Because he admittedly lacked any tactical ability, Max Hanley wasn’t part of the meeting and stood watch in the op center. With Cabrillo were Mark Murphy, Eric Stone, Linda Ross, Eddie Seng, and Franklin Lincoln, their lead gundog. While civilian attire was the preferred mode of dress aboard ship, Eddie, Linda, and Linc wore black tactical uniforms. Mark had thrown a grunge-era flannel shirt over his St. Pauli Girl Beer T-shirt.

Juan took a sip of coffee and set the cup back into a recessed swivel holder. “To recap, we’re not going to bring the ship within Argentine waters, so that leaves us with a submersible infiltration, yes?” Heads nodded. “I recommend we use the bigger ten-person Nomad 1000. We probably don’t need the room, but better too much than too little.”

“Who’s tail-ended Charlie and gets stuck babysitting it?” Linc asked.

“Don’t know until we firm up our plans. We have to assume a building like this will have a doorman. He might be our key. Not sure yet.”

Eddie raised his hand despite Juan’s repeated admonishments that he could interrupt whenever he liked. “If she’s held on the top floor, wouldn’t going through the roof make more sense?”

“It’s slate, for one thing,” Eric said. “And you can best believe that the substructure is going to be substantial. The cribbing and decking to support such a shallow pitch is going to be thick and sturdy.”

“It’s gotta be some god-awful exotic timber that’s harder than steel,” Murph added. “The building predates the use of metal girders as a support structure, so there are fundamental flaws in its design and construction. Explosives in the right place would topple an exterior wall.”

“I’m looking for the velvet touch here,” Juan said, “not a sledgehammer. We have to remember that Argentina is a police state, and, as such, there will be cops on every corner with the authority to arrest anyone at any time. And every third pedestrian’s a snitch. I don’t want to have any reason for anybody to give us the hairy eyeball. We need to be subtle.”

“There’s always the sewers,” Linda suggested. “And if that’s how we do this, let me go on record and volunteer to stay with the minisub.”

“That’s taking one for the team,” Eddie teased.

“It’ll be a sacrifice,” Linda said with as straight a face as she could muster. “But you know me. I’ll do anything to help.”

Ideas were floated, analyzed, and dissected for the next two hours. The five of them had planned countless missions together, and in the end they could come up with nothing better than a slight variation on Mark Murphy’s sledgehammerish suggestion. There were too many variables—like the number of men guarding Tamara—to try anything with more finesse.