the enemy skipper.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. You’re right.”
“Wish they’d do some damn thing.”
“You can say that again.”
“I mean?”
“Hold it!”
The shout came from OS2 Baum at his radar monitor. For a long moment, no one reacted. At first, the warning seemed nothing more than another comment in the stream of weary complaints about inaction.
Almost in unison, they turned to look.
“Report, Petty Officer!” Canfield snapped.
“I’ve got something!” Too excited to remember to say sir when talking to Canfield. “I think it’s a new bogey!”
“Take it easy, Baum.” Canfield leaned over his shoulder. “You think?”
Baum pointed to a tiny dot that appeared and then disappeared at the edge of the screen, astern of the Crowe. “It’s damn low in the water, Lieutenant. A real small profile.”
“Where?”
“Dead astern.”
“How far?”
“Maybe fifteen miles.”
Canfield turned his head. “Radio?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Canfield bent again. The blip had vanished. “Where’s it gone?” “It’s still there, Lieutenant. Like I said, it’s low, so it gets obscured by the running sea. Trust me, it’s there and coming closer.”
Canfield was having difficulty spotting it as the radar arm swept around. “You sure it’s not some weather anomaly? Maybe a surface disturbance?”
“Yessir, I’m sure.” Still, Baum craned, not quite as certain as he claimed. “It’s just damn small.”
“But coming closer?”
“Yessir. I mean, we’re hanging back, matching that tub up ahead.”
Canfield knew the Empress could do only fifteen knots at top speed, and that was pushing it.
“Damn!” Baum peered at the sweeping screen. “Now it’s out of sight again.” He looked up at Lieutenant Canfield. “But I know I saw it, sir.
It was there, and moving?”
“Lieutenant!” Sonar Technician First Class Matthew Hastings bellowed.
“What, Hastings?”
“I’ve got it, too. Dead astern!” Hastings held up earphones.
Canfield clapped one phone to his ear. “How far astern?”
“Right where Freddy’s bogey was.”
Canfield turned his head. “Baum?”
“Still nothing on radar yet, sir.”
Canfield glared at Hastings. “How fast?”
“Twenty knots, maybe twenty-two.”
“Whale?” It was a possibility. A big whale, logging on the surface.
Hastings shrugged. “Could be, but they don’t usually swim so fast unless they’re scared. Wait!” The sonar technician cocked his head as if the motion could make him hear more clearly. “Propellers, sir. It’s got an engine.”
Canfield’s voice rose. “You’re sure?”
“Shit, Lieutenant. It’s a sub. Closing in on us!”
All talk was cut off as if someone had pressed the mute on a TV remote.
Silence enveloped communications-and-control like a cocoon. Canfield hesitated. It had to be the same bogey as the one Baum had spotted on the radar — a sub running with only its conning tower above the surface.
Now it had dropped off the radar screen because it had submerged. Would it have dived if it did not intend to attack? Commander Chervenko’s words reverberated inside his head — be sure before you act, be very sure.
“Can you identify the sub, Petty Officer?”
“No, sir.” ST1 Hastings sounded uneasy. “Single screw, I’m sure of that.
The engine’s quiet, but kind of ragged. I’m getting a resistance signature I never heard before.” He listened for a time. “It’s not ours.
I can guarantee that.”
“Conventional or nuclear?”
“Nuclear for sure, but not Soviet. I mean, not Russian. I know what those suckers sound like. A small sub, attack type, nuclear.”
“British, maybe?”
Hastings shook his head. “Too small. Doesn’t sound right for that.” He glanced up at the lieutenant again. “If I had to guess, from what I learned in training, I’d say it’s an old Chinese Han class. They got new ones in the works, but I ain’t heard they launched any. Besides, it’s got the burred sound of an old design.”
The silence hung heavier as Hastings continued to listen. “It’s closing in, Lieutenant.”
“How far.”
“Ten miles.”
Canfield nodded. His lungs felt squeezed. Still, he shouted, “Sparks?
Call the bridge! Pronto!”
On the bridge, Commander Chervenko said quietly to It. Commander Bienas, “You have the bridge, Frank. Better clear for action. Everyone their posts. I’m going below.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Chervenko slid down the gangway, entered communications-and-control, and nodded to Lieutenant Canfield. “Tell me, Mose.”
Canfield filled him in on everything that had happened from the moment OS2 Baum had spotted the small blip on his radar.
“All right. Are we sure it’s Chinese?”
“Hastings can’t identify it as anything else so far.”
“I’ve had some experience with a Han class, maybe?”
ST1 Hastings looked up. “Captain! She’s slowing down!”
Commander Chervenko moved in to stand behind the sonar technician. “How far back, Hastings?”
“Five, six miles, sir.” The first-class petty officer’s eyes stared into some empty, distant place as he concentrated all his senses on his hearing. “Yeah, definitely slowing, sir.”
“You hear any activity?”
Hastings concentrated. “No, sir. Just the screw. It’s at a way lower speed.”
“Matching us?” He looked up, impressed by the commander’s accurate prediction. “Yessir, I’d say that’s exactly what she’s doing.”
Chervenko nodded. “Shadowing the shadower.”
The technicians glanced uneasily at one another.
Chervenko turned to Canfield. “Keep on top of it here, Mose. Report any change, no matter how small. I want to know if they hiccough back there.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“I’ll be in my quarters. Tell Frank on the bridge.”
Chervenko left the electronics-crammed center and hurried to his cabin.
He dialed his secure phone again.
The big voice on the far end of the line boomed, “Brose.”
“This is Commander Chervenko on the Crowe, Admiral. We’ve got some company out here. You’re not going
