“You got it.” The pilot turned his attention back to flying while the passengers gathered up their luggage, which consisted of a laptop case and a battered canvas shoulder bag. Everything else had been dumped in Mississippi.

Juan Cabrillo never tired of looking at the Oregon. To him, she was as fine a piece of art as any of the paintings hanging on the walls of her secret passageways. He had to admit that homecomings were sweeter when a mission was complete, not like now, with Tamara Wright in the hands of an Argentine death squad and her exact whereabouts unknown. The cocky wink he had thrown at the pilot was just that—cockiness. Her fate lay like a stone in his stomach.

To the Brazilian pilot’s credit, he held the skids of the helicopter a foot off the deck when first Max and then Juan jumped to the ship. The two men ducked low in the pounding rotor wash until the JetRanger peeled away and clawed skyward. When it was a glittering speck on the western horizon, the helmsman—Juan assumed it was Eric Stone—killed the smudge generator that gave the illusion the ship was powered by traditional, albeit poorly maintained, marine diesels.

He gave the Iranian flag hanging from the jack staff his traditional one-finger salute and followed Max toward the superstructure.

They were met at a watertight door by Dr. Huxley and Linda Ross. Hux immediately started escorting Max down to Medical, muttering about the butcher job they had done on him in the hospital.

“Welcome back,” Linda greeted. “That sure wasn’t the relaxing couple of days you’d expected.”

“What’s that line: ‘No good deed goes unpunished’? That was a great job you did in Antarctica.”

“Thanks.” There was an edge of bitterness in her voice. “We got the intel to Overholt less than twenty-four hours before the Argentines took over, so it didn’t do much good.”

“What’s the latest?”

“There’s been no contact with any of the other stations on the peninsula. We believe that the Argentines grabbed up the remaining interntional scientists and are going to use them as human shields at the oil terminal.”

Juan frowned. “Borrowing Saddam’s playbook.”

“The Generalissimo plays dirty, that’s for sure.”

“I asked Overholt if they have any assets in Argentina who could find out where they took Tamara Wright. Has he gotten back to you?”

“Not yet. Sorry.”

Cabrillo’s scowl deepened. “This never would have happened if . . .” There was nothing to be gained by venting his feelings so he didn’t continue. He motioned for Linda to enter the ship. The Oregon was picking up speed, and the wind was starting to howl across her deck.

“We’ll be off the coast of Buenos Aires in thirty hours. With luck, Overholt will have something for us.”