America

One of them was sobbing.

The needle on the depth gauge quivered as the boat tilted, the aft end sinking and the bow rising. There was too much water aft.

'Shit!' shouted the chief of the boat over the voices and the noise of tortured steel. 'It ain't gonna work.'

He was right. The needle on the depth gauge began moving clockwise. The boat was going deeper.

'Oh, Jesus,' someone exclaimed. Then the sea crushed the bulkheads aft and the air pressure increased astronomically, rupturing every eardrum, collapsing lungs and eyeballs in the microsecond before the wall of water hit them like a flying anvil.

And then they were dead.

Kolnikov recognized the ripping, tearing, crushing noise after the torpedo detonation for what it was. He immediately turned his attention to the Springs. He had one torpedo on the way, which the attack sub might well avoid.

He checked the combat computer to ensure that the remaining torpedoes in the tubes were getting presets. One was receiving range and bearings to Colorado Springs, the other to what was now the wreck of La Jolla. He flooded the tube, opened the outer door, and launched the torpedo that was tracking the Springs. Then he set up the remaining fish to track her too.

He turned away from the combat computer and stood in the center of the room looking at the Revelation panels. Noises were still coming from La Jolla as metal tore and she was crushed, compartment by compartment. Revelation displayed her agony as random flashes and smears of light that were brighter than the general glow of the acoustic decoy area, which was beginning to cool off.

The torpedoes fired at the Springs were two streaks that led away into the darkness.

Twenty-six thousand yards, about thirteen miles, the torpedoes would need a little over nineteen minutes to traverse that distance. And no doubt that sub had fired torpedoes in this direction that would require about the same amount of time to arrive.

America was still accelerating. Kolnikov directed Turchak to turn to ninety degrees off the bearing to the Springs. With a lot of luck he might run out of the detection cone of the incoming torpedoes, for undoubtedly there was more than one. He didn't expect to succeed in this maneuver, but he thought it worth a try. In any event, he would have the torpedoes in his stern quarter. When they were close enough, he would begin turning into therrt, tighter and tighter, trying to bring them forward of the beam and force an overshoot.

At the same time, he would trigger the active acoustic defense. He had only two more antitorpedo weapons, and he didn't want to use them here unless forced into it. On the other hand, as Turchak pointed out, it is silly to die holding a loaded gun you refused to shoot.

'Let's pray there are no more than two torpedoes inbound,' he said aloud.

'I didn't know you prayed,' Turchak muttered, and wiped his hands on his trousers.

'SUBLANT says to go in,' the TACCO told Duke Dolan. 'And we have explosions. Breakup noises.'

Duke Dolan turned his attention to the autopilot. He studied it carefully, gingerly turned the heading control to bring the big plane out of its turn and steady on the proper heading. Then he retarded the throttles and lowered the nose several degrees.

He did everything slowly, trying to concentrate, trying to block out the thought of dying men.

To die on such a day.

God forgive us.

'I can hear torpedoes running,' Eck said as he worked feverishly to get accurate bearings. Kolnikov could hear them too through the sonar headset he was wearing, but mainly he was listening to the sounds of La Jolla being crushed. The noises had about stopped. There was nothing left to crush as the wreckage sank slowly toward the ocean's floor, here about sixteen thousand feet below the surface.

More torpedoes were running. Life or death?

The deciding factor, Kolnikov hoped, would be the antitorpedo countermeasures. Americas were two technological generations beyond the countermeasures in the Los Angeles— class boats. Seawolf was the generation between them. If he encountered Seawolf he would shoot fast and first.

Perhaps he should not have fired at the Springs. The other boat might have been unable to resolve a firing solution.

Well, it was done. Perhaps the Springs would successfully evade and he could slip away.

Or perhaps he and Turchak and Eck and all the others would die right here in just a few minutes when the torpedoes arrived.

Kolnikov didn't really believe in God, not as He was depicted by organized religions. He believed that there was something bigger than man, bigger than life, but he didn't know what. He hadn't thought about it much, either. He would learn all the answers soon enough.

He could hear the incoming torpedoes now, pick them out of the background noise… part of which was the Springs's noisemakers and bubble generators. The devil of it was that he couldn't tell how far away they were. He glanced at the clock.

Eleven minutes had passed. Running time should be a bit over nineteen if the Springs had fired at a target with a known range. Probably she hadn't. The Mk-48 torpedo was probably cruising at forty knots, searching as it came. That would make the running time. . what? He tried to do the mental arithmetic and couldn't. He did it on a piece of paper lying nearby.

Nineteen minutes, forty seconds.

Twelve minutes gone. .

Heydrich was sitting negligently in one of the chairs at an unused sonar console. He was watching Eck, the Revelation displays, Boldt, and Kolnikov. Just taking it all in, like a man whiling away the remainder of a lunch hour.

Kolnikov felt a rush of anger. He turned his back on Heydrich so he wouldn't have to look at him.

Thirteen minutes…

Boldt was chewing his fingernails, tearing at them. Sweat ran in rivulets down the cheeks of Georgi Turchak; the few remaining strands of hair on top of his head were sodden. He had the boat under perfect control, right at twenty knots, which was about as fast as the boat would go and still remain reasonably quiet. Eck was working like a madman at the sonar control panel, resolving the bearing, tweaking it, ensuring that the information was being fed to the computer-driven tactical plot. And Leon Rothberg, the American? He was staring listlessly at the bulkhead, his eyes apparently unfocused. Perhaps he was the only sane one among them.

Kolnikov studied the tactical plot. The torpedoes were curving in behind in a tail chase, one trailing the other. Alas, he had not managed to get outside their acquisition zone.

'Ten degrees left rudder, Turchak… Little more rudder… A little nose down, a few more turns. . Boldt, fire off the hull transducers, let's see if we can make the torpedoes pass behind.'

He looked up from the tactical plot to the Revelation screen on the port side. There was the first torpedo, a luminous streak curving in, growing larger, closing.. And the second, well behind, following the first. The distinctive high-pitched noise of their seekers squealed in his earphones; on the Revelation screen it looked as if the incoming torpedoes were sporting a single headlight each.

Should he launch an antitorpedo torpedo? Both of them?

'Full left rudder, Turchak. Wrap it up tight.'

At these grazing angles, the hull-mounted active acoustic coun-termeasure should be effective — the antitorpedo weapon probably would be the best choice for a torpedo coming in on the beam. Might get one of those tomorrow, he thought. Or in an hour.

Closer and closer came the rushing torpedo… and at the last instant turned to go behind the ship. He turned and saw it going away on the after starboard screen.

Back to port. One to go.

Racing in, tighter than the last one.