“Here, Al,” she said, and passed the glasses to Al Morton. “Take a good look,” she said.
Al took her at her word and raised the glasses to his eyes. Unlike the sergeant or any of her troopers, he wore a diver’s wet suit rather than a camouflaged poncho, and he sucked quietly on a piece of local candy something like toffee while he hummed to himself. After several minutes, he nodded in satisfaction and lowered the glasses once more.
“Sort of what we expected,” he murmured.
“So you think you and Sam can pull it off?” Buchholz asked.
“Oh, no problem!” Al replied confidently. “And we’d damn well better, too. If Jeff Higgins and Jimmy Andersen can sink a genu-wine Spanish galleon with a fishing boat and a jury-rigged black-powder torpedo, we’re going to look like pure fools if we can’t do the same with all the fancy modern gear we’ve got. In fact, I intend to do better.”
“That water’s damned cold, Al,” Buchholz pointed out. “When they briefed us on this, they said that someone who goes into the water has maybe ten minutes. After that, he’s gone. What do you call it?” She fumbled for the word. Elizabeth’s English was fluent, even colloquial, but her technical vocabulary was still somewhat limited. ” ‘Hypothermia,’ I think.”
“E-yup,” Al agreed. “But that’s why me and Sam have these real nice wet suits, Lizabeth. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine, won’t we, Sam?” He looked over his shoulder at his younger brother, who grinned back in a flash of spotless white teeth.
“You betcha,” he agreed cheerfully. Then he frowned. “Only thing really bothers me, Al, is not being able to use our lights.”
“Hey, nothing’s perfect,” Al told him philosophically. He sucked on his toffee for a few more seconds, then shrugged and turned back to Buchholz. “Looks to me like our best bet is to go in right about . . . there,” he said, pointing to a flat patch near the riverbank. “Doesn’t look like there’s a lot of current in close along the shore through there, and that’ll help when we head back. I’ll plant the beacon before we go in.”
“Right.” Buchholz nodded. “We’ll watch the back door for you. I just wish we could talk to you while you’re under.”
“Hey,” Al repeated with another shrug. “You do what you can. And at least Sam and I can talk to each other.”
“There’s that,” Buchholz agreed, watching the two brothers as they began to don the rest of their equipment. They moved with the calm, smooth, unhurried precision of a dive team which had done precisely the same thing scores of times before. Buchholz found their obvious competence more than a little reassuring and concentrated on her own responsibilities while they got on with it. By the time they were ready, with facemasks, regulators, and radios checked, she had her four troopers deployed to secure their recovery point.
“Well,” Al said laconically, “guess we’ll be going now. See ya.”
The two of them waded out into the river, submerged, and vanished.
Aage Overgaard stepped out from under the break of the poop aboard his flagship and inhaled a deep breath of the wet, cold night. It was getting colder, he noted. Nippy and raw for so early in October, even here on the coast of the Baltic. But there were still at least a couple of months, he reassured himself. Ample time to carry out his responsibilities before winter closed in in earnest.
He crossed to the bulwark and leaned on it, gazing out over the anchored transports. His eyes particularly sought out the warships scattered among them, especially at the upstream end of the anchorage, just in case the Swedes had any ideas about sending cutting-out expeditions down from Luebeck. He wouldn’t put such a ploy past Gustavus Adolphus for a moment—especially not now that he’d put the bulk of his troops ashore. A few large row boats full of soldiers could easily overwhelm the crew of any transport—or even a smaller warship—if they took it by surprise. Which was why he had four guard boats rowing steadily back and forth across the river channel to watch for just that sort of enterprise.