There was another coup -- in Berlin -- and Kaiser Wilhelm's closest heir was crowned, the Hohenzollern throne restored after almost a century. Germany would have her "place in the sun" at last. A secret conspiracy planned for years. Coercion won over citizens not swayed by patriotism or the onrush of events.

Covertly, this Berlin-Boer Axis had built tactical atomic bombs. They ambushed the Allied naval task force underway, then destroyed Warsaw and Tripoli. France capitulated at once, continental Europe was overrun, and Germany established a strong beachhead in northern Africa. Germany captured nuclear subs from the French, and advanced diesel submarines from other countries. A financially supine Russia, supposedly neutral, sold weapons to the Axis for hard cash. Most of the rest of the world stayed out of the fight, from fear or greed or both.

American supply convoys to Great Britain are suffering in another terrible Battle of the Atlantic. If the U.K. should fall, the modern U-boat threat would prove that America's overseas trade routes are untenable. The U.S. would have to sue for an armistice: an Axis victory. America and Great Britain both own ceramic-hulled fast attack subs -- such as the USS Challenger, capable of tremendous depths -- but Germany and South Africa own such vessels too. Now, as harsh winter approaches in Europe, the British Isles starve, the U.S. is on the defensive, and democracy has never been more threatened. . . .

Twenty years after Desert Storm,
in a different sort of war.

In the Mid-Atlantic Ocean, near the Azores

Captain Taylor told himself it must have been that convoy battle raging in the distance. The shock wave and noise from yet another tactical nuclear detonation rocked his ship, the USS Texas -- a steel hulled Virginia-class fast attack sub, Taylor's home, his mistress at sea, his relentless yoke of command responsibility. Taylor knew from the feel of the shock that it was an Axis underwater blast, meant to shatter the Allied freighters' bottoms, now that their Royal Navy escorts were mostly neutralized. This far off, Taylor's sonar people wouldn't hear the breaking-up sounds or the screams. But by sheer chance the echoes from those A-bombs had given Texas away, mocking the quieting of her machinery, making useless the stealth coatings on her hull.

Robert Taylor, a beefy guy, was normally upbeat and jocular, but now he bitterly cursed his luck. The latest undersea blast-front bouncing off Texas would betray his depth and course and speed to the pair of Axis nuclear subs which had him in a pincers -- they'd never have spotted Texas without that endless searing thunder off to starboard, from the east. Taylor and his crew, and his Special Warfare passengers, had far more important things to do than tangle with them now. His orders even forbade him helping the U.K.-bound food convoy.

Taylor's executive officer said he was ready to open fire. The small atomic warheads on the Advanced Capability (ADCAP) torpedoes were all enabled, the outer tube doors open. The silent stalking was over with. Inside Taylor's head, twenty long years of Navy experience and training -- and of constant physical risk and separation from his loved ones -- all became sharply focused on the next few seconds and minutes of mortal combat.

"Firing point procedures," Taylor ordered, "tubes one and two. Target Master One, match bearings and shoot."

"Tubes one and two fired electrically!" the XO called out.

A heartbeat later the sonar officer reported four enemy torpedoes in the water, two each incoming from the port and starboard beams.

The Texas had six tubes in all. Taylor quickly launched another pair of his nuclear ADCAPs, targeting the other ex-French Rubis boat, Master Two. He decided to save the last pair for anti-torpedo fire, to try to smash the inbound weapons using area bursts. Anticipating this, inevitably, the wire-guided Axis fish began to spread out. Each Rubis had four tubes. Taylor was outgunned.

Suddenly there were eight incoming torpedoes in the water, four on either beam.

Taylor badly wanted flank speed, but the Advanced SEAL Delivery System minisub (ASDS) that Texas carried on her back created hydrodynamic drag. The SEAL team leader volunteered to man the little vessel to release it from its host, and a lieutenant (j.g.) wearing gold dolphins offered to serve as co-pilot. Taylor reluctantly gave assent. Another distant rumbling rocked the ship, reminding them all what was in store for Texas. The sonar officer put his passive broadband on the speakers.

The nerve-ripping whine of a dozen torpedo propulsion systems filled the Command and Control Center air, in 3-D quadraphonic. Taylor could almost feel those eight eager Axis A-bombs drawing closer by the second, ready to unleash new underwater suns. Their top speed was twice that of Texas, and the range was short enough it made survival touch and go. Taylor fought down his fear: emotions like that had to wait. Repression and denial were survival tools.

