"And what will we see happening?"

"At first, nothing at all," said the Cobra.

"And later?"

"My dear colleague, I wouldn't dream of spoiling your surprise." And he replaced the receiver.

In the West Wing, the chief of staff found himself staring at a buzzing handset.

"He's hung up on me," he said in disbelief. "Again."

PART THREE

CHAPTER 10

BY CHANCE IT WAS THE BRITISH SPECIAL BOAT SERVICE that secured the first prey; a question of the right place at the right time.

Shortly after the Cobra issued his "open season" edict, Global Hawk Sam picked up a mystery vessel on the ocean far below, which was tagged "Rogue One." Sam's wide-spectrum television scanner was narrowed as she dropped to 20,000 feet, still completely out of sound and sight. The images concentrated.

Rogue One was clearly not big enough to be a liner or Lloyd'slisted freighter. She might be a very small merchantman or coaster, but she was miles away from any coast. Or she might be a private yacht or fisherman. Whatever she was, Rogue One had passed longitude 55° heading east for Africa. And she behaved oddly.

She cruised through the night and then disappeared. That could only mean that at sunrise she closed down, her crew spread a sea blue tarpaulin and bobbed the day away on the water almost impossible to spot from above. That maneuver could only mean one thing. Then at sundown she rolled up the tarp and began to cruise east again. Unfortunately for Rogue One, Sam could see in the dark.

Three hundred miles off Dakar, the MV Balmoral turned south and went to flank speed to intercept. One of the two American comms men stood beside the captain on the bridge to read out the compass headings.

Sam, drifting high above the rogue, passed her progress details to Nevada, and AFB Creech told Washington. At dawn the rogue closed down and went under her drape. Sam returned to Fernando de Noronha Island to refuel and was back before dawn. The Balmoral steamed through the night. The rogue was caught at dawn of the third day, well south of the Cape Verdes, and still five hundred miles from Guinea-Bissau.

She was about to cover herself for her penultimate day at sea. When her captain saw the danger, it was too late to spread the canopy or roll it up and pretend to be normal.

High above, Sam switched on her jammers, and the rogue was enveloped at the base of a cone of "no transmit, no receive" electronic dead space. At first the captain did not try to transmit a message because he did not believe his eyes. Speeding toward him was a small helicopter barely 100 feet above the calm sea.

The reason he could not believe it was the matter of range. Such a chopper could not be that far from land, and there was no other vessel in sight. He did not know that the Balmoral was twenty-five miles due ahead of him and invisible just over the horizon. When he realized he was about to be intercepted, it was too late.

His drill was memorized. First you will be pursued by the unmistakable gray shape of a warship, which will be faster. It will overhaul you and order you to stop. When the warship is still far away, use the hull of your boat to shield you and deep-six the cocaine bales over the side. These we can replace. Before you are boarded, inform us by computer with the prerecorded message to Bogota.

So the captain, even though he could see no warship, did as he was told. He pressed Send, but no message went out. He tried to use his sat phone, but it, too, was dead. Leaving one of his men repeatedly calling on the radio, he went up the ladder behind the bridge and stared ahead at the approaching Little Bird. Fifteen miles back, still not visible but racing at forty knots, were two ten-man RIBs.

The small helicopter circled him once and then hovered at 100 feet forward of the bridge. He could see that a rigid wasp aerial jutted downward, with a stiff flag spread behind it. He recognized the design. On the boom of the helicopter were the two words, "Royal Navy."

"Los Ingleses," he muttered. He still could not work out where the warship was, but the Cobra had given strict instructions; the two Q-ships must never be seen.

Peering up at the helicopter, he saw the pilot, black-visored against the rising sun, and beside him, leaning out but harnessed in, a sniper. He did not recognize a G3 scoped rifle, but he knew when a gun was pointing right at his head. His instructions were clear: Never try to outshoot any national navy. So he raised his hands in the international gesture. Despite the lack of "Transmission accomplished" signal on his laptop, he hoped his warning had gone out anyway. It had not.

From his vantage point, the flier of the Little Bird could see the name on the prow of the rogue vessel. It was Belleza del Mar-Beauty of the Sea-the most optimistic title on the ocean. She was in fact a fishing boat, rusted, stained, a hundred feet long and stinking of fish. That was the point. The ton of cocaine in roped bales was under the rotting fish.

The captain tried to take the initiative by starting his engines. The helicopter swerved and dropped until it was abeam, 10 feet off the water and thirty yards from the side of the Belleza del Mar. At that range the sniper could have whisked off either ear according to choice.

"Pare los motores," boomed a voice from Little Bird's loudspeaker. "Cut your motors." The captain did so. He could not hear them over the roar from the helicopter, but he had seen the spray plume of two approaching attack boats.

That, too, was incomprehensible. They were many miles from land. Where the hell was the warship? There was nothing hard to understand about the men who poured out of the two RIBs that roared up to his side, hurled grapnels over the edge, made fast and leapt aboard. They were young, black-clothed, masked, armed and fit.

The captain had himself and seven crew. The "Don't resist" instruction was shrewd. They would have lasted seconds. Two of the masked men approached him; the rest covered his crew, all of whom had their hands well above their heads. One of the masked men seemed in charge, but he spoke only English. The other man interpreted. Neither removed their black masks.

"Captain, we believe you are carrying illegal substances. Drugs, specifically cocaine. We intend to search your vessel."

"It is not true, I carry only fish. And you have no right to search my vessel. It is against the laws of the sea. It is piracy."

He had been told to say this. Unfortunately, his advice on law was less shrewd than that of staying alive. He had never heard of CRIJICA and would not have understood it if he had.

But Major Ben Pickering was perfectly within his rights. The Criminal Justice (International Cooperation) Act of 1990, known as CRIJICA, contains several clauses covering interception at sea of vessels believed to carry drugs. It also contains the rights of the accused. What the captain of the Belleza del Mar did not know was that he and his vessel had been quietly recategorized as a threat to the British nation like any other terrorist. That meant that, unfortunately for the skipper, the rule book, civil rights included, had just gone where the cocaine would have gone if he had had the time-over the edge.

The SBS men had been rehearsing for two weeks and had the drill cut to a few minutes. All seven of the crew and the captain were expertly frisked for weapons or devices of transmission. Cell phones were confiscated for later analysis. The radio shack was smashed. The eight Colombians were shackled with hands in front of waists and hooded. When they could neither see nor resist, they were herded to the stern and made to sit.