The water outside was murky, even with the floodlights, and she realized what had happened. The underwater explosion had liberated-shocked-dissolved gases out of the water to form billions of tiny bubbles. This formed what submariners called an ensonified zone-a section that messed up sonar, reflecting sound waves.

But how long would it last?

Thomas was asking Fraser something. "How many of those devices have been deployed?"

"About five hundred. We-they needed another one hundred to be sure the whole thing would go down at once."

Patricia was doing some quick thinking. "There are over thirteen hundred hexes, not counting the seawall, but, yeah. If you holed enough of them, they'd tip the others, spilling the air."

Thomas asked, "And these detonators-how do they work?"

"They were the expensive part. Sycorax had to play a digitally pulsed sonar sequence to set them all off at once."

"There's no other equipment that can do it? I mean, those Nat-Al members who work in the Abattoir can't set them off?"

"Don't think so. It takes a sonar set specially linked to a digital signal generator.

It was Master Chief Hughes's special project."

"How far away can they be and still set them off?"

Fraser shook his head. "No idea. That wasn't my end."

Thomas looked annoyed. "And what was your end?"

"I'm a diver. I trained others. We placed the charges. We've been working like dogs for the last two weeks."

"And you got fed up with it?"

Fraser turned his head away.

"What happened? Why the change?"

"Open Lotus surprised most of the crew-Wall gave the orders for the scuttling charge to the gunner's mate, but he sent McIntyre along to position it. McIntyre waited until the gunner's mate was on his way out, barricaded himself in the engine room, and started broadcasting an SOS. Wall himself took the fifty-cal and the XO commanded the cannon. By the time the rest of the crew realized what was happening, the freighter was completely underwater."He shuddered. "Even though most of us had signed on for the full mission, Open Lotus opened our eyes to the reality. Anyway, last night I tried to talk Mowett into blowing the whistle with me, but the asshole turned me in to Wall." He laughed, a short bitter bark. "Wall made Mowett push me over the side. I hope he has nightmares."

Patricia had been thinking. "Thomas, you can't let Sycorax get anywhere near the Strand."

"How near?"

"It has a powerful sonar. I wouldn't risk anything less than twenty miles. In this storm, they might not need the extra mines. If they blow what they have, the storm may do the rest."

Thomas chewed his lip. "This storm is the problem. I don't know what sort of intercept we can arrange. Certainly not anything airborne. Well, we won't know until we try. We'll need to surface so I can radio."

"No. I've got a deployable buoy. I don't want to get up there anytime soon."

She pushed the deploy button and heard the electric motor unwind the buoy, but when the panel showed sufficient cable out to reach the surface, she couldn't hear anything on the VHF and the GPS was still dead. "Damn." She used reverse thrust and backed the submarine enough to bring the line in view through the top hatch, stretching up to the surface.

Patricia swore. "It deployed. We must've scraped off the antennae when I dove under the Kim Jong. That's the same antenna we were hooked into before. Is there an aerial on your radio?"

Thomas shook his head. "Did you bring your satphone?"

She shook her head. "No. Didn't want the distraction."

"Neither did I." He looked aside. "I can't believe I was so stupid! Isn't there another radio aboard?"

"There's the GPIRB, but that'll just send our position and distress notice through the COSPAS-SARSAT-GEOSAR satellite networks. You can't use it to send particular messages, and Sycorax would be the first to receive that information.

Given their intentions, I'm not sure we want them to have it." She paused. "We've got the Gertrude, the underwater telephone, but that's no good for this. The only one who could hear it would be Sycorax."

"Is there any way we could disable Sycorax? Make it unable to send the signal?"

Patricia had been thinking of nothing but. "The only thing I can think of is to ram her sonar dome and that's iffy. Can't be sure it would take out the transducers. I'd have to put you guys topside with the Koreans, put on my full diving equipment, and rig an extension for the stick, so I wasn't in the part that got scrunched. Then I'dhave to go out through the pilot hatch or the shattered nose, depending. If SubLorraine got stuck, I'd have to go out the lockout hatch."

She looked back at Thomas. He was shaking his head grimly. "And if the collision didn't kill you, you could save that until you were sucked into the intake jets."

"Well, maybe then I'd foul a water jet." She licked her lips. "Wish we had that torpedo. Sycorax is a worthy target. Make a note: stock Valium and limpet mines."

Thomas winced. "She's millions of dollars of taxpayers' property."

"And if we let her get to the Abattoir, what's the cost in lives? Almost half a million people, including INS personnel. Did they target Isabel Island?"

Fraser shook his head.

