"Request permission to come onto the bridge with a party of officers," Kingsolving said from the door to the bridge.

"You and your party of officers have the freedom of the bridge, Colonel Kingsolving," Captain Thomas J. Lowe, USN, said. He was a man in his late thirties, tall and deeply tanned.

Castillo marched up to him, stood tall, and announced, his voice raised, "Captain, I am Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo. I regret that the nature of the mission I have been ordered to carry out by the United States Central Command is such that I can tell you very little except where we wish you to place your vessel and when."

"Welcome aboard the Bataan Bataan, Colonel."

"Captain, may I introduce my officers?"

"Certainly. But may I suggest that we deal with first things first? Where do you want the Bataan Bataan, and when?"

"If you have a chart, sir?"

"Right this way, Colonel," Captain Lowe said, and led Castillo into the chart room.

"Colonel, this is my navigator, Mr. Dinston."

Mr. Dinston was a lieutenant junior grade who looked like he was nineteen.

The two shook hands.

"Show Mr. Dinston where you want us to go, Colonel," Captain Lowe said.

Castillo bent over the chart table, found La Orchila island, and then put his finger on the map.

"Fifty miles east of that island," he said. "I want to be there at oh-three-thirty tomorrow."

"What's on that island?" Mr. Dinston asked.

"I'm sorry, but you don't have the need to know," Castillo said.

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

"Don't feel bad, Jerry," Captain Lowe said. "Neither do I."

He met Castillo's eyes as he spoke.

"Plot the course, Jerry," Captain Lowe ordered, "and bring it to the wardroom."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Before we get started," Castillo said, when everyone was in the wardroom and the door had been closed, "Captain Lowe was never in this room nor anywhere else when any aspect of this operation except where we're asking him to place his ship was discussed. Everybody got that?"

There came a murmur of "Yes, sir."

"Would you like to say anything, Captain, before we get started?"

"Housekeeping," Captain Lowe said. "Could I get my chief in here and get the cabin a.s.signments out of the way?"

"Captain, you don't have to ask me permission to do anything," Castillo said. "This is your ship."

"I know," Captain Lowe said. "I'm being nice. Colonel Kingsolving told me he thinks that most of you will shortly be in jail."

The chief looked as if he had been in the Navy for longer than anybody in the room was old. And he got right to the point: "How many oh-sixes we got? Raise your hands, please."

Kingsolving and Torine raised their hands.

"Dmitri," Castillo said, "raise your hand." Then he explained: "Colonel Berezovsky is a Russian, chief. They don't do ranks by numbers."

"Not a problem," the chief said. "There are three staterooms for visiting oh-sixes. You'll find the keys in the doors. We also got three staterooms, two officers per, for oh-fives and oh-fours. How many oh-fives?"

Castillo raised his hand. "Two, chief," he said and pointed at Svetlana.

"You're an oh-five?" the chief, dubious, asked her.

Svetlana looked at Castillo for guidance. He nodded, and Captain Lowe, seeing this, said, "Colonel, anything you can tell me, you can tell the chief."

"I am a former podpolkovnik of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, Chief Petty Officer," Sweaty said just a little arrogantly.

"Yes, ma'am," the chief said. "Okay, so we put you, ma'am, in one of the oh-five staterooms, and Colonel Castillo in the other, leaving one. How many oh-fours we got?"

"Excuse me, Chief Petty Officer," former Podpolkovnik Alekseeva of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki said. "Put Lieutenant Colonel Castillo in one of those oh-five staterooms with me."

"Excuse me?"

"You seem surprised," Sweaty said. "Don't officers of the U.S. Navy sleep with women?"

"Sometimes, Colonel, some of us do," Captain Lowe said grinning broadly. "You heard the colonel, chief. Get on with it."

The chief recovered quickly, and the remaining accommodations were parceled out among the other officers. There was one captain; the rest of the 160th's pilots were warrant officers.

The chief left, closing the wardroom door behind him.

Castillo laid his laptop computer on the table and opened it.

"Overview," he said. "The target is on the airfield on the Venezuelan island of La Orchila. The target-targets, plural-are a Russian general named Yakov Sirinov, whom we are going to s.n.a.t.c.h; the Tu-934A aircraft, which he flew onto La Orchila; and the cargo that that bird carried."

He looked down at the computer, saw that it was on, and tapped several keys.

"These are the latest satellite images of the target," he went on, then leaned over for a closer look, and added, "as of forty-five minutes ago."

"You have imagery like that on your laptop?" Captain Lowe asked.

"Yes, sir."

Lowe bent over the laptop.

"How could a poor sailor get a laptop like that?" Lowe asked.

"Well, I could give you this one," Castillo said, affecting a serious tone, "but then I would have to kill you."

With one exception, the others in the room laughed. It was an old joke, but it was theirs.

The exception was former Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki.

"Captain," she flared, "you will have to excuse Colonel Castillo. He never grew emotionally after he entered p.u.b.erty. Whenever there is serious business at hand, he makes soph.o.m.oric jokes."

"What is this, dissension in the ranks?" Castillo asked. "Or the beginning of a lover's quarrel?"

Sweaty let loose a thirty-second torrent of angry words in Russian.

