Could they breach SatCom's security and get in? Probably. The setup installed by ARM was industrial-level only. He had cautioned Bill about that.
He grimaced and plied his strength to the two small aluminum oars. The way the wind and seas were taking him, he would find out soon enough. Again he lamented the loss of the radio—with it he could get out a Mayday alerting any ships around that might mount a rescue of the frigate's survivors. He also could try warning the SatCom facility that trouble was headed their way. The problem was, the Hind had a top speed of over a hundred and fifty knots. If Andikythera was its destination, it probably was already there.
The cold sea stung his face and the tossing waves were making him slightly seasick, but he felt alive again. Almost by instinct he looked up to try to find the stars, loving how crisp and striking they could be over the Aegean. Nothing yet, but there were glimmers in the north. A good sign. The storm was blowing over now, the clouds starting to open up again.
If Bill tries the radio, he'll probably figure I've just vanished from the earth.
He half felt like it. As the cold autumn waters of the Aegean surged around him, its six-foot waves washing over his partially inflated Switlik, he thought about Bill Bates. He was a friend, a very good friend. Was he about to be in trouble?
Although Bates was a world-class executive, he also was a dedicated family man. He had a model wife back in Arlington and two model sons, both deposited in model private academies. His wife, a blond WASP old-fashioned enough to have the same family name as a prominent Philadelphia bank, never seemed to tire of her charity obligations, so it was his sons he took with him sailing in the summers. That was how Vance had met him, sailing with the boys in the Bahamas.
Bill was highly regarded in industry circles as the CEO's CEO, and not without reason. For one thing, less inconsequential than most would think, he looked the part. His steel-gray hair was always trimmed to the precise millimeter, his tanned cheeks were forever sleek from a workout at his club, or whatever club was handy on his perpetual travels. He had once claimed he knew the location of more health clubs than any man in America.
Best of all, though, he knew how to raise money. When he described a pending enterprise, he did it with the gleaming eye of the true believer. Even in a dicey investment environment, he always generated the enthusiasm sufficient to ensure that a new stock issue sold out and closed higher than the offering price on the day it was floated. The man could sell sunlamps in the Sahara.
He competed hard in everything he did. When he decided, some years after he and Vance had become acquainted, that he wanted to spend summers racing, he did not bother buying his own yacht; instead he flew to Nassau and leased the fastest boat he knew. At that moment, the vessel filling that description was the Argonaut, owned by Windstalker, Ltd. It was a forty-four-foot sloop, highly regarded throughout the racing fraternity. Its owner, however, never let any of his three yachts out of the harbor without first undertaking a personal checkout of the new skipper—even if it was an old friend.
Vance remembered it well. Bill manned the helm, a mahogany wheel always kept well polished, and they were making a solid eight knots on the Speedo. It was one of those mornings in the islands when everything seemed as clear as a desert sky. No cruise ships were scheduled into the harbor, and the stinkpot powerboats were mercifully in limited supply. The wind was perfect and the water as smooth as a glittering mirror. Best of all, Bates was handling the helm as though he had been there all his life.