Admiral Arnold Morgan

It's as big as the Empire State Building, a massive floating fortress at the throbbing heart of a US Navy carrier battle group. Its supersonic aircraft can level entire cities at a stroke. Its surveillance gear can track every target within thousands of square miles - in the air, on the surface, and under the sea. Its crew of 6,000 works night and day to keep this awesome military machine at peak performance. It's a Nimitz-class nuclear carrier, the most powerful weapons system on the planet. Nothing can touch it.

Silent at less than five knots and capable of a massive nuclear warhead punch, it's the 240-foot Russian Kilo-class submarine. Strapped for hard cash, the Russians have produced 10 new Kilos for Beijing. The Chinese have already received three of the subs, and now the last seven are ready to be delivered - a code-red situation the Pentagon must avert. Armed with a full strike force of Kilos, China can cripple American interests, shatter the balance of power, and successfully achieve the unthinkable in the Pacific Rim.

The H.M.S. Unseen is one of the most efficient, lethal submarines ever built. But suddenly, on a training mission off the English coast, it vanishes, baffling military intelligence on both sides of the Atlantic, including national security adviser Admiral Arnold Morgan. A missing weapon is dangerous enough. But then the unthinkable begins to happen.... Planes begin blowing up across the skies.

Armed with stolen US military technology, the Chinese are producing a frightening new breed of weaponry, led by the ICBM submarine Xia III - a vessel that just might be able to launch a nuclear warhead across the Pacific Ocean and take out an American West Coast city. National security adviser Admiral Arnold Morgan can't let that happen, and he dispatches the most stealthy hunter-killer submarine in the US fleet, the 9,000-ton ultrasecret Seawolf, deep into the dark, forbidden waters of the South China Sea.

An oil tanker mysteriously explodes in the Persian Gulf. Then a second...and a third. To the president's national security adviser, Admiral Arnold Morgan, it is more than a tragic coincidence - it is a brazen act of aggression that must not stand. In partnership with Iran, the Chinese navy has mined the Strait of Hormuz, intending to hold the world's oil supply hostage. Now 80 percent of America's active sea power is being mobilized - including USS Shark, an aging nuclear submarine on its final tour of duty.