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“Captain Cabrillo, ould like to send over a contingent of men to debrief your crew about what just occurred The captains of the Saga and Aggie Johnston have already agreed A helicopter can reach you in twenty uided missile cruiser Port Royal will be there in two hours if you don’t have facilities for landing a chopper”

“With all due respect, Co I myself was asleep, and the watch stander on duty is blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other”

Martin’s voice sharpened “Captain, I needn’t re in these waters reserve the right to inspect all shipping entering or leaving the Persian Gulf I cal

l this a request out of courtesy, but it is an order You will remain where you are and prepare to be boarded”

Juan understood the pressure the Navy was under to interdict potential terrorists frohters, but there was no way he was going to let then ports could be easily dissuaded frohter, but this was not the case with the US military

“Could you please stand by?” Juan requested He covered the mike with his hand and called over to Hali Kasi on, and have hi one hundred and five degrees, and hteen knots” He took his hand away from the microphone “Sorry about that, Coon, so you’ll have to send a boarding party from the Port Royal”

“Very well, Captain Plan on our arrival at about eleven hundred hours”

“We’ll leave the light on for ya,” Juan drawled, and ended the call He glanced around the Op Center “Anyone want to bet? Twenty bucks to the person who guesses the closest”

The cre i to

“They’ll call back in ten minutes,” Hali opined

“Five,” Linda said

“They’re going to have their hands full for a while” This from Mark Murphy “He won’t notice we’re under way for at least a half hour”

“I’m with Linda,” Eric said “Five minutes We’ll split the twenty”

Juan looked over at Max Hanley “Care to venture a guess?”

Max studied the acoustic tile ceiling for a ht about now”