"Thanks, Chief," Aston said calmly, then paused. "Just one thing: nobody goes below while I'm gone." The boatswain's mate regarded him steadily, giving no indication of his thoughts. "I mean it, Bosun. Nobody goes below until I say they do or Admiral Rose countermands my orders. Is that clear?"

"Clear, Sir," the petty officer said after the barest possible hesitation, and Aston nodded and stepped onto the platform.

He reached the top and found himself facing another officer, this one an American senior grade lieutenant. A right hand came up in a sharp salute, echoed by the two armed Marines standing behind him, and Aston nodded again. He wished he'd thought to pack a uniform; he'd always been uncomfortable taking a salute he couldn't return properly.

"Good morning, Sir. I'm Lieutenant Truscot, the navigator. Welcome aboard McKee, Sir."

"Thank you, Mister Truscot. I'm sorry to have disrupted your routine this way."

"If you'll follow me, Sir?" Truscot requested politely, and Aston fell in amiably beside him. The Marines trailed respectfully but watchfully behind.

Truscot escorted him not to the bridge, but to the captain's day cabin, high in McKee's superstructure. He paused outside the closed door, tucked his uniform cap under his left arm, and rapped sharply.

"Come," a voice called, and the lieutenant opened the door and stood aside to let Aston enter, then closed it behind him.

There were two officers in the cabin, both standing as Aston entered. One was a four-striper he didn't recognize, obviously McKee's CO. The other was a short, burly rear admiral, and Aston felt slightly surprised by how quickly Rose had gotten here from the shore establishment.

"By God, it is you!" Rose said, stepping forward quickly and holding out his hand. Aston gripped it, profoundly grateful that he'd remembered John Rose had just been assigned to the Holy Loch command. The US Navy had recently resumed the practice of stationing nuclear submarines in UK waters, given the number of diesel/electric and nuclear boats-most Russian or Chinese-built, but more than a few from Western yards-which had been finding their way into various people's hands throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean. They were Los Angeles- and Seawolf-class attack subs now, not missile boats, and Rose-always a fast-attack skipper at heart, not a boomer driver, and extremely comfortable with the Royal Navy-had been a perfect choice to command the Holy Loch-based squadron. More importantly, at the moment, however, he and Aston had known one another for years, despite the very different courses their careers had taken.

"I thought they'd bumped you another ring and retired you, Dick," the admiral added, returning Aston's grip firmly.

"They have, but my date of rank doesn't take effect until next month. Then they separate me and I go to Langley. I'm on-rather, I was on-extended furlough till then, Jack." He noted the captain's reaction to his use of the admiral's first name. "Sorry about all the drama, but I've got a problem."

"I figured that when they told me it was you," Rose said, "but you're lucky I was already over here for a scheduled conference. If they'd dragged me out of bed for this, I'd've ordered them to repel borders!" He released Aston's hand and turned to the other officer. "Captain Helsing, this is Dick Aston. You may have heard of him."

"I have, indeed, Admiral," Helsing said, offering his own hand. His eyes were thoughtful, as if weighing Aston's scruffy appearance against his reputation, and Aston wondered what conclusions he was drawing. "I hadn't heard you were retiring, Sir."

"I'm not, really," Aston said with a grin. "But I'm getting a bit long in the tooth to run around with SEAL teams, so I'm going to be a double-dipper. There's a slot waiting for me at CIA when I get home."

"I see. Won't you have a seat, Sir? Admiral?" Helsing waved at a pair of comfortable chairs, and Aston sat gratefully. The weariness of yet another all-night trick at the wheel was catching up with him, made still worse by relief. This calm, orderly ship was the height of normality-the clearest possible proof that the Troll had not made any overt moves. Yet his relief was flawed by his awareness that, in many ways, the hardest part was yet to come.

"Now, Dick," Rose said once they were seated, "what's this 'emergency' of yours?"

"Jack," Aston ran a hand over his bald pate and let his anxiety show, "I'm not sure I should tell you." He saw surprise in the admiral's face and shook his head, irritated at himself. "Sorry. That didn't come out quite the way I intended." He thought for a moment, and Rose let him.

"I assume," Aston said at last, picking his words with care, "that you must've heard about what went on over the Atlantic a couple of weeks ago?"

"Hell, yes!" Rose snorted, then his eyes sharpened. "Why?"

"Because," Aston said very, very carefully, "I know what it was about."

There was absolute, dead silence in the cabin. Helsing knew Aston only by reputation, and he couldn't quite keep the incredulity off his face. Rose, on the other hand, knew him personally.

"How?" he asked finally.

"I can't tell you that," Aston said. "I'm sorry, but I don't know who I can tell. It's a very ... delicate situation. Even more so than you can possibly guess."

"Dick," Rose said slowly, "we lost a Hummer and every man aboard the Kidd when it hit the fan. We've got over a hundred cases of blindness, and over two thousand dead civilians aboard airliners that lost their avionics and crashed ... not to mention losing three Toms, one KA-6, and enough millions of dollars worth of electronics to put Roosevelt and two Ticos into the yard for a year. If you know what was behind it, you're going to have to spill it ... and damned quick, too."

"I know, Jack," Aston said wearily. He shook his head. "Look, what I really need from you is three things: patience, a secure line to Norfolk, and a good neurologist with a limited sense of curiosity." He grinned tiredly at Rose's baffled expression. "I know it sounds crazy," he said, "and it gets better; I've got a young lady aboard my boat who I need brought aboard McKee with no questions and as little fuss as possible. And-" his eyes begged Rose for understanding "-I need an EEG run on her, very, very discreetly but absolutely ASAP."

"Do you really realize just how crazy that sounds?" Rose asked quietly, and Aston nodded.

"I do. Believe me, I do. I wish I could tell you all about it, but I can't. This thing's got a 'Need to Know' hook that's going to be a copper-plated bitch. I need guidance from CINCLANT before I can even admit what I know to myself."

"All right," Rose said slowly. "I'll let you run with it as you think best-for now, at least." He turned to Helsing. "Captain, get your senior surgeon down to that ketch with a stretcher party and bring the young lady aboard covered up so tight nobody can tell what's in that stretcher, much less who. I want her isolated in sickbay with an armed guard posted round the clock. And tell them not a word. If they talk in their sleep, they'd better drink a lot of coffee until I personally tell them differently."

"Yes, Sir."

"As for you, Dick," Rose said grimly, "I think we can fix you up with a secure line." He grinned mirthlessly. "And I can hardly wait to hear what Admiral McLain has to say about this."

alert adj. 1. Vigilant; attentive. 2. Mentally responsive and perceptive. 3. Lively; brisk. -n. 1. A warning of attack or danger; esp. a siren or klaxon. 2. The period during which such a warning is in effect. -on the alert. Prepared for danger or emergency; watchful. -tr.v. alerted, alerting, alerts. 1. To warn; to notify of approaching danger. 2. To call to action or preparedness. [French alerte, from Italian all'erta, "on the watch," from Latin ille, that + erta, watch.]