America

'Will you be returning this evening, sir?' Toad asked.

'I don't know.'

Jake took his coffee with him when he went upstairs to pack. As he climbed the stairs he heard Callie speaking to Ilin in Russian, probably asking him what he wanted for breakfast. When Jake came back downstairs carrying his overnight bag, he found Ilin inspecting the bookshelf.

'Help yourself,' he told the Russian. 'Toad, how about driving me down to the hospital helo pad.'

He kissed his wife, then went out to the car with Tarkington. As Toad piloted the car along the highway, Jake told him of the submarine hijacking. 'USS America, according to the Pentagon duty officer. It's on television, he says; all the channels are running news specials. Turn it on when you get back, watch Ilin's reaction.'

'Why?' Toad asked, referring to the theft of the sub.

'I dunno. Someone wanted a sub.'

Toad whistled. 'Holy…!'

After a bit Jake asked, 'What do you think of Ilin?'

'He's sharp as a razor, Admiral. It's hard to figure what he's thinking, but I suspect that he has a low opinion of you and me. It's just a feeling I have, nothing specific.'

'We are sorta small-caliber guys,' Jake muttered.

'He speaks great English,' Toad continued. 'Has an excellent vocabulary. Seems to know a lot about a lot of stuff. He has something to say about every subject I could think to raise. This morning you saw him checking out your taste in literature.'

As Jake mentally cataloged the thrillers, mysteries, and action-adventure novels that filled his shelves, Toad added, 'He thinks we're nincompoops.'

'There's nothing on my shelves that will disabuse him of that notion,' Jake replied. 'Let's let him hang on to it as long as possible.'

Kolnikov had America running at three knots, five hundred feet below the surface of the sea, when he engaged the autopilot. He had seen submarine autopilots before, of course, but not an autopilot that was designed to run the ship all the time, except in the most dire emergency. He had never seen a submarine with completely computerized, fly-by-wire controls operated with a joystick, either. No fool, Vladimir Kolnikov knew the reason that naval engineers didn't trust submarine autopilots — if a stray electron galloped sideways through the system, the boat could be endangered within seconds. An out-of-control submarine could easily dive too deep, past its crush depth. The faster the sub was going when control was lost, the sooner crush depth would be reached. This one, Kolnikov knew, was operated by three computers that constantly checked on each other and compared data. Any two of them could outvote and override the third.

Still, engaging the autopilot was an act of faith, Kolnikov told himself as he pushed the final button and took his hands off the boat's joystick controls. If Rothberg and the Germans didn't have the computer system functioning properly, this was going to get very exciting very quickly.

Now Kolnikov watched the attitude indicator and the depth gauge, waiting.

All steady.

The machine kept the sub on course, without varying the depth a detectable amount. But for how long? And if something went wrong, how long would he have?

He looked around. Turchak, Eck, Boldt, and the other two Germans were frozen, staring at the gauges. Leon Rothberg was working on the master combat control station on the starboard side of the control room.

'Don't go to sleep,' Kolnikov muttered to Turchak, who nodded in full agreement.

For the first time since he submerged the sub, Kolnikov left the captain's post. He was relieved to find the radio gear and encryption computer in the communications space, or radio room, in the area on the starboard side of the control room. No codebooks in sight, which meant they must be in the safe. He examined the safe, which, alas, was locked. He had been worried that the communications officer or his subordinates might have destroyed the crypto computer and the codebooks when they realized the sub was being hijacked. Apparently not.

As nifty as the sonar was, the codebooks and cryptographic computer were solid gold. Or would have been if the Americans hadn't known the submarine was stolen. No doubt they would change the codes within hours, if they hadn't already.

Yet any new system would be based on the encrypting algorithms contained in the computer, which meant that it was a prize without price for many of the world's intelligence agencies.

Kolnikov patted the machine once, then left the compartment and went forward through the control room into the crew's living area. He looked into the captain's cabin — very nice, bigger than he expected — and looked into each of the officers' staterooms, the wardroom, and the head. Finally he went down the ladder to the third deck. The galley and mess hall were under the control room. Right now the mess hall was jammed with Americans, packed like sardines. Two Germans were guarding them. Kolnikov didn't say a word, merely looked.

Under the mess hall were the cold rooms and auxiliary machinery space. After inspecting both compartments, Kolnikov climbed back up to the mess hall and went aft, into the torpedo room.

America had only four torpedo tubes, two on the starboard side and two port. All were empty just now. Eight Mk-48 torpedoes rested on cradles, ready for loading. Two contained dummy warheads, but six were war shots. In the center of the compartment was a compact berthing module, which had bunks for the six SEALs who would use the minisub. This module could be disassembled and removed from the boat in port, and the space used for more torpedoes.

His inspection complete, Kolnikov went through the galley— avoiding the mess hall where all the Americans were being held just now — into crew berthing. The berths were tiny, about the size of coffins, stacked three deep. Personal privacy could not be had here. There were, Kolnikov knew, not enough bunks for all the American sailors the boat normally carried — the junior men took turns sleeping. None of this surprised Kolnikov, who had spent almost twenty years serving in submarines.

Forward of the berthing area was the pressure bulkhead and, beyond that, the vertical launch tubes. The missiles were inside their tubes, which were sealed units. There was no provision for reloading tubes at sea — the thirty-four-foot diameter of the pressure hull meant that there just wasn't enough room, which was why the tubes were outside the pressure hull. Forward of the tubes was the bow sonar dome with its huge array. Beneath that array was another, a confor-mal array.

When he had seen all there was to see, Kolnikov closed the hatch and went back through the tunnel. Part of the ballast tank space, he knew, was utilized by the winch and cable for the towed array, but access to that compartment was on the first deck. On the second deck he went through the control room — Turchak was poring over a computer — to the hatch opening into the tunnel that led through the reactor compartment. The shielded tunnel was designed to prevent crewmen from absorbing any unnecessary radiation.

He exited the tunnel into the reactor compartment. There was really little to see. Everything was spotlessly clean. The control panel was in the engine room.

Kolnikov reentered the tunnel and went on aft to the engine room.

Gordin and two others were there. A normal engine room watch team was three men aboard this class of sub, one fewer than the Seawolf- or Los Angeles-cass.

On a Russian sub, one man would be enough, but American boats were not as highly automated. The Russian Navy could never get or keep enough qualified men, so they had to automate. For safety reasons, the Americans had never taken automation as far. America was more automated than any past boat, but still, a normal engine room team was three men, who spent their watch checking gauges and turning valves. Kolnikov had Gordin, Steeckt, and Brovkin, none of whom knew much about the reactor but had been taught to rush from station to station, checking this, adjusting that to keep everything within normal limits.

They were impressed. 'This is a beautiful ship, Captain,' they gushed and expounded loudly as they touched and pointed.

The ship was beautiful, Kolnikov admitted ruefully. Everything reeked of quality. Everything the eye beheld was a wonder of design and manufacture. Nothing shoddy, quickly made, quickly finished.

It feels as if we are inside a giant watch, Kolnikov thought. He recognized the major assemblies, but that was all. He studied the control panel that Callahan had manned. According to him, the only SCRAM button still wired up was the one on this panel. SCRAM— there was an acronym! It stood for safety control reactor ax man, a title given to the man responsible for cutting the rope holding the control rods in the first nuclear core under the stadium at