot through him, dimming his
vision to a red haze. He was aware of sliding, moving, and finally
stopping against something metal. He shook his head, trying desperately
to clear his vision.

They were aground, they must be. But a sandbar located near the entrance
to the Panama Canal? How could such a thing be? It was simply
impossible, simply The ominous sound he'd heard earlier segued into a
violent, glass-shattering blast. The forward portion of the ship
exploded into flames and smoke. Metal strakes and steel plating were
wrenched into unimaginable shapes by the force of the explosion. The
master, who'd managed to haul himself upright with his one good arm,
stared out in horror and disbelief at the forward portion of his ship.

Where there had once been a clean eight-hundred-foot expanse of
carefully maintained deck, there was now perhaps four hundred feet of
the ship remaining.

Darling Moira nosed down hard, throwing him from the starboard bulkhead
against the forward structure of the bridge. The master heard screaming,
the cries of the injured on the bridge. He hung on with his good hand to
the railing that ran just beneath the windows, and stared out. Something
far more ominous had replaced the smoke and flames billowing from the
forward part of the ship, if that were possible. It seemed merely feet
away, creeping closer every moment. The sea.

MIUW 106

Bailey jerked down on the pullout rungs that ran up the side of the MIUW
van. She clambered up the eleven-foot-tall metal box and stood, face
into the wind, and gazed out at the harbor. The stern of a massive
dry-cargo ship was now exposed, its propeller windmilling idly twenty
feet above the surface of the calm ocean. Around the ship-she squinted,
and could make out the name Darling Moira on the bow-other ships were
belching gouts of black smoke as they prepared to get under way.

A steady stream of tugs was leaving the commercial piers, heading for
their client ships. She groaned as she watched one large tanker turn bow
into the wind and narrowly miss colliding with a RO-RO. With so many
ships in a relatively small area of the ocean, the potential for a
mishap was enormous.

One portion of the dry-cargo ship was still floating, the bow pointed
improbably up toward the sky. She picked up her binoculars and examined
it more closely.

Raw fuel oil, its dry cargo, and debris from the explosion clumped in
untidy masses on the waves. The grain cargo the ship had been carrying,
now saturated with fuel and burning furiously, spread out like a blanket
of fire on the water. She saw a few figures struggling in the water, two
men clinging to a plank just forward of the burning bow, kicking
frantically to clear the area. A tug vectored off toward them, and she
lost sight of them behind it as it stopped to take them on.

She had to do something-anything. Just as she was about to order the
RHIB out once again to search for survivors, already knowing it would be
futile, she saw a flock of Panamanian cutters deploy from the other side
of the harbor. She turned back to stare at the conflagration on the
water, unable to keep her eyes off it. The need to do something was
overwhelming.

Bailey heard footsteps on the hard metal top of the van, and she turned
to see Elwell approaching. Something in the man's appearance steadied
her.

"I set your security alert team," he said. "Something like this-a good
distraction."

She nodded, not taking her eyes off the scene before her. "They'll never
get away. All those crews-I'd be running if I were them too."

"You
wouldn't. You can't. Not now," Elwell said slowly. "Not with what's at
stake."

Bailey looked at him, and her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

He gestured out at the burning ship and the others panicking. "Staying
alive means keeping your head and thinking things through when everyone
else's reacting.

It doesn't make a lot of sense for the Panamanians to do this. The Canal
is their livelihood-take that away, and they're back to running drugs
just like every other country down here. Why would they risk offending a
powerful neighbor to the north, the very people who built the damned
thing for them?" He shook his head thoughtfully. Then he looked at her.

"Do you have any ideas?"

"None that make sense," she answered, absurdly grateful that he'd
refocused her away from the tragedy taking place in front of her.

Elwell nodded slowly. "But you should be in a position to know that."

"What do you mean by that?"

Elwell gazed at her levelly. "You work at NSA."
She sighed. "It won't have been much of a secret, I suppose.

Elwell shook his head. "Not after Germany. So, what do you think is
happening here?"

She thought hard for a moment, then began slowly.

"You're right, it doesn't make any sense for the Panamanians to be
behind this. Sure, there's no lost love between some members of the
government and the United States, but at least sixty-five percent of the
Panamanians opposed returning the Canal to Panamanian control when it
happened. to me says that this is not a country rife with unrest against
the United States." I " agree with what I know about it," Elwell said.

"Go on. "

She almost smiled at the implicit order in his voice.

There was something about the sergeant's demeanor that made him hard not
to obey, even if she was several grades senior. "The shoot-down of the
airbus is suspect as well," she continued. She filled him in on what
Renninger had told her about the data tapes from the ship, concluding
with: "It's not conclusive, of course, but it does make me wonder. Sure,
Jouett shot two missiles there's no question about that. Aside from the
fact that it's damned difficult to doctor the data tapes, there are over
four hundred men and women on that ship who heard it leave the rails."

She shook her head dismissively. "No, there's no doubt about the missile
shot. It's just a question of the circumstances surrounding it, and
whether Collins actually hit it."

"Collins?" Elwell's voice took on a sharp note.

"You know the gentleman in question?"

Bailey laughed harshly. "Very well. And it's not a he, it's a she."

For the first time, she saw Elwell's eyes widen slightly. "The same
Collins as from the Germany affair," he said wonderingly. "Now just
imagine how coincidental that is."

"Everyone at NSA has been trying to convince me it's a coincidence."

Elwell's voice took on a grim note. "They're not Chinese.

Bailey stared hard at him. "Are you suggesting the Chinese engineered
this whole episode?"

Elwell shook his head slowly. "I'm not suggesting anything right now,
Commander. We're just having a friendly talk up here."

"Assuming that they could do it, it might make sense," she said
thoughtfully. "Drive a wedge between the U.S. and Panama, and China's
influence in the region becomes all that more important. They've always
understood about controlling sea lanes, although they haven't had the
power to do it until recently. But back in the earliest days of Sun Tzu,
they knew how important constricted passages were." She looked back at
him, a new light of respect in her eyes. "There just might be something
to this."

He pointed to the burning ship in the harbor. "And maybe not. I think I
know what this is supposed to look like-we're supposed to see an
outraged Panamanian government taking vengeance on the United States for
a horrifying tragedy. All of the elements are in place, all of the
players are in the game. I don't know just how or why, but I'm willing
to bet that there's more to this than meets the eye. Just like there was
in Korea."

Bailey turned back to stare out at the gaggle of merchant ships. Five
more were under way now, trailing streamers of black smoke behind them,
slowly picking up speed and ignoring the marked inchop and outchop
channels. "There's just one question then."

"What's that?"

She pointed at a large RO-RO with the name Lotus Glory emblazoned on its
stern. "If the Chinese are behind it, how come they're leaving too?"

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA: 2 OCTOBER U.S. EMBASSY

Hank Flashert burst into Turner's office without so much as knocking.

The aide looked disheveled, slightly wild-eyed. Without speaking, he
went to the TV in the corner of Turner's office and switched it on to
CNN.

"What are you doing?" Turner's voice was harsh.

"Can't you see I'm working?"

Flashert ignored him. He settled into one of the comfortable chairs in
front of the Ambassador's desk and swiveled around to watch the headline
news.

"I said, what are you-" Turner's voice broke o as he heard the first
words of the broadcast.

"I warned the State Department two days ago," President Aguillar said
solemnly. "Every effort was taken to make sure that there was no loss of
life. I cannot be blamed if the State Department withholds information
from concerned parties."

Flashert swiveled back to look at his boss. "They're already calling."

"The United States has forced me to take the sternest measures
possible." Aguillar shook his head and assumed an expression of deep
regret. "I cannot ensure the safety of any ship in the area until the
United States admits its complete and sole responsibility for the death
of my predecessor and the innocent civilians on board that aircraft.

Until such time as reparations are made, we will take the only avenues
open to us. While endangering civilian lives is completely abhorrent to
this nation, we will target one merchant every day. Without warning.

As our airliner was targeted."

Turner shook his head in dismay. "I don't have a clue as to what
they're-" His voice broke off suddenly. A fragment of a dinner
conversation with Aguillar came to mind. had to be it-but how could he
have known that the little banty rooster was talking about attacks on
unarmed merchant ships? What was he supposed to do, pass on every idle
rumor as fact? Turner shook his head, his heart sinking.

"No," Turner said numbly, "this can't be."

Flashert regarded him sardonically. "I think we're going to need a
better answer than that."

MIUW 106

Elwell followed Bailey down off the top of the van.

They went to the small command tent held in place by the
deuce-and-a-halfs still blocking access to their end of the pier. Bailey
offered Elwell a plastic liter bottle of purified water, and slumped
down in the chair next to her cot. "So what do we do now?"

Elwell took two long slugs from the bottle before answering. "We do
something we should have done a couple of days ago."

"What's that?"

He smiled, an odd expression on his face. "We play tourist."

Thirty minutes later, clad in blue jeans and a civilian Tshirt, Jerusha
Bailey left the pier in company with Billy Elwell, similarly disguised
as a civilian. They walked along the waterway, dodging around towering
stacks of containers awaiting transshipment and around moving gantries
and cranes. A few dockworkers yelled lewd comments at her, but for the
most part the workers ignored them.

"It's been years since I got a good look at the Canal itself," Elwell
said as they walked up a major thoroughfare leading to the piers.

"Should've done that as soon as I got here."

Bailey kept pace with him easily. "Why is that?"

He shrugged. "Just a feeling I get. I like to know the terrain anywhere
I'm assigned. Even if I don't think I'll be needing the knowledge, you
never know when it'll come in handy."
"It's easier at sea," she said reflectively. "All you have to worry
about is sea state."

Elwell wagged one finger at her. "Not entirely. Out here, you've got
solid ground under your feet. At sea, you never know what's below the
surface of the ocean.

Do you?"

She shook her head thoughtfully. "War at sea operates in all three
dimensions. It does on land too, but about the only equivalent you have
to submarines is land mines.That's the worst part of it all-submarines."

She grimaced, remembering her last encounter with the famed German
U-boat ace Karl Meeker.

Billy regarded her thoughtfully. "Think in those terms when you try to
unravel the political realities going on around here," he said finally.

"Me, I'm just a groundpounder." He pointed up at the first lock in a
series that controlled the waterway that was the Panama Canal. "I like
to see it, touch it, taste it. You can't do that with politics."

Two hours later, Bailey had had a closer look at the locks and the
entrance to the Canal. While nothing had immediately struck her as
tactically significant, Elwell was oddly insistent that they take a
close look at all the structures near the entrance.

They descended down the steep hill to the pier. Half Way down, Elwell
put his hand on Bailey's elbow.

Don't look now, but we're being watched."
Bailey continued her pace down the hill and said, "Where?"

"Off to the left. The dockworkers."

Bailey kept moving, and scanned the area around them. As Elwell had
said, a group of burly men clustered under a crane was staring at them.

She kept her eyes moving, didn't linger on them, but felt an uneasy
prickling at the back of her neck. "Do you think they're going to be a
problem?"
"Don't know," Elwell said, his voice casual. "If they are, there's
nothing we can do about it now. Just keep moving-act like you have every
right in the world to be walking down this dock."

Bailey nodded. As they passed the dockworkers, she heard a noise behind
her. Feet on cement, the sound of someone following them. She shot a
glance at Elwell.

"Carefully, carefully," he said. "Just keep walking."

Bailey could see the well-lighted entrance to their pier ahead, perhaps
a half mile distant. She resisted the temptation to look around behind
them. Would the men be armed? It was possible, of course. Guns and
weapons within the civilian population were far from unusual in Panama.

But then again, it wouldn't have been that strange in Los Angeles
either. Or Washington, D.C. The noise behind them increased, changing
from a steady, unruly thump of feet to a clatter.

"Now!" Elwell gave her a shove and started running.

Adrenaline kicked in. In high school, partially because of her size, but
more due to an innate love of exercise, Bailey had been on the track
team. She specialized in the longer runs, and had kept up the practice
by participating in marathons as an adult. Endurance, not speed, was her
forte. Still, she quickly drew abreast of and passed Elwell. While the
man was clearly in shape, he wasn't built for speed.

"Stay away from the light. They can't see us, they can't hit us," he
said, his breathing even and hard. "I don't think they'll follow us
there."

"Come on," she urged.

"Go ahead without me," he said.

"Not a chance." She grabbed him by the elbow and urged him forward.

Together, they quickly outdistanced their pursuers. She heard a chorus
of angry jeers and shouts behind her, but the dreaded crack of a weapon
firing never materialized.

As they passed the iron grating that marked the beginning of the pier
proper, they slowed slightly. Bailey risked a glance back. The six men
were standing just outside the pool of light, jeering and shouting at
them.

Even given her limited knowledge of Spanish, she could tell they were
swearing.

"Let's get back to the camp," Elwell said, slowing to a trot. He glanced
at her. "Now that we're warmed up, we might as well make it an aerobic
event."

She fell into step easily beside him, shortening her stride slightly to
accommodate him. As they approached the camp, she saw sailors carrying
shotguns scampering to security-alert positions. They provided an
additional measure of cover for them as they jogged into the camp.

She pulled up to a stop next to the door of the Operations van. "Two
miles," she said.

Elwell nodded. "You're in pretty good shape for a commander."

She laughed, almost giddy with the adrenaline flooding her system. "Not
bad for an old master sergeant yourself."

Elwell turned and stared back down the pier toward the shore. "Next
time, we go to the track."

USS JOUETT

Commander Renninger was deeply worried. Collins could tell it
not so much from what he said, but how he said it. His normally short
temper was on a hair trigger, and he'd quit eating meals at the mess,
preferring to take his meals alone in his quarters. Dark circles were
already forming around his eyes, as they were with most of the crew.

We still don't know what caused it," Renninger said for the second time.

He stared hard at Collins. "Do we?"

She shook her head. "According to the sonar technicians, it wasn't a
U.S. torpedo. Nor was it Russian.

eliminates about ninety percent of the weapons in the world."

"Well, what about another nationality?"

"Captain, they've been through all the publications. as well as every
acoustic intelligence source we have.

There's nothing on record that matches the acoustic signature of that
torpedo-nothing." She tried to keep her voice calm and professional.

Renninger exploded. "Jesus, what are you trying to tell me? there's some
sort of ghost submarine out there? Which, by the way, we haven't held
contact on in a couple of days.That's who shot that torpedo-you can bet
on it." He slammed his hand down on the surface plot to emphasize his
point. "And with two hundred million dollars worth of warship at our
disposal, including some of the most advanced acoustic processing gear
around, we can't find it. Is that it?"

"Captain, if you think-" Collins began.

"I don't want more questions, XO. I've had it with questions." He
pointed at the large-screen display. A U.S. battle force was still at
least fifty-four hours away from arriving in the area. "I've got the
United States Navy's most advanced destroyer and an undetected
submarine-and ten warships due in the area in a day and a half. Do you
want me to tell the admiral on board that carrier that this area's not
safe for his precious bird farm? I'll have to, you know. Unless I can
come up with a better answer."

"The water isn't safe, Captain," she said firmly.

"And we can't give them answers we don't have. The facts are simply
this-we had a brief detection of a torpedo and then the Bahamian-flagged
merchant ship was hit. No submarine detections, no indications or
warnings-nothing. So, if you're asking for my professional opinion,-yes.

That's exactly what you'll have to tell the admiral."

She met Renninger's furious glare with a calm, level stare.

Finally, her Captain looked away. " answer's not good enough."

"It's the only one we've got."
"Not good enough, I said. I want some more ideas, not just a summary of
what we don't know."

Collins shook her head, frustrated. She understood what her Captain was
asking of her, but she simply had no other data to give him. An idea
suddenly occurred to her. "Captain, perhaps-perhaps there's another
source of information," she said slowly.

Renninger nodded. "I thought something would occur to you eventually.

What is it?"

"The MIUW. And Commander Bailey."

"And just what exactly do they have that we don't have on board Jouett?"

Renninger said, his voice hard and sarcastic. "A crystal ball?"

Collins shook her head. "Something better than that.

They've got connections," Collins said, pressing on despite his obvious
dissatisfaction with her answer. "This could have something to do with
our airbus."

"Your airbus," he corrected. "Whatever else you've done right out here,
you still own that one."

Collins nodded, unsure of how to proceed. Any arguments she made
defending her decision that night would appear self-serving, but the
coincidences were just too great to ignore. "Look at it this
way-something anomalous happened that night with the airbus inbound,"
she said. "And now we've got a new type of torpedo attacking unarmed
merchants. I'm not saying that one explains the other, but there might
be a link. If Commander Bailey could talk to her people at NSA, she
might come up with something. Something that's too classified for either
of us to know anything about. It's worth a shot, at least." She fell
silent and waited for his decision." After a few moments of silence,
Renninger nodded.

"I don't like the idea. I can tell you don't either," he said
unexpectedly. "But I'm out of guesses at this point.

Okay, call up Commander Bailey. See if she's interested in coming out to
Jouett for a little look-see at our data.

We can put her up on some of the secure circuits, make sure that we
download any crypto that she needs to talk to her people. Make it
happen, XO." Renninger turned and stalked off, still clearly frustrated
beyond all endurance.

Make it happen. Well, Captain, I will. And believe me, I don't like this
one bit better than you do. And anything's better than not
knowing-anything.

MIUW 106

Petty Officer Carlisle held onto the guide line attached to the load of
sonobuoys being lowered down to the floating dock. Even in the gentle
swells, the dock was unstable. The serrated surface now was slick with
sea water and moss, the same variety that grew on the massive pier
supports nearby.

Next to the dock, the Special Forces RHIB bobbed uneasily. Ever since
the MIUW boat had been lost, the SEALS had been laying sonobuoys for
them at twelve hour intervals. Now, they were ready to head out for the
first launch of the day.

Four sonobuoys were strapped together in a cargo sling. Forty feet
overhead, two sailors slowly belayed the line around a bollard and
played out the rope. Carlisle's line, attached to the bottom of the
cargo net, was to hold the load off the pier supports and keep them from
smashing into it.

Behind him, the four SEALS were already in their small boat, looking
uncommonly relaxed and eager to get under way. Their attitude bothered
Carlisle, although it wasn't the first time he'd been concerned about
the stability of Special Forces people. In his civilian job at NSA, he'd
worked with them closely on several missions, providing advice and
mission planning to best utilize the sophisticated electronics that were
his specialty.

Carlisle swore as the raft took a sickening launch towards the pier.

Sooner or later, it was going to overturn-of that he was certain. Every
trip down here brought on'a mild case of seasickness after only five
minutes' exposure. He turned to the Special Forces men in the boat. "You
could give me a hand, you know."

One of them snickered. "Not our job, man. You want's to lay these
sonobuoys, you get them down to us.

Otherwise..." The SEAL shrugged, indicating his lack of concern for the
MIUW mission.

The other three men laughed as Carlisle swore again.

The load was swinging in, and had missed the last stanchion by only
inches.

Finally, the sonobuoys hit the steel deck with a dull thud. Carlisle
wrapped his line around one of the dock railings quickly, to prevent
them from sliding off into the water. He knelt down beside them, keeping
his knees wide apart, and checked the channel assignments. While the
sonarmen up above had already preset them in accordance with their
channelization assignments, it never hurt to put a second set of eyes on
it.

Besides, he had another reason for wanting to take a closer look at
these particular sonobuoys. He kept his back to the SEAL team, and
shielded the sonobuoys from view while he unscrewed the top of one of
them.

Inside was a miniature plastic parachute, intended to slow the descent
of the sonobuoy when it was deployed from an aircraft. Plenty of room in
there-just plenty.

He pulled out the small plastic parachute and stuffed it in his pocket.

In its place, he substituted one of his special toys. He screwed the top
back on firmly, then turned back to the SEALS.

"These are ready to go. You have your deployment positions?" he asked.

One of the SEALS held up a handheld GPS receiver.

"Good to within two yards," the SEAL said. "Not that it'll matter
much-in the current, these things will be out of position within a few
minutes of getting' deployed." He shrugged. "I don't see much point in
putting them out, but the commander says go. It's just a good excuse to
get out on the water for a while."

"Well, that's not always fun and games," Carlisle reminded them.

Another of the SEALS snickered at him. "Hell, boy, we're not some sort
of wimps. If there'd been SEALS on that boat, nobody would have had to
pull us half drowned out of the water."

Silently, Carlisle passed the sonobuoys one by one to the SEALS. Each
one was marked with a sequential number, indicating which geographic
position on their list it was to be deployed at. With a final wave of
his hand, the senior SEAL on board gunned the engine and sped away from
the pier. The wake from the powerful sixty-horse outboard motor splashed
back over the dock, soaking Carlisle from the waist down. As the RHIB
quickly disappeared from view, he swore silently at the SEALS.

Better get back up-wouldn't want to miss anything.

Carlisle climbed quickly up the slippery metal rungs to the top of the
pier, then darted for the Operations van.

Still soaked, he let himself into the air-conditioned space and went to
the sonar console. "I'll take the watch for a while," he told the
technician sitting there.

The other man shrugged. "Okay with me-I could use a cup of coffee."

Carlisle slid into the cushioned chair and, after the other sonarman had
left, reset the channel assignments on the console. He put his earphones
on and selected one for audio input-earphones only. With a pleased sigh,
he settled back to listen in on the SEAL mission.

Ninety minutes later, he jerked bolt upright in his chair and stared at
the tape recorder. During the previous hour and a half, he'd learned
several new ditty jokes, a few more expressions for Panamanians that
would not have occurred to him, and the finer points of combat boat
driving. All amusing, all worth listening to-but not why he'd planted
the transmitter in the sonobuoy.

There was no point in listening further. The SEALS had just deployed the
sonobuoy that housed his special device, and he was no longer privy to
the conversations within the RHIB. However, he'd heard enough.

Bailey looked at Carlisle quizzically. "You're certain of this""

Carlisle nodded. "I've got it on tape too," he said smugly. "Just
listen."

The voices were somewhat muffled, but clear enough to make out. Bailey
listened with a detached air through several dirty jokes. Then Carlisle
nodded and said, "Here it comes." -dig AA

"Little fucker is still getting' around," a harsh, scratchy voice said.

"For a sailor, he doesn't do so good in the water. I thought he was
going to puke when he was down on the floating dock," another one said.

"He damn near puked when he came to," the first voice said. "Smart-ass
little shit. "Course they all are over at NSA. Wonder why the boss
wanted to talk to him so bad. Bet he'd have been pissed if I put the
first round through his head."

A chorus of laughter and derisive hoots followed.

"You couldn't," the second voice scoffed.

"Damn straight I could. You've never been through sniper training-what
the hell would you know?"

"Big fucking deal. Even I could hit a rubber boat at that range."

"Then you do it next time. Believe me, I could have put one through his
head as easily as I hit that boat.

Would've saved us a lot of time too-wouldn't have had to fish him out of
the water and take care of him afterwards."

"Stupid thing to do."

"Why go to all the trouble of shooting the boat if you're going to pull
the men out of the water?"

"Yeah, that's what I think too. But you know the boss. He wants
answers."

The voices fell silent for a moment. Bailey raised her head and looked
in horror at Carlisle.

"Next time, no more Mr. Nice Guy," the first voice finished. "Here, this
one's next."

There was a Rebel yell followed by an abrupt cessation of the voices,
and then the burbling, gurgling sound of water rushing over the sonar
transceiver. Carlisle clicked the tape off.

"Call me paranoid, but I think they know about NSA," Carlisle said
finally.

Bailey nodded, unable to give voice to the emotions that were roiling
inside of her.

Was it possible? It seemed indisputable, based on the evidence of the
tape. But why would the SEALS try to sink the MILTW RHIB? What possible
benefit could that provide?

"Don't tell anyone about this," she said, already knowing that the
caution was unnecessary. "We're a long way from NSA-and a long way from
anybody who can get us out of this mess."

Carlisle nodded. "I'm not saying anything. But I'm damned sure not going
out in that boat again-not until all those bastards are facing a
court-martial." His voice was grim and coll. "What are we going to do
about this? NSA's got to know, at least."

Bailey shook her head. "Nothing, right this second. I need to think
about this." And to talk to someone, she realized. Someone whose
suspicious nature exceeded her own, with more experience in the field in
dealing with Special Forces. Clearly she couldn't talk to Commander
Murphy-not after what she'd just heard. There was every
possibility-indeed probability-that the SEAL Commander had ordered the
attack on the MIUW boat.

No wonder the SEALS had been so quick on the scene to pull Carlisle out
of the water, as well as the others.

They'd known that the attack was taking place, since they'd executed it
themselves-they must have been waiting by the waterfront just for that
occasion.

"By the way, who authorized you to plant a bug in the SEAL team's
sonobuoys?" she said.

Carlisle shrugged. "It seemed like a little ingenuity was in order," he
said quietly. "And if this is true confession time, then I guess I'd
better come clean. It's not the first time I've done it."

"You did the same thing to the last batch of sonobuoys?"

He shook his head. "Not then. Remember when you were running back down
the pier with the sergeant?"

She nodded. She remembered that, as they'd approached the camp, she'd
seen the security-alert team mobilizing. They'd been in position before
she'd even started to run. She felt an incredulous smile tug at her
lips. "You didn't."

"I did." Carlisle reached into her pocket and pulled out another of the
small devices. "I slipped this into your pocket as you left. Picked up
your entire conversation with him." He smiled winningly. "It seemed like
a good idea at the time, and it certainly worked out all right in the
end, didn't it?"

Bailey swore quietly. "Carlisle, I swear to God, if you ever-"

He held up one hand, placating her. "Don't worry, I'm down to my last
two bugs. I won't use them without telling you."

"Those are from NSA, aren't they?" she demanded.

"Jesus, you know we're not supposed to-"

"Good thing I did, though, isn't it?" His voice was harder now. He spoke
as her equal, which he was at NSA, rather than a subordinate sailor in
her MIUW command. It was this strange dichotomy of civilian and sailor
that so often threw her for a loop when dealing with Reserves.

Reluctantly, she nodded. "But don't do it again."

What would have happened to Carlisle if Billy Elwell hadn't tracked him
down? A cold chill swept through her as she realized the probable
answer. But why Carlisle? They must have known that he was employed by
NSA. But what else did they want to know from him?

She remembered the needle marks she'd seen on his arms when Billy Elwell
had returned him to camp, the odd, foggy look in his eyes that had
passed after twelve hours. At the time, she had put it down to the
concussion, but now she wasn't so certain.

"Those bastards-they drugged me, didn't they?" Carlisle asked quietly.

His face was white with fury.

She nodded slowly. "Not a word. Not yet." She had Carlisle make a
duplicate copy of the tape. She took one herself, and told him to find a
secure hiding place for ear the other. Ideal spots were limited, given
the circumstances, but she thought the wily sonarman would probably find
a place.

As she left the command tent, Bailey knew only one thing. She had to
find Sergeant Elwell-and fast.

USS JOUETT

Collins scribbled her initials in a corner of the message and
handed it back to the radioman. "Can you get that out right away?"

The radioman nodded. "Be out of here in five minutes. Depending on how
often they pick up their traffic, that's how fast they'll get it."

Collins frowned. "I think they have a shore termination in the van. Is
there any way to check on it'?"

Again, the radioman nodded. "I can call the comm station on OTO," he
said, referring to the informal operator-to-operator circuit that linked
all comm centers.

"Ask a few questions."

"Do it. And let me know."

"Aye, aye, XO." The radioman took off for the ship's communication
center. Collins looked up at the largescreen display again, her eyes
drawn to the battle force heading south. U.S. forces were accustomed to
being invincible in whatever waters they invaded. Even now, as they
proceeded south, the news that a submarine was in the area was not
likely to dissuade them from entering the theater of operations. But as
they got closer, as the potential reality of their being torpedoed
became more and more imminent, she suspected that there might be some
changes in attitude.

"Changes about latitudes and attitudes." The old words of a song popped
into her head. She laid down her pen and stared at the screen until the
symbols started to blur.

We'll see how concerned you are when you get down here, she thought.

Maybe a little bit more than you are now-maybe not. I just hope to God
that Jerusha knows what's going on down here. And that she tells us in
time to keep anyone from being killed.

MIUW 106

The ancient ink-jet printer whined uneasily in a corner of the MIUW van.

It chugged, and started spitting out a message at its remarkable two
-pages-per-minute speed.

Boston glanced back into the communications suite at the noise, and then
shrugged. The shore termination setup was a pain in the ass, but at
least they got their message traffic quickly. He took four steps back to
the other end of the van, and pulled the sheet out of the roller as the
Deskjet spat it out. He skimmed the address line, then whistled softly
as he saw the content. He turned to the watch supervisor. "Better find
Commander Bailey-I think she's going to want to see this."

Bailey had almost exactly the same reaction to the message when he
handed it to her. She whistled softly, then pursed her lips. "Wonder
what it is that Jouett's so hot to talk about," she said. She looked up
from the message and out to the horizon as though she could see the ship
itself. "It's worded oddly too-they 'request the pleasure of my
presence'?"

Boston shrugged. "I don't know, Captain. Maybe they're just finally
admitting that we know a little more about this than they do."

"Or maybe not." Bailey folded the message up and tucked it into her
camouflage pocket. As politely as the message was worded, she didn't
feel obliged to respond immediately. Besides, leaving the camp right
this second didn't sound like a hot idea-not with what she and Carlisle
had just learned about the SEAL team. Until she was certain her own
people were safe, there was no way she was going out to Jouett-no way at
all. If they wanted to talk to her so badly, they could come to her this
time.

It was time for some answers. "Everybody out of the van," Bailey
ordered. She waved Lieutenant Boston off as he started to ask a
question. "Secure call-no listeners."

Boston nodded, his unvoiced question answered. He rounded up the rest of
his watch team and shooed them out of the van. He left last, closing the
steel door behind him. Bailey shot home the security lock, then put in
the pin that would prevent anyone outside from opening it.

She turned to the STU-telephone sitting on the Watch Officer's ledge.

She withdrew a crypto-key for it and inserted it in a special access
panel, turned it, and waited for an LCD screen to beep its
acknowledgment of the secure code she'd entered. She picked it up, got a
dial tone, and dialed an all too familiar number.

Atchinson's voice answered immediately.

"Jim? It's Jerusha. Something strange is going on down here." Briefly,
she outlined the data-point discrepancies in the destroyer's data tapes,
and the conversation she'd overheard on the SEAL RHIB.

Atchinson asked a few questions, then settled for mere grunting as she
made point after point. Finally, she finished.

"What do you think?" she said.

There was a long silence. She started tapping her foot impatiently,
wishing she'd called Terry Intanglio directly. Atchinson couldn't find
his ass with both

"Jerusha?" Atchinson's voice was cautious. "We're only on a Secret
circuit, aren't we?"

"Yes-it will take me some time to round up the key material for a Top
Secret circuit."

"Then, there's nothing I can tell you," Atchinson said with finality.

"Get the Top Secret crypto and keep us informed. And watch yourself down
there-sounds like you could get your ass shot off real easy."

Bailey hung up the phone, more frustrated than relieved. It was easy for
him to say, sitting safe and secure in an office building in another
country. Sure, there were U.S. forces enroute to their location, but
what good would that do her now, isolated on the end of the pier with
only SEALS for protection? As she undogged the heavy door and let the
watch team back inside, she -considered her options. There weren't many
options-and they were getting fewer by the minute.

A Top Secret circuit. She pulled the message out of her pocket and
scribbled down a response for Boston to transmit to Jouett: "Not
today-maybe tomorrow."

There were simply too many loose ends to nail down before she could
comfortably leave the camp, even with Sergeant Elwell around. But it
looked like Jouett was going to have the pleasure of her company after
all.

Eventually.

USS JOUETT

After morning quarters, Collins began her first walk through. of the
day. In her years at sea, she had learned that there was no substitute
for first-hand observation.

