you know it.' Patrick's head slumped wearily again. Luger sighed heavily. 'Muck, your son needs you,' he said. 'Why don't you go home? The CV-22 can lift you off the deck tonight, the Sky Masters jet is waiting in Tel Aviv, and you can be home by tomorrow morning. We'll stay out here and keep searching.' He paused, then added, 'And you have a brother that needs to be mourned and buried too, sir.'
'I'm not leaving without her,' Patrick said resolutely. 'Dead or alive, I'm taking her home.'
'It won't happen that way, at least not right away,' Luger said softly. 'The odds are a thousand to one we'll even get any information that she was recovered, and about five thousand to one she's alive. But if she beat the odds and survived, the Libyans will keep her in complete isolation until she recovers, which could take weeks, even months. Then they'll start interrogating her. She'll be able to resist for a short time, but they'll finally break her. They won't be as scientific as the Russians. They'll break her, and then they'll discard her.'
'Dave, that's enough' Patrick shouted. 'This search is going forward, and I don't give a shit how hopeless you think it is. I don't think she's alive-I know she's alive. And as long as I know she's alive, I'm going to plan to locate her and rescue her.
'To answer your question: I'll risk the lives of any man or woman who agrees to stand beside me on this mission, because I know Wendy would agree to stand beside me to rescue anyone on this team. Now, if you have any other problems with this mission or my leadership, I suggest you get off this ship and evacuate to Israel with the others. If you stay, you will obey my orders. End of discussion.'
David Luger stood and looked at Patrick carefully. Patrick returned his glare until finally Luger nodded, satisfied that Patrick had his emotional act together enough to lead the team.
At that same moment, Patrick received a beep in his subcutaneous microtransceiver; then Hal Briggs spoke: 'Patrick, supply barge coming in, one kilometer south.'
'Roger,' Patrick acknowledged. 'Use the sensors in your armor to scan the supplies for weapons and explosives as they come aboard. I'll be up to relieve anyone that needs a break.'
'I could use thirty mike for relief,' Chris Wohl, sta-
tioned on the port rail scanning the north for any signs of danger, radioed. That was no exaggeration, either- Patrick had seen Wohl go for hours after taking only a twentyminute combat catnap. He seemed able to go indefinitely with virtually no sleep.
'I'll be right up, Chris,' Patrick responded. He turned to David and said, 'Ask Commander Farouk to get a party together to unload the barge.'
'Okay,' David replied. He paused for a moment, then added, 'Sorry, Patrick. But I feel I had to tell you how I feel-I'm responsible to you and the entire team. I love Wendy. But I know what I'm talking about.'
'I know, Texas,' Patrick said. He unplugged himself from the wall outlet, reattached his exoskeleton, and put on his helmet. 'We'll find her, and then we'll all go home-together.'
'Absolutely.' Patrick nodded, then went up on deck to relieve Wohl.
Chris gave him a quick rundown on the Egyptian Navy's deployment around them. Directly in front of the El Arish about five kilometers away was the Damyat, a Knox-class frigate, turned head-on to the El Arish so both its 127millimeter cannon and four fixed torpedo tubes were trained on the captured vessel. Ranking the Damyat were two British-built fast missile attack craft, the Ramadan and the Badr, each with one 76-millimeter gun, a twin 40- millimeter gun, and two Otomat antiship missiles trained on them. Patrick called up the tactical picture transmitted from the El Arish's Combat Information Center on his electronic visor to study the rest of the deployment. A mixture of exRussian and ex-Chinese patrol and fast attack boats surrounded them on all sides, with the heaviest concentration of ships between them and the base. Chris also briefed him on some of the crew's activities-routine maintenance, systems checks, and cleanup details.
Patrick held out his hands. Chris Wohl deactivated the power on the hypervelocity rail gun he was holding, unplugged the datalink from the gun to his battla armor, opened the chamber to make sure none of the depleted uranium projectiles were loaded, then placed the weapon in Patrick's hands. The electromagnetic rail gun fired nonexplosive projectiles at almost fifty thousand feet per second, powerful enough to drive the projectile through several feet of steel after flying more than three miles. Coupled with the sensors built into the Tin Man battle armor, the gun was deadly and effective to machines of all sizes, from ships to main battle tanks to aircraft.
