Leviathan

As Leviathanshed the missiles, she started a steep dive for the seafloor, three and a half miles down.

At six hundred feet, the specially designed missiles fired a solid rocket booster that would carry them to the surface of the sea. Unfortunately, they weren't near the surface. There was a half-mile-thick ice sheet above them. As they approached at more than a hundred miles per hour, the conical-shaped weapons slammed into the blue bottom pressure ridges of the dying Ross Ice Shelf, smashing them to oblivion and sending the warheads to the bottom of the sea.

"Captain, we have Missouri'storpedo closing at sixty knots. She is still acquiring our sound signature--it must be locked onto our damage. Estimate impact in one minute."

"Very well, maintain course and speed. Ballast control; stand by to blow all tanks."

"We dodged one nuclear disaster, but we'll never avoid this one," Everett said as he and Virginia took a handhold. The blip on the hologram became one with Leviathan.

Collins hit the winding staircase that led down three decks to the engineering level. The captain had sealed off the elevators, and Jack knew that Tyler had no choice but to go down.

The massive engineering room contained the reactors. They were starting to scream at 115 percent power as the main water jet of Leviathantried desperately to push her forward-flooded sections down through the sea. The operational stations were all empty as every available crewman was in control or battling flooding on the other decks. The smell of burning rubber and hot steam permeated the air. Jack rounded a console and was taken aback when Tyler made his final stand. He grabbed Collins by the leg and pulled him to the deck.

Jack slammed against the rubber decking and bounced into the reactor control station. Tyler was trying to gain his feet, hitting Jack three times in quick succession as he rose. Collins shrugged off the blows and then lashed out with his boot, catching the larger Irishman in his right knee, producing a satisfactory, and sickening, crunch as the blow cracked the shin and tore ligaments in the sergeant's knee. He still maintained his footing, but with very great effort. He steadied himself on the bad leg, raised his left, and tried to bring it down onto Jack's neck, but Collins rolled free just as the boot struck the rubber matting.

Collins jumped to his feet and struck Tyler three times in his side, making the security man cough and grimace in great pain. Instead of going down, he collected himself faster than Jack realized he could and swung backward, hitting Collins in the chest and driving him back against the bulkhead. Collins bounced off, but he used the rebound action off the hull to his advantage. He came forward and caught Tyler with three straight, powerful blows to the face. Tyler reeled and spun away just as the pitch of the electric motors changed, screaming at even more power than before. Then the world changed as Leviathanstarted heading straight down, sending both Collins and Tyler sliding down the deck as if they were on a giant, very precarious slide.

Jack never had a chance to end the fight with Tyler. The Missouri's nuclear torpedo struck, and the world went dark.

"Okay, give me ninety-degrees dive on the planes. Increase ballast in the forward tanks to one hundred percent," Alexandria said calmly, closing her eyes to think, but still with her head lowered.

She was ticking off the seconds until detonation. When the American torpedo's computer detected the change in the angle of attack, the weapon would detonate as a preprogrammed precaution against losing contact with its target. This was exactly what she had hoped for. Alexandria suddenly opened her eyes and leaned forward in her chair.

"Hard-left rudder--one hundred percent down on fore and tower planes--all up on aft planes--all-ahead flank--full emergency power!" Everyone in the control center was shocked at the strength coming from Heirthall.

Leviathanstarted a straight-down, headlong run just as the torpedo reached its target area. In essence, what the captain did was bring the great vessel to an attitude where the hull would be less exposed--bringing the strongest portion of Leviathan'shull head on against the detonation and the thickened composite armor at her protected stern. Running at close to one hundred miles an hour toward the bottom of the sea, Leviathanwas still vulnerable as an egg in a cattle stampede.

The American warhead detonated ten thousand yards from the massive stern section of Leviathan. The tremendous heat generated by the warhead turned the sea to steam in a microsecond. The pressure wave shot in all directions, even down into the exposed jet ring-rudder of the giant submarine.