Many years ago, after I finished my stint in college, I didn't pick up a book for some time. I was tired. All those years of study, all those years of reading ... it was time to sit back and let my brain have a rest.
Not long after that, a man named Tom Clancy put out his first book, 'The Hunt for Red October'. It was that book and his subsequent work 'Red Storm Rising', which is still my favorite of his works, that brought me back into reading.
As a child of the cold war, I was hooked. This is what I grew up with. The nightly news often led with headlines of the Soviet Union. I have always been fascinated by the struggle between the two powers. Although I enjoyed most of Tom Clancy's later works, when the Soviet Union fell, my interest in that genre of writing waned.
As the world changes, it often stays the same. I invite you to look for my upcoming novel, a throwback to the cold war era, but set in the modern day world.
Coming soon ...
“Captain to the conn.” Tull placed the mic on the hook just as his commander walked back into the station. “About that time, sir.”
“Any traffic about?”
“You were right about traffic slowing down. There’s almost nothing running.”
“Well, lets get underway.” Dawson turned, giving the order. “Bring us up to scope depth, all ahead slow.”
“Slow sir?”
“We need to see what’s up there first, and we don’t want wake, even a small trail from that could become luminescent. You churn the waters at night, you disturb it’s life forms. It’s mostly carriers that people know about, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“All ahead slow, aye.”
The constant hum of machinery faded into the background, the sub deathly quiet as the USS Columbus began her passage into the Great Belt. The black hull slipped easily through the dark waters as the overcast sky painted a bleak picture upon the northern world. The rush of current from the Baltic pushed past, doing everything it could to keep the intruder away from her shoals. The shallow bottom of the Belt was not the featureless abyss that was the cruising plain of the open ocean. Here, the ancient geology of the Kattegat islands and narrow passages, and sunken vessels from times long forgotten all conspired to swirl the brackish waters along the hull like thunder in the face of the intruder.
“It’s okay to talk, people.”
The collective exhale eased the tension, slightly. The boat rocked ever so slightly as she fought her way against the turmoil. Dawson looked down at the screens that displayed from the scope. He saw nothing but blackness.
“Surface contact dead astern.” The sonarman pushed the phones against his ears and closed his eyes. “It’s a big one, sir.”
“Maybe we just got lucky.” The XO directed the scope astern, searching for the contact. “Starboard green. She’s coming this way.”
“Range?”
“Hard to pinpoint sir. Two miles maybe.”
“Dead slow, conn.”
“Dead slow aye.”
“Lets let them catch up to us. Maintain forward momentum against he current and glide right along beside them.”
“Glide, sir?”
“It’ll be a bit bumpy,” Dawson replied. “Riding along side a ship it going to make it interesting. Any idea what it is yet?”
“No sir, but it’s what you wanted, something really big.” The seaman keyed in some commands into his station before offering an opinion. “My guess is it’s a tanker.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just a hunch, but the signature just seems to fit the data.”
“If you say so.”
“It’s what you pay me for, sir.”
"It is at that, son. It is at that."
The cold war heats up again ....
