Ghost Force

was wondering whether you could find out anything for us…Diana was very close to him and she's completely distraught. Thinks he might be dead.'

'Jesus, Rick. I'm leaving for Washington in the next five minutes. But I'll do what I can, and I'll get back to you tomorrow…I know the CO at Hereford pretty well…Captain Douglas Jarvis, right? Gimme your number…'

Ten minutes later, with the words of another distraught wife still ringing in his ears, Admiral Bergstrom was on his way out of the office, having escaped the rigors of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

Thirty minutes after that he was hurtling down the NAS runway on North Island, San Diego, headed east in a U.S. Navy Lockheed EP-3E Aries, nonstop to Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. He had dismissed Louisa-May and Pyotr Tchaikovsky temporarily from his mind.

But the memory of Rick Hunter lingered in the mind of the Coronado boss: he was the toughest, strongest, steadiest SEAL leader I ever knew. Brilliant marksman, deadly, and fearless in both armed and unarmed combat, could probably swim the Pacific, and expert with high explosive. He must be nearly forty now, but I never met one that good in all my years with the SEALs. Shame about his brother-in-law.

They rustled up a couple of ham-and-cheese sandwiches during the flight, and there was coffee supplied by one of his assistants, Petty Officer Riff 'Rattlesnake' Davies, assault team machine gunner by trade, wounded with Commander Hunter on that last mission in Burma.

The five-hour journey dragged by. The Admiral and Rattlesnake swapped yarns, mostly about the newly topical Commander Hunter. 'I guess you'll never know how brave he was,' said Davies. 'Jesus, when we came under fire in that boat from those Chinese helicopters, I thought we'd never get out alive.

'And there was Commander Hunter, almost unconscious in the boat, blood pumping from a major wound in his thigh, still blasting away with a machine gun, yelling orders at the rest of us…I never saw courage like that…'

'I know, Riff. Don't think I don't know.'

They landed on time, and the U.S. Marine helicopter flew them directly to the White House lawn. Three minutes later, Admiral Bergstrom entered the Oval Office and shook hands with the President and Admiral Morgan, who glanced at his watch and observed it was two minutes and thirty seconds past 1800, which made the SEAL chief from California very marginally late. Nonetheless, Arnold couldn't understand what was happening around here. Nearly three minutes late for the last dog watch! Jesus, standards were sure as hell slipping.

All three of the men in the Oval Office had served in the U.S. Navy, and Arnold's insistence on charting the time of day in strictly naval warship terms unfailingly made the President laugh. Which was just as well. Right now he did not have a whole lot to laugh about, since the top execs at ExxonMobil were growing angrier by the day that 'these goddamned gauchos had somehow run off with about two billion dollars' worth of our oil and gas, and no one seems to be doing a damn thing about it.'

President Bedford could see their point. And it was a source of immense relief to him that his two guests were probably the only two men in all of the United States who could do a damn thing about it. And, better yet, they were apparently ready to do so.

'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I'm glad to see you both. And I should say, right away, that this Falklands problem has been extremely difficult for me, for all the obvious reasons. Arnold is the only person with a really solid plan. And I think he should outline it for us both…I'll send for some coffee…'

'John,' Arnold began, 'you know the problem we have sending our armed services to fight someone else's war. The President does not want to do it, and I agree with him. However, we have another problem damn nearly as big. ExxonMobil think we have sat back and passively allowed the Argentinians to run off with their very expensive oil and gas.'

'Yeah, I've been following it,' said Admiral Bergstrom. 'And I've been wondering what was going to happen. You want my guys to go in and blow the place up?'

John Bergstrom was a droll man, with a sardonic sense of humor, which is a common virtue in his line of work. Nevertheless, neither Arnold Morgan nor the President of the United States ever quite knew whether he was joking.

This time he was not. 'You aren't going to negotiate the Argentinians out of there,' he said. 'Because they see the place as some kind of birthright. Which kinda brings us back to the ancient mantra of the U.S. Navy SEALs…there are very few of the world's problems that can't be solved by means of high explosive.'

The President laughed. Nervously. 'Go on, Arnold,' he said.

'In a sense, I have to agree with John,' he said. 'We are not going to persuade Buenos Aires to get out of Great Britain's Falkland Islands. I actually think they would probably fight 'til the last drop of their blood had seeped into the soil of their beloved Malvinas.'

'Jesus, we're getting briefed by a poet,' said Admiral Bergstrom. 'I like that — culture before the mayhem.'

Arnold grinned. But he remained extremely serious. 'In order to get them to back down, we gotta first frighten them, then move in as the great conciliators. We need to be the voice of reason, and we have to get that oil and gas back on the road.

'In broad terms, we want a deal where the Brits volunteer to give up their sovereignty in twenty-four months, in return for British Petroleum being allowed back in there with ExxonMobil.

'But right now we have reason to believe the Argentinians plan to hand that oil project over to the Russians, and we cannot allow that. So we need to persuade Buenos Aires that unless they come to heel, they will lose everything. And we gotta do that without the world knowing how hard we are putting the arm on them.'

'Will the Argentines realize how hard we're putting the arm on them?' asked Admiral Bergstrom.

'Yes, but they will not be able to prove it's us. I am proposing we launch a succession of highly classified assaults on their military hardware — fighter aircraft, warships, missile launchers.'

'Lemme have a sip of coffee, Mr. President,' said Admiral Bergstrom. 'I just realized what I'm doing here, and I'm trying not to go into shock.'

'You're here, John,' said Arnold, 'to tell us whether your guys could go into the islands and take out the very few warships patrolling those waters, and then get rid of all the fighter aircraft stationed at Mount Pleasant and that other airfield of theirs on Pebble Island.'

'You mean, presumably, quietly and without getting caught?'

'Correct. I mean to put the Argentinians in a position where they know they are being badly knocked about militarily, but do not wish to admit it, and will finally agree to negotiate — for both the territory and the oil and gas…I have a hunch the Brits will be happy to get out with a little pride, and their share of the oil.'

'Anyone given any thought to how my guys get in there?'

'Not really,' said Arnold. 'But it obviously can't be by air, we can't risk a parachute drop. So that means by sea, and we can't send in a warship, so that means a submarine, I guess.'

'Uh-huh,' said John Bergstrom. 'Any idea how many guys this will take?'

'Not really. Would you think, maybe, two teams of sixteen?'

'That's not many — not to take out all the fighter jets on two airfields, not when you consider the recce.'

'No, it's not. But my first question is, John, can it be done?'

'Sure it can be done. My guys are specialists. They can do it, and they won't get caught. I would have just one request, and that's for you to arrange an immediate evacuation by air, if somehow they get cornered. I want to help, and I will conduct the operation, but I'm not sending the guys into the goddamned Malvinas on a suicide mission.'

Arnold Morgan knew Admiral Bergstrom was about to retire, and he smirked at the SEAL chief. 'I don't want to give you a chapter for your book,' he said. 'We're seeing the Chilean Ambassador right here early tomorrow morning. We'll have an evacuation plan.

'First sign of serious trouble, the guys are out of there, direct to the Magellan Strait, land at Punta Arenas on the Chilean side.'

'Since we can't get a fixed-wing transporter in there, Arnie, guess you're talking helicopters?'

'Just one, John. We'll use one of the Navy's new Sikorsky Super Stallions, the CH-53E, holds fifty-five Marines. We'll bring it in under fighter escort, and immediately out again. She's fast, and she's armed with three heavy machine guns. Flies above eighteen thousand feet. We'll be fine, especially if your guys have achieved even half