"Looking forward to your trip up to the ice pack?" I inquired pleasantly.

They operated on the same wave length, all right. They didn't even look at one another. In pefect unison they all hitched themselves a couple of inches closer to me, and there was nothing imperceptible about the way they did it, either, Hansen waited, smiling in a pleasantly relaxed fashion until the waitress had deposited four steaming mugs of coffee on the table, then said in the same encouraging tone: "Come again, friend. Nothing we like to hear better than top-classified information being bandied about in canteens. How the hell do «you» know where we're going?"

I reached up my hand beneath my coat lapel and it stayed there, my right wrist locked in Hansen's right hand.

"We're not suspicious or anything," he said apologetically. "It's just that we submariners are very nervous on account of the dangerous life we lead. Also, we've a very fine library of movies aboard the «Dolphin», and every time a character in one of those movies reaches up under his coat it's always for the same reason, and that's not just because he's checking to see if his wallet's still there."

I took his wrist with my free hand, pulled his arm away and pushed it down on the table. I'm not saying it was easy — the U. S. Navy clearly fed its submariners on a high-protein diet — but I managed it without bursting a blood vessel. I pulled a folded newspaper out from under my coat and laid it down. "You wanted to know how the hell I knew where you were going," I said. "I can read, that's why. That's a Glasgow evening paper I picked up in Renfrew airport half an hour ago."

Hansen rubbed his wrist thoughtfully, then grinned. "What did you get your doctorate in, Doc? Weight-lifting? About that paper — how could you have got it in Renfrew half an hour ago?"

"I flew down here. Helicopter."

"A whirly-bird, eh? I heard one arriving a few minutes ago. But that was one of ours."