He watched as the broad white track of the torpedo appeared on the sonar repeater. It had come out of nowhere just as they started their turn. The hunter was now very much the hunted. Time to run!

Toledo jumped ahead as the throttle man, a hundred feet aft in the maneuvering room, whipped open the sub’s throttles. Steam roared down the pipes to push the giant turbines faster. The steam sucked energy from the primary coolant, lowering its temperature, sending colder water racing back into the reactor core, causing the power to race higher and the core temperatures to soar. The reactor needed more cooling water to keep the temperature under control. The reactor operator stood and grabbed the large black reactor coolant pump switches. When he yanked them up, the giant pumps shifted to fast speed, sending torrents of coolant water into the core to remove the heat.

This entire, well-choreographed operation was completed in less than five seconds.

“Torpedo bearing three-five-five! Going active!”

Toledo raced desperately, trying to outrun the approaching torpedo. Twenty knots, twenty-five, thirty, and more.

“Torpedo still bears three-five-five! Classified as a British ‘Spearfish.’”

Glass stood by the plot as he watched the picture of Toledo’s trail and the developing image of the closing torpedo. It was already past the evasion device, the noisy mass that had been released from one of Toledo’s signal ejectors to try to confuse the weapon’s instrumentation. The Spearfish blew past the acoustic noisemaker without even a glance. Glass guessed that he now had a minute left to avoid this high-speed underwater bloodhound.

“Make your depth one hundred feet!” he shouted.

The deck angled upward as Toledo now stretched toward the surface of the sea.

“Skipper, we’ll cavitate big-time that shallow!” Edwards yelled. “Everyone in the ocean will know where we are.”

“XO, that Spearfish on our ass already has a pretty good idea where we are. I’m hoping to lose it in the surface noise. It’s a long shot, but it might work.”

They could already hear the machine-gun rattle of cavitation from the sail and the screw as bubbles formed in the very low-pressure areas behind the trailing edges of the sub and then collapsed, making a very noisy bang.

Zillich’s voice broke through the din of the cavitation. “Torpedo bears three-five-six! It’s range-gating now!”

“Launch another evasion device,” Glass ordered. He knew it was a futile effort, but it just might be enough to deflect the incoming torpedo.

“Conn, sonar. Torpedo is in final attack. It has us for good!”

The plot confirmed the report. The incoming torpedo was now merging with Toledo. No one breathed for a moment.

“Conn, sonar. Torpedo in turn-away,” Zillich reported, his voice heavy with frustration.