The ASDS was ready. It was set loose.

Taylor snapped more orders. His tense helmsman made a knuckle in the water, then dialed up flank speed. Flank speed, everything Texas had. The normally mild-mannered XO, now frowning and sweating, kept launching noisemakers and acoustic jammer pods.

Taylor's eyes roved constantly, between the crewmen crowded round him and the color-coded data on his Command Workstation. Briefly he watched the plot of the newest contact, the battery powered ASDS, as it tried to sneak away. It was by far the slowest thing out there, and without it their whole mission would fail, before it had even begun. Silently Taylor beseeched his God, not for himself nor even for his crew and their dependents, but for the entire Allied cause. Ever since the Double Putsch in Berlin and Johannesburg some six months back, this war had not gone well, not for the good guys.

It was almost time for Taylor to launch his two available nuclear countershots -- tubes one through four were still busy being reloaded. For the humans involved, Taylor told himself sardonically, time may have seemed to slow down, but the torpedo room loading equipment ran its oblivious pace.

Grimly Taylor forced himself to use every moment and think. The longer he waited, the more those incoming fish would bunch up, and he stood a better chance to wreck several with each precious ADCAP. But the longer he waited, too, the smaller grew that narrow margin of distance between Texas and the hostile warheads' kill zones. Underwater, a mere one kiloton would be immensely destructive.

Taylor studied the geometries on his screen, watching the dozen torpedoes, projecting their tracks, asking himself what the enemy captains' next move would be. His judgment had to be perfect. Now. He gave the order to fire.

"Tubes five and six fired electrically!" the XO's voice shouted back.

The cacophony outside the ship increased once more -- fourteen torpedoes in the water going one way or another, above the constant nasty hiss of Texas's own flow noise, plus the unending ungodly roar of anti-ship A-bombs from that separate convoy battle in the distance. "Both units running normally!" a sonarman called.

Then came a deafening hammer blow, bad enough to shake the control room consoles in their shock-absorbing mounts. Plastic mugs flew from cup holders, splashing coffee on the deck. Taylor held on hard to an overhead fitting. He would've grabbed for a periscope shaft had there been one, but in the Virginia class all outside imaging was done electronically.

"Whose weapon was that?" he demanded, as the turbulent shaking began to subside and his console began to reboot.

"Master One's!" the XO said. "One Axis fish went for our noisemakers!"

"How many torpedoes still running?"

"We need to wait for the reverb to clear!"

"What about our own units?"

"All six still functioning, sir. Good contact through the wires."

Taylor glanced at a depth gauge, then ordered his submarine shallower. This had always been standard doctrine in tactical nuclear war at sea, to benefit from surface cutoff effect, the venting of fireball energy into the air. The Cold War might be long over, the enemy different now, but the underlying physics hadn't changed.

Taylor went back to his screen. It was time to trigger those last two ADCAPs. Commands were relayed; the water around Texas heaved. The resounding cracks, so close, were much sharper this time, punishing Taylor's ears. The vibrations were much sharper too. An overhead light fixture shattered, and nearby crewmen protected their eyes.

A phone talker, young and already scared, pressed his hands to his bulky headset, listened intently, and raised his voice. "Flooding in the engine room, lower level port side!"

Too many things were going on at once. Taylor ordered the XO aft, to oversee repairs. The weapons officer deftly stepped in as Fire Control Coordinator. The tactical plot was refreshed. The nearest threat icons showed up with very high position confidence, the enemy torpedoes so noisy now as they ran at endgame speed. Two Axis fish were still closing in from starboard, one from port, clearly picked up on Texas's side-mounted sonar wide aperture arrays.

The ASDS tried to raise the Texas by underwater telephone, but the message was unintelligible, conditions out there were so bad. Then the minisub started to ping, on maximum power. Taylor realized it was trying to act as a decoy, to protect its more high-value parent. The two men aboard, two good men Taylor knew well and liked and cared about, must know that they'd die -- the ASDS was unarmed. One Axis torpedo acquired it, the others pressed on toward Texas. Again Taylor had to squelch down his emotions: around him man and machine were melded into a conflict that wiped out any possible sense of personal future or past.