Every day she toured the ship completely several times, visiting
virtually every compartment on the ship. It not only gave her a chance
to observe first-hand the materiel and personnel condition of every
department, but also served as an excellent example for her younger
officers.

As she had learned from her own days as a Division Officer, you learned
by watching-not by telling.

She started forward to the missile magazines. All the way forward on the
ship and down two ladders, the space was protected by massive watertight
doors and a security lock. Access to the missile compartments was
limited.

She paused in the passageway outside, listening to the sounds of
machinery, blowers and fans, and pumps. The background noise was so much
a part of her everyday life that she had to concentrate to hear it, but
it was the best indicator that everything was well. While she might not
notice the noise itself, any change in the frequency of a component of
it would bring half of the crew bolt upright out of a dead sleep.

The sounds she heard, however, were not normal. And not
machinery-related either.

Loud voices reached her through the steel doors, strident and angry. She
waited for a moment, and when they showed no signs of abating, punched
in the security code and shoved open the hatch.

As she stepped over the threshold, she saw a crowd of weapons
technicians and gunner's mates gathered around in a circle. One looked
up, saw her, and stepped guiltily back from the circle. She shoved her
way through the crowd of sailors to the center.

On the deck, Weapons Technician Third Class Avery Harmon was sitting
astride Seaman Jim Smith. He had one hand clamped firmly around Smith's
neck and the other arm cocked back, ready to deliver a punch. From the
condition of Smith's nose, it was evident that an earlier blow had
connected.

"What's going on?" she said sharply. Not that it needed an answer-it was
all too clear.

Hannon looked up at her, dropped his hand, and bolted to his feet. Smith
rose more slowly, his eyes filled with tears from the blow to his nose.

"Nothing, XO," Harmon stammered. His eyes were riveted to the deck.

"Right." She let the silence stretch out uncomfortably, then turned to
Smith. "Get up to Medical." She pointed at another sailor. "You go with
him. I think his nose is broken."

Smith nodded, and turned to go. He paused for a moment, then turned back
to the crew. Without warning, his right foot lashed out and caught
Hannon in the groin.

The senior weapons technician sank, howling, to the deck. Two first
class petty officers stepped in and grabbed both of Smith's arms,
staying well back behind him and out of range of his feet.

Collins advanced on him, shoving her own face just inches away from his.

"Let him go."

"But XO-"

"Let him go, I said." The other sailors released his arms, keeping their
hands up ready to grab him again should he make any movement towards
her.

She studied Smith for a moment. "Tough guy, huh?

You feel better now?"

Smith nodded sullenly. "He had it coming, XO." One hand strayed up to
gingerly touch his battered nose. The sailor winced. "He started it."

"And you started it again after it was over," she shot back. "You two
better make up, because you're going to be spending a lot of time
together. Standing in line for Captain's Mast. Qn restriction. -Extra
duty. You're going to be asshole buddies before I'm through with you."

She turned back to the rest of the crowd. "And what are you doing,
letting this go on down here'?"

The leading petty officer of the Weapons Division stepped forward. "It
just started, XO."

"Over what?" She glanced around at the ring of men.

They were all staring at the deck, studiously not meeting her eyes. She
snorted in disgust. "You find the chief.

Have him see me in my compartment immediately. I want some answers, and
it doesn't look like I'm going to get them from you people." She fixed
the petty officer with a steely glare. "One more incident and you join
your two buddies here at Captain's Mast. You're the senior man here-I
expect some good order and discipline. real clear?"

He nodded, and had the decency to look abashed.

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

She turned back to Smith. "Now if you're through with these little
temper tantrums, I suggest you let your buddy take you to Medical.

Unless there's someone else you want to take a shot at?"

Smith started to shake his head, and then winced.

"No, XO." His voice was distorted now by his rapidly swelling nose.

"Good." She gestured to the two men on either side of him. "Get him to
Doc."

As she left the compartment, she heard the petty officer behind her
break into a tirade against the rest of them. She considered standing
out in the passageway to listen to it, but then rejected the idea. The
Chief would hunt her down soon enough and let her know what had actually
happened. But for now, she had the rest of the ship to tour.

The Chief Weapons Technician caught up with her while she was in aft
steering examining the auxiliary steering gear. He walked briskly up to
her, met her eyes, and said, "XO, do you have a moment?"

She nodded. "Where's your Division Officer?"

The chief hesitated, looking somewhat abashed. "I haven't talked to the
lieutenant yet."

"Good reason not to?"

He nodded. "I think so. I'd like to know if you agree with me."

She gestured to two coils of heavy manila line. They were used for
additional mooring when rough weather was expected. "Have a seat."

They took seats on the heavy coils facing each other, and she said, "I
want the real story. Not what you think I want to hear."

He nodded again. "That's why I came straight to you." He hesitated,
looking oddly ill at ease.

"What is it?"

"There's no good way to put this. The fight started over you."

She was taken aback by that, but kept her face neutral and calm. "Go
on."
"Harman said you screwed up and shot down that airbus. Smith took
exception to it and belted him one.

He got in a shot to the gut, then Harman nailed him in the nose. That's
when you walked in."

She studied him for a moment, wishing that there was some way she could
have appreciated what Smith had done, but knowing that good order and
discipline within the crew was far more important than her own
professional reputation.

"I see," she said finally.

The chief shrugged. "Opinions are divided on the whole thing, XO. The
guys take it personally-those are their missiles, you know." He smiled
slightly. "Pride in the job and all. They feel like the rest of the ship
blames them some for the whole problem."

Now that baffled her. "They didn't order the missile shot. "

"No, but they are their missiles. You see how it goes. The chief
hesitated a moment, clearly with something else on his mind. "Permission
to speak freely?"

"You're in trouble if you don't, Chief."

He nodded. "I hoped that's how you felt. Part of the problem is the
Captain. This whole thing has hit the ship hard. He needs to get on the
I MC, put it all in perspective for them. Explain what happened, show
them why we did it. Give them a reason to believe that we didn't just
kill three hundred and fifty civilians because of a screw up."

Collins's gut clenched into a hard knot. "Maybe I did," she said softly,
almost to herself. "I'm not sure what-"

It was the chief's turn to interrupt. "Get a grip, XO," he said firmly.

"You don't have the luxury of feeling sorry for yourself, not in your
position."

She looked up to see cold professionalism shining out of his face. "You
know what happened," she said. "I blew it-plain and simple, I blew it."

The chief shook his head. "I don't think so. Regardless of what
anybody else says, if they'd been TAO right then, they'd have done the
same thing. You didn't have any choice, not with what you knew at the
time."

Collins stood abruptly. "It was a civilian airliner," she said harshly.

"I killed three hundred and fifty passengers plus a flight crew of
eight. number includes the President of a country that now seems to view
this entire gulf as their own personal shooting gallery. Do you want to
explain to me why that's not a screw up?"

The chief stood up as well, taller than she was by almost six inches. He
put one hand on her shoulder. "It was the right decision at the time.

Get that in your head, XO, and start believing it. Because if you don't,
you're going to cause this ship even more problems. And have a talk with
the Captain-he's got to talk to the crew got to. They have to see you
and the Captain as a solid, unified team. You have to believe, because
it's your duty to make them believe."

LOTUS GLORY

T'sing Lin woke slowly, the boundary between waking and
sleeping becoming increasingly indistinct these days. The muted hammer
of the ship's diesel engines and the creaks and groans as she made her
way through the ocean were constants in both his waking life and his
dreams. At least while he was asleep he could dream of fresh air,
sunlight, and the broad open fields of his home province.

But while sleep gave him respite from the confines of the ship, it did
nothing about the prospects of the mission he would be going on shortly.
vision haunted him continually, invading both waking hours and his
dreams with increasingly violent and terrifying visions.

He opened his eyes, then squinted against the bright glare in the
compartment. The other men who occupied this small stateroom were
already awake, moving about the cramped quarters with slow, methodical
movements.

The one empty bunk, the one Kim had occupied, was stripped bare.

T'sing Lin groaned and slowly shoved himself up into a sitting position,
careful not to bump his head on the bunk overhead. He moved his legs out
to hang over the edge of the bed. They dangled into space over the bunk
below him. The bunks were too close together, even for a small man such
as himself.

But they were all small, weren't they? Their physical dimensions had
been one of the prerequisites for entry into the niru program.

None of the others spoke to him as he shoved himself out of the bed,
landing heavily on the steel deck. A sullen glare from one, a sigh of
disgust from another.

Ever since his outburst last night, he'd become a pariah among the
group.

He had actually started it. Older than most of the other pilots, and far
more pragmatic than most, he'd quietly moved his bedding from an upper
bunk to a now vacant lower one. Shu Tin had objected, claiming it
defiled Kim's memory. Sides had been chosen quickly, and T'sing had
become the focal point for disagreement when he'd pointed out how very
little it all mattered. In a matter of days, they'd all be dead anyway.

He might have survived that comment, even thou-h it had indicated his
political unreliability, had he not gone on to commit the ultimate
sin-questioning the niru program itself. Haunted by nightmares of the
eventual mission, he'd burst into tears and sobbed over the life he
would never have here on Earth.

The others had been stunned-then angry. T'sing had given voice to the
fear that each of them felt, and it was unforgivable.

A pariah-how could he have anticipated that? Were they all as devout and
holy as they pretended'? Or was it merely an act, a way to cope with the
sheer horror of the Heavenly Wind program? He'd considered the matter at
length, finally decided that since they were all human, they must all
have the same reaction, and shared some of his doubts with them,
believing that he would draw strength from their reassurances. had not
been the case. One by one, they'd withdrawn, voiced their disgust at his
cowardice, and shut him off from the brotherhood. Now, alone and scared,
he was left with only his inner strength and faith to cope with the
mission ahead.

The uncertainty added to his anxiety. There was no schedule-none knew
who would be chosen next. Rumor had it that their assignments would be
decided by lot by the master, but none of them had been able to verify
that. Not that they'd tried. For the other men, the assurance of instant
translation into the heavens seemed to be enough.

He felt the weight of his own failings increase as he contemplated his
family's disgrace were they to learn of his cowardice. It was not enough
that he be strapped into the torpedo, guided to its final destination.

He must do so with the right attitude, the proper frame of holiness. If
they found out-he groaned, barely aware that he'd done so. One of the
other men glanced at him.

"Ten o'clock-in the dining room." His voice was harsh. None of them had
spoken a pleasant word to him since that night. Even more than the loss
of any reassurance, he missed the daily interaction with other human
beings.

T'sing Lin was alone and scared on the massive Chinese cargo ship.

He was eighteen years old, and doubted he would ever see nineteen.

USSJOUETT

"The morning briefing will commence at 0900 in the wardroom."

The IMC announcement was piped to all compartments in the ship
specifically to reach her, Collins knew. The Officer of the Deck was
well aware that she was on her morning rounds at the moment.

Collins swore quietly and headed for the ladder that led out of the
crew's compartment. She was usually done with rounds by this time, and
would have had time to grab a cup of coffee in the wardroom before the
brief commenced. The problems with Weapons Division, however, had slowed
her down today.

She yanked open the door to the wardroom and stepped in just as the
Captain arrived. Their eyes met across the compartment and he gestured
roughly to her.

"Nice of you to join us, XO."

She nodded, and resisted the urge to explain the delay.

It would do no good, and would simply weaken her position with both the
Captain and the rest of the wardroom. Silently, she slipped into her
chair next to the Captain and accepted a cup of coffee from the wardroom
cook.

"Commercial air flights commence again today, with assurances by the
Chinese government that all commercial travel lanes will be closely
monitored by a coalition of Central and South American military aviation
forces," Lieutenant Williams began. He pointedly avoided looking at
Collins. "Five neighboring countries are contributing fighter forces to
fly escort missions on Commair. The schedules are posted in Combat, but
be aware that there may be some unexpected deviations from it." This
time, he did look at her. She seethed, her temperature threatening to
spiral out of control, when the Captain nodded gravely in agreement.

"Our problem will be IFF codes," Renninger said.

"Any word on whether the Panamanians are going to share them with us or
not?"

Lieutenant Williams shook his head. "Not so far. makes the tracking
problem doubly tough. Add to that little mix the issue of our own F14's.

Mexico is denying us overflight rights, as are all the coalition forces.

We have to rely on F- 14's off of Eisenhower. She's currently still one
thousand miles north of us and approaching at flank speed."

The Captain shook his head again. "I had a

"Personal For' message from
Southcom I need to share with you all," he said. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it, glanced
at it, and said, "The gist of it is that the U.S. is sucking up to
Panama again. In order to convince them of our good intentions, the
remainder of the Southcom detachment will be leaving the country on a
commercial air flight.

It's actually a specially chartered flight, and will have nothing but
our people on it, but that fact hasn't been advertised. Good old
American Airlines to the rescue again."

"That's the reason for Eisenhower's F-14's?" Collins asked.

The Captain nodded. "Of course they won't be flying over Panamanian
airspace, but they will be intercepting for escort as soon as it leaves
territorial airspace. Now that should be fun-five countries with F-14s
in the air in the same restricted airspace." He shook his head as though
contemplating the possibilities for disaster.

"If there's any intention of retaliation," Collins said slowly, "the
Southcom flight sounds like a prime possibility. We'll need to keep an
eye out for that."
"Agreed," Renninger said crisply. "Make sure all your watch-standers are
briefed thoroughly and that we have radio commsat all times with
Eisenhower. It's going to be easy to get confused, people-be aggressive
on identifying and tracking the friendliest A leaden silence settled
over the room. Collins could feel the flush creeping up her neck,
branding her with a flaming fury of embarrassment. She looked down at
the deck, not sure whether to be grateful that nobody had voiced the
unspoken-keep the XO from shooting down the friendlies.

GULF OF PANAMA: 4 OCTOBER PRIDE OF KURSK

The Ukrainian RO-RO steamed uncertainly in circles fifteen miles off the
Panamanian coast. Her orders from her superiors in Ukraine had been
mixed-make expeditious time back to Ukraine, but do not endanger the
ship. For the Ukrainian master, accustomed to the more clear-cut orders
of the Soviet regime, the situation was fraught with danger. If he
attempted the Panama Canal and damaged the ship, his career would be
over. Likewise, to steam south on the longer transit around the Cape of
Good Hope would add at least a month to his journey. Knowing that his
cargo contained critical machinery and computer parts from Japan that
were badly needed in Ukraine, a late arrival might well mean no arrival
at all.

He paced the bridge, unable to decide. His family had been sea captains
for generations, tracing their bond with the seas back to medieval
times. Under a wide range of political climates, including a brief
period of Ukrainian independence, his family had built ships, sailed
ships', designed ships, and made their living on the Crimean Peninsula
as part of the historic sea trade routes that ran from fertile Ukraine
to the rest of the world. Since the days of the Peloponnesian Wars, his
ancestors had faced exactly this sort of decision-speed and danger
versus safety and cargo spoilage. While today that might mean something
different from a load of wheat rotting in the cargo bay, it was
nonetheless critical.

Finally, he reached a decision. Intermixed with the purely Ukrainian
ancestors was a strain of Tatar blood, the legacy of a Cossack raid on
his small village centuries before. It made him bolder than some of his
compatriots, slightly more bloodthirsty and inclined to take risks.

Now, frustrated with delays and determined to get his cargo home, it
rose to the forefront.

"Make preparations for entering the Canal," he ordered, suddenly calm
now that the decision had been reached. A peculiar sense of fatalism
overtook him. Perhaps nothing would happen on the transit into the
Canal-nothing at all.

LOTUS GLORY

The men assembled in the small eating compartment, the
others clustering at one end of the compartment, leaving him alone at
his own table. Their leader took note of the fact as he walked in. Noted
it and dismissed it.

"Fei," he said. one word, nothing more. The man he'd named grinned
broadly, basking in the congratulations of his compadres. It was a call
to glory, a chance to exercise the skills that had been honed in the
murky waters off of China for so many months. It was his ticket to the
heavens, his anointing for a divine mission that would take him that day
to glory.

T'sing I.in rose and walked across the compartment to offer him
congratulations as well. Fei, the chosen one, looked up at him, disdain
in his eyes, and then his expression softened.

"You will have your chance," he said softly. "Face it as you should-for
the glory of China."

The raucous celebration escalated.

T'sing Lin tried to join in. He feigned the eagerness and envy that was
expected, the absolute surety of divine anointing that the mission
called for. Perhaps if he pretended long enough, hard enough, he would
begin to feel the fervor that he saw in the others' faces, know the
certainty that they all seemed to feet. He smiled, prayed, and hoped.

He followed the others down to the bowels of the ship, through the
innumerable close-spaced passageways and narrow, steep shipboard
ladders. The others were cheering, singing a victory song as they went,
shouting to other members of the crew. Lin saw the faint shadow of pity
in other men's faces as they tried to greet the kamikazes politely, saw
mirrored in their faces his own doubts. It made him work all the harder
to be a part of his group, to escape the no-man's-land in which he was
trapped between crew and warrior.

Finally, they reached the torpedo deployment bay.

The master had called ahead, and all was ready. Fei was still riding
high on the tide of adulation. He reached for his harness eagerly,
strapping on the oxygen mask and other accoutrements of their trade. His
compadres helped him prepare, each expressing his envy that Fei had
earned this honor, vowing to pray harder and more devoutly in order that
they might be chosen next. Lin continued to emulate their ebullience.

At the last moment, as Fei stepped down to the torpedo bay, he
hesitated. He looked back up at the other five, an odd expression on his
face. The others not chosen were still cheering him on. Lin, standing
slightly to the back, met Fei's eyes. Lin smiled, gave another rousing
cheer.

Fei nodded, now frowning. He looked into the torpedo, then back at his
mates. Lin thought he saw Fei's I.da hand start to tremble. When Fei
looked back, he ignored his cheering friends and focused on Lin.

Something passed between them, some arcane recognition. T'sing Lin felt
the fear penetrate deep into his gut, coiling and knottin,@ around his
intestines like a snake. He could see it in Fei's face too, the
realization of what he was about to do.

There was no way to back out, not without losing face. , they'd both
been taught since the earliest age, was the most fatal of errors. To
live without honor, to have one's fellows know that one had been afraid,
had shirked from a duty-that life would not be worth living at all.

Fei had a wife, Lin remembered suddenly. A wife and a son. Did that make
a difference for him? Was it their faces that he saw now as he poised at
the edge of the torpedo? Fei made a movement as though to force himself
down into the torpedo. The cheering around him diminished slightly, then
trailed off into a puzzled silence.

"You must go," the master said firmly. He placed his hands on Fei's
shoulders and forced him down to the torpedo. "Just as you have
practiced-victory will be ours today. And tonight, you will feast with
the gods in heaven."

His voice appeared to calm Fei. With a nod, with tears now filling his
eyes and with his hands plainly trembling, Fei lowered himself slowly
into the seat. He looked back up, his face a mask of anguish, a pleading
expression on his face. For a moment, T'sing thought that he would beg,
ask not to be put into the dark water in this metal shroud, beg for his
life.

Before he had a chance, the mechanics had bolted down the steel hatch of
the torpedo. The cheering resumed, no longer contradicted by the look on
Fei's face, by his hesitation. The tractor mechanism lowered the torpedo
into the bay, and T'sing saw the oily water crowd up around it, covering
half of it. Inside, he imagined, the temperature of the torpedo would
drop as the water cooled it. Fei would be feeling the slight effects of
the water, be running through the checklist inside.

T'sing prayed for his friend, wishing him courage now that his fate had
been decided.

Finally, the engineering mate shot home the bolt that held the torpedo's
cover in place. It scraped across the metal, harsh and clanging,
reminding T'sing that there would be no backing down from this mission
once in Side. One part of his mind calculated coldly-if you must back
out, it must be before the bolt goes home.

Afterwards, there is no choice, no escape.

The cradling mechanism withdrew, leaving the torpedo alone in the bay.

As the well dock hatch slid over the bay, concealing the torpedo, T'sing
thought he heard a thin, high wail begin. Before he could be certain,
the hatch clanged shut, a dull metallic sound, and sealed off the
torpedo.

They heard as much as felt the rush of water into the bay, the opening
of the doors that led into the sea, and the final deployment of the
torpedo. T'sing imagined himself trapped inside the metal cylinder, his
world lit only by the green phosphorescence of the instruments.

There was a brief, high-pitched squeal as the torpedo's propeller kicked
in. It quickly faded away to nothing.

The master looked around the group of men, now still flushed with their
earlier cheering. His eyes focused on T'sing, and a faint frown crossed
his face. "Wine," he ordered. "To toast the bravery of Fei. And to each
of you, when your turn comes." His eyes were still fixed on T'sing.

T'sing nodded and followed them back to the mess, where tiny thimblefuls
of the wine were dispensed. He toasted to Fei, to the men who had gone
before, and to his own eventual chance at glory. As he drank the warm,
alcoholic liquid, he was ashamed to note that he hoped his turn would
not come soon.

USS JOUETT

"Captain, the Southcom flight should be launching about now,"
Collins said. "If I might be excused, I'll be in Combat."

Renninger drained the last of his coffee. "I'll go with you."

"Why? To make sure I won't shoot them down? The question insinuated
itself into her mind, an ugly and painful thought. Would it be this way
the rest of her career-assuming she even had one-constantly looking for
the small signs of distrust from her superiors? And doubting herself at
the same time?

The tinny blat of the IMC cut through the silence.

"Captain to Combat-Captain to Combat."

The room emptied at record speed. The faster, younger officers hung back
a moment, allowing the Captain a head start. Collins was hot on his
heels as they sped up the ladder and toward Combat.

As the Captain entered Combat, he said, "What is it?"

Lieutenant Williams looked uneasy. "Unidentified sonar contact again,
Captain. It's the same signature as last time."

"A torpedo?" Collins broke in.

Williams ignored her.

"Answer the XO's question, TAO," Renninger snapped. "You've got to know
I've got the same one."

"Yes, Captain, a torpedo. At least, Sonar thinks it is.

That's the only thing that would match up with that acoustic signature."

"Are they holding on active?" Collins asked.

Williams shook his head. "Not yet. The range is too long. Passive only."

"Any idea where it came from?" Collins asked.

"Get back there, XO," Renninger said. "You understand more about ASW
than any of us. I want you in Sonar right now. TAO, where are
Eisenhower's fighters?"

"Just off the coast, Captain." Williams flicked the cursor on the screen
to the north, and positioned it atop the two friendly aircraft symbols.

"Southcom transport launched four minutes ago, A little earlier than
they were supposed to, but-"

"And you didn't think to notify the Captain? Or me?" Collins snapped.

"Sonar, XO," Renninger said firmly. "I'll handle this."

Collins moved quickly, wending her way between the consoles and stepping
over a power cord strung across the floor. She pushed into the Sonar
compartment and took in the situation at a glance.

"Ma'am," the leading sonarman said, "it's the same contact-not headed
for us this time, though."

"Where did it come from?" she demanded. "It can't just materialize out
of thin air."

The sonarman shook his head and pointed at the acoustic display. "It
doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The only thing- in the area is that merchant ship, see?"

He pointed at a series of closely spaced discrete lines on the printout.

"She left the entrance of the Canal along with the rest of them
yesterday, and has been steaming about at bare steerage way."

"Anything unusual about her movements?"

The sonarman nodded. "Here." He pointed at a section of the printout.

"You can see where she slowed down past steerage way. Hell, she stopped
dead in the water right there."

"How long after that before the torpedo appeared?"

She knew from the look on his face that he'd already put the pieces of
this particular puzzle together. "You see where I'm going, don't you?"

He shook his head, distracted, staring at the active sonar screen.

"About ten minutes. Too long for a normal torpedo shot-hell, XO, you
don't think they have torpedo tubes on that merchant ship, do you?"

"Maybe, maybe not. We should have been told about it if they do. "

Bailey would know. Would she have told us? Collins shook her head,
wondering. Bailey hadn't spoken up about the weapons systems they'd run
across in the English Channel. She'd simply given the orders necessary
to keep the ship safe without explaining in any more detail.

But she had kept it safe, hadn't she? What if she hadn't been on board
Ramage? Would she have let the ship sail into harm's way without telling
them about the string of mines crisscrossing the English harbor? No,
that didn't sound like the Jerusha Bailey Collins knew.

And under the current circumstances, if Bailey knew something about this
Chinese merchant, Collins was willing to bet Jerusha would tell them.

"Look at it," the sonarman said, breaking into her thoughts. "Jesus,
look!"

The contact displayed on the screen was now cycling up past forty-five
knots and showed no signs of slowing.

Its phosphorescent lozenge on the active sonar screen tracked
relentlessly across the round scope towards another contact. She pointed
at it. "Who is it?"
"Ukrainian tanker," the sonarman said promptly.

"We've been holding her for-"

Collins darted out of Sonar and into Combat. "Captain-we need to talk to
that Ukrainian tanker," she said rapidly, her words spilling over each
other. "Whatever that is, it's headed directly for it. Bridge-to-bridge
maybe-let's try channel sixteen."

The Captain held up one hand. "How do you know?

It could be a speedboat, couldn't it?"

Collins stared at him, aghast. "No, it couldn't," she said, her voice
firm. "We've seen the signature before with Darling Moira. This is a
torpedo, or some sort of underwater weapon." She shook her head, not
believing that she was having to argue this point with Renninger.

"We call them now-give them a little fighting chance."

Renninger seemed to consider, the moments taking years to pass. Finally,
he reached for the bridge-to bridge microphone. "If anybody speaks
English," he said doubtfully. He took a deep breath and began the
callup.

PRIDE OF KURSK The bridge-to-bridge circuit was a continuous babble of
foreign voices, accented English, and profanities. The master of Pride
of Kursk had turned it down to a low volume, not wanting to disturb his
concentration as he commenced his approach on the entrance to the Panama
Canal. The babble was a background noise. He caught one word: "Kursk."

He turned away from the windows that ringed the bridge and frowned.

"What did they say?" he demanded in Ukrainian.

His second officer shrugged. "It was in English, I think. "

"I heard"Kursk,' " the master insisted. He looked around the bridge, his
eyes finally lighting on the navigator. "How much English do you have?"
he asked.

The navigator shrugged. "A little. I thought I heard

"Kursk,' too. But I could have been mistaken."

The master swore quietly. Finally, he reached for the bridge-to-bridge
microphone and picked it up. In heavily accented English, he said, "Ship
calls, this is Kursk. No much English." He paused, struggling to recall
the few words that had been drummed into him in the international
sailing license classes he'd taken. "Say again," he said finally.

An answer came immediately, in a loud voice stringing together long
words. The master stared at the speaker, frustrated and helpless,
handicapped by his lack of English. He turned to his second mate. "Pass
the word-find our translator," he ordered. "It is probably nothing, but
we will make certain."

An uneasy doubt began to gnaw at the pit of his stomach. He shoved it
away, his Tatar blood now boiling Why should they be expected to
understand English at every port? It was the port and other ships that
should keep translators on board, not Pride of Kursk.

Kursk's translator was down in the galley enjoying his third cup of
coffee of the morning. He heard the announcement over the IMC and
sighed. With the Canal closed, he thought he would have some time
off-more time to spend in the card game going on down in Engineering. It
figured, though. As soon as he'd gotten comfortable, that damned Captain
would want something from him.

He took one last swallow of the coffee, then carried it over to the tiny
galley. He turned on the water, rinsed it out, and placed it in the
metal dish drain bolted to the side of the sink.

NIRU I Fei fought desperately to recover that sense of victory and
exaltation he'd felt on board Lotus Glory. He could still see the faces
of his friends, shining and triumphant, cheering him as he climbed into
the torpedo. It had been at that moment, as his foot first touched the
metal deck of his weapon, that he'd felt the first plunge of fear. It
was as though a camera lens had suddenly gone out of focus. All at once,
he saw not the glory, the pride, the victory, but only the cold black
water that waited for him. The cheers had no longer seemed a wonderful,
exuberant thing. There'd been a darker note behind them, one of death
and darkness. Time had seemed to slow down, the pitch of the voices to
drop. The world around him had seemed strangely out of kilter, as though
it no longer made sense.

He'd started to withdraw, to refuse to enter the torpedo. but momentum
and pride had carried him forward.

With his friends watching, the men he'd trained with for so many months,
he could not appear a coward. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was
convinced that there would be a way out, that this was not the end. As
the technician had strapped him into the torpedo, carefully fastening
the restraining straps just out of his reach, he'd still felt some of
that certainty, that the torpedo would hit the other ship, miraculously
break apart, and catapult him to safety inside his target. the torpedo
would malfunction, float to the surface, and the Lotus Glory would
retrieve him. something would happen, 'something somehow that would keep
him from that last, final awful inevitability.

He'd lost control as the metal hatch clanged shut.

With the last trace of outside light shut out and the compartment filled
with the eerie glow of his instruments, reality had finally broken
through the indoctrination and training that he'd been through.

This was the end, this was death. There were no glorious angels
appearing to escort him on this last mission, no feeling of divine
selfdedication and sacrifice. Instead, there was only gut wrenching
fear, so strong and overpowering that he'd lost control of his bladder
as the torpedo was deployed.

Now, the small compartment was filled with the stink of urine and fear.

In the end, what choice had he had? He was dying, one way or the other.

He'd watched the others deploy, and knew that the torpedo would be his
sarcophagus.

There was no way out, not even if the torpedo malfunctioned and floated
to the surface. Which it wouldn't.

As soon as it lost power, it would sink like a rock to the bottom of the
ocean. In the end, that was the vision that kept him going. He had two
choices-the first to die trapped and powerless on the bottom of the
ocean, slowly suffocating in the stink of urine as his air expired.

The second was just barely more palatable-to execute his mission, die as
he was intended to do. In the end, he chose quick death over slow
suffocation.

The course laid in guided him towards the target, and the rocket's
buzzer notified him that he was within range. Numbly, he flicked on the
sonar, heard the ghastly, taunting high-pitched shrill of the sonar. The
target was where it should be-it had not attempted to evade. He made a
minor course correction and bore down on it.

As the seconds clicked slowly by, with his hands frozen to the yoke, he
could not help but wonder how it would end. Would he feel the impact?

See the sleek nose of the torpedo crumple, peel back as the warhead
detonated? Would there be a flash of light, a noise, heat, and fire as
the warhead exploded?

Or would the initial shock kill him? He hoped so, and that it would be
quick. Of all the nightmarish possibilities that came to mind, the
specter of seawater flooding the damaged torpedo, creeping up his chest,
to his chin, and finally over his mouth, nose, and head, was the most
terrifying. He would hold his breath, he knew, struggling against it.

Hold his breath until either unconsciousness or survival reflex forced
him to breathe in. He would die strapped into the chair, salt water
flooding his lungs, conscious in the last moments as he died slowly from
lack of oxygen. Four minutes, perhaps-maybe longer.

He was crying now, tears coursing unnoticed over his cheeks, dripping
off his chin, soaking into the coverall he wore. The high-pitched pings
of the sonar interactive returns got closer and closer together,
accelerating until they out paced his own frantic heartbeats. He felt
his body try to keep up with it, try to keep his heart beating in tempo
with it, but it was just too fast.

Soon now-he heard screaming, wondered vaguely where it came from.

Suddenly he was cold, so very cold.

The screaming and the sonar pings merged into one continuous blast of
sound. In the end, he experienced a flash of gratitude. There was a
bright flash of an explosion, and he knew that his consciousness was
fading. He had one microsecond to realize that he'd hit the target
before the exploding warhead shredded his body into a thin gruel.

USS JOUETT

Renninger dropped the bridge-to-bridge microphone and reached
for the ]MC. "Attention all hands," he said, his voice now high and
urgent. "If anyone speaks Russian or Ukrainian, lay to Combat ASAP.

That's Russian or Ukrainian-we need you here now!" He replaced the
microphone in its bracket and turned to face Collins.

"It's too late," she said quietly.

