"He's not expecting to be hunted himself, is he?" Ricks asked.

"I guess not, but his tail's not as good as he thinks it is." The Akula was doing a ladder-search pattern. The long legs were on a roughly south-west-to-north-east vector, and at the end of each he shifted down south-east to the next leg, with an interval between search legs of about fifty thousand yards, twenty-five nautical miles. That gave a notional range of about thirteen miles to the Russian's towed-array sonar. At least, Claggett thought, that's what the intelligence guys would have said.

"You know, I think we'll hold at fifty-K yards, just to play it on the safe side," Ricks announced, after a moment's reflection. "This guy is a lot quieter than I expected."

"Plant noises are down quite a bit, aren't they? If this guy was creeping instead of trying to cover ground "

Claggett was pleased that his Captain was speaking like his conservative-engineer self again. He wasn't especially surprised. When push came to shove, Ricks reverted to type, but that was all right with the XO, who didn't think it was especially prudent to play fast-attack with a billion-dollar boomer. "We could still hold him at forty, thirty-five tops."

"Think so? How much will his tail's performance improve with a slower speed?"

"Good point. It'll be some, but intelligence calls it a thin-line array like ours probably not all that much. Even so, we're getting a good profile on this bird, aren't we?" Ricks asked rhetorically. He'd get a gold star in his copybook for this.

"So, what do you think, MP?" Jack asked Mrs Foley. He held the translation in his hand. She'd opted for the original Russian-language document.

"Hey, I recruited him, Jack. He's my boy."

Ryan checked his watch; it was just about time. Sir Basil Charleston was nothing if not punctual. His secure direct-line phone rang right on the hour.

"Ryan."

"Bas here."

"What gives, man?"

"That thing we talked out, we had our chap look into it. Nothing at all, my boy."

"Not even that our impressions were incorrect?" Jack asked, his eyes screwed tightly shut, as though to keep the news out.

"Correct, Jack, not even that. I admit I find that slightly curious, but it is plausible, if not likely, that our chap should not know this."

"Thanks for trying, pal. We owe you one."

"Sorry we could not be of help." The line went dead.

It was the worst possible news, Ryan thought. He stared briefly at the ceiling.

"The Brits have been unable to confirm or deny SPINNAKER'S allegations," Jack announced. "What's that leave us with?"

"It's really like this?" Ben Goodley asked. "It all comes down to opinion!"

"Ben, if we were really that smart at reading fortunes, we'd be making fortunes in the stock market," Ryan said gruffly.

"But you did!" Goodley pointed out.

"I got lucky on a few hot issues." Ryan dismissed the observation. "Mary Pat, what do you think?"

Mrs Foley looked tired, but then she had an infant to worry about. Jack thought he should tell her to take it easier. "I have to back up my agent, Jack. You know that. He's our best source of political intelligence. He gets in to see Narmonov alone. That's why he's so valuable, and that's why his stuff has always been hard to back up - but it's never been wrong, has it?"