"Glad I finally got to dance with the girl," Clagget allowed. "I have all the diesel I need, sir." he added.

"We have to pump out one of your tanks." Large as she was. Tennessee had more than one fuel bunker for her auxiliary diesel.

"What for, sir?"

"Some JP-5." Mancuso opened his briefcase and pulled out the mission orders. The ink was hardly dry on them. "You're going to start off in the special-ops business." The automatic tendency was for Claggett to ask Why me? but he restrained himself. Instead he flipped over the cover page of the orders and started checking his programmed position.

"I might get a little business there, sir," the Captain observed. "The idea is to stay covert, but the usual rule applies." The usual rule meant that Claggett would always be free to exercise his command judgment.

"Now hear this," the 1-MC announcing system told everyone. "The smoking lamp is out throughout the ship. The smoking lamp is out throughout the ship."

"You let people smoke aboard?" ComSubPac asked. Quite a few of his skippers did not.

"Command judgment, remember?"

Thirty feet away, Ron Jones was in the sonar room, pulling a computer disk out of his pocket.

"We've had the upgrade," the chief told him.

"This one's brand-new." The contractor slipped it into the slot on the backup computer. "I got a hit on you first night out when you ran over the Oregon SOSUS array. Something loose aft?"

"Toolbox. It's gone now. We ran over two more later," the chief pointed out.

"How fast?" Jones asked.

"The second one was just under flank, and we curlicued overtop the thing."

"I got a twitch, nothing more, and that one had the same software I just uploaded for you. You got a quiet boat here, Chief. Walk down?"

"Yeah, the Cap'n tore a few strips off, but there ain't no loose gear aboard now." He paused. "Less'n you count the ends on the toilet-paper rolls."

Jones settled into one of the chairs, and looked around the crowded working space. This was his place. He'd only had a hint of the ship's mission orders—Mancuso had asked his opinion of water conditions and worried if the Japanese might have taken the U.S. Navy's SOSUS station on Honshu intact, and that had been enough, really. She was sure as hell going in harm's way, perhaps the first PacFlt sub to do so. God, and a boomer, too, he thought. Big and slow. One hand reached out and touched the workstation.

"I know who you are, Dr. Jones," the chief said, reading the man's thoughts. "I know my job, too, okay?"

"The other guy's bouts, when they snort—"

"The thousand-hertz line. We have the dash-five tail and all the upgrades. Including yours, I guess." The chief reached for his coffee, and on reflection, poured a mug for his visitor.

"Thank you."

"Asheville and Charlotte?"

Jones nodded, looking down at his coffee. "You know Frenchy Laval?"