Dmitri Berezovsky laughed, then said, "Captain, gentlemen, permit me to offer an explanation. In our family, my mother used to say that what my sister needed more than anything was a strong man who would take her down a peg or two on a regular basis. She has finally found such a man, and doesn't like it."

This produced from Sweaty another torrent of vulgar and obscene Russian language.

"If our mother ever heard her speak like that," Berezovsky went on, "which on occasion she did, our mother would wash her mouth out with laundry soap."

This was too much for the men in the room who had been studiously ignoring the exchange. Most of them chuckled, and several laughed.

Sweaty, red-faced, opened her mouth to deliver another comment.

"Colonel," Castillo said very softly. "Zip your lip. One more word and you're out of here and off the operation."

Carlito and Sweaty locked eyes for a very long moment.

And then wordlessly she sat down.

Castillo turned to the laptop.

"If you'll gather around here, please," he said, "you'll see that while the Tu-934A is not visible, there are Spetsnaz guarding this canvas temporary hangar, which makes it fairly certain that the Tu-934A is inside.

"Now, this is what we're going to do. Please hold comments until I've finished.

"I want to arrive at first light ..."

Some five minutes later, when Castillo had finished, he said, "Okay, comments, please. But I'm not going to start with the juniors, the way a good commander is supposed to. We're starting at the top. Captain Lowe, your thoughts, please."

Lowe took a full thirty seconds to consider his response.

"There's a maybe ten-minute period, during which we will be recovering the UH-60s, that worries me. We'll be headed, slowly, into the wind. If Venezuelan Air Force or Navy aircraft find us with our hand still in the cookie jar, so to speak . . . But there's nothing we can do about that. And insofar as being attacked after after we recover the choppers, that would be an we recover the choppers, that would be an unprovoked unprovoked attack on a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters, which is an act of war. I don't think they would do that. And of course we're able to defend ourselves pretty well." attack on a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters, which is an act of war. I don't think they would do that. And of course we're able to defend ourselves pretty well."

"Thank you, sir. Colonel Kingsolving?"

"Charley, the only question in my mind concerns the UH-60 you stole from the Mexican cops. What are you going to do about that? Torch it?"

"Well, sir, first, I didn't steal it. I bought it."

"You bought it? You going to tell me about that?"

Castillo told him.

"Unbelievable!" Kingsolving said. "But back to my question: What are you going to do with it, torch it?"

"I'll tell you what I'd like to do with it," Castillo said. "I'd like to fly it back out to the Bataan Bataan. And then the first time the Bataan Bataan goes to its homeport . . . Where is that, Captain Lowe?" goes to its homeport . . . Where is that, Captain Lowe?"

"Norfolk. And as soon as we finish this operation-this is day fifty-six of a sixty-day deployment-we'll be headed there 'at fastest speed consistent with available fuel.'"

"Then the first thing Captain Lowe does when he docks the Bataan Bataan at Norfolk will be to lower the Mexican UH-60 onto the wharf while the Mexican amba.s.sador and the State Department idiots who sold it for a tenth of its value to the Mexicans watch. They then-did I mention that our own Roscoe J. Danton will be there, as will the ever-vigilant cameras of Wolf News?-they will attempt to explain how that particular UH-60, after having died a hero's death in Mexico's unrelenting war against the drug cartels, was resurrected." at Norfolk will be to lower the Mexican UH-60 onto the wharf while the Mexican amba.s.sador and the State Department idiots who sold it for a tenth of its value to the Mexicans watch. They then-did I mention that our own Roscoe J. Danton will be there, as will the ever-vigilant cameras of Wolf News?-they will attempt to explain how that particular UH-60, after having died a hero's death in Mexico's unrelenting war against the drug cartels, was resurrected."

"That'd work, Charley," Danton said. "And I'm so personally p.i.s.sed as a taxpayer about that bulls.h.i.t that I will even arrange for C. Harry Whelan, that sonofab.i.t.c.h, to be there with me."

"Then why not do it?" Kingsolving asked.

"One small problem, sir. Who would fly it out to the Bataan Bataan? Jake and I'll be flying the Tu-934A back to the land of the free and home of the brave with only a fuel stop at Drug Cartel International."

"I'll fly it," Kingsolving said.

"Sir, I have painful memories of standing tall before you while you lectured at length on the inadvisability of flying UH-60 aircraft without a co-pilot. I seem to remember you telling me with some emphasis that anyone who did so was an idiot."

"Charley, if I went in with you on the Mexican UH-60, and then flew it back out here, that means we would have to land only one of the 160th choppers in there to take your Spetsnaz back to the Bataan Bataan. That would reduce the danger that one of my guys would dump one of ours at La Orchila, causing G.o.d only knows what consequential collateral political damage."

"You don't see any risk like when your guys take out the commo building?"

"As I understand your plan, Colonel, the idea is for my guys to hit the commo building in the dark, so they will never learn what happened to them, or who did it."

Castillo was silent for a moment.

Next came dissension in the ranks of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment pilots.

Four of the Night Stalkers, just about simultaneously, spoke without permission. They all said about the same thing: "Colonel, let me fly that f.u.c.king Mexican chopper."

To which Colonel Kingsolving replied, "Zip your lips, or n.o.body gets to go."

There was another period of silence.