unspooling of the filament slowing down.
âGood old Max,â she said.
âI knew he wouldnât let us down,â Mike said, rechecking the pistol that he was bringing along as a precaution even though their mission was to avoid any contact.
âLooks like weâre going to have ourselves a cliff face to tackle,â MacD said, and assembled their climbing gear.
When the Discovery caught up with the now stationary tanker, Lindaâs watch told her that they had twenty-five minutes left out of Maxâs thirty-minute limit. She surfaced the Discovery next to the bow, as far as possible from the engine room and bridge, where the center of activity would be taking place right now.
MacD popped the hatch and looked outside. When he came back in, he wore a grim expression.
âWeâve got something of a problem,â he said.
Linda leaned forward and peered up through the mini-subâs front viewport. She immediately saw what MacD meant.
They were expecting the
Sorocaima
to be dark except for its running lights, the cloud cover allowing Mike and MacD plenty of pitch-black areas of the deck to move through unnoticed. That would be impossible now. From stem to stern, the tanker was lit up like a Christmas tree.
Red battle station lighting bathed the bridge of the frigate
Mariscal Sucre
in a hellish splendor that Admiral Dayana Ruiz relished. She had risen to her position as the top-ranking woman in the Venezuelan military not only because of her refusal to accept anything less than perfection from her subordinates but also because of her ability to command a ship in battle. She had never lost a war game exercise, and now she had the opportunity to show off her skills in actual combat.
She only hoped that the ship called
Dolos
was as formidable as the stories had claimed. The tip sheâd received about the tramp freighter and its captain had come from an officer in the Libyan Navy she had met at an arms bazaar in Dubai. He told her that he had experienced the mythical shipâs capabilities firsthand when it had nearly destroyed his frigate, the
Khalij Surt
âthe
Gulf of Sidra
. Although sheâd heard secondhand tales of such a covert ship, she had previously dismissed them as fantasy. But the officerâs eyewitness account was compelling. She spread word throughout the naval community that she would be happy to bag the mystery ship as a prize.
Then Gao Wangshu of the Chinese Navy had come to Ruiz with a story similar to the Libyanâs. He had intelligence that the ship would be coming to Venezuela, although he thought the port of call would be Puerto Cabello. At the last minute, he gave word that La Guanta was where it would dock, and she sent him to the harbormaster there to get confirmation it was the right ship.
Now it seemed like she had even more reason to believe the
Dolos
was a spy ship. The call from Lieutenant Dominguez about the two impostors who had tied him up couldnât be a coincidence.
Ruiz finished her black coffee as she angrily waited for the phone call from Puerto La Cruz. She wanted to fling the mug against the window, but the rigid reflection staring back at her made her stop. Her short raven hair, tan angular face, and tall, ramrod-straight frame under an immaculately pressed uniform, projected the reputation she had as an ice-cold commander, ready to sacrifice anyone or anything for victory. Any histrionics would dispel that image and allow the macho Latin American men under her command an opportunity to question her ability. She would not let that happen, but these latest developments were testing her stoicism.
Lieutenant Dominguez was one of her brightest pupils and she had trusted him with some of the most valuable information about her operations that would propel her planned rise to power in the Venezuelan government. There had already been a female defense minister, but her ambitions were much higher than that. Hugo Chávez had been her idol
âGood old Max,â she said.
âI knew he wouldnât let us down,â Mike said, rechecking the pistol that he was bringing along as a precaution even though their mission was to avoid any contact.
âLooks like weâre going to have ourselves a cliff face to tackle,â MacD said, and assembled their climbing gear.
When the Discovery caught up with the now stationary tanker, Lindaâs watch told her that they had twenty-five minutes left out of Maxâs thirty-minute limit. She surfaced the Discovery next to the bow, as far as possible from the engine room and bridge, where the center of activity would be taking place right now.
MacD popped the hatch and looked outside. When he came back in, he wore a grim expression.
âWeâve got something of a problem,â he said.
Linda leaned forward and peered up through the mini-subâs front viewport. She immediately saw what MacD meant.
They were expecting the
Sorocaima
to be dark except for its running lights, the cloud cover allowing Mike and MacD plenty of pitch-black areas of the deck to move through unnoticed. That would be impossible now. From stem to stern, the tanker was lit up like a Christmas tree.
Red battle station lighting bathed the bridge of the frigate
Mariscal Sucre
in a hellish splendor that Admiral Dayana Ruiz relished. She had risen to her position as the top-ranking woman in the Venezuelan military not only because of her refusal to accept anything less than perfection from her subordinates but also because of her ability to command a ship in battle. She had never lost a war game exercise, and now she had the opportunity to show off her skills in actual combat.
She only hoped that the ship called
Dolos
was as formidable as the stories had claimed. The tip sheâd received about the tramp freighter and its captain had come from an officer in the Libyan Navy she had met at an arms bazaar in Dubai. He told her that he had experienced the mythical shipâs capabilities firsthand when it had nearly destroyed his frigate, the
Khalij Surt
âthe
Gulf of Sidra
. Although sheâd heard secondhand tales of such a covert ship, she had previously dismissed them as fantasy. But the officerâs eyewitness account was compelling. She spread word throughout the naval community that she would be happy to bag the mystery ship as a prize.
Then Gao Wangshu of the Chinese Navy had come to Ruiz with a story similar to the Libyanâs. He had intelligence that the ship would be coming to Venezuela, although he thought the port of call would be Puerto Cabello. At the last minute, he gave word that La Guanta was where it would dock, and she sent him to the harbormaster there to get confirmation it was the right ship.
Now it seemed like she had even more reason to believe the
Dolos
was a spy ship. The call from Lieutenant Dominguez about the two impostors who had tied him up couldnât be a coincidence.
Ruiz finished her black coffee as she angrily waited for the phone call from Puerto La Cruz. She wanted to fling the mug against the window, but the rigid reflection staring back at her made her stop. Her short raven hair, tan angular face, and tall, ramrod-straight frame under an immaculately pressed uniform, projected the reputation she had as an ice-cold commander, ready to sacrifice anyone or anything for victory. Any histrionics would dispel that image and allow the macho Latin American men under her command an opportunity to question her ability. She would not let that happen, but these latest developments were testing her stoicism.
Lieutenant Dominguez was one of her brightest pupils and she had trusted him with some of the most valuable information about her operations that would propel her planned rise to power in the Venezuelan government. There had already been a female defense minister, but her ambitions were much higher than that. Hugo Chávez had been her idol
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