The visual display confirmed it a minute later. The frequency- or tonelines were in the areas known to depict specific classes of submarines, all moving at high speed to clear the harbor. The bearing-to-contact lines spread apart as the boats fanned out. The boats had already dived, he noted. Usually Soviet submarines didn't dive until they were well offshore.

"Ship count is over twenty, sir," the chief sonarman said quietly. "We have a major sortie here."

"Sure looks like it." McCafferty moved back to the attack center. His men were already entering the contact positions into the fire-control computer, and sketching paper tracks on the chart table. The war hadn't started yet, and though it appeared it could come at any time, McCafferty's orders were to keep clear of any Soviet formation until the Word came. He didn't like it-better to get his blows in quick-but Washington had made it clear they wanted no one to cause an incident that might prevent some kind of diplomatic settlement. That made sense, the captain admitted to himself. Maybe the lace-panty folks could still get things under control. A faint hope, but a real one. Real enough to overcome his tactical desire to hold an attack position.

He ordered his submarine moved farther offshore. In half an hour, things were clearer still, and the captain had a SLOT-buoy launched. The buoy was programmed to allow Chicago thirty minutes to clear the area, then it started sending a series of burst transmissions on a UHF satellite band. From ten miles away, he listened to Soviet ships going beserk around the radio buoy, doubtlessly thinking it was the location of the submarine. The game was becoming all too real.

The buoy operated for over an hour, continuously sending its data to a NATO communications satellite. By nightfall the data was being broadcast to all NATO units at sea. The Russians are coming.

16 - Last Moves/First Moves

USS NIMITZ

The speaker had announced sunset two hours before, but Bob had to finish his work. Sunsets at sea far away from the polluted city air, with a sharp horizon for the sun to slide under, were always something he enjoyed watching. What he saw now was almost as good. He stood with his hands on the rail, first looking down at the foam alongside the carrier's sleek huff, then after a brief moment of preparation, up. Born and raised in Boston, Toland hadn't known what the Milky Way was until joining the Navy, and the discovery of the wide, bright belt of stars overhead was always a source of wonder to him. There were the stars he'd learned to navigate by, with sextant and trigonometric tables-largely replaced now by electronic aids like Omega and Loran-but they were still beautiful to behold. Arcturus, and Vega, and Altair, all blinking at him with their own colors, their own unique characteristics that made them benchmarks in the night sky.

A door opened, and a sailor dressed in what looked like a purple planeflueler's shirt joined him on the flight deck catwalk.

"Darkened ship, sailor. I'd dump that cigarette," Toland said sharply, more annoyed to have his precious solitude destroyed.

"Sorry, sir." The butt sailed over the side. The man was silent for a few minutes, then looked at Toland. "You know about the stars, sir?"

"What do you mean?"

"This is my first cruise, sir, an' I grew up in New York. Never saw the stars like this, but I don't even know what they are-the names, I mean. You officers know all that stuff, right?"

Toland laughed quietly. "I know what you mean. Same with my first time out. Pretty, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. What's that one?" The boy's voice sounded tired. Small wonder, Toland thought, with all the flight operations they've been through today. The youngster pointed to the brightest dot in the eastern sky, and Bob had to think for a few seconds.

"That's Jupiter. A planet, not a star. With the quartermaster's spyglass, you can pick out her moons-some of them anyway." He went on to point out some of the stars used for navigation.

"How do you use 'em, sir?" the sailor asked.

"You take a sextant and plot their height above the horizon-sounds harder than it is, just takes some practice-and you check that against a book of star positions."

"Who does that, sir?"

"The book? Standard stuff. I imagine the book we use comes from the Naval Observatory in D.C., but people have been measuring the tracks of the stars and planets for three or four thousand years, long before telescopes were invented. Anyway, if you know the exact time, and you know where a particular star is, you can plot out where you are on the globe pretty accurately, within a few hundred yards if you really know your stuff. Same thing with the sun and the moon. That knowledge has been around for hundreds of years. The tricky part was inventing a clock that kept good time. That happened about two hundred and some years ago."

"I thought they used satellites and stuff like that."

"We do now, but the stars are just as pretty."