Tubes one through four on Taylor's weapons status window flashed green, ready to fire. There was a heavy roar from astern, and the ASDS icon on the main plot pulsed, then vanished.

There was a pair of distant roars; more shock waves pummeled the ship. Taylor heard several men shouting at once.

"Units from tubes one and three have detonated!"

"Close-in hits on Master One and Master Two, assess both targets destroyed!"

Then from the phone talker: "Flooding aft is worsening, Captain, two feet deep in the bilge!"

The Chief of the Boat worked his console with tight concentration, trying to preserve neutral buoyancy and maintain level trim. He'd put in his papers to retire at twenty just days before the war broke out -- forget about that now.

There were still two incoming torpedoes, spaced wide apart off the port and starboard quarters. Taylor ordered tubes one through four fired, more defensive nuclear snap shots. But the inbound weapons were so close now it was a tossup whether they could be knocked down in time. Even if their proximity fuzes were set very tight, buying Texas a few extra seconds, the ADCAPs might not reach safe separation quickly enough for survivable preemptive blasts. Again Taylor studied his screens. A week-old image forced its way into his mind, his wife and their two teenage girls, making good-byes on the pier in New London.

"Detonate the weapons," Taylor ordered. He knew it was too damned close.

The explosions, reinforcing each other, knocked him off his feet. His shoulder struck an unyielding corner -- an awful pain shot through his chest. Console tubes imploded. The deck shook so hard his vision was blurred, and the air began to fill with pungent smoke.

He saw men dazed, others moving and speaking, then realized he was deafened and he tried to read their lips. The phone talker, bleeding profusely from a flattened nose, mouthed each word carefully. "Flooding in Engineering is out of control." The bilge pumps couldn't keep up.

Taylor turned to the Chief of the Boat, and commanded an emergency blow. Surfacing into the tons of radioactive steam and fallout topside appalled Taylor, but it was their only chance. The bottom-mapping sonar was useless in such chaotic acoustic conditions, but the inertial nav plot told him enough. The seafloor here went way down past their crush depth.

Compressed air screamed and roared. The helmsman tried to plane up, just like he'd trained. The deck tilted steeply, and the vessel strove for the surface as her ballast tanks were forced dry. Taylor noticed more blood. One crewman had compound fractures of both forearms, from bracing himself the wrong way. Another man lay on the deck, the stillness of death upon him, his neck badly twisted, broken. Other crewmen donned their emergency air breather masks, before the thickening smoke could kill them all. Firefighting teams went to work. Taylor felt a jumble of pride and anguish, at their skill and their courage, their wounds and their dreadful pain. His people -- kids really most of them -- were his surrogate family, and around him they were dying.

Taylor struggled to his console, tried to lift the red handset to Damage Control back aft, and realized his right collarbone was smashed. He grabbed for the phone with his left. Every breath came with agony. He vomited, then almost blacked out.

He made himself go on, of sheer necessity; one-handed he pulled on his mask. There were a hundred-thirty-five people aboard -- including the SEALs -- all his to lead, to protect; their wives and kiddies collectively totaled twice that. He'd seen them on the pier too, making their good-byes.

Taylor knew the crew needed to stop the flooding very quickly once on the surface, then re-submerge, or they'd be picked off by a nuclear cruise missile. The Axis anti-shipping campaign was conducted with numbing ferocity. As if to emphasize the point, more explosions rumbled in the distance from the now one-sided convoy/U-boat fight.

The Texas broached nose first, consummating her sickening upward trajectory, then smashed back flat on the surface, forcing Taylor to his knees. The ship wallowed, rolling heavily, obviously settling fast. The Engineer back aft tripped the panic switch, valving shut all sea pipes, which shut down propulsion too, but the water kept roaring in. Vital welds had cracked, in places difficult to find amid the blinding incoming spray. COB had already blown what he could, but the Texas was going down.

Taylor knew if he ordered Abandon Ship the few men who'd get out would perish horribly. He didn't activate a photonics mast -- to see the multiple mushroom clouds would alarm the men to no purpose.

He stared very hard at a digital chart. A few nautical miles away lay the spur of a jagged seamount peak, an extension of the Azores volcanic chain. The spur's depth was almost 1700 feet, challenging Virginia-class crush depth, especially after the beating Texas just took. The remainder of the seamount was sheer-sided basalt cliff; if they missed the spur they were doomed. But it was their only hope, to huddle down deep and await a harrowing rescue, and pray their SEAL raid against a crucial German weapons lab could somehow be pulled off before it was too late.

