Joe Glass turned to Edwards and spoke. “XO, if that had been an actual war shot, we’d all be dead right now. You put your trust in an old salt’s hunch rather than believing what the data told you. You had time to evaluate the data further before making your move. Sometimes it’s better to be certain you’re right before going ahead. I hope you learned a lesson today.”

Edwards’s answer was drowned out by a sudden blast of music over the sonar speakers. It was the song “Now Give Three Cheers” from HMS Pinafore and it had all the effect of a good, old-fashioned Bronx cheer.

I am the monarch of the sea,

The ruler of the Queen’s Navee,

Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants….

Glass couldn’t help laughing. The look on Edwards’s face was priceless. “There’s your answer, XO. That damned Turbulent is having some fun at our expense. Looks like we buy the first round when we get into port. Now let’s get back to work and make damn sure we aren’t the only ones buying.”

Many miles away to the north and east of where the Toledo drilled, Miami commander Brad Crawford had eased back down in front of his desk to review some of his never-ending paperwork. Just when he was making some headway, his phone buzzed. It was Bill Schutte, standing watch as the officer of the deck.

“Captain, request you come out to the conn. Sonar has picked up a contact on the thin-line towed array that I think you should see.”

The TB-29A thin-line towed array was a thousand feet of ultrasensitive low-frequency hydrophones towed more than a mile behind the Miami. Its length allowed it to detect very low-frequency sounds such as those a whale makes. By being towed far behind the sub, it could hear sounds made in the water hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles away. The whole thing, array and tow cable, could be wrapped on a reel in one of Miami’s after-ballast tanks when not in use.

Crawford was already out of his seat and heading down the short passageway to the control room before Schutte had finished. He found the OOD standing in front of the BQQ-10 sonar repeater surveying a picture that looked like the profile of a growing mountain range.

Crawford stopped beside him. “What do you have, Nav? More whales mating?”

Schutte smiled. He pointed at the picture. “Skipper, we just started getting these tonals. Most of these look like our library for Akulas, but we’re missing several in the fifteen- to forty-hertz range and this one at eleven hertz is brand-new. It’s not in the library at all. We don’t have any record of it that I can see.”