admiral, my people are building up weapons to load on Tim’s aircraft. We are moving south at best speed, and Tim’s pilots need to launch in about an hour to find this contact, this yacht. We need to disable it so we can capture it and the crew.”
“From a standing start you can capture a civilian vessel and potentially start a war?”
“Sir, one of your pilots is in sick bay—blind. Something happened to him out there, and this contact is suspect number one. We are tracking it and working backwards to see if it’s the same contact Lieutenant James flew past. If yes, we’re going to stop it and capture what crew we can and interrogate them.”
“Why not just blow it out of the water like everything else?” Meyerkopf asked, perturbed.
“So we can exploit it, sir,” Weed volunteered, ignoring the brusque jab. “We need to see what we’re up against and forward that to Washington for them to make a decision.”
“Who are you?” Meyerkopf asked Weed with disdain.
“Commander Mike Hopper, sir, a naval officer like you, subject to orders, including yours, sir.”
“Who do you work for?”
“Fleet Forces Command — like you, sir.”
At that, Meyerkopf made a face and brushed Weed away with his hand. Seething, he turned to address his trio of captains. “So we take orders from Commanders, now?”
“Sir, all of us are following orders,” Matson answered. “We’ve been read-in to Century Ratchet on a need-to-know basis. Events have transpired to read you in, sir. Now, Admiral, our people are preparing for a mission to find, disable, and exploit this yacht—”
“On whose orders?”
“Mine, sir, but only with your concurrence now. Rick and I are still in command of our forces, and we were attacked. We have a plan to stop further attacks, and we are keeping you, our senior, informed. You can stand us down, if you wish, and all will file incident reports to Norfolk. Now sir, while you decide on how you’d like to proceed, we must to oversee the efforts of our people while there’s still time.”
Ed Browne spoke up.
“Guys, let me talk to the Admiral. Please excuse us.”
“Yes, sir,” Matson said and led the group out of CVIC.
Once alone, Meyerkopf frowned at his Chief of Staff, fuming. “I’m all ears.”
“Sir, your pride is wounded. Fleet Forces tagged us to come down here and show the flag and exercise with the Colombians. While we are here we can train on the damn reactors, fly the kids in the air wing, and get some good port visits for the crew. All of that was a cover story for this, and Hopper and his guys are doing good work out here. They are practically shutting down the seaborne drug trade.”