Taylor ordered the sea valves reopened, to get the propulsion shaft turning again. He ordered all non-essential personnel to evacuate the engineering spaces, which were all one giant compartment when it came to truly watertight doors. He knew the men were coming when his aching eardrums crackled and he felt the air get warm; the incoming water was squeezing the atmosphere.

The watertight hatch was closed again, and Taylor told COB to put more high pressure air in the engine room, to help hold back the water. Its influx would only grow stronger as Texas drove for the seamount spur, her depth increasing by the minute, all reserve buoyancy lost. American SSNs simply weren't designed to float with one entire compartment flooded.

The XO conveyed by sound-powered phone that he'd stay aft with a handful of seasoned men. He knew that what Texas needed the most was speed, and people had to be there to override the safeties as the freezing seawater rose. Taylor authorized the reactor be pushed to one hundred eight percent.

Taylor eyed a depth gauge and watched the vessel's rate of descent, then glanced back at the nav chart. Maybe they'd make it to the spur, and maybe not, and even if they did they might crash-land too hard to live.

In simulator training his crew would have called this scenario grossly unfair. Taylor was fatalistic, staying detached. He tried not to think about the men working aft, who couldn't possibly survive.

The COB and the helmsman fought their controls, as the main hydraulics failed. The turbogenerators went next, and console systems switched to batteries.

"Rig for reduced electrical," Taylor said, and Texas labored her heart out, the propulsor refusing to quit.

The phone talker reported the seawater aft had risen well past the tightly dogged watertight hatch. It was time to scram the reactor. Texas kept going on built-up momentum, sinking like a stone on her glidepath into oblivion.

"Collision alarm," Taylor ordered, as the crucial moment neared. He hoped his inertial nav fix was good and the local bottom charts accurate -- with the ceaseless nuclear reverb and swirling bubbles all around, the bottom-mapping sonar only showed meaningless snow. He wished his boat had a gravimeter, which would have removed any doubt, but someone decided some ten years back that gravimeters were too expensive.

Wincing with every gasping breath, suspecting now he'd also broken some ribs, Taylor ordered an emergency buoy prepared. He had it programmed for a tight-beam laser microburst, and hoped that the satellite due to pass overhead in an hour was still operational. The deeply encrypted message gave his ship's position, his plan for survival, and asked for help. It also reported his two Rubis kills, two fewer nuclear subs in the enemy arsenal now; at least if his ship and her people all died they wouldn't die for nothing. The buoy was launched. Taylor flashed once more on all those faces on the pier; some were widows and fatherless already.

The surviving men around Taylor braced for impact with the spur. If they missed it they'd keep going until the Texas' hull caved in. They'd know soon enough.

Chapter 1

Two hours later.

Sao Vicente Island, Republic of Cape Verde

Water lapped against the submarine pier. Gulls called, machinery growled, the air stank of dead fish and diesel fumes and the equatorial sun shown brightly near the zenith in a silvery blue sky. There were no clouds he could watch, nor ships beyond the breakwater, and on this leeward side of the island only minor swell on the sea. Dominating the horizon loomed the next volcanic peak in the Cape Verde chain, seeming indifferent and invulnerable. Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey Fuller fidgeted.

At last, above the sound of cranes and trucks and urgent, shouting dockworkers and marines, Jeffrey sensed a clattering roar. The Navy courier helicopter swung into view, first above the stuccoed homes sprawling along the parched rocky slopes around Mindelo harbor, then over the drab concrete warehouses of the waterfront itself. The helo flared and hovered by the pier, bringing with it the heady perfume of burnt kerosene exhaust.

Out of the corner of his eye, as she stood next to him, Jeffrey watched the aircraft's propwash tousle Ilse Reebeck's hair. The engine noise precluded conversation now, but their conversation had already been cut short, back at the hotel. Ilse looked relieved to be coming with Jeffrey, and he was glad too -- the whole thing was very last-minute -- but it only complicated matters between them to have her on Jeffrey's ship again. Lord knew in the last two weeks, with their atomic demolition raid on the South African coast, they'd shared enough experiences, and nightmares, to last a lifetime. He told himself it was worth it, for what they'd achieved for the Allied cause, but the personal price was so high. Now, with no chance to catch their breaths or succor the inner emotional wounds, they were headed right back into the all-consuming maelstrom of tactical nuclear war at sea.

