America

'That is the ten-knot circle, sir, with a three-hundred-and-sixty-nautical-mile radius. Obviously both circles continue to expand; eventually the submarine could be under any of Earth's oceans.'

'Okay.'

Killbuck used a pointer. 'This is the Goddard SuperAegis launch platform, east of Cape Canaveral. We have a battle group proceeding into that area at twenty knots. Two of our attack boats that were in port in Georgia are now at sea, and two are being readied for sea. We have four boats on patrol in the North Atlantic; those are being diverted back to the seaboard of the eastern United States. Our antisubmarine patrol assets are flying patrols searching for the boat. In addition, Space Command is retasking their reconnaissance satellites to concentrate on the North Atlantic.'

'What is the range of the Tomahawk missiles aboard America}'

'About one thousand nautical miles, sir.'

'So the Goddard launch platform is already within range of America's weapons?'

'Yes, sir. That is correct.'

'I understand that America surfaced south of Long Island to put the rest of the crew in the water. Did any of these P-3s or satellites see her?'

'Not to my knowledge.'

'What else should we be doing, Val?' General Alt asked Vice-Admiral Navarre.

'We are doing everything within our power to find that ship, sir,' Navarre shot back. 'We'll not find it, though, until the hijackers start doing something with the boat, torpedo something, shoot a missile, or surface. We must be ready to close in if and when they break cover.'

'You think they'll use the ship's weapons?'

Navarre took his time before he answered. 'Taking the sub to sea is a hell of a feat for an untrained crew, or an undertrained one. Operating the ship's weapons systems is a whole different ball game. The submarine combat system is a fully integrated package, constructed like a telephone network. There is no one single monstrous software package, but a series of packages, all of which work together. Parisian taxicab drivers who once went to sea in old boats back when the world was young aren't going to have a clue.'

'This whole scenario is improbable,' said General Alt. 'But the fact is the damn submarine is gone and our crew is on dry land.' Alt was a politician-bureaucrat to his fingertips, and he looked it. Smart, well educated, from a prominent family, Alt was the possessor of a large inherited fortune, which made him an anomaly in the armed forces. The American military had drawn its officers from the middle and lower middle class almost exclusively since the end of the Korean War. Perhaps Alt had seen the military as a bureaucracy to be conquered; in any event, he attended the Military Academy and made the army his career while his brothers went to Ivy League schools, then burrowed into the merchant-banking business.

'When we get some idea of why they stole the ship,' Stuffy Stal-naker said, 'then we'll get a glimmer of where to look for it.'

'Do you have anything to contribute to this conversation?' Flap asked Killbuck.

'They broke cover once already, surfacing,' the captain said. 'We heard the boat surface. We didn't know it until two hours later, when the sound could be matched to an event. We haven't yet listened to America enough to collect a decent database.'

'This boat has been to sea numerous times for workups and testing,' Flap objected.

'Yes, sir. We haven't yet run it through the acoustic range off Andros Island. We are going over the sea trials and SOSUS records now, doing statistical studies. In forty-eight hours or so we hope to have a database we can work with.'

'Anything else?' Alt asked with the slightest edge in his voice. He, not the other chiefs of staff, ran the war room.

'Yes, sir. During the night the SOSUS sensors picked up a sound that we could not identify. I'll play it for you.'

Killbuck signaled to one of the enlisted men who worked in the war room. Flap took a deep breath, exerted control over his own emotions. Parading useless information before the brass was an old, old briefing technique designed to deflect criticism when one had nothing tangible to report.

Flap half closed his eyes, listened to a faint, faint sound. Definitely metallic. Killbuck played it four times.

'And?'

'The SOSUS people refuse to identify it,' Killbuck said. He paused for a heartbeat, then added, 'It's a low- frequency sound, per-

haps a torpedo tube being flushed with compressed air. And that's just a guess.'

'Where?'

Killbuck used his pointer. 'What you heard is sound picked up by four sensors and mixed together by computer. We think it originated here.'

'Did you get a P-3 over there?' Flap Le Beau asked.

'Yes, sir. He came up dry.'

'We must do better,' General Alt said. 'We must have planes out there to investigate anything suspicious. Let's get out there and get after that sub. Find him.'

'Yes, sir.'

'We find it, we're going to sink the son of a bitch,' Stuffy Stal-naker said. 'Shoot on positive identification. We aren't going to run over to the White House and watch the politicians wring their hands while those assholes sail off into the sunset. We're going to send those sons of bitches to Davy Jones.'

'Getting positive identification is critical,' Val Navarre remarked. 'We're putting our attack boats out there to look for America. The best way to find a sub is with another sub. We should have six boats at sea by tomorrow night. Other nations will do the same. There are going to be a lot of submarines in the North Atlantic very soon.'

After dinner in the sub-base officers' club, Janos Ilin excused himself and walked across the street to the bachelor officers' quarters, the BOQ, leaving Toad alone with Jake Grafton.

'The FBI has the place surrounded,' Toad said in a low voice, trying not to be heard by diners at other tables. 'If he leaves the BOQ he'll be followed.'

'Ilin knows that. Or suspects it. He won't leave.'

'I saw you talking to that FBI agent just before dinner,' Toad continued. 'A report?'

'They've found where the hijackers stayed for the past two weeks. The place is a cheap motel near Providence. Thirty-dollar rooms. And the FBI went into our beach house after we left this afternoon. The place is bugged, and the bugs are wired to a low-power transmitter.'

'Russian?'

'Apparently.'

'But you didn't invite me and Ilin for the weekend until Friday.'

'The house has stood empty all summer, Toad. When Ilin joined the security team he learned the identities of everyone on the team. The FBI is checking, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that our apartment in Rosslyn is bugged, and Blevins's townhouse, and your house…. The FBI will check all of them.'

Commander Toad Tarkington leaned back in his chair. He was a few inches shorter than his boss, with a perfect set of white teeth and deep laugh lines that grooved his tan face. An F-14 radar intercept officer, or RIO, early in his career, he had spent the last few years as Jake's aide or executive assistant.

Jake told Toad of seeing Ilin talking in the street during a smoke break that morning. 'I don't think the Russians can get a surveillance team onto the base, but they might. If he does it again, we'll be listening too. And we'll burn the surveillance team.'

Toad looked speculatively at Jake. The admiral thought he knew what the younger man was thinking. 'Yes, I know having Ilin around is a risk. But the Russians are our prime suspects for the theft of America. We need to determine if they are involved, and the sooner the better.'

'Are you going to tell Ilin that the hijackers were a CIA team being trained to steal a Russian sub?'

'Yes. If he doesn't already know.'

'What if the Russians weren't behind it?'

Jake turned over a hand.