George settled back into the vinyl seat. He shrugged a shoulder, as though lightening the seriousness of the charge. "You're being a little touchy, Ms. James. If the Captain hadn't understood, I'd have explained it to him too."

Rydman said impatiently, "Let me explain to both of you that we're a little shorthanded. Ordinarily, I have an electrician who stays aft to monitor the engine and auxiliary electrics. But there wasn't room. So I would appreciate a minimum number of distractions."

"Sorry, sir," said George.

Instead of coming down, the Captain stood on a sixinch ring that girdled the squat tower and closed the hatch from inside. When Osipow told him that the lock signal had come on-- a red light near the autopilot control-- Rydman tested the periscope by turning it slowly, 360 degrees, and circling with it by stepping carefully on the narrow lip.

As he did, Captain Rydman said to his passengers, "We'll be snorkeling at eight knots for the initial part of our passage, which will take two hours. When we near Moshchnyy Island, which the Russians own, we'll submerge. Conversations will be held to a whisper. The Russians have mobile passive-sonar detectors there and also along the coast. Because they don't emit signals of their own like active sonar, but pick up radiated noise, we never know where they're listening or when. We've been able to slip through, but it helps to generate as little noise as possible."

"How will you know if they do spot us?" Peggy asked.

"The explosives dropped by the coast guard ships are difficult to ignore," Rydman said. "If that happens, we'll have to dive and abort."

"How often does that happen?" she asked, hating the fact that she didn't know. Intelligence operatives were supposed to know their equipment and target as well as they knew their own automobiles and homes. But DI6 had gotten into this so quickly there hadn't been time to prepare, other than to read the file dossier on the flight over. And there wasn't much on Finland's operations in the gulf. Agents usually went in with tour groups.

Rydman said, "It's happened three times in ten trips, though I never penetrated far into Russian waters. Obviously, this time will be different. But we won't be going in totally unprotected. Major Aho is sending out a helicopter to drop a pair of sonobuoys along our route. The signal will be monitored in Helsinki, and any incoming Russian vessels will show up as blips on Mr. Osipow's chart."

Osipow pointed toward a circular, computer-generated map roughly the diameter of a coffee saucer and located to the right of the control column.

When he finished turning the periscope, Rydman folded down a seat on the forward side of the tower and straddled it. Then he leaned toward the engine-induction mast that also served-- with considerable echo-- as a voice pipe to the helm.

"Ready, Mr. Osipow," the Captain said.