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"Good guess, Harry. A couple of noses went decidedly out of joint, but if they don't like the way I run my squadron, they can always pick a new squadron boss."

"What do we know about Admiral Lunin?"

"She's in the yard for overhaul now, due out late January."

"Going by past performance, it'll come out a little quieter."

"Probably. Word is that she'll have a new sonar suite, say about ten years behind us," Mancuso added.

"And that doesn't allow for the operators. It's still not a match for us, not even close to one. We can prove that."

"How?"

"Why not recommend to Group that any boat that comes across an Akula is supposed to track him aggressively. Let the fast-attack guys really try to get in close. But if a boomer gets close enough to track without risk of counter-detection, let's go for that, too. I think we need better data on this bird. If he's a threat, let's upgrade what information we have on him."

"Harry, that will really put Group into the overhead. They're not going to like this idea at all." But Mancuso already did, and Harry could see it.

Ricks snorted. "So? We're the best, Bart. You know it. I know it. They know it. We set some reasonable guidelines."

"Like what?"

"The farthest anyone has ever tracked an Ohio is - what?"

"Four thousand yards, Mike Heimbach on Scranton against Frank Kemeny on Tennessee. Kemeny detected Heimbach first - difference was about one minute on detection. Everything closer than that was a pre-arranged test."

"Okay, we multiply that by a factor of five, say. That's more than safe, Bart. Mike Heimbach had a brand-new boat, the first rendition of the new sonar integration system, and three extra sonarmen out of Group Six, as I recall."

Mancuso nodded. "Right, it was a deliberate test, and they worst-cased everything to see if anyone could detect an Ohio. Isothermal water, below the layer, everything."

And still Tennessee won," Ricks pointed out. "Frank was under orders to make it easy, and he still detected first, and as I recall he had a solution three minutes before Mike did."

"True." Mancuso thought for a moment. "Make it twenty-five thousand yards separation. No closer than that."

"Fine. I know I can track an Akula at that range. I have a very good sonar department - hell, we all do. If I stumble across this guy, I hover out there and gather all the signature data I can. I draw a twenty-five-thousand-yard circle around him and keep outside of it. There is no chance in hell that I'll get counter-detected."

"Five years ago, Group would have shot both of us even for talking like this," Mancuso observed.

"The world's changed. Look, Bart, you can run a 688 in close, but what does it prove? If we're really worried about boomer vulnerability, why dick around?"

"You're sure you can handle this?"

"Hell, yes! I'll write up the proposal for your operations staff, and you can send it up the flagpole to Group."

"This'll end up in Washington, you know that."

"Yeah, no more "We hide with pride," eh? What are we, a bunch of little old ladies? Damn it, Bart, I'm the commanding officer of a warship. Somebody wants to tell me I'm vulnerable, well, I'm going to prove that's a load of horseshit. Nobody has ever tracked me. Nobody ever will, and I'm prepared to prove that."

This interview had not gone the way Mancuso had expected at all. Ricks was talking like a real submarine-driver. It was the kind of talk Mancuso liked to hear.

"You're sure you're comfortable with this? It's really going to light a fire up the line. You're going to take some heat."

"So are you."

"I'm the squadron commander. I'm supposed to take heat."

"I'll take my chances, Bart. Okay, I'm going to have to drill the hell out of my people, especially the sonar troops, tracking party, like that. I have the time, and I have a pretty good crew."

"Okay. You write up the proposal. I'll give it a favorable endorsement and send it up."

"See how easy it is?" Ricks grinned. If you want to be number one in a squadron of good skippers, he