Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1)

“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 J—which is probably just outside the twelve-mile line, just outside Argentine waters, off the Bay of Samborombón. 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 bet—it’s short and right on time—that it’s the Devil Fish telling us she’s leaving for Río 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 Samborombón 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]

Samborombón 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.”