As a marine guard on the pier helped the helo pilot pick his spot to land, Jeffrey glanced at the water. The last of the liberty party was already crammed into USS Challenger's ASDS minisub, moored against the pier -- hiding under a special awning that helped mask the goings on from Berlin-Boer Axis spy birds. Jeffrey knew some crewmen were forced to stand in the mini's swimmer lock-in/lock-out chamber. But the embark was on hold, because of this courier.

"I wish he'd hurry up," Jeffrey said out loud. For most of his life, Jeffrey had wished people and things would hurry up.

As the helo settled on the pier, Jeffrey reviewed what little he knew so far: the Texas was down and needed help, and time was of the essence. In this whole big, hot, North Atlantic-wide theater of battle, Challenger was the closest thing -- the only thing -- available. Images flashed through Jeffrey's mind, training videos he'd had to watch -- ones all U.S. Navy submariners had to watch -- of the tattered human remains in tortured postures: the men who died on the Russian submarine Kursk. Smashed to pulp, drowned slowly, or cremated alive, then soaked in high-pressure seawater -- a living medium full of creatures who sought and ate their flesh.

Was that what awaited Jeffrey's eyes, when he got to the Texas? His ASDS was supposed to double as a deep-submergence rescue vehicle, to try to dock with the disabled sub once Challenger arrived.

Someone stepped from the helo. Like Jeffrey the courier wore no rank or insignia, for security, but Jeffrey knew him vaguely. He was a lieutenant commander, in fact a rear admiral's aide, and by Navy regulations he spoke for his admiral with equal force. Jeffrey, Challenger's executive officer, was now the ship's acting captain. Challenger herself was submerged somewhere beyond the breakwater. She was much too high-value a target to bring into port here during this war, and her real captain, Commander Wilson, Jeffrey's boss, was confined at the hotel with a bad concussion.

"Sign, please," the courier said, handing Jeffrey a thick envelope.

Jeffrey eyed the Top Secret markings, the code words RECURVE ARBOR -- whatever that meant -- along with the notation to open only when north of latitude 30 north. "What is this?"

"I don't know," the courier said. "I have other stops to make. This Texas thing has everybody stirred up."

Jeffrey scribbled his initials on the courier's clipboard, and did the arithmetic in his head. At Challenger's top quiet speed, 26 knots -- the fastest she dared go for long in the war zone -- it would take more than a day to cross the thirtieth parallel, almost two full days to reach Texas.

"Do we know what shape they're in?"

"A lot are still breathing," the man said, "at least so far. They managed to launch another buoy once they crashed. That's why you're being sent."

"Can't you get us a doctor?" Challenger would act as a stealthy undersea field ambulance, if and when the survivors from Texas were taken aboard.

The courier shook his head. "They're all in surgery, overloaded. A hospital ship put in last night, from Central Africa. . . . Your corpsman will have to do."

"Great." Jeffrey started a mental tally of his ship's medical supplies. His people would be sleeping on the deck, to free their racks for the injured. . . .

"We're not sure yet if the Axis knows about Texas too. You may hit opposition en route." "Terrific." Jeffrey'd transferred on as Challenger's XO well after the start of the fighting six months ago -- he'd been more than glad to give up a fast-track planning job at the Naval War College. He'd wanted to get to the front. Now, with no qualified skipper available at this forward base to step in for Commander Wilson, Jeffrey was utterly on his own.

"Good luck," the man called as he ran back to the helo.

Jeffrey turned to Ilse. He saw her read the concern on his face. They were both still so exhausted, her expression seemed to say, and now this. Jeffrey shrugged. Ilse was a civilian, a Boer freedom-fighter, but she'd be killed as dead as the rest of the crew if something went badly wrong. "

After you," he said, letting her go first, up the aluminum gangway and down the top hatch of the little submarine. The 65-foot-long ASDS was their undersea taxi today, hopefully too small on its own for someone to waste a nuke, and too stealthy for the enemy to track it to Challenger.

* * *

Ilse climbed down the top hatch, into the minisub's central hyperbaric sphere, which doubled as entry vestibule. The packed crewmen, all familiar faces, tried to make room for her. She in turn eased out of the way, so Jeffrey could follow.

