Red Shark

“First Officer, plot back the course the American shaped off his base course. Check the time line and find out when he broke off. Time it out to see how far he could have steamed. He’s not moving at high speed, so he must be within the intercept zone we blocked out on the chart, or at least near it. I want all tubes on ready status.”

“Aye, sir. The reload is complete and Fire-control is set to accept fresh target data.”

“Very well. Now get me that plot-back.”

“Break-up noises?” Park asked.

“None, Comrade Captain.”

“And no torpedoes have been fired for over thirty minutes,” Park offered. “Then they must be hunting for each other.” Park went to the chart table to pinpoint the position of the last set of explosions.

“The attack will draw Chinese naval and air units to the area,” Park said. “If they drop a net over the region, China will be at war with the U.S. and with us, too. Prepare to change course to due south in approximately thirty minutes. From that point on we will hunt for a merchant ship suitable for use as a decoy.”

A light marked Engine Room went on over the ship’s interior communications board. A sailor punched a square button on the board and lifted the phone from its cradle. “Captain, the chief engineer—”

Park didn’t take the call. Instead he sprinted aft to see what had happened.

“Got something here, Captain.”

Scott and the sonar officer peered over the chief’s shoulder. “Merchantman,” Scott said.

“Yes, sir, a big one,” the chief remarked. “Maybe one of those hundred-and-eighty-thousand-dead-

weight-ton cargo ships outa Japan. Probably heard all the noise and detoured to investigate.”

“Great. Next we’ll have the PLAN breathing down our necks.”

“Them too, sir. But see this?” The chief pointed to a thin tonal line working its way down the BSY-2’s waterfall, almost hidden among all the broadband noise.

“Residual from that merchie?”

“Not sure. Sir, could you shift the boat right maybe ten degrees, so I can get a better listen on this?”

Scott gave the order; the Reno turned right until her big bow sonar dome was pointing at the source of the noise.

“Better. Got a tonal. It’s like embedded in the merchie, but I don’t think it is.”

Scott straightened and worked a kink from his back. “Where do you want her, Chief? Another ten degrees right?”

“That might do it, sir.”

Scott made the change and waited patiently for the tonal to strengthen. It didn’t. The merchant vessel, her mammoth diesel pounding relentlessly, drew closer, the passage of her sheer bulk through the water masking all other sounds. Minutes later, the embedded trace vanished.

“Stay with it, Chief,” said Scott. He returned to the control room, feeling shot through with fatigue.

“Captain, let me spell you,” Kramer said.

“Thanks, Rus, I’ll do my part. Everyone else is.”

The atmosphere in the control room and throughout the ship felt tense, strained, the men still at battle stations, the ship rigged for ultra-quiet. To Scott, it felt as if the fabric was about to rip wide open, a sense of urgency straining the seams, a sense of something slipping away, the fact of it a mocking defeat.

Scott’s mind slid back to the hours he’d spent in Tokyo with Tracy. It was always the same: brutal, intense, a gnawing hunger sated, then the downward spiral. Even in Tokyo she’d held him captive. Now, she’d take his failure to call her at the Embassy as a deliberate rejection. He almost laughed out loud. Tracy’s ultimate weapon was jealousy. That and her uncanny ability to make him crave her.

“Conn, Sonar…”

The tonal waterfall had thickened, no longer embedded in the tonals from the merchie.

“Bearing’s steady, sir, and it ain’t the merchie.”

“Master One?”

“I think so.”

“Are we plugged into Fire-control?”

“Yes, sir,” said the sonar officer, who looked as drained as Scott.

“Where’s that merchie?” Scott asked.

“We’re calling him Sierra Three. He’s almost over the detonation site, hasn’t slowed though.”

“Maybe he’ll keep on going,” Scott muttered, “if he doesn’t find anything.”

Scott saw movement in the doorway out to the control room. The communications officer said, “Captain, we’re getting an incoming RDT. Eyes Only.”

“Ignore it. I don’t have time now.”

“Sir, pardon me, it’s a Must Read Priority.”

Scott felt like a pricked balloon. “All right. Patch it into my stateroom.”

Scott looked into Fumiko’s dark, expressive eyes. He wanted to touch her but had to settle for viewing her image, crisply clear and vital, delivered by satellite to the submerged Reno.

“Jake, are you all right?”

“We’re alive. Trying to stay that way.”

After a pause, she said, “I didn’t thank you for what you did in Noda. You saved my life, and I don’t know how to express what I feel.”

“We all got out; that’s what matters.”