America

'Do you think the loss of the satellite and the theft of the sub are related?'

'Yes, sir, I think so. But I can't imagine how. The only reason I can point to is the little lecture I got this morning from DeGarmo, the CIA director, all about high tech and quantum leaps. And the fact that the only people who want SuperAegis in the sky and functioning are the Americans. In every direction, as far as the eye can see, are people who don't want the United States sitting comfortably under an ABM umbrella. The Americans twisted arms in Europe, got them to go along. Very reluctantly. But the Chinese, the Indians, the Arab world were left out.'

'Thank God the missing satellite isn't our problem,' Flap said with a wave of his hand.

'The missing satellite and sub may both be faces on the same Rubik's cube,' Jake replied. 'If we could figure out how they are related, we'd be a whole lot closer to laying hands on that boat than we are now.'

Flap Le Beau grinned at Jake Grafton. 'I'll make some calls,' the marine said, 'tell them we want to take tourists to the war room this evening. I'll call you at your office.'

'Yes, sir.'

The marine commandant added, 'Talk to Navarre and the FBI this afternoon, then brief me in the war room.'

'Yes, sir.'

As Flap started back to his desk, Jake added, 'General, I'm curious. Do you still carry any of those knives you used to pack?'

The motion was almost too quick for the eye to follow. Flap Le Beau reached behind his neck inside his blouse with his right hand, then lunged forward, sweeping his hand down. Jake caught a glint of polished steel flying through the air, then the knife stuck in the far wall with an audible thunk. As it quivered there, Jake could see that the weapon was small, with a handle and blade about six inches long.

Flap straightened, shot the cuffs of his blouse. 'The grunts expect it. I hate to disappoint 'em.'

'Yes, sir.'

Vice-Admiral Navarre was on the telephone when Jake was shown into his office. He was in his shirtsleeves, his tie hanging over his blouse on the back of a chair. He motioned for Jake to sit, then concentrated on listening to what the other person on the line was saying.

'We can't sit on them, sir,' Navarre said. He was on the phone to the CNO. 'Sure, we can keep the America crew isolated in debriefing for another day or so, but the families have a right to talk to the press.'

He paused, listening.

'We had to level with the families. We have to keep faith with our people or we lose our credibility with them.'

After another pause, Navarre snarled, 'The White House doesn't send submarines to sea. The navy does. We do. I do! The families had a right to be told what we know, so by God I told them! If the chief of staff and national security adviser don't like it, I'll clean out my desk anytime they want. I'm ready for the golf course. Tell those clowns that I can turn in my ID card and building pass and be on the first tee by five o'clock….'

He toyed with the cord of the instrument he held, then said, 'We can't stop the families from talking to anyone on Earth. And we'd be fools to try.'

The pause was longer this time.

'We'd look like flaming idiots, trying to hide ten pounds of shit under a cocktail glass.'

He talked in monosyllables for another minute or so, then muttered, 'Aye aye, sir,' and tossed the phone on its cradle.

He glared at Jake Grafton. 'The families are talking to the press. Some of them are on television. The White House is upset.'

Jake showed him the letters from the president and General Le Beau. Navarre scanned them and handed them back.

Navarre's finger darted out, pointing at Jake's chest. 'Stealing a submarine was an act of war. Yet the White House approved the theft of a Russian sub — that's the big secret that the politicians don't want anyone to know. Now the fucking Russians have done it to us. Sooner or later this is going to explode in the newspapers and television news shows. Hell, for all I know it's already on the Internet. Congress is going to crucify those silly sons of bitches at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.'

'DeGarmo, the CIA director, said that the navy wanted the Russians' supercavitation technology.'

'You bet your ass we did. We do. But the idea of stealing a Russian sub to get it didn't originate in this building, and that's a goddamn fact. I didn't know a thing about it until this morning. The idea was absolutely moronic. Those incompetent spook sons of bitches just got fourteen American sailors killed. Or sixteen.'

'Sir, that's a hell of a stretch.'

Navarre took a deep breath, then exhaled convulsively. 'You're right. I withdraw that comment. But you've listened to me fulminate enough. What do you want to know?'

'You've answered most of my questions. Why was Flashlight on ten of the Tomahawks?'

'Because it's ready to go to sea and America was designed to launch it. That's our job: take the best technology we can devise to sea to defend our country.'

'Was Flashlight always scheduled to go to sea on America?'

'Yep. We tested it on the operational evaluation workup. On this cruise we were going to launch two of the missiles on the Pacific missile range, ensure the software is bug-free and the warheads work as advertised. America was going to transit around Cape Horn submerged, shoot the missiles, then work an antisub exercise in the Caribbean on the way home.'

'How many people knew Flashlight was on that boat?'

'Jesus, I don't know. The program is classified, of course, but the number of people who knew it would be on America would be in the hundreds. The people in the company that made the thing who weren't told it was being deployed could certainly make an educated guess. I would estimate that the number is a couple of thousand.'

Jake had a few more questions, but the telephone rang and the admiral snatched it up, so he mouthed a thank-you and slipped out.

'Ship up there,' Turchak said, tapping Vladimir Kolnikov on the shoulder. He had been watching Rothberg construct mission profiles for the Tomahawks, check the coordinates, the firing checklists. Fortunately, as they had been told, the targeting computer database was indeed universal; North America was in there so that missiles carrying dummy warheads could be shot at targets on stateside bombing ranges.

Kolnikov glanced at the horizontal tactical display, then checked the sonar displays on the bulkheads, which were essentially windows on the sea. With the sonar display enlarged as much as possible the screen was dark, gloomy, illuminated from within by a faint light, a light that signified the noise generated by a ship's propellers and machinery and the hiss of the hull cutting the swells. As he watched, the light assumed a faint shape, the hull of a ship as seen from underneath.

'It's about fifteen miles, bearing zero one zero relative.' Only ten degrees off the starboard bow, the destroyer was almost dead ahead.

'What do you think?' Kolnikov asked Heinrich Eck, who was manning the primary sonar console.

'A destroyer with a towed array. He's got a helicopter dipping. I've heard it, but it's too far away to pick up. If we streamed our own towed array, we could triple the range of our system.'

Kolnikov didn't want to stream the sonar array, a raft of hydrophones that could be towed along in the submarine's wake. The array would limit his speed. He looked at his watch. Hours yet.

No, the thing to do was turn north and get away from this destroyer, then come back to a westerly heading in a couple of hours. He gave the order to Turchak, who was at the helm.

'Do you think the Americans have heard us on SOSUS?' Turchak asked.

'No. I think they are just searching.' Addressing Eck, Kolnikov asked, 'Have you heard any patrol planes?' I wo.

'Did either of them cross directly overhead?' He wasn't worried about sonobuoys but about the magnetic signature of the boat, which the magnetic anomaly detectors, MAD, in the patrol planes could pick up if they flew close enough overhead. Theoretically, under ideal conditions the MAD gear could detect a submarine as deep as three thousand feet, but that was theory. The practical limit, Kolnikov knew, was much less. And conditions were