"The Tomcats. Call them now," Renninger said. He turned to look at the
large-screen display. Five hundred miles away, the air escort for the
Southcom flight was just departing the Eisetzhowei-, "They're not due-"

Williams began.

"You heard the Captain," Collins snapped. "Call them now."

Renninger stared at Collins, his face a mask of horrified understanding.

Neither of them spoke as they listened to Williams contact the carrier
and explain what had just occurred.

"It's all related, isn't it?" Renninger said finally. "I didn't
think-XO, it's-"

"Later, maybe we'll know. For now, we have a commercial flight to
protect." The corner of her mouth twitched ever so slightly in a
conscious effort to put aside the moment she knew must eventually come.

"I'll try not to shoot it down."

PRIDE OF KURSK

The translator felt the torpedo hit the ship before the
master, but only by a few seconds. The impact traveled rapidly through
the steel frame of the ship, rattling strakes and structural beams as it
flashed upward and outward from the lower parts of the ship.

The first sound was a low, ominous thud that the translator barely
noticed as he placed his now-clean coffee cup in the rack. He had just
shut the door when the warhead detonated.

Kursk heeled violently to starboard. The translator catapulted against
the galley and slammed into the refrigerator. He was conscious, but just
barely. He slid down the door of the refrigerator, leaving a trail of
blood from a head wound on it, and crumpled down to the deck.

Dimly, he was aware of. damage-control alarms ringing, the pounding of
feet down the passageways. The deck beneath his cheek was smooth and
cool, but oddly unstable. He felt centrifugal force shove him hard
against the bulkhead, looked up, and saw the deck tilted at a crazy
angle.

While all of the heavy equipment was bolted into place, the restraining
racks and straps were insufficient to hold all of the kitchen
accoutrements in place. Knives and ladles swung free of their hooks and
clattered towards him with sharp points. He tried to cry out, and
managed a weak, stifled scream that was not audible above the smashinof
glass and cutlery. Debris piled up on him rapidly, poking him with the
odd sharp edges that had once been dishware.

With a panic born of desperation, he scrabbled up the deck, clawing as
it tilted ever steeper. He reached the hatch to the galley and yanked it
open, then crawled into the passageway into the dining area. The deck
was now canted at a thirty-degree angle, making walking upright all but
impossible. He stayed on his hands and knees as he crossed it and headed
for the ladder to the weather decks.

Four decks above, the bridge crew and navigation team fared only
slightly better. While they were not trapped below the waterline, the
impact had come suddenly and without warning.

The master's instincts were better honed than those of the translator.

At the first hitch of the deck beneath his feet, he'd grabbed for the
overhead stability bar. Now he hung from it by both hands, his feet
barely resting on the slick linoleum beneath him.

His second mate lay on the deck on the port side, his leg crumpled under
him at an odd angle. He'd fought to keep his balance as the deck
careened wildly, had almost succeeded. But gravity had overcome him,
flung him hard against the port bulkhead. The captain had heard the
nalicclator's head hit the plotting table with a dull, sickening crunch.

He now lay curled around the radar repeater as though trying to protect
the base, blood streaming from his head and pooling only momentarily
before running in thin rivulets down towards the second mate.

As the captain hung there, waited for a chance to move, he heard the
damage-control klaxon sound.

Good-someone belowdecks, perhaps in Engineering, had managed to activate
it. At least the noise would wake the off-duty crew, who could assist in
the damage control efforts.

Stupid thought, that. The explosion would have thrown them out of their
bunks, injuring many of them seriously. While restraining straps were
provided in the racks during foul-weather operations, there had been no
need of them in the gentle waters of Panama Bay.

Pride of Kursk rocked back violently in the opposite direction just
briefly, then settled back into a hard port list. The captain glanced at
the inclinometer mounted on the bulkhead and noted that the angle of
list was now forty degrees. Deadly instability-in that moment, the
captain knew that his ship's wound was fatal. Even if the damage could
be fought, and stability restored, too much machinery would have broken
free of its welded mounts on the deck. Even the diesel engines-he
shuddered, remembering that they were rated only for thirty-five degrees
of list, an amount of motion that would be unheard of on the ship in
normal conditions.

Abandon ship-they would have to. In the face of the danger, something
inside him still protested at the thought of leaving his ship, the one
he'd been entrusted with by his people. He howled, knowing there was no
other answer. Pride of Kursk might remain floating for a while longer,
but in the end either fire or flooding would take her to the bottom of
the ocean.

He moved hand-over-hand, still supporting his weight on the iron bar,
towards the ship's general announcing system. It was almost within
reach. Finally, he lunged at it, loosening his hold to one hand on the
bar. Suspended like a monkey from it, he held the announcing microphone
in his hand. " This is the captain," he began, amazed that his voice
still sounded the same. "Abandon ship-I say again, abandon ship."

TWO HUNDRED MILES NORTH OF THE GULF OF PANAMA: 4 OCTOBER TOMCAT 301

The pilot stared in amazement at his radio as the chatter of tactical
data filled him in on what had happened to the merchant ship. He keyed
the mike and spoke to his wingman, now located two thousand yards on the
other side of the ungainly airliner they were escorting. "Combat
spread."

"Roger." Even as he answered, his wingman peeled off and went into a
screaming climb, gaining altitude rapidly. The pilot followed him up,
putting his own Tomcat in a damned near vertical climb as he headed for
the high slot in the traditional fighting formation of the United States
Navy.

"What the hell was all that about?" the pilot asked his backseater.

"Shit, this was a pucker-factor mission to begin with-now they've got
torpedoes in the water?

We're next, my friend. You keep an eye glued to that scope."

"You've got it." The RIO's voice was firm. "Now how about shutting up
and flying this thing while I do my job."

The commercial airliner carrying the Southcom detachment was cruising at
an altitude of 31,000 feet. The two F-14's were now over it, matching
its 550 knots of speed. The lead aircraft took position slightly aft, at
37,000 feet. His wingman was below and forward, a mere two thousand feet
above the airliner. If anything came at them, they'd see it first. The
look-down-takedown capabilities of the AWG-9 radar on the Tomcat were
exceptional.

"Just get us out of here," the pilot muttered. He craned his head around
and looked at his backseater, whose face was glued to the radarscope.

"How much longer on this course?"

"Another twenty minutes, then we turn north."

The pilot swore softly. Of all things that made the problem for the
enemy easier, it was maintaining speed and altitude.

USS JOUETT

"Fighters in combat spread," the operations specialist said.

"Comm air flight tracking due west-range from Panama coast, thirty
nautical miles."

"Not far enough," Collins said. She could feel her heartbeat picking up
the pace, the sweat starting to prickle under her arms and down her
back. She ran one hand through her hair, swept bangs away from her eyes,
and stared at the large-screen display. "Come on, hurry up, you little
bastards," she muttered. "Get the hell out of range. "

"Worried about something, XO?" Garland Williams spoke softly, pitching
his voice so that Renninger would not hear him.

She turned to find him staring at her, and watched his lips move,
although his voice was audible only in her headset. She glanced around
the room, knowing that every other operator with a headset on would hear
the exchange. She pulled the mike away from her lips and covered it with
her hand. "Just watch the screen, mister," she snapped. "If that's a
problem for you, just let me know and I'll get someone up to relieve
you."

Williams shook his head. She saw his lips moving, but could not hear
him. She slipped her headset back on' ,-won't be necessary, XO. I'm just
fine, thank you." The alarm on the SLQ-32 EW warning set chimed its
soft, persistent tone. The electronic-warfare technicians Who manned it
moved more quickly than she'd ever seen them react before.

"Threat targeting radar, unidentified source," one said immediately. A
symbol popped into being on the large-screen display. "No
classification, but parameters are consistent with fire-control
radar-airborne."

Collins stared in horror at the track. It was located immediately off
the coast of Panama, on a course that put it on a dead intercept with
the commercial airliner and the two F-14's. "Where did it come from?"
"I've got it too now, XO," the air tracker said over the net. "Estimate
intercept on commercial airliner in four mikes. Recommend we take with
missiles."

"Weapons, a solution," she said. She watched as the symbol changed shape
and color, indicating the computer had calculated a fire-control
solution and had assigned a missile to the target. Even burdened with
missile-warning labels, the symbol continued its inexorable track across
her screen. She picked up the mike for the tactical circuit.

"Tomcat 301, this is Jouett. We hold traffic behind you, inbound your
location in approximately"-She glanced at the clock-"four mikes. Mach
Two and accelerating. Indications of a fire-control radar. Do you copy?"

"Jouett, copy all. We're sending the friendly diving to the deck while
we sort this out."

Collins watched as the commercial airliner descended rapidly, now
approaching 25,000 feet. The Tomcat's tactic was clear-he would skim the
airliner along the ocean, hoping that the missile would fail to lock on
in the sea clutter and distraction of the. waves while he and his
wingman tried to counter it. She saw the high aircraft swing around 180
degrees, now nose-on to the incoming missile. The massive AWG-9 radar
would surely give them a better targeting solution than the Aegis would,
particularly at that range.

"Jouett, what the hell are you doing?" The Tomcat pilot's voice was
angry.

"Say again your last, Tomcat 301," Collins said, puzzled. "Have you got
contact on it?"

"There's not a damned thing here!"

Collins sucked in a hard breath. "We're holding contact. You've got to-"

"If it were here, I'd see it, Jouett," the pilot insisted.

"You'd better come up with some good evidence to the contrary, or I'm
putting my commercial air flight back on flight path."

Collins studied the screen. According to the Aegis data, the target
symbol with missile characteristics was rapidly approaching the lead
Tomcat. "Does your wingman hold anything?"

"Don't you think he'd see it on Link by now if he did?" Renninger's
voice broke in. He stepped into Combat and moved to her side. "What the
hell's going on?"

"Tomcat 301, clear the area. Descend immediately to five thousand feet
at current speed and maintain escort on commercial airliner," she
ordered.

Renninger grabbed the mike from her hands. "Belay my last," he ordered
firmly. He glared at Collins as he spoke. "Tomcat flight, resume mission
as briefed."

As he replaced the mike in its bracket, he turned to her. "What the hell
are you doing?"

She shook her head. "It was inbound on the Tomcats, Captain. The
commercial air flight-"

Renninger cut her off. "There was nothing there. Not a possibility in
the world there was a missile in the air so close to the Tomcats and
they didn't hold contact on it. Between you and that damned Tomcat
pilot, I don't know who's more likely to cause another blue-on-blue
engagement-you or him."

The atmosphere in Combat seemed deathly still. Collins stared at the
large-screen display, trying to understand how it could happen. The
Aegis radar was remarkable for its ability to distinguish targets, with
a resolution so fine that there was hardly any target that could slip
past the invisible net it cast into the skies. Yet twice in the last
three days it had shown her ghosts, targets that weren't there. The
first time she'd fired. The second time-she shuddered, realizing what
she'd almost done. She'd been caught up in the moment, convinced that a
missile was inbound on the Tomcats flying within her umbrella of
protection, and been determined not to let it happen again.

IIXO, you're relieved. Leave Combat immediately."

Renninger's voice was cold.

Collins nodded dumbly. She turned and left without comment, and headed
for her stateroom.

How could it all have gone wrong so quickly? And why was the Captain so
convinced that the hostile missile had actually been a ghost? It wasn't
a chance she would have been willing to take-hadn't taken, not until
he'd countermanded her orders. She seethed for a moment, the fact of her
public humiliation now sinking in.

A colder feeling crept in slowly to replace the anger.

What if she had shot? Downed one of the Tomcats, or even the commercial
Southcom jet? She shivered. At least one thing had gone down in flames
in the last thirty minutes-her hopes of ever having a career in the
Navy.

Forty minutes later, the Southcom transport was safely out over the open
sea.

PANAMA: 5 OCTOBER MIUW 106

Carlisle slept exhausted on the sleeping bag spread out over his rack.

The air inside the tent was stifling even with the seaward flap rolled
in to admit the breezes. His head was pounding and he still felt
nauseous. White the unit corpsman had assured him that he would recover
from the concussion with no long-term affects, at the moment he felt
decidedly less than his best.

The injection spot over the crook of his elbow still throbbed. What had
they shot him up with? He sighed, contemplating the lengthy debriefing
process he'd go through when he returned to NSA. His memory of most of
his stay with the SEALS was a blur of drug-and concussion-induced haze
that defied his best efforts to penetrate.

He took off his uniform jacket and stretched out in his T-shirt on the
rack. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying once again to concentrate.

USS )OUETT Collins walked through Combat and stopped in the middle of
the room. After the debacle with the Southcom transport the day before,
she'd almost expected Renninger to bar her from Combat. There'd been
that fleeting moment of hope when Renninger had appeared to be convinced
that both the sonar contacts and the air contacts were related. Then the
Tomcat's report of no contact had destroyed that. Once again, he'd
appeared to be convinced that his XO's trigger finger was the problem.

She surveyed the row of green-lit consoles, the backs of the technicians
seated in front of them, the odd mixture of green scope light and red
overhead lights that protected their night vision. As always, the room
was dominated by the reflection from the large-screen display in the
forward part of the compartment. She turned to it for a moment, trying
to decide what had caught her attention.

There was nothing specific she could pinpoint, but something seemed off,
odd, out of place, and strangely off-kilter. It took her a moment, but
finally she placed it. It wasn't Combat-it was her.

Before, being in Combat had always brought with it an oddly soothing
sensation that she stood at the center of the universe, that simply by
watching the scopes, displays, and large-screen displays she had an
accurate picture of everything going on in the world around her.

Combat created a sense of invulnerability, of all knowing omniscience,
as the destroyer's powerful sensors probed the environment, surface,
air, and subsurface, around it. Nothing was hidden, at least not for
long.

Every pinpoint of data was correlated, analyzed, and marked for display.

There were no secrets in the world around them, not for the Aegis
destroyer.

The airbus shoot-down and the incident from her last watch had destroyed
that feeling. Never again would she feel completely safe in Combat,
lulled into security by the massive amounts of data that flashed on the
screen and across her console. Now she knew-that the world could hide
secrets from the Aegis, that they too were vulnerable.

How could the world have changed so radically without her noticing
before? Three hundred or more civilians dead, the threat of a
fratricide-there was something wrong with the system-there had to be.

She left the compartment and made her way back to the Data Systems
Division office. The chief was sitting at his desk, working his way
steadily through a pile of paperwork.

"Help you, XO?" he asked.

She nodded. "I need to talk raw data and processing algorithms. You got
a minute?"

"Always for you." He shoved a chair towards her.

"Want coffee?"

She shook her head. "Thanks anyway. I'm afraid my nerves are spun up
enough as is."

"I wouldn't be surprised." The chief's face was impassive.

"The data tapes-I know we keep track of everything that happens. Where
exactly do they tap into the system?"

The chief relaxed slightly. "Way before the data gets to your console.

It's raw stuff, pre-correlation."

"Can you play it back?"

He nodded. "But the raw data tracks won't be of too much use. You've
seen the console in Tracker Alleyit looks like snow falling, almost. So
many targets, most of them just dual detections off the same piece of
metal." He shook his head and frowned. "Not much use for tactics-there's
so much data, it has to be smoothed and correlated before you make any
decisions."

"But could you play it back if you needed to?" she pressed.

"If we needed to. If I can ask, ma'am-why? You think it might shed some
light on the last two incidents?"

"Maybe." She was aware of his eyes studying her of an odd gentleness in
them. "Maybe not. But I wasn'; the only one who saw the contact data go
hostile the first time, and I wasn't the only one who saw it the second
time. I think there's a problem-no, not with your system," she added as
she saw the defensive look start to come over his face. "I'm not
implying that. But there is something wrong-there's no way the Aegis
system should make that kind of mistake."

"The Aegis isn't infallible, XO.That's why we put people in the loop."

"And neither are people. They operate off what they know, what they see
from the screen. I know myself I've rarely had reason to doubt the data
I saw on the scope in front of me. It's always been right-always."

"But not this time?"

"But not this time."

He studied her for a moment, then nodded once. "We can play it back," he
said. "See if there's anything that looks odd in the pre-correlated raw
data. I'm not sure it will do us much good."

She stood, shoving the chair back away from her.

"How long will it take to set up?" . "Which night do you want? Last
night, or the one before?" She thought about it for a moment, then said,
"Last night, I think. I don't want to touch the data tapes for the
incident, not when ..." She let her voice trail off.

The chief nodded once. "Understood, and I agree with you." He stood as
well, and walked to the door.

"Give me about an hour or so, XO. Where will you be?"

"In my stateroom. If not, have the OOD page me No," she said, thinking
better of it, "I'm not sure I want the whole ship to know what I'm
doing. I'll find you in about an hour, okay?"
"Aye, aye, ma'am." He hesitated, then continued. "I hope we find
something, XO. I sure do."

She nodded. "Me too, Chief. For more reasons than one.

Next, she went up to SESS, the Signal Exploitation unit, located within
the superstructure. In addition to the normal ESM capabilities, the
destroyer also possessed an extended-range
signal-detection-and-evaluation sensor that monitored many
electromagnetic signals that were outside of the normal range. While she
wasn't certain what she was looking for, it seemed like another place to
start.

"I understand what you're looking for," the cryptological technician in
charge of the equipment said. "Believe me, we've got both incidents
marked on all of our printouts." He rummaged through a pile of papers on
his desk and extracted the relevant sheet. "The only thing I can tell
you is that there was a fair amount of sunspot activity during that
time," He pointed at two peaks on the graph. "But none of them coincide
with the time of . the Aegis system problems. If there were problems,"
he added hastily.

"Sunspots? Tell me about them," Collins demanded.

"Well, I'm assuming you know what sunspots are, XO." He glanced up and
saw her nod of confirmation.

"They radio broad-spectrum noise-here and here too are the peaks."

She studied the fanfold graph spread out on the desk in front of them.

"Would it interfere with the radar?"

"No doubt about it. But not in the way you're looking for. It produces
broad-spectrum noise, not a discrete ghos@ contact.That's just not how
it works."

"So we know that there was sunspot activity, but we also know it had
nothing to do with the performance of the radar.

"More importantly, we know it had nothing to do with the
track-processing logarithm within the Aegis system itself," the
technician said relentlessly. "Yes, the radar's going to notice some
additional noise. But it's not coherent-it's not going to generate a
false contact.

Nor can it affect the Aegis system itself-remember, these ships were
built specifically to withstand an electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear
weapon. While the sunspot puts out a lot of energy, we're shielded
against it."

"I see." She thanked him and left.

The odd data point on the printout, the occurrence of sunspots-more and
more, it seemed that she was chasing a lost cause. There was only one
real reason for the two incidents-or the one incident and the almost
incident. She'd shot first and asked questions later-too late.

Her last stop was the Captain's cabin. She knocked once, waited to hear
his grunt granting admission, then pushed the door open. He was seated
at his worktable, a pile of message traffic before him.

"Captain, I've found out a few things." She summarized her research
activities, including the fact that the chief was rigging the data tape
for replay. "I doubt that it will find anything, but I'd like to take a
look at it."

He leaned back in his chair, staring at her. "You're really fixated on
this, aren't you?"

"With all due respect, I think I've got a right to be interested in
this. It's my ass on the line at the Board of Inquiry."

"Mine and yours both. Remember, it's my ship-regardless of how much it
may seem yours as Executive Officer. I am solely and completely
responsible for everything that occurs." His face looked worn and tired,
she noted, as though the weight of what had happened was finally
starting to eat at him. She felt a flash of regret at the damage she had
-done not only to her career, but to his as well. She had never seen him
look quite so human before.

"I'm sorry, Captain," she said finally. "For all of it.

You've been a good Captain-you deserve a better Executive Officer." She
rose and started for the door.

"Wait a minute," he said. She turned. He was studying her carefully.

"Sunspots, you said." She nodded. "The cryptotech said it couldn't have
made any difference."

"Still." He appeared to be considering something, and finally arrived at
a decision. " expert you wanted to talk to-Commander Bailey, was it?"

"Yes, Captain. She's still ashore with the MIUW. Her message said it
might take her a few days before she could get out here. She might have
some ideas on all this."

"Fine. Hell, get hold of her on tactical if you can maybe she can spare
some time for us now."

She nodded, vaguely surprised that he'd finally agreed. "Thank you,
sir."

He grunted again. "Don't thank me yet-let's see what this lady knows. Or
just as importantly, who she knows."

PANAMA: 5 OCTOBER MIUW 106

Lieutenant Boston ripped the paper out of the printer and handed it to
her. "Another request from Jouett."

She scanned the message quickly, and shrugged.

"They can ask all they want, but I'm a little bit busy here." She
crumpled it up into a ball and lobbed it into the classified trash bag.

"Captain," the communications specialist said. "Call for you on secure
phone."

She crossed the van in a few steps and picked up the receiver.

"Commander Bailey."

"Jerusha, this is Terry."

Even through the distortion that always accompanied a secure voice call,
she recognized his voice. "Yes, sir."

She glanced down at the LCD display on the secure phone. Yes, both sides
had their crypto-keys engaged. and the call was secure. "To what do I
owe the honor'?"

"By now you should have gotten the request from Jouett for you to go out
there," Intan-lio began. "I, Just want to-"

She took a step back from the telephone set, still clutching the
receiver. "Oh, no. No, no, no." She shook her head reflexively, even
though she knew Terry could not see the gesture. "No. I'm on active duty
right now.

I do not-do not-leave my unit under less than optimum circumstances just
because my civilian boss thinks it's a good idea. I'm sorry, Terry, but
you understand the conflict of interest you're placing me in."

She shook her head, marveling at the intricate entanglements that
existed between the various government agencies. At the very senior
levels, formal governmental boundaries meant little. Yet down on her
level, she was expected to know, recognize, and understand the potential
conflicts of interest that arose from being employed as a civilian at
NSA and being on active duty with the United States Navy. As carefully
as she'd thought she'd had it worked out, at least one of the entities
involved had decided it didn't want to play by the rules.

"Jerusha, I'm not asking you to run off on your own accord," Intanglio
argued. "God knows you can't abandon those people-not with what's going
on in Panama right now. All I'm talking about is a quick day trip out to
Jouett. Take a look at the data, see what occurs to YOU."

"By now they've already shipped those data tapes back to Southcom," she
argued. "The airbus, you mean, right?"

"It happened again." There was a chilling note of finality in
Intanglio's voice. "There's something strange going on out there, and we
need an expert eye to take a look at it. Before something else fatal
happens. There are other factors at play as well-other sensors. National
assets. I can't go into details on this line."
"But why me?" Bailey said, aware that her voice was spiraling up the
octaves. "I'm not an expert in electronic warfare or in data tapes. You
should know that. You want somebody like-oh." The light finally came on
"It's not really me you're after-it's Carlisle, isn't it?"

"Now, Jerusha-"

"And I'm just going out to run interference for him.

That's it, isn't it?"

And just maybe that's why the SEALS wanted to talk to him as well, she
thought. Just what the hell does Pete know-and what did he tell them?

There was a long silence, followed by the distorted crackle of a sigh.

"I told Atchinsoii it wouldn't work."

"You're damned right it won't. Carlisle's in the same spot I am. We're
on active duty, dammit. You can't just go poking around in every aspect
of our lives."

"What did you expect when you came to work for NSA?" The chill in his
voice stopped her cold. Had she really been so naive as to think that
the National Security Agency, the most secret and powerful of all the
intelligence-collection agencies in the United States, would be put off
by a mere set of orders issued by the United States Navy recalling her
to active duty? Or that they'd understand her duty to the Navy, that
she'd be forced into choices they couldn't foresee?

No. What NSA wanted, NSA took. All she could do now was delay matters a
bit, figure out some way to keep her unit safe while the intricate power
plays at pay grades way above hers took place. "I can't do this on a
simple voice request," she said. "And I'm not about to do it based on
message traffic from Jouett. I'm left hanging out to dry if anything
(goes wrong."

"Understood." Intanglio's voice was back to normal.

Evidently this was an area of high-level politics he understood-covering
one's ass. "Before the day's out, you'll see record traffic from the
Navy requesting that you and Carlisle conduct an assistance visit on
board USS Jouett. good enough?"

"It'll have to be. How much do you know about what happened to him
anyway?" She waited for a moment as the silence grew longer. "Terry?"
"We know enough," he said finally. "That's another reason I want him
with you at all times. Until we know exactly what was done to him, and
how, we don't know how much was compromised. Keep an eye on him,
Jerusha. We want him back in one piece."

As she hung up the phone, Bailey turned back to look at the rest of the
watch team. No one appeared to be paying any attention to her. All eyes
were glued to consoles, heads and ears covered with headsets. She turned
the secure crypto-key in the STU-3 secure phone and pulled it free,
slipping it into her breast pocket. She went to find Carlisle. And
Elwell.

She found Elwell first. As she walked toward him, she would have sworn
that he had not seen her. He appeared deep in conversation with the
bosun's mate, and was explaining some of the finer points of rigging the
netting posts to hold the net out at different angles. However, as she
came within fifteen feet of them, the Sergeant stood and turned towards
her. He nodded and said, "Commander, forgive me if I'm appearing
discourteous.

However, if you haven't already done so, I would suggest that you tell
your troops lay off the salutes while we're in this area." He motioned
with his head back towards the hills behind them. "No point in telling
them who the boss is."

She nodded. "Good idea. Any other pointers while you're, at it?"

"Now that you mention it." He pointed at her bright collar devices. "If
you didn't bring the subdued camouflage version, then I suggest you
dispense with them entirely. And all other insignia of an officer. It
may be too late-they've probably got you pegged by now. But there's no
point in making the job any easier for them than it has to be."

"You sound pretty certain that snipers are watching us."

"Wouldn't you be?"
She thought about it for a moment, then said, "Maybe. I take it as a
compliment that you think I would be. But we're sailors, Sergeant-we've
got some experience in land operations, but not nearly as much as you
do. And that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about."

They walked away from the camouflage netting and towards a supply
locker. When she was sure they were safely out of earshot of the rest of
the unit, she explained Jouett's request for an assistance visit.

"It comes at a bad time," she said. "I'm not at all comfortable leaving
the unit under these circumstances.,, "You shouldn't be."

"I know. At this point, I've got two choices-go along with this, or tell
the higher-ups that they're putting my entire unit in danger. If I take
the second choice, I may be missing the forest for the trees. Whatever
is causing that problem with Jouett is bound to have some bearing on our
situation." She shrugged, already knowing which choice she would be
forced to take. "I've got some good people. Sergeant, but they're out of
their league here. Can I count on you?"

The sergeant didn't answer for a moment. He looked around the compound,
studied a couple of seemingly insignificant knots holding the camouflage
netting in place, then turned back to her. "Of course you can,
Commander. Since the rest of Southcom bugged out, I've got sole say in
what my duties require. Who are you leaving in charge while you're
gone?"

"Lieutenant Boston. He's a good man-he and I see eye-to-eye on most
things."

The sergeant looked slightly doubtful.

"He is just a lieutenant. though," she said. "Probably the same sort of
situation you find yourself in with junior captains in the Army. Don't
worry, though. He's got a thorough grounding in the facts of life, and
I'll make sure he understands he's to rely on you. I don't expect any
problems with that. None at all."
"Like you said, there's some things you expect from captains-and some
things you don't. I'm sure Lieutenant Boston and I will get along just
fine."

She nodded, relieved that at least Elwell would be on hand in camp to
keep an eye on things. Nothing could beat his years of experience in
ground warfare. Although she suspected that she would never know the
true depth of his skill in the deadly arts, she was glad to have him
there-and on her side.

"For starters," he said, "you have to figure out what your strengths and
weaknesses are in any position. Then you turn your weaknesses into your
strengths, and use them both against the enemy."

She smiled. "The gospel according to Master Sergeant Elwell?"

He shook his head. "No. Chinese guy by the name of Sun Tzu. You said you
heard of him."

"I have." She studied him for a moment, noting the lines crinkling the
corners of his eyes, the ironic twist to his mouth. "I guess I shouldn't
be surprised that you have too."

"Surprise is a good thing," he said neutrally.

"More Sun Tzu?"

He nodded. "Now, in your situation here, you've got a couple of
problems. First, the terrain. Those hills look down on you, giving
anyone a good visibility on your site.That's not what you like in a good
camp."

"And how do we turn that into a strength?"

"Well, a couple of ways. Remember this-tracer fire works both ways. If
they can see you, you can see them.

You've got a helluva lot more area to search, but if they're there, you
can see them."

"So I need more lookouts."

He nodded. "The other thing is, you can start interfering with their
visibility.That's what I was telling the bosun's mate there," he said,
pointing at the sailor busily rerigging the camouflage netting. "You've
got this all lined up to prevent a view from ground level into the
campsite, but what you need is a way to obstruct a higher-up view. It's
mostly a matter of changing locations, putting a couple of extenders on
the poles-it won't be a lot, but it'll help some. Second, you need some
contingency plans."

"Like what?"

He pointed down the two-mile-long pier at the scaffolding and gantries
staged alongside. "You borrow some things-take them into protective
custody before some son of a bitch can steal them."

"We have a similar custom in the Navy." an

"Figured you did. You take some of that scaffolding'd you get a better
reach with your camouflage netting.

Maybe you don't even use it down near ground level you use the
deuce-and-a-halves further in like you've done to block that field of
vision. You get it up high, mask off your location from the best
shooting points.

You understand how that works'?"

nt and construction gear lining the pier, seeing it now with new eyes.

It looked more like raw material, like something that could usefully be
turned to their purposes instead of merely obstructions that impeded the
progress of their deuce-and-a-halves.

"Roadblocks too," she said as she saw the pier in this new light. "We
could block off access pretty easily with some of that."

He smiled approvingly. "Now -you're thinking like a mud puppy, ma'am.

Give me a couple of weeks with you and I'll have you rigging claymores
and concertina wire."
"I don't suppose you have any," she said.

He avoided her gaze. "Now how would a master sergeant in the United
States Army know how to get his hands on that sort of stuff this far
from home, Commander?"

"In other words, I'm better off not asking. Is that it?" He smiled and
said nothing.

She felt a good deal better now about leaving the camp. Elwell's nasty,
suspicious turn of mind was exceptionally reassuring. "I'll only be gone
a day and a half, if that," she said.

"And you're taking that young fellow with you Carlisle, is he?"

She nodded. "He's a pretty handy fellow at a lot of things."

Elwell studied her for a moment, then said, "I don't imagine you know
how thoroughly we get briefed on anybody entering the theater, do you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I probably know a bit more about you and Mr. Carlisle than you think.

You especially, but Mr. Carlisle's no mystery either."

"Then you know that I'm not going to answer any of your questions," she
said calmly. "And you also know better than to get anyone else asking
them."

"I do. When you get Carlisle out to the ship, you get that medic out
there to look at him. He may think he's fine, but he still looks a
little shaky to me."

Elwell frowned. "The man's got something on his mind-he's not willing to
ask about it, yet, so I didn't ask too hard. But it's there, I can see
it plain as day.

You spend enough time out in the field, you get sort Of the ability to
read a fellow's thoughts. And I don't like the direction Mr. Carlisle's
are going."

She puzzled over that, trying to remember if she'd noticed anything
particularly odd about Carlisle. She hadn't-but then again, she hadn't
been looking that closely. It always threw her for a while, the
transformation from her relationship with Carlisle at NSA to their
relationship within the Reserves. Neither had had any particular
problems with it, but it did tend to skew her perceptions.

Would she have paid more attention to him if he'd been injured at NSA?

Yes, she was almost ashamed to admit-she would have. The times, the
circumstances would have been different.

"I'll keep an eye on him while we're out there," she said finally.

"Thanks for pointing it out."

Elwell caught the note of embarrassment in her voice.

"Don't be too hard on yourself about it," he said.

"That's someone else's job out here, not yours."
"He's my friend," she said simply.

"Not right now. As long as you wear that uniform, he's one of your
troops. Now," Elwell continued, seeing the expression on her face, "that
doesn't mean you don't take care of them. You watch out for those troops
as least as much as, if not more than, you do the officers.

