who have hit the mother lode. Knight, staring at them, suddenly knew.

"Good God above!" he blurted. "We've found her, really found her?"

"Hiding in the seascape," said Pitt, pointing to the monitor while

handing Knight the photo. "The perfect image of one Alfa-class Soviet

submarine."

Knight stared, fascinated, at both sonar images. "The Russians

probed all around this section of the sea. Incredible they didn't find

her."

"She's easy to miss," said Pitt. "The ice pack was heavier when they

conducted their search. They couldn't maintain a straight track.

Probably skirted the opposite side of the upslope, and their sonar beams

only showed a shadow where the sub was lying. Also, the unusually heavy

concentration of iron under the crater would have thrown off their

magnetic profile."

"Our intelligence people will dance on the ceiling when they see this."

"Not if the Reds get wise," said Giordino. "They'll hardly stand idle

and watch us repeat our 'Seventy-five snatch of their 'Golf' class sub

with the Glomar Explorer."

"You suggesting they haven't swallowed our story about conducting a

geological survey of the seafloor?" Pitt asked with deep sarcasm.

Giordino gave Pitt a sour look indeed. "Intelligence is a weird

business," he said. "The crew on the other side of these bulkheads has

no idea of what we're up to, yet Soviet agents in Washington smelled out

our mission weeks ago. The only reason they haven't interfered is

because our undersea technology is better and they want us to lead the

way to their sub."

"Won't be easy to deceive them," agreed Knight. "Two of their trawlers

have been shadowing our every move since we left port."

"So have their surveillance satellites," added Giordino.

Pitt said, "All reasons why I asked the bridge to run out our last track

before coming about for a closer look."

"Good try, but the Russians will pick up our track rerun."

"No doubt, except once we pass over the sub we go on and Turn onto the

next lane, continuing as before. Then I'll radio our engineers in

Washington to complain of equipment problems and ask for maintenance

instructions. Every couple of miles we'll rerun a lane to reinforce the

ruse."

Giordino looked at Knight. "They might buy it. It's believable

enough."

Knight considered that. "Okay, we won't hang around. This will be our

last look at the target. Then we continue on, acting as if we've found

nothing."

"And after we've finished this grid," Pitt said, "we can start a new one

thirty miles away and fake a discovery."

"A nice added touch," Giordino said approvingly. "Drop a red herring

across our trail."

Knight smiled wryly. "Sounds like a good script. Let's go for it."

The ship rolled and the deck canted slightly to starboard as the

helmsman brought her around on a reverse course. Far behind the stern,

like an obstinate dog on a long leash, a robot submersible called

Sherlock automatically refocused its two movie cameras and one still

camera while continuing to send out probing sonar waves. Presumedly