In the northwest of the Amirant Islands, the storm that had been going on for several days finally died down.

Three hundred and fifty meters below the surface of the sea, the "Gun Squid" slowly drifted northeast at a speed of less than two knots, driven by a deep-water undercurrent. Inside the submarine, the naturally circulating PWR is running at idle speed, with the drive shaft slowly rotating at a rate of five revolutions per minute. The officers and men were even more light-footed during their activities, for fear of making a little noise. For three days in a row, the cooks had nothing to do, because stir-frying and cooking had to make a sound.

In the sailor's cabin, a soldier made a slight noise when he opened a can of sardines, which immediately attracted the angry eyes of the others, and the sailor quickly grimaced and shrank back to his bunk. Hua Jianfeng inspected the four sailors' cabins in turn before returning to the captain's room.

Because one-third of the sailors had to sleep in the "hot bunks," there were no extra bunks on the submarine for the three special forces who "cut in line," so Lu Chengwen could only go to the captain's room to sleep on the floor, and the other two special forces could only partner with the deputy captain and the chief engineer.

"How's it going?"

"Fortunately, everyone's mood is stable." Hua Jianfeng sat down on the edge of the bed, since he and Lu Chengwen "cohabited", the captain's room, which was not spacious enough, became extremely crowded. "You say, will the 'Houston' give up tracking and return to sea a long time ago?"

"How do I know?" Lu Chengwen glanced at Hua Jianfeng and got up from the bunk. "Lao Hua, do you trust intuition?"

"Intuition?" Hua Jianfeng took out a cigarette, and in the past few days, he has smoked a lot. "Sometimes I believe it, sometimes I don't believe it. I heard Colonel Xiang Linghui say that you special forces are very intuitive people. ”

"yes, a lot of times, we have to rely on our gut instincts." Lu Chengwen took out a cigarette from the cigarette case placed on the table. Since moving into the captain's quarters, he has become the second privileged person on board.

"What does intuition tell you?" After a few days of getting along, Hua Jianfeng learned a lot about the special forces from Lu Chengwen, especially the secret battles they had participated in, and he admired these special forces even more.

After taking two puffs of cigarette, Lu Chengwen rubbed his forehead and said, "My intuition tells me that the enemy is nearby, and is waiting for us to expose ourselves and then deliver a fatal blow to us." In my opinion, submarines are snipers in the sea. ”

"What do you mean?"

"Ambush good. Wait patiently for the enemy to appear. Then he was killed by one shot. What do you think. Pretty similar, right? ”

Hua Jianfeng smiled faintly. Extinguished most of the cigarette butts left.

Intuition also told Hua Jianfeng. The "Houston" is nearby. And is waiting for the "Gun Squid" to take the initiative to appear.

Although Lu Chengwen never said what they had stolen from the Great Rift Valley. But combined with the command from above. and-for-tat action by the U.S. military. Hua Jianfeng has every reason to believe it. That mysterious object is related to the fate of the country and the nation. The United States has known about the existence of this mysterious object for a long time. The item was even found first. turned out to be snatched away by Lu Chengwen and them.

So important thing. If only the United States could not get it. Nor will it fall into the hands of other countries.

The "Houston" will certainly not rest on its laurels, and will certainly be in hot pursuit, and it is very likely that after the situation deteriorates, it will preemptively strike and sink the "Gun Squid".

The question is, where exactly is the "Houston" hiding?

When Lu Cheng finished smoking, Hua Jianfeng stood up. "I'll go out and have a look first, and you can go back to sleep."

"I'll go with you." Lu Chengwen also stood up, "My intuition tells me that the 'Houston' has rushed over." Trust me, my instincts have always been accurate. ”

Hua Jianfeng smiled faintly, left the cabin, and went directly to the command center.

The sonar chief was listening intently to his surroundings while two sonar crews helped him operate the three passive sonars on the submarine.

The sonar chief is the most important and the only senior non-commissioned officer on the submarine that no one can replace.

In general, the sonar chief is the only experienced sonar operator on the submarine, and the other two sonar crews are only his assistants. In order for a sonar soldier to become a sonar chief, in addition to being born with a keen sense of hearing, he needs to train on a submarine for at least five years. Therefore, the sonar chief is not only the only seventh-class non-commissioned officer on the submarine, but also has the same status and treatment as other officers.

"Did you find anything?"

Hearing the captain's voice, the sonar chief pinned the right earphone behind his ear, then shook his head. "There were a few faint contacts, but the distance was too far to determine whether it was a submarine or a passing whale."

"Which direction?" Hua Jianfeng cat bent down and propped his right hand on the sonar console.