Ilse smiled to herself, a bit grimly. Stomach sucked in, elbows close at your sides, watch what you bump into, and respect the other person's personal space -- this was how submariners moved about their cramped and self-contained world. Ilse was pleased with how quickly she'd learned these habits during her first trip on the Challenger, and how quickly the mindset returned now on this unexpected, hurried second mission. That first time, she'd volunteered -- her special skills were badly needed. This time, no one asked -- a message from the chain of command had ordered her to go. They were supposed to head for the U.S. east coast and a needed stint in dry-dock -- and maybe some leave for Christmas, too -- and then this Texas rescue came up. Now, Ilse was being swept along in the rush.

Ilse watched Jeffrey reach to close the top hatch. Before he could dog it shut, the heavy door from the minisub's forward control compartment swung open. Challenger's chief of the boat looked into the sphere and made quick eye contact with Ilse.

Ilse smiled back, and her inner tensions died down a bit -- it was good to rejoin these people she knew and trusted. They'd helped her relieve some of her earlier anger, her barely repressed rage. They were a family of sorts, to replace everything and everyone she'd lost after the Johannesburg coup. Was it worth risking death to be with them again? What was her choice, to languish as a displaced person, utterly alone? Besides, in this war nowhere was "safe."

COB winked Ilse a hello, seeming surprised to see her. He was the oldest man in the crew, a salty, somewhat irreverent master chief. He had an amazing charisma, in a tough and blue-collar way, and Ilse liked him from the moment they'd first met two weeks ago. Right now COB was acting as pilot of the minisub, with a lieutenant (j.g.) co-pilot. The last time she'd ridden the mini, it had taken her into combat in her tyranny-ravaged homeland of South Africa. Then a U.S. Navy SEAL chief had been co-pilot -- he didn't come back.

COB called out to Jeffrey, "Sir, another delay. More passengers."

"More?" Jeffrey said. The men standing around him groaned. The youngest, still teenagers really, looked afraid they'd get left behind.

The pressure-proof door to the rear transport compartment was closed, and Ilse wondered how many people were squashed in there already -- the official capacity was eight. One of them, she realized, would have to be newcomer Royal Navy Lieutenant Kathy Milgrom -- there was nowhere else Kathy could be.

Ilse saw COB glance at his console, as if he were reading a decrypted radio or land-line message. "They're arriving any minute, Captain," COB said.

Jeffrey sighed, handed the courier envelope to COB, and climbed back up the ladder through the top hatch. Out of curiosity, and because she liked to be where Jeffrey was, Ilse followed. Past the foot of the pier, beyond the big concrete obstacles and heavy machine gun emplacements, a local taxi pulled up. Like clowns in a circus car, six big men piled out one after another, all in civilian clothing, as if for disguise. Ilse immediately recognized SEAL Lieutenant Shajo Clayton, his two logistics and backup people, and the three surviving operators from Shajo's blooded boat team. Shajo grinned and waved; he'd been with her and Jeffrey on the South Africa raid.

The men untied several heavy equipment boxes from the roof rack on the cab, and pulled more from the vehicle's trunk. Some boxes were black -- SEAL combat gear. Some were white with big red crosses -- first aid things, presumably for the Texas. Jeffrey called for crewmen to help, and everyone started carrying the stuff to the minisub.

Jeffrey shook hands very warmly with Clayton -- they'd been through hell together, all too recently, and the resulting bond was tight. "Would somebody please tell me what the heck is going on?" Jeffrey said, smiling with pleasure at this unexpected reunion. "

If they do," Clayton rejoined, "then maybe you can let me know, sir." Then he clapped Jeffrey on the shoulder, equally delighted to see his proven comrade-in-arms again.

"What did they say to you?"

"We're supposed to be, you know, some kind of armed guard. Apparently you're in need of extra muscle."

"I'm liking this less and less," Jeffrey said, shaking his head. "

I know," Ilse heard Clayton say as they reached the brow to the ASDS. "The base admiral didn't like it too much either."

Under the awning, Clayton gave Ilse a brotherly hug -- she'd help treat one of his mortally wounded men during the raid, and Clayton had brought her back alive, and she felt better to know he was coming this time too. Shajo was in his late twenties, from Atlanta, easy to talk to and even-tempered, with a very hard body. To Ilse his eyes betrayed hints of a persistent sadness that was all too common these days, from the recent loss of friends and teammates in the war, and the loss of innocence.

