Podynov, an affable Georgian, seemed not to notice his commander's distaste. Indeed, Podynov was not Korsov's choice for this post, or this mission. Unfortunately, the decision was not his to make. Years before, in the Soviet navy, Yuri Korsov had some control over the choice of men in his command.

Not anymore.

Now he had new masters - businessmen, Korsov thought with disgust - and they did not consult him before making decisions. It was a situation that bothered Captain Korsov very much, but he had to accept it.

Things were very different in Mother Russia these days.

"Anything on the sonar yet, Podynov?" the captain asked gruffly, forgetting his misgivings for a moment.

"Not yet, sir," Podynov replied, still grinning. Korsov returned to his task of scanning the horizon. He noted that the seas were getting rougher, and recalled the weather reports he'd picked up from a remote Russian military outpost on the Kuril Islands.

A better-than-even chance for a major storm ...

"The sea is getting rougher, sir," Podynov observed, as if reading his commander's mind. Korsov grunted, but said nothing.

"I'm not worried," Podynov continued to prattle. "The Ordog is a good ship. It will hold together and bring us the prize we seek."

It had better, Korsov thought, because we have more than a storm at sea to worry about on this particular day.

Suddenly, for the hundredth time, Korsov bemoaned his fate - a fate that had taken him from his post as an officer aboard a nuclear submarine to his current command - as captain of nothing more than a high-speed, high-tech fishing boat!

Then Korsov recalled the dangerous prey they hunted this day, and a trace of a smile touched his thin lips.

If we are successful, we will make history, he mused. And I will end up a very rich man ...

Forty minutes later, the sonar technician spotted something.

Captain Korsov grunted when Podynov delivered the news, then followed the portly man to the cramped sonar room. Korsov studied the blip on the screen for a moment. Then he took the headphones from the sonar technician and placed them over his ears.

For three minutes he strained his highly trained ears, listening to the sound made by the mysterious blip on the sonar screen. Then he pulled off the headphones and handed them back to the young man at the sonar station.

Korsov faced Podynov, a grim realization written on his thin face.

"We have company," the captain announced. "A j.a.panese Yuushio-cla.s.s submarine ... Curious about us, no doubt."

Korsov was not happy about their visitor, but he was pleased to see the grin disappear from Podynov's chubby face.

"Do you think the j.a.panese suspect something?" the first mate asked fearfully.

"Of course they do," Korsov replied with a thin smile.

"Captain!" the sonar operator cried excitedly. "The j.a.panese submarine is leaving the area."

Korsov leaned over the man's shoulder and watched the blip slowly withdraw to the east - toward Onekotan Island. Finally, after an eternity, the submarine moved out of the range of their sonar.

Korsov grunted and stood erect. "Continue to scan the area for our prey," he commanded. "I will be in my quarters."

Without another word, Captain Korsov departed. Podynov and the young sonar technician exchanged uneasy glances.

"Do you think we will find it?" the youth asked.

"Of course," Podynov replied, smiling wanly. But the first mate's answer was no comfort.

On the bridge of the SS-597 j.a.panese Yuushio-cla.s.s submarine Takashio, Captain Sendai was bent over an illuminated map table. As he plotted a course toward the Kuril Islands, Sendai wondered once again about the strange ship he had spotted earlier.

Because of his extensive training in vessel recognition, the captain of the Takashio knew that the type of ship was familiar, but try as he might, he could not place it. Sendai would have preferred to pace the ship and spy on its activities awhile, but it was not to be. He was ordered to meet a supply ship in three hours, and he had already tarried long enough in these waters. Unless he met his resupply ship soon, Sendai's diesel-electric submarine would be out of fuel.

But he could not forget the familiar outlines of the ship he'd seen earlier. And then it hit him. Crossing the bridge, the captain pulled down a volume of ship recognition patterns - specifically, the volume that included Russian patrol ships. He leafed through the pages quickly, until he discovered a match.

Captain Sendai cursed softly. It was a Russian ship ...

In fact, the vessel he had spotted was a Stenka-cla.s.s fast patrol craft. Sendai had not recognized it before now because this type of ship usually only patrolled waters around Russian ports. According to the vessel recognition book, the Stenka-cla.s.s ships were operated almost exclusively by the Maritime Border Directorate of the KGB - in the bad old days before the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the disbanding of the Russian intelligence community, including the KGB.

Sendai closed the volume and stared into s.p.a.ce.

He doubted that the ship was operated by a Russian intelligence agency now - though it was possible. But such ships were easily purchased from the cash-starved Russian government these days. A private business consortium might own it. Or just an individual entrepreneur. The ship might not even be manned by Russians, but Sendai's well-honed instincts told him it was.

