Lieutenant Edwin Lipton stood hunched over a weather radar-scope in operations with the Nimitz group’s chief meteorologist Lieutenant Commander Brent Eastman, and the chief of Air Operations, Commander Louis Rheinholtz.
Lipton was a SEAL, a fact that would have been obvious to the most casual observer, even if he hadn’t been dressed all in black. Physically he stood out. Although he was only of medium height, his body was in perfect athletic condition, and with the way he held himself like a boxer ready to spring it was clear that his reflex speeds, coordination and endurance were probably very good. The look in his eyes and the expression at the corners of his mouth were those of a man utterly and totally committed to the task at hand, and completely devoid of any nonsense whatsoever. He and the five men in his elite strike group were highly trained professionals in the highest sense of the word.
“What are the chances for a break in the weather?” he asked. “We’re under a full moon tonight.”
“Less than ten percent, Lieutenant,” Eastman said. “In fact the cloud cover will begin moving in over the region within the next hour. In two hours moonlight will not be a significant factor at all. Your real problem is going to be the next satellite overpass. It’ll be blind.”
Lipton studied the screen for a moment longer, then turned and crossed to the chart table where their present position was electronically updated on a continuous realtime basis.
The last known position of the Thaxos was about sixty miles southeast of Piraeus.
She’d made a shortcut through the Gulf of Corinth and the Corinth Canal.
“On that course and speed she’d make Santorini around oh-one-hundred hours,” Commander Rheinholtz said. “Another five hours, if that’s where she’s heading, if she doesn’t change her speed, and if she takes the best direct-line course through the islands.
There’s still a lot of sea out there between us and them.”
“Yes, sir,” Lipton said.
“We’d attract too much notice if we sent out patrols to find them. You do understand that.”
“Yes, sir,” Lipton nodded. He stabbed a blunt finger at a spot just north of the island. “We’ll wait here. When she passes, we’ll get aboard.”
“You’re betting they won’t put in at either the old port of Thira of the new port of Athinos.”
“I don’t think so. They’d have to figure they might run into some trouble with the authorities. I’m told that these people are sharp, and I’ll have to go with that until it’s proved differently. But it’s my guess they’ll disembark five miles offshore and come in here, or here.” He pointed to the island’s only two beaches. Everywhere else tall cliffs plunged into the sea, making a landing next to impossible.
“What if you miss them?”
Lipton shrugged. “Then it would be out of our hands. My orders are that we are not to conduct any operation on Greek soil. But we won’t miss them, sir.”
Commander Rheinholtz studied the chart. “We’ll put up a couple of LAMPS III choppers to give you a steady over-the-horizon radar coverage to the north, and we’ll splash you down around midnight.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“These two women are VIPs, but there’s no telling what condition they’ll be in.”
“My people are briefed.”
“Very well, Lieutenant,” Commander Rheinholtz said, and he glanced over at the plotting board they were using for this operation. “Where is Brightstar at this moment?” he asked. Brightstar was McGarvey’s operational codename.
“He’s just approaching the port of Thira, sir,” the plotting board rating replied.
“No telling what he’ll do when he finds out the Thaxos hasn’t docked yet,” Rheinholtz said. “I’ll be glad when this night is over.”
“Yes, sir,” Lipton said, and it was clear that he meant it.
The moon was blood red on the horizon as the aging 37-foot fishing boat Dhodhoni chugged into the dramatic harbor of Thira. Once the crater of a volcano, the cliffs rose a thousand feet out of the sea, and from across the water McGarvey could hear the sounds of music echoing off the rock faces.
“You are looking for somebody,” the grizzled old captain said, his broad grin nearly toothless. He’d been drinking ouzo most of the way over, but he didn’t appear to be drunk.
“Two ladies,” McGarvey said.
“Ah, the ladies. Not from this island. So they have come by water.”
There were several boats in the harbor, but nothing McGarvey thought Spranger would have used. Of course the East Germans could have landed at Athinos, if they had already arrived and if the black diamond had not been a false clue, or if he had not misinterpreted it.
“Who do I see about them?” McGarvey asked.
The old man’s grin widened. “If you are a policeman it may be difficult, you see.”
McGarvey shook his head. “I’m not a policeman.”
“But there is a stench of… trouble on you.”
McGarvey was certain the old man had been about to say death, instead of trouble.
“This is important to me. One of the ladies is my daughter, and the other my ex-wife.”
The captain nodded. “When you find them…?”
“Someone may have brought them here.”
“Then you will kill this someone?”
McGarvey stared at the old man, and after a long time he nodded. “Yes.”
“I thought so,” the captain said triumphantly. “In that case I will help you.”
“You?”
The captain laughed out loud. “Yes, me. You didn’t think that I was a Piraievs pig, did you? I am Spyros Karamanlis from Santorini. This is my island. You will see.”
Chapter 47
The Japanese ambassador to the United States made his official call on the President and left. The President’s Press Secretary Martin Hewler called Murphy with the news.
“The man is not happy, but he’s agreed to wait.”
“How long?” the DCI asked. It was a little after three in the afternoon, Washington time, and after nine in the evening in the Aegean Sea.
“Not very long, General. We’re going to need some action on this soon. Like first thing in the morning. Better yet, this evening.”
“With any luck we should have something within the next three or four hours.”
“With any luck,” Hewler said. “Which translates into: We’ve got our fingers crossed, and should a miracle happen, we’ll pull it off.”
“Do your job, Martin, and let us do ours,” Murphy replied sharply.
“Do that, General. Just do that much, and we’ll all come out smelling like roses.”
Paul Shircliff stepped up to tier B of the Special Operations balcony and plugged his headset into Patsy Connor’s console. Shircliff was early swing shift OD at the National Security Agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland.
Patsy was just entering data from the latest KH-15 pass over the Mediterranean, picking out the EPIRB signal from McGarvey’s transmitter and isolating it against an area overlay map.
“Bring up more detail,” Shircliff said softly.
Without looking up, Patsy punched a series of buttons, which expanded the map view displayed on her terminal. In this instance the scale was such that the island of Santorini barely fit on the screen. A tiny but very bright cross with a series of identifiers to its right indicated the EPIRB’s realtime position. At this scale the cross seemed to be located in the harbor area of the port of Thira.