Overholt never formally gave Juan permission to fund his own covert paramilitary company, the Corporation, but he, too, had understood that the rules were changing. Technically, Cabrillo and his crew were mercenaries, but while the money to fund their operation could never be traced back to the United States, Juan never forgot who allowed him to get his start. So it was on Overholt’s behalf that the Oregon was sitting a couple of miles off Iran’s coast, pretending to be something she was not.

Cabrillo and Hanley made their way to a conference room deep inside the ship. The meeting that Juan had been chairing when secondary radar had picked up the approaching patrol boat and prompted him to play Ernesto Esteban was still going on.

Eddie Seng was standing in front of a flat-panel television with a laser pointer in hand. Far from the hapless plumber he’d portrayed for the Iranians, Seng was a CIA veteran like Cabrillo. Because of his uncanny ability to meticulously plan and carry out missions, Eddie was the Corporation’s director of shore operations. No detail was too small not to demand his full attention. It was his intense concentration that allowed him to spend much of his career under deep cover in China, eluding perhaps the most ruthless secret police in the world.

Seated around the large conference table was the rest of the Corporation’s senior staff, with the exception of Dr. Julia Huxley. Julia was the Oregon’s chief medical officer, and she rarely attended mission briefings unless she was going ashore.

“So did you chase away the Iranian Navy with your breath?” Linda Ross asked Juan when he sat next to her.

“Oh, sorry.” Cabrillo fished in his pockets for a mint to mask the smell of the Limburger cheese he’d eaten just before the sailors came aboard. “I think it was my bad English,” he said in the horrible stereotyped accent he’d used.

Linda was the newly promoted vice president for operations. With her strawberry blond hair, long bangs that she was forever brushing away from her green eyes, and the dash of freckles across her cheeks and nose, Linda had a pixieish appearance. Her high-pitched, almost-girlish voice didn’t help. However, when she spoke, every member of the crew knew to listen. She’d been an intelligence officer on an Aegis Class cruiser and left the military after being a staffer for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Across from them sat the Oregon’s best ship handler, Eric Stone, and his partner in crime, Mark Murphy, whose responsibility was the vast arsenal of weapons secreted throughout the vessel.

Farther down the table were Hali Kasim, the chief communications officer, and Franklin Lincoln, a massively built ex-SEAL who was in charge of the ship’s complement of former Special Forces operators, or, as Max called, them the “gundogs.”

“Are you back, Chairman?” a voice from a speakerphone called. It was Langston Overholt, on a secure channel from Langley.

As founder of the Corporation, Juan maintained the title of chairman, and only one member of the crew, the elderly chief steward, Maurice, called him captain.

“Just keeping the natives from getting too restless,” Cabrillo replied.

“There wasn’t any indication that they are suspicious, was there?”

“No, Lang. Despite the fact we’re only a couple of miles from the Bandar Abbas naval base, the Iranians are used to a lot of shipping coming in and out of here. They took one look at the ship, one at me, and knew we aren’t a threat.”

“There’s a very narrow window in which to pull this off,” Overholt cautioned. “But if you think we should delay, I’ll understand.”

“Lang, we are here, the rocket torpedoes are here, and the arms-export limitation talks with Russia are in two weeks. It’s now or never.”

While the proliferation of nuclear material remained the most critical problem facing global security, the exportation of weapons systems to less-than-stable governments was also a top concern for Washington.

Russia and China were racking up billions of dollars in sales for missile systems, combat aircraft, tanks, and even five Kilo Class subs that were recently bought by Tehran.

“If you want proof,” Juan continued, “that Russia is supplying the Iranians with their VA-111 Shkval torpedoes, we go in tonight.”

The Shkval was perhaps the most sophisticated torpedo ever built, capable of reaching speeds in excess of two hundred knots because it cut through the water in a cocoon of air in the form of supercavitating bubbles. It had a range of seventy-five hundred yards, and was reportedly very difficult to steer due to its incredible speed, so it was basically a last-resort weapon to be fired from a crippled submarine in order to destroy its attacker.

“The Iranians claim to have developed their own version of the Shkval without Russian help, or so they say,” Max Hanley said. “If we can prove the Russians gave them the technology, despite their protests to the contrary, it will go a long way in hammering them on reducing arms exports in the future.”

“Or this could blow up in our faces if you guys get caught,” Overholt said testily. “I’m not so sure this is still such a good idea.”

“Relax, Langston.” Cabrillo laced his fingers behind his head, detected a little of the glue used to hold on his wig and carefully plucked it off. “How many jobs have we pulled off for you without a hitch? The Iranians won’t know what hit them, and we’ll be five hundred miles from the Gulf by the time they figure out we were in their submarine pen. And after they realize what happened, the first place they are going to look is the American Navy ships pulling interdiction duty up and down these waters, not a broken-down, Panamanian-flagged derelict with a bad steering bearing.”

“Which reminds me, Mr. Overholt,” Eddie said from the head of the room. “You will have our naval forces pulled far enough back from Bandar Abbas that any charge of American intervention by Tehran will prove fruitless?”

“There isn’t an American ship within a hundred miles of the port,” Overholt assured. “It took some doing to keep the Fifth Fleet brass from getting suspicions of their own, but we’re set on that end of it.” Cabrillo cleared his throat. “Let’s just do it. In twelve hours, we’ll have the proof you need to take the Russians to task. We all understand the risks, but if they mean that the Kremlin’s going to be forced to rethink selling arms to every mullah with deep pockets we have to go.”

“I know. You’re right,” Overholt sighed. “Juan, just be careful, okay?”

“Count on it, my friend.”

“Do you need me to stay on the line?” the veteran CIA officer asked.

“You know where to deposit the money once we’re out,” Juan replied. “Unless you want to know specifics of our operation, I think you should hang up.”

“You got it.” The line clicked dead.

Juan addressed the assembled officers. “Okay, we’ve been at this long enough. Are there any last-minute details that need to be cleared up before we adjourn?”

“The containers on deck,” Max said. “Should we start breaking them down at nightfall or wait until you return from the navy base and we’re under way? And what about the paint and the other camouflage measures?”

The stacks of containers littering the Oregon’s deck were so much window dressing, just another way for the crew to hide the nature of their ship. They could be folded flat and stored in one of her holds, altering her silhouette. The blue paint coating her hull and the green covering her upperworks was an environmentally friendly pigment that could be washed off using the fire-suppression water cannons mounted on the superstructure. Beneath the paint her hull was a patchwork of mismatched colors that looked as though they had been applied over a couple of generations of owners. That coating, however, was a radar-absorbing compound similar to the skin of a stealth fighter.