End Game

No more than a platform that could be folded into the superstructure, the design of the flying bridge had been carefully calculated to have minimal impact on the Abner Read’s radar signature. Not only was it the highest point on the low-slung ship, but it was one of the few dry and flat surfaces outside. The main deck sloped down and was often lapped with waves.

The salty breeze bit Storm’s cheeks. The wind was coming up and he felt a chill. But it was a good chill, the sort of wind that reminded him why he’d wanted to join the Navy in the first place.

The aircraft the Werewolf had seen near the oil tanker bothered him. It seemed similar to the ones they’d spotted the night Port Somalia was struck. If it had been a little bigger, he supposed, it might have launched the torpedo itself.

Maybe it was working with the submarine that made the actual attack. Or maybe the tanker.

There’d been a tanker nearby when he lost the other submarine as well. This was a different ship, but the parallels had to be more than a coincidence.

Didn’t they?

The submarine might be the same vessel he had chased the other night, able to hide along the coast because its clever captain knew the waters so well. A Chinese Kilo, maybe.

But then what was the aircraft doing? Was it Chinese as well?

Storm decided the submarine was the key to the mystery. He would find it and then – since he couldn’t attack – he’d give the exact location to the captain of the Indian destroyer, who no doubt would be anxious for revenge.

Assuming his ship didn’t sink before then.

Storm allowed himself one more deep, luxurious breath of air, then went back inside.

Aboard the Wisconsin, over the Gulf of Aden 2045

Dog nudged the Megafortress into position to launch the first sonar buoy twenty miles north of the stricken destroyer. The Megafortress would set a large underwater fence around the area, waiting for the sub to make its move.

‘What’s the destroyer’s situation?’ Dog asked Jazz.

‘Nothing new,’ said the copilot. ‘Still fighting the damage. They’ve had a couple of sonar contacts but they seem to have been false alarms.’

As Dog and Jazz launched the buoys, Dish searched for the submarine’s periscope. A half hour later they had covered every inch of the target area without finding anything.

‘Best bet, he’s sitting down about three hundred meters, just about as low as he can go, holding his breath and waiting for the destroyer to limp away,’ said Jazz.

‘He’ll be waiting a long time.’

‘He won’t get by the buoys without us knowing.’

Dog wasn’t so sure about that. In theory, the hunters had all the advantages – the buoys could find anything in the water down to about 550 meters or so, and an extended periscope or snorkel could be easily detected at this range.

But the reality of warfare was never quite as simple as the theory, especially when it involved a submarine. Dog had worked with the Navy on sub hunts before, and they were always complicated and tricky affairs. In NATO exercises, submarines routinely outfoxed their hunters.

‘Just a waiting game now, Colonel,’ said the copilot. ‘We’ll get him eventually. We just have to be patient.’

‘For some reason, Jazz, being patient has always seemed the hardest thing to do,’ Dog said.

Approaching Oman on the Saudi Peninsula 2145

Captain Sattari felt the sweat rolling down his arms and neck. His clothes were so damp it seemed he’d been out in the rain. He was cold, and in truth was afraid, sure that he was being tracked by a powerful American surveillance radar, positive that some unseen fighters were scrambling along behind him to take him down. Every bit of turbulence, every vague eddy of air, sent a new shiver down his spine. He had the engines at maximum power; the airspeed indicator claimed he was doing 389 knots, which if true was at least thirty miles an hour faster than the engineers who made the plane had said was possible. But it was not nearly fast enough.