Nimitz Class (Arnold Morgan, Book 1)

It's as big as the Empire State Building, a massive floating fortress at the throbbing heart of a U.S. Navy Carrier Battle Group. Its supersonic aircraft can level entire cities at a stroke. It's a Nimitz-Class nuclear carrier, the most powerful weapons system on the planet. Nothing can touch it.
So when the first stunned messages say only that the Thomas Jefferson has disappeared, the Navy reacts with disbelief. But as her battered escorts report in, the truth becomes inescapable: a Nimitz-Class nuclear carrier has been claimed by nuclear catastrophe - the mightiest military unit on earth, vaporized without warning by an accidental detonation of unimaginable power.
But as Navy maverick Bill Baldridge begins to investigate the disaster that claimed his idolized brother's life, another chilling alternative begins to emerge from the high-tech web of fleeting sonar contacts and elusive radar blips. It points to a rogue submarine commanded by a world-class undersea warrior with the steely nerve and cunning of a master spy. Suddenly it's up to Bill Baldridge to track down this shadowy nuclear terrorist, who has already turned America's ultimate weapon into the biggest sitting duck in history - and who still has another nuclear-tipped torpedo in his tubes.