large, round screen. Like an air traffic control radar, it showed the targets within range each accompanied by a six- character alphanumeric code returned by transponders on board the targets. The display currently was set to show radar contacts out to a range of twenty miles. Ishikari, C7D34K, was the only other target.
'Let's see out to two hundred,' he said.
The radar operator touched a control, and the display changed, suddenly crowded with returns representing ships, aircraft, marker buoys, and the cluttered noise of coastlines. Jorgenson recognized the Scilly Isles eighty-five miles due east and, beyond that, the tip of Cornwall, Land's End. At this point, the Sandpiper wasn't seeing with her own radar, which had an effective horizon of only about forty to forty-five miles. Instead, she was tapped into an international satellite navigation system, relying on radar plots relayed from NAVSTAR satellites in orbit. At this scale, the Campbeltown, M4F99D, was now visible, seventy miles out, and apparently heading back toward the Bristol Channel.
A second strong return was showing thirty-six nautical miles southeast of the Sandpiper's position, about a third of the way from the Piper to the tip of Brittany. The target showed the IFF code V5K34R.
'Who's that?' Jorgenson asked, pointing.
The radar operator didn't need to check the traffic code. 'RMS Atlantis Queen, sir. Cruise ship out of Southampton.'
'Very well.' His eyes shifted to another target, one showing an ID code of XXXXXX. 'Who the bloody hell is that? No IFF.'
The unidentified target was eighty-five miles to the southeast, at the mouth of the English Channel, roughly between Brest and Cornwall and some forty-five miles east of the Atlantis Queen's position.
'No, sir. We've already queried them. They're ALAT.'
'Bloody frogs,' Dunsmore said with a dismissive snort. 'If there's a way to screw things up, they'll find it.'
ALAT was Aviation Legere de l'Armee de Terre — French Army aviation.
'Cougar, sir,' the radar operator added. 'They're on maneuvers.'
Cougar was the name of the military version of the Eurocopter helicopter. 'Did you tell them they were flying without IFF?' Jorgenson asked.
'Yes, sir. They told us to mind our own business, sir.'
'Well, screw 'em, then,' Jorgenson said. Straightening, he scanned the horizon ahead. Except for the Ishikari a half mile off, they had the ocean to themselves.
'Very well, gentlemen,' he said. He paused to take another sip of steaming coffee. 'Next stop, Rokkasho, Japan, by way of the Panama Canal! Let's open her up, shall we?' He looked about the bridge, at the men standing at their stations. 'Ahead full, Mr. Dunsmore. And have Sparks inform the Ishikari we are going to eighteen knots.'
And the Pacific Sandpiper began increasing her speed.
Taii Ichiro Inui was methodical and he was well trained. A lieutenant in the Kaiso Jeitai, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, he'd worked with the American Harpoon antiship missiles for almost ten years and knew the deadly machines as well as anyone in his service. Working with the special tools quietly and with precision, he went from missile to missile where they lay strapped into their launch pods, removing the locks, pulling the yellow keys, and arming each warhead in turn.
Five done. Three to go.
Behind him, Kogyo Yano worked at the second part of the mission task, applying a fist-sized lump of C-4 explosives to four of the warheads, inserting a detonator, and attaching det cord to each, tying all of the charges together to a single battery and timer. The Harpoon antiship missile, with its 227-kilogram warhead, was equipped with a safe-arm fuse that prevented detonation of the warhead until after it was in flight, but Inui knew exactly how to bypass the safeties. When the C-4 charges went off, the missiles would go off in sympathetic detonation, all of them at once, over eighteen hundred kilos of high explosive in a single, spectacular blossom of flame and destruction.
A few meters away, a young seaman, Ryoichi Ikikaga, lay motionless in a growing pool of his own blood. Yano had dragged him to the spot after shooting him in the passageway outside, where he'd been standing guard. He would be missed soon. The two men would have to complete their mission within the next few minutes.
Six done.
The ship was pitching heavily in the chop, her speed increasing. Now that the small convoy was past the Cornwall Peninsula and out into the Atlantic proper, the two ships could increase speed to eighteen knots or so. It made Inui's job more difficult, but the deadly missiles were strapped to their pallets, immobile.
He hoped. An armed Harpoon breaking free of its straps and striking the deck just now would have unfortunate consequences.
Seven done. One to go.
The two men worked in silence. They'd planned this operation carefully, and there was no need for words. Last week, when the Ishikari had been in port at Barrow and most of her crew had been ashore, they'd even managed a walk-through, step-by-step, to check the timing.
Ichiro Inui had been an officer in the Japanese self-defense force for eight years, but his primary personal duty, his omi, lay elsewhere. He was shishon no Nihon Sekigun, a phrase translating roughly as 'offspring of the Japanese Red Army.'
He would observe that duty no matter what, even if it meant that he would die within the next few minutes.
Inui pulled the last key and turned to face Yano, silently holding up the bundle of yellow tags he'd removed from the warheads. Yano nodded, completed the preparation of his last charge of C-4, then said, 'Isoge!'
'There is no need to hurry,' Inui replied. 'We walk, as we planned it.'
Yano set the jury-rigged timer for 8:30, giving them ten minutes, and attached the battery. With a last look around, they locked the door behind them with the keys they'd taken from Ikikaga. Calmly they walked down the main passageway, heading forward. The munitions locker lay near the vessel's stern, directly beneath the two Harpoon missile launchers mounted on the ship's fantail. Up one ship's ladder and left, they stopped at a watertight door to pull a pair of bright orange life jackets from a rack on the bulkhead and don them, then pushed the door open, stepping into a wet and somewhat chilly, gusty breeze beneath a leaden sky.
The huge bulk of the Pacific Sandpiper plowed unperturbed through the rolling seas aft and to port, showing none of the roll and pitch of the smaller destroyer escort. Still at a casual walk, they made their way forward, hanging on to the safety railing with their left hands in order to maintain their footing on the pitching deck. The wind was strong enough to kick up a few whitecaps on the water, and spray came up over the ship's bow with each plunge through another swell.
The Ishikari was not a large vessel — twelve hundred tonnes, with a length overall of 84.5 meters and a beam of just ten meters. It put her at the mercy of a rough sea.
'You men!' a sharp voice called. 'Where are you going?'
It was Lieutenant Watanabe, the deck division leader. He'd emerged from another watertight door just behind them.
'Sir!' Inui said, coming to attention but keeping hold of the safety rail. 'Commander Shimatsume told us to check on a loose vent grating at the bow!' Shimatsume was the ship's executive officer.
Watanabe considered this, then waved them on with a nod. 'Carry on, then,' he said. 'Just be careful, and be sure to use safety lines. On a day like this, you could find yourself swimming home!'
'Yes, sir!'
Heart pounding, Inui continued making his way forward, closely followed by Yano. He forced himself not to look at his wristwatch. Either they would make it or they would not.
Either way, the Ishikari was doomed and their mission complete.
They trotted down a ladder to the foredeck, then walked past the forward turret with its single 76mm Oto Melara gun. At the ship's bow, they made their way to a grating over a ventilation intake duct and worked it free. Inside was a black, heavy rubber package, a rubber raft Yano had hidden here the day before. Inui looked aft and up, past the forward turret at the line of bridge windows overlooking the two men from the ship's aluminum superstructure. Inui and Yano were in full view now of the personnel on the bridge, and within moments
