Harry, it looks like your plan worked, though I'm not sure even I understood it. As you predicted, the marine party encountered serious resistance at the pick-up point. They brought the Hercules in to land during an engagement with the advanced party of commie naval infantry. As you suggested they faked a direct hit by the enemy on landing and gave them plenty of time to radio news of the hit back to their base. Our marines held the perimeter and wiped out the Reds' reconnaissance team before they could make it to the wreckage of the plane, planted the fake beacon, laid charges and blew it all up before evacuating under heavy fire from the main Soviet attack force. Losses to the shore party were seven killed and twelve wounded. The latter are being transferred to hospital at Spitzbergen for assessment. The loss of these men will be attributed to a training accident. The main force of spetznaz should have explored the remains of the plane by now. The charges on our decoy beacon were large enough that only a few carefully placed Soviet resistors could be left. They won't be able to resist the conclusion that their secrets are safe. Our tech boys think you are right. The Russkies are aiming to set up a global navigation system based on satellite timing signals. I guess we'll be working on the same thing. The real beacon was recovered by the British SBS party without incident and it is now aboard their secret new Dreadnought nuclear sub en route to Rosyth. We'll transfer it there to a US ship on a routine courtesy call, for transport back Stateside. I was highly sceptical about using the Brits, but they came through in the end. Your idea of using the entire US mission as a diversion was tactically a masterstroke. Not only did we get the satellite, but also a lot of intelligence about the new cipher machine. I've enclosed prints of the photos you took of the machine settings when you were on board the weather station, maybe we can use this to decrypt their transmissions for a while. The only intelligence downside was that we had to move against the agent Wax to shut down any possibility of leaks. However we can use him to feed back useful disinformation for a while. Of course, I need hardly remind you that this story must never get out. However I wouldn't be surprised if a few Intelligence Stars and Presidential citations are on their way. Sorry to hear you are being transferred back to shore duties, it's been a pleasure having you on board the Michael Five and I hope we can work together again some time. All the best, Captain Omen.