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Captain Dario Ziliani, commanding officer of the Seawolf-class nuclear submarine Jimmy Carter, was a true submariner, who rose through the ranks from cleaning out torpedo tubes to his current position. His first sub was a Barbel-class diesel, an extremely cramped vehicle, the meager interior of which was largely occupied by oil stench and clangor.

Compared to that, the Seawolf class, the most expensive submarine ever developed, was more like a Rolls-Royce. Since being named captain in 2020, Ziliani had given his sub and crew all the care he could provide. The harsh training paid off, and now the high-tensile body, S6W reactor, and crew of 140 were unified into a single organism fast enough to swim freely in any sea, provided it had the depth.

In a way, the Jimmy Carter was like Ziliani’s baby. Sadly, he would soon be phased out of active service, forced to choose between working on land or early retirement, but he knew that if his recommendation, XO Guthrie, was put in charge next, she would be in good hands.

But then, like some dark cloud over his impending change in life, Captain Ziliani got a strange and ominous order just ten days ago.

Jimmy Carter was designed to support special-operations missions, and it had systems that worked with Navy SEAL forces. One of them was the presence of a miniature submarine on the aft deck.

On several occasions, she’d sailed deep into foreign waters with SEALs on board. But these missions were always to support peace for the United States and the world at large, and the men who rode on those missions shared the same sense of duty as Ziliani and his crew.

But the men who’d boarded in Guam two days ago…

Ziliani went back to meet with them once, and he nearly ordered his officers to launch them out of the tubes. A dozen-plus men lounging around in disarray, blasting music from headphones, playing poker for keeps, littering beer cans around the place. They were not regimented sailors. They could barely pass for proper military.

Only one of them, their tall commander, who apologized for the mess, seemed to have any sense of decorum at all. But his stunningly blue eyes…

When Ziliani took his outstretched hand and gave him a hard stare, he felt a sensation he hadn’t had in many years.

It was from his childhood, long before he enlisted in the navy. He’d been swimming at the beach in his hometown of Miami when a great white shark swam directly past him. He didn’t get attacked, fortunately, but he did look into the shark’s eyes as it swam by. They were like bottomless pits that absorbed all the light that touched them.

And in this man’s eyes was that same dark void…

“Captain, I’ve got something on the bow sonar!” said one of the techs, pulling Ziliani out of the memory. “It’s a nuclear turbine. Identifying now…Match. That’s the megafloat, sir. Distance to target: fifteen miles.”

He snapped back to attention. He was in the command center and needed to give orders.

“Maintain depth. Speed one-five knots.”

The helm repeated his order, and then there was a brief sensation of deceleration.

“Do we know where the Aegis defense ship is located?”

“Gas turbine–engine signal at forty-three miles southwest of target…Match. JMSDF Nagato.”

Ziliani stared at the two dots on the large display screen. The Aegis ship would be armed, but the megafloat was just a research facility, as he understood it. And their orders were to send that band of armed ruffians for infiltration. To a Japanese ship—an allied nation. It didn’t seem like the kind of operation the president or DoD would approve.

Then he remembered what the black suits who’d brought him the orders straight from the Pentagon had said.

Japan is undertaking research on that megafloat that will put them at war with America again. The best way to maintain peaceful relations is to bury that research in the darkness, where it belongs.

Ziliani wasn’t young enough to take them at face value. But he was also old enough to know that he didn’t have any option other than to follow orders.

“Are our guests ready?” he murmured to his executive officer, who was standing nearby.

“On standby in the ASDS.”

“Good…Maintain speed, depth to one hundred feet!”

Compressed air cleared the ballast tanks of seawater, lifting the considerable hull of the Jimmy Carter toward the surface. Slowly but surely, their distance to the dots on the sonar shrank.

Would Japanese scientists die? Most likely. And he wasn’t going to forget his part in this operation until the day he died.

“Distance to target: five miles!”

Ziliani steeled himself and cast aside his misgivings. “Disengage ASDS!” he commanded. He felt a minor vibration—a sign that the cargo on the aft deck had been released.

“Disengaged…ASDS is autonomous.”

The little submarine containing a pack of wild dogs and one shark picked up speed, charging toward the belly of the giant turtle floating on the sea.