He nodded, already thinking of which bottle to bring.
“I know just the place,” she said, “quiet, just the two of us. And there’s not a better break for teaching. But you gotta promise me you’ll look out for that leash next time; it can be a real killer.”
“Tacking now, Dad!”
Martin Simmons held the sailboat’s tiller in his right hand and the jib sheet in his left. He’d stopped calling his father Daddy ever since he’d come back. The breeze picked up as the small Lightning sailboat edged closer to the Mare Island pier.
“Don’t let go of the jib just yet. Feel it fill, then… okay, now, now!” said Jamie Simmons. He sat hunched as low as he could, ducking the aluminum boom.
The sailboat tacked to starboard, and Jamie carefully shifted his weight across to the port side. Lindsey and Claire screamed with delight as the boat began to tilt. He watched his son, now eight, try to transfer the line and the tiller between his hands as the hull shifted underneath him. All the while, they were closing in on the barnacles.
“My turn next, Daddy!” Claire said from the bow. At least she still called him that.
The channel was so changed from a year ago. Much of the old Ghost Fleet was gone; some of the vessels were still at sea until the shipyards could complete their decades-long work of rebuilding the American navy, and some were lost forever. And on the ships that were back, fresh paint covered the rust and bloodstains while welders daily worked over their new scars.
Simmons reached over and nudged the tiller. There was so much to do, but this was exactly how he wanted to spend the day before the change-of-command ceremony. He was going to make the most of all of this.
The sailboat kept edging closer to the pier, about two hundred yards astern from the sleek metal box-cutter bow that still looked to him as if it were going in the wrong direction from the water.
“Watch your speed; I don’t think the Z could take a ramming even from us,” said Simmons.
Martin yanked the tiller, turning the sailboat into the wind. With no air flow over the sails, the sheets luffed and hung limp. The young boy searched frantically for the next puff of warm breeze to fill the channel, losing track of the sailboat’s momentum carrying them onward.
“Shit!” said Martin when he realized how far they had drifted, too late trying to turn the rudder. The sailboat bumped into the pier lightly; Jamie pushed off with his hand.
“Martin Simmons, who taught you that word?” said Lindsey.
“Grandpa,” said Martin sheepishly.
“Well, that’s appropriate,” said his father.
Jamie could see the boy was blushing even under his sun hat. He drew a cooler to his feet and opened it up. He got out a can of Coke, took a sip, then passed it to his son. “You’re doing great; your grandpa would be proud of you… and of your new vocabulary. We’ll just wait here for him to send us some wind.”
The sailboat slowly floated past the Zumwalt. One of the sailors onboard recognized the captain and snapped a salute. Claire saluted back first, then Martin, and, finally, Jamie, smiling.
The jib stiffened, and Martin took up the slack in the line as the wind picked up and the sailboat took off.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book is a team effort, which is what made this partnership such a rewarding experience. But the members of the team went well beyond the two of us.
Thank you to the DC defense-policy community and the Washington Metro system for leading us to continually cross paths at meetings, interviews, and subway stops and strike up a friendship and, now, a writing partnership.
We were drawn into trying our hand at fiction by our shared love of authors who had thrilled, inspired, and addicted us as readers. They range from Arthur Conan Doyle and Herman Wouk to William Gibson and John le Carré to Tom Clancy and George R. R. Martin. Part of the fun of this effort was revisiting old memories of reading books like Red Storm Rising on the way to the beach in the back of the family station wagon, and then going back to read them again decades later, this time to look for tips from the masters but enjoying them just as much.
The research for the book encompassed not just the references you’ll find in the endnotes section (a bit of an anomaly for a novel, but we hope it will be useful for readers who want to learn more, as well as demonstrate the story’s grounding in reality), but also interviews, meetings, and conversations with a real-world cast of professionals who are reflected in the characters found in this book. We chewed through scenarios and lingo with U.S. Navy ship captains and Air Force fighter pilots, learned worldview and strategic thinking from Chinese generals, and tested out ideas with everyone from Special Forces veterans and computer hackers to Harvard scientists. We are deeply grateful to all of them. A special thanks goes to the group of expert readers who powered their way through the early texts and made the final product so much better, including Kenneth Eckman, Nathan Finney, Allan Friedman, Mark Hagerott, John Jackson, Mark Jacobsen, D.K., Greg Knepper, Jeffrey Lin, Fernando Lujan, Aaron Marx, Rich McDaniel, Ian Morrison, and Tammy Schultz, among others.
Our agents Dan Mandel, Bob Bookman, Ike Williams, and Katherine Flynn helped with everything from the setting up the meeting that was the original spark for the book idea to finding the manuscript a home with a great editor.
Eamon Dolan took a risk on us as first-time novelists and then not only provided valuable edits and big ideas but also continually challenged us along the way to try harder and be better at the craft. He is also even more brutal at eliminating characters than the Black Widow herself. RIP, Kyle and Dorothy. We would also like to thank Tracy Roe, MD, whose double-barreled copyediting prowess and medical knowledge were ably brought to bear on the manuscript.
Finally, we’d like to thank our families for their love, for their support, and, most of all, for convincing us that we could and should take this leap.
Endnotes
viii He reached down for his: John Bishop, “HEXPANDO Expanding Head for Fastener-Retention Hexagonal Wrench,” NASA Tech Briefs, August 1, 2011, accessed August 16, 2014, http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/10720.
ix cloud of smog stretching from Beijing: Global Bearings, NASA image, December 12, 2013, accessed December 12, 2013, https://twitter.com/Global_Bearings/status/411174216596074498/photo/1.
3 The screens inside the Jiaolong-3: “Manned Sub Jiaolong Completes Deep-Sea Dive,” CCTV.com, June 17, 2013, accessed August 16, 2014, http://english.cntv.cn/20130617/106712.shtml.
3 deep below the COMRA: Qian Wang, “China Bids for Rights to Search Seabed,” China Daily, September 6, 2012, accessed August 19, 2014, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-09/06/content_15737233.htm.
4 Tianjin University developed the submersible: Phil Muncaster, “China Seeks ‘Oceanauts’ for Deep Sea Exploration,” TheRegister.co.uk, December 24, 2012, accessed August 16, 2014, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/24/china_ocean_exploration_plans/.
5 P-8 Poseidon’s recent engine upgrades: “P-8 Poseidon,” U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, February 2014, accessed August 16, 2014, http://www.navair.navy.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.display&key=CFD01141-CD4E-4DB8-A6B2-7E8FBFB31B86.
7 “U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone”: “Ocean Facts: What Is the EEZ?” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, accessed August 19, 2014, http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/eez.html.
7 “as designated by the Mariana Trench”: Dan Vergano, “Bush to Make Pacific’s Mariana Trench a National Monument,” USA Today, January 6, 2009, accessed March 14, 2013, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2009-01-05-mariana-trench_N.htm.