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A hundred feet in front of the flattened apex of the wake, occasional puffs of white water appeared, like the bow of a ship cutting through the swells, but between these two points was nothing but open water

Juan blinked and looked harder No, not open water, a distortion of what open water looks like, a facsimile of nature, not nature itself Then the reality hit

“Science fiction Those two aren’t going to let me hear the end of it”

“You want et closer?” Adams asked

“No Keep true Maybe they don’t knoe’ve spotted them” Juan handed the binoculars back to Linc and keyed on his radio “Max, you there?”

“Standing by”

“Go to encrypt beta,” Juan ordered, and Gomez switched to the chopper’s secondary encrypted channel “You still with me?”

There was a second delay in the rest of their conversation because the computers needed the extra time to decrypt the secure comm line “Still here”

“I don’t kno Kenin capsized the Eh to activate the weapon We’ve got eyeballs on a ship’s wake, only there isn’t a shipit”

“Coain”

“They have soet the Sakir is, well, it’s invisible”

“You sure this isn’t a delayed symptom of the bends?”

“Linc sees it, or doesn’t see it, too”

“Juan,” Lincoln said urgently, thrusting the binoculars back at hier zone”

Juan found the wake again and again followed it to its source This time, the ship was there, and what a craft it was It reminded him of the US Navy’s pyran based loosely on the F-117 Nighthawk This boat was painted aseas, and it had sloped, faceted sides that met at a peak about thirty feet above the waves Unlike the Sea Shadow, it wasn’t a cataing deck above her bow Function rather than aesthetics had gone into her design, liest vessel Juan had ever seen