"Still doing the turn to port, Cap'n.  He's astern of us 'cause of the turn we made," Jones observed as neutrally as he could.  It was close to an accusation, Mancuso noticed.

" Flushing the game, Jonesy," Mancuso said coolly.

You're the boss, Jones thought, smart enough not to say anything else.  The captain looked as though he was going to snap somebody's head off, and Jones had just used up a month's worth of tolerance.  He switched his phones to the towed array plug.

"Engine noises diminishing, sir.  He's slowing down."  Jones paused.  He had to report the next part.  "Sir, it's a fair guess he heard us."

"He was supposed to," Mancuso said.

The Red October

"Captain, an enemy submarine," the michman said urgently.

"Enemy?" Ramius asked.

"American.  He must have been trailing us, and he had to back down to avoid a collision when we turned.  Definitely an American, broad on the port bow, range under a kilometer, I think."  He handed Ramius his phones.

"688, " Ramius said to Borodin.  "Damn!  He must have stumbled across us in the past two hours.  Bad luck."

The Dallas

"Okay, Jonesy, yankee-search him."  Mancuso gave the order for an active sonar search personally.  The Dallas had slewed farther around before coming to a near halt.

Jones hesitated for a moment, still reading the reactor plant noise on his passive systems.  Reaching, he powered up the active transducers in the BQQ-5's main sphere at the bow.

Ping!  A wave front of sound energy was directed at the target.

Pong!  The wave was reflected back off the hard steel hull and returned to the Dallas.

"Range to target 1 ,050 yards," Jones said.  The returning pulse was processed through the BC-10 computer and showed some rough details.  "Target configuration is consistent with a Typhoon-class boomer.  Angle on the bow seventy or so.  No doppler.  He's stopped."  Six more pings confirmed this.

"Secure pinging," Mancuso said.  There was some small satisfaction in learning that he had elevated the contact correctly.  But not much.

Jones killed power to the system.  What the hell did I have to do that for? he wondered.  He'd already done everything but read the number off her stern.

The Red October

Every man on the October knew now that they had been found.  The lash of the sonar waves had resounded through the hull.  It was not a sound a submariner liked to hear.  Certainly not on top of a troublesome reactor, Ramius thought.  Perhaps he could make use of this . . .

The Dallas

"Somebody on the surface," Jones said suddenly.  "Where the hell did they come from?  Skipper, there was nothing, nothing, a minute ago, and now I'm getting engine sounds.  Two, maybe more—make that two 'cans . . .and something bigger.  Like they were sitting up there waiting for us.  A minute ago they were sitting still.  Damn!  I didn't hear a thing."

The Invincible

"We timed that rather nicely," Admiral White said.

"Lucky," Ryan observed.