“Thread the needle with that torpedo. I want it to come up directly below the moon pool. With a little, no, with a lot of luck, that thing will fly clear when it broaches. That should snap its guy wires. After that, it’s nothing but a big paperweight.”

“You are nuts,” she said, and looked at Max. “He is.”

“Yes, but it actually might work.”

She returned to her display. “Depth is still three hundred. Range, one thousand yards.”

The torpedo maintained its track, staying deep as it raced for the Oregon. Because of the guy wires running back to their sub, the Chinese couldn’t take evasive maneuvers against the two torpedoes tracking them. Juan had to hand it to the Chinese captain. If the roles were reversed, he would have gotten out of there as soon as he heard he was under attack.

“Range, four hundred yards. Depth, unchanged. Time to impact, about forty seconds.”

The Chinese commander wouldn’t alter the torpedo’s depth until it was directly under the ship, and then he would send it straight up on its killing charge.

“Range, one hundred yards. Depth, unchanged. Juan, it’s about twenty feet to starboard of our center line.”

Cabrillo kicked on the thrusters to push the Oregon laterally through the water. With the sea heaving so much, it was going to take more than the lot of luck he’d mentioned. It was like threading a needle, only the hand holding the needle was wracked with tremors.

“That’s good. Okay, she’s coming up. Depth, two-fifty. Range, twenty yards.”

The sonar dome on the underside of the hull was thirty feet back from the bow. Cabrillo had to keep that in mind. The torpedo was twenty yards from the sonar but ten from his ship. The moon pool was directly amidships of the five-hundred-and-sixty-foot freighter.

“Depth, one-eighty feet. Horizontal range from the bow is five yards.” A second later, she amended, and said, “Depth, one-fifty. Range, three yards.”

Juan ran the vectors in his head, calculating the torpedo’s glide slope as it arrowed in on them, his ship’s speed and position, and how the waves were affecting her. He had one shot or they were all going to die. There was no margin for error. And there was no hesitation. He slammed on full power for less than two seconds and then threw the impellers into reverse. The ship lurched forward, shouldered aside a big breaking wave, and slowed once again.

“Depth, fifty feet. Range is zero.”

Eric keyed on a fish-eye camera attached high up on a bulkhead, overlooking the moon pool. Water surged from the hole in the ship in black glossy mounds that spilled over onto the grated floor and sank to the bilge.

“Depth zero,” Linda said in an emotionless monotone.