But it also means that there's other eyes watching him as well-his
chief's already picked up on something being wrong, and I think he's
already talked to Lieutenant Boston about it. If they think they can't
handle it, they'll come to you. Don't you think?"
"Thank you, Sergeant," she said. "I'm glad you're here. I'll leave
tomorrow."

He nodded. "We'll get through this, Commander.

One way or the other. One way or the other."

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA: 6 OCTOBER

CALLE DE RORAIME

"I don't like it." Murphy said immediately. "Why is she going to
Jouett?"

His communications technician shrugged. "That's the problem with
eavesdropping, sir. Sometimes not everything makes sense."

"Not good enough," Murphy snapped. He turned to his second in command.

"Find out what's going on down there. I want to know-now."

SEAHAWK 101

Bailey peered out of the small window located to her left as the SH-60B
helo made its approach on the USS Jouett. The ship was smooth and sleek,
no acute angles or awkward deck projections marring her clean lines.

Aircraft were not the only weapons to benefit from Stealth technology.

Joiiett had the radar cross section of a medium sized tugboat.

Another odd- incongruity of naval warfare, she mused.

In addition to its low-visibility paint and Stealth technology, Jouett
also possessed a blip enhancer. This arcane piece of electronic gear was
designed to make it look like an aircraft carrier on an enemy
radarscope, which would supposedly decoy enemy missiles from the high
value unit and its bird farm and into the very capable missile sump of
the cruiser.

And another anomaly. She patted the pocket of her flight jacket, feeling
the bulky shape of the .45-caliber pistol nestled there. Not
particularly covert-the outlines were visible, and had caused a stir of
reaction from the pilots. Why exactly Elwell had insisted she take it,
she still didn't know. Just some Army reflex, she supposed, but he
hadn't stopped harping on it until she'd agreed to carry it.

She turned to Carlisle and shouted, not wanting to use the ICS and be
overheard by the two pilots sitting forward. "You ready for this?" She
studied him for a moment, concerned about his pale complexion and
grimacing mouth. "You okay?"

He nodded, making a resigned gesture with his hands.

"Just a little bumpy up here," he shouted back.

She nodded. As they neared the cruiser, the air around them boiled and
bubbled, disturbed by the passage of the ship through the air. The
helicopter wobbled, steadied, and commenced its final approach to the
flight deck of the cruiser.

Near the hangar doors, she saw a small, thin figure in khakis. Blond
hair ruffled wildly in the downdraft generated by the helicopter, and
the face was in plain view, unobscured by a ball cap or sunglasses that
would pose a foreign-object damage hazard to the helicopter.

Collins. She studied the woman as they descended, wondering how the more
junior officer felt about seeing her again. Hopefully, the blanket grant
of immunity and rehabilitation granted by the White House would go a
long way toward soothing any hurt feelings.

If she doesn't mention it, I won't.

Carlisle fought down the nausea as the helicopter drifted over the
flight deck. A few minutes more, that's all.

Back on solid ground. At least they hadn't had to horse collar down-he'd
have been puking before he was out the hatch. Still, between the
turbulence and the lingering effects of his concussion, he wasn't
entirely sure that he could keep his breakfast down.

"Wave off," a voice said over the ICS. Carlisle groaned. Evidently the
flight deck crew below had detected some problem with the approach, and
had directed the helicopter to make another circuit before landing.

The noise inside the helicopter cabin increased markedly as the pilot
applied power and veered off sharply to his right.

Carlisle crossed his hands over each other and grasped his wrists,
searching for the one pressure point just above the wrist bone that
sometimes helped prevent nausea. He'd used the trick a couple of times
on cruises, even seen other crew members wearing the plastic bands with
bumps inside of them that supposedly prevented it.

Others swore by it-it was worth a try now.

Circling, circling. His vision was blurry at the edges, dwindling down
to a narrow tunnel in front of him. Circling, circling-what was it about
this? He felt like he had when he first regained consciousness in the
Suddenly, without warning, the memories flooded back. Hot, sticky sheets
clinging to his body at the SEAL headquarters, the vague smell of
alcohol and medicine penneatino his room. Drifting in and out of
consciousness, hearing the babble of voices around him, struggling to
open his eyes and being unable to. A vague. illdefined ache at the crook
of his elbow.

Circling, circling-they'd been cutting doughnuts in the water while
laying sonobuoys, wide, lazy circles designed to give the MIUW tracking
team a quick refresher -dog course in fast-moving contacts. They'd been
just at the point for the second buoy drop, and he'd leaned forward in
the RHIB to double-check the sonobuoy channel assignment on the device.

Then a metal ping, a sharp, screaming noise. He remembered looking back,
concerned that something in the outboard engine had snapped. A scream,
Storey pitching forward in the RHIB. Then the right side of the RHIB
disintegrating into a spray of plastic and metal shards. The sea, warm
and inviting, flooded into the boat.

He remembered screaming, remembered reaching desperately for Storey,
popping the auto-inflation device on the man's life jacket. Then another
noise, and the RHIB pitching down suddenly. He had a vague memory of one
of the'-floorboards from the RHIB rocketing towards him, a brief flash
of pain, then nothing.

But why was that important? A voice came back to him, one fogged and
unclear as he'd heard it through the drug-induced haze.

"Electromagnetic spectral breakout. Tell me about NSA's capabilities."

He sucked in a hard breath, his nausea almost completely forgotten. What
was it-he'd overheard the SEALS talking while in a drug-induced state at
their compound.

How much did I tell them? The sunspots? Cold fear trickled down his back
and invaded his stomach and groin, sending his guts lurching in an
unsteady fashion.

He groaned again, now aware that motion sickness was just moments away.

He reached hastily for the plastic bag tucked into the seat behind him.

"What is it?"

He looked up into the anxious face of Jerusha Bailey.

"Jesus, Carlisle, maybe I shouldn't have-"

"No," he croaked, his voice raw and harsh from the stomach acid that had
seared it. "I remembered some thing. Not good." With his stomach empty,
he felt noticeably better.

Bailey stared at him, horrified. "You're going back to the States. Now."

He shook his head, the movement engendering another wave of nausea. "Not
yet.That's exactly what they'd like, I think. There's something they're
worried about and it has to do with what I know. Whether from NSA or
from being in the RHIB, I don't know."

The helicopter swung around the ship again, making a far more stable and
determined approach on the flight deck. Jerusha Bailey leaned back
against her hard turn bar cushion, barely aware of the final approach.

"You're certain of this)"

Carlisle nodded. "Completely." He grimaced slightly. "We have the
technology back at NSA to completely verify it, of course. I'm not
looking forward to that." Both of them knew that hypnotic agents
produced reliable results, but caused whopping headaches afterwards.

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now," she said firmly. "Not
until I get access to the crypto spaces on Jouett. I'll shoot off a
personal for message, get NSA alerted. "

"What about Southcom?" Carlisle
asked.

She was silent for a moment, then said, "I don't know. We need to think
this over before we do anything." A vivid picture of Sergeant Elwell's
face flashed into her mind. She trusted the man-but should she? For all
she knew, Southcom, or at least a portion of it, was in on this. Who
could she turn to with news about the renegade SEALS? Who would be
likely to believe two Reservists, one an officer and one enlisted,
against the word of an active-duty SEAL commander. The more she thought
about it, the less probable it seemed.

"We wait, for now," she said finally. "As soon as we get onboard, we'll
talk to NSA."

"What about the camp?" Carlisle said.

"And to Lieutenant Boston. Secure phone, going via satellite lookout, to
ensure that no one else inside the van was privy to this information.

Not that it made any difference-but until she knew just how far this rot
had spread throughout Southcom, Sergeant Elwell would be in the dark.

She hoped.

GULF OF PANAMA: 6 OCTOBER LOTUS GLORY

From six miles off Jouett's port bow, the Chinese merchant ship watched
the military helicopter circle, approach, and finally land. The military
advisor turned to the master.

"You know what to do."

The master nodded. He reached for the I MC to inform the torpedo crews.

HALLELUJAH CHORUS Carl Timmons spread his blanket out on the massive
foredeck of the tanker. The breeze picked up one corner of it, tugged it
away from him. He stamped his foot down on it hard, then followed it
with the rest of the body to hold it down on the deck.

It wasn't often that a wiper got a chance to escape the confines of
Chorus's Engineering spaces. As the most junior man in the department,
Carl had inherited a host of duties from his predecessor that had gone
undone for two to three months. Most of them involved lubricating oil
and rags-hence the name wiper for a junior engineering technician in the
Merchant Marines.

Now, finally, he was caught up. Undone preventative maintenance, routine
calibrating and testing-all of it.

Finally done. As much of a pain in the ass as this delay outside the
Canal had been, at least some good had come of it.

Carl rolled over on his back, shut his eyes, and lifted his chin
slightly. A few rays now, maybe a late lunch with a halfway decent tan
and a huge wad of overtime money bulging out of his pocket, he had every
intention of making liberty in Miami one of the high points of his young
life.

First, the tan. Accumulating overtime hours had put him seriously behind
schedule on that. He was quite certain that the money could go a long
way to make up for the lack of attractiveness to women. But he felt a
need to prove not only his financial but also his physical
attractiveness, to the beach bunnies that would abound there. A tan,
coupled with an extra twenty minutes a day in the weight room, would do
it.

The tropical sun, still potent this late in the year, beat down on his
lean, hard body, soaking in and warming him. He sighed, completely and
utterly happy for the first time since he'd undertaken this voyage
aboard Chorus.

Chorus hadn't been his first choice. It wasn't for any of the crew.

American ships had so many stringent safety regulations, and paid such
low wages, that only the rawest recruits and least proficient crews
sought out duty on board them. The foreign ships simply paid so much
better that it only made sense. However, with just a basic seaman
license to his credit, and no experience, Carl hadn't had much of a
choice.

He'd heard the talk, the rumor that the Master was sleeping with his
life jacket on, and that the Chief Engineer refused to spend more than a
few minutes below decks. It worried him when he had time to think about
it, which wasn't often. But the ship's owners wouldn't leave them out
here if there were really any danger, would they? Risk losing the ship
completely just to keep on the transit schedule? No, that didn't make
sense.

Maybe one of those Panamanian companies might take that sort of gamble,
but not an American company.

He rolled over on his stomach, and felt the sun start to work on him
immediately. He stretched his hands out on either side of him and let
his cheek rasp against the rough woolen blanket. Heat radiating up from
the deck, down from the sky, enveloped him in a cocoon of moist tropical
air.

The sounds of the ship radiated up through the steel deck, beating an
insistent refrain in his bones. His mind automatically sorted the noises
out-there, a hydraulics pump. The constant thrum of the main propulsion
diesel entities. The intermittent squawk of a high-pressure air
compressor blasting 1500 pounds of air into another system. It was the
quiet, reassuring hum of a well maintained and efficient propulsion
plant. He took quiet satisfaction in contributing his small part toward
that reassuring noise.

Carl Timmons shut his eyes, basked in the sun, and dreamed of Miami.

LOTUS GLORY

T'sing Lin felt sick the moment he heard the announcement
over the loudspeaker. He stood slowly, reluctantly, abandoning the
ancient game of chance going continuously in the Engineering compartment
as he responded to the summons. He walked up two ladders, and made his
way forward, his steps growing ever slower as he approached the
mess-deck door.

He was the last to arrive. The remaining kamikaze pilots were already
assembled, seated quietly around the table. In the beginning, there'd
been too few chairs now there was one empty. He slid into it, clasped
his hands politely on his lap, and waited. His stomach was clutched in a
tight knot of dread; his blood was pounding in his temples.

He felt the perspiration break out on the back of his neck, trickle in
slow. taunting rivulets down his back.

Surreptitiously, he glanced at the other pilots assembled.

Were they feeling the same thing? Surely they must be.

It was simply a matter of courage, of commitment-of the things that he
lacked most in his life. But this would be his redeemin- event, the one
thing that made his life worthwhile and useful. It would be his defining
moment of glory, his assured entry into the heavens.

Or at least he tried to believe so. Yet could any man truly look death
so closely in the eye and not be bothered by it?

Evidently his companions could. There was not a flinch, not a nervous
look among them. Only he, of the original ten, lacked that quality of
divinity he saw in the faces of the others in the Divine Wind program.

The master pronounced the name-Lit'sing heard a tiny noise in the
compartment, and realized to his relief that he was not the only one who
had released a long held breath. He glanced at them again, now alert to
the signs of relief on their faces. Maybe he was not as alone as he'd
thought.

The cheers this time sounded even more forced, the slightest bit
tentative. T'sing joined in, striving to outdo each of the others as
they prayed for a contagious enthusiasm that would alleviate the stark
dread pounding in each heart.

They trooped downstairs together, standing closer together than they had
when the first torpedoes had been deployed. Now more than ever, it
seemed important to draw strength from each other, to bolster each
other's spirits and courace through the days that lay ahead.

While they had known what would happen in theory, the stark reality of
it had not yet begun to set in until they'd seen the faces absent at
their morning meetings, looked at the empty bunks each night as they
went to sleep. It was that more than the actual launch of each torpedo
that brought home the true nature of their mission to each one of them.

T'sing hesitated as the dull black cover slid back from the torpedo's
passenger compartment. He saw Li take a deep breath, steady his nerves,
then step forward resolutely. He paused again at the hatch and shot one
look back at his companions. He smiled, an expression T'sing could see
was meant to be brave. The corners of his mouth quivered, however.

They got through the normal insertion and lockdown procedures, as usual.

Li ran through his pre-checklist in front of them, quietly counting off
the steps. As he cached the final test, the warm rollover of the
electrical motor that powered the torpedo, his hands began to shake. He
touched the ignition switch-the assembled men waited for the quick growl
that signified successful completion. Nothing. Li tried again, then
looked up at the master. "It isn't working."

The master frowned. He motioned to two technicians who operated the
cradle. The torpedo was hefted back up out of the water, its shining
tail, glistening with seawater, exposed again.

The technicians popped an access cover off, busied themselves for a few
moments with screwdrivers and voltage testers, Finally, the elder of
them looked up at the master and nodded.

"Try now." Li's finger was shaking so hard as it touched the switch that
it almost failed to make contact.

He grasped the wrist with his other hand and forced the finger down on
the switch. A quick, harsh noise. Then he released it.

The master nodded and smiled. "Go to glory, my son."

Li's shrill scream ripped across the solemn air in the Engineering
compartment. T'sing Lin took a step back, aghast and yet relieved. men
could bear this much without reaction-that he could-had never seemed
entirely sane.

Li was struggling now, pulling against the harness, his hands scrambling
frantically over him as he sought to find the latches. T'sing Lin took
one step forward involuntarily-it was too much to watch, this frantic
struggle for survival. They would stop it now, they had to. He looked
over at the master.

The old Chinese man's face was cold and impassive.

"Do not disgrace yourself," he snapped.

The words did nothing to calm Li. His screams grew louder, echoing
through the vast underwater maze of steel conduits and machinery,
seeming to gather and pool in the dark black reaches of the engine room.

C, Blood was flowing now from one shoulder where the strap had cut into
his skin. Li was struggling with all his C, might against the floor of
the submarine, trying to wrest himself free of the grasp of the
restraining straps. The release mechanism was located behind the back of
his seat, out of the reach of his hands.

"Now." The master's voice was curt. "Launch now. "

The technicians, now pale beneath the gleaming sweat on their faces,
nodded. Staying out of reach of Li's hands, they moved to either side of
the torpedo and slid the hatch forward. Li's hands stuck up in the gap,
a last, frantic attempt to prevent it from clicking shut. The
technicians paused with the hatch almost closed, prevented from
shutting further by Li's hands.

The master sighed. He picked up a spanner wrench and walked to the side
of the torpedo. Li's hands were now groping frantically around the
outside of the torpedo that he now could not see, and the master brought
the spanner wrench down sharply on the backs of the hands.

By reflex, Li snatched his hands back from the gap.

Moving as a well-trained team, the technicians slammed the hatch shut.

Satisfied, the master stepped back. He shifted his gaze to the remaining
pilots assembled on the catwalk next to the cradle. "He may still yet
redeem himself " With a nod, he directed the technicians to continue.
the torpedo slid back into the water and the cradle arms were retracted.

Li's screams were now muffled by the thick canopy that encased him, but
still clearly audible over the pounding of the machinery. Even after the
watertight doors slid over the exposed torpedo well deck, T'sing Lin
thought he could still hear his friend screaming. A minute later, the
sound ceased completely as the well deck flooded and the torpedo was
deployed.

As they walked back up to their compartment, silent and shaking, T'sing
Lin could not help dwelling on his last moments. Would he find a new
reservoir of courage inside himself somewhere to complete the mission?

Or would he lose his last fragile grip on sanity and sink screaming into
the water, to lie amid the muck and the goo on the ocean floor, never
deploying his engine, until his air expired.

Or-a radical thought struck Lin, one that he would never have dared
contemplate before. There was another way--one other way. No, it would
not result in life, but it would make one's death seem avenged.

If Li could regain enough of his sanity to keep his brains, he might
be able to redirect the torpedo around off its programmed course and
back towards the Lotus Glory.

Would he do it? Would T'sing Lin himself do it?

Would he forgo the assurance of heaven and glory for completing his
mission as assigned in exchange for the personal vengeance of destroying
the man who had sent him to that death?

T'sing Lin felt the heat rise in his cheeks, and was terribly afraid
that he knew which one he would choose.

HALLELUJAH CHORUS Carl felt the noise radiating up through the steel
deck before he ever heard it. it was not worrisome at first, just a dull
thud followed by an odd change in the vibration patterns of his
machinery. He frowned, propped himself on his elbows, wondering if he
should go back down into the Engineering hold to investigate it. No,
there was an Engineering Officer on duty-if he needed Carl, he knew
where to find him. And that wouldn't be unless there was something
particularly dirty and noxious to do.

He had just decided to lie back down when the first violent explosion
ripped through the ship. The deck shuddered below his feet, them gave a
violent jounce upward. The motion catapulted Carl off his warm blanket,
away from his dreams of Miami, and onto the rough, gray-painted nonskid
that coated the weather decks. Carl landed on his right shoulder, felt
the rough surface rip away layers of skin, then hit his head, He felt
skin grate off his right cheekbone, then the sudden. sickening feel of a
metal file running across the exposed bone. He screamed, his vision of a
perfect tan vanishing.

The ship continued to rock violently from side to side, tossing him back
and forth across the nonskid repeatedly. Carl scrambled for a purchase
on something, anything, finally snagging a small loop of metal embedded
in the deck and intended for tie-down chains. He curled his hands around
it, and hung on for dear life as the motion continued.

The violent rocking damped out, to be replaced by a far more ominous
sensation. Chorus was listing, and quite badly. He estimated the slant
on deck to be at least twenty degrees, far too radical a tilt for the
merchant ship under any circumstances except a hurricane.

When he was sure the motion had stopped, Carl scrambled to his feet and
started aft towards the Pilot house and Engineering spaces. He had just
reached the pilot house when the ship heaved itself up under his feet,
and tossed him toward the starboard railing. Carl screamed, made a
frantic grab for a winch located near the railing, and missed. He
rolled, tumbling, as the ship shook herself like a wet dog. Finally, he
fetched up against the safety railing. His hands clamped around a
stanchion. His body slipped under the line, and he dangled free in the
space down the side of the giant ship.

His injured shoulder was hurting now, becoming increasingly weak and
shaky. Loss of blood, one part of his mind noted dispassionately. It was
pulsing out of his shoulder faster now, running in itching, ominous
rivulets down his side and back. He tried to focus, tried to clamp his
hands around the stanchion as though they were cement. But blood coated
his right hand and was spreading to his left. The ship continued to
buck, throwing him against the steel hull, then swinging him back up in
the air. If he let loose now, he'd never be found. There was no chance
that a damage-control party fighting whatever catastrophe had occurred
would have any time to spare for thoughts of their missing wiper.

Finally, gravity and friction conspired to overcome his will. His hands
slipped free of the stanchion just as the ship took a deep dip to port.

The motion catapulted him off the railing as he lost his grip and
plunged into the waiting sea.

Warm, black water closed over his head as he plummeted beneath the
surface. The surface seemed so very far away, as though the bright sun
that had warmed him only minutes earlier had receded another million
miles from the earth. Sheer survival instinct took over. and he clawed
his way frantically through the roiling water to the surface.

His head broke the waves, and he sucked down a deep gasp of air. His
right arm was completely useless, dangling limply at his side. With one
hand, and both legs, he treaded water, screening, hoping someone on
board would hear him.

The water was full of sound now, violent explosions beneath the
waterline of the ship radiating into the ocean. It was like being next
to a destroyer with her sonar operating at full power, a painful, harsh,
vibration that sank into the skin and settled in the bones. He could
feel it gnawing at him as though it would separate muscle from bone and
skin from body.

Chorus was barely moving now, slipping past him with a forward motion
that seemed to be composed entirely of her momentum. He watched her
pass. her sides rising ninety feet up out of the water to the flat
weather deck he'd stretched out on so recently. She was drifting closer
now, and a new danger occurred to him. Instead of treading water now, he
devoted his efforts to putting as much distance between the ship and
himself as he could.

He could hear it now, the danger he'd just remembered. It was a slow,
sucking sound, the noise of the sea chest pulling in water from the
ocean for cooling and saltwater firefighting. A fir-c-the saltwater
pumps would be operating at maximum speed as they sought frantically to
extinguish the flames in Engineering. He paddled harder, desperately
aware of how slow his pace was with only one arm.

Finally, he felt it. At first, a gentle tug that ruffled the swimming
trunks he wore, then an insistent pull. He fought against it, swearing
and screaming, praying that he could remain far enough away from the
ship until the dangerous seawater-chest suction had passed. He dared not
even risk a glance back at the ship to see whether or not he was
succeeding.

His foot touched metal. The side of the ship-he shoved violently away
from it, trying to pull himself aft and toward the now slowly
windmilling propellers. His other foot touched, and he was aware of just
how much strength he'd lost in the last three minutes.

The force pulled him down, sucking his head under the water, taking the
sun away.

The seawater chest was equipped with a grate that kept kelp, fish, and
the other flotsam and jetsam of the ocean out of the intricate maze of
saltwater piping and strainers. It kept Carl Timmons out too. He died
plastered against the grating, its wire mesh marking his face.

GULF OF PANAMA, 6 OCTOBER USS JOUETT

Bailey glared at the ship's radioman.

"What do you mean you can't get through? line is never busy."

The offending technician held a new modular patch cord in his hands, and
glanced from his crypto gear to the officer standing in front of him.

"Like I said, Commander. A busy signal."

"Not possible. Try realigning the satellite-"

"Ahem." The noise cut into the middle of Bailey's instructions to the
radioman. Bailey turned to find Collins staring at her coldly.

Bailey suddenly realized what she'd been about to do.

This was not her ship-she had no business giving equipment-alignment
instructions to the radioman. Politely, gently, but firmly, Collins had
reminded her of that fact.

"XO, what would you suggest?" Bailey said immediately. "I've had some
experience with satellite communications with my own gear, but of course
each setup is different." -mad

"I believe you were about to make a practical suggestion, Commander,"

Collins said formally. It was an unexpectedly gracious statement on
Collins's part, since sparks had been flying between the two women ever
since Bailey and Carlisle had touched down. "Go ahead and try a
realignment," she said to the radioman.

He nodded. "I will, but it won't help. it's a busy signal, not a
satellite-alignment problem."

Five minutes later, the technician proved the truth of his statement.

The unmistakable tones of a telephone busy signal came out of the
overhead speaker.

"I don't understand." Bailey stared up at the speaker as if she could
force it to reveal its secrets. " particular line-" She broke off,
glanced over at Carlisle.

He shook his head.

"Maybe you could try a little later, Commander," Collins said.

The insistent gonging of the General Quarters alarm cut through whatever
Collins had intended to say next. i The women looked at each other by
reflex, transported immediately back to the last time they'd both been
on the same ship with a General Quarters alarm sounding.

Without a word, Collins turned and ran for the bridge.

Bailey turned to Carlisle. "You stay here-keep trying to get through. As
their circumstances allow," she added, glancing at the radioman, who was
quickly donning his nuclear, biological, and chemical gear. "I'll be in
Combat."

Bailey stepped into Combat just in time to see Captain Renninger settle
into his chair. He glanced up at her as she walked over, but immediately
shifted his attention back to the large-screen display. Without
interrupting his concentration, she took up a station at his side.

The large-screen display told the entire story, coupled with a small
camera mounted on the mast that relayed pictures back to a TV screen in
Combat.

The jagged symbol representing a torpedo snaked its way across the
screen with its track terminating on an other symbol-the one for
friendly merchant traffic.

As sailors pounded in and out of the compartment, she took a look at the
TV screen. On it, a massive tanker listed badly in the sea, black smoke
fouling the air around it. Its deck was canted precariously. The water
around it shone with an unnaturally green oily glare. She walked back
towards Sonar, intending to get a first-hand look at the weapon that had
caused the damage. A sailor shoved an extra set of flash gear and an NBC
mask at her.

Inside Sonar, the watch team was a flurry of activity.

The bold, ominous spiral of the torpedo cut across the passive acoustics
screen, ending four minutes earlier.

Now the sonar supervisor coordinated a new search pattern. The bell-like
tones of the active sonar radiated into the compartment from the water
around them.

Four hours later, the United States' intent was clear. A message was
issued to all merchant traffic in the area offering protection from the
attacks in the vicinity of the Panama Canal. Those wishing to
participate should steam north immediately, to rendezvous with the
battle group that was enroute to the Canal Zone. Once in visual contact
with each another, the carrier would direct the ships into a convoy
formation, in an evolution not practiced on such a massive scale since
World War II.

Ringed with destroyers. cruisers, and a protective air umbrella, the
merchant ships would be safe.

Forty-three waiting tankers, oilers, and mass cargo ships took advantage
of the United States' offer. Among them was the Lotus Glory.

The response from the Panamanian government was not long in coming.

MIUW 106

"I don't like the way this is looking." Lieutenant Boston
dropped the night-vision goggles and passed them to Sergeant Elwell. "
crowd doesn't look like a welcoming committee."

Elwell took the glasses, raised them to his eyes, and studied the group
of people assembled two miles away at the base of the pier. The
lieutenant was right-he upped his estimation of the other man's
capabilities slightly. Detecting the subtle signs of problems before
they became realities was the hallmark of any good warrior.

No, there was nothing particularly overtly menacing about this crowd. It
looked, in fact, like a group of dock workers getting off of their
normal shift, stopping at the end of the pier through mere chance. It
would have been easy to dismiss the assembly as little more than a group
of chance encounters, the kind of coincidence that often appears in
large groups of people.

But there was something more here, something that Elwell himself
couldn't have immediately defined. It was in the way the people moved,
the eddies and currents of their flow from group to group. There was no
sign of weapons-not yet. But there didn't have to be for him to sense
that something was seriously wrong at the foot of the pier.

He passed the glasses back to Boston. "Give these to one of your
lookouts-they'll need them."

"I'm open to suggestions, Sergeant."

Elwell waited for a moment before answering, assessing exactly how much
confidence he should place in Lieutenant Boston's understanding of the
situation. The remark he'd made while looking through the night-. vision
goggles decided him-it would be easier, at any rate, if they were all
operating with the same understanding.

"We're going to have problems." He stopped for a moment and assessed the
lieutenant's reaction. Concern, some decree of annoyance-no fear. He
nodded. That would come later. "We need to set up some defensive
positions. You remember the stuff we talked about the other night?"

The lieutenant nodded. "Barricades."

"Exactly. Now comes the delicate part. If we wait until we really need
it, it will be too late. We won't be able to get down pier to the
gantries, drag them back . to position. then topple them over. They'll
have firein arms by then, maybe those snipers we ran into earlier."

"So we do it now."

Elwell shrug,,ed. "Then on the other hand, if our suspicions are
incorrect, we may push them into acting when they hadn't really planned
to." He gestured towards the mob assembled two miles away. "Groups of
people-it's hard to tell sometimes what they'll actually do. This whole
thing might blow over. Port authorities might appear shortly and
disperse them. But they see us hauling off their equipment, tipping it
over, and tearing it apart, we may instigate the very thing we're trying
to prevent. So there are no guarantees on this, Lieutenant.

None at all."

"If we build the barricade, how long can we hold them off?"

"How much ammunition have you got?"

Lieutenant Boston thought for a moment, then said, "I'd have to check
with the bosun's mate to make sure, but we should have about sixty
rounds for the shotguns.

Maybe two hundred for the .45's."

Elwell winced slightly. "Not a whole lot of firepower. "

"We're not supposed to need it." Boston's voice was impatient. "This is
an MIUW unit, not a combat unit.

We're geared up for self-protection-we should be able to handle a
small-team assault, but nothing any bigger than that.That's why the
SEALS are supposed to be here."

"SEALS aren't much on defending fixed positions either. What we really
need is a platoon of Marines or Army grunts. Well, that can't be helped.

We'll make do with what we have."

"So how long?" Boston repeated.

" depends, Lieutenant," Elwell said carefully. It was important that
they go down this track, but equally important that he not destroy the
lieutenant's confidence. "That's not a lot of ammunition. Still, it will
buy us some time, depending on how big a force they attack with. If they
attack."
Elwell let that sink in for a moment, then continued.

"What we really need is a way out of here. I wish I could believe
otherwise, but I think we are ultimately going to get overrun. Whether
we run out of ammo, they come in by the sea, or they simply break
through the barricades, we can't stay here forever. Not against a
determined attack."

Lieutenant Boston looked stunned. Elwell could tell that this was far
out of his range of experience within the Navy. "We can't leave by the
pier.That's obvious."

Elwell nodded. "Not unless the Panamanian police show up and give us an
armed escort. I don't think that's going to happen-I thought I saw a
couple of official looking cars parked at the edge of that group. My
guess is the government's going to let a group of rowdies and terrorists
make a political statement for them, then disavow all responsibility for
it."

Boston turned and looked out toward the ocean. The night sky was clear,
and stars spattered across the heavens like paint. The ocean was so
smooth and calm, they could see the reflection of the stars momentarily
before the surface of the ocean rippled into gentle waves. There was a
quarter moon-eighteen-percent illumination, Elwell remembered from his
infantry days.

"We'll have to go out by sea," Boston said. He turned back to Elwell.

"And the van-it will have to be destroyed before we leave. We can burn
the classified material, destroy most of the equipment with a
sledgehammer.That's why we have one in there, after all."

Elwell was grimly pleased to note that the lieutenant looked shaken but
determined. The young officer's pale face caught the moonlight. which
gave it a smooth, young look. It was always like this when they went
into their first engagements mixture of fear and bravado that would
either carry the men through or lead them to disaster.

"I suggest we start now," Elwell said finally. "Give it a couple of
hours, work out a plan, and as soon as the moon sets we start hauling
gear down here."

"They'll see us, won't they?"

Elwell nodded. "Hear us too. shit's going to be a bitch to move.

And no doubt they have night-vision goggles themselves."

"At least the darkness will give us a little bit of cover," Boston said.

He stood up, brushing the grime from the pier off his pants. "I'd better
go get on the radio circuit-we need to work something out with Jouett.

She's the only friendly asset within immediate reach. "

Elwell stood as well, heard his knees complain at the sudden movement.

"There's one thing we haven't discussed, Lieutenant. I sort of hate to
bring this up, seeing as it's another Navy unit-the SEALS."

Boston nodded. "Whose side are they on, you mean."

Elwell nodded. "Exactly. At this point, I don't think we can afford to
make any assumptions."

Boston stared at him, his face a pale mask of determination. "Until the
captain returns, the responsibility for this unit is mine. I'm not
relying on them or anyone else."

