Vigdis acted for him. His hand slid away as she turned to him and buried her head against his shoulder. Here I am holding the prettiest girl I ever met in one hand, Edwards thought, and a Goddamned fish in the other. That was easily solved. Edwards dropped the fish, wrapped both arms around her, and held on tight.

"Are you all right?"

She looked up at his face. "I think yes."

There was only one word for what he felt toward the girl in his arms. Edwards knew this wasn't the time, and wasn't the place, but the look and the word remained. He kissed her gently on the cheek. The smile that answered him counted more than all the passionate encounters of his life.

"Excuse me, folks," Sergeant Smith said from a few feet away.

"Yeah." Edwards disengaged himself. "Let's get moving before they decide to come back."

USS CHICAGO

Things were going well. American P-3C Orions and British Nimrods were scouting the route to the icepack. The submarines had been forced to detour east around one suspected Russian submarine, but that was all. Ivan was sending most of his boats south, it seemed, confident that the Norwegian Sea was under his control. Another six hours to the pack.

Chicago was drifting now, finished with her turn at the head of the "freight train" procession of submarines. Her sonar gear searched the black water for the telltale noise of a Russian submarine. They heard nothing but the distant growling of the icepack.

The tracking team plotted the position of the other American submarines. McCafferty was glad to see they had trouble doing so, even with America's best sonar equipment. If they had trouble, so would the Russians. His crew looked to be in good shape. Three days on the beach had counted for a lot. The beer supplied by the Norwegian skipper, plus word on what their Harpoon had done in Chicago's one real engagement, had counted for even more. He'd already briefed the crew on their current mission. The information was accepted quietly, with a couple of jokes about going back home-to the Barents Sea.

"That was Boston, skipper," the XO said. "Now we're the caboose."

McCafferty walked back to examine the chart. Everything looked okay, but he checked everything carefully. With so many submarines running the same course track, the risk of collision was real. A quartermaster ran down the list of the sister subs that had passed Chicago. The skipper was satisfied.

"All ahead two-thirds," he ordered. The helmsman acknowledged the order and twisted the annunciator dial.

"Engine room answers all ahead two-thirds."

"Very well. Left ten degrees rudder. Come to new course three-four-eight."

Chicago accelerated to fifteen knots, taking her station at the end of the column as the freight train raced to the Arctic.

31 - Demons

"Left full rudder!" Morris screamed, pointing at the torpedo's wake.

"Right full rudder, aye!" the helmsman replied, spinning the wheel right, then left, then centering it.

Morris stood on the port bridge wing. The sea was flat calm, and the torpedo's wake was clearly visible, following every turn and maneuver the frigate made. He even tried reversing, and that didn't work-the torpedo appeared to go sideways. It stopped dead in the water and rose to the surface where he could see it. It was white, with what seemed to be a red star on the nose... and it had eyes, like all homing torpedoes. He ordered flank speed, but the torpedo stayed with him on the surface now, skimming along like a flying fish, clearly visible to all who could see-but only Morris saw it.

It closed ever so slowly as the frigate maneuvered. Fifty feet, thirty, ten...

"Where did my daddy go?" the little girl asked. "I want my daddy!"

"What's the problem, skipper?" the exec asked. This was very strange, because he didn't have a head.

Sweat poured from Morris's face as he bolted upright in his bed, his heart racing, The digital clock on the headboard said 4:54. Ed got up and walked shakily into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. The second time tonight, he thought. Twice more during the tow back to Boston the nightmare had come, robbing him of the few hours of rest he allowed himself. Morris wondered if he had screamed in his sleep.

You did everything you could have done. It's not your fault, he told the face in the mirror.

But you were the captain, it replied.

Morris had gotten through five homes when he'd had to stop. It was one thing to talk to wives and parents. They understood. Their sons and husbands were sailors, and had taken a sailor's risk. But the four-year-old daughter of Gunner's Mate Second Class Jeff Evans had not understood why her daddy would never come home again. A second-class petty officer didn't make much, Morris knew. Evans must have worked like a madman on that little house to make it as neat as it was. A good man with his hands, he remembered, a good gunner's mate. Every wall was newly painted. Much of the interior woodwork had been replaced. They'd been in the house only seven months, and Morris wondered how the petty officer had found the time to get all that work done. He had to have done it himself No way he could have afforded contractors. Ginny's room had been a testimony to her father's love. Dolls from all over the world had stood on hand-made shelves. As soon as he'd seen Ginny's room, Morris had had to leave. He'd felt himself on the verge of breaking down, and some absurd code of conduct wouldn't allow him to do that in front of strangers. So he'd left and driven home, with the rest of the list tucked back in his wallet. Certainly the fatigue that had enveloped him would allow him a night's sleep...

But now he stood in front of the mirror, looking at a man with hollow eyes who wished his wife were there.

Morris went out to the kitchen of his one-story house and went mindlessly through the process of making coffee. The morning paper was on the doorstep, and he found himself reading stories about the war that he knew to be inaccurate or out of date. Things were happening much too fast for reporters to keep up. There was an eyewitness account from an unnamed destroyer about a missile that had leaked through her missile defenses. An "analysis" piece explained how surface warships were obsolete in the face of determined missile attacks and asked where the fleet's vaunted carriers were. That, he thought, was a pretty good question.

Morris finished his coffee and returned to the bathroom for a shower. If he had to be awake, he thought, he might as well be at work. He had one set of undress whites in the closet. He donned them a few minutes

later and walked out to his car. It was already first light when he drove to the Norfolk Navy Base.

Forty minutes later he was in one of several operations rooms, where the positions of convoys and suspected submarine locations were plotted. On the far wall the threat board listed estimated Russian assets and the numbers and types of kills accumulated to date. Another wall showed losses. If the intel guys were right, he thought, the war at sea had the look of a draw-but for the Russians a draw was the same as a win.

"Good morning, Commander," COMNAVSURFLANT said. Another man who had not slept very much. "You look a little better."

Better than what? Morris wondered.

"We have some good news for a change."