"All these guys are using Prairie-Masker systems when they snort. It sounds like rain on the surface, remember? Rain on the surface is on the thousand-hertz line. So, we look for rain"—Jones slid a weather photo on the table—"where there ain't no rain. Then we look for sixty-hertz hits, little ones, short ones, brief ones, things you might otherwise ignore, that happen to be where the rain is. They use sixty-hertz generators and motors, right? Then we look for transients, just little dots that look like background noise, that are also where the rain is. Like this." He marked the sheet with a red pen, then looked to the station's command master chief, who was leaning over the other side of the table like a curious god.

"I heard stories about you when I was working the RefTra at Dam Neck. I thought they were sea stories."

"Got a smoke?" the only civilian in the room asked. The master chief handed one over. The antismoking signs were gone and the ashtrays were out. SOSUS was at war, and perhaps the rest of PacFlt would soon catch up.

Jesus, I'm home, Jones told himself. "Well, you know the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale."

"What's that, sir?" Boomer asked.

"A fairy tale starts, 'Once upon a time,' " Jones said with a smile, marking another 60Hz hit on the sheet.

"And a sea story starts, 'No shit,' " the master chief concluded the joke.

Except this little fucker really was that good. "I think you have enough to run a plot, Dr. Jones."

"I think we have a track on an SSK, Master Chief."

"Shame we can't prosecute."

Ron nodded slowly. "Yeah, me, too, but now we know we can get hits on the guys. It's still going to be a mother for P-3's to localize them. They're good boats, and that's a fact." They couldn't get too carried away. All SOSUS did was to generate lines of bearing. If more than one hydrophone set got a hit on the same sound source, you could rapidly triangulate bearings into locations, but those locations were circles, not points, and the circles were as much as twenty miles across. It was just physics, neither friend nor enemy. The sounds that most easily traveled long distances were of the lower frequencies, and for any sort of wave, only the higher frequencies gave the best resolution.

"We know where to look the next time he snorts, too. Anyway, you can call Fleet Operations and tell them there's nobody close to the carriers. Here, here, here, surface groups." He made marks on the paper. "Also heading west at good speed, and not being real covert about it. All target-track bearings are opening. It's a complete disengagement. They're not looking for any more trouble."

"Maybe that's good."

Jones crushed out the cigarette. "Yeah, Master Chief, maybe it is, if the flags get their shit together."