1633

Sergeant Elizabeth Buchholz, A Company, Thuringian Rifles, leaned on her elbows and peered at the estuary of the Trave River through the night-vision glasses. She and her small party were safely invisible in the misty darkness, but she could easily make out the riding lights of the Danish vessels anchored in the river. They were far enough downstream to be safe from any of Luebeck's guns, and Gustav Adolf had been careful not to station any of his own troops in the area. After all, he'd wanted the Danes to feel completely comfortable.

From here, it looked as if they did… and as if they'd done about what Gustavus had predicted they would. They'd placed a handful of warships upstream of their main body, to protect the merchantmen and transports from anything Lubeck's defenders might try to sneak downstream, but the bulk of their men-of-war were anchored further out. Obviously, they weren't as confident as they would have liked about the location of the Swedish Navy, and most of their warships were positioned to defend the transports tucked safely away in the sheltering estuary against any sudden pounce from the open Baltic.

"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.