"Northwest." The sonar chief pulled up the previously recorded file from the computer, and then pointed out several prominent peaks on the screen. "This was received two hours ago, and the result of computer analysis is the call of a whale. I've listened to it dozens of times, and I always feel a little problematic. ”

"What do you mean?"

"Are there whales around here?"

Hua Jianfeng immediately showed a suspicious look.

"We've been here five times and we've never seen a whale. In addition, from the global distribution of whales, the waters of Somalia are not breeding and feeding places for large whales. Of course, it can't be ruled out that whales pass by here while swimming, but it can't be so coincidental, right? ”

Hua Jianfeng touched his chin, then nodded. "If I shorten the distance, can you determine the nature of the target?"

"It should be fine, I'll do my best."

"Then it's up to you!" After speaking, Hua Jianfeng patted the sonar chief on the shoulder and asked the officer on duty to call Le Jiacheng over.

Like Hua Jianfeng, Le Jiacheng also thought that the faint noise source in the northwest direction was very suspicious.

"If it was really the Houston, it would have been under two knots, or we would have heard the noise it was making." Le Jiacheng drew a straight line on the chart. "There was no problem with the location of the noise source. But why did the Houston keep its speed below two knots? If it's catching up with us, it should pick up the speed instead of staying and waiting for an opportunity. ”

"It must have guessed that we were coming to this area."

Hearing Lu Chengwen's words, Hua Jianfeng and Lejia Chengdu looked at him.

"I heard Lao Hua say, you and the 'Houston' have mainly encountered on Diego Garcia Island and the northern Arabian Sea before, and you have never encountered the 'Houston' here. In addition, the main task of the "Houston" is to patrol the Arabian Sea, and to deal with the "Kilo" class submarines of the Iranian Navy, it will not run around here without something. ”

"You're saying the Houston has a mission on it, too?" Hua Jianfeng immediately asked.

Lu Chengwen nodded and said, "We encountered a mercenary during the operation, but now it seems that it is very likely to be a special force of the US military." If that were the case, the Houston's mission would be the same as that of the Gun Squid, which was to pick up the goods. ”

Hua Jianfeng and Le Jiacheng looked even more surprised.

"Major, you ...... Why didn't you say it before? ”

"That's what I just thought." Lu Cheng shrugged his shoulders when he heard Le Jiacheng, who was asking, and said, "In this way, the 'Houston' must know that the cargo is on the 'Gun Squid', and it will not let go of the 'Gun Squid' easily." As we turned southeast, the captain of the Houston guessed our intentions, knew that we had chosen this as the dueling arena, and knew that we would use force in extreme circumstances, so he did not chase us at full speed, but followed from a distance. If they don't get the goods, they won't let us get them. For both of us, 5,000 meters of the ocean floor is a good cemetery. ”

"Then we can't let go of the Houston." Hua Jianfeng was no longer verbose, and he pulled out a chart of all the ocean currents. After looking at it carefully for a while, he called Le Jiacheng over. "There is a shallow westward warm current to the north, and we can move about twenty-five nautical miles northwest along with that warm current. If the Houston is on standby in the northwest direction, we will be able to quietly reach its southwest direction. You re-plan your course, try to reach the attacking position quietly, and then shoot. ”

"It will take about twelve hours."

Hua Jianfeng nodded. "Do it now, you command."

Rojiacheng immediately began to plan the new route and gave the steering order in advance.

Hua Jianfeng and Lu Chengwen flashed to the corner of the command center, and both of them were a little nervous. Hua Jianfeng was worried about whether he would fall into the trap of his opponent, and Lu Chengwen was worried about whether the "Houston" had already sent the news.

"Lao Hua, there is a question I want to understand."

"What's the problem?" Hua Jianfeng's gaze shifted from Le Jiacheng to Lu Chengwen.

"How much information can a communication buoy on a submarine send at one time?"

"Are you worried that the Houston will send a message with a communication buoy?"

Lu Chengwen nodded, this is exactly the question he wants to ask.

"Rest assured, unless the captain of the Houston is an idiot, he won't be hearing in the next few days."

"What do you mean?" Lu Chengwen was still a little uneasy.

"The communication buoy has a very limited information capacity and can only float at sea for about half an hour, after which the shell will be dissolved by the seawater and sink into the sea. If Houston wanted to send digital information about the characteristic noise it had collected to the base, it would have to at least rise to periscope depth and stick its satellite communications antenna out of the water. Didn't you say that this mission was very important? At this moment, there must be several electronic reconnaissance satellites monitoring this sea area. If the 'Houston' had sent a communication signal, it would have been discovered by our reconnaissance satellites, and its location would have been exposed, and we would have received the relevant information a long time ago, right? ”

After listening to this explanation, Lu Cheng calmed down.

"Don't think too much about it, after twelve hours, we'll know if the Houston is trying to fight us to the death."