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For a moment Sharef lingered over the forward bulkhead with its photographs of his past ships. On the far left was the Iranian navy frigate Alvand, his first ship. That had been before Oxford, before Pamela, before the revolution. Next to it was the picture of the destroyer Damavand. For four years after the revolution he had been her navigator. Under the Ayatollah things had been so uncertain that Damavand rarely left port. Next there had been the Vosper Mark 5-class frigate Sahand, when he had been assigned as first officer at the age of thirty-two. Three years later, in April of 1988, the Sahand was at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, blown to pieces by Ronald Reagan’s U.S. Navy attack that sank half the Iranian fleet. He saw that as an overreaction to the Iranian boarding of the merchant ships bound for the northern Persian Gulf hauling war material to Iraq. The episode had been forgotten by most of the world since it happened at sea far from the television cameras, but Sharef would not forget it. He still wondered if he had any business being alive after what had happened to Sahand.

At age thirty-five he had taken command of the Mark 5-class frigate Alborz, three years that he looked back on with nostalgia. After several years of shore duty on the United Islamic Front combined staff he had decided that shore duty was not for him. The UIF had acquired a Russian-built Kilo-class diesel-electric submarine, the K-102, its image captured in the next photograph. Sharef, a veteran of the surface fleet, had outranked the sub’s captain when he reported aboard as the first officer. He had learned the submarine navy’s ways quickly, and two years later was selected (ahead of K-102’s captain) to command the ex-Russian Victor III nuclear submarine Tabarzin. Tabarzin’s photograph had been shot from high over her drydock, the slim and graceful form marred by scaffolds and gangways and temporary platforms. Sharef had enjoyed that first experience with nuclear power, marveling at how well it suited underwater combat. His command tour had gone so well that he was the Combined Naval Force’s first choice to go to Japan and receive the Destiny-class submarine Hegira.

The picture of Hegira had been taken as the ship ran on the surface at full speed, the bow wave smashing over the leading edge of the fin, the flag of the UIF flying from a tall mast. Sharef himself was recognizable on top of the fin in the bridge, driving his new ship from the shipyard, the sea ahead of him, the year in Japan behind him. And behind him as well the woman he had met there, the nuclear engineer named Yashiko Una, who had been in charge of the crew’s propulsion plant training. And just as duty had called him away from Oxford and Pamela, it now called him away from Yashiko.

A knock came at the door. It would be Abu-i-Wafa, the weapon-test director, wanting the answer to the impossible.

As Sharef stepped to the stateroom door, an idea did occur, an idea that seemed stupid and risky but might answer Abus requirements. And so dangerous that it might cost the UIF the submarine.

The man standing at the door was not Abu, but Sub.-Lt. Omar al-Maari, one of the junior officers, handing Sharef a message clipboard. He read the odd message from Ahmed, Khalib Sihoud’s aide.

What did he mean about rescuing two survivors. Survivors of whafl Sharef left his stateroom and walked to the control room, shaking his head.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

PENTAGON E-RING

U.S. NAVY FLAG PLOT

Admiral Richard Donchez was perhaps only the second Chief of Naval Operations in navy history ever to dirty his hands with the details of combat operations. In the last five years the office of the number-one admiral in the navy had been changed from an administrative command to an operational billet. Which was fortunate for the U.S. Navy, because Dick Donchez would not have taken the post unless it allowed him to be more of a tactician than a paper pusher. It had also been beneficial to the navy and to the course of the war with the United Islamic Front. The most recent example of this was his design of Operation Early Retirement, the mission to assassinate Sihoud and, if successful, end the war early.