Patricia went on. "Or, for that matter, in property. I know my own hex cost three quarters of a million to cast, before we put a single building on it. Multiply that times thirteen hundred-"

Thomas shook his head. "You've made your point. I'd drop a missile on it if I could. I don't suppose we could block her intake with the sub?"

Patricia licked her lips. "Not with the sub, no."

Patricia did a large circle, coming out of the ensonified zone, and detected hull groaning, the sound of a ship under stress. The Kim Jong was sinking but, as of yet, had not generated further explosions.

She circled the ship, forty feet under, and was relieved to find the bright orange hull of the lifeboat in the water, circling the ship. It was a modern pod, completely covered, unsinkable even if it rolled. She didn't envy the crew their ride in the storm-tossed waters, but they'd survive.

She could hear Sycorax now, moving fast enough to be stable, but not anywhere near her top speed. The bearing was changing rapidly, indicating she was moving near right angles to SubLorraine, but she was still a ways away. If Patricia pursued at her top speed, Sycorax would hear her. If she pursued her stealthily, she'd never reach her.

"Okay, boys, you're on." She handed the mike to the Gertrude back to Thomas.

"Today on Towntalk, 'Men and Their Toys and the People They Kill with Them.'

Let's go to Tomas, from D.C."

Thomas held the mike. He cleared his throat and said, "Mayday, mayday. Any U.S. submarine. This is INS Commander Thomas Becket. Mayday, mayday.

Request immediate interception of INS vessel Sycorax before she can detonate explosive devices intended to sink the Abbott Refugee Center. Repeat, immediateinterception and interdiction are necessary to prevent the total destruction of the Refugee Center and great loss of life. Current position is North twenty-three, fifteen, twenty-seven; West ninety-one, forty-five, thirty-two." He began repeating it.

Now, do they hear it? And if they do, do they believe it? Do they believe there's any chance of the message being heard? That there could actually be navy subs in the area? She pursed her lips. Stranger things have happened. The explosion of the torpedo had to be picked up by the SOSUS net, but explosions were used in seismic sounding for oil. In the middle of a tropical storm?

Sycorax's bearing stopped changing, became fixed, and her engine and wake noise increased. "She's moving," Patricia said. "Don't know if it's toward us or away."

The Gertrude receiver suddenly started screeching, a harsh warbling sound that moved up and down the spectrum. Patricia turned down the volume and smiled.

"Well, they heard us, at least, and they're taking it seriously enough that they're sonically jamming the underwater telephone. I think it's time to go hide behind the Kim Jong, at least while she's still on the surface."

They stayed down below fifty feet. The Kim Jong was heeled over on her starboard side, and her stern was still awash, but the bow, where the torpedo had hit, was hanging down, well under. Patricia could see great bubbling columns of air pouring out of the hatchways and didn't think it would be long before the entire vessel sank. She could hear the lifeboat's small diesel engine northwest, where the wind and waves had swept it.

She stayed close to the edge of the hull, where she could track Sycorax's jamming signal, a tone more discernible than the ship's turbines and water jets. Here, even under active sonar, SubLorraine's profile would merge with that of the Kim Jong.

Maybe we should go try the lifeboat's radio? Uh, hi, we just sank you, but would you mind terribly if we used your radio?

"I don't suppose we can get any weapons off the Kim Jong?" Thomas asked, looking over her shoulder.

"It's going to go down, really soon. Do you want to be in one of their holds when it does?"

She looked over at the Kim Jong's bridge, even with them. "Thomas! They have a VHF antenna, and we can get to it without going inside. Hell, I'll bet I could get close enough that you can reach down through the lockout hatch!"

They put Fraser up in the pilot section, behind Patricia, while Thomas pressurized the lockout chamber again. She would've rather done it herself, but there was always the chance the Kim Jong would sink and she'd need to move quickly to keep SubLorraine from being pulled into the downwash. Also, she had no intentionof leaving Fraser where he could reach the controls, regardless of handcuffs and change of heart.

"Got it," Thomas's voice said over the intercom. "Looks like a standard fitting.

It's a bit corroded and I had to use a crescent to get it off, but it should work.

Should I go on out and try and install it on your buoy?"

"No. That antenna isn't standard. We'll have to hardwire it into your radio, but Sycorax is closing. We need to get ready for our other trick. Button up."

"Aye. Hatch is shut. Starting exhaust compressor."

Sycorax was actively pinging now and slowing, to maximize her ability to listen.

They're going to get seasick. She was close enough that they were hearing Sycorax 's turbines through the hull again.

"Fraser?" she asked. "You're sure the Sycorax doesn't have any more torpedoes?"

"Yes, ma'am. The Nat-Al guy at the navy depot could only get one, like I said.