Jeffrey put down an equipment case and shouted through the mini's top hatch. "COB, how's your trim?" The little sub rode very low in the water, and didn't have a conning tower. With all the crewmen and now the SEALs' gear, keeping the mini stable would be tough.

Ilse heard COB's voice from inside. "Too heavy aft, Captain, and there's nothing left I can pump or counterflood. Any more weight on board and we're gonna have to jettison the anchors."

"Do it," Jeffrey yelled, "right now. And unclip the passenger seats in the back and pass them up to the pier." This was the Jeffrey whom Ilse had quickly gotten to know, and maybe, sort of, to like; firm but informal, always improvising on the spot, and ruthlessly practical. Jeffrey was driven, coming alive under pressure, though sometimes impetuous or even reckless when in battle. Yet he was oddly hesitant with her -- at least when they weren't both being shot at by the enemy. Lonely, too. Ilse had sensed that in Jeffrey quickly. He'd never once mentioned any family.

Clayton's men formed a human chain to pile the seats under the camouflage awning. Ilse couldn't help thinking that all this hubbub, the courier helo and then the taxi with the SEALs, had to get noticed by German or Boer recon assets.

Finally everyone was aboard with their gear, the shore power and mooring lines were stowed, the top hatch secured. Jeffrey went forward to stand behind COB's seat, in the little control room. Ilse started to follow him -- she'd stood behind the co-pilot as they snuck in toward Durban, on the South African coast, the last time.

But Jeffrey held up one hand. "No, I need to talk with Shajo and COB about the rescue plan."

Shajo squeezed past Ilse and into the control compartment. Then Jeffrey closed the door in her face. * * *

A few minutes later.

Transiting the Bay of Biscay

Korvettenkapitan Ernst Beck paused outside the captain's stateroom door. This would be their first private encounter since leaving port for patrol.

Beck felt the deck tilting to a fifteen-degree down bubble.

Germany's ceramic-hulled nuclear submarine Deutschland had reached the edge of the continental shelf off Occupied France -- the minefields, friendly and enemy, were mostly behind them now. She was descending to deeper water per the captain's orders.

Beck hesitated. Even after three years of working with the man, to intrude made him feel cold. Beck dearly loved his wife and two young sons. He knew by now his Kommandant -- commanding officer -- loved no one but himself, and never would.

Beck knocked.

"Come," that polished, precise, unreachable voice called from within. Beck slid open the door, entered, and closed it again for security.

Fregattenkapitan Kurt Eberhard sat alone at his fold-down desk. The air was filled with tobacco smoke, swirling in delicate tendrils. On the bulkhead hung the portrait in oils of the new Kaiser, Wilhelm IV, in an expensive gilded frame -- Wilhelm II was Kaiser in World War One; Wilhelm III was his son, the Crown Prince, who never took the throne after 1918.

Eberhard looked up. He seemed annoyed, then softened his features -- he was polite, at least superficially.

"Ja, Einzvo?"

Beck was Deutschland's so called "1WO," the erster wachoffizier -- executive officer, pronounced phonetically "einzvo." His rank equaled lieutenant commander in the U.S. or Royal Navies. Eberhard was a full commander, intent on making full captain soon. "

"Sir," Beck said, "a high priority radiogram came in."

"Did you read it?"

Yes, Captain."

"Well?"

"It's an assessment from Kaiserliche Marine Intel, sir." Imperial Naval Intelligence. "Reliable sources indicate USS Challenger is putting to sea from Cape Verde."

Hard blue eyes confronted Beck.

"So they've localized our ceramic-hulled friend?"

"Yes, Captain. She's heading north."

"Does the message say why?"

"She might be tasked to assist a crippled American sub near the Azores, but that could be a deception, sir, a feint for some more important mission. . . . The odd thing is, it says combat swimmers were taken aboard, but not Challenger's captain. Her XO's in command."

Eberhard stubbed out his cigarette. "I know Jeffrey Fuller all too well. A peasant."

Beck was careful not to react. The Coronation did more than restore the glitter of Court, of which Eberhard was so fond -- it strengthened class differences in German society. Beck was the youngest son of a farmer himself, from outside Munich -- his family was Catholic in the traditional Bavarian way. He'd joined the peacetime German Navy as a cadet in '91, right after Reunification. He did it to get a broader education than he could at the local technical school, and to help make the Nation whole again with respect in the eyes of the world.