"I'll stay here a bit, keep an eye on the crowd down there," Elwell
offered. "Go ahead and make your arrangements, sir. The sooner the
better. In two hours, we move. "

As Elwell watched the young lieutenant walk back towards the van, the
question of the SEAL platoon kept hammering in his brain. Why had they
kept the young petty officer after the PJHB accident? What were they
after? And more importantly, where did their loyalties lie?

USS JOUETT

Bailey glared at the tall, beefy Navy Captain. "I have to get
back to my unit. You heard what he said."

Renninger shook his head. "Not on my helo. Nor in my boats."

"What am I supposed to do-swim?"

"Frankly, I don't care what you do. As long as it doesn't involve
endangering my ship or my helo." Renninger turned away from her and back
towards the tactical display. Bailey moved around to the other side of
his console to confront him.

"We're going to need to evacuate them-that at least ought to be clear.

The motor whaleboat, maybe one of your launches-" Renninger interrupted
her. "As I said-I'm not going to do it. There's a SEAL team assigned for
defense of your unit. Let them deal with the problem."

"You'd leave my unit there to die?"

Renninger turned towards her and fixed her with a steely glare. "This
discussion is ended."

"It's not. Don't you understand that-"

Collins stepped forward, interposing her body between the two larger
officers. She turned to face Bailey.

"I believe the Captain said he was through discussing this," she said
calmly.

Bailey reached out as though to shove her away. Collins caught her hand.

"I wouldn't try that," Collins said quietly. "Not on my ship,
Commander."

Bailey pulled back, and was suddenly aware of the spectacle that they
presented to the rest of the crew. Collins was right-Jouett was their
ship, not hers. Had she made any aggressive move toward the Executive
Officer or the Commanding Officer, she would have immediately found
herself buried under a pile of sailors. This wasn't her unit-these
weren't her people.

Bailey took a step back and let her arms fall to her side. "I apologize,
sir," she said, directing her comments to the Captain. "No disrespect
was intended. I am simply concerned about the safety of my people. As
you would be under the same circumstances."
"As I said, this discussion is concluded." Renninger turned his
attention back to the tactical display. On the screen, a flurry of
merchant ships had suddenly gotten under way and were headed north, the
American battle group still well north of them, but steaming south at
twenty-five knots. According to Combat's calculations, the two groups
should meet up in about eighteen hours.

"I need to talk to my people, at least," Bailey said finally, aware that
the fate of her unit was only one small part of the problem that
Renninger was trying to manage. She could see his point-didn't agree,
but saw it.

"At least let them know what's going on."

Renninger motioned roughly to Collins. The Executive Officer said, "Of
course. Secure tactical circuit is yours. "

As Bailey headed back toward Radio to use the circuit, she felt her
anxiety grow. Her people were stranded ashore, supposedly in the care of
a unit that she deeply distrusted. Murphy and his SEALS-of what use had
they been so far? None, as far as she could tell. But surely they
understood the obligation imposed on them to protect the MIUW unit. And
they would understand about the evacuation. Hell, practicing the
evacuation of civilian populations was something that they trained in
every month.

But these weren't civilians, were they? They were sailors who had been
chosen to go into harm's way, who'd been stationed on the end of the
pier by Southcom and left in position even after the unexpected attacks
began. There must be some plan for their evacuation-there must be.

PIER 36

The SEAL observer shifted his position slightly, trying to avoid a rock
that seemed determined to remain immediately under his right knee. He
focused vision goggles in, trying to make some sense of the pattern of
movement he saw down below. Five miles away, the MIUW pier was a flurry
of activity. Panamanians were still massed at the foot of it, while MIUW
sailors were nowhere in sight. He'd seen them go into the command tent
an hour earlier. As yet, none had emerged except for a few security
patrols.

Finally, some movement. A few MIUW sailors stepped out of the tent,
followed shortly thereafter by the rest of them. The SEAL watched as
they broke into smaller teams and approached the camouflage netting
barrier that separated their camp from the rest of the pier.

The sailors pulled the netting off one truck, and even at this distance
the SEAL could hear the harsh hammering of the two-and-a-half-ton
truck's diesel engine turning over. Six sailors piled into the back of
it. The truck jerked uneasily back from its blocking location, and
headed down the pier towards the Panamanians.

The SEAL shifted his gaze towards the civilians. They appeared as
puzzled as he was, but were maintaining their position. A few minutes
later, the truck pulled up to one of the steel gantries that edged the
pier. The truck pulled in front of it, placing its bulk between the
observer, the crowd, and the gantry. A few minutes later, the truck
pulled out again. The gantry jerked, wobbled, then fell obediently in
tow behind the truck.

The truck hauled it down the pier, stopping just a few feet in front of
the current barricade. It left the gantry there, and repeated the entire
evolution with another one.

Finally, after four of the massive structures had been hauled down to
the MIUW position, the truck slid back into position. The MIUW sailors
carefully redraped the camouflage netting before proceeding back out to
the gantries.

The SEAL watched as one by one the frameworks of metal struts and
gratings were toppled and shoved into place. In the end, they formed an
eight-foot-high barrier immediately in front of the trucks. The sailors
then produced additional camouflage netting and strung it over them.

Finally satisfied that he understood what they were doing, the SEAL
radioed in and described their activities. He concluded with, "It won't
stop bullets. Not for long.

Three miles away, from a considerably closer vantage point, the Chinese
watched from the end of their own pier. Their assessment was much the
same as that of the SEALS. The gantry barricade might provide a brief
delaying action against an assault, but in the end it offered little
protection.

PIER 36: 6 OCTOBER MIUW 106

Master Sergeant Elwell walked the perimeter of the camp, noting the
well-placed positions of the gantries.

It wouldn't hold off a determined attacker-then again, nothing much
would. But in the game they were playing, buying a little bit of
additional time might make all the difference in the world.

"Sergeant?" Elwell turned and saw Boston walking up towards him, his
face pale and gleaming in the moonlight. "We may have more problems than
we thought."

Elwell frowned. "More forces gathering down at the end of the pier?"

Boston shook his head. "No, this is something we know a little bit more
about." He tried for a wry laugh, which didn't quite come off. "The
submarine contact we were holdin- earlier-it's back."

USS JOUETT

"You were the one who was so opposed to any interaction between NSA and
your military duties," Atchinson pointed out, his voice even more
emotionless and pedantic than normal over the Top Secret circuit. "And
now you seem ready to reverse that position, yes?"

Bailey seethed, wondering whether Atchinson could really understand the
reality of what her unit was facing.

"They're cut off, surrounded, and I've got no way to get to them," she
said again. "Jim, I'm not asking for much-just find out what the hell's
going on with those SEALS. Surely NSA can do at least that."

"I don't know." Atchinson said, his voice musing.

"After all, it might be viewed as entirely inappropriate."

"Inappropriate is letting my sailors get killed ' when there's something
you can do about it," Bailey said harshly. "You people owe me,
Jim-you've already screwed around with me by sending me down here to
start with. I know you were behind it, no matter that Terry signed the
orders. I can recognize your hands at work. It's the stink. I think-a
sort of unhealthy odor that arises from anything you touch."
"No need to get personal." Atchinson said. "And if that's how you feel
about it, I'm even less inclined to pass on your request to Terry."

Terry, Bailey thought, her heart sinking. Since when had Intanglio
become Terry to that asshole?

"Just tell him," Bailey said desperately. "That's all, Jim-just tell
him."

"Terry Intanglio is a very busy man," Atchinson said.-

"I'll think about it."

As Bailey replaced the microphone in the holder, she heard a small noise
behind her. She turned to find Collins standing in the door. "I hope
you enjoyed that," Bailey said.

Collins shook her head. "I need to talk to you. In private."

"Why? There's only one thing that you have to say of interest to me, and
that's a plan for getting my sailors off that pier. Or in the
alternative, getting me back to them. Anything other than that is just-"

"In your stateroom, Commander." Collins's voice was firm and
unmistakably determined.

Bailey paused to consider the smaller officer. There was something new
in her demeanor, something she hadn't seen since Germany. Intrigued in
spite of her growing anger. Bailey finally nodded. "All right. In my
Stateroom." She glanced back at the radio crew. "If your Executive
Officer has no objection, I would appreciate it if you'd leave this
circuit open for further traffic. "

"Do it," Collins ordered immediately. She stepped back from the doorway,
and allowed Bailey to precede her down the passageway.

"There's something else going on here," Collins said bluntly. "It
started with the airbus."

"You shot it down-what's the mystery?" Bailey said.

"I should hope I shot it down," Collins retorted. "I was aiming at it."

"So what's the problem? Other than precipitating an international
incident, I don't know what else you expected. "

Collins was silent for a moment. Her feet, Bailey noted, barely reached
the floor as she sat in the chair.

She'd noticed Collins was short, but never realized exactly how short.

"I've been through every tape a thousand times," Collins said finally.

"There was every justification for shooting down that contact-no
question about it."
"So?" Bailey asked.

"So this is the question," Collins said. "Who set me up? And why?"

"What makes you so sure it was a setup?"

"What else could it be?" Collins shot back. "Sure, I know it sounds
crazy, but that's actually the most logical explanation I can come up
with. There was a reason I got that radar paint, a reason I held those
contacts. And you've seen it happen since then-these ghost contacts
aren't like anything else I've ever seen. They come across on the radar
looking exactly like hostile contacts, and then vanish. You can't tell
me this is accidental. And I know it's not an equipment malfunction on
our end."

She shook her head vigorously as she saw the look of doubt on Bailey's
face. "No-it's not. I've been through every tracking algorithm, every
piece of gear connected to the Aegis system. We've run every test
possible, and it's just not reasonable. The problem's not on the ship
it's out there."

"Out there? What, there's a bogeyman?"

Collins kept shaking her head. "Somebody else is behind this, Jerusha,"
she said.

The unexpected use of her first name made Bailey pause. She'd never
known the other officer to be anything except completely competent when
it came to tactical acumen. And, it was true, she'd given Bailey little
reason to suspect otherwise. "What makes you so certain someone's out to
get you?" Bailey asked finally.

"Maybe you just made a mistake."

"I made a mistake-but it was the one I was supposed to make." Collins's
voice was firm, convinced.

In spite of herself, Bailey began to have doubts. Was it possible? Could
there have been an operational electronic deception of some sort
executed against Jouett?

"I thought your ESM gear was supposed to prevent this sort of thing."

"It does-to a certain extent. But we've never had anyone sophisticated
enough to execute an operation against us. Not like this. All I want you
to do is to bring it up to NSA the next time you talk to them." Collins
smiled slightly as she saw the look on Bailey's face.

"Don't play coy with me-I know you've been talking to them."
"And what about my unit?" Bailey asked. "Your Captain's going to leave
them on the end of the pier to die. "

To her horror, she felt her voice start to catch and break. She stifled
down the emotions, grimly determined to show no sign of weakness in
front of the one woman whose help she needed.

"I'll be talking to the Captain," Collins said calmly.

"I'm not promising anything-hell, I haven't been on the best of terms
with him myself" She laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. "You can guess how
excited he was to have me ordered in as his Executive Officer."

Bailey nodded. "I can see it hasn't been easy for you. "

"Well, no use crying over spilt milk. Or downed airbuses." Collins's
smile turned bitter. "It's just that this time, I don't intend to be
used as the whipping boy.

Someone's out to get me, Jerusha-and I want to know why.

MIUW 106

"Problems, Lieutenant." The lookout's voice was slightly
unsteady.

"There's a group of people coming down towards us from the end of the
pier."

Boston and Elwell bolted up from their seats within the command tent
where they'd been downing a couple of MRES. "How many?" Boston asked
into the radio.

"Ten. They're carrying cartons, sir. No guns that I can see."

Boston looked at Elwell. "It may be starting now."

Elwell looked doubtful. "No guns, only ten men-I don't think so, sir.

They'd come at us in force with some armored vehicles, I suspect. Maybe
an earlier softening up with mortars or something."

Boston looked pale. "Moam. I hadn't even thought-"

"Sort of small for mortars unless they've got the Czech ones. Look, we
need to get out there, Lieutenant," Elwell said, gently breaking into
Boston's train of thought, "try to get some idea of what they're doing.

While I don't think this is an attack, you'd better mobilize that
security-alert team of yours."

Boston nodded. "Covert, since they're not outwardly taking aggressive
action."

"That's right. Now you're thinking," Elwell said approvingly, as much to
bolster the lieutenant's spirits as any real evaluation of his tactics.

It was the right thing to do, however.

Boston spoke quietly into the radio as they walked out of the tent.

Sailors tumbled out of raeks, grabbed arms, and made their way to their
assigned positions around them, moving quietly through the darkened
shadows of the night. All the camp lights had been secured, with the
idea of minimizing the target profile they would present to any enemy.

"Use your cover." Elwell demonstrated, moving from the shadow of one
truck to the next as they made their way forward. "No point in giving
them a free shot."

Boston followed him, his unease mounting steadily.

"We don't know how to do this," he said as they approached the lookout.

"Dammit, Sergeant, we-"

Elwell turned and grabbed him by the arm just above the elbow. He pulled
the lieutenant to a sudden halt and spun him around to face him. "Cut it
out, sir. Right now." He gestured at the camp around him. "Right now
we've got them believing that there's something they can do about this.

You can't let anything shake their confidence right now-not now.

Regardless of the tactical realities, they're all looking to you to see
how they ought to feel about this. If they see you uncertain substitute
the word frightened for that if you want, sir, and they'd be damned
accurate-they'll lose confidence in themselves. It won't make it any
easier."

Boston took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "You're right. Thanks,
Sergeant."

They proceeded slowly toward the lookout, Boston movin quietly now. They
approached the lookout's concealed position. Elwell held a quick,
hurried conversation with him, and came down from the top of the truck
with a pair of night-vision goggles.

"Let's see what they're up to.,, He focused in, and saw the bright blobs
moving in the greenish darkness of the night-vision goggles. Ten, that
was right-and he didn't see any sign of weapons either. Not unless you
counted the crates that each two man team was lugging.

The intruders came to a halt approximately one quarter of a mile from
the MIUW. They set down their crates, popped open the tops with
crowbars. As the first one took an object out of the crate, the veteran
sergeant's blood went cold.

"Claymores," he said. "Or whatever local variety they're using-but
probably our own claymores."

"Mines?" Boston looked momentarily confused.

"But what do they-oh."

Elwell nodded. "If you were still harboring any thoughts about getting
out of here in those deuce-and-a halves of yours, I think the
Panamanians just put paid to that notion."

"Lieutenant, if you've got a moment, we need you in the van." The watch
chief's voice was low and urgent.

"It's that submarine."

"Not now, Chief," Boston said quietly.

"Well, we've got problems back here too," the chief said. "
submarine-it's been trolling back and forth along the approaches to the
Canal. We keep hearing torpedo tubes opening, some massive air bubble
noise, then nothing. It's like a torpedo launch-only there ain't any
torpedo. You know what that means."
"More mines," Boston said. The energy and determination seemed to drain
out of him. He turned to the sergeant. "I think our chances of leaving
by sea just disappeared as well."

PANAMA CITY: 7 OCTOBER PANAMANIAN PRESIDENTIAL PALACE

Won Su studied the intricate rococo carvings that adorned the ceiling of
the Presidential Palace. The gold, the intricacy, the sheer excess of it
all made him slightly nauseous. Was there any way to understand a people
who viewed such architecture as desirable? He suppressed the expression
of distaste.

"The President will see you now, sir," one of Aguillar's multiple aides
said.

Won Su ignored the quiet insolence of the man, suddenly weary of the
demands of his profession. He'd been away from home so long, gone from
the peace and tranquility that characterized his estates in China. His
spirit longed for them, and every day he felt more unclean, contaminated
by the excesses of this hot, filthy, and uncivilized nation.

Yet how much choice did he have? How much choice did any of them have?

He pondered the question as he rose from the gilded chair and paced
slowly across to the massive ornate doors that opened into the
President's official offices.

He must remember that-even if Aguillar did not yet realize it-political
power was a fleeting thing in the affairs of humans. It had come,
brought on unexpectedly and suddenly by the death of his predecessor,
and it could vanish just as quickly as the morning mist in sunshine.
brought on another pang as he remembered the morning fog that filled his
gardens at home, melting away as the sun rose upon it like gossamer.

As he entered, the President rose to greet him. They exchanged
pleasantries for a few moments, Won Su carefully adding some
appreciative comments on the President's recent redecoration of the
palace. He stroked and flattered subtly, never once approaching the line
over which the President might find him insincere. If there were indeed
such a line-he suspected not. Aguillar appeared more than ready to
believe any flattery, any approving comment from any source.

"I hesitate to bring the matter to your attention, but my superiors feel
that I must." Won Su let the words sink in for a few moments before
continuing. "The Americans-they continue to pose a problem here, both
for your country and for mine." Aguillar shook his head and sighed.

"Most especially for us. It is not only the transit fees through the
Canal, you understand. The revenue that the ships bring in is even more
considerable than that.

Dockworkers, provisioners-all of those businesses depend as well on a
steady flow of traffic. Without the ships, we suffer." He sighed
heavily. "And who knows when the Americans will allow them to transit
again."

Won Su shook his head gravely. "Such a misuse of power-such a raw
exercise of military force," he murmured consolingly. "I have no wish to
add to your burdens, but there is another factor that you must consider
as well. Again, the Americans." Won Su made a dismissing gesture with
his hand. "Of course, I have no doubt that you already know these facts.

I explained to mm;.

IF my superiors the excellent workings of your intelligence service, the
eagerness of every Panamanian citizen to participate in your regime, but
they do not truly understand Panama. Not the way I do, after having been
stationed here for so long." He eyed Aguillar gravely, assessing whether
or not the President was buying it at all. "We have become such good
friends, Panama and China. And you and I as well, I would hope."

"Of course." Aguillar nodded vigorously. "Let no man ever doubt the deep
and true ties between China and Panama. There is so much in common-and
the experience you have shared with us on the turnover of Hong Kong from
the British has been most helpful. Most helpful indeed." Aguillar
scowled briefly, as though remembering something distasteful. "The Canal
should have been ours for decades. To ever allow American domination on
our soil was a travesty."

Won Su nodded. "Of course, this we understand. Our experience has been
with the British-and the British, of course, are the predecessors of the
Americans. Can it be any wonder that the similarities between the
nations are so great? Or that the problems of those who have dealt with
them in good faith in the past are so severe?

I think not."

"You mentioned some intelligence," Aguillar said.

Won Su smiled. Of course the Panamanian President would come back to the
point eventually.

"As I said, it is no doubt something of which you are already aware.

Indeed I must admit that I'm somewhat puzzled that you have not shared
the information with me so far. After all, it affects our leasehold on
the docks as well. But then-tines-Mr. President, how could you not allow
us to participate in resolving this matter?"

"The mines?" Aguillar looked surprised, then quickly smoothed his face
over into a neutral expression.

"There are questions of national security, of course," he said
uncertainly, his voice betraying what his face did not.

"The mines." For a moment, Won Su was tempted to let Aguillar twist a
bit, let him try to guess what it was that the Chinese knew about mines
that he himself did not. In the end, however, embarrassing the President
would only make his job more difficult. "My people would consider it an
honor if you would allow us to assist you in clearing the mines," Won Su
continued smoothly. "I doubted the reports when I received them myself,
as you must have. The sheer audacity of it all, to conduct mine laying
operations on the approaches to the Canal. But my sources say that you
are absolutely certain this is what has occurred-that the Americans have
mined the entire harbor with command-activated devices in order to
control the source of your livelihood.

As you have said, the Canal is a significant asset-a national treasure,
if you will."

Aguillar's face was tight and closed. "We should share information more
often," he agreed. "Perhaps you could share with me everything that you
know about this. I may be able to correct some misunderstandings,
perhaps add a depth of detail. Naturally, my military officials will
wish to coordinate with yours as well. Your assistance would be most
welcome." He eyed the Chinese minister, evidently confident that he had
outbluffed the inscrutable Won Su for once.

"Of course. According to our sources, the Americans commenced mine
laying operations inside Panama Bay eight hours ago. Two submarines,
working together, transiting the entire line along the approaches to the
Canal.

It is our understanding that control of these mines has been transferred
to the American destroyer just outside the twelve-mile limit-the USS
Jouett. Of course, your information is undoubtedly better than mine."

Won Su shrugged. "One must depend on sources, and they are fragile
sometimes."

Aguillar was almost beside himself with rage. His face was red, and his
breath was coming in short gasps. Small beads of perspiration popped out
on his forehead. "Mining our harbor? Of course we knew the operations
were afoot. Of course we did." Aguillar stood suddenly and motioned to
an aide. "Have the Minister of Defense join us immediately."

Won Su held up one hand. "Of course, if you think that is necessary ..."

Aguillar looked uncertain. "But what else-?" Won Su sighed, interrupting
the Panamanian President. "Military problems demand military solutions.

But this is indeed a problem of a far greater magnitude, is it not? Of
course, if you wish to approach it as solely a military operation, then
we would not question your decision. However, it might be to your
advantage to turn this into a more powerful expression of Panamanian
national will. You understand, of course."

With a sharp gesture, Aguillar dismissed his aide.

"Matters such as this are best discussed in private," he confided as he
watched the heavy door close behind the aide. "Let us speak frankly, my
friend."

"Of course." Won Su took a deep breath and ran through his plan quickly
in his mind again. How much would the old fool buy? Most of it-all of
it, most probably. And for good reason. The plan had been carefully
devised by master Chinese strategists to play carefully upon the fears
and weaknesses of Aguillar. Two experts had spent decades studying the
man, watching his rise to power, assessing his every character flaw. In
a nation of almost two billion people, there were many experts hungry
for just such projects. "They have not yet acknowledged your assumption
of office, have they?" he said delicately. "The United Nations-"

"No, they have not."

"Just so. Nor will they acknowledge Panama's right to absolute control
over three hundred miles of the ocean surrounding her coastline. A
standard economic enterprise zone, yet the Americans persist in treating
it as their own. It must be a daily annoyance to you."

"It is, it is. You mentioned the destroyer?"

"Yes. Our theory seems sound-in this case at least.

Knowing of the friendship between China and Panama, as welt as your
leadership among the other nations of both Central and South America,
the American submarines have no doubt already left the area. leaves
primary control of the minefield vested in the destroyer.

Which continues, I might add, to cruise through your waters as though
they were her very own. Even after destroying your aircraft, taking your
predecessor's life, they remain boldly here as a continual challenge. In
short, there can be but one solution. The crux of this matter revolves
around that ship."

"It seems so logical," Aguillar murmured, "the way you explain it..."

Won Su nodded, completely aware that Aguillar had taken the bait and
swallowed it deep. Now, just set the hook as delicately as he would in
any sport fish. "The Panama Canal is yours. It is the symbol of your
Administration, as is this conflict. If you do not take a stand this
time, the insults will continue. Therefore, it is imperative that you
destroy the American ship."

Aguillar's jaw dropped. "Surely you don't mean that-"

"Destroy the ship and you destroy the Americans' ability to activate the
minefield. And is it not true that they shot down your airbus without a
single thought of warning?"

Aguillar nodded. Now he appeared slightly uncertain.

"They claimed that it was an accident-it appeared to be a hostile
contact."

"And this is how they deal with nations with whom they desire
friendship?" Won Su shook his head sadly.

"I'm not certain we can do it," Aguillar said after a long silence.

"Destroy the ship."

The statement took Won Su aback. Nothing in his dealings with Aguillar
or in his intelligence reports had suggested that the man was capable of
admitting any Ai weakness in his military. This required some additional
thought.

"This is what friends are for," Won Su said slowly.

"In fact, if you do not allow us to assist, we would be quite hurt." Won
Su let a grave expression slip across his face. "Friends do not treat
each other this way."

Aguillar nodded slowly. "But an attack on an American ship?"

"They shot first. The tenets of international law are firmly behind you.

Mining your harbor is an act of war.

I am certain that your military advisors can confirm all of this for
you. You have been done a grave injustice, one which we wish to help you
to rectify.

"After all, we both want the same thing. Peace."

Won Su sat back in his chair and watched Aguillar swallow the hook.

THE PACIFIC OCEAN: 7 OCTOBER LOTUS GLORY

"sing Lin sought out the quiet solitude of the ship's massive forward
deck. Even with the small crew on board, the pilot house and the living
quarters had become too cramped.

Not because of the number of people, but because of the lack of sleep
for everyone.

Steaming northward with the rest of the gaggle of merchant ships, Lotus
Glory was far closer to other ships than she ever was likely to be on
open ocean. The ship was manned for the solitude of open ocean, not the
crowded confines of a convoy. For safety's sake, the master had
increased the number of officers on watch on the bridge. He himself had
barely slept in the past twenty-four hours. The strain was already
beginning to tell. Dark circles ringed the eyes of every crew member,
and tempers flared suddenly at the slightest provocation.

The torpedo pilots were faring no better. While they had no underway
watch station, the knowledge that they too must shortly execute the
mission for which they'd been trained was wearing on them.

Or at least, it was on T'sing Lin. After one last vicious squabble in
their quarters over a bar of soap, he'd left and sought some peace and
quiet on the deck.

Overhead, the evening stars shone brilliantly clear.

This far from land, there was no pollution to obscure them, and they
seemed closer and brighter than they ever had, even at home. The shapes
were vaguely reassuring, slightly distorted because he was so far from
his home, but recognizable nonetheless. He picked out the constellations
he'd learned from his father-the Rat, the Jeweled Lotus, the Bamboo
Field. Comforting, but somehow disconcerting with their outlines
slightly warped by distance.

How many more times would he be able to do this?

Stand outside and stare up at the stars, remembering the old stories
about the constellations' origins? Stories he'd hoped to teach his son,
along with the other sagas and myths that made up their history.

T'sing Lin sighed, a deep shuddering sound that broke loose from
somewhere deep inside him. Life was short, so very short. The awe and
exhilaration that he'd felt so long ago at being chosen for this
training program had long since faded. Now all that was left was worry,
fear, and the dawning realization of what executing his mission would
require. While his mind still insisted that he would bring glory to his
family by his acts, some stubborn remnant of flesh resisted the idea of
selfimmolation. To die alone, trapped in the steel tube, his body ripped
apart in a shred of fire and water-he shuddered, his mind skittering
away from what would eventually be his fate.

In the last twenty-four hours, he'd finally begun to see the strain in
his compatriots' faces. The impassive, proud expressions had been
gradually replaced by an odd nervousness, tentativeness, and
irritability. They were not so very different in the end, he realized.

Despite the demeanor they presented to the master and the Ve. wrest of
the crew, none of them wanted to die. Not this way. Not for this war.

North-they were steaming north. As usual, there'd been no explanation
from the master, just a muttered oath and an abrupt order to remain out
of the way.

"Your time will come soon," the master had snarled when one of T'sing
Lin's compatriots had ventured a question about their change of course.

"Sooner than you know."

Suddenly, the stars' light dimmed. The hard speckled points of light
blurred into vague, glowing orbs. T'sing Lin touched his eyes and felt
the tears streaming down his face.

MIUW 106

The Panamanian patrol boat proceeded out from the shore at a slow speed.

It headed straight for open ocean, cutting to port only after it drew
even with the MIUW.

It approached the pier and slowed to bare steerage way.

The soldiers and sailors on its deck were armed, obviously alert, but
made no threatening gestures towards the American unit.

"What do you suppose they're doing?" Boston asked the sergeant. He
pointed at the large drums located aft on the sixty-five-foot craft. "I
don't imagine that's fresh water. Though God knows we could use it."

The sergeant studied the oil drums, an uneasy feeling creeping through
his stomach. "I don't like the looks of this."

"We can't shoot." Boston's voice was determined.

"They haven't made a move towards us."

On the boat, two sailors popped the top off one oil drum and lifted it
up to a brace located on the stern.

They tipped it into the brace. A thick, sludgy material flowed out,
quickly coating the surrounding water with a foul-looking substance. It
shimmered and gleamed on top of the water, reflecting back an odd
phosphorescence.

"They're trying to keep us from drinking the seawater?" Boston asked. He
frowned.

Elwell shook his head. "No," he said slowly as a familiar smell reached
his nostrils. It brought back memories of Korea, of days he would much
rather have forgotten. "No, not at all. Unless I'm very much mistaken,
that's napalm."

Five minutes later, the boat headed back to shore. It had circuited the
end of the pier, dumping the contents of ten oil drums over the side.

The viscous substance now completely covered the ocean around the MIUW.

Without retracing its path, the boat headed to shore on the opposite
side of the pier.

Elwell turned to Lieutenant Boston. "I think the odds of getting out of
here by sea just got a lot smaller."

USS JOUETT

The bitch box crackled to life with an angry snarl.

"Combat, this is Outboard." The technician from the highly classified
Signal Exploitation Unit on board the ship sounded worried. "We have
launch indications from Panama-they've got twenty fighters on the deck,
all nationalities, from the multinational force."
"When?" Renninger asked.

"Can't tell, sir. But it could be any moment."

Renninger shook his head and motioned Collins to come over to him. "I
don't like the sound of this. Let's set General Quarters. If they're
carrying antiship missiles, we're within their weapons envelope almost
as soon as they launch."

Collins nodded. The fighters from the group of Central and South
American nations were capable of carrying a full load of anti-surface
and anti-air weapons.

In response, Eisenhower, now within comfortable -Mod Carrier Air Patrol
range, had anted up a brace of fighters for outer air perimeter defense.

The first two had arrived on station just fifteen minutes before,
checked in with the ship, and assumed their assigned stations seaward of
the ship.

"Let's go to full auto," Renninger added. "Alone out here, if we hit a
massed attack from a full group of fighters, we'll never be able to keep
up."

The Aegis ship was capable of operating in a fully automatic mode in
which the computer on board would independently target, track, and
release weapons on up to two hundred incoming targets. In a
quick-reaction scenario, it was the only way of doing business.

"There's the first one." Renninger watched as the first hostile symbol
tracked away from the coast of Panama. "The rest of the flight will
be-there they are, there they are."

The coast of Panama was cluttered with enemy fighter-aircraft symbols.

With Jouett just outside the twelve-mile limit, the fighters would be
within range to release their weapons inside one minute. The target
symbols appeared, were quickly tagged with assigned priorities by the
Aegis system, and moved steadily toward the ship.

"Missile separation, missile separation," the track supe howled
immediately. "Vampire inbound!"

On the screen in front of them, a horde of tiny new tracks separated
from the fighter-aircraft symbols. The speed leaders all converged on a
single point-their ship.

"Any second now," Renninger murmured. Collins glanced at him. He sounded
almost bored. His eyes were fixed on the large-screen display. "We
should hear there it is."

A low rumble filled the compartment, quickly crescendoing to an
unbearable scream. The first antiair missile launched, and the
large-screen display showed its extended track towards its first target.

In short order, the ship independently launched six missiles at incoming
targets.

"Where are they coming from?" Collins shouted. She wheeled towards the
Electronic Warfare Center. "Dammit, this isn't real-it can't be." On the
large-screen display in front of her, twenty-four enemy air targets had
just popped into being, all located within six nautical miles of the
ship. "There's nothing there-we would have seen them inbound. This isn't
happening."

"No jamming, XO," the technician shouted. His fingers were flying over
the keys as he struggled to keep up with the changing scenario. "I can't
find any source.

There's nothing to-fire-control radar lighting us up now. "

The noise from the missile bay crescendoed until it was an unbearable
cacophony of firepower. Collins wheeled on the Captain. "You have to
take us out of auto-those aren't targets. They're ghosts."

"There's no way to tell a ghost from a real target right now," he said
tersely. "We can't take the chance of one getting through. One missile,
that's all it would take. "
"The carrier," Collins said, desperate for some answer. "Where's our
combat air?"

The captain stabbed at a button on his console and expanded the range of
the screen. The symbols indicating friendly fighter air were just forty
miles to the north.

"Get 'em down here-now."

