Sea Skimmer (Jon Hunt Book 1) Read online

  ‘OK, Number One, lets you and me see what is really needed to get this pocket battleship ready for war because reading between the lines that is exactly what is coming.’

  Standing out in the cabin flat, Jon and Brian were inevitably doing what the Captain had said not to do and started speculating like mad.

  Realising they could be overheard Jon said, ‘better pop into my cabin Brian, then we can talk more freely.’ So saying, they both squeezed into Jon’s little private space and shut the door behind them. ‘If they’re looking for Spanish speakers, what’s the bet we’re going somewhere that speaks Spanish?’

  ‘Wow, no shit Sherlock, even my feeble brain sort of worked that out but if you’re the only Spanish speaker on board it’s going to be rather interesting if you have to fly these spooky types ashore and be the interpreter as well.’

  ‘I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Anyway, we’re going to have to get the lads working on the aircraft really hard. Extra weapon loading practice and I will need to talk to the Chief about whether we go to war time servicing and all that. Let’s go down the hanger and start sorting it out.’

  By lunch time, the flight were all briefed and looking into what should be done to get the aircraft on a war footing. Jon was not only the pilot of the aircraft but as the senior officer was also the ‘Flight Commander’ and therefore responsible for the effectiveness of the team as whole and he wanted all contingencies looked at. He knew the Captain would expect no less and be asking for a report in the near future.

  He and Brian went into the wardroom which was in the middle of the ship directly opposite the operations room, the ships nerve centre.

  ‘Ah, Little and Large, nice to see you drag yourselves away from the blunt end,’ called a heavyset, bearded officer. Mark Simmonds was one of the ship’s Principle Warfare Officers or ‘PWOs’ and in charge of all the ships weapons systems. Despite Prometheus only having a couple of machine guns and being mainly fitted with missiles, he was traditionally known as ‘guns’ to everyone. He was also great friends with his aviator colleagues, especially when in some disreputable bar, on a run ashore, in some foreign port.

  Jon flinched at the nickname while mentally accepting the accuracy. Although he was not exactly small at five foot seven, his Observer colleague was a navy rugby player and built like the proverbial brick shithouse and well over six feet tall. The nickname had been provided soon after they joined the ship and had stuck ever since. Jon had been in the navy for seven years and was used to the sometimes peculiar humour of naval life. But with dark hair, blue eyes and almost classical good looks, he did often regret being compared to the smaller part of a comedy duo. Still, that was life in a blue suit.

  ‘Ah Guns, been counting all your missiles then, ready for the little bunfight? Let me help you, four Exocet and thirty two Sea Wolf. Just like last week and the week before that. So, what else have you been doing in your massive empire?’ responded Jon with a friendly grin.

  ‘Actually, there is a little more to it than that you bloody WAFU.’ Guns’ comments were belied by the smile on his face. ‘And who knows, maybe we will be able to fire some of the bloody things for real, wouldn’t that be great? Oh and come and see me after lunch. I need to issue you two jokers with 9mm pistols and some bullets and we need to get some rifles down to the hangar for your flight guys.’

  Jon suddenly looked serious. ‘This is for real isn’t it? Bloody hell, I wonder where this is all going?’

  Chapter 4

  April 5 1982, Rio Grande Air Base, Tierra del Fuego

  Marcel looked sourly around the little room and then out of the window at the bleak landscape. What had started out so well seemed to be going slowly wrong and it was beginning to worry him. When he had arrived in Buenos Aires several months ago, he had been treated like a VIP and couldn’t but help enjoy all the attention the military types lavished on him. He was taken to the main Air Force base and dockyard and given tours of all the facilities. He was introduced to the various staffs of mainly military men who looked after the weapons and given an office on the air base close to the capital.

  As soon as he was settled, a large sum of money was paid into a Swiss bank account as promised and he went to work. But of far more importance to him was the technical and professional challenge he realised he was facing. The first thing he did was review the state of the Argentinian arsenal. Not satisfied with some of the paperwork, he personally inspected every weapon fitted to the various ships of the navy and the five kept with the Super Etendard aircraft which were their launch platforms. Three weeks after he started his survey, he presented his results to the top brass. The MM38 warship weapons were all in sealed containers and as far as he could tell were serviceable. Whether the same could be said for the ships launch systems was a different matter and he strongly suggested that more functional checks were carried out. Some of the ships they were fitted to dated back to the Second World War and there was no way he was going to vouch for that side of the overall weapons system. When it came to the AM 39 air launched weapons, he was more confident as he had been able to physically inspect them, not just check sealed containers and paperwork. He was also able to confirm the aircraft’s systems, using the built in test equipment fitted to each aircraft. He reported that their condition was good and they should all work as advertised. However, he also knew that, he could make some modifications, especially to the software that controlled the seeker systems, that would make them far more effective. Unfortunately, all the data he needed was locked up in his old office in France. That said he was pretty sure he could replicate much of the best bits given time and the right computers. The Brass were delighted with the report and gave him the go ahead to start developing the software modifications. Money was not a problem and when he asked for something it was provided. At one point, he wondered whether he should have been concerned as to why this country was suddenly so keen to get the weapons ready. After all what enemies did Argentina really have? In the end, he decided that unless they were planning on attacking France, which let’s face it was hardly likely, it was none of his business. He had taken on the work in good faith and with the blessing of his own country, so as a professional he was honour bound to do the best job he could.

