Red Shark

“Why not here, of all places?”

Her mouth was on his, tongue probing deep, hands fumbling with his zipper. She pulled it down and was inside his shorts when she felt Scott’s steel grip around her wrist.

“You’re hurting me — What’s the matter, afraid you’ll come in your pants—?”

He clamped a hand over her mouth. “Shhh. Listen.”

He took his hand away from her mouth, zipped up, then motioned that she should get behind him and stay there. He went to the door and listened.

“It’s quiet,” he whispered. “Too quiet. This place normally goes twenty-four-seven.”

The whores and their johns had vanished. The inn was dead silent save for a creak from its ancient timbers. Even the steady hiss of traffic from the street out front seemed to have died.

Scott doused the lantern, then took Tracy’s hand. “Come on, time for us to get out of here.”

The sonar technician seated at the Kilo’s MGK Rubikon monitors alerted Zemin. Zemin studied the thin green blip working down the screen; UNIDENTIFIED flashed red at the bottom. Zemin scratched his cheek. “Range to the target?”

“Fire-control reports approximately twenty thousand yards, Captain. But as you know, sir, the margin for error is great with such a weak contact.”

Zemin factored that into his still sketchy strategy for identifying the target, which was on a southerly heading, and, according to information radioed from the SH-5 amphibian, inside Grid 21X due east of Rongcheng.

Zemin moved cautiously. He knew the Kilo’s integrated fire-control/sonar system, good as it was, sometimes faltered when given weak low-frequency tones to process for target identification. Should he bend on more speed, close in and risk being detected by the intruder, or should he trail him at a safe distance and learn nothing? Zemin looked at the monitor: The narrowband trace had not fattened at all.

“Very well. Comrade First Officer, both motors ahead together one-third. We’ll close slowly. Maintain our present course.”

“Aye, Captain.” The first officer moved off to relay orders and to update his electronic data pad.

“Sonar watch,” Zemin said.

“Sir.”

“Do not take your eyes off that band. Let me know the moment it changes.”

“Aye, sir.”

Zemin thought about his uncle, the hunter, and recalled the American 688I he’d flushed off Matsu Shan: We will creep like a cat, then step like a bull to make this bird take wing too.

Park and Kang emerged from the Red Shark’s cramped and steaming engine room. Their inspection of the polymer electrolyte membrane, an essential part of the hydrogen fuel cell, revealed that a valve in the main bleeder line connected to the hydrogen burner had iced up. The ice had created a backup in the line, which in turn had caused a bulge to develop around a welded joint behind the valve. This event had resulted in a measurable buildup of pressure in the fuel cell. Park knew there was no safe way to relieve the pressure buildup from inside the submarine’s hull. All such valving was located in the superstructure, out of reach.

Park stood in the engine room, wiping his hands on cotton waste, listening to Kang’s assessment of the situation, when the Captain’s Light in the overhead began flashing again. This time Park saw CONTROL ROOM on the LCD and dashed forward, where he was directed into the sonar cubicle by the first officer.

“Captain, sonar contact, very faint,” reported the sonar watch officer. “Bearing zero-two-three.” The excited officer wiped his burnished face with a sleeve.

“Put it on external,” Park ordered.

The officer toggled an audio interlock on the DBQS sonar system. A quiet, stuttering hiss emerged from the speaker mounted flush with the workstation’s top surface. Park inclined his head, listened, and frowned. “Turn count?”

“Thirty turns — four knots, sir. Range coming on, sir.”

Park glanced up at the integrated displays. The Konsberg MSI-90U system kept recycling, hunting for data it needed.

Park swung into the control room and snapped, “Helm! Come left to one-two-zero.”

The officer of the watch relayed the order and acknowledged with, “Aye, Captain.”