Once hidden and unmoving amid the thick ice, Volk would disappear from the sonar screens of both Andropoyov’s new boat and his American tail. The grinding and cracking noise of the frozen mass as it drifted southward would also conceal his presence.

Serebnitskiv stared through the eyepiece on the periscope, finally spying what he was looking for: an inverted valley that was wide and deep enough for Volk to fit her bulk into, but not so deep that it would mask her sonar hydrophones. The upside-down gorge’s main axis pointed directly at the rendezvous point, a kilometer away.

Perfect!

The Russian crew maneuvered the sub so that it came to a stop, hovering just a few meters below the ice valley. They pumped a few thousand kilos of water from the trim tanks so Volk was positively buoyant, and the old boat eased up into the concavity.

All the while, Serebnitskiv watched through the scope as the boat rose. Satisfied that he had lined everything up correctly and there were no hidden ice keels to ram into, he lowered the scope. Volk nestled into the little valley with the top of her sail resting hard against the overhead ice. They were firmly in place, held there by the positive buoyancy of the trim tanks.

Serebnitskiv had learned this trick from the old submarine masters of the Soviet fleet. Called an “ice pick,” the maneuver was used often when they ran up to these frozen wastelands to hide from the Americans during the Cold War.

It worked well then. It was working well today.

Now all Serebnitskiv and the Volk had to do was wait until that bastard, Andropoyov, and his shiny, new Gepard strolled by, with the Americans following behind, poking her in the ass.

The commander rubbed his hands together and ignored the odd stares of his crewmen. He had waited years for this, and he intended to enjoy every last second of it.

Aboard the Miami, Commander Brad Crawford watched the tactical picture develop on the screen in front of him. The new Akula sub they had just spotted was heading to the northeast, steadily steaming ahead, deep beneath the pack ice. The TB-29A array fed a continuous stream of information about the mystery sub into the BYG-1 fire control system. The fire control tracking party was extracting every bit of useful intelligence they could get and plotting it out on paper charts. This was sure a lot more interesting than trailing along behind a pod of whales.