Ghost Force

This was the base for Argentina's French-built Dassault-Breguet Super-Etendard, the single-seat naval attack aircraft that delivered the 650-knot, radar-homing half-ton antiship missile, the Exocet — the one that incinerated the Royal Navy's Type-42 destroyer HMS Sheffield on the fourth day of the 1982 war.

The Super-Es, especially modified with extra gas tanks fitted under one wing, had an 860-mile range — sufficient to get well within striking range of the seas around the Falkland Islands.

Back then, the Rio Grande base was the start point of the Exocet missile's deadly journey, but this time the strategy would be very different. Because this time the Argentine forces would hold the airfield at Mount Pleasant. Or, at least they would if General Kampf had anything to do with it.

But any attacking air force needs a home base, on native soil. And Rio Grande would once more be home to a squadron of the fabled French-built Super-Es, and there the pilots and ground crew would live, work, and train as one from November, until it became clear that Argentina not only owned and controlled the Malvinas, but there was no one on the horizon still planning to do anything about it.

Right now the entire operation was just about as highly classified, utterly secret, as anything can ever be in a South American country. But Argentinians talk, and they talk with emotion, fervor, and optimism. Which was why, back in the Florida Garden confiteria, rumor was rife there was to be a new assault on the Malvinas.

By eleven p.m. on Friday, October 29, a crowd had gathered before the Casa Rosada Presidential Palace on the Plaza de Mayo. It was not yet in the tens of thousands, but it certainly numbered several thousand. And, as the weekend throb of the tango began to permeate hundreds of bars and clubs in Buenos Aires, there was, very suddenly, a rapidly spreading sense of heightened expectation and hope.

And even as the moon rose above the dark, faded elegance of the old city, an ever-rising, rhythmic roar of unbridled passion could be heard from the Plaza de Mayo. It was a cry from a thousand hearts, a hymn to the slain Argentinian warriors of 1982…Viva las M-a-a-l-v-i-n-a-s!! Viva las M-a-a-l-v-i-n-a-s!!

1200, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

FORT MEADE, MARYLAND

Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe normally placed South America about eighth on his list of priorities. Nonetheless, he always enjoyed reading English-language newspapers from foreign capital cities. Sometimes he took a few days to get to them, but he always got to them.

Today he was scouring the Buenos Aires Herald, the English-language daily that specializes in politics and business news and is renowned for its outspoken editorials, written fiercely against whoever seemed to be screwing life up for the Argentinians.

During the Dirty War of the 1970s and '80s, the Herald was so unremitting in its condemnation of military and police abuses that its editor had to go into hiding after threats against his family.

Of all the newspapers Jimmy Ramshawe was not really interested in but could not afford to miss, the no- punches-pulled Buenos Aires Herald stood right at the top of the list.

And right now he was preoccupied by one particular story that should have been confined to the business section, but was given enormous prominence on the front page of the paper. The headline read:

OIL STRIKE ON PATAGONIA COAST HIGHLIGHTS MALVINAS OUTRAGE

'Hullo,' muttered James. 'The bloody gauchos are at it again.' This was a statement of such astonishing unawareness that even Jimmy, with his Aussie brand of outback humor but high intelligence, was moved to reconsider.

'Tell the truth, I'm not so sure what a bloody gaucho is, except he rides a horse, carries a knife, eats a lot of beef, and doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone.'

As a description of the native Argentinian horsemen and cowboys, there was an element of truth in this. However, the badly missed point was the gauchos didn't give a rat's ass about the oil strike either. This was a matter for the big hitters of Argentinian business.

The Buenos Aires Herald had published a story that speculated, with much authority, on a possible rich seam of oil and gas discovered a few miles to the north of the Patagonian port of Rio Gallegos. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Argentinian naval base located in that city.

Rio Gallegos had long been a seaport for the export of coal from the huge mines found 150 miles west of the city. There had also been oil discoveries in the region, of sufficient volume to justify a sizeable refinery in Rio Gallegos. But according to the Herald, this new discovery was right on the coast, stretching out under Argentina's coastal waters.

They quoted an executive from the Argentine state oil company, who said:

It cannot be a mere coincidence that the Patagonian oil fields plainly run from the coalfields to the coast, and then in a dead straight line to the Malvinas, where the biggest oil and gas strikes in recent years have been confirmed.

The Herald reasoned:

If that is true, then the oil fields on the islands MUST be the property of Argentina, since we are the clear and rightful owners of the Malvinas, and the ONLY country with coastal waters and seabed above the oil.

Argentina's claim on the islands has always been correct and unchallengeable politically, even the British understand that. It now appears to be unchallengeable geologically. The rock strata that has housed the oil for thousands of years is purely Argentinian, not British.

Their absurd claim to own the Malvinas would be as if we claimed their North Sea oil because a few Argentinian families had settled on the east coast of Scotland. Until now, the oil companies have always stated the oil on the Argentine mainland and the oil in the Falklands are separate issues. However, last month's new discovery north of Rio Gallegos has joined up the last dot in a long chain of Argentinian oil fields. The oil is ours, obviously ours. All of it.

And what is our government, and indeed our military, doing about it? THEY OWE THE PEOPLE AN EXPLANATION…VIVA LAS MALVINAS!!

'Christ,' said Jimmy.

In an entirely separate story in the business section there was a long article about the financial ramifications of the new strike — the likelihood of 500,000 barrels a day, the need for yet another huge refinery in Rio Gallegos, and the prosperity that would occur in southern Patagonia.

On the editorial pages, there was a piece by the editor of the Herald, pointing out the new strike had made the Malvinas even more difficult to reclaim. The British were now backed by the giant American oil corporation that had joined BP in the oil fields southwest of Port Stanley. They would likely dig in even more fiercely, probably even refuse to negotiate further.

'The British government has never been anything less than dogmatic, unreasonable, and forever obdurate,' he raged. 'Perhaps now is the time for Argentina once more to consider the military option.'

'Christ,' repeated Jimmy. And then, slowly, 'I'm telling you, that oil business causes more bloody trouble on this planet than any other issue in the entire history of mankind. Except religion.'

He pulled up a map on his big computer and punched in the buttons that would reveal the coast of southern Patagonia and its proximity to the Falkland Islands.

'I'll say one thing,' he muttered, 'it is a bloody straight line, and no error.'

He pondered the story, trying to work out whether it had anything to do with the United States and its national security. And the answer was clearly no. If the ole gauchos wanna fight the Brits over those rat-hole islands again, well, let 'em. It really is not our business.

Nonetheless, he logged all the data in his special computer file, the one designed purely as a reminder to him, any time he wanted to check a global issue.