Forty feet below this thin stalk of metal lay one of the most devastating weapons ever devised by man. Named Akula, or shark, this class of Russian fast-attack submarine was a true predator of the sea. Measuring more than a football field in length and displacing some twelve thousand tons when submerged, the hunter/killer boasted multiple torpedo tubes, rocket launchers, and a sonar suite that could detect the minutest sound over vast distances. She carried a crew of seventy-three led by one Kapitan Anton Patronov.

Patronov was so fair-haired and pale-skinned that he almost appeared albino, and with an upturned nose that looked like the double barrels of a shotgun, he was considered porcine as well. His wet lips were overly large, and he had a cauliflower ear from his days as a boxer in the old Soviet naval academy. He wasn’t particularly tall, but had wide shoulders that sloped up to a bullet head that he kept trimmed in a half-inch buzz of pure white hair. What he lacked in mannish charm he made up for in capability and utter ruthlessness. He’d turned down promotions twice so that he could stay at sea, and because many years ago he was the youngest sub captain in modern Russian history, he had more experience as a submariner than anyone else in the Navy.

Patronov was just stepping from his cubicle-sized cabin when the flash traffic came off the comm line. Over the Tannoy came the cry, “Captain to the shack. Secure transmission for your eyes only.”

“Clear the way,” he growled as he made his way aft to the radio room. He possessed a low, rasping voice with a dark inflection that commanded instant respect. Seamen and officers alike pressed themselves against the tight companionway walls to ease his passage.

The radio shack was a confined space made more hospitable to electronics than man. Yet somehow two young techs were shoehorned into the room, one with headphones draped around his neck while the other sat back as far as the confines would allow and translated the burst transmission.

“We had an Ohio on the plot,” Patronov said as he entered the space. “Tell me this is more important.”

The Akula had been trailing an Ohio-class submarine, one of the legs of America’s defensive triad of nuclear deterrent, when she was called to the surface by a ULF summons for immediate data download. “It’s in code,” the radioman said without meeting his captain’s glare. He held the flimsy paper over his shoulder in hopes it would be snatched away and his culpability in ending the sub chase was at an end.

“Damn.” Patronov ripped the thin piece of paper out of the sailor’s hand, snapped it so he could inspect the type, and cursed again. “Kenin. He’s been the pain in my ass since the academy.”