“As far as we can. This hunt is illegal under international law, in our opinion. You people are here as witnesses. Things could get dicey. If anyone wants to leave now, I can arrange a transfer.” He scanned the faces surrounding him and smiled. “No one? Good. Well, then, brave souls, into the breach we go. We've been keeping track of several pods of pilot whales. The waters around here fairly teem with them. That young deckhand you see waving wildly may have something to tell us.”

A crew member who had been keeping watch trotted over. “A couple of pods are passing by Stremoy/' he said. ”Our observer on shore says the siren's wailing and the boats are being launched."

Ryan turned back to the reporters. “They'll probably try to drive the whales ashore at the Kvivik killing field. We'll put ourselves be- tween the boats and the whales. If we can't drive the pod away, we'll start cutting the boats off.”

The CNN reporter pointed to the cruiser. “Isn't it going to irritate those chaps?”

“I'm counting on it,” Ryan said, with a ferocious grin.

High in the bridge of the LeifErifsson, a man in civilian clothes squinted at the Sea Sentinel through a powerful pair of binoculars. “My God,” Karl Becker murmured to Eric Petersen, the ship's cap- tain, “that ship looks as if it were painted by a madman.”

“Ah, so you know Captain Ryan,” Petersen replied, with a faint smile.

“Only by reputation. He seems to have what the Americans call a Teflon shield. For all his law-breaking, he has never been convicted on any charge. What do you know of Ryan, Captain?”

“First of all, he is not mad. He is possessed with a near-fanatical determination, but all his actions are measured. Even the gaudy color scheme of his ship is calculated. It lulls unsuspecting opponents into making mistakes-and shows up quite well on television.”

“Maybe we could arrest them for visual pollution of the sea, Cap- tain Petersen,” said Becker.

“I suspect Ryan would find an expert to say the ship is nothing less than a floating work of art.”

“Glad to see that you've maintained your sense of humor despite the humiliation this ship suffered from its last encounter with the Sentinels of the Sea.”

“It only took a few minutes of hosing down the deck to get rid of the garbage they threw at us. My predecessor felt that it was neces- sary to respond to the garbage attack with gunfire.”

Becker winced. “Captain Olafsen was still commanding a desk the last time I heard. The publicity was incredibly bad. 'Danish War- ship Attacks Unarmed Boat.' Headlines that the crew was drunk. My God, what a disaster!”

“Having served as Olafsen's first officer, I have the greatest re- spect for his judgment. His problem was that he didn't have clear di- rection from the bureaucrats in Copenhagen.”

“Bureaucrats like me?” Becker said.