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report the new contact to his command-and-control center, for the Seawolf ’s forward speed dropped abruptly.
    â€œLink us,” Bishop directed.
    Penn entered the command.
    Bishop saw the cross-sonar link establish and watched asthe radar screen display mapped out parts of the ocean the Seawolf had passed through recently, giving them a first look at the waters around the Strait of Juan de Fuca. All looked calm over the last 24 hours.
    Cross-sonar was a set of elegantly simple ideas that, when put together, allowed two subs to share sonar data with each other while not being overheard. Their conversation couldn’t be distinguished from the ocean noise because it was based on and built into the ocean noise.
    â€œStart the cross-sonar search.”
    â€œStart the cross-sonar search, aye, Captain.” Penn entered the command.
    The sonar dome and the towed sonar array on the Nevada paired up with the sonar dome and towed sonar array on the Seawolf . The effective range expanded as four hydrophone sets listened in concert to the ocean. Contacts began to appear at distances substantially greater than either sub could hear on its own. Most were surface ships.
    â€œNew contact, bearing 276 degrees, looks deep,” the spectrum sonarman in the far left seat said, excitement in his voice. He typed fast, running the search to match the sound and pin down the exact name. “Identified as Akula, class II, K-335. It’s the Cheetah , sir.”
    â€œGo get him, Jeff,” Bishop murmured to himself.
    The Seawolf had seen the Akula too. Cross-sonar dropped. The screen showed the Seawolf ’s abrupt acceleration in speed on a direct vector for an intercept. The Seawolf was a fast-attack submarine designed for combat with just such an opposing submarine. The Cheetah ’s captain was about to have a very bad day.
    Bishop breathed easier. The obstacle he’d worried aboutfor the return home was now a known quantity—and the Seawolf ’s focus. Jeff would be on the Russian sub until he was driven well out to sea.
    â€œBring up the data replay.”
    Bishop watched cross-sonar paint in the Akula again. It was out at the edge of the range of what even cross-sonar could find. The Akula had never heard either the Nevada or the Seawolf , of that Bishop was certain. All the Russian captain would know was that he had a U.S. fast-attack submarine coming into firing position in his baffles. No shots would be exchanged, as both sides during peacetime used these skirmishes as interesting training exercises, but the Russian captain would still be smarting. He would have been slowly and carefully maneuvering for days to work his way into that trench off the continental shelf as a place to hide.
    Allies and enemies alike were trying to figure out what the U.S. was doing that had increased the sonar range to such a degree. The assumption would be that new, more sensitive hardware had been deployed. Bishop thought cross-sonar might survive a decade unmatched before someone decoded what they were doing. Cross-sonar was just software and some very elegant reasoning. Espionage was the real threat. Someone on the U.S. side giving away the secret, someone stealing it by hacking into a server or physically making a copy of the algorithms were the more likely ways it would become known by other nations.
    Bishop had been stunned when he got his first detailed, classified briefing on how cross-sonar functioned. It gave them a priceless advantage at sea and seemed so obvious once he saw the individual pieces and how they fit together. But it had taken a 20-year-old college student working on a Ph.D. sonarthesis—her brother in the submarine force having sparked her interest—to come up with the ideas and put them together into a powerful and operationally useful combination.
    Bishop walked back to the command-and-control center. He’d take full advantage of the tactical advantage cross-sonar gave him, and be