“Yes, Dimitriy, what do you want?”

The Gepard’s skipper had been catching a few minutes of rest in his stateroom.

“Captain, you asked to be awakened when we were an hour away from the rendezvous. We are ten kilometers from the point now.”

“Thank you, First Officer. Any contact with the K-461?”

Pishkovski held the phone in one hand while he pressed the buttons on the sonar repeater with the other, looking at all the displays for the hundredth time in the last few hours. The captain had voiced the question that had been hounding him for the last little while. He looked up from the sonar scope and shook his head as he spoke into the phone’s mouthpiece. “Captain, no sign of the K-461. I don’t understand. We are at the right place and on schedule. I have checked the navigation. Where could he be?”

“I will be right there. Perhaps Igorovich Serebnitskiv has been delayed and will arrive later.”

Or perhaps the bastard was playing games with them. Andropoyov didn’t trust Serebnitskiv one iota. He had seen too many indications of the man’s ruthless quest for promotion. He would stop at nothing to make Andropoyov look bad if it served his ambitions.

Pishkovski was unconvinced, too, and his voice showed it.

“Perhaps,” he said. He put the phone down and resumed searching the sonar screen for some sign of their comrade.

Captain Second Rank Igor Serebnitskiv watched the sonar display with undisguised glee. The dim white line that was the Gepard built from the southwest.

Andropoyov, the haughty bastard, was walking into the trap, unaware of his fate.

Where was the American boat? There was still a single trace on the display. The rest of the screen was lightly dusted with the snow of background noise, not even the subtlest hint of another sub.

Serebnitskiv allowed the Gepard to sail right on past, a kilometer in front of his icy hiding place, unaware of his presence. Surely the American would be following, sniffing like a dog following a bitch in heat. He waited while the new Russian boat glided well past, beyond the range of his sonar, and disappeared from the screen.

He studied the display. Still no trailing American.

Serebnitskiv knew he was out there. He could feel it in his bones, smell the stink of the foreign boat fouling his home waters.

It was time to revise the plan. The American would have to be enticed into the trap more forcefully.

It wasn’t the way Uncle Durov had ordered, but the old man was back in the cozy warmth of his office, not out here beneath the pack ice.

Serebnitskiv made his decision. The success of the mission depended on his ability to improvise, and that’s what he would do. Results were all that counted. His uncle would eventually acknowledge his brilliance.

The trace for the Gepard reappeared on the sonar screen, this time coming from the northeast.