That, and a few depth charges."

"Depth charges!" She moved SubLorraine completely behind the Kim Jong. It chose that moment to tip the final balance between trapped air and weight, and dropped completely below the waves, sinking.

Several semitrailer cargo containers, clamped on deck, tore free and bobbed to the surface, or floated, near neutral at depth. Thank god for small favors. She moved in to one of these near-neutral ones, a container that was moving up, very slowly.

Sycorax had turned again, toward them, sonar apparently telling them they didn't have to worry about running into the Kim Jong anymore. Patricia held her breath.

Hey, maybe they'll smash the sonar dome on one of those containers.

Sycorax disappointed her by nimbly avoiding them, but it was still coming toward them. She let the container rise faster than SubLorraine and, as Sycorax moved slowly overhead, she moved under it, then up.

Below, the dropping Kim Jong began creaking again, as sealed compartments contorted and ruptured. Patricia used the noise to cover the sound of her blowing her trim tank. They were rising rapidly now, toward the stern of Sycorax.

Pressure equalized between the compartments and Thomas opened the hatch.

"Shhhh," Patricia hissed.

A barrel-shaped object splashed into the water ahead of them and began sinking rapidly.

"I love you, Thomas.""Not again!" he said.

She kicked the thrusters in and pulled up, headed for the Sycorax's hull.

Hopefully they set it to explode deep enough that it wouldn't rupture their own hull. Another part of her said, Well, their hull is a lot tougher than yours, isn't it?

Sycorax was moving slowly enough that SubLorraine passed the intake jets easily. This time Patricia wanted to clamp forward of them-even if it meant being closer to the sonar dome. She turned on the Sucker's trim pump and left it on.

Sycorax was rising and dropping with the swells, and Patricia had doubts about her ability to touch gently. She was watching it descend toward her when the depth charge went off two hundred feet below and several hundred feet behind.

The explosion ran SubLorraine's hull like a bell, loosened a thru-hull fitting for the depth meter, spraying water across Patricia and, incidentally, pushed the sub the last few inches toward Sycorax. The sucker clamped on with a bump, and SubLorraine immediately began dropping and rising with Sycorax.

Patricia killed the throttle and threw her hand over the leak, trying to keep the spray off the electronics. "I need a crescent wrench here!"

She heard Thomas scrambling through the tools and then coming back. He passed it to Fraser who; two-handed, passed it to her.

"They must've mistaken some of those sounds from the sinking freighter for us,"

she said, cranking on the fitting. The spray stopped immediately, but there was a slow seep she didn't like. She verified the sump pump was working. As long as they had electricity for the pump and the leak didn't worsen, they'd be all right. Panic later.

The flywheels were down to less than twenty percent. The charge could've lasted days, with them clamped on in leech mode, but she hadn't counted on them having to dodge torpedoes or perform man-overboard rescues and multiple evacuations of the lockout chamber.

She didn't think much of their running the turbogenerator in this weather. The seas would wash over the snorkel. And there were no submerged drilling platforms around here with convenient bubbles of air.

One thing at a time.

She rotated the hydrophone until it was pointed sternward, and then she pulled out the headphone jack. Immediately, the sound of the turbines, already audible without aid, became richer, transmitting frequencies not heard through the hull.

She cranked the seat around and carefully squeezed over Fraser, and into the lockout chamber, kissing Thomas quickly as she moved back to the toolbox.

"Okay, as I remember, the intake grid on the water jets had six-inch-square openings." She was pulling tools out and laying them on the floor. She took heavy wrenches, a two-pound sledge, and screwdrivers. "How tough are those impellerblades?"

Thomas pursed his lips, then licked them. "Well, on the Witch Class boat I served on, we had to replace them occasionally, especially if we were working inland waterways. Sand in the water chews them up. The stuff that could really crack them-rocks or metal debris-doesn't float."

"Not usually."

She pressurized the entire sub. Not only would it lessen the leak in the pilot compartment, she didn't want to leave Fraser in there alone. Thomas braced his shoulders against the ceiling and pushed down on the hatch with his feet to get it open against the current streaming by. Patricia blocked it open with a ten-inch box-end wrench. Water bubbled and swirled around the opening, reminding her, oddly, of a flushing toilet.

"Monkey wrench number one," she said. She took an adjustable pipe wrench, perhaps fourteen inches long and weighing about two pounds, and used the salvage-foam tank nozzle to encase it in sticky, buoyant foam. They had to squeeze it through the gap in the hatch, and then it was gone in the current.

She heard it bump, once, against the shroud around SubLorraine's prop; then there was another bump as it was sucked up to the intake grid. "It might stick crosswise," she warned.