The Udaloy destroyer’s Horse Jaw active sonar had them nailed. Just as Glass had feared, the bastard was waiting at the gate again. He had used the Grishas to herd Toledo toward him and the Helix to warn him when they were about to step into the trap. If the American submarine somehow slipped out of the noose, he would send up his other Helix and place it just outside the entrance to the fjord to make sure Toledo didn’t get away.

Glass had to grudgingly admit it. The SOB was clever. He knew his business.

There was no time to ponder the situation any longer. It was time to act. If they were going to shoot their way out, they had better get to shooting.

“Snapshot! Tube one on the Udaloy!” Glass barked.

Doug O’Malley spun in the best solution he could pull out of the air. The fire control system had to tell the ADCAP torpedo where it should start looking, even if it was little more than a guess. There wasn’t any time to get better information. Within ten seconds, O’Malley called out, “Solution ready!”

“Ship ready!” Jerry Perez yelled.

At the same instant, Pat Durand shouted, “Weapon ready!”

Twenty seconds had elapsed since Glass had ordered that tube one be used against the Russian destroyer.

“Shoot on generated bearings!” Joe Glass ordered.

Pat Durand punched the launch button for number-one torpedo tube on the CCS Mark II launch panel. The whoosh-thump of high-pressure air from down in the torpedo room confirmed that the ejection pump was flushing the four-thousand-pound ADCAP torpedo out the tube.

The battle was on.

“Tube one fired,” Durand called out. “ADCAP running normally in pre-enable.”

“ADCAP running normally in high speed,” Zillich confirmed from sonar.

Reports tumbled on top of each other as the team moved.

“Incoming weapon in the water!” Zillich yelled out. “Bearing three-five-five. Second weapon bearing three-four-seven.”

Someone, probably the destroyer, was shooting back at them. Shooting two torpedoes. Anticipated or not, that news was still chilling to all who heard it.

“Ahead flank!” Glass ordered. “Launch the evasion devices.”

Toledo jumped ahead as the throttle man yanked open the ahead throttles. The sub shuddered as the reactor operator shifted the huge coolant pumps to fast speed, pushing massive amounts of water through the reactor core. The main engines needed every erg of energy to drive the sub ahead.

The evasion devices tumbled wildly in Toledo’s wake as they emitted a wall of spurious noise. It was precious little protection, but the noise might throw a little confusion at the torpedos heading their way.

“Incoming weapons bearing three-five-five and three-four-nine! Both active!”

If they were going to go down in these frigid waters, so far from home, Joe Glass was fiercely determined to go down fighting.

“Snapshot on the closest Grisha. Tube two,” he called out.

O’Malley updated the solution on the frigate.

“Solution ready,” he reported.