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"Challenger's the fourth fast-attack sub built since Virginia," Ilse said, "a bit of a hybrid though with commonalities to Seawolf, seen by some as an unnecessary step backwards. Challenger has a Seawolf-sized hull envelope, a big propulsion plant, eight extra-wide torpedo tubes, all quite expensive."

Jeffrey nodded.

"She's got all-electric drive by Westinghouse," Ilse said, "with no reduction gears — that part's new, extremely quiet. Third-generation pump-turbine propulsor, like an underwater jet engine, extremely fast."

"Hull number 778," Jeffrey said.

"I know. They've been painted over for the war."

"Exactly what else do you know about Challenger?"

"I've been through SUBSCHOL in New London," Ilse said. "Flooding drills, fire fighting, escape tank swim, the works."

"What did they say about this boat?"

"Just that she's different, and controversial."

"That puts it mildly."

"I suppose I'll find out soon."

Jeffrey glanced away for a moment, then looked back. "You speak American English very well."

"I spent four years in San Diego. I got my Ph.D. from Scripps."

"Impressive."

"So I've been on lots of research ships. Diving is a hobby. And I dated a few navy guys, out of Coronado … No, they didn't blab about your precious submarine. I've been briefed, on the way out here. Only up to a point, apparently, but by COMSUBPAC himself."

"Really?" Jeffrey sounded almost jealous.

"He said this boat's assigned to DEVRON TWELVE, as if that explained everything."

"It would, to a submariner. Development Squadron Twelve. "

"And if you're wondering why they picked a woman, I wasn't their first choice. The other three they tried were men, but none of them had the guts for it." Ilse wriggled her bottom to get more comfortable in the seat. She put the first CD-RW into the drive, worked the console's keyboard, and massaged the trackball with her palm. She called up a menu she knew by heart, then leaned over to talk to the sonar officer, a slightly plump lieutenant sitting to her right. Step one, she presumed, would be to enhance his ocean models, used to compute sonar detection and target counterdetection zones. That should keep her busy for a while.

"Anyway," Jeffrey said, "I'm going forward to talk to Webs."

Ilse hardly noticed.

* * *

The smell of coffee began to fill the air as the messenger put up a fresh pot in a nearby pantry alcove. Then he came around. Ilse and the sonar officer both took their coffee black.

Sonar said his name was Robert Sessions. He looked in his mid-twenties. If war made people older, Ilse told herself, he must be very young. At almost thirty she felt ancient.

"Mmmm," Sessions said, drinking deep. "Caffeine. drug of choice of the Silent Service." Ilse couldn't help smiling. She had some coffee herself, very strong and hot. That's better. She'd slept badly on the plane.

She leaned over to examine Sessions' waterfall displays, which she barely understood. " Whose do you think it is?"

"You mean the other sub?"

Ilse nodded.

Sessions shrugged. "No whiffs at all yet. Doesn't matter much. They're the same designs, right? Same crew training, far as we know, Germany and South Africa."

Like many of the other crewmen, Sessions wore a baseball cap, with the ship's name and number and an emblem. On the emblem was a dragonfish, a black deep-sea creature with a distorted fish's body and a hideous face with long sharp teeth and a dangling luminous barb. The dragonfish was grinning, clutching in its stunted fins a torpedo and a missile. Challenger? Of course! Ilse realized the sub wasn't named for the blown-up space shuttle after all. HMS Challenger was the first dedicated oceanographic research vessel, a British sailing ship in 1872.

Ilse liked the hat. She wanted one.

CHAPTER 2

4 HOURS LATER

"Captain," Jeffrey said, "the boat's closed up at battle stations antisubmarine. We are rigged for ultraquiet. Our course is one eight zero, speed six knots; depth is fifteen hundred feet."

"Very well, Fire Control," Wilson said. At general quarters Jeffrey as XO was fire control coordinator, overseeing Sonar, Weapons, and the TMA — target-motion analysis — team. The captain had the deck and conn as approach coordinator, grand strategist in the upcoming duel.

Jeffrey paced the three steps back to Sonar. "Still nothing, Commander," Sessions said. " We continue tracking Sierra 6, that convoy." Jeffrey leaned between him and Ilse, looking over Sessions' shoulder as he pointed to the wideband and narrowband displays.

"Those are the fast auxiliaries and escorts," Jeffrey said, "heading west to replenish the Reagan carrier battle group."

"Correct, sir," Sessions said. "These thick lines here're the battleship Wisconsin." The display was labeled across the top like an unraveled helix, showing each bearing several times but from different incoming depression/elevation angles. Jeffrey hit a switch on Sessions' console, then read the screen.

"Blade rate on Wisconsin's four shafts says she's doing thirty-one knots."

"She's so noisy we hold contact in the surface duct at a hundred nautical miles."

"Survivable as hell, though," Jeffrey said, "in this sort of war."

"Agreed, sir," Sessions said. "The main thing for big surface units is keep moving fast.

These two contacts are our ASW helos." He tapped a pair of thin lines slanting across the broadband waterfall. "They just relieved the first ones that were running low on fuel."

"They doing ladder searches?" Jeffrey said.

"Yes, sir," Sessions said.

"Dropping sonobuoys or dipping sonar?"

"Intermittent plopping sounds. No pinging yet, so the hostile can't steal echoes off our hull."

Jeffrey nodded. "No sign the helos have a passive contact?"

"Negative, Sir, neither one is circling."

"That would be our cue," Jeffrey said. "Let's hope they hold their fire, on the off chance they pick us up. Them's the rules of engagement — no one wants a blueon-blue." Jeffrey glanced at Ilse, who looked up at him. She was busy rewriting some computer code. Jeffrey thought her lips seemed very sensuous in the subdued control room lighting. Her pupils were nicely dilated. Then he caught himself.

"I've traded e-mails with your onboard systems administrator more than once," Ilse stated. "This change will make better use of real-time surface temperature inputs and static-height anomaly data."

"More accurate water column density gradients?" Jeffrey said.

"Exactly."

"Um, great."

"Sir," Sessions said, "we also have Sierras 7 and 8, Klakring and McClusky, the ASW frigates on the outer picket line. They're intermittent in the second convergence zone, some sixty nautical miles, as they zigzag in their sectors. But nothing submerged."

"We know the enemy's out there somewhere," Jeffrey said. "Integrity's passive towed array heard him running on air-independent propulsion. The PROBSUB's been upgraded to a CERTSUB."

"After we picked up their data dump on EHF," Sessions said, "when we went back to ' scope depth, I looked at it myself. Faint but clear low-frequency tonals from the fuel-cell reactant circulators, looked like a German Klasse 212."

"They probably switched to batteries, at least for now."

Jeffrey knew Integrity was a SWATH — small water-plane twin-hull — a steel catamaran displacing 5,000 tons and "armed" with a twin-line passive towed array. Fully 6,000 feet long, that gear had 180 acoustic channels and was optimized for hunting diesel subs by their near-infrasonic tonals.

As Jeffrey and Sessions huddled, Wilson walked over. "Talk to me," he said.

"Sir," Jeffrey said, "allowing for possible variations in enemy course and speed, our target should be somewhere on an arc to the west of us, within striking distance of our weapons, but we have no datum for a shot."