"What does that mean?"

"It means that you say exactly that, do you understand?"

"Look, I don't like playing games and -"

"Mr Ambassador, if you do not do exactly what I'm telling you, I will have one of my people render you unconscious and then have the DCM make the call."

"You can't threaten me like that!"

"I just did, pal, and if you think I'm kidding, you just fucking try me!"

"Temper, Jack," Ben Goodley cautioned.

Ryan looked away from the phone. "Sir, excuse me. It's very tense here, okay, we've had a nuclear device go off in Denver, and this may be the best lead we have.

Look, there isn't time for niceties. Please. Play along with me. Please."

"Very well."

Ryan let out a breath. "Okay. Tell him also that one of our people, a Mr Clark, will be at the airport security office in a few minutes. Mr Ambassador, I cannot emphasize enough how important this is. Please do it now."

"I'll do it. You'd better calm down up there," the career foreign-service officer advised.

"We're trying very hard, sir. Please have your secretary transfer me back to the Station Chief. Thank you." Ryan looked over to Goodley. "Just hit me over the fucking head if you feel the need, Ben."

"Clark."

"We're faxing some photos down, along with their names and seat assignments. Okay, you are to check in with the airport security boss before you grab 'em. You still have the airplane down there?"

"Right."

"When you have 'em, get 'em aboard, and get 'em the hell up here."

"Okay, Jack. We're on it."

Ryan killed the line and picked up on Murray. "Fax the data you have to our Station Chief Mexico. I have two field officers on the scene, good ones, Clark and Chavez."

"Clark?" Murray asked, as he handed the fax information to Pat O'Day. "The same one who -"

"That's the man."

"I wish him luck."

The tactical problem was complex. Dubinin had an anti-submarine aircraft overhead and could not afford to make a single mistake. Somewhere ahead was an American missile submarine that he fully intended to destroy. He had ordered it to protect himself, the captain reasoned. He had been fired upon with a live weapon. That changed matters greatly. He really should radio fleet command for instructions, or at least to announce his intentions, but with an aircraft overhead that was suicide, and he'd brushed close enough to death for one day. The attack on Admiral Lunin could only mean that the Americans were planning an attack on his country. They'd violated their favorite international hobbyhorse - the seas were free for the passage of all. They'd attacked him in international waters before he was close enough to commit a hostile act. Someone, therefore, thought there was a state of war. Fine, Dubinin thought. So be it.

The submarine's towed-array sonar was drooping well below the level of the boat, and the sonar crewmen were now concentrating as they never had.