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SEA OF SHADOWS 117
“The Brits detected them by going active,” Andy said. “Maybe we
need to drop some active buoys.”
“Not my first choice,” George said. “As soon as we start pinging, those
subs are going to run like scalded dogs. If they split up, we’ll never catch
them all.”
Shari stared out the window at the Mediterranean. The water was still
just as blue as it had been before, but now her eyes accused the waves of
concealing the location of her enemies. “It’s not like we’re having a hell
of a lot of luck catching them now,” she said.
Andy looked up from the TDD. “The numbers are clean. We dropped
those buoys right on top of the ES cross-fix.”
George said, “Maybe the cross-fix was wrong. Who says the AEW
guys can’t screw the pooch once in a while?”
“Maybe,” Shari said, “but they’re never going to admit it. Let’s set up
a rack of active buoys and try this again.”
“Yes ma’am,” George said, but his voice didn’t sound very confident.
Shari pretended not to notice. “Shoot me some waypoints.”
Active buoy number 9 was going into the water when George said,
“Abraham Lincoln’s AEW is about thirty miles out. They’re still picking
up Kelvin Hughes I-band radars in our Op-Area.”
“Where the hell are they?” Shari asked.
“Just a second,” George said. “I’m getting the cross-fix now.”
Shari waited without speaking; the only sound in the cockpit was the
drone of the engines.
After what seemed like an hour, but was—in reality—probably more
like five minutes, the accordion door at the rear of the cockpit slid open.
George stepped into the cockpit and stood in the narrow strip of floor
space between the pilot and copilot chairs. His disconnected comm-set
was down around his neck, the cord draped around his shoulders. “Ah,
boss?”
Shari looked up. George never came up to the flight deck to deliver
good news. “I’m not going to like this, am I?” she asked.
“Afraid not, boss. We plotted the cross-fixes on those I-band radars
we’ve been chasing. They fall right on top of those two yachts in the
middle of our Briar Patch.”
“That’s nuts,” Shari said. “Go out to AEW and get them to check their
ES gear.”