Captain Sendai approached the video monitor. With the flick of a switch he pulled up the images he had taken of the ship a few hours before. He studied the outline, noting that the forward thirty-millimeter twin antiaircraft guns had been replaced by a single-tube weapon of uncertain origin. He increased the magnification ... The weapon looked like a harpoon gun.

Is it possible that the patrol ship was modified to serve as a whaler? Sendai wondered for a moment before quickly dismissing the notion. There was no place to cook or store whale blubber on such a small craft.

Sendai increased the magnification once again. Suddenly, the Cyrillic script on the side of the vessel became clear. Sendai could read Russian - he had learned while patrolling the Kuril Islands, which both j.a.pan and Russia claimed as their own.

"Ordog," he muttered aloud - the Russian word for "devil."

Well, Captain Sendai thought. Something is very wrong with this ship, but there is nothing I can do about it now. After the submarine is refueled and resupplied, I will go hunting for it again, however.

Sendai was suddenly certain that the patrol vessel was looking for G.o.dzilla. The creature had been spotted in these waters in the last several weeks, which explained why this part of the sea was all but deserted.

But what do the Russians want with G.o.dzilla? the j.a.panese captain wondered. Whatever the reason, Captain Sendai was certain that the crew of that ship was up to no good ...

"Captain Korsov! Captain Korsov!" Podynov cried frantically through the thin wooden door of the captain's quarters. "We have located the creature."

The door flew open. "Are you sure?" Korsov demanded. The first mate nodded.

"It is too big to be anything else," he replied.

"Put the ship on red alert!" Korsov ordered. A moment later, alarms echoed throughout the Ordog as the eighteen-man crew took up battle stations.

A moment after he entered the bridge, Korsov had a.s.sessed the situation. The blip on the sonar was unmistakable, and the Geiger counters also indicated an unnaturally high level of radiation emanating from the shape ahead of them.

Korsov scanned the horizon with his binoculars. The surface of the sea did not hint at what swam beneath it.

Silently, a huge man in a sealskin parka approached the captain. His bronze skin gleamed in the red lights of the bridge. The man's head was shaved, and he wore a whalebone loop in his nose. Korsov turned and faced the man.

"Take over the harpoon," Korsov commanded. The man nodded once and quickly left the bridge. Silently, he moved out onto the bow, toward the huge harpoon gun mounted there.

"Where is the creature?" Korsov demanded of his sonar man.

"Five hundred meters ahead of us," the young technician replied. "And twenty meters down."

"We'll bring him to the surface soon enough," Korsov stated. Turning to his first mate, he gave the command to launch depth charges.

With the impact of the first explosion, G.o.dzilla opened his huge maw and roared angrily. Bubbles burst from the creature's mouth, churning the sea around him into a froth.

A second and third explosion quickly followed. None of them were near enough to harm the monster, but G.o.dzilla became as curious as he was annoyed.

The creature raised his reptilian eyes and headed for the ocean surface ...

"There he is!" Podynov cried, stepping away from the depth charge launcher even as another explosive metal cylinder rolled onto the launch cradle.

All heads on the Ordog turned as G.o.dzilla's three rows of dorsal spikes broke the surface. The sea seemed to roil, bulging into a huge dome right before the monster's head rose above the white-tipped waves.

G.o.dzilla scanned the horizon, his feral eyes narrowing when he spotted the gray ship floating in the distance.

But to the crew's surprise, G.o.dzilla was not up for a fight that day. Instead of approaching the Ordog, G.o.dzilla turned and swam in the opposite direction.

"Full speed ahead!" Korsov commanded, his narrow, predatory smile looking like a scar on his skull-like face.

Everyone on the bridge felt the tension emanating from Captain Korsov as the chase began. They knew their commander was a warrior, a hunter. This was his element.

"Harpooner? Can you hear me?" Korsov demanded over the ship's radio.

The bald man gripping the gunstock on the bow of the bobbing ship turned, tapped his headphones, and nodded to Korsov through the bridge windows. Then he turned back to face the prey that swam before him.

Slowly, inexorably, the Ordog was gaining on G.o.dzilla. And only now did the utter insanity of his mission occur to Captain Korsov. All this for a few gallons of blood and tissue samples, he thought.

Of course he understood why his shadowy employers wanted the material. G.o.dzilla's flesh was an enigma. Its properties of instantaneous regeneration were well known, but not fully understood. So far, only the j.a.panese and the Americans had supplies of G.o.dzilla's DNA to study, and they weren't sharing them with anybody.

But the European pharmaceutical company that was paying Korsov's employers wanted their own supply of G.o.dzilla cells, and were willing to pay a lot of rubles to get it. Korsov's employers convinced the pharmaceutical company that the Ordog's special equipment was perfect for the task.

