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Back Silent Sea Save as PDF
Chapters (32)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Epigraph
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE

“Señor Laretta, to what do we owe the pleasure?” The man was covered head to foot, and his voice was muffled by scarves wrapped around his face. He spoke accented English.

“Fong, this is Major Espinoza. He’s the commander of our augmented security force. Major, this is Lee Fong. He heads the technicians sent out to find the Silent Sea.”

The two men shook hands so heavily gloved it was like grabbing a balled-up towel. “Is that a sonar unit?” Espinoza asked.

“Side-scan,” Fong replied. “We’ll tow it behind this boat, and it profiles a hundred-meter swath of the ocean floor.”

“You have a rough idea where the wreck is located, yes?”

“From what I understand, we have you to thank for it.”

Espinoza wasn’t sure if he liked the fact that the Chinese knew of his exploits, but then he realized his father had been bragging about him to their newest allies and he felt pride replace his trepidation. “We got lucky,” he said.

“Let’s hope we stay lucky. Wrecks are a funny thing. I’ve had GPS coordinates, loran numbers, and eyewitnesses, and I’ve still failed to find one. Other times, I’ve found them on the first pass with no information other than the ship had sunk in the general area.”

“Will the cold affect your gear?”

“That’s the other factor. I’ve never searched in waters like this. We won’t know how well the sonar will work until we get it in the water and test it here in the bay. We’re hoping for today, but the light’s going, so it will probably have to be tomorrow.”

“From what I gather of the situation, we have more than a little time,” Espinoza said. “The Americans are still reeling from our announcement, and they’re too afraid of your country’s reprisal if they launch a counterstrike.”

“Fortune favors the bold,” Fong said.

“That’s attributed to Virgil,” Luis Laretta told them. “It’s a Latin expression, Audentes fortuna juvat. There’s another, by Julius Caesar, that’s also apt—Jacta alea est. He said it on his march to Rome when he crossed the Rubicon River.”

Raul Jimenez surprisingly supplied the translation: “The die is cast.”

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-THREE