"It's excellent. Spring tides are really high or low when the sun and moon are lined up, and we get their combined gravitational pull. You get to swim in a little closer to the beach, and I get a few more feet under my keel."

"Great."

"And one more thing. Sunrise is at oh five twenty-four. If you're not in the water before then, we'll return every night, same time, until the National Command Authority gives me a direct order to terminate the operation. I'm not in the habit of leaving personnel behind."

"Neither am I, sir. And I appreciate that. But if you have to bail on us, we'll just highjack a rickshaw and head west."

The captain grinned. "I'm sure you will. Now I'll have our drop-off point forwarded to your higher, and they'll get it to the agents you'll link up with onshore."

"Thank you, sir."

Within fifteen minutes, Mitchell and the other eight members of his team were standing in the cold metal confines of the lock-out trunk. "Everybody good to go?" he asked.

Eight thumbs lifted.

They had donned wet suits and goggles and had buckled on their Draeger LAR-Vs, which were worn on their chests.

The LAR-V was a self-contained breathing device specifically designed for covert operations in shallow water. Mitchell and his Ghosts would breathe 100 percent oxygen, and their exhaled breath would be recirculated in the closed-circuit system through a filter that removed the carbon dioxide. Consequently, the Draegers allowed them to swim without the bubbles produced by conventional scuba gear.

Each operator also carried an equipment pack, a Px4 Storm SD pistol, and a rifle or two of his or her choosing.

SEAL Chief Tanner, a blue-eyed being of pure muscle, stood outside the hatch and lifted his thumb. "Remember, Captain, slip that beacon in one of your rebreathers on the beach. Chief Phillips and I'll be about ten minutes behind you to pick up the gear."

"Roger that, Chief."

Tanner sealed the hatch and signaled to flood the lock-out trunk.

The water rose and wasn't too cold at twenty-four degrees Celsius. They slipped the rebreathers into their mouths, and once submerged, the hatch opened, and they swam out into fluctuating curtains of darkness.

During the brief crossing to the beach, Mitchell remembered Chief Phillips's instructions to spread out, putting about twenty meters between themselves, so that they didn't surface as a group but as individuals. He also said to try to stagger their dashes from the water.

So they'd given each operator a number, beginning with Jenkins and ending with Mitchell. He slowly lifted his head as his knees scraped bottom and watched as, one by one, his team made it onto the barren shoreline, according to the preplanned sequence.