Just then, a new voice came in over Tactical. "Jouett, this is Black
Knight 101, inbound for Carrier Air Patrol," the Tomcat pilot said.

"What the hell's going on down there?"

Collins grabbed the mike. "We're holding massive contact on a massive
inbound raid. What are you holdin on the AWG-9?" she asked, referring to
the Tomcat's radar.

"Nothing around you, Jouett, except a bunch of missiles you put in the
air."

"Get it out of auto," Renninger snapped. "And autodestruct the
missiles."

Collins collapsed in her chair, her hands shaking.

What had they done? Launched a large chunk of their antiair inventory at
what? Ghosts. much was clear so far. But where had they come from?

And more importantly, who was behind it?

MIUW 106

Sergeant Elwell pulled Lieutenant Boston back behind the shielding bulk
of the MIUW van. "Not a good idea, sir. You lose your night vision."

"Holy shit." Boston stared up at the sky overhead.

A loud boom, then a brilliant blast of white light. Elwell grabbed him
by the collar with one hand and jerked open the heavy steel door to the
surveillance van. He shoved Boston inside ahead of him and pulled the
door shut.

There was a heavy spatter of noise as debris rained down on the metal
trailer. The van rocked slightly from side to side, the generator kicked
off-line,, and the red emergency battery-operated lights came on. The
thin, shrill of warning indicators filled the van.

"What the hell was that?" one technician asked. He turned to look at
Boston, his face aghast. "Sir?"

Sergeant Elwell gave Boston a moment to gather his thoughts, then said,
"Looks like that cruiser off the coast has been mighty busy, son."

From the little Elwell had seen, the air battle made no sense. There'd
been no roiling yellow clouds of aviation gas-indeed not even any sounds
of aircraft launching.

Just what the hell had the cruiser been shooting at?

"I have to get back out there," Boston said, undogging the door. "We had
people in the tents, people around the trucks-Jesus, the casualties."

"Let's take a pair of these, then, sir." Elwell picked up a padded black
case, opened it, and extracted a pair of night-vision goggles. He looked
thoughtfully at the lieutenant for a moment. "I'll wear these-might be
helpful in finding any casualties."

Boston nodded, and pushed the hatch open. They moved silently around the
MIUW compound, searching for casualties. The well-trained sailors had
already assembled in their muster area and were breaking into alert
teams. Twice in fifty yards, Elwell and Boston were challenged by men
carrying shotguns. One woman, virtually invisible behind a pile of
sandbags, drew a bead on them with a .45 before she recognized them.

Ten minutes later, they'd completed their nose count.

Miraculously, there were no casualties. The command tent, however, was a
complete loss, along with their backup unclassified radio gear.

"Could have been a lot worse," Elwell said.

"I suspect it will be before long." Boston shot Elwell a telling glance.

"I'd give a lot to know right now what happened out there."

As he studied the burning wreckage of the command tent, Sergeant Elwell
nodded. " would make two of us, Lieutenant."

The small metal fishing boat motored out quietly from the shore to the
end of the MIUW pier. The engine noise would carry a long way in the
night, so there was little chance that his approach wouldn't be
detected. As soon as it cleared the shallow area, it cut underneath the
pier and wove its way between the pilings toward the end. It stopped
immediately under the end of the pier and the van.

Two men dressed completely in black wet suits gently guided the boat
towards the endmost pier stanchion.

Working quickly, quietly, communicating by hand gestures, they affixed
large packets of C-4 explosive to the cement pillars. After placing the
charge on the for-e end supports, they moved back to the center of the
pier.

The man in charge motioned to his subordinate. He picked up a flare gun
and aimed it out at the open ocean past the end of the pier. The thick,
gooey sludge still floated on the surface.

He fired. The flare arced out, and landed burning on the substance
spread there earlier. The brilliant glow of the white phosphorous flare
was quickly replaced by a burst of yellow flame.

The motor boat was already turning as it started. It sped back towards
the shore, outracing the hungry flames.

The MIUW camp was a chorus of surprised yelps and shouted instructions.

While they'd developed contingency plans against almost any form of land
attack, including assault up the shaky ladder that led down to the
floating dock, almost no one had considered the possibility that the sea
would turn into a raging inferno.

No one except Sergeant Elwell. Shouting to be heard over the noise of
the flames, he assembled the MIUW crew members. They moved to the center
of the pier and away from the end, communicating with the van by radio.

The van secured all outside ventilation.

"They can't last in there," Boston said. "Can they?"

Elwell nodded. "Plenty of oxygen in there for a while. This stuff will
burn hard for a while, then go out.

All it does is destroy our night vision and make the odds of getting out
of here by sea less probable."

Boston swore silently. "This is way past what we're trained for. We're
supposed to be in a rear support area-with troops, some form of
protection." He looked up at Elwell almost pleadingly. "They're good
people, Sergeant. You have to believe that. But this-"

Elwell laid one hand comfortingly on his shoulder.

"We're going to get out of here, sir. Trust me on that.

But right now, you gotta use your head. Get to the van the mission is
what matters. I'll handle everything out here."

PIER 36: 7 OCTOBER USSJOUETT

Jerusha Bailey whirled around to face the speaker as Lieutenant Boston's
scratchy, high-pitched voice came over it. She listened in horror as he
described the flaming water around the end of the pier, the small boat
that had approached covertly, and the thick black choking smoke that was
enveloping them.

Bailey turned to Renninger. "We have to go get them out.

Renninger shook his head. "It's too dangerous. Especially when we can't
even rely on our own air-search radar to tell us if we're about to be
targeted."

"Isn't that why we have carrier air cover?" she argued.

A peevish look crossed Renninger's face. "I've got my orders too. To
stay outside the twelve-mile limit."

"And that's going to be your testimony when you have to explain why you
let my people die?"

The question hung in the air between them, unanswered. Finally,
Renninger broke the silence. "My XO was right about you," he said
gruffly. "All right, we're going in." He turned to the operations
specialist. "Call those Tomcats-tell them what we're up to. Make sure we
have air cover, especially radar cover, the entire way in. And when they
start going snake shit on you, just mention Commander Bailey's name." He
turned back to her with a sardonic gleam in his eyes. "Let's see how
much weight you swing around here, lady."

MIUW 106

The air inside the van was already stifling hot. He was certain it was
his imagination, but Boston felt as though he was already breathing
faster. How long would it take carbon dioxide to build up inside the van
anyway? And did it really matter? Whatever his situation was inside the
van, the fate of the people outside clustered in tents and inside trucks
was even less certain.

"We've gotta keep the smoke out," his sonar tech said quietly, "if
nothing else. shit'll gum up the gear faster than anything."

Boston nodded. He took a deep breath and said, "Listen, people, this is
for real now. We forget about everything else and do our job. That's
what the Navy pays us for. Any questions?"

He glanced around the van, and saw everyone shake their head no. He felt
a brief rush of grim pride in their dedication. "Okay, let's get to
work." He turned back to the status board on the jobs console.

"Sir. We just gained contact on a submarine. A nuke, by the looks of the
signature." The sonarman pointed out a set of thin lines tracing their
way down the CRT screen on the SQR-17 sonar. "I make her submerged yes,
definitely a nuke," he added, pointing out a sudden change in one of the
lines.

"Where is she?" Boston asked.

"About two miles from the entrance to the Canal.

She's headed outbound, doing about three knots. Routine patrol status,
it looks like."

Boston frowned. What was the submarine doing now?

For the past week, the subs had been the eternal goblins of this
operation, injecting a factor of uncertainty into every evolution.

He turned back to the chief. "I want us operational until the last
possible second. You heard Commander Bailey-you know what the plan is.

Get our people ready. "

The chief nodded. "I've already sent the new submarine contact to Jouett
over the link. It may slow up the rescue operation, Lieutenant."

"There's not much we can do about that, is there?"

Boston turned back to the sonarman. "At the first hint that she's
getting ready to fire, let me know. Not that you wouldn't anyway," he
added hastily as a look of annoyance crossed the sonarman's face. "We'll
go to voice reports only. With Jouett inbound, she needs to know what
she's coming into."
"Standing in harm's way," the chief said quietly. "That's what it's all
about, isn't it?"

Boston nodded. "Let's see what we can do to even up the odds."

USS JOUETT

Bailey gathered the bosun's mate and damage-control personnel
around her on the empty bow of the ship. The smoke from the MIUW fire
was clearly visible now, an ugly, ominous black cloud billowing up from
the surface of the ocean. The pier was already obscured, wreathed in
tendrils of the foul substance. She turned to the chief bosun's mate.

"You've got the fire hoses rigged?"

The tall, taciturn man nodded. "All forward, ma'am, just the way you
wanted." He frowned slightly as though not convinced it would work.

"We're going to need a hell of a repainting after this."

"My people will need more than that if this doesn't work." She gazed at
him steadily for a long moment.

"This stuff floats on water. This is just like your basic safety drills
in boot camp. You all remember-the ones where you practiced surfacing
after abandoning ship and splashing your hands in front of you to clear
the oil away?" She saw a chorus of nods from the assembled sailors.

"Same principle." She pointed forward. "If you keep up the pressure to
the fire hoses, we ought to be able to blow a clean water path through
all this shit. It doesn't burn that long-you know how flammable gas is.

I want everybody in a respirator as well. No point in taking any
chances."

Her sailors on the end of the pier wouldn't have the luxury of
respirators, though. How many of them were still alive" Boston's voice
still came over the circuit in Tactical, and his messages were relayed
to her via a walkie-talkie. But the fate of the men and women outside
the van was still uncertain. Still, she had a nagging conviction that
somehow they'd survived. Boston had told her that Sergeant Elwell was
out there with them.

If any man could get them through it, it was Elwell.

Well, there was nothing she could do about them at this moment. Not
anything more than she was currently doing. She shoved the thought to
the back of her mind and resumed her lecture. "Hoses two and four,
you'll stand by to douse any problems on board. I suspect what we'll
really get out of this is some fouled paint and filthy air, but if the
flames try to creep up, you guys knock them down. Clear?"

Two hose teams nodded their heads.

"And you men up forward-keep your streams of water intersecting. You
don't have to blow a huge path through the water. Our bow wave will take
care of most of it. Just get us somewhere to start and then watch the
edges of the path. This ought to work-it will work."

"The high-line rig is set up," another bosun's mate put in. "It's
moored and tied off on this end well enough, and I've got the cage ready
to go."

"How fast can we transfer passengers?" she asked.

"Maybe four at a time-that's stretching it. And that's assuming they
have a secure tie-off point on that end."

"Oh, it'll be secure. You got enough men to haul it in?"

He nodded. "We can use the winch if we need to.

Regulations call for manual line-handling when pax transfer is involved,
but I think we can make an exception in this case."

"All right." She scanned the assembled faces again. saw the grim
determination on each of them. "Let's do it then." She raised the
walkie-talkie to her lips.

"Bridge, Damage Control One. We're ready to proceed."

The deck shifted under her feet as the gas-turbine powered ship quickly
built up speed. Within moments, water was curling away from the bow in
the smooth clean spirals associated with calm water. Sailors manning the
fire hoses stood along the rail, some with their arms hooked over the
lines running through the supports to steady themselves. Within moments,
Jouett was at flank speed.

"Full ensemble," the chief bosun's mate ordered as the first hints of
acrid smoke drifted across the focsle.

"Nobody goes down, people. We can't afford it this time. "

Bailey reached down to the deck and picked up the hood to her
firefighting ensemble. She popped it over her head and felt the cool,
sweet-stale rush of canned air on her face.

"Now." The bosun's mate gestured abruptly.

Long arcs of pressurized seawater streamed out from the hoses, playing
across the water in front of them.

Bailey shouted to be heard through her fire ensemble.

"Bridge, DC One. Too fast-recommend fifteen knots."

"Fifteen knots, aye," she heard Renninger respond.

His voice was barely audible. As the ship slowed, she was no longer
overrunning the four arcs of saltwater spraying ahead of her. By
adjusting the speed by a few knots here and there, Bailey finally
managed to match their forward speed with the rate at which the
firefightinteams could blast a small path of clean water through the
still-smoldering napalm. The bow wave took care of the rest of it,
pushing it away from the ship. Back aft, one fire team stood ready to
keep it away from the stern.

One thousand yards away from the end of the pier, Jouett slowed to three
knots and executed a sharp turn to port. The fire teams stammered
slightly, but kept their balance and their hoses trained forward. The
arc of the turn took them to within two hundred feet of the pier.

Renninger turned the ship so that she was beam-on to the pier. Over the
radio, Bailey could hear the stern firefighting team snapping out crisp
orders as they cleared the burning napalm away from the ship.

"Ready with the shot line," the chief bosun's mate said. Seconds later,
the sharp crack of a pistol rang out.

The line attached to it lolted up and over to the MIUW camp, and dangled
across the van. Through the black smoke and obscured visibility, she
tried to see if anyone was responding. Too much smoke, too distant-as
far as she could tell, there was no one at the other end of the line.

Her heart sank. Were they too late? Had the smoke already killed all of
her sailors? The possibility that she would have to live with that
knowledge, that everyone in her command had died while she was gone,
struck her full force.

"They got it!" Even through his ensemble, Bailey could see the smile on
the bosun's mate's face. "They're pulling the line over now." The manila
line looped on the deck began feeding out from the ship and to the van.

The shot line was a series of increasing thicknesses of cord. Attached
to the weight at the very end was a length of light nylon followed by
heavier manila. Finally, the thick manila high line was paid out.

"They've got it secured," Renninger's voice said over her walkie-talkie.

"Sending over the messenger tow line."

A second coil of line began unfurling as the sailors on the pier hauled
it across. "Deploying the passenger cage." The rickety metal frame that
would carry the sailors back and forth between the ship and the pier
disappeared into the oily smoke.

How many of them had made it? The question seemed desperate, all the
more so because she could not change the results. If they were in time,
they were in time, and nothing she could do or say now would make a
difference for the sailors on the pier. They either survived, or they
hadn't. She clung to the hope that Sergeant Elwell and Lieutenant Boston
had been able to keep them safe in her absence.

"Here we go." The bosun's mate chief shouted to a team of sailors, who
began hauling in on a second line.

A few minutes later, a transfer cage reappeared out of the smoke. In it
were five hacking, coughing sailors.

She rushed to the cage and surveyed the faces. They were pale, gasping,
and wheezing, but alive. The corpsmen took charge of them quickly and
hustled them inside the skin of the ship, clamping portable oxygen
bottles over each face.

They repeated the process eight times, hauling in far more than the
maximum allowed number of passengers on each trip. The sailors hauling
on the transfer line were growing visibly tired. On the last trip, she
okayed the use of the winch, and let the sailors steady the motion in
with the manual lines. Each time the cage came aboard, she checked the
faces, mentally checking off names against her roster of personnel. The
last load carried Lieutenant Boston and three chiefs.

"Elwell?" she demanded as she met Boston on the deck. "Where is he?"

Boston shook his head and coughed weakly. His face was pale, an
unhealthy bluish tint underlying his normally rosy cheeks. "He didn't
come-said he had something else to do."

Bailey swore silently. "What the hell was he doing?" she said as they
stepped inside the skin of the ship.

"Ma'am-not now," the corpsman said firmly. "This man can't even breathe,
much less talk."

"I have to know. Where's Elwell?"

Boston hacked again, a low, protracted sound, before he finally gasped
out a sentence. "Said he was going ashore-the RHIB-the SEALS." As he
choked the last word out, Boston turned deathly pale and crumpled to the
deck.

"Commander Bailey, get your ass up here." Renninger's voice over her
walkie-talkie was unmistakable.

"We need you on the bridge."

"Take care of him," she said to the corpsman.

"I will, ma'am.That's my job. Now, why don't you go do yours?"

Bailey ran up the ladder to the bridge and stepped out into the
compartment. The hatches leading out to the bridge wings had been firmly
dogged down, but the ship had been designed to withstand nuclear,
biological, and chemical attacks, and not a trace of smoke fouled the
air.

"Get the deck clear," Renninger ordered. "If that line snaps ..." He
left the sentence unfinished.

They all knew what would have happened if the manila line attached to
the MIUW van snapped. It would snake across the deck with the force of a
whiplash, cutting through human flesh like a knife through hot butter.

Renninger glanced at her. "It's not built to withstand that much
strain."

"There's not time to get the wire line across."

He nodded. "Lzt's see what we can do then. All back one third." The
vibration throughout the ship changed subtly as the controllable pitch
propellers began backing the ship down. Bailey watched through the
forward window as the manila line stretched and gave. The bow was empty
of sailors, but she could hear the thin, high pitched whine as the
manila took the strain.

On the pier, the van moved slightly. A rough, grating sound. Then it
lurched, moving steadily towards the end of the pier until the forward
edge of it was suspended over the water.

"Now for the tricky part. You say when."

She watched the van edge further and further over the water until it
teetered on the very edge of the pier. At the first sign that it was
beginning to topple, she said, "Now."

Three decks below, just inside a weather deck hatch, a chief bosun's
mate tripped a quick-release trigger. The manila line sang as it slipped
through the pulleys on the ship, suddenly free of restraint on this end.

The line between the van and the ship went slack. Carried by its weight
and momentum, the van toppled forward and into the ocean. " ought to
take care of any security problems," Bailey said grimly.

She turned back to Captain Renninger. " was perhaps the finest example
of deck seamanship I've ever seen. Thank you."

He brushed aside her thanks. "Now let's see if the rest of your plan
works as well. You're Officer of the Deck, Commander. Make it happen."

Bailey nodded. She picked up a sound-powered headphone set and slapped
it over her ears. "Man all gunnery stations." -All

PIER 36: 7 OCTOBER

Elwell felt his way down the rusted iron ladder to the floating dock
below. The RHIB that the SEALS had been using to lay sonobuoys had been
pulled up on to it for some minor maintenance.

Most of the flames immediately around the dock had died down, but the
thick, choking smoke reduced visibility to less than two feet.

Prior to departing, the corpsman had given him his last emergency oxygen
canister. Intended for on-scene treatment of smoke-inhalation victims,
it was now preventing the evil it was designed to treat.

Elwell sucked deeply on it, tasting the peculiar tang of canned air. He
pulled the mask away from his face, tried one experimental breath of the
air, and almost lost his grip on the ladder in the subsequent fit of
coughing.

Fifty-two rungs later, he stepped down on the grated metal dock. The
smoke was even thicker here, and he moved carefully. To fall off the
side into the fouled water was unthinkable.

As he reached the bottom of the ladder, he dropped to his hands and
knees and carefully crawled across the platform. With his hands
stretched out in front of him, he felt the rugged, rubberized side of
the RHIB. The skin was stretched taut. Evidently the flames around the
dock had heated up the air inside the tubes. Now if he could just launch
it.

He felt his way forward, and found the line still attached to the bow.

He looped that around a stanchion. then shoved and tugged on the boat
until it was at the edge of the dock. With one final jerk, the boat slid
smoothly off and dropped one foot into the fouled water.

Moving quickly now before the remaining flames in the water could ruin
his plans, Elwell got into the boat.

The engine started on the first try.

To his left, flames broke out again on the water as the motion of the
boat disturbed the upper crusted layer of napalm and exposed fresh fuel
to air. The resulting turbulence fanned the flames even more, and they
now stretched five feet into the air.

With his K-bar knife, Elwell cut the line that tethered him to the dock.

The flames were nearly at the boat now, lapping hungrily at the
rubberized sides. The sides were under pressure from the expanded air
inside, and he was afraid that they could not stand much more strain,
particularly not if they were weakened by heat. As the rope parted, he
slai-nnied the throttle forward to its maximum position. The ii-htwcight
craft went bow-high and blocked his view of the shore. He steered
outward from the pier, trying to give himself a measure of safety in the
poor visibility. Where had that smaller merchant ship been tied up!

ABOUT five hundred yards forward, he decided. He moved further out into
the open ocean.

The flames were creeping higher now, licking hungrily at the sides.

Still bow-high, the RHIB acted as a flame barrier as he shot through the
water to the shore.

In the end, the landing was almost anticlimactic. As he neared the
shore, the smoke thinned slightly. He saw the quay wall loom up
suddenly, and slammed the engine in reverse. The RHIB hit, and skittered
across the concrete sideways. The engine and stern slammed into the
cement with an unholy shrieking sound.

The impact almost threw him out of the boat. He clutched desperately at
the lines that ran along the side and held on, staring at the water
outside the RHIB. This close in to shore, the napalm coating was patchy
and intermittent. Debris from normal pier side operations fed the fire,
however. Panamanian ecological precautions were not nearly as stringent
as in the United States.

Finally, the boat stabilized. Elwell puttered slowly along the wall
until he reached a metal access ladder.

He tied the boat to it and climbed the fourteen rungs to the edge of the
wall.

As his feet hit dry land, he heaved a sigh of relief.

This was his element, the ground and the dock, and the environs
surrounding it. Not on the water, where featureless terrain baffled his
tactical instincts. Out there, despite Commander Bailey's high opinion
of him, he was at a disadvantage.

But here, on dry land, he was in his element. He smiled grimly. Whether
or not the SEALS knew it, the odds had just shifted in his favor.

Just as he turned towards the port facility itself, the ocean behind him
erupted into a roaring fireball. He whirled and stared out at the end of
the pier. Even through the dark haze he could see the flames shooting up
to well over one hundred feet, hungry and demanding. An unholy shrieking
and grinding sound filled the air. As he stared, stunned, the last two
hundred feet of the pier, including all of the MIUW vehicles and
remaining equipment, shuddered and collapsed into the ocean.

USS JOUETT

The sonarman recovered first. As soon as he was able to speak,
he began demanding to speak to Bailey. When the corpsman finally reached
her, she was on the bridge, supervising the next phase of their
evolution.

The corpsman strode onto the bridge, accompanied by the sonarman. He
carried a portable bottle of oxygen with him, and stayed close to his
patient.

"Had to tell you, Captain," the sonarman said weakly. He stopped,
drawing in a deep gasp of breath.

The corpsman slapped the oxygen mask over his face.

The sonarman breathed in deeply, took several deep breaths, then shoved
the mask away. "Just before we evacuated, we had a submarine contact.

Nuke, I'm sure.

We were just starting to put out the voice call when we had to get the
hell out of there."

He quickly summarized the tactical details, concluding with: "He could
be anywhere by now, ma'am. But it was a nuke-I'm sure of it. And he was
laying mines."

"It's gotta be that Chinese one," Collins muttered.

She shot Bailey a rueful look. "We should've taken it out when we had
the chance."

Bailey shook her head. "No, there was no justification then. But now-I
think the situation may have changed."

Between the evacuation of the MIUW and the subsequent explosion that
engulfed their end of the pier, there was no doubt in her mind that the
Panamanians were involved in hostile actions. But she was certain the
Chinese were behind them. Especially now, with the submarine deployed in
their vicinity. She turned to Renninger.

"What are your intentions?" she asked.

"Shoot first and ask questions later," Renninger said gruffly. "I've
already taken too many chances today."

"Do you really think this will work?" Collins asked.

Jouett was now proceeding along the coast, violatin almost every traffic
regulation in force in Panama Bay, t, but taking the shortest route
toward the Canal. "Even if it does, we're going to be in a hell of a lot
of trouble."

"Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six," Bailey answered.

"Between the submarine and the air power, it's only a matter of time.

Especially with this funky avionics problem you're having. The carrier
can't keep up air cover the entire time, and who knows when that
multinational squadron of fighters is going to take some action." Bailey
shook her head, contemplating, their possibilities for survival. "No,
there's only one place that will be absolutely safe. At least for the
time being, until the rest of the Navy gets here."

"It's a good idea,"
Renninger said unexpectedly. He nodded approvingly.

"Tactically sound, but perhaps impossible to execute."

"Not to mention the reparations the U.S. will have to pay. "

"To hell with reparations," Bailey responded. "It was our Canal for a
hundred years. We put those doors on it, built the lock, lost countless
lives cutting this channel across the continent. If anybody has the
right to claim force majeure, we do."

Collins turned back to study the approach to the Canal. "It's worth a
try."

"XO! All gunnery stations manned." The bosun's mate had his hand on the
IMC as he made his report.

Collins nodded. "Put it out over the IMC, Boats.

We're in for a hell of a gunnery exercise."

AMERICAN EMBASSY

Doug Turner studied the man standinn- before him. Had
he not known it was Hank Flashert, he would have been convinced that the
man was a natix;e Panamanian. The clothes, the haircut, the subtle look
of disarray-it all fit. Turner realized with a sinkine heart that
Flashert had succumbed to the one mortal sin in the religion of the
State Department. He'd gone native. , more than anything, decided him.

Despite his earlier gaffe in allowing the Panamanians to believe that
the U.S. supported them while subtly trying to play on their
insecurities with the airbus shoot-down, Turner was over his head. The
violence directed towards the MRJW unit, the attacks on civilian
merchant ships-it had all escalated to a level that was far beyond his
experience.

There could be no way to use this profitably, not in the United States'
best interests. Inevitably, both his culpability and the true state of
affairs in Panama would be exposed.

Thus would end his career. He thought back to Bradley Jeets, who had
only a little while to go until retirement. He himself would never make
it that far, he was convinced.

"The situation is untenable," Turner began, uncomfortably aware of how
gross an understatement that was.

"We're fast approaching the point where the only solution will be a
military one. I'm sure that's not what any of us want." He paused,
giving Flashet a chance to respond, hopefully with more accurate
in-area information that he would have gleaned from his Panamanian
contacts.

Oddly enough, Flashert started to laugh. "You old fool. It was always
out of our hands from the moment the Chinese bought those bases. Did you
really think we could maintain an area of presence down here after that?

Ever since the Panamanians gained control of the Canal, this situation
has been ready to explode." Flashert shook his head, still evidently
amused at the naivete of his superior. "You people back there don't
understand anything. Not anything at all. It's a bright, shiny world
when you look at it from D.C. All anyone needs is a chancea little
military foreign aid, some leftover MRES, and you're convinced the world
is your friend. But things don't work like that down here, Turner. They
never did."

Turner's rage knew no bounds. How dare the man stand there and laugh at
him? His career might be falling down in ruins around him, but he was
still a senior State Department official. He would not be treated so-not
by someone who'd gone native.

"There's always a solution," Turner said crisply. He struggled to keep a
calm, professional expression on his face. There was no point in showing
Flashert how strong a reaction he'd caused. "You just haven't seen it
yet."

Flashert slumped into the chair before Turner's desk.

He chuckled again, then propped his feet up on the highly polished
surface. "Doug, Doug, Doug. When are you going to get over it, man?"

Flashert gestured with one hand, taking in not only the office but the
entire country of Panama. "The military-that's how we do business down
here."
"What do you mean?" Turner asked, uneasily curious despite his
resolution to take charge of the situation.

Flashert snorted. "The only thing these people understand is force. I
ought to know-I'm the one who's been living in this shithole for the
last ten years. You want the Panamanians off balance? Looking to the
good old U.S. of A. for assistance? There's only one way to do it. And
besides," he continued, ignoring the shocked expression on Turner's
face, "you've always given us a large amount of latitude. You told me to
solve the problem-so I solved it. So don't start harping about the
results."

Doug Turner felt the blood drain from his face. In twenty years of
distinguished service with the State Department, he'd never faced a
situation that felt so completely out of his control.

"What happened with that unit out on the pier?" Turner demanded,
suddenly certain that he knew the answer. "The one that was attacked?

And the attacks on the merchant ships? The airbus, for that matter?"

Flashert laughed. "I don't know a damned thing about the merchant
ships," he said. His failure to deny knowledge of the other two
incidents shook Turner even more.

"The airbus?"

Flashert shrugged. "Personally, my money is on the Chinese. Oh," he
continued at once, noting the look of astonishment on Turner's face,
"don't make any mistake about it. We shot the little bastard down. Not a
bad thing, as far as I'm concerned, if it took out Garcia. bastard
needed to die."

"But we shot the missile," Turner said, still confused.

"How does that-?"

Flashert cut off his sentence by standing up suddenly and taking two
steps towards him. "The Chinese, Doug.

Haven't you ever wondered about them? In the last two decades, they've
made incredible progress. You see their submarine parked out there-hell,
you see them all over the world these days. Between industrial espionage
and military spies, is there anything they don't know? Do you really
think the inner workings of the Aegis radar are that far beyond them?"

"They took control of the ship?"

Flashert shook his head. "No. Not of the ship itself.

Just of the environment in which it operates. Think about it, Doug.

These ships today operate on more than water.

It's the whole electronic environment-all the airspace around them, the
electromagnetic radiation, even the international data-relay circuits.

Do you really think it would be that difficult to insert a false target
into the Aegis radar picture?"

Numbly, Turner sat down in his chair. He hit hard, felt the jolt rocket
up his spine. "The Chinese are behind this." He felt a sudden, bitter
hopelessness. He looked over at Flashen. "You could have warned me."

Flashert shook his head. "Not a chance, old buddy.

You got yourself deeper into this than I could ever have managed."

"But the airbus-"
"Like I said, a casualty of war. Or of politics. Take your choice. It
wasn't until this century that the two were ever separated anyway. The
Chinese understand that a hell of a lot better than we do."

"I've got to talk to the Secretary," Turner said suddenly. "There's a
way to stop this-if we act now. This whole thing is out of control."

Flashert studied him for a moment. "I wouldn't be so eager to do that,
Dougie. There are a whole lot of people involved in this that wouldn't
like that at all. Not one little bit. Other people have careers to think
about too.

You ought to think about that before you run squealing to the Secretary
of State."

A sudden, vivid picture flashed into Turner's mind.

Flashert, down here alone, a loose cannon out of control.

After ten years of living in Panama, working closely with the military
and the other people who chose to make this their permanent home, he
must have dozens of contacts. Particularly within the military, who
seemed to circle in and out of Panamanian tours with surprising
frequency, homesteading in the area just as whole divisions used to call
Germany their permanent station. The scope of the problem expanded,
sprouting ugly tendrils and heads like a hydra. For the first time in
his career, he saw just how far out of his depth he was.

"Let me introduce you to some of them," Flashert said easily. He stood
and walked over to the door, Opened it, and made a motion with his hand.

He turned and looked back at Turner, triumph in his face. "I suppose
you've already met Commander Murphy."

Turner stared aghast at the SEAL commander as the Pieces started to fall
into place. "What are you going to do with me?" he said quietly, grimly
pleased that his voice sounded steady.

Flashert gestured towards his chair. "I suggest you have a seat. All we
have to do now is wait."

GULF OF PANAMA: 7 OCTOBER USS JOUETT

"There's no other way." Bailey took a deep breath and dove into her
explanation once again. "Whatever's going on here, one thing is clear.

The whole thing is about the Panama Canal and who controls it. It's the
center of gravity, sir. We control the Canal and we control the entire
course of the battle. They won't dare attack Jouett once she's inside
the first lock. Not and risk jamming the Canal with debris for years to
come."

"But you heard that fellow-the harbor's mined." i Renninger made a
dismissive gesture. "There's no way I'm taking Jouett into mined water.

Not until it's been swept, and we're damned short on minesweepers
right now, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Captain, you agree that the Canal's the center of gravity?" Bailey
persisted.

"Of course, but-"

"Sir, if you would, just tell me. If you were -oin- to mine the
approaches to the Canal, how would you do it?"

"Moored mines," Renninger said immediately.

"Command-activated, set at a depth of around thirty feet."

"Where?"

"I'd put a staggered line in right here." Renninger sketched out a line
five miles long outside the immediate approaches to the Canal. "You keep
traffic out of the entire entrance area, don't have as much problem with
somebody bumping into them before they're armed."

