their boomers, and anything could happen. The friendly waters right off Northern Greenland and Arctic Canada are much too shallow anyway. That leaves the GIUK Gap for us. Into the North Atlantic and home, or temporary refuge in Great Britain.'
'Not the latter,' Jeffrey said. 'We're too tempting a target. I don't want to bring danger following us to the British Isles, with atomic weapons so recently fired.'
'I have to agree,' Kathy said. 'Although there's the same problem with going to the U.S. East Coast. I mean, triggering a nuclear exchange at a base or near the shore. At least we'd have the whole Atlantic for defensive measures first. Losing an Axis tail, linking up with Allied surface and airborne and undersea forces…'
'I concur with Sonar,' Ilse said. 'If we transit the Atlantic, we give time for heads to cool. We can try to avoid something awful in direct retaliation for the Greifswald raid.' Jeffrey nodded. Ilse and Kathy had an important point. The U.K. was smaller in size and population than the U.S., and the Brits were hurting bad in this third Battle of the Atlantic. The U.S. could take more damage and keep up the fight. Cold-blooded, but there it was.
'All right,' Jeffrey said. 'But let's get back to the main question. We know we want to destroy Deutschland. Do we try to do it now and here?'
'Captain,' Bell said, 'you started this by asking if we wanted to escape.'
'I don't think we have an alternative, XO. Deutschland and the Axis high command can't afford to let us get away, because of the model missile and the hard drives. Eberhard's most likely decision is to continue pursuit.'
'Assuming he isn't badly damaged,' Ilse said.
'Yes, assuming that. Even if he doesn't regain contact soon, he'll be somewhere in our rear, hunting us. As we approach the GIUK Gap, we may encounter one or more Axis Amethyste II's on barrier patrol. They'll know the Gap's our only practical escape route, too.'
'A pair of those in front,' Bell said, 'and Deutschland behind… I don't like those odds one bit.'
'Nor do I,' Kathy said. 'Any datum we made, fighting other German SSNs, would draw Deutschland immediately. There's partial deep sound channel coupling through both passages in the Gap.'
Jeffrey'd already made up his mind, but it was good to hear the others check his thinking and agree.
'Now, how do we find Deutschland before she finds us?' 'Captain,' the phone talker called, 'Engineer reports, Ready to answer all bells.'
'Very well,' Jeffrey said. 'End of briefing. I have the conn…. Helm, ahead one third. Make your course zero two five.'
Meltzer acknowledged.
'XO, I intend to proceed five nautical miles up this canyon, turn to starboard, and take a peek back over the ridge.'
Beck was leaning over Werner Haffner's sonar console when the Zentrale phone talker spoke.
'First Watch Officer, sir, the engineer's compliments, and reactor is in full-power range. Ship is ready to answer all bells.'
Beck went back to his own console, now rebooted, and repeated the message to the captain, who'd surely heard the talker himself — but this was procedure.
'Very well,' Eberhard said.
Beck saw Eberhard was examining the large-scale nautical chart. Eberhard typed, and the same image came on Beck's screen.
'So, Einzvo? What would you do now?'
'If I were Challenger, sir, I'd head southwest, toward one of the passages between Greenland and Iceland and Scotland.'
'Yes, that's his obvious egress path. Your sonar search plan?'
'Sir, Challenger will surely continue to hug the terrain, for acoustic masking.'
'Tell me something I don't know.'
Beck swallowed. 'I suggest we first proceed to the top of the nearest ridge, then listen with the advantage of height and concealment.' The series of parallel ridges ran northsouth; the nearest lay just west of where Deutschland and Challenger had had their inconclusive nuclear skirmish.
'What makes you think that will work?'
'Challenger is in a bind, sir. If she goes fast she'll make more noise, and we'll detect her from a distance.' The noisy damage to her rudder, from the surface battle in the Sound, had been impossible to miss. 'If she goes slow, she'll be closer, and that much easier to localize.'
'Pilot,' Eberhard said, 'steer two zero five.' To the south-southwest. 'One-third speed ahead.'
'Steer two zero five, jawohl. One-third speed ahead, jawohl.' Coomans glanced at Beck for a moment, as if to give him a mental shrug. Beck was miffed. Eberhard hadn't even replied to Beck's suggested plan.
'Sir, may I ask your intentions?'
'Work our way further south at the near side of the nearest ridge line. Then proceed to the crest at four knots.'
Ilse and the others sat in their air breather masks, with intercom mikes underneath. She heard Sessions report they'd made the progress north that Jeffrey wanted.
'Very well, Nay,' Jeffrey said through his mask. 'Helm, make your course zero six zero.' To the east-northeast. 'Make turns for five knots.' Ilse watched her gravimeter screen, — set to the forward-looking view. Challenger drew closer to the talus slope at the western base of the volcanic ridge line. The ship put on a steep up-bubble as Meltzer took the slope. On the display Ilse saw the ridge flank passing under her, very close.
She looked down at the deck, and reminded herself that all this imagery was real. The ridge was there outside the hull. The jagged basalt was right there under her feet. She glanced at own-ship's depth; the two-tons- per-squareinch sea pressure was also real. She switched to the bird's-eye view gravimeter mode. It showed the ridge from above, with Challenger's position marked. The own-ship icon slowly scaled the ridge, at an angle.
The gravimeter could see through solid rock — and through the boiling ocean of a sonar whiteout. The display showed the other side of the ridge, and the floor of the Shetland Channel just beyond. Ilse wondered what waited out there. To the gravimeter, a moving SSN would be invisible.
Beck watched his screens as Deutschland slowly climbed the east face of the ridge. Beck saw something on the sonar readouts.
'Hole-in-ocean contact on starboard wide-aperture array!' Haffner shouted. 'Ambient sonar contact as well! Near-field effects.'
'It's Challenger,' Beck said. The two ships had met head-on at point-blank range.
'Pilot,' Eberhard snapped. 'Flank speed ahead!' 'Reactor check valve transients directly to starboard!'
Haffner shouted. 'Tonals imply Challenger accelerating.
Aspect change! Signal drawing toward our baffles.'
'She's turning to try to follow us,' Beck said.
'Not she. He. Fuller. Pilot, starboard thirty rudder.'
They'd found Deutschland, and Deutschland had found them. Ilse held on as Challenger banked steeply into a very hard turn to starboard, building up momentum as she went. The deck began to vibrate as the ship fought for flank speed.
'Contact still held on Master One,' Kathy said. 'Relative bearing is constant.'
'We're in a turning dogfight,' Jeffrey said.
The two ships tried to follow each other into a tightening circle; turning radius in a sub depended on rudder angle, not speed. Challenger hit thirty-two knots; the pump-jet's heavy shaking began.
'Bearing rate on Master One!' Bell said. 'Master One is drawing into our baffles!' Deutschland was winning the contest for position.
Challenger topped forty knots, on the way to fifty. The ride was very rough.
'Sir,' Bell said. 'At close enough range Deutschland may try to cripple our pump-jet by ramming it with a safed Sea Lion, or even fire at us with her antitorpedo rockets.' The only fish that worked this deep that either side had were nuclear.
'Concur, XO,' Jeffrey said. 'We have unknown damage back there already, and Eberhard knows it. He heard that shaking, too.'
A sudden rumbling roar got louder, then another and another. There was a bang-bangbang, then a staccato plinking against the hull.
