America

There were none.

'Let's run up the photonics mast for a quick squint, just for the fun of it.'

The sensor head was raised above the surface of the sea for about ten seconds, just long enough for the visual light sensor to make one complete circuit of the horizon and the sky, then it was lowered.

Now Kolnikov and his crew began the leisurely study of the images projected by the computer on one of the bulkhead-mounted flat displays. They found themselves staring at what appeared to be a television picture of the ocean's surface. With the camera in low-light operating mode, the picture looked as if it were daylight above their heads. Boldt slowly rotated the image in a 360-degree circle, then tilted it so the control room watchers could see straight up. No stars visible under the overcast, Kolnikov noted, then told Boldt to again run the image by, only this time much slower. 'Enhance it, let us see if there are any boats or ships on the horizon,' he added.

Nothing. The surface of the sea was empty, just as Revelation said.

Thirty-five minutes passed before Eck reported the array in and stowed. During that time the men drank coffee, water, and the U.S. Navy's ubiquitous orange bug juice and whispered among themselves. The tension grew with each passing minute.

And was released when Kolnikov said, 'Let us begin. Rothberg, the countdown checklist, if you please.' He eyed the clock and the ship's position on the tactical display. The old technology in Tomahawk required that the time of flight to each navigation checkpoint on the route be programmed in before launch, which meant that the missiles had to be launched from precise prechosen locations, so the distance and time would work out properly.

As Rothberg worked the checklist aloud, Kolnikov told Turchak to slow one knot.

Fifteen minutes later the outer door of the first vertical launching tube selected was opened hydraulically. A cap over the missile kept the seawater from reaching it. Seconds later, the encapsulated missile was ejected from its launch tube in a welter of compressed air that generated a subsurface noise that could be heard for a thousand miles. As the missile reached the surface, the booster rocket fired. Seconds later, when the missile's velocity was well over a hundred knots, the turbojet engine lit off, and the first Tomahawk was on its way.

A minute later America launched a second missile, and a minute after that, a third. When all three birds were in the air, Kolnikov had Turchak turn the submarine to the 120-degree heading and began a descent. The power lever by the helmsman was full forward now, asking the engineering plant computer for full power. The submarine accelerated with surprising rapidity. When it reached fifteen hundred feet below the surface, Kolnikov would push the boat hard for a half hour to clear the area, then decelerate to twelve knots. He would like to go faster, but the Americans would be closing and he worried about the noise.

After he shooed the spectators from the control room, Kolnikov checked his watch, carefully scanned the sonar displays, then lit another cigarette.

The secure telephone rang in the Pentagon E-Ring office of the chief of naval operations, Admiral Stalnaker. Despite the hour, he was still there, working on a summary of the weekend's events that the president had requested. He picked up the telephone.

'Sir, Space Command reports that a satellite picked up the launch of a missile in the North Atlantic about one minute ago. Apparently a cruise missile.'

'Where?'

'From the coordinates, the location appears to be about four hundred miles east of Ocean City, Maryland.'

'What are our nearest assets?'

'A patrol plane can be over the area in fifteen minutes. We have an attack submarine two hours away and an ASW destroyer four hours away.'

'Keep me advised.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

The telephone rang twice more, at two-minute intervals. After the third missile launching, the telephone stopped ringing, but Stalnaker couldn't concentrate on his writing. As he waited for the telephone to ring again he went to the window and looked at the lights of Washington glittering in the velvet night.

His days as CNO were numbered, Stalnaker reflected. Within a few days, a week or two at the most, the president would ask him to file retirement papers, and of course he would have to do it. A stolen submarine, missiles raining down on America… It was conceivable that a board of inquiry might someday say he was derelict in his duties. No wonder captains often elected to go down with their ships.

He shouldn't be thinking of himself and his career at a moment like this, but hell — he was only human. Damnation! That all those years of work and sweat and achievement should have to come to this I

The silence was oppressive.

Stuffy Stalnaker grabbed his hat and walked out of the office, headed for the war room.

Aboard America, Eck heard the throb of the P-3 Orion's engines as it approached the area and reported it to Kolnikov, who looked at his watch. Fourteen minutes had passed since the last missile was launched. Maybe the crew of the Orion saw the missiles come out of the water. Or a satellite did. Or maybe they were just flying by.

'Sonobuoy,' Eck said when he heard the splash.

Okay, the patrol plane wasn't just flying by.

Kolnikov checked the tactical display. The computers displayed the sonobuoys, which went in on a general search pattern.

The sub was descending through twelve hundred feet, making twenty-two knots.

The patrol plane would put buoys in a circle around the launch site, hoping to pick up the sub as it went under one of them. Well, we will find out just how quiet this boat is, Kolnikov thought.

'All ahead one-third,' he told Turchak, who adjusted the power lever.

'Level at fifteen hundred feet,' Kolnikov added. 'I want to motor straight out of the area. If they hear us they'll tell us all about it. Rothberg, be ready to launch decoys if they put a weapon in the water, but don't do anything until I tell you. They may drop something to panic us.'

'Like a fake torpedo,' Boldt suggested.

'That would panic me,' said Turchak.

'No, it wouldn't,' Kolnikov replied. 'You're tough, like the steel of a Soviet hammer. All the men of the submarine forces are tough. Isn't that what the politicians always said?'

'Those assholes who had never even been out on a park pond in a rowboat?'

'Those are the ones,' Kolnikov agreed.

The foreign liaison officers were gone when Jake got back to the office. Toad Tarkington was there, waiting for him.

'They went out of here like their underwear was on fire,' Toad told him. 'I think Ilin ran for the subway.'

'I've got a car and driver waiting outside,' the admiral told the commander. 'The commandant has called the White House for me. They'll let us through the gate over there if we go now.'

In the car on the way over, Jake didn't say anything of importance. The driver, a navy petty officer, didn't need to hear any of this.

At the White House the gate guard examined their ID cards and Pentagon building passes and waved them through. A military aide met them in the driveway and led them to a small office in the basement. The walls were painted government puke green. It could have been an office in the basement of any government building in the country. Fifteen minutes after they arrived, Jake was handed a classified transcript.

He signed the disclosure sheet and passed it to Toad, who also signed his name. The transcript was so highly classified that the aide sat in the room and watched them read it, to be sure they didn't make notes or steal pages.

Jake opened the file and began reading. It took him twenty minutes to read the entire transcript, which covered the events of Saturday morning, from the notification that intruders were boarding America until she submerged two hours and forty-one minutes later. When he finished he passed the transcript to Toad and sat lost in thought while Toad read the pages.

'What is Cowbell?' Toad asked when he finished the transcript.

'I don't know,' Jake replied. He opened the transcript to a page he had dog-eared and read it again. After he