" 'CQ CQ DE KC6EY CQ CQ'-jeez, why is she CQ-ing? That means 'call for anyone out there.' " He sounded aggrieved. "Who the hell else would be out there except me?She can't reach SK-1 or W-1 directly, not with this gear."

He started tapping away at his own key, muttering the words aloud as he transmitted them.

" '-KC6EY HC6EY KC6EY DE NШOXF'-that's the way she shoulda done it except the other way around-'reading you 559'-that means… never mind, it's too complicated. But it's good, especially the tone."

A moment later, the whoops-and-beeps returned and continued. And continued. Jimmy was now scribbling furiously. "I ain't gonna be able to translate for a while-this is gonna be a long message, I can tell-"

Slowly, Rebecca lowered herself into a nearby chair and perched herself on the edge of the seat. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap. Gretchen, too tense to sit, went back to the window and pressed her nose against the pane again. Below, she could see lights in the windows of The Hague's nearby houses. The lights were steady, not flickering. Not much, at any rate. Holland was a wealthy country-the wealthiest in Europe, in all likelihood-and even common burghers could afford the best lamps and tapers.

- BEEP BEEP BEEEEEP WHOOP BEEP BEEEEP-

Somehow, those odd noises seemed ominous. Gretchen suddenly found herself wondering how much longer Holland's complacent citizens would be able to enjoy good lighting in their homes.

Not long, unless I miss my guess. I think-as my husband would put it-all hell is about to break loose.

- BEEEEEP WHOOP BEEP BEEP WHOOP-

"I think all hell's gonna break loose," muttered Jimmy. He pushed the first completed sheet across the table toward Rebecca. She picked it up and began to read. "Things don't sound good in England neither." WHOOP BEEEEEP WHOOP BEEP BEEP BEEP. "I can't believe the bastards locked 'em up!"

Gretchen turned from the window and looked at Rebecca. The beautiful face was growing tighter as her eyes moved down the page. Her lips seemed to thin with every sentence.

A motion in the doorway caught Gretchen's eye. Jeff was standing there, gazing at her. "Bad?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Not sure yet, but-I think so."

He nodded, not seeming overly concerned. "So be it. Our kids'll be safe enough."

For a moment, husband and wife exchanged simple looks of love. Then, looked to Rebecca. Jimmy had handed her a second page, which she was studying as he kept transcribing yet another.

"Yes, bad," she said. "Rita and Melissa-the whole delegation-is essentially imprisoned. Wentworth's in charge-Strafford, rather, and that's a sign in itself. From everything they can tell, the English fleet is moving. A foreign adventure of some kind. They don't know much."

She and Gretchen looked at one another, two pairs of brown eyes filled with the same bitter surmise.

Jimmy finished, and pushed the third page over. Then, after keying a few short phrases which Gretchen assumed were some kind of "sign off" message, swiveled in his chair.

"You got anything you want to sent to SK-1?"

Rebecca sighed. "Oh, yes. But stretch a moment, Jimmy. Get a glass of water, whatever you need. It is going to be a long message."

Which, indeed, it was. But it began with only three syllables.

War again.

Chapter 15

Jesse waited patiently for Hans to recognize the situation and react. Come on, Hans, get your head out, he thought to himself, as he watched the student pilot in the left seat level off and enter downwind.

Jesse had always been a mild-mannered instructor, a reaction to one of the flight instructors all the way back at Purdue. That worthy had been a real "screamer," seeming to take delight in making an already nervous student miserable and prone to even more mistakes. Jesse thought the method was stupid. He preferred a more calm approach, giving students plenty of time to catch errors on their own. But he'd seen enough. Hans was obviously pleased with his earlier performance on this, his fifth training flight, and hadn't noticed his potentially fatal error.

"Hans! Airspeed!" Jesse said sharply.

Hans jerked his eyes back into the cockpit where the airspeed indicator was slowing below fifty knots. The throttle lever was back at idle where he'd placed it for the long descent to traffic pattern altitude.

Hans gasped, and cobbed power to the dependable VW engine. The monoplane gained speed quickly and Jesse noted with satisfaction that Hans, despite his surprise, hadn't throttle burst or lost altitude control.

He had, however, by now flown considerably past the final turn point. Jesse tapped the young German on the arm.

"Son, I believe the airfield is back thataway," he said with a jerk of the thumb, as his student searched for the large tree, now far behind, that marked the normal spot to "come off the perch."

"Uh," Hans grunted and banked left, pulling off the power he had added only a few seconds earlier. Descending quickly, he looked at the field and made his turn to final, using too much bank and failing to compensate for the additional distance to the field. As a consequence, the aircraft, though safe, was lower than it should have been, giving Hans a flatter than normal approach and an unusually shallow view of the landing zone.

Jesse, knowing what was coming, waited patiently for his student to make one of the two usual rookie mistakes. He nodded as Hans avoided the first by not descending at the usual rate and compounding his error.

"That's right, Hans. Level off and catch the normal glide path. Put your touchdown point about one third up the windscreen, just like always. Give it a touch more power."

The young man followed instructions and, momentarily swapping hands on the stick, wiped his sweaty right hand on his jacket. The feeling of well-being that had been with him only two minutes ago was obviously long gone and, in his nervousness, he committed the second mistake Jesse was expecting. Approaching the field from an unfamiliar angle, at a higher than normal power setting, he failed to catch the proper glide path. Suddenly, he was too high as he crossed over the small trees at the field boundary.

"Gott!" Hans exclaimed, as he pulled the throttle to idle and dove for the grass beneath him.

"Easy, easy," Jesse said. "Let it settle. Put some power in." Not for the first time, he regretted not installing dual throttles. While he could just reach the throttle across the narrow cockpit, now wasn't the time to stretch across his student to do so.

Hans flared too early, twenty feet or so above the ground. The aircraft slowed as he raised the nose and felt for touchdown.

"Too high! Lower the nose. Power!" Jesse pushed the heel of his palm against the back of the stick in front of him.

Feeling the instructor's pressure against the stick, Hans obeyed, adding power and leveling off ten feet in the air.

"Copilot's aircraft," Jesse said as he shook the stick and took control. "Set climb power."

Hans shakily set the throttle and sank glumly back in his seat.

"Not so good." He grimaced at his mentor.

"No, not very good," Jesse agreed. "Take a rest for a minute, Hans, and let me fly for a while. Tell me what you did wrong."

Jesse studied his student as he methodically recounted his own errors. Jesse was pleased to see that Hans knew exactly where he had erred, explaining what he should have done at each misstep. By the time he finished, Hans was calm and ready to try again.

"Okay, pilot's aircraft. Take it in for a full stop landing." Jesse smiled at his student. "We'll talk more about it on the ground. This time, try not to screw the pooch."

His student smiled back. "Roger that, no screwing of the pooch."