Glass stepped back from the periscope and glanced around the control room. The crew was dead tired after spending the last twenty-four hours back in Faslane loading torpedoes and supplies and strapping the ASDV to Toledo’s back. The normal banter he heard when heading out to sea wasn’t there. The crew needed rest. The emotions from the last time up north had taken their toll on these men. The crew, like Glass, had expected to return home to Norfolk after their harrowing trip. They expected the debriefing on their little adventure to take weeks. Instead, Jon Ward was sending them north again, back into danger. They would need to be extra sharp where they were going.

There was already speculation among the crew about the mission. There was no disguising the ASDV. At sixty-five feet long and fifty-five tons, it was a little hard to hide. The black mini-sub was designed to be transported by a mother sub to the mission area. From there, its two-man crew used a lithium-ion polymer battery to propel them and a combat team of up to ten SEALs miles into shallow water. Everyone aboard would be housed in two dry, atmospheric-pressure compartments for protection from the frigid water. The ASDV was equipped with sophisticated sonars and navigation equipment so she could penetrate deep into a hostile harbor. There, she could deliver a combat team who exited through an airlock in the bottom of the mini-sub. It could settle to the bottom to wait, ready to recover the team when their job was done.

This crew had worked with the ASDV before. They knew it meant they would be running in close to the Russian coast. Probably very close. The ASDV didn’t have either the range or the speed to be deployed from the safe, deep water that the submariners preferred. It had to be carried up close and personal.

Toledo’s skipper walked back to the navigation plot. Edwards was going over the planned voyage track with Jerry Perez and Dennis Oshley. The pile of charts filled the plot table and spilled over onto the deck. Oshley was banging away on a laptop computer, figuring distances and speeds, while Perez programmed the GPS receiver with coordinates Oshley was feeding him. Edwards was double-checking everything the two men were doing.

“XO, when you three are done, I want to get all the officers together in the wardroom to discuss this op. Then tell the COB I want to have a ‘rope-yarn Sunday’ for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Rope-yarn Sunday” was an old nautical term, left over from the days of the sail. It was a time for sailors at sea to take care of personal concerns rather than ship’s work. This crew needed a day’s break from normal shipboard routine.

“Yes, sir. I’ll get everything set up.”

“I’ll be in my stateroom, talking to the SBU lieutenant,” he tossed back over his shoulder.