He rolled out of bed.

'Bob?'

'I think Av Rutherford is in danger. I've got to make some calls.'

'Do you want me to get up?'

'No, that's crazy; you've got to be fresh in court at nine.'

He pulled on some sweatpants in lieu of a robe and fumbled out the door to the stairs. In the kitchen he blinked in the glare as he tripped the light. He punched the familiar number into the phone, missed the next to last digit in his bleariness, swore, and punched it again. He requested the night radio operator to call him on a secure line. As he awaited the call, he grabbed a note pad and tried to figure out if the Novorossiisk had been right on Danielson's magic trajectory. He was still too befogged and the numbers too cumbersome. But it was plausible. Too plausible! This thing they chased not only moved through the earth and oceans, it punched holes in ships!

As he stared at his scribbled notes on the pad, he slowly became aware of the smell of fresh coffee permeating his nostrils. He looked up to see Muriel fetching cups and saucers out of the cabinet. She caught his mixed look of guilt and irritation that she should be up tending to him and headed him off.

'I can use an early start, too. I need to polish my strategy.'

Her husband still looked disgruntled.

'Besides,' she continued, 'if I beat my minions in to work on a Monday morning it will fire them with such defensive zeal that we'll just blow the opposition out of court.'

Isaacs smiled wanly at this image and rose to hug her from behind.

'All right, counsellor, you win. Let's have some coffee.'

He broke off his embrace suddenly at the sound of the telephone, whirling to grab it in mid ring. He sat and hunched over the receiver as if to make it part of him.

'Hello? Yes?' He repeated a sequence of code numbers. 'Right. I want you to patch a call through the Navy. Top Priority. For Captain Avery Rutherford on the Destroyer USS Stinson. It's on patrol in the Atlantic. Yes, I know what time it is. What's a satellite link for? It's two hours later on that ship. Yes, I understand, but this is extremely urgent.' He glanced at his watch. 4:38. Nine minutes until contact. 'Yes, I know you will. Yes, immediately please. Thank you.'

He hung up the phone. 'Problem?'

'Not in principle, it's just that our vaunted instantaneous satellite communication net is designed to function from various war rooms, not from cosy Georgetown kitchens.'

He lapsed into tense silence, glancing at the coffee pot, his watch, the phone. Time dragged slowly. After an excruciating interval, the coffee maker stopped gurgling, sighed its readiness. He looked at his watch for the tenth time. 4:40. Seven minutes. How long would it take to move the ship if they did get through? Several minutes? When would it be too late? He did not look up when Muriel put the coffee in front of him. He took a few sips and then watched it steam away its heat, its life force. 4:44. Three minutes, probably too late, anyway. He felt ill.

The phone rang. He jerked the receiver to his ear.

'Mr Isaacs?'

'Yes!'

'I've got the Stinson. They're looking for Captain Rutherford. Will you hold on?' 'Yes, of course. He'll be on the bridge.'

Isaacs could hear the operator relay this message to the radio man on the Stinson. Then he spoke to Isaacs again.

'Bit of a crunch there, sir. They seem to be in the middle of an operation.'

'Yes, I know.'

There was a long pause.

'Sir?' The voice sounded worried.

'What is it?'

'There seemed to be some kind of ruckus there, and then I lost contact.'

'You what?'

'I'm sorry, sir. I lost contact with the Stinson.'

Isaacs remained silent a long moment.

'Sir?'

'Okay. Try to get them back. Call me when you do.'

'Yes, sir.'

Isaacs hung the receiver on its wall cradle and then slowly lowered his head onto his hands. Seated next to him, Muriel reached a hand to his bare shoulder, her face drawn with concern.

The sea lay calm and the rising sun burned along the gentle swells.

The routine of the previous session repeated. Rutherford took a position on the bridge and stood checking the liquid crystal digits as they swapped on his watch. As the time counted down to scarce minutes, an orderly stepped onto the bridge.

'Captain Rutherford?'

Rutherford swivelled to face the young man.

'Yes? What is it?'

'Sir, you have a call on the radiophone.'

'I can't take it now! Tell them if it's important to hold on for a few minutes.'

The orderly sensed the tension and stepped back against the bulkhead to watch as Rutherford turned to scan the ocean. Within seconds of the predicted time, the sonar room reported.

'Here she comes!'

Allowing for the inaccuracies in the calculations, Rutherford had stationed the ship precisely at the point where surfacing was most probable. These inaccuracies plus the intrinsic meandering of the position convinced him they would be very lucky to be within several hundred yards of the event. He hoped they would be able to see something to help clear up the mystery.

'Coming straight up! Right underneath us!'

Just so, ruminated Rutherford. At great depths, small lateral offsets in position were difficult to detect. On his watch, the minute digit shifted up by one. Ten seconds.

'Two thousand metres!' squawked the sonar room link. 'Uh, Captain? It's still headed right for us!'

In a corner of his mind, a thought began to dawn on Rutherford. Maybe they had been too brash, forsaking a second distant observation. Our measurements aren't exact, he thought, the thing does wander a little erratically. How confident can I be that our best estimate is wrong, that it will surface nearby, but not exactly where I predicted? What if the small random motion just offsets our position errors and we are correct by blind luck? Even worse, what if many periods are required before the random motion causes an appreciable change in the position of surfacing? Suppose over the small time span since the last event there has been negligible change and my predictions are precisely correct?

He wanted to be nearby, but, with a sinking feeling he knew he did not want to be exactly on the point of surfacing.

The sonar room began the final countdown. There was no time to move the ship anyway.

'Five.'

'Four.'

'Three.'

'Two.'

'One.'

'Ze-'

Chapter 7

A small hole appeared in the thick plate of the hull just to the port side of the keel. A disturbance winked through the fuel oil stored in the large ballast tank shaped to the hull. Brief instants later similar holes were created in the top of the fuel tank and then in the floor of the engine room. In the next moment a deep score ran across the shaft atone of the four large General Electric gas turbines. A crack sprang out from this defect augmented by the huge centrifugal force, and the multibladed shaft went careening like a rip saw towards the turbine casing as yet another hole penetrated the ceiling of the engine room. On went the succession of holes as if on a rising plumbline, through decks, furniture, equipment, until a last long gash ripped through the floor of the helicopter pad.

' — ro!'

The damaged turbine exploded, filling the engine compartment with high velocity titanium'-blade shrapnel and burning fuel. Weakened by the small incident hole, the floor buckled under the disintegrated turbine. Flame leapt down along the vapours leading to the fuel tank. After the briefest hiatus, the fuel tank exploded. The force of this release was directed upward along the rising line of perforations. The penetrated structural members gave way, and a violent stream of shredded metal and superheated gas blew a cavity upward into the guts of the ship. The explosion also tore like a rocket into the surrounding water. In reaction, the destroyer listed rapidly and severely to starboard. As the ship pendulumed back to port, water rushed into the new gaping hole and splashed upward following the path of the blast into the ship. Great portions of the upper midship sections filled with water. The ship was rendered top-heavy. As it rebounded, its natural capacity to right itself was destroyed, and it carried on over. In the space of a minute the Stinson capsized, floating bottom up, the ragged hole in the hull aimed at the sun, narrowly above the horizon. A handful of men survived. Avery Rutherford was not among them.