The violent shaking threw Edwards hard into the hydraulic manifold outboard of the plotting table. He fell to the deck, landing on his face, and blood was already oozing from the back of his head.

The violent shaking and mind-numbing noise stopped as abruptly as it started. Joe Glass picked himself up off the deck and surveyed the control room. Around him, everyone else was shrugging off the attack as well.

All except Brian Edwards. The executive officer lay on the deck, not moving.

Glass saw his friend, his alter ego, lying there motionless, but there wasn’t time for him to rush to Edwards’s aid. Someone else would have to attend to the XO. The skipper had to get Toledo out of there before the Grishas fired another round.

“Ahead full, make turns for twenty-five knots,” Glass ordered.

He looked at the sonar display, trying to glean any information he could from it. The depth charge blast had filled the fjord basin with reverberating noise. It overpowered the sensitive sonar hydrophones. The screen was a wash of white.

The Foal Tail active sonars still pinged away, lighting up the threat receiver. The Grishas were still up there, still hunting.

Zillich leaned out of the sonar room door and shook his head. “Damn, Skipper! That was close.” He pointed at the threat receiver. The signal strength had dropped to forty-nine. “Our friends are still up there, but I think they’re looking at that knuckle for the time being.”

“I sure as hell hope so. We need for it to keep them busy for a few more minutes,” Glass answered. “Have you heard anything from that Udaloy?”

“Not in all that mess out there. It’ll be quite a while before the echoes die down. The granite walls of the fjord are bouncing that blast all over the place.”

“Let’s use that. If we can’t hear them, they sure as hell can’t hear us.”

Glass turned back to the control room. Jerry Perez was working on Edwards. The XO seemed to be regaining consciousness. Sam Wallich was taking reports from around the boat, checking for damage. Doug O’Malley was busy tracking the Grishas, making sure Toledo was ready to shoot should Joe Glass give the order. That was normally Edwards’s job, but O’Malley had stepped right in to cover for the injured second in command.

“Skipper, I have shooting solutions on both of those bastards,” the engineer reported. “Give me the word and I’ll be happy to light the fuse.”

“Not yet, Eng,” Glass answered. “Keep a solution on them, but let’s see if we can slip out of here. We’re still inside their territorial waters, you know. That Udaloy is still up there, too.” Glass turned to Wallich and asked, “What are the damages, COB?”