With that information the duo had been able to calculate an ever widening arc where the vessel could be hiding, an area that would soon include a tropical depression swirling six hundred miles off the African coast. They were driving as hard as they dared for that region.

To narrow the odds further, Juan had again called upon Lang Overholt to use the United States’ government’s halo of spy satellites to search the grid coordinates for the Gulf of Sidra. Now that everyone was aware of the stakes, Overholt had taken Cabrillo’s findings to the CIA’s director. The president was briefed a short while later and orders went out to the Coast Guard and Navy as well as NUMA and the National Weather Service, which was conducting regular patrols of hurricane alley. A guided missile cruiser returning from interdiction patrols in the Red Sea was diverted and a destroyer paying a courtesy call to Algiers cut short her stay and started out of the Mediterranean. There was also a pair of nuclear attack submarines close enough to the area to reach it in twenty hours.

The British government was apprised of the situation and offered to send two vessels from Gibraltar and another from Portsmouth. They would arrive on station days after the Americans, but their help was greatly appreciated.

Juan knew, however, that even with all of these ships streaming in to search for the tanker, the Oregon, with her superior speed, would be the first to reach the edge of the storm and it would fall on his shoulders to stop Daniel Singer.

SLOANE Macintyre weaved down the passageway carrying a dinner tray that Maurice had personally prepared. With her arm still in a sling it was awkward, and she found herself leaning a shoulder against the walls to keep herself steady. It was almost eleven and she didn’t see another soul as she made her way aft. She came to the door she wanted and had to use her foot to tap on it softly. When there was no reply she hit it a little louder with the same results.

She set the tray on the carpeted deck and cracked open the door. She could see dim lighting from inside.

“Juan,” she called softly and retrieved the tray. “You weren’t at dinner so I had Maurice fix you a little something.”

She stepped over the threshold, not yet feeling that she was intruding. A lamp spilled a pool of light across half of Cabrillo’s desk. The other half was blushed with the muted glow of a computer monitor. The chair was pushed back as if Juan had just gotten up from working but he wasn’t at the file cabinet or the antique safe. The sofa tucked under a darkened porthole was empty.