Patrick plugged the datalink into his suit, chambered a round into the rail gun, made sure the safety was on, then reactivated it. It immediately reported 'READY' on his electronic visor. 'I relieve you, Sergeant,' he said, knowing the ex-Marine would like a formal guard post changeover.
'I stand relieved, sir,' Wohl replied. Even with the exoskeleton, he managed a salute.
'Looks pretty shitty, huh, Sarge?' he said to Chris Wohl, motioning to the Egyptian ships around them.
'Nah. We got them right where we want them, sir,' Wohl replied, and he headed toward the wheelhouse berth, the spot he liked to go when he took a break.
It looked very hopeless, Patrick thought as Wohl disappeared from view. Why in hell did I lead these men here?
Several minutes later, Luger radioed: 'Castor, we have a visitor who wants to talk with you.'
'I'm on guard duty, Texas. If you can't handle it, it'll have to wait until I'm relieved.'
'This can't wait,' Luger responded. 'It's the Egyptian national security adviser, General Baris. He wants to talk with you directly.'
'Send him up here, then.' A few minutes later, Luger escorted an older man in a business suit, along with an Egyptian naval officer and a female security guard, up on deck. Luger was carrying a metal briefcase, one that obviously belonged to the Egyptians. Patrick watched them approach with his all-aspect sensors but did not stop scanning the sea for any sign of intruders. 'General Baris? Tasharrafna.'
'Es salaem alekum. You are the one they call Castor, I presume?' Baris asked in halting but very good English.
Patrick did not answer. 'I am General Ahmad Baris, retired, adviser to the president of Egypt on national security affairs. This is my aide and my bodyguard.'
'It is very dangerous for all of you to be here,' Patrick said, his voice disguised by the electronic voice amplifier in the battle armor. 'I assure you, the men on board this ship will not be harmed if they do exactly as I say. I intend on returning this vessel shortly, as soon as we collect enough intelligence information to proceed against the Libyans. Anything else?'
'Aywa, insha'allah,' Baris responded. 'My friend, president, and leader of our country, Dr. Kamal Ismail Salaam, along with his wife Susan, were assassinated yesterday in Cairo during celebration of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday,' Baris said. 'A suicide bomber, believed to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood.'
'Yes. I had been told about that. I'm sorry,' Patrick said woodenly. After all the death he had seen in the last twenty-four hours, the news of Salaam's death had absolutely no effect on him. 'I know President Salaam was very well respected in the United States; his wife was a veteran of the United States Air Force, I believe.'
'Yes.' Interesting comment-Baris filed that away for future use. Could this 'Castor' be a former American Air Force officer himself? 'Our intelligence sources believe the Muslim Brotherhood, led by Jadallah Zuwayy of Libya, was responsible for the assassination. He of course would have also ordered the attacks on vessels in international waters as well, in retaliation for the attack on his base at Samah. May I assume that it was you and your men that conducted that raid on Samah?'
'General Baris, I allowed you and your aide on board only to reassure you that your men and your vessel are being well taken care of, and I promise it'll stay that way until we depart, unless your men fail to follow my orders,' Patrick said sternly. 'I did not allow you to come up here and interrogate me. Ma 'as salaema, General.'
'I am told you were conducting a search of the waters near where the El Arish picked up you and your men,'
Baris went on. 'I assume, then, that you lost some men in the attack. I am sorry for your loss, sir.'
Patrick had to take a deep breath to talk past the lump that unexpectedly formed in his throat. 'You may speak with Commander Farouk for ten minutes, General Baris. Now go.'
'I can feel your pain, Castor,' a woman's voice said-an American woman's voice.
Despite himself, Patrick turned toward the voice, his movements accentuated and quickened by the electronically controlled exoskeleton. Baris's aide removed his service cap and sunglasses-revealing a woman, a very beautiful woman despite the fact that she wore an eye patch over her left eye. 'Texas…'
'I didn't know, Castor,' David Luger said, as surprised as Patrick. 'He… I mean, she was searched for weapons, not to verify gender.'