  So, life was looking up. Indeed he liked what he had seen of the country and was even wondering whether there was a permanent new life to be made here.

  And then everything changed. He met Maria.

  It was three weeks after he arrived and he was fully established in his new office. The new computers had just arrived and he was looking forward to setting them to work. He had a small team of specialists working for him, half military and half from local companies but what he really needed was someone familiar with the computer languages he used. He still remembered the exact moment. It was nine o’clock on a Friday morning. He knew because he had just arrived in the office as he always did. He often worked late, even very late but made a rule never to arrive before nine. So, he was just hanging up his coat when she walked in.

  Marcel knew that women were one of his great weaknesses but for all that he considered himself a confirmed bachelor. He had probably had more than his fair share of girlfriends over the years but somehow they had always been an aside to his real life, something to enjoy, savour even but then walk away from. He had never really considered anything different. But at that instant everything changed.

  He immediately noticed her slim figure and dark hair highlighted with a touch of auburn. Very Latin, with cool brown eyes and freckles, he loved freckles although for some reason most women seemed to always want to cover them up. He loved freckles and just about everything else he saw. ‘Oh my God, I’m gaping like a school kid,’ he realised. And then she smiled. ‘Oh, that’s just not fair.’ Some women change totally when they smile and that’s exactly what this girl did. If she was pretty before, now she was just gorgeous. Her smile started at her eyes and travelled all over her face like a ray of sunshine and
it was all directed at him.

  The girl broke the silence. ‘Monsieur Marcel Bertrand I assume,’ and she held out her hand. He took it and it felt cool and warm at the same time.

  ‘Yes,’ he stammered. ‘Please accept my apologies. I wasn’t expecting such a pretty girl first thing in the morning. I’m sorry and you are?’

  It was the girl’s turn to blush and he noticed how the pink glow to her pale olive skin only enhanced her beauty. ‘Oh, sorry monsieur, my name is Maria Cortez and they sent me over from the university. I understand you need a computer language specialist.’

  Taking hold of himself, Marcel realised that staring and acting like an idiot wasn’t professional at all. He indicated a chair and asked the girl to sit. Even so, he couldn’t help noticing her long legs. She crossed them and elegantly seated herself, then looked expectantly up at him.

  He seated himself at his desk which gave him a measure of composure, as at least it put a physical barrier between them and made him feel more in charge of the situation. He looked over at the girl. ‘Can I get you a coffee or anything?’

  ‘No thanks, I had some before I arrived.’ she smiled back. There was something in her look that cut right to his soul. This was a beautiful girl who clearly knew the effect she had on the male sex. He could see it in the way she held herself. Yet she was looking at him in a way he wasn’t used to, as if some connection had already been made. He mentally shook himself, this wouldn’t do, there was work to be done. She was the technical expert who would allow him to finish his work and nothing else.

  Over the next weeks, Marcel forced himself to concentrate on work and to his added delight soon found out that Maria was everything he was looking for to help him sort out his software modifications. While he was an expert in designing the logic algorithms needed to control the weapon system, he was not a code writer and Maria had all the skills necessary to turn his logic into specific instructions for the missiles computers.

  With the final link in his chain to produce the required changes, the work picked up a pace and Marcel estimated that in only a few months he would be able to replicate several years worth of work from his days in France.

  That didn’t help his personal dilemma however. Daily they were close because they had to be to get the work done. Maria was his constant companion in the office and try as he might the attraction was, if anything, getting stronger. He made it a strict rule never to get involved with his own staff but was finding it harder by the day to stick to it. What was worse was that he was pretty sure his feelings were reciprocated. Quite often, when he was sneaking a glance at Maria when he thought she wouldn’t notice, he found that she was already doing the same thing to him. It was becoming a major distraction.

  It all came to a head one Friday. It was late in the day and they were both working doggedly on a particular problem that had been worrying them all week. Without the original design specifications, Marcel found that he was having to reconstruct certain elements of software from scratch and one issue had been dogging them for some time. The rest of the staff had long gone and Maria, sitting in front of her computer studying lines of code, called over to him with excitement in her voice. ‘Marcel, please come and look. I think I have it at last.’

  He walked over to her desk and leant next to her. Suddenly he forgot all about the computer and his technical problems. Immediately, he could smell the clean perfume of her hair and saw the way it curled around her pearl coloured ear. She said something he didn’t hear and turned her head to look at him. His gaze was drawn into the brown pool of her eyes and before he knew it, he leant down and kissed her. To his total delight, she responded. She opened her lips and kissed him back.

  After a few seconds, they pulled apart but held each other’s eyes. He smiled and to his relief but not his surprise, she smiled back.

