Somehow he knew he was not wrong about this man. He knew what his next move should be.

Glass reached and tipped over his king.

“I think we can do that,” he answered. “It may take a little doing, but it’s possible.”

The buzzer beside Glass’s head yelped. He grabbed the MJ handset and put it to his ear. “Captain.”

“Captain, this is the officer of the deck. We have rounded the North Cape. Coming left to course two-two-zero.”

Glass stood. He nodded at Andropoyov as he spoke into the phone. “Very well. Come to one-five-zero feet and clear baffles in preparation for coming to periscope depth. Tell radio to line up for a secure voice patch to Admiral Donnegan.”

He put the phone back in the cradle and headed out the stateroom door. He turned, looked back over his shoulder, and winked. “I’m going to see about making you disappear.”

Stan Miller sat across the desk from his boss, Alstair McLain. The two men were in the director’s corner office, but they were not talking. Instead, they were watching the large television screen that had been built into the bookcase on the far wall.

A pair of talking heads were expounding about the reports out of Russia and the wanton disregard of diplomatic realities by the American military. So far, the U.S. was keeping quiet about the Russians’ charges beyond a stock denial of any submarine-sinking incident beneath the ice cap. The United Nations Security Council was going into emergency session while near riots were breaking out in many cities around the globe. Still, the American government and military were oddly silent. That was fodder galore for the pundits.

Miller set his coffee cup on the saucer that was perched precariously on his knee.

“This shit’ll raise havoc on The Street,” he sniffed.

“Yeah, volume is already way up, close to a record,” McLain said. “The Dow is down way over two hundred points so far and sidecars are in effect.”

Miller grimaced. “Glad I’m not trading today. Can you imagine how long it would take to get a sell order executed right now? The systems are already bogging down. Too much volume for the old junk.”

McLain nodded, his eyes following the stock ticker at the bottom of the television screen. “Yep. Too bad. That’s what the OptiMarx system was meant to fix. Instantaneous trading, no communications or transaction delays, real-time clearance. It would be great if…”

Miller saw the opening he had been waiting for and interrupted McLain when he paused. “Yes! ‘If’ is the right word, all right. ‘If’ it works and ‘if’ it is implemented in time. The technology is looking very sound, Al. I think we should fast-track the approval.”