Glass replaced the handset, pushed himself back from what was left of his meal, grabbed a cup of coffee, and headed out of the wardroom. When he entered the back door of the control room, he found an orderly bustle of activity under way. Edwards was watching the fire control computers, checking the positions of all the surface contacts. Pat Durand was flipping through the displays on the BQQ-10 sonar repeater, looking for contacts and attempting to get clear in his mind the way they might be moving.

Sam Wallich, the chief of the boat, sat in the diving officer’s chair, coaching the two most junior kids on board. The helmsman and the stern-planesman steered Toledo and kept her on the ordered depth. Their station looked like the cockpit of a large airliner, complete with control yokes and a wall of gauges and computer displays. The control yoke was turned to move the rudder, which in turn steered the sub. The other yoke was pushed and pulled to position the bow planes and stern planes to go up and down. There the similarity to an airplane ended. Unlike an airliner, there was no window to see where they were going or what might lie in their path.

Glass stopped beside Edwards. The two watched together for a moment as the computer screen displayed the best guess of where the ships on the surface were located.

“What’s happening, XO?” Glass asked.

Edwards pointed to the speck of light nearest Toledo. “Turbulent is here, at PD on safety course. She reports no surface contacts. The only other contact we hold is sierra nine-two, bearing zero-seven-two, best range one-nine thousand yards, past CPA and opening. That’s probably the retriever.”

Glass nodded. No problems here. He turned to Pat Durand. “Mr. Durand, you ready to go to periscope depth?”

“Yes, sir. Ship is ready. Request permission to go to periscope depth.”

“Proceed to periscope depth,” Glass responded. He stepped up beside the sonar repeater to watch while the young lieutenant drove the sub up to the surface.

Durand reached above his head and rotated the red scope control ring and shouted out, “Number-two scope coming up!”

As the shining smooth metal of the scope barrel started to slide out of its well, Wallich called, “Speed seven knots!”

This safety check was to make sure the sub was traveling slow enough that the scope would not be damaged. Too many young officers over the years had raised periscopes while the sub was traveling fast enough that the force of the water bent it right over. Such a careless mistake would cost the taxpayers many thousands of dollars. More important, it could result in an aborted mission.

Durand slapped down the black handles, put his eye to the eyepiece, and started to walk a circle, looking upward to make sure they weren’t surfacing under a quiet, unnoticed ship. He saw nothing but the gray-blue of the North Atlantic water.