So who was Korsov to question his bosses, as long as they were paying him so well?

"We are almost in range, Captain!" Podynov cried as the Ordog approached G.o.dzilla. The ship was leaping out of the water now as it slammed into the creature's wake at a speed of nearly forty knots. The crew on the bridge had to hang on or risk being dashed to the deck. The man at the wheel, a seasoned veteran of the sea, hung on with white knuckles but pushed grimly onward.

Suddenly, G.o.dzilla's tail thrashed out of the water on the Ordog's starboard side. The tail towered over the ship, then crashed into the waves only a moment later. The resulting spray battered the ship, almost capsizing the Ordog.

"Man overboard!" Podynov cried. Korsov turned. He saw a flurry of activity on the deck. One of the men had been swept into the sea. Korsov could see that the man was quickly disappearing in the distance behind them.

"Captain, we have to turn back!" Podynov cried.

"No!" Korsov commanded. "Our goal is worth the sacrifice. We go forward!"

The men on the bridge exchanged apprehensive glances, but they obeyed their captain.

Korsov clutched the bridge control panel and gazed through the windows. G.o.dzilla raised his head out of the water and bellowed. The roar seemed to vibrate through the ship and shook the crew's courage.

"Prepare to fire the harpoon!" Korsov cried into the radio.

On the bow of the ship, the harpooner pulled the parka's hood off his shaven head and peered through the gun sight. His captain's voice crackled through his headphones.

"Aim for the neck," Korsov directed.

The silent man at the gun squinted into the sight, focusing the crosshairs on a portion of G.o.dzilla's throat right below the pointed ears. The charcoal gray flesh rippled.

The harpooner held his breath as he squeezed the trigger. With a whoosh of escaping gases, the harpoon leaped out of the tube and shot across the waves, dragging a thick line behind it. The harpoon struck G.o.dzilla exactly where the harpooner had aimed.

As the point of the harpoon embedded itself in G.o.dzilla's thick hide, secondary hooks emerged from the main bolt, digging deeper into the monster's flesh and anchoring the harpoon in place. The clear hollow plastic tube that was embedded in the center of the harpoon's long steel connecting cable soon filled with greenish fluid as the ship's pump began its work.

On the bridge, Podynov looked at Captain Korsov. "The pumps are on-line!" the first mate announced. He checked the gauge on the control board in front of him. "The tanks are beginning to fill with the monster's blood."

G.o.dzilla suddenly dipped his ma.s.sive head, pulling the harpoon's line taut and dragging the Ordog's bow down into the waves. With a scream of surprise, the harpooner lost his grip on the gun-stock and was swept into the sea.

This time no one bothered to cry "man overboard." They knew that Korsov would not endanger the mission to save a man's life - any man's.

"The first tank is full," Podynov cried, switching over to the second of three 150-gallon tanks in the hold of the fast patrol ship. G.o.dzilla continued to surge forward, dragging the ship behind him like a child tugging on a bathtub toy.

Two minutes later, Podynov switched to the third and final tank. G.o.dzilla had not slowed his forward momentum. Indeed, the creature seemed oblivious to the tiny ship he was dragging behind him through the increasingly rough surf.

Korsov peered over the first mate's shoulder, wondering how long the hull of the Stenka-cla.s.s ship could withstand such a buffeting. The gauge on the control panel indicated that the third tank was nearly full.

"Prepare to cut the cable loose," Korsov announced with a note of triumph. Podynov lifted the plastic cover on the detonator that would set off the explosive bolts to sever the nearly indestructible steel cable.

"Now!" Korsov cried. Podynov's chubby finger stabbed the detonator b.u.t.ton, but nothing happened. He turned to Korsov with an expression of obvious panic etched on his face.

"The bolts did not detonate, Captain!" he cried.

"I know that, you fool," Korsov cried, pushing the man aside and checking the control panel's connections. Everything seemed to be in order.

Suddenly, the Ordog dipped again as G.o.dzilla lowered his reptilian head and pulled the cable taut. The patrol ship was almost swamped, and a powerful wave washed over the bow and slammed into the bridge, shattering a window.

"Captain!" Podynov cried, fear in his voice. His face was bleeding where he had been struck by a shard of window gla.s.s. "What do we do?" he whined.

"Get out there and cut the cable!" Korsov commanded, thrusting an ax from the emergency stores into the startled first mate's hands.

"But the cable is made of t.i.tanium steel," Podynov continued to whine. "It is indestructible!"

"Do it!" Korsov shouted forcefully, pushing the man off the bridge and out onto the deck. The first mate was followed by three other sailors, all clutching axes. The men stumbled to the harpoon gun, clutching safety handles along the way. As soon as they arrived, they began hacking on the cable, sending sparks into the gray twilight.