"Only ten minutes later, he sent that Operation Immediate to the Chief of Naval Operations. That seems pretty dumb, but maybe when you're operating DP you have to do it."
" 'DP,' Oscar?" Ettinger asked.
They must have a mutual admiration society,Clete thought. It would never have entered my mind to call Chief Schultz by his first name.
"It means 'Direction of the President,' Dave," Schultz explained patiently. "Really big-time stuff. There's probably six admirals sitting on their ass in the Navy Department, waiting to hear that you guys carried this off. Praying they don't have to go to the CNO hisself and tell him he has to go to the President and tell him this got fucked up somehow."
"Interesting," Ettinger said.
"Anyway, to go through this, when Captain Jernigan sent that Operational Immediate at 2320 our time, it was not light.
"As soon as she's fueled, which would be right about now, in another fifteen or twenty minutes, the Devil Fish will take off for Point Jwhich is probably just outside the twelve-mile line, just outside Argentine waters, off the Bay of Samboromb?n. She'll try to contact us just before she leaves. We've been talking to the Biloxi and the Thomas, not the Devil Fish. They want to know if we can communicate with her. We'll probably hear from her in the next couple of minutes."
He turned around in his chair, picked up the headset, and put it on so that one speaker was on his left ear and the other was resting against his forehead.
"The Devil Fish'll probably run on the surface for a while, but then she'll run submerged, which is slower, to make sure nobody sees her. Then, when she's at Point M, which she estimates at 1900 our time, she'll surface, just far enough out of the water to get air to run her diesels and recharge her batteries, and then lay on the bottom until maybe 2300, when she will stick her antenna out of the water long enough to contact us and tell us she's leaving."
He turned suddenly in his chair, put both cans over his ears, and after tapping his key briefly, began to type on the typewriter. Finally he turned again.
"I'll have to decode this to be sure, but I'll betit's short and right on timethat it's the Devil Fish telling us she's leaving for Rio de la Plata. You want me to go on, or decode it?"
"Decode it, please, Chief," Clete ordered.
It was in fact a message from the Devil Fish, reporting that she was departing Point J for Point M.
"Which proves our radio works," Chief Schultz said. "Even with the shitty antennas on a submarine. Where was I?"
"The Devil Fish contacts us when she's leaving for Point O," Clete furnished.
"Not exactly," Chief Schultz said. "She contacts us to find out where the Reine de la Mer is#so from the charts Captain Jernigan gave her, she can pick the best spot for her to lay on the bottom of Samborombon Bay."
"I stand corrected," Clete said.
"Then the Devil Fish goes submerged to Point O, sticks her antenna out of the water, and tells us where she is. Then Mr. Frade here tells her where the Reine de la Mer is, and asks when he should drop the flares."
"And if the Reine de la Mer moves after Lieutenant Frade gives her position to the Devil Fish?" Ettinger asked.
Then we start all over again, finding the sonofabitch, and then waiting for the Devil Fish to get close enough to her to get a shot at her."
"Is there enough moonlight for you to find her, Lieutenant?" Ettinger pursued.
"It depends on the cloud cover, and how much light I have. But I'll find her. I'm going to keep tabs on her all day, starting now. You want to come with me, Tony?"
"Yeah, sure."
[SEVEN]
Samboromb?n Bay
0940 1 January 1943
Clete tapped Tony's shoulder and gestured toward the water 10,000 feet below them.
"You're sure that's her?" Tony asked.
"Yeah, that's her."
He consulted his Hamilton chronograph and the compass, made some quick computations, and then marked the position of the Reine de la Mer, sixteen miles off the coast, on the chart he had in his lap.
"Now we're going back?" Tony asked.
"Now we're going to go back and figure out some way to rig the chute so that I can operate it from up here," Clete said.
"It can't be done," Tony said. "I thought about it."
"Think some more."
"Hey, I'm going. First: There's no way you can drop the flares by yourself. And second: I'm going. And anyway, even if you could drop the first dozen by yourself, you'd have no way to reload the chute for a second run."
"I'll be very surprised if there will be a second run," Clete said. "They expect us down there."
He looked at Tony, who obviously believed him. There was fear in his eyes.
"They even know about the flares," Clete added. "They think we're going to try to set the sonofabitch on fire."
"How do you know that?"
"I have a reliable source of information. He also tells me there are two Bofors dual forty-millimeter cannon on board."
"I say again, repeat, first: There's no way you can drop the flares from up here," Tony said. "And second: I'm going."
"I say again, repeat, that when we get back we're going to see if there is a way I can do this myself."
"If they have Bofors forty-millimeters down there shooting at us, you won't have time to even think about dropping the flares yourself. Don't try to be a fucking hero."
Clete looked at Tony for a moment, then said, "Put the wire out the tail, and we'll see if the walkie-talkies work."
"Flyey-talkies?" Tony responded. "About the only thing left of the walkie-talkies after Ettinger and the Chief finished fucking with them is the nameplate."
"Let the wire out, Lieutenant Pelosi," Clete said.
"Yes, Sir, Mr. Frade, Lieutenant, Sir," Tony said.
Tony went into the now-stripped cabin of the Beechcraft and dropped to his knees near the open doorway. He put on a pair of heavy leather work gloves, then picked up a tiny parachutea drogue chuteand carefully held the tiny chute out into the slipstream.
It was immediately snatched from his hand; and the wire it was attached to moved so quickly over the gloves that they smoked. When all the wire, which had been carefully coiled in a wooden box, was deployed outside the Beech, he carefully looked out of the door. He could see the wire, but not the drogue chute.
He smiled with satisfaction. This idea of his had worked too. When the wire was fully extended, the force exerted by moving through the air at 120 miles per hour was enough to tear off the drogue chute. Otherwise, what Chief Schultz referred to as "the straight-wire antenna" would have gyrated wildly, and would not have been a "straight wire."
He had also solved the problem of dealing with the wire before landing, during which it would have posed problems. After Chief Schultz and the Argentine ex-Sergeant Major spent hours trying to come up with a crank to pull it back inside, he suggested they "just cut the sonofabitch; we have plenty of wire."