"Maybe. It's a hell of a long line, though. The only platform that's
mining is supposedly this one sub, and for every mine they carry, they
give up a torpedo. Not many sub skippers will give up their entire load
of torps for mines." Bailey took the pencil from Renninger and moved it
further in toward the entrance. "And if they're command-activated, you
don't have to worry about premature actuation. Until they get the
signal, they're just chunks of metal. A tanker wouldn't even notice one
unless the mooring line to the sea bottom fouled a propeller. No,"

Bailey continued, laying the pencil down, "I'd put my minefield in a
good deal closer. Real close to the entrance, in fact, in water just
deep enough to keep any wreck from completely blocking the entrance."

"And your point?"

"Just a few more questions, Captain. How hard is it to keep a minefield
in place in a strong current?" Bailey asked.

"Damned hard. Even two to three knots is a problem."

Bailey straightened up from the chart table she'd been leaning over, and
felt the bones in her lower back creak. "That's what I thought. So what
do you think a current of fifteen to twenty knots would do?"

"Flush them," Renninger said. "Even the bottom mines would be
dislocated."

"So we're going to reroute a couple of ocean currents into the Bay?"
Collins asked. "Or were you just planning on using some NSA magic to
make one materialize for us? Please, I do want to know."
"No magic to it," Bailey said, unperturbed. She pointed at the massive
lock doors towering seventy-six feet above the water five miles off
their bow. "There's at least twenty feet of water piled up behind those
doors.

What kind of current do you think that'll create if it's released
suddenly?"

"She's right," Collins said unexpectedly. Bailey glanced over and saw an
acid expression on the XO's face. "Dammit, I hate to admit it, but she's
right."

Bailey nodded. "We blow the doors and we create a small tidal wave that
sweeps the approach clean for us.

It's not a hundred-percent solution, but it's as good as we're going to
get."

Renninger studied them both for a moment. "I see the logic in your
solution, but the danger to the ship ..."

He shook his head gravely. "We're not going to come under air attack as
long as the Tomcats are overhead."

"And how much longer are they going to be?" Collins said. "There's no
tanker support in the area-they'll have to meet the tanker halfway back
to the carrier. leaves us with large gaps in anti-air support.

Captain, with the submarine out here and us in shallow water, we've got
to get the ship to safety. At least until the rest of the fleet arrives
with the convoy."

"And how does it help any if we blow the first lock open?" Renninger
said. "Then you destroy the ability of the Canal to operate at all."

"The locks are not that difficult to replace," Bailey countered.

"Besides, they have enough lift capability built into the other three
locks to handle the traffic. Captain, if there was any other way-"

"That's always your argument, isn't it?" he snapped.

"Captain-Tomcats off station in twenty mikes," the CIC watch officer
broke in. Collins glanced over at him.

Odd that after all the trouble he'd caused her, it was Lieutenant
Williams who came to the rescue. "They say it'll be another two hours
before the next flight is in area.

Renninger swore vehemently and slammed his hand down on the plotting
table. He turned to glare at the two women. "There's not a damned thing
I liked about this mission from the start. However, without air cover, I
don't feel like we have many options. It's either this, or cut and run.

I'd prefer the latter, but we'd have to get by that submarine. And we'd
still have the problem of the radar ghosts."

He scowled for a moment longer. Then his face faded into an expression
of calm professionalism. "All right," he continued briskly, "batteries
free." He turned to Collins. "You run this, XO. And don't screw it up."

The preparations for gunnery stations went quickly, and Bailey stayed on
the bridge, listening to the familiar flow of reports and commands on
the sound-powered phones.

She felt a light tap on her shoulder, and turned to stare into the
grizzled face of Chief Templeton.

"Commander? You got a minute?" the chief asked.

"I've got something on my mind."

Bailey motioned the chief to follow her to the small compartment the
quartermasters used to stow their gear.

When he'd closed the door behind them, she asked, "What's up?"

"We wouldn't have gotten out of there without Elwell," he said without
preamble. "But it seems to me that he's on his own back there now.

Doesn't seem right.

Jouett's got a full crew-she doesn't need another couple of gunner's
mates or boatswain's mates."

She studied him for a moment, aware from his tone of voice that Chief
Templeton had already reached his own decision about the scenario. "And
you think you'd be more help ashore than on the ship, is that it?"

Chief Templeton nodded. "I spent some time talking with the sergeant. He
wanted someone to know where he was going. Just in case."

"Just in case he didn't come back, I take it?"

"That'd be about the size of it."

So Chief Templeton knew where Billy Elwell was headed and what he
intended. She felt a flash of irritation at that, the close-knit
camaraderie that developed so quickly between the senior enlisted
personnel of different services, a fellowship that permitted them to
keep secrets from their officers. She was about to say no, to remind
Chief Templeton that his primary duty had to be to the safety and
well-being of his own unit, when the chief spoke again. "I've got five
volunteers-no, I didn't ask for them. They each came to me of their own
mind. Ma'am, you don't have to like it, but you know it's the right
thing to do. We owe him-and if the situation were reversed, he'd be
coming after us."
"So what do you want?" Bailey asked.

"Weapons and the Captain's gig. It's fast and it's covered, and we won't
look as out of place in it as we would in the other boats." Bailey
sighed. "Okay, I'll ask Captain Renninger. But Chief, one thing-you
bring my sailors back alive, understand?"

The chief nodded. "That's part of the plan, Skipper.

We all come back together."

As Bailey stepped back out on the bridge, she heard Collins say, "All
stations, report."

"How close are we?" Bailey asked.

"Ten thousand yards. A good distance. It'll just take a couple of
minutes," Collins said.

They waited in silence as the flurry of status and readiness reports
came in on the circuit. Collins coordinated the actions of the ship
effortlessly, seemingly always one step ahead of the gunnery crew. The
Combat watchstanders quickly fell into the calm yet brisk manner of
operating that signified complete confidence in the officer directing
their actions. Finally, Collins looked up at her Captain. "All stations
report ready, sir."

Renninger nodded. "I already gave you batteries free," he pointed out.

"Gun Plot, this is the Weapons Officer. Fire one round for effect."

"Gunnery Plot, aye, fire one round for effect."

There was a slight whir as the gunnery fire-control radars mounted
immediately above them shifted into position. "Solid contact, Gunnery
Officer," came the report.

Bailey nodded. While electronics and weapons loads might change
throughout the decades, the ancient art of naval gunfire support-no,
naval surface-weapons support, she corrected herself-remained much the
same as it always had. A gun, a radar or lookout report, and then the
first shot.

A loud boom reverberated throughout the ship.

Collins smiled.

"All stations report."

"One round fired for effect, no apparent casualties."

One by one, each gunnery station reported in.

"Damage?" Collins asked. She frowned as she listened to the lookout's
report. She turned to the Captain.

"Two hundred yards short."

"Another round."

Once again, they went through the ritual of order and response, each one
repeated back word for word to assure there were no misunderstandings.

"I'll go to the bridge and watch from there," Bailey said quietly to the
captain.

He nodded. "I think I'll join you." A small smile crossed his face.

"Everything looks like it's under control here."

They had just reached the door leading from Combat out when a startled
exclamation caught their attention.

"Air contacts-twenty-eight of them." The operations specialist's voice
was high-pitched and worried. "Captain, they're all inbound-they just
appeared-they weren't there before."

Bailey heard the familiar whine of the Aegis system focusing its
air-search radar tower on the incoming targets. She darted back into
Combat and grabbed Collins just above the elbow. "Train the fifty-five
on them.

These are the ghosts again-I'm sure of it."

Collins paused uncertainly. "The faster we get in the Canal, the faster
we're out of danger."

Bailey shook her head firmly. "Those contacts aren't there. They're the
same ghosts we saw before. They may fool the Aegis SPY system, but let's
see how they work against the old-fashioned fire-control radar. Just try
it the lock doors will still be there if I'm wrong."

"Combat, Sonar. Submarine contact, inbound. Range, ten thousand yards.

Recommend deliberate attack at this time."

Over the open microphone, they could hear a flurry of noise from Sonar.

"She's closing us, XO. We don't have much time."

Collins smoothly and quickly transitions into a different tactical
scenario. Cupping the sound-poa ered microphone to her mouth, she said,
"Dieten, we're sending you a target"-she looked across at the chief
operations specialist-"now. You got it?"

"Affirmative," the gunner's mate said. "What do you want me to do with
it?"

"Lock it up with the fifty-five. See if it's really there." Collins left
that problem, and turned immediately to the submarine issue. "Set up for
deliberate attack. Weapons tight, but be ready. What's she doing now?"

"Fifteen knots-bearing constant, range decreasing."

"Estimated range of her torpedoes?"

"I don't know, XO," the sonarman said. "I'm not even certain what kind
of boat it is."

"Give me your best guess."

"Six thousand yards-maybe."

"Fine," Collins answered. "Weapons free. Take her out at sixty-five
hundred yards."

"That'll be at the edge of our own capability."

"Do it," she snapped. "Dammit, don't let her get within range. Weapons
free."

"Aye, aye, ma'am," the sonarman answered, a new note of confidence in
his voice. "We'll get her."

"Combat, Gun Plot. There's no contact there."

Collins stopped midstream in the rapid flow of tactical orders. "Are you
certain? Give me a firm answer, Dieten. There's a lot riding on this."

"I'm certain, XO. There's not a damned thing in the sky up there."

Collins's eyes met Bailey's. They'd both heard the lookout's report
confirming that he had no visual contact on the aircraft that were
supposedly in the area. "We're being spoofed, aren't we?" Collins asked.

"You know anything from NSA that would explain this?"

Bailey shook her head. "No. But it just made sense.

The AWG-9 Tomcat radar didn't see it. I figured the high-frequency
fire-control radar might not be susceptible to it either."

Collins shook her head. "We've still got a submarine left to deal with."

She glanced sardonically at Bailey.

"I assume you agree with me that that's real?"

"Absolutely. And I agree with you-sixty-five hundred yards."

"Nice of you to say so." Collins paused for a moment, evidently
remembering the English Channel.

"There was a time when we didn't agree. It's nice to have it different
this time."

"I'll be on the bridge," Bailey said. As she left Combat, she heard
another flurry of gunnery orders. Apparently satisfied that the air
contacts were not there, Collins had returned her attention to the
gunnery problem.

Another loud blast shook the ship, followed in rapid succession by three
more. The noise reached down into the very bowels of the ship, and
Bailey could feel the strakes and structural members of the hull
resonating with the noise, As the final shot still echoed in the
compartment, the collision alarm sounded. Bailey grabbed a stanchion and
braced herself.

The second shot cleared the lock with just inches to spare, hit the
water beyond, then evidently skipped several times. She saw the tall
spurts of water that indicated an impact, followed by the skip spouts as
well.

The third shot, seconds later, nailed the right-hand door. A giant hole
exploded inward in the massive steel panel, followed immediately
afterwards by a solid stream of water shooting out a hundred feet before
arcing down to the ocean.

The fourth and fifth shots went dead on. The first one pierced the upper
edge of the junction between the two doors, shoving the right-hand one
back and shattering its edges. Instead of the smooth mass of metal that
had stood there for over sixty years, the door's edge was now lined with
wicked-looking spikes of twisted, deadly metal.

The pressure of the water built up between the two doors was too much
for them. They burst open, releasing a tidal wave forty feet high that
shrank to a strong swell as it crossed the ten thousand yards between
Jouett and the lock.

Bailey ignored the flurry of activity around her and stared at the
damage the ship had wrought. The two massive doors to the first lock of
the Panama Canal now hung askew on their hinges. One was canted
perilously towards the center of the Canal, held in place evidently Only
by the lower hinge. The other was slammed back against the approach
wall.

"Can we get by it?" Renninger asked.

Bailey shook her head. "I don't know. If we can, it's going to be
tight."

"More damage to my paint job."

Bailey looked up, surprised at the Captain's sardonic remark. "Do you
want to try it?"

He nodded. "We've blown the hell out of the Canalnow let's go in and
prove who owns it."

The quartermaster's voice coming over the speaker from the chart house
was tense. "Thirty-five feet beneath the keel. Captain, not much room to
spare."

Renninger nodded. "We don't have a choice."

Normally, with the Canal flooded and the lock holding back the water,
there would have been considerable clearance between Jouett's keel and
the bottom below.

As it was, there was still sufficient water, since the ship drew only
twenty-eight feet. However, navigating within the confines of the Canal
sometimes led to peculiar problems. In particular, as the ship
accelerated, the stern of the ship had a tendency to settle down lower,
a phenomenon called squatting. There were other considerations as well:
the currents and water flows that ran along the banks, the possibility
of obstructions below. Generally, the Canal was superbly maintained.

Renninger turned to Bailey. "So where do you suggest we go? Stay here
and wait for the cavalry to arrive, or move deeper into the lock?"

Bailey considered the question. "Further inland," she said finally.

"First, we might want to turn around. Better to have the bow facing the
ocean than the stern. way, we can make a quicker exit if we need to."

"I assume there's another reason as well?" Renninger said.

She nodded. "Preliminary indications show that the origins of the false
targets may be here." She pointed at the Chinese port facility with one
finger. "If it came down to it, we'd have to use guns against it. And
we're too close where we are right now-the elevation would be so
depressed we might cause collateral damage. But if we move off some, get
it at the four to five mile point, we'd have better odds."

"Surely you're not suggesting we attack the facility?" Renninger
demanded. "My God, even for you-"

She cut him off firmly but politely. "I'm not suggesting anything at
this point, Captain. I'm merely saying we should keep our options open.

And like it or not, that's got to be one of them.

Renninger turned back to the chart table and studied the blank of the
Canal now stretching before Jouett. Finally, he nodded. "Okay, lady.

We'll do this your way."

THE PACIFIC OCEAN: 7 OCTOBER LOTUS GLORY

T'sing Lin moved around the ship like a ghost. Before, when there'd been
other pilots with him, at least he'd had their companionship. The crew
had always been a bit standoffish, perhaps superstitious over the nature
of their mission, or even envious of the divinity awaiting them. They
had never been the most companionable collection of beings, but at least
they'd had their training and prospects in common. had knitted them
together far more tightly than he'd realized.

Now, he was alone. The last of the small group. He no longer interpreted
the avoidance by the rest of the crew as a form of awe, but rather as
superstitious fear.

It was as though death hung so close over him that it threatened their
lives as well.

And for what? Finally, he realized with a start that he no longer
believed. The others-they were shredded bits of flesh scattered across
the ocean floor far away from home, not martyrs for the great nation.

Nor had their targets been military. He ran over the last launches in
his mind, matching that up with his frequent forays on deck. No, not
military targets-other civilian vessels.

Sailors such as those who crewed his own ship. perhaps was the real
genesis of the crew's distaste for him.

They avoided him, except for these two. He glanced down the passageway
and saw the two hulking figures concealed in the shadows. Had the master
said something? Had his own failure to cheer at his comrades' death
somehow betrayed him? For whatever reason, ever since the last one had
deployed, he'd been sighting these two all over the ship. Especially on
his frequent ramblings up on the upper deck. it was as though they
suspected-no, how could they?

Until this very moment, he'd not been certain himself.

T'sing Lin took one last look around his small compartment. The shadows
of his comrades lingered there still, their faces and peculiarities
still strong in his memory. If nothing else, he would keep them alive
that way-as he would himself.

He was careful to show no outward sign of his intentions. Rather, he ate
the usual sparse meal alone, and retired to his cabin at the normal
hour. It had been his custom to spend a period of time in silent prayer
and meditation before seeking out the open deck of the ship for his
nightly walk. He stuck to that routine.

Finally, at the usual time, he stretched and let out a loud sigh. He
walked to the door, opened it, and moved into the passageway, taking no
precautions to avoid being seen. Let them think that he was merely about
his normal routine.

From fifty feet above, he gazed down on the sea. It looked almost
smooth, its surface barely broken by the long, slow swells coming in
from the west. A few seagulls circled aimlessly just aaft the pilot
house. One hung in the air almost motionless, riding a wind current he
could neither see nor feel. Except for the noise and sound of the ship,
and the distant lights on the horizon.

from the other vessels, he could have been alone in the world.

Alone. As he already was within the ship.

T'sing Lin breathed deeply, raising his hands up over his head to expand
his lung capacity. He lowered them slowly, feeling the long rush of air
cleanse his lungs of impurities. Again he repeated the maneuver, one
he'd been taught from his earliest childhood as a method of centering
the soul. He felt the calm creep into him, washing away the anger and
terrible loneliness of the last two days. Out here, on the deck of the
ship and under the stars, his connection with the rest of the universe
was clear. It transcended him as an individual, his loyalty to his
country, and even his connection to every living being on the planet..

Completely at peace for the first time in three weeks, in one swift
motion, T'sing Lin vaulted lightly over the side of the ship.

The water approached slowly at first, as though somehow his connection
with the ship was slowing his fall.

Then time accelerated, and he had just a few microseconds in which to
realize that the gentle swells were far greater close up than they
appeared from the deck of the ship.

He hit the water at an awkward angle, slamming the right side of his
body into the ocean first. The force snapped his neck painfully back,
and he felt the small muscles corded there screaming in agony.

The fall continued through the water, down past the light, frothy
surface layers and into the deeper blackness.

With his neck canted back at an uncomfortable angle, he watched the
light from the stars vanish, to be replaced by an inky, completely
encompassing blackness. Still he fell, until he wondered whether or not
the floor of the ocean could be that far from him. With no light, he was
quickly disoriented. Up, down, even sideways were all one, all one
direction in the complete and utter darkness.

He began to panic. He could feel the pressure grinding in on him,
forcing the air out of his lungs. He flailed violently, trying to
remember which way he'd fallen, why this had seemed such a fine idea.

The last vestige of his calmness deserted him completely, and he started
to scream.

As he opened his mouth, a flurry of bubbles boiled around him.

Bubbles. Something of his early training at the torpedo school sunk in.

Bubbles. Follow them to the surface if you're uncertain.

Now his motions had a focus. He followed his bubbles up, flailing at the
water as though it were a martial arts opponent, beating the black into
submission.

Eons later when his head broke through the surface, his surroundings
were just barely lighter than they'd been beneath the sea. The one
difference was the light, sweet kiss of the sea air on his face. He
choked, coughed, sucked air violently down while maintaining his head
above water with the same violent swimming motions.

Finally, when the hypoxia started to clear, he calmed somewhat. His
motions were calmer now, just sufficient to keep his head above the
water.

The ship. He whirled in a circle, still treading water, and searched for
the giant shape. It seemed impossibly far away, as though he'd spent far
longer beneath the water than he thought possible.

Would they search for him? Of course they would the last pilot on board,
the last one who knew how to pilot the deadly vehicle to its prey. His
desertion-for that's what it was-could not have gone unnoticed. The two
massive, hulking figures that had followed him on deck would surely have
seen him go over the side, have raised the alarm immediately. Indeed,
any second the ship would be turning, beginning a search pattern. He
wondered if the other ships in the group would be brought in as
well-perhaps their search helicopters.

The thought drove him to panic. He knew what the punishment would be for
desertion, the one that had been drummed into him from the first day of
his training.

Yet would it be enforced now? Probably not. No, the longer he thought
about it, the less sense it made. They would simply lock him in his
room, feed him there, keep him under constant guard until his moment
came. Then he'd be carried, kicking and screaming if necessary, down
into the bowels of the ship and jammed into the torpedo. After the
incident with Li, he had no doubt that that was what would happen.

Not that his death would be much different now. He rolled back and tried
floating for a while, staring up at the stars overhead. The swells made
it difficult, but eventually he arrived at the correct arch of his back
to keep his body afloat and his face still above the swells.

He rode that way for a while, staring at the night sky and gently
sculling with his hands to keep his feet into the waves.

How long could he last out here? The answer, in the end, was simple.

Longer than he could in the torpedo.

Alone and in the ocean, T'sing Lin composed his mind for death.

USS JOUETT

The hideous squealing of tortured metal was their first
indication of trouble. Renninger and Bailey exchanged a horrified look,
then darted out onto the bridge wing.

Behind the ship, the damaged lock doors were closing.

"They can't possibly be watertight," Renninger blurted. "Why in the
hell-we're trapped." A look of grave concern settled on his face. "The
Miraflores Locks are just a little over a mile and a half long, and
Miraflores Lake isn't much bigger. They've got us confined now. They can
do anything they want to us."

"There's another option," Bailey said suddenly.

"One that makes this just as good a decision as it was before. Come on."

She touched Renninger lightly on the shoulder. "We need to get a look at
the second Miraflores Lock."

She followed Renninger back onto the bridge, and they went down two
ladders to the main deck. Once there, they exited the ship to the
weather decks, and quickly trotted forward.

The two sets of locks on the Pacific side of the Canal were each about
the same size, about a half a mile in length. The doors to the second
lock were closed.

"Wonder what the water level is behind that?" Bailey asked.

Renninger turned to study her. "You can't be serious."

She nodded. "Oh, but I am. And so are you, if you think about it." Out
of earshot of their subordinates, her voice no longer held the deference
due to the commander of the ship. She spoke to him as an equal.

"Do you know how much damage this could do to the ship?" Renninger
snapped. "I won't allow it-I can't. There has to be another way."

"Then you tell me what it is. Because as far as I can tell, there's only
one way out of this trap. Either the way we came in-and the lock gate
behind is in the gun's blind cutout-or to go deeper into the Canal until
we get to Gatun Lake and get some room to maneuver."

Renninger took two steps closer to the fantail and stared out at the
massive gray lock in front of him. In most respects, it was identical to
the one they'd already blasted through. He turned back to Bailey. "It
depends on how high the water level is right now," he said.

"Too much water could swamp the ship when it rushes out.

"Get the quartermaster on it. The locks on this end of the Canal are
bigger than they are on the Atlantic because of the wide tidal range in
the Pacific. A thirty-one-foot drop at the Pedro Miguel Lock, all in one
step, then the remainder of the distance in two steps at Mir aflores. I
think we were at high tide-there should be no more than thirty-six feet
of difference between the two locks and Gatun Lake. Eighteen feet of
swell on either side."

"It was high tide." He shot her a look intended to convey that the
Captain would of course know that.

While a mere passenger wouldn't. "You're talking about a wall of water
eighteen feet tall rushing at the ship." She sighed. "Look, this ship is
built to have water over the bridge and still survive at sea, isn't it?

It won't be pleasant-we'll get knocked around a bit again-but she can do
it. You know she can."

"Then why not just stay where we are?" Renninger asked. "We've done what
we intended to do-put us in a place where they wouldn't dare take a shot
at us."

The quick crack of an automatic weapon chattered out through the
enclosed space, answering that question.

Bailey grabbed Renninger and pulled him behind the five-inch-gun mount.

"That's why." She pointed up at the wall of the lock eighteen feet above
them. "They won't risk sinking the ship, but they can damn well do some
damage to us, Enough to board us, maybe."

The ship wobbled uneasily, a strange sensation in enclosed waters.

Bailey frowned for a moment, trying to place the sensation.

It was Renninger who gave her the answer. "They're flooding the lock.

Those doors aren't watertight, but if they flood fast enough, they may
be able to keep up with the leakage. If they bring us up to level with
the quay wall, they can board us." He opened the hatch on the side of
the five-inch-gun mount. "How well can you climb?"

She stared at him, wondering for a moment if he'd snapped under the
strain. All at once, it made sense.

"Down into the magazine, you mean?"

He nodded. "I haven't done this since I was an ensign, but I'm up for
it. Come on-it's our safest way back into the skin of the ship."

The gun mount was built to house one operator, a secondary method of
firing the gun manually should the combat systems fail for some reason.

Shells fed up into the mechanism from the magazine below. By grabbing
onto handholds, they made it over to the ladder, then crawled down to
the magazine. A startled gunner's mate looked up. "Captain?" He stared,
as though seeing a ghost, at his Captain, who was now streaked with
grease.

"Don't worry," Renninger said. For some reason, that struck Bailey as
the most senseless thing anyone had said so far.

Forty seconds later, they were back in Combat. Ren ninger set General
Quarters, explaining to Collins what he intended to do, stilling her
protests with a harsh glare.

The crew, already at gunnery stations, was ready quickly. Reninnger
handled the evolution himself, depressing the five-inch gun to minimum
elevation and ordering the gunner's mate they'd startled to manually
sight in on the two locks with reduced-charged shells to further flatten
the rounds' trajectory. Just before Renninger gave the firing order, he
turned to Bailey and smiled slightly. "If we damage the first one, the
flood'il be slower. More survivable than an eighteen-foot tsunami."

"Of course." Collins glared at Bailey as though the entire situation
were her fault. And indeed, in a way it was. Bailey mulled that one over
as the Captain gave the order.

"Batteries free."

A blast reverberated inside the enclosed lock, throwing the ship
violently around. Two more shots followed in quick succession.

Bailey grabbed hold of the radar repeater and clung to it as the wall of
water towered over them. The hatches to the bridge were already dogged
down, and the rest of the watch-standers were similarly braced. The
lookouts had been called in just seconds before. '4k The wall of water
approached them, black shot with blue, churned into air bubbles at the
leading edge. it decreased in height slightly as it approached them, but
still towered thirty feet above the normally calm surface of the ocean.

Time seemed to slow as it engulfed first the bow of the ship and then
moved inexorably towards them. It hit the bridge full force, immediately
submerging them in water. One pane of Plexiglas shattered under the
impact. A torrent of water flooded into the deck and knocked a junior
officer off his feet. It flung him across the bridge and smashed him
against the opposite bulkhead. It seemed to go on forever, the bridge
quickly filling with water. She glanced down at the radar repeater and
hoped that the casing was as watertight as the manufacturer had
promised. If not, she would have only seconds to live before a
high-voltage circuit shorted out and electrocuted her. Five seconds, six
seconds, seven. Bailey found herself holding her breath as the water
crept higher and higher.

Finally, just before it reached the top of the radar console, the wave
passed over them. The windows of the bridge were suddenly exposed, wiped
glistening clean by the torrent of water, The water inside the bridge
itself was still four feet high.

Renninger fought his way over to the port bridge wing and jammed down
the dogging lever. The hatch shot open under the pressure of the water
and poured out over the bridge wing, trying to drag everything not
nailed down, including people, out with it. Bailey fought against the
pull, tightening her grip on the console.

"Any casualties?" Renninger asked when the flood had finally subsided.

The lieutenant who had been completely submerged under the water moaned
softly. The bosun's mate was at his side in seconds, kneeling down
beside him.

He looked up at the Captain. "He's alive. Doesn't seem to be any serious
damage."

"Damage Control reports," Renninger snapped. He pointed to the bosun's
mate. "Get the corpsman up here."

Finally, the report came. "Three shots fired for effect, no apparent
casualties."

Thirty minutes after the first shot, they broke free of the Miraflores
Locks and into the mile-wide man-made Miraflores Lake.

Renninger turned to Bailey. "Now what?"

"Pedro Miguel Lock. One more set of doors and we're into Gatun Lake.

With some room to maneuver."

Renninger nodded. "What the hell have we got to lose at this point?"
"Our ship," Bailey said.

PANAMA CITY: 7 OCTOBER U.S. EMBASSY

Master Sergeant Elwell was halfway up the stairs to Doug Turner's office
when a dull thud rattled the windows in the Ambassador's building. He
paused on a landing, instinctively pressing his back against the wall in
the shadow of a potted plant. The noise struck again, rippling through
the old building like an earthquake.

Plates chattered in shelves, and the chandelier gracing the foyer swung
precariously.

Gunfire. And not the small stuff either. He was far more familiar with
this particular noise than almost anyone in the building. Even the
Marine captain heading up the security force would have had less
experience with the distinctive sound of naval gunfire support.

It had to be Jouett. And just what the hell was she shooting at? He ran
through the logical targets quickly, dismissing each one. Finally, he
arrived at the one possible explanation. One corner of his mouth
twitched. An eminently logical, elegant solution to Jouett's tactical
position. He wondered just how much of the plan was Commander Bailey's
idea, and then decided that most of it must be.

There was one way he could get the definitive answer.

Do what he'd set out to do in the first place. After thinking long and
hard the previous night, Billy Elwell had arrived at the one answer that
he felt fit all the facts of his situation. What lay at the head of the
stairs would merely be validation of that premise.

He started up the stairs again, moving more slowly.

His pistol was drawn, held easily in a one-handed grip as though it were
an extension of his arm. He heard voices above, coming from behind one
of the closed doors along the passageway. He stopped, listened for a
moment, and matched them with the players in motion.

Doug Turner-it had to be. Those resonant, plummy tones could have come
from nowhere but the State Department.

The muffled, sharp commands-his gut twisted slightly as he confirmed his
worst fears. Those voices were military, and not just any kind. Marines,
maybe.

But more likely, given the volume, the SEALS.

Finally, a thin, whiny snarl. Flashert, the wild card in the entire
equation. Elwell shook his head, marveling at the process of going
native. He'd seen it too many times in the last thirty years.

The prospect of taking on a squad of armed and annoyed SEALS was not an
appealing one. Yet what were his alternatives? Go to the security force,
to the Marines charged with the safety of this building and the embassy?

He shook his head and dismissed the thought.

Even if he could convince the Marine captain to believe him-never an
easy process with a junior officer-mobilizing the security-alert team
would simply put the SEALS in Turner's office on guard. The results
could turn ugly. Elwell had no great liking for either Flashert or
Turner, but something in him balked at getting innocent civilians
killed. left two possibilities. The first was only slightly less
appealing than calling a security alert.

He could walk away. Now that was a thought-not a good one, but still an
option. He even had a justification of sorts. As part of the Special
Forces advisory group with Southcom, he really had no business
interfering with the State Department. Indeed, if he were wrong, his
actions might seriously destabilize an already precarious situation.

Yes-walk away, leave Flashert and Turner to sort out their own messes.

Come back later, help with the body count, and go about his business.

Reluctantly, he concluded that was not an option.

While tactically it was a possibility, morally it was not.

So what was left? Take on four armed SEALS by himself Yes, but perhaps
not in the way that they were accustomed to.

Elwell moved silently towards the door from which the voices were
coming. He paused outside for a moment, verifying his initial
conclusions as to who was in the room. Finally, when he heard a lull in
the noise, he knocked politely on the door.

Sudden silence, as deadly as the noise of a shotgun pumping. He slid his
own weapon into the holster and held his hands out in plain view.

There was no warning, no footsteps to betray the SEAL. The knob turned
and the door was jerked open so quickly that it startled even him. He
stilled the reflexive motion of his hand towards the gun.

"Good evening, sir," Elwell said politely. He sketched a salute at the
SEAL commander. "If it wouldn't be too much problem, I have a couple of
questions I believe you could answer."

Without waiting for an answer, Elwell stepped into the room. The
scenario was as he'd envisioned it Turner pale and shaken behind his
desk, hands trembling and eyes flickering around the room. Flashert
pacing back and forth, a half-consumed cigarette clutched in one hand.

The SEALS arrayed out in a tactical formation, silent and deadly. Any
one of them would have choked before showing surprise at his arrival.

"Bad timing, Sergeant," Murphy said. He motioned towards a chair with
his Uzi. "You want to have a seat?"

Elwell walked across the room and sat down in the chair, careful to keep
his hands away from his own weapon.

"Take his weapon," Murphy said to one of the SEALS. Elwell was divested
of his pistol within moments. "So what are these questions you want to
ask?" Murphy said, relaxing slightly now that Elwell was no longer
armed.

"I think you answered most of them," Elwell said quietly. He turned to
Doug Turner. "You weren't involved in this, were you?"

Turner shook his head slightly. Elwell nodded approvingly. "Better not
to say anything, sir. Good move." He turned back to Murphy. "So, the
question remains, what do we do now? I assume you've heard the five-inch
guns."

Murphy smiled sardonically. "I know what they were. I I

"Can you see anything from that window?" Elwell asked, lifting his chin
to indicate the expanse of glass behind Turner's desk.

"Enough."

"Jouett's in the Canal, isn't she?" Elwell asked.

Murphy was motionless for a moment, then dipped his head in
acknowledgment. "For all the good it will do her."

