The Silent Sea Read Online Free PDF

sixties.”
    “Touché. Now, what’s going on?” By the tone of Overholt’s voice, Juan knew he had something big for them, and he could feel the first feathery traces of adrenaline in his veins.
    “Six hours ago, a satellite was launched from Vandenberg atop a Delta III rocket for a low-earth polar orbit.”
    That one sentence alone was enough for Cabrillo to deduce that the rocket had failed someplace over South America, since polar shots fly south from the California Air Force base, that it was carrying sensitive spy gear which might not have burned up, and that it most likely had crashed in Argentina since Lang was calling the best covert operatives he knew.
    “The techs don’t know yet what went wrong,” Overholt continued. “And that really isn’t our problem anyway.”
    “Our problem,” Juan said, “is that it crashed in Argentina.”
    “You said it. About a hundred miles south of Paraguay in some of the thickest jungle of the Amazon basin. And there’s a good chance the Argentines know because we warned every country on the flight path that the rocket was overflying their territory.”
    “I thought we no longer have diplomatic relations with them since the coup.”
    “We still have ways of passing on something like this.”
    “I know what you’re about to ask, but be reasonable. The debris is going to be spread over a couple thousand square miles in bush that our spy satellites can’t penetrate. Do you honestly expect us to find your needle in that haystack?”
    “I do, because here’s the kicker. The particular part of the needle we’re looking for is a mild gamma ray emitter.”
    Juan let that sink in for a second, and finally said, “Plutonium.”
    “Only reliable power source we had for this particular bird. The NASA eggheads tried every conceivable alternative, but it came back to using a tiny amount of plutonium and using the heat off its decay to run the satellite’s systems. On the bright side, they so overengineered the containment vessel that it is virtually indestructible. It wouldn’t even notice a rocket blowing up around it.
    “As you can well imagine, the administration doesn’t want it known that we sent aloft a satellite that could have potentially spread radiation across a good-sized swath of the most pristine environment on the planet. The other concern is that the plutonium not fall into the Argentines’ hands. We suspect they have restarted their nuclear weapons program. The satellite didn’t carry much of the stuff—a few grams worth, or so I’m told—but there’s no sense in giving them a head start on their march for the Bomb.”
    “So the Argies don’t know about the plutonium?” Juan asked, using the colloquialism for Argentines he’d picked up from a Falklands War vet.
    “Thank goodness, no. But anyone with the right equipment will pick up trace radioactivity. And before you ask,” he said, anticipating the next question, “levels aren’t dangerous provided you follow some simple safety protocols.”
    That wasn’t going to be Cabrillo’s next question. He knew plutonium wasn’t dangerous unless ingested or inhaled. Then it became one of the deadliest toxins known to man.
    “I was going to ask if we have any kind of backup.”
    “Nada. There’s a team on its way to Paraguay with the latest generation of gamma ray detectors, but that’s about all you can count on. It took the DCI and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to convince the President to let us help you that much. I’m sure you realize he has a certain, ah, reluctance, when it comes to dealing with sensitive international situations. He still hasn’t come to grips with the whole debacle in Libya a few months back.”
    “Debacle?” Juan said, sounding hurt. “We saved the Secretary of State’s life and salvaged the peace accords.”
    “And damned near started a war when you went toe-to-toe with one of their guided-missile frigates. This has to go ultraquiet. Sneak in, find the