Also -- as he put it to his trusted friends -- by his late teens Beck was tired of smelling manure and wearing lederhosen.

"Fuller and I once worked together," Eberhard said. He seemed distant for a moment, even more than usual. "Combined duty at the Pentagon, before the war."

"Is he good, sir?" Given the possibility of a contest with Fuller and crew, Beck had to ask.

Eberhard waved dismissively.

"He displeased me with his rebellious ways and casual style. I outranked him of course, then as now, but the Americans put up with his antics."

Beck wondered what he was supposed to say to that. His job as executive officer was to meld himself to Eberhard's will, regardless of what he thought of the man. "

We're ordered to be on alert, sir. In case Challenger enters our operational area."

"Good. Let me see."

Beck gave him the message slip.

Beck glanced at Eberhard's desk. He recognized a file copy of Deutschland's last war patrol report -- he'd drafted it himself for Eberhard's signature three weeks ago. It was open to the final page, showing the vessel's cumulative totals since the start of the fighting.

Eberhard noticed him reading.

"Nine-hundred-fifty thousand tons of Allied shipping sunk," Eberhard said. "Already twice the previous world record, by one of our submarine captains in World War One. Four times as good as Hitler's top-scoring U-boat ace." He went back to the message slip.

This damage wrought by Deutschland earned Eberhard the Ritterkreuz, the Knight's Cross, one of Germany's highest military honors. It was deserved -- Beck had no question of Eberhard's tactical skill. Beck himself got the Iron Cross First Class, prestigious enough, though he cared nothing for medals.

But he did want his own command someday. Beck did want his own command.

Eberhard put the message in his safe.

"How are the crew?"

"Getting back their sea legs quickly, Captain." They'd all been on leave in Bordeaux. Submariner skills were perishable -- the men grew rusty away from the ship, but Beck was taking care of that with drills and refresher training.

"And the new hands?"

"I think they'll be ready."

"You think or you know?"

"They'll be ready, Captain."

"Good. I look forward to dueling with Fuller again."

"Captain, some of the seasoned men have been holding up an index finger to one another, when they think I'm not looking."

"An index finger, Einzvo?"

Yes. For one million tons."

"This patrol we'll do it. A record for the ages."

As usual, Beck was torn by Germany's culpability in this war. But they had a right to their God-given place in the world, didn't they? Versailles, post-Nazi occupation by the Allies, endless, dreary Soviet domination in the East, all were made up for now. This was good, wasn't it? "

Sink one million tons, and then sink Challenger," Eberhard said. "What a Christmas gift for our Monarch that would make!"

Beck figured Eberhard would be made a baron for sure.

Eberhard would like that: the nobleman's title itself. The validation independent of Eberhard's father, a crass, nouveau riche investment banker in Stettin, in the Protestant north. The grant of a private estate in Occupied France wine country. The long train of beautiful Frenchwomen warming his bed.

Yes, Eberhard would like that a lot.

"Destroy Challenger," Eberhard said, "and the self-infatuated Americans will be one big step closer to having to sue for an armistice."

Deutschland leveled off. Beck and Eberhard read the depth gauge on the captain's instrument display: 1100 meters. With her alumina-casing hull and sea pipes, the ship was capable of three or four times that.

Eberhard lit up again. He sat for a minute, savoring the cigarette and thinking.

Beck waited.

"They have no sense of history, the Americans," Eberhard said. "None of what's happening ought to have surprised them. But it did. They're like children, thinking the world should be a nice place, and everyone else should agree with them."

"Unipolarism, they called it, sir, after the end of the Cold War."

"We're giving the world a new unipolarism, aren't we? Once we starve out the U.K., and link up with the Boers in central Africa, we'll control two continents. . . . You have to admit the Boers come in handy." They'd helped spring the giant two-step trap at the start of the war, and they were giving the Allies a two-theater conflict now.

Again Beck tried not to react to Eberhard's haughty attitude. He went to his common ground with the Captain, as a fellow naval officer: patriotism and duty. . . . But did Eberhard -- Germany's greatest U-boat commander -- love the sea and his ship as Beck did, or was the ocean to him just water, and Deutschland just a machine? Was Eberhard a patriot, or was he simply using this war for predatory self-advancement, the same way he used everyone and everything else?

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