"I think I've figured most of this out, sir. You and Mister Flashert
there-been down here a long time, have you?" Somehow Elwell made it
sound more like a polite question than an accusation. "I know about that
sort of thing-got a German wife and kids myself." His eyes took on a
faraway look.

Murphy laughed. "Not hardly. Any of these guys look like good fatherhood
candidates to you? No, I'm afraid it's a little simpler than that,
Sergeant. Just a question of money."
"Drugs?" Elwell asked softly, something cold and hard in his eyes
washing away the expression the thought of his family had invoked.

"I don't ask."

"Just little packages are they?"

One of the other SEALS finally spoke up. "Not so little.

Murphy turned on him. "Shut the fuck up."

Elwell looked thoughtful. "I can think of a lot of different ways to do
it. The actual smuggling, I mean.

Makes it pretty easy if you've got access to cargo that doesn't go
through customs here or there."

Without warning, Murphy lowered his pistol and shot Elwell in the right
thigh. The Army noncom let out a sharp yelp. The force of the impact
spun him around in a circle and slammed him into the far wall. He lay
dazed on the elegant carpet, his hands clamped over the wound. Dark
black-red stains erupted around them, blending in with the camouflage
pattern on his pants.

"What the fuck-" Flashert spat out. "You said there wouldn't be-"

"We're going to kill him, of course," Murphy said calmly. "There were
never really any options, not after he found our safe house. I guess you
did keep your word to my petty officer, Elwell-nobody's come looking for
us. Still, you understand-it's not a chance I can continue to take."

Elwell groaned as shattered bone dug viciously into stunned nerves. The
pain was coming now, as it always did after a gunshot wound. A few
minutes of numbness, then the all-encompassing red agony that would soon
be his world.

He gritted his teeth, forced himself to pull his right hand away from
his wound, and dipped into his right blouse pocket, moving slowly so as
not to provoke Murphy. He extracted a small metallic button and held it
out to the SEAL commander. "I wouldn't be in such a hurry. A little toy
I picked up from a fellow from NSA-you might remember him. Mr.

Carlisle?"

Murphy stared at the button for a moment, then motioned at one of the
other SEALS. "Get it."

The younger SEAL was careful to stay out of Murphy's field of fire. He
moved in sideways and snatched the device away from Elwell, then handed
it to Murphy' The commander examined it for a moment, then shrugged. "So
what? We just leave a little sooner than we thought we would." He raised
the pistol again.

A blast blew out the windows behind Murphy. The commander shot through
the air with a gaping hole in his chest. As the fragments of glass and
curtain spiraled to the floor, the grim face of Chief Templeton appeared
in the opening.

"Good job," Elwell managed to say before the black started closing in.

THE PACIFIC OCEAN: 8 OCTOBER EISENHOWER CONVOY

A helicopter off the USS Shilo, a guided-missile cruiser, was the first
to spot the anomaly in the water.

At first, the pilot thought it was a piece of debris from the massive
Chinese merchant ship, reflecting the moonlight and circled in for a
closer look. As he descended to two hundred feet, he noticed the
widening circle of the downdraft that beat out its distinctive pattern
on the ocean. The rotors generated an effective wind of over sixty knots
against the surface of the water. At one hundred feet, the pilot turned
pale. What he thought was an old garbage bag in the water raised one
hand and waved.

An SAR-equipped helicopter was on the scene fifteen minutes later. With
the original SH-60 marking the spot, the rescue helo vectored in,
deploying two rescue divers into the water with a horse collar. Within
minutes they were at the man's side, determined that he was still alive,
and affixed the horse collar to him. Three minutes later, T'sing Lin was
winched up into the belly of the helicopter.

He'd been ready to die. Ready, and even looking forward to it with a
calm resignation that he'd always heard preceded death. It had been a
good life-a short one, but a good one, as least until the last year. He
felt a minor ripple of anguish that his son would grow up without him,
that his parents and wife would never speak his name again in public.

But even that had been no more than a minor ripple in the sea of calm
that had enveloped him, the certainty that he'd at least expiated his
own shame.

To be wrenched away from certain destiny so suddenly, in such a noisy
and ungainly fashion, offended something deep in his soul. Anger boiled
up that he'd put himself through the agony of preparing for death only
to have it snatched away at the last moment.

He raised a hand to the white man hovering anxiously over him, somewhat
surprised at how weak he was. How long had he been in the water? His
mind, fuzzed by sensory deprivation and overwhelmed by the sudden change
in his fate, refused to yield up the answer.

"I am from the Lotus Glory," he said slowly. Even as he spoke, he almost
laughed at his own foolishness.

None of these men would understand his language there was no chance at
all of it. Then why try to explain to them what had happened, how he'd
come to be floating in the sea so far behind his ship?

It seemed only fitting that they should know about the Lotus Glory. The
gods worked in strange ways, and evidently it had been their decision
that the battle would go in another direction. Otherwise, why would they
have chosen such a weak vessel as himself for such an important program?

No, his own weakness had a place in the scheme of this. He'd been spared
from the torpedo for some purpose, and it was only now, after hours of
floating in the endless ocean, at one with the water and sky, that it
finally came to him. He was to stop a war, to prevent other young men
from dying as his friends had done.

But how to communicate that to these men? While the remaining weapons on
board Lotus Glory might be useless without pilots, there was no way of
being certain that someone on the ship didn't know how to operate them.

Or perhaps they could even be fired without the operator-God knows,
they'd discussed that very matter in the long, silent hours in their
compartment before dawn. No, these men must know. He racked his brain,
trying to think of some way to communicate. He made a scribbling motion
as though writing something out.

After a brief flurry of shouted orders, the white man shoved a pad of
paper and a pencil at him. He took it gingerly, paused, and concentrated
on how to draw out the complicated scheme now in motion. Finally, he had
it.

He started to sketch out the ship. As he drew out the symbols that
represented the ship's name across the stern in order that they might
identify it, another thought Struck him. A brilliant one, one that
obviously came from the gods. The little schooling that he'd had made
one thing perfectly clear-the Americans remembered the waves of suicide
aircraft that had swept over them during World War 11, the Divine Wind
from Japan that had decimated so many of their forces.

The Japanese were barely civilized, heathens of the worst sort. But
brutality had to be fought with brutality, as the Admiral had made
clear. The concept had been note d, improved upon, and melded into the
Chinese war fighting ethos.

The Americans were only now learning of the Niru Tao, the Arrow's Way.

Someday, they would know niru.

But for now ... One word stood out in his mind, blazing through as
though wreathed in glory itself. A wide smile split his face. He turned
to the American rescuer and said the one word that might make sense to
them, the name of the precious Divine Wind forces that had so ravaged
their forces in the last world war.

"Kamikaze." The hated Japanese word felt ugly in his mouth. T'sing Lin
pointed at the sea.

The hospital corpsman checking him over for signs of injury turned pale.

He turned to the flight crewman standing beside him. "Tell the pilot
there's been a change of plans. We need to get this fellow on board the
carrier immediately."

"He needs a hospital?" the crewman asked.

The corpsman shook his head. "No. An interpreter."

As the helicopter descended to the large, flat deck of the aircraft
carrier, T'sing Lin shook his head at the wonder of it. The deck was
packed with a wide variety of aircraft, each more potent and deadly than
the last. He'd been half afraid, when he said the word, that the
Americans would immediately eject him from the helicopter in retribution
for his part in the scheme. But no, if anything, they'd been even more
solicitous than before. He could still taste the warm, dark flavor of
chocolate in his mouth, the sweet, tangy liquid that they'd forced on
him afterwards. With those little bits of sustenance, strength already
seemed to be returning to his body.

The helicopter landed, and as the blades were still turning, the
hospital corpsman helped him to the deck.

T'sing Lin staggered, his feet swollen and aching and barely able to
bear the weight of his body. The corpsman studied him for a moment, then
motioned for a stretcher.

They placed him in it, stretched a blanket across him, then carried him
across the hot, noisy tarmac. A few minutes later, he was inside the
ship.

More white men-and then one of his own. A smooth Chinese face, broad
through the cheeks, with the thin lips of the Szechwan Province.

"I am Charlie," the other man said in carefully phrased words. T'sing
Lin noted the odd accent.

He gave his own name in return, then stared in wonder at the turmoil
raging around him. "Where am I?"

"You are on the-" The interpreter paused for a moment, struggling to
find the right word. Then he finally settled for, "The big ship. The one
with yours. What ship are you from? They will be worried about you."
"The Lotus Glory," T'sing Lin said immediately.

"And yes, they will be worried-but for reasons that you do not know
yet." Briefly, he summarized the exact nature of his duties on board the
Chinese grain ship.

Five minutes later, a helicopter lifted off the deck again, this time
carrying a platoon of SEALS. It headed for the Lotus Glory.

THE PANAMA CANAL: 8 OCTOBER USS JOUETT

Gatun Lake was crowded with merchant vessels in the early morning light.

The man-made lake that stretched almost the entire width of the country
held not only the foreign-flag traffic that was transiting through the
Canal, but all of the American merchants that had been stopped when the
embargo was first imposed. The Panamanian government, while not actually
declaring the ships hostage, insisted that suspension of the right of
free passage meant just that-that American ships, no matter what their
location in the Canal when the embargo was imposed, would be required to
remain exactly where they were. As a consequence, the forty-three grain
ships that had been enroute to the Pacific from the Atlantic were still
captive inside the lake.

Bailey stepped out onto the bridge wing, and studied the small
Panamanian patrol craft that was hovering officiously two hundred yards
off their port bow. Fifty-caliber guns mounted on the forward portion of
the boat were conspicuously trained on Jouett. While the Panamanians had
not yet made any overtly aggressive moves from their patrol ship, it
would only be a matter of time before they followed the lead of the
land-based troops.

"Loan me your binoculars," Bailey said, reaching out a hand to the
lieutenant standing next to her. He slipped the strap over his neck and
handed them to her. She lifted them to her eyes and studied the
Panamanian craft.

"You notice anything odd about the crew?" she asked. She dropped the
binoculars long enough to exchange a knowing glance with Renninger.

The Captain nodded. "They seem to have a Chinese contingent on board as
well. Is that what you're talking about?"

"Yes. These new bonds of friendship between Panama and China go a little
deeper than I'd like."

"Like cancer." Renninger squinted against the harsh tropical sun and
motioned toward the patrol craft. "Do they really think they can stop us
with that?"

Bailey passed the binoculars back to the lieutenant and thanked him.

"Oh, they might. I guarantee, though, that's not the only weapon they
have at their disposal.

Did you check the stern of the vessel carefully?"

Renninger lifted his own binoculars. "A bunch of crates. You're thinking
mines?"

"Aren't you?"

Renninger turned to face her. "Unfortunately, yes.

But your prior reasoning applies here as well. The Canal is Panama's
only real asset-why would they mine their own waterway.

"If you use moored mines and only set them in a small area, it might be
a useful way to cordon off a group of ships." She gestured toward a
cluster of ships across the lake. "Like there. It's starting to look
like a real international community here. All of the American ships have
been directed to moor in the same area. And all the Chinese ships at the
other end of the lake."

"They wouldn't dare." Renninger's voice was fierce.

"Mining an international waterway is an act of war."

"Like they're really concerned. No, I think we have to consider the
possibility that they're equipped to lay mines. Are your lookouts
familiar with mine laying activities?"

"I'll have Collins brief them again," Renninger said, tacitly admitting
the validity of her point. "We need a contingency plan, though. If they
start niinelaying activities . - ." His voice trailed off as he
considered the possibilities.

"Then we have to move out of the area immediately," Bailey said briskly.

"My bet is that the safest place will be near the Chinese ships."

"There aren't any good answers here, are there?"

Renninger looked as though he didn't really expect an answer.

"Captain. Flash traffic." A radioman stepped out onto the bridge wing
and handed Renninger a sheet of paper.

"It's from the battle group." Renninger scanned the message quickly, and
turned pale. Without comment, he passed it over to Bailey. FROM: CTG 34.1
TO: CTE 32.1.4 SECRET NOFORN I . HUMINT CONFIRMS CAPABILITY OF CHINESE
MERCHANT VESSELS TO DEPLOY OFFENSIVE SUBSURFACE WEAPONS AGAINST U.S.

WEAPONS DEPLOYED THROUGH LOCKOUT COMPARTMENT LOCATED ALONG KEEL OF
MERCHANT VESSELS. SOURCES CONFIRM CHINESE MERCHANT VESSEL LOTUS GLORY
EQUIPPED WITH SYSTEM. THERE ARE INDICATIONS OTHER MERCHANT VESSELS MAY
BE EQUIPPED WITH SIMILAR DELIVERY SYSTEMS. 2. EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION
IN THE hunt OF CHINESE MERCHANT VESSELS.

TO DATE, EXISTENCE OF SYSTEM ON RO-RO VESSELS ONLY CONFIRMED
INSTALLATION. 3. VESSELS ESTIMATED CAPABLE OF DEPLOYING 28-FOOT TORPEDO
ARMED WITH HIGH EXPLOSIVE. INDICATIONS ARE THAT THE DESIGN IS ROUGHLY
SIMILAR TO LATEST RUSSIAN MODELS.

POTENTIAL OFFENSIVE CAPABILITY INCLUDES DESTRUCTION OF AIRCRAFT CARRIER
WITH ONE SHOT. REPEAT: EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION. 4 . NORMAL ANTI-TORPEDO
TACTICS MAY BE IN EFFECTIVE AGAINST THESE WEAPONS. EXPECT A HIGH DEGREE
OF MANEUVERABILITY AND FLEX IBILRRY Ul APPROPRIATE PROFILES. 5. SOURCE
INDICATES THAT TORPEDOES ARE EQUIPPED WITH TERMINAL GUIDANCE, COMPUTER
AIDED NAVIGATION SOURCES, PASSIVE AND ACTIVE SONAR RANGING.

ADDITIONALLY, EACH TORPEDO IS ESTIMATED TO BE MANNED BY ONE HIGHLY
TRAINED PILOT.

6. AVOID APPROACHING CHINESE MERCHANT TRAFFIC AT ALL COSTS.

Bailey looked up from the message and stared at Renninger's pale,
stricken face. It was a mirror of her own, she was certain.

"The Japanese," she said softly. "World War II.

She passed the message back to the waiting radioman and scribbled her
initial on the top of it.

"The Japanese used kamikaze pilots in aircraft and torpedoes. But the
Chinese?" Renninger's voice was, for the first time since she'd known
him, uncertain. He shuddered. "My God, to think of it.

"They deploy them from Chinese merchant vessels," she said crisply,
refocusing on the problem at hand. "I think that effectively does away
with my plan for hiding out among them."

"They'd probably love it if we got that close," Renninger said bitterly.

He slammed his hand down on the sunbaked wooden railing surrounding the
bridge wing.

"Dammit."

"Every culture has its own ways of making war," Bailey said, her voice
somber. "We train for the European variety-direct force, the blitzkrieg,
a sudden onslaught." She shook her head ruefully. "Always fighting the
last war, we are.That's what'll get us killed this time. "

"What are you suggesting?"

"Just this." She gestured out towards the large lake around them. "I
think we're in agreement that the Chinese are behind this, right?" She
waited for the confirming nod of head, then continued. "So, even if we
are in Central America, we're fighting a Chinese war. We've never gone
directly head-to-toe with China-not this far from their mainland. Sure,
they've supported other forces, like in Vietnam. But this is still
something new for us. They've spent a lot more time studying us than we
have studying them."

"This is hardly a time for academics," Renninger snapped. "You got
anything useful to say?"

"There's never been a better time," she shot back.

"Think about how the Chinese plan their wars-think about it. You've read
Sun Tzu, haven't you?"

He nodded. "Completely irrelevant. What does an ancient Chinese military
theorist have to do with us now?"

"The same thing Bismarck has to do with European wars. This lake-the
area around it-all of it is terrain for the Chinese. Remember, they're a
good deal more used to fighting wars on the ground than they are on the
water. And they have few compunctions about wasting human life. In a
nation of two billion people, you can afford to expend some troops- Even
as armament."

"This is a lake, not terrain. Water, lady."

Bailey shook her head. "Think about it. When we talk about hunting
submarines, we look at the sound-velocity profile of the water. The
ocean floor has mountains, Cliffs-even canyons and volcanoes. It's all
an environment, it's all terrain. It just depends on how you see it."

He looked at her suspiciously. "You've been thinking about this too
much."

"The Panama Canal is the center of gravity of this entire war," she
continued. "Terrain is a factor in holding onto it. Therefore, we need
to pay some more attention to how our environment affects the war. Like
those torpedoes. If we can't hide amongst those Chinese merchant ships,
just how are we going to deal with an unconventional torpedo in these
waters?" Renninger sighed and stared out at the American ships on the
other side of the lake. "I'm open to suggestions."

Briefly, Bailey outlined her plan. At first, Renninger's face was a mask
of outrage. Then it mellowed into interest, then into enthusiasm. "It
might work."

"It's got to."

The cell phone bolstered in a small leather catchment on her belt
shrilled, startling both of them. She picked it up and flipped it open.

"It's as you thought, Commander," she heard the gravelly voice of
Sergeant Elwell say. "But the situation is resolved."

Careful to avoid discussing classified information over the cell phone,
Bailey said, "Is he going to contact them?"
"He sounded quite cooperative," Elwell said, a trace of amusement in his
voice. "Under the circumstances, understandable."

"Good, get back to me. There's some other intel-"

She broke off suddenly, unable to find a way to convey the essence of
the message to Elwell over the unclassified circuit. Finally, she
decided it didn't matter. Torpedoes in the water were not his concern.

"Just let me know when it's finalized," she finished. "We'll be here.

"I imagine you will." Elwell broke the connection.

Bailey turned back to Renninger. "So what do you think?" Rennin

"I think
we need to go to gunnery stations," ger said. "And spin up a couple of
torpedoes as well."

Jouett trolled slowly up the coast, only fifty feet off the banks that
sloped down to the lake. Bailey and Renninger crowded into the chart
house, standing on either side of the senior quartermaster. Finally, the
enlisted man spoke. "Here it is." He pointed to a return from the
fathometer. "Not much of one, but it's the closest I can see"

"They're fairly diligent about dredging," Renninger said. "But it looks
like the current crisis might have slowed them down some."

"Good for us." Bailey turned to the gunner's mate standing at her side.

"Can you do it?"

The chief gunner's mate nodded. "We can. But you'll need to move us
further out into the center of the lake.

It's too slow as is." He frowned. "Helluva steep angle."

"Can you do it?" Bailey repeated.

He nodded. "Four shots ought to be enough. will blast the hell out of
the bottom."

Ten minutes later, the first shot rang out. Jouett's five-inch gun was
pointed almost straight into the sky. The five-inch shell arced high
above their heads, out of sight, then descended back down to the lake on
a nearly straight trajectory. in quick succession, the other three shots
followed. Renninger smiled approvingly. True to his word, the gunner's
mate had found his range on the very first shot. Good thing too, with
civilian structures only half a mile away.

The four shells dove down through twenty feet of water before hitting
the sandy, well-swept bottom. As they hit the Canal's floor, they
exploded, gouting up huge plumes of water and debris that rained out in
a wide pattern around the impact point. Just to the south of the
explosion was a newly formed sandbar, swept into a shaft protruding out
into the Canal by the currents along the bank. Renninger and Bailey were
counting on the explosion to heap even more debris up on top of it.

"Did it work?" Renninger asked.

Bailey studied the coastline. The water was dark and clouded with silt,
the bank along the edge shredded and jagged. If everything worked as
planned, the five -inch shells would have dug out a narrow trench
between two piles of debris. The question was-how narrow? Wide enough to
get Jouett in? And high enough on the sides to offer her some
protection?

"We could approach it slowly," she said finally.

"Keep the fathometer going-try to map the contours of it."

Renninger joined her on the bridge rail and stared out at the murky
water. "We could. But we run the danger of going aground. And of letting
them know what our plans are."

The sonar warning buzzer cut short their discussion.

"Conn, Sonar, torpedo inbound. Range two thousand yards, speed twenty
knots. Bearing constant, range decreasing. "

"Right full rudder, all engines ahead flank," Collins ordered
immediately. She turned to Renninger. "Captain? How lucky do you feel?"

He grimaced and shrugged. "Not very. Maybe we won't need it." He turned
to Bailey. "You take the conn, Commander Bailey. Take us in."

Bailey started to protest, then realized the reasoning behind it. If the
ship went aground, or if the torpedo hit its mark, she and Renninger
would bear the sole responsibility.

"I'll do it," Collins said. She stepped forward and stood in front of
Renninger, a small blond figure in front of the towering Captain.

"Captain, it's my job. My ship."

He shook his head. "Not this time, XO," he said, his voice unexpectedly
gentle. "Not this time. Well, Miss. Bailey?"

Bailey nodded and took a deep breath. "Engineering, stand by for backing
bells."

Jouett responded quickly, sluing around 180 degrees.

Bailey stood on the bridge wing, keeping one eye on the Panamanian
patrol boats and the other on the point of land she'd picked out as her
guide point. Five hundred yards away, she eased off to one third ahead,
then finally to full stop.

"Range, five hundred yards and closing. Captain, the contact is
accelerating. Now passing thirty knots." The concern in the sonarman's
voice was evident.

"Ahead one third," Bailey ordered. Close, too close.

She would prefer to gently drift into position, interposing the sandbar
they'd created between the ship and the torpedo, but the Chinese weren't
going to give her time.

It was now or never. Jouett bucked slightly, and a sick grating noise
filled the ship. "Emergency back full," Bailey shouted. The ship
responded instantly, as though waiting for her command. A huge gout of
water streamed up behind the ship as the propellers fought to bite into
the churning water.

The noise stopped suddenly as Jouett shuddered to a halt. The ship
canted at five-degrees list.

Bailey looked over at Renninger. "I think we're there." The jagged and
torn bank was still twenty yards away.

"We're aground. You realize that, don't you?"

"Yes, Captain."

"One hundred yards and accelerating. Captain, it's headed straight for
our starboard beam." The sonarman's voice was shrill now.

"Sound the collision alarm," Renninger ordered.

"All hands brace for shock."

They counted down the seconds, each lost in their own thoughts.

Twenty seconds later, a huge explosion rocked the ship as the torpedo
slammed into the sandbar. Jouett canted violently to port and stayed
there, still wedged on the shallow ground near shore. A waterspout
gouted up from the starboard side of the ship, drenching them all.

Amid the muffled screams and oaths, a ragged cheer broke out in Combat.

"Did you get a bearing off the torpedo?" Bailey asked the TAO.

He pointed along a circuitous track approaching the ship. "It wasn't a
normal torpedo-I can tell you that much. The course changes, the
maneuvering-I've never seen anything like it. But as close as I can
tell, it came from here." The tip of his laser pointer rested on one
Chinese vessel moored out slightly from the others.

"Has it got a name?" Bailey asked.

"The Lotus Vengeance," the TAO said.

Bailey felt a thrill of vindication. It was the same ship she'd seen the
oddly shaped helicopter landing on before, the one with the unique tail
rotor.

At the first shot, the Panamanian patrol boat had spattered the ship
with gunfire. When Jouett's own fifty-cals were swiveled around and
trained on them from behind the shielded turrets, they beat a hasty
retreat. They were now milling about aimlessly across the lake in the
vicinity of the American ships moored there.

Renninger pointed over at the patrol boats. "Think they'll give them any
problems?"

"Not any more than they've got already."

The harsh gonging of General Quarters alarm made them both start.

Renninger darted back onto the bridge and down the ladder into Combat,
Bailey hot on his heels. They burst into the darkened compartment.

"Sonar alarm," the TAO said. "It could be one of those torpedoes you
briefed us on, Captain." He pointed up at the symbol on the large-screen
display, "It's only doing fifteen knots-damned unusual for a weapon."

Renninger and Bailey exchanged a telling look. There was no telling if
the barricade would hold up to another attack.

The large-screen display exploded into a flurry of air contacts. The TAO
let out a muffled yelp.

"Which radar is primary input?" Bailey demanded.

"The Aegis-hold on, I'm taking it off-line." The TAO's fingers flew over
his console buttons. "There."

The contacts faded abruptly Off the screen, to be replaced by a
spattering of noise. "The fifty-five is still working," Bailey said
approvingly. She turned to Renninger. "With your permission, Captain,
I'll call SESS and get a bearing. Then we can get a cross fix from our
last detections."

Renninger nodded silently.

Moments later, Bailey had the answer she needed. She reached over and
tapped the portion of land just next to the entrance to the Canal.

"Right there. The cross fix is solid. "

"Generating ghost radar contacts-that sounds like a hostile act to me."

Renninger's voice left no doubt as to his decision. "If the
electromagnetic spectrum is part of the terrain of this war, then the
Chinese have been conducting mining."

Bailey nodded and waited. All she could do was put forth a theory and
demonstrate the science behind it. The final decision, however, had to
be Renninger's.

Collins spoke up unexpectedly. "Shall I set gunnery stations, Captain?"

Finally, Renninger nodded. "Set gunnery stations." To the TAO, he said,
"And assign this target to the five-inch-gun targeting system. I want
two shots, fire for effect."

The TAO nodded. "Aye, aye, Captain."

The guns boomed once, twice. Bailey and Renninger were crouched behind
the metal on the bridge wing, and stood and looked out at the Chinese
naval base. Two large flumes of dust and debris were rising up from the
central warehouse building.

"Captain, SSES reports the signals have vanished."

"Switch to Aegis radar input to the display," Renninger ordered. "Tell
me what you see."

The relief in the TAO's voice was palpable. "No contacts, Captain.
they're off-line."

"She's turning," Bailey said. pointing across the lake at Lotus
Vengeance. She had been beam onto them earlier, and was now showing a
stern aspect. A small wash of churned water fanned out a short distance
behind her.

"Captain, your orders?"

"Gunnery stations," Renninger ordered. "Stand by for batteries free."

"Wait," Collins interrupted. "Are we certain that she's the one that
attacked us?"

"I am," Bailey said.

Renninger nodded in agreement. "I'm satisfied as well, XO."

"Captain, she's headed for the other end of the lake.

Look at her, sir. I think she's withdrawing from this engagement,"
Collins said.

"Not good enough," Renninger said.

Collins lifted her binoculars and focused in on the merchant ship. A
light was blinking amidships, pulsing out in a regular pattern of short
and long flashes. "Captain, she's trying to signal us. Flashing light."

"I don't give a god damn what she wants. bastard fired on i-the."

Renninger wheeled on her, furious.

"XO, all gunnery stations report manned and ready.

Request batteries free," the officer of the deck said.

Renninger took two steps toward Collins and yanked her binoculars away
from her face. "XO, what's your problem? Two rounds, fire for effect.

Now."

"Captain, I-"

"Now, XO. You disobey me now, I'll see you at court martial."

Time seemed to stop on the bridge wing. A light breeze snapped the flag
overhead, but there was no other sound. Collins and Renninger faced each
other, Renninger's face a study in anger, Collins's hardening into
steel. Bailey stood behind Collins, her eyes fixed on the officer who'd
once before refused to obey Bailey's orders.

"Why?" Bailey's voice, low and urgent, broke the impasse. "Why, June?"

"She's signaling, ma'am. I think I recognize the letters. It's in the
international code book. But I've got to have the signalman confirm it.

I've never seen this one used before." Collins's voice was firm.

"Captain, if we could just-"

"If there's a torpedo in the water right now, XO, I'll see you in hell,"

Renninger snarled. Jouett had pulled away from the sandbar and was in
open water, a clear target for a shallow-running torpedo. "A court
martial will be the least of your worries. In hell-I mean it."

"Captain!" A signalman skidded to a halt as he rounded the corner of the
superstructure, "International Q-code, sir, from that merchant. She's
signaling surrender, sir. Surrender."

"Weapons tight," Renninger snapped, his gaze still locked on Collins's
eyes. "She could be lying. She could have more torpedos."

"And she could be surrendering, sir," Collins said.

Bailey stepped forward. "Captain, I'm available if you decide to send a
boarding party. Or as gunnery officer if you want to fire." She turned
slightly to face Collins. "It's not your decision, not this time. It was
with the airbus, but not now. Not with the Captain here."

Collins seemed to deflate. Renninger turned away from both of them,
lifted his binoculars and stared across the lake at the merchant ship.

He was silent for a long moment, then said, "No, Commander Bailey. My XO
will lead the boarding party."

WASHINGTON, D.C.: 10 OCTOBER 2003 NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

Terry Intanglio was waiting in her office. She nodded curtly, thumped
the cardboard box down on her desk, and began moving personal
memorabilia from her credenza into the box. A coffee cup, its interior
surfaces grimy and well-seasoned. A small picture of her parents, a
paperweight given to her from her first ship, and a few other items that
had no intrinsic value but had served to define that space as hers.

"Could we talk?" Terry asked mildly. "After all, you have been gone for
nearly two weeks."

"Nearly two weeks is only the beginning. I'm out of here." Bailey opened
the lower (-Iooi-s of the government-issue desk and began rooting around
through her files. "Do whatever it is that you have to do-call security
or somebody to come make sure I'm not stealing secrets."

"Come on, Jerusha. It was just-"

She slammed the top desk drawer shut, cutting him off.

"It was just business, right? NSA business. Well, no longer. Not for me.

I'm tired of playing your twne commander, your spook on the scene."

" was the last time. Division Heads don't go out in the field."

"I am Division Head for Western European affairsor was."

"Not anymore."

"Exactly what I've been trying to tell you."

"You own all of Europe. As of yesterday."

A long pause, broken only by the soft shuffling of paper. "What do you
mean?"

"Jim Atchinson is taking early retirement." Nothing in Intanglio's voice
gave away his role in Atchinson's decision. "I need a replacement. I
want you."

"Get somebody else."

"Nope. Gotta be you. Besides, there's something else as well. Here." He
tossed a small red-and-white cardboard box to her. "You'll be needing
these."

The box hit her desk top with a small thud. She reached out, turned it
over, and stared down at two silver eagles mounted on a cardboard
backing. "I'm not up for captain yet." The eagles caught the fluorescent
light and flashed at her. "Not for another year."

Intanglio smiled. "You got deep-selected. Evidently the board heard
about you. And your buddy, June Collins-she got picked up for a command
tour." He glanced at his watch. "She should be getting the notification
just about now. The evidence she gathered onboard Lotus Vengeance made
her CO-not to mention the Navy-look very good. It proved the Chinese
were behind the airbus shoot-down."

"And all this is contingent on my staying at NSA?"

He studied her for a moment, then shook his head.

"No. I wish it were. But I didn't have anything to do with it. Nor would
I make that a condition of your promotion, even if I could. You earned
it, Jerusha."

She collapsed into her chair, suddenly out of energy.

The final arrival of the USS Eisenhower, the garbled Fop radio reports
as the SEALS boarded Lotus Glory, and the slow, careful transit back out
of the Canal past shattered lock doors and the lifeless Lotus
Vengeance-too much, too fast. As they'd outchopped back to the clean,
open Pacific waters, she'd seen crews scurrying around behind them at
the two locks, already wheeling replacement doors into position along
the sides of the Canal.

"What happened to Billy Elwell?" she asked suddenly. had been the one
loose end she hadn't resolved prior to leaving, although Carlisle had
made a full confession on the employment of his last two bugs.

"He got shot."

"And he's recovering quite well," Intanglio answered immediately.

"Yesterday I heard he was headed back to Germany to see his family. I
think the Army's going to leave him there until he retires. He said
something about going native."

Bailey shook her head. "Not Elwell."

"So will you stay? Come on, Jerusha. Give it a couple of weeks, at
least. Just a chance?" Intanglio's face contorted for a moment. Then he
said, "Please?"

She laughed at the expression of discomfort on his face. "OK. Just
promise me one thing."

"I know, I know-no more using you and the miuw. I I " too. But if you
ever do-Pete Carlisle gets to take anything he wants."