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Each incoming contact was assigned a track number by the tactical data system that linked the NATO warships. “Vigilant Dragon” was the screen commander, CTG 60.5. As far as Dan could tell, someone had grabbed a group staff and assorted straphangers and commissioned a scratch task group. They were split off from the battle group aboard USS Mahan and placed in tactical command of this barrier operation, which did not yet, as far as Dan knew, have a name, despite having grown hour by hour as more ships joined into what was now one of the largest multinational operations he’d ever been involved in. “Tiger One Four” was the on-station P-3C patrol aircraft, which flew a plodding beat north and south across the western boundary of the checkerboard. It was relieved every eight hours. Over the thirty-some hours the operation had taken shape they’d entered track data on hundreds of crossing contacts to the screen units.

To a disquieting extent, though, he had no clear idea what this immense and unscheduled evolution was intended to accomplish. He could see it was urgent. Every destroyer type in the battle group had been pulled into it, leaving Roosevelt operating west of Cyprus with only her escort cruisers, and every NATO navy in the eastern Med except Greece. Another puzzling point was that in contrast to most barrier operations, where warships and large merchant ships were the objects of interest, no one running this operation seemed to care about them. The P-3s were only marking small craft — fishing trawlers, pleasure craft, small coasting vessels. Which were of course far more numerous, leading to a density of data that left the screens looking as if they’d been blasted with birdshot. Some of the tracks were ruler-straight, arrow-passages toward fixed destinations. Others wandered, zagged, even corkscrewed, shadowing schools of fish across the late summer waters. The radios crackled with transmissions on bridge-to-bridge and calling and distress frequencies. Horn herself had intercepted and inspected five fishing craft of various nationalities and a large Greek power yacht. They were given a choice: turn back, or submit to boarding and search. The Greek had been drunk and hospitable, Marchetti had reported, but the others had not been happy at being unexpectedly harassed on the high seas.

Dan shifted to see around Schaad. The center screen showed Horn’s area. All the operating areas began with “Blockbuster.” Blockbuster M was the southernmost, twenty nautical miles by twenty, butted up almost touching against the Egyptian territorial sea off El-Arish. Only about ninety straight-line miles from their previous oparea off Port Said, so they’d been one of the first ships to report on station. Along with Bill Brinegar in Moosbrugger, now occupying K to the north, and clearly visible not just on JOTS but on both surface search radars and once during the night past as a distant masthead light.

To the south the radar showed the smoothly curving coast of the Sinai, speckled far inland with the furrowed-looking returns of dunes, till they faded as the earth’s curve dropped them below maximum range. The oporder, which gave every evidence of hasty drafting, directed all units to stay clear of national waters. Yet the southern boundary of his area, specified in the same order, overlapped the Egyptian twenty-mile limit by two miles. So far, this hadn’t been a problem. He’d just stayed to the center of the box.

Another interesting point: none of the tasking messages thus far had mentioned what the boarding parties were looking for. They were to examine the ship’s papers, ascertain nationality, port of embarkation, destination, and cargo. Within minutes of radioing the results to Vigilant Dragon the response would come back: cleared to proceed.

The only conclusion he could come to was that Higher didn’t know what they were looking for, other than that it was being transported in a small craft. Staring at the screens, a second possibility occurred to him. They knew, but they didn’t want to tell.

Schaad was on two phones at once now and, between sentences on the circuits, talking across the compartment to the petty officer on the dead-reckoning tracer. Behind Dan’s back another ops specialist was scrubbing down the comms status board. The gabble of speech and blowers and radio noise went on and on until gradually his head rolled forward.

In his chair, the captain slept.

* * *

“Sir.” A hand, shaking him. Not Schaad. Must be after midnight, then. He blinked, worked his tongue around to scrub out a foul taste. “You awake, Cap’n?”

It was Camill. Dan pushed himself upright, reminders or memories popping up in his mind one after the other like a series of programs loading. His brain was booting up, but it didn’t feel like he had a lot of speed on his chip. Barrier patrol. East Med. Off Israel. “Yeah,” he said. “What have you got, Herb?”

The black lieutenant said, “We got somethin’ that might turn interesting.”