She steadied herself, then pulled it. The submarine shuddered as water was forced out of the tanks by compressed air. Within a minute, a different kind of rocking motion took over-the swell of Atlantic waves against the hull.

Trulli tapped clumsily at the keyboard with one hand, the pain from his chest preventing him from moving his other arm. “Okay, GPS signal is coming in… got it. Wow, we’re not too far off.”

Nina looked at the screen as a map appeared. “Where are we?”

“Off the coast of Maryland. About two hundred and ninety kilometers from New York.”

Nina instantly made the conversion to imperial measurements: a hundred and eighty miles. “Where’s the Ocean Emperor?”

“Give me a sec to see if I can get a satellite connection. It’s not exactly like we’ve got Wi-Fi access out here…”

She waited anxiously first for the computer to link up to Corvus’s network, then for Trulli to log in. Compared to the system in his office, the satellite link was excruciatingly slow.

“Gotcha!” Trulli said at last. A yellow triangle indicating the Ocean Emperor’s position appeared on the screen. “It’s about four kays behind us, a bit farther offshore. Same course as it was on before, still doing twenty-three knots.”

“Can we catch it?”

“If the pump-jets haven’t been completely screwed, then yeah. If we’re quick.” He indicated one particular gauge. “The batteries are almost drained. We’ve got maybe ten minutes of power left. But I’ll need your help to pilot the sub. I can’t do it with only one arm.”

Nina stared at the triangle on the map, so close to the icon marking their own position. Eddie…

She set her jaw in determination. “What do you need me to do?”

Sophia stood on the Ocean Emperor’s bridge, regarding the view ahead. The lights in the room had been dimmed for nighttime operations, but even so there was little to see. The ship was almost thirty miles from shore, and there was nothing in sight but the ink-black sweep of the Atlantic and the starry dome above it.

She turned to the man beside her, Captain Lenard. The Ocean Emperor’s normal complement of forty had been reduced to a skeleton crew of just five for its final voyage, all of whom would be evacuated in the tilt-rotor parked on the helipad behind the bridge shortly before the ship reached Manhattan. “And it hasn’t reappeared?”

“No, ma’am,” said Lenard, a flint-eyed Frenchman. “Whatever it was, it seems to have gone.”

Sophia looked suspiciously at the radar screens, then back out of the wide windows. Something had shown up on the Ocean Emperor’s radar almost directly ahead a few minutes earlier, then vanished again. It had been too large to be some piece of random flotsam, and considering the yacht’s objective anything out of the ordinary had to be considered a possible threat.

But if it were a boat, it would still be visible on radar, and Lenard had already ruled out the possibility of its being the periscope of a submarine…

“Keep looking,” she finally ordered. “If it reappears, call me at once. I’ll be in my stateroom.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lenard gave Komosa, lurking at the back of the bridge, a somewhat jealous look as Sophia gestured for the giant to follow her, then turned back to the radar.

The object the Ocean Emperor had detected was now much closer than its captain would believe. With Nina’s help, Trulli had submerged the Wobblebug to a depth of just six feet, bringing it on a course to intercept the yacht. With two people working the controls, the confined space of the cabin was even more claustrophobic.

“Sorry,” Nina said again as she accidentally nudged Trulli with her elbow.

“No worries. At least you missed my ribs this time.” Trulli checked the monitor screen. At such a shallow depth, the computer was able to receive intermittent GPS signals, and the map showed that the Wobblebug and the Ocean Emperor were now less than two hundred yards apart. The submarine was almost directly in the huge cruiser’s path, heading in the same direction but quickly being overtaken. “Okay, she’s nearly on us. I’ll move us along her port side and then surface and try to match speeds.”

“How much time will we have?”

“Not much. Subs go slower on the surface, and I’ll have to redline the pump-jets just to keep up. Even if they don’t burn out, they’ll still run out of juice real fast. And there’s something else.”

“Figures,” groaned Nina. “What is it?”

“With the bow wave that thing’ll be kicking up at twenty-three knots, water’s going to come in through the top hatch. A lot of water.”

“Wait, you mean it’ll sink?”

“She’s not going back home, whatever happens,” Trulli said, sounding disconsolate. “Ah well. She gave us a good run, at least.”

Nina gave him a worried look. “But what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. Long as you’re clear, I’ll be able to get out.”

“With a broken rib?”

“Life’d be boring without a bit of challenge, wouldn’t it?” He squeezed her arm. “You just get onto that ship, okay? Find Eddie, defuse the bomb and stop this crazy bitch!”

She turned as best she could in the tight space and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks, Matt.”

“No problem. If I get out of this, you just remember that job offer, okay?”

Nina smiled. “You’re at the top of my list.”

On the screen, the symbols representing the Wobblebug and the Ocean Emperor were almost overlapping, and she could now hear a new sound beneath the churning rush of the pump-jets; a low-frequency rumble coming through the water.

Powerful diesel engines. The yacht was upon them.

Trulli adjusted the steering yoke to bring the submarine closer to the surface. “Okay, this is it! Start opening the hatch, but not all the way until I say.”

Nina turned the locking wheel as he guided the sub closer to the Ocean Emperor, switching the monitor to the camera on the hull. The image was almost completely dark and obscured by spray, but through the surging water bright spots were visible to the right.

Portholes. The Ocean Emperor was alongside them, the throb of its engines like the purr of a monstrous cat.

The Wobblebug bucked as it ran through the turbulent water thrown up by the ship’s bow. Nina clung to the hatch, almost falling. Trulli battled one-handedly with the controls. More portholes slid past…

“Okay, open it!” he shouted.

Nina pushed up the hatch. Freezing water immediately sluiced in, drenching them. The Wobblebug bounced through the waves, more water and spume cascading in as it plowed into each one.

She grabbed the coiled line they had hung beside the hatch and scrambled out to sit on the edge of the hull. At over twenty knots, the windchill instantly sliced through her sodden clothes like a knife of ice.

The Ocean Emperor loomed to starboard, a metal cliff face. The aft deck was closest to the water, but it was still over ten feet above the surface.

Gripping the open hatch with one hand, Nina fumbled with the line. A hook was attached to the end. If she was lucky, she would snag a stanchion or railing on the rear deck.

If she was lucky…

Another wave crashed over her, chilling her to the bone. Water poured into the cabin. The lights flickered.

“I’m losing it!” Trulli warned. “The jets are overheating, and the water’s shorting things out!”

“Get in closer!” Nina shouted back. She hefted the hook, ready to throw it.

The submarine edged towards the Ocean Emperor. The yacht’s churning wake made the pitching worse, the Wobblebug’s bow leaving the water completely before smacking back down in the troughs between the waves. Even holding the hatch cover and using her legs to grip the edge of the opening, Nina could barely keep her position.