"Conn, sonar!" McCafferty's head came up.

"Conn, aye," the exec answered.

"Providence has speeded up somewhat, sir. Estimate she's doing ten knots."

"Very well."

"How long was I out?" the captain asked.

"About an hour and a half. You've been awake quite a while, sir, and you weren't snoring loud enough to bother anybody. Sonar is still blank except for our friends."

McCafferty got up and stretched. That wasn't enough. It's catching up with me. Much more of this and I'm more dangerous to my own crew than I am to the Russians.

"Distance to the ice?"

"About twelve thousand yards, near as we can make out."

McCafferty went to look at the chart. Providence had caught up and was even with him now. He didn't like that.

"Go to twelve knots and come right to zero-four-five. He's getting too eager."

"You're right," the exec said after giving the proper orders, "but who can blame him?"

"I can. What the hell does another few minutes matter after all the time it's taken to get this far?"

"Conn, sonar, we have a possible contact bearing zero-six-three. Sounds like machinery noise, very faint. Fading out now. We're getting flow noise that's blanking it out."

"Slow down?" the executive officer asked. The captain shook his head.

"All ahead two-thirds." Chicago accelerated to eighteen knots. McCafferty stared down at the chart. There was something important here that he wasn't seeing. The submarine was still deep, at one thousand feet. Providence still had her tail working, but she was running close to the surface, and that made trouble for her sonar performance. Was Boston running shallow, too? The quartermasters on the fire-control tracking party kept advancing the positions of the two American subs in keeping with the known course and speed of each. Chicago rapidly closed the distance. After half an hour she was broad on Providence's port bow, and McCafferty ordered speed reduced to six knots again. As the submarine slowed, the exterior flow noise abated and her sonars returned to full performance.

"Sonar contact bearing zero-nine-five!"

The plotting team ran a line across the chart. It intersected the previous bearing line... almost exactly between Boston and Providence!

McCafferty bent down to check the depth there-nineteen hundred feet. Deeper than a 688-class sub could dive...

... but not too deep for an Alfa...

"Holy shit!"

He couldn't fire at the contact. The bearing to the target was too close to Providence. If the control wires broke, the fish would go into automatic mode and not care a whit that Providence was a friendly.

"Sonar, go active, Yankee-search on bearing zero-nine-five!"

It took a moment to power-up the system. Then the deep ba-wah sound shook the ocean. McCafferty had meant to alert his comrades. He'd also alerted the Alfa.

"Conn, sonar, I have hull-popping noises and increased machinery noise at bearing zero-nine-five. No target on the scope yet."

"Come on, Todd,!" the captain urged.

"Transients, transients! Boston just increased power, sir-there goes Providence. Torpedoes in the water, bearing zero-nine-five! Multiple torpedoes in the water at zero-nine-five!"

"All ahead full!" McCafferty looked at the plot. The Alfa was perilously close to both subs, behind both, and Providence couldn't run, couldn't dive, couldn't do a Goddamned thing! He could only watch as his fire-control team readied two torpedoes. The Alfa had fired four fish, two at each American boat. Boston changed course west, as did Providence. McCafferty and the exec went to the sonar room.

He watched the contact lines swing left and right across the screen. The thick ones denoted the submarines; the thinner, brighter lines each of the four torpedoes. The two aimed at Providence closed rapidly. The wounded sub was up to twenty knots, and made noise like a gravel truck trying to run. It was clear that she'd never make it. Three noisemakers appeared on the screen, but the torpedoes ignored them. The lines converged to a single point that blossomed bright on the screen.

"They got her, sir," the chief said quietly.

Boston had a better chance. Simms was at full speed now, with the torpedoes less than a thousand yards behind. He, too, deployed noisemakers and made radical changes in course and depth. One torpedo went wild, diving after a decoy and exploding on the bottom. The other locked on Boston and slowly ate up the distance. Another bright dot appeared, and that was that.

"Yankee-search the Alfa," McCafferty said, his voice low with rage. The submarine vibrated with the powerful sonar pulses.

"Bearing one-zero-nine, range thirteen thousand."

"Set!"

"Match and shoot!"

The Alfa didn't wait to hear the incoming torpedoes. Her skipper knew that there was a third sub out there, knew that he'd been pinged. The Soviet sub went to maximum speed and turned east. Chicago's weapons officer tried to move the torpedoes on a closing course, but they had a scant five-knot advantage on the Alfa, and the math was clear: they'd come up two thousand yards short at the end of their fuel. McCafferty was past caring. He too went to flank speed and chased after her for half an hour, coming down to five knots three minutes before the torpedoes ran out of fuel. The flow noise cleared off his sonars just in time to hear the Alfa decelerate safely.

"Okay, now we'll try again." They were three miles from the ice now, and Chicago was quiet. The Alfa turned west, and McCafferty's tracking party gathered data to compute her range. The turn west was a mistake. He evidently expected Chicago to run for the pack and safety.

"Conn, sonar. New contact, bearing zero-zero-three."

Now what? Another Russian trap?"

"I need information!"

"Very faint, but I got a bearing change, just moved to zero-zero-four." A quartermaster looked up from his slide rule. "Range has to be under ten thousand yards, sir!"

"Transients, transients!-torpedo in the water bearing zero-zero-five!"

"Left full rudder, all ahead flank!"

"Bearing change! Torpedo bearing now zero-zero-eight!"

"Belay that order!" McCafferty shouted. The new contact was shooting at the Alfa.

"Jesus, what is this thing?" the sonar chief asked.

The Alfa heard the new fish and reversed course. Again they heard and saw the thunder of the Alfa's engines... but the torpedo closed the distance rapidly.

"It's a Brit. That's one of their new Spearfish. I didn't know they had any in the fleet yet."

"How fast?" the sonar chief asked.

"Sixty or seventy knots."

"Gawd! Let's buy some."

The Alfa ran straight for three miles, then turned north to head for the ice. She didn't make it. The Spearfish cut the corner. The lines on the display merged again, and a final bright dot appeared.

"Bring her around north," McCafferty told the exec. "Go to eighteen knots. I want to be sure he knows who we are."

"We are HMS Torbay. Who are you?"

"Chicago."

"We heard the commotion earlier. Are you alone?" Captain James Little asked

"Yes. The Alfa ambushed us-we're alone."

"We will escort you."

"Understood. Do you know if the mission was successful?"

"Yes, it was."