America

were intruders.

'Tell me if he comes back,' Kolnikov said. He kept his attention on the ghostly shape of La Jolla on the flat-screen display. The noise generated by the prop pushing water shone like a floodlight on the presentation. Eck had softened the gain somewhat on the presentation to keep the light from overpowering the rest of the submarine. All sonar images were fuzzy, of course, but the computer cleaned up this one and gave it a tangible reality that made it leap at the viewer.

'The P-3 probably got us on MAD,' Eck said. Kolnikov was too calm. The man just didn't seem to understand that their lives were at stake here.

Eck glanced at Kolnikov, was nodding affirmatively, a tiny up-and-down jerking of the head. Then it stopped. He was intent on La Jolla.

Two minutes ago he had picked up the sound of water passing around the array cable. After Eck designated noises on that frequency for the computer to sort out and display, the cable was visible on the port Revelation displays, a pencil-thin line that stretched from the port side of the submarine, above America, and disappeared astern. The thought struck him that the cable looked like a power line along a highway.

'He's turning and moving away,' Kolnikov said to Turchak, who was at the helm control station. 'Stay with him.'

'I'm going to have to add a few turns.'

'Okay.'

'He knows we're back here,' Turchak said softly, trying not to alarm Eck or the kibitzers. 'He's started the dance to see if we'll stay with him.'

'Surely not. We're too quiet. Turn on the sail lights, poke the photonics mast up a few feet and turn on the camera. Let's see if we can get this guy on television.'

Rothberg scurried aft and raised the mast. Turchak flipped on the sail's floodlights, used primarily to light the gangway at night when the sub was against a pier.

Yes. After the image was enhanced by the low-light illuminator, there she was, La Jolla, on the forward screen, dim and ghostly.

'Try the blue-green illuminator,' Kolnikov said over his shoulder to Rothberg, who was still at the photonics console.

'That might set off alarms,' Turchak objected. Blue-green was often used by airborne and space-based sensors for submarine detection.

'Okay, ultraviolet,' Kolnikov muttered.

In ultraviolet the American attack boat was slightly clearer. Kolnikov, Turchak, and Rothberg discussed frequencies for a bit, then Rothberg changed the freq of the blue-green illuminator slightly, taking it off the freq they thought most likely to be expected, and tried that. La Jolla leaped clearly into view.

Several minutes passed. La Jolla turned again, five or six degrees back to the right.

'Stick like glue. He can't hurt us from that position, and no one else will shoot with him there.'

'And if he manages to break away?'

'He doesn't know we're here,' Kolnikov assured his friend. 'We'll stick with him until the P-3 leaves, or any other antisubmarine forces that enter the area, then drop astern and break away.' 'I think he knows we're here.'

'So. What can he do? We are within the minimum range of his torpedoes, they wouldn't travel far enough to arm, and he can't turn them back across his wake due to the safety interlocks. And if he tries to break away we'll gun him the instant he crosses our minimum range line.'

Aboard La Jolla, Junior Ryder was examining his options. He had turned his boat fifteen degrees to the right and put in turns for six knots. He and his XO, Commander Skip Harlow, were listening to the raw sonar audio. As the boat's speed increased, it seemed to Junior that the gurgling noise got louder. He asked Harlow and Buck Brown what they thought.

Both nodded. Yes.

Then he turned the boat five degrees back to the right, to see if the noise would follow. It did.

'That fucking Russian has his nose up our ass,' Harlow murmured. Sweat glistened on his forehead and ran down the crevices of his face. He swabbed at his face with his hand.

'He can't shoot us from there,' Junior said thoughtfully, 'but if he breaks away..'

'If he breaks away, we can shoot too.'

'He didn't shoot us when he had us cold,' Junior Ryder said slowly, thinking out loud. 'He heard us, probably even knows what boat this is, knows we're hunting him, and he didn't shoot.'

'He isn't hunting us,' Harlow said without conviction. 'We're hunting him.'

'Oh, man!' Combat wasn't supposed to be like this, Ryder thought bitterly.

'So what do you want to do, Skipper?'

'I sure as hell don't want this asshole killing my crew. That's for damn sure. I want a high-percentage shot and I want to give him a low-percentage one.'

Harlow leaned over to speak softly to Brown. 'Is this contact America? Are you sure?'

'I don't have positive verification from the system,' Petty Officer Brown explained. 'I'm not sure of anything, sir. We have the signature of America in the computer, but they're going too slow for me to get anything but this gurgle.'

'What if it's some Russian boat?' Harlow asked his commanding officer. 'Some Russian skipper who thinks he's cute?'

'If that boat were Russian we would have heard him. Russian boats aren't this quiet. What do you suggest? You want to give this guy the first shot, just to be sure?'

Skip Harlow thought about it. The lives of everyone on this boat were on the line. So were the lives of everyone on the submarine following La Jolla.

One thing was absolutely certain: If La Jolla made it back to port, every decision made aboard her was going to be weighed by a board of senior officers seated around a long green table. Good judgment was absolutely essential at all times, yet there were always a host of unknowns in every combat situation. Harlow well knew that in the United States Navy the system was biased in favor of those captains who acted aggressively in the face of the enemy. Much would be forgiven a man who waded in swinging. The legacy of John Paul Jones was alive and well. Still, sinking an allied submarine would not be career enhancing.

'Stealing America was an act of war,' he said finally, hoping this commanding officer would get his drift. Ryder did. He nodded once, seeming to make up his mind as he did so.

'Go back to our base course, slow to four knots,' Ryder said to the chief of the boat, who gave the appropriate orders to his two helmsmen. 'XO, let's set up snapshots on four torpedoes. Quietly. Any shot we get will be minimum range, point and shoot.'

'Do you think he'll give us a shot, Skipper?' the chief of the boat asked.

'Oh, yes. Eventually. He didn't shoot when he had a free shot, when we didn't know he was there. He could have, but he didn't. In my opinion, he thinks that boat he's in is undetectable. He's going to let us be his shield while that patrol plane is in the area. Sooner or later those guys are going to leave. When we're all alone, Kolnikov and friends are going to try to sneak away. When they cross our minimum range line, we'll let 'em have it.'

Shooting someone in the back who declined to shoot at you wasn't very sporting, but that thought didn't even cross Junior Ryder's mind. Buck Brown thought of it, but he bit his tongue. Those guys stole America, they killed six sailors. They had earned their tickets to hell.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jake Grafton and Janos Ilin learned of the missile strike on New York City when they turned on the television in the kitchen of the house they were in, somewhere west of Manassas and a half mile or so north of Interstate 66.