  He spoke first. ‘That was thoroughly unprofessional of me and I really should apologise but I’m not going to because all I want to do is do it again.’

  She smiled her perfect smile back at him. ‘Good.’

  It started there and moved on as these things inevitably do. They went out for dinner that evening. They discovered she was twenty nine and he was thirty seven. They both had exceptional degrees and got frustrated when people couldn’t keep up. She loved opera, he hated it, rock was more his to his musical tastes. But they shared a love of food, lying on beaches and sailing. They also found that they were both orphans. Marcel’s parents had died early of cancer, Maria’s had been killed in a house fire some years ago.

  But whatever they talked about was coincidental to a magically growing bond. At the end of the evening, they went back to her flat in the centre of Buenos Aires and made love as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Afterwards, lying back in the tangled sheets, Marcel reflected that for the first time in his life he had made love with the sole aim of pleasing his partner. Everything he had done had been completely unselfish. He had never done that before. Sex had always been a fun thing for him to do and the girl was there to please him. Not tonight. He realised that the act of love may have drained him physically but he still wanted to hold her all night.

  Maria also had conflicting thoughts running through her head. On the one hand, she realised for the first time that she had found a man who was her intellectual equal, even more so if she was honest but who also intrigued and attracted her like no other ever had. She knew it wasn’t a case of maybe she was falling in love. She had, totally and completely for the first time in her life. But how was she going to square that with her professional duties? It was bad enough that it was going to affect her professional work in the office but what was she going to do about the security service?

  Monday morning, after an exhausting but wonderful weekend, the problem solved itself. Maria was summoned to the office where she had been first interviewed and offered the job. At the time, it seemed a patriotic thing to do. After all, it was only really to act as a long stop to ensuring Marcel did not give away any secrets. Strangely, she didn’t quite see it that way now.

  She was shown into the same room and interviewed by the same tough looking man in an incongruous grey suit. Maria only knew him as Pedro and frankly didn’t want to know any more. When she met his cold, lizard like eyes, she shuddered inside. He was a large man, with dark eyebrows, a pock marked skin and a small scar on his cheek. He gazed at her with absolutely no emotion. He gave her the creeps.

  At first, she was quizzed about work and that was straightforward enough. She gave a frank account of the progress they had made and explained that within a week they would be able to apply the fruits of their efforts to the first batch of missiles. Pedro then gently probed her about their personal relationship. She initially intended to deny anything had happened but one look into the man’s flinty eyes made her think again. In the end, she gave a reasonably frank account of what was going on but kept the depth of her feelings to herself. Let him think it was just a simple office affair. She was quite surprised when at the end of that part of the interview, she was not admonished and even subtly encouraged to maintain the relationship. She guessed he considered it a way to keep a hold on Marcel who they clearly needed on side. The final part of the meeting was to brief her on future events. Pedro would not give any details but it was clear that something major was about to occur and it would involve both of them. They were going to be moved to the air base at Tierra del Fuego where the Super Etendard aircraft and AM39 weapons were kept. It was now a priority to get the modifications into these weapons. When she tried to probe further she was firmly rebuffed but it was made very clear that she was to do her best to keep Marcel happy and working despite the enforced change of venue.

  As the door closed behind her, Colonel Pedro DaSuza smiled to himself, secretly amused about his new recruit. He knew her parents or rather he used to know them. As leading government dissidents, it had been his patriotic duty to interview them after their arrest. It was quite amazing what a husband would reveal once hi
s naked wife had started screaming after the first jolt of electricity had been applied to her private parts. And here now was the daughter, all wide eyed and innocent doing her patriotic duty. ‘It would be quite nice to interview her one day,’ he thought. Although with such a pretty girl he would want to use more satisfying methods of interrogation. After all, one of them should enjoy the process.

  By the time Maria got back to the office, she found an unhappy Marcel arguing with a large, red faced naval officer.

  ‘I don’t care what you think is best, you have employed me to update this missile system and I can only do it from here. This is where my computers and staff are,’ and then he saw Maria. ‘Maria, you tell this idiot we can’t move to Tierra del Fuego now,’ he said with exasperation.

  She looked at them both. ‘I’m sorry but what is this all about?’ Although of course she already knew.

  The naval officer smiled and held out his hand. ‘You must be Maria Cortez. My apologies, I am Captain Henri Velasquez. I was just explaining to Monsieur Bertrand that we wish to transfer this operation to the Rio Grande Air Base but he seems to be reluctant.’

  Marcel broke in. ‘Of course I’m reluctant. We’re all set up here. If we move, we will lose weeks of time.’ He didn’t mention his other objection, which was the air base was in the middle of nowhere and working there would hardly be like being in the middle of a vibrant, cosmopolitan capital.

  ‘But I am told you are ready for the first software updates now. Surely you can be getting on with those while we move the equipment?’ queried the large man with steel in his voice.

  Marcel looked at Maria and suddenly it didn’t matter as long as she was there with him.

  ‘I take it all my staff will be coming? Especially Miss Cortez who I will need to help me do the physical programming,’