Tidal Rip

HarperTorch

Chapter One

The Omni Shoreham Hotel,
Washington, D.C.

Commander Jeffrey Fuller let the hubbub of the cocktail receptionswirl around him in the huge grand ballroom of the poshand historic hotel. The crowd moved to its own indecipherableWashington rhythms. The strong conversational currents and nastyundercurrents of glittering socialites and power brokers seemed to berunning way above his head, his feet hurt from standing for hours, andhe was hoarse from too much talking. The weight of the bronze medallionof his brand-new Medal of Honor felt heavier and heavier on itsribbon around his neck. He tried to remind himself that the wholereception was in his honor, but Jeffrey could see by now that almosteveryone had really shown up for selfish reasons. If anything, he toldhimself ruefully, the nation's capital during this grimmest of wartimeswas more unforgivingly competitive, and more politically manic, thanever before.

Still, part of Jeffrey felt very fulfilled. He was surrounded by so muchsheer energy from all these people, and this moment was the ultimateachievement of his naval career. He was also grateful that, at least for themoment, he was being ignored, lost in the crowd of civilians and of menand women in uniform. He tried to rest his eyes, which hurt from theglare of so many TV camera lights. The reporters must have gotten thefootage they wanted of him, because the different clumps of extra glarefrom those lights were far away in the gigantic room. Jeffrey welcomedhis temporary sense of solitude within the mob -- this came easily to a submariner, who lived in a cramped and crowded world and needed tomake his own privacy, internally, wherever he was.

One of Jeffrey's former shipmates, stationed now at the Pentagon,came by. "Hey, Captain. Way to go!" The two of them talked for a coupleof minutes, then the other man moved on.

Again, Jeffrey savored a fleeting sense of joy, a tingling in his chest,and a lightness in his gut. The Medal of Honor ...He tried not toremember that winning a medal in battle usually meant that other goodpeople hadn't made it back.

All around Jeffrey wineglasses and cocktail glasses and soft-drinkglasses clinked. Tuxedoed waiters circulated smoothly through thehundreds of guests, offering tidbits of snacks on silver trays. The offeringswere meager, compared to all the events the hotel had hosted overthe years, because of wartime austerity. It wasn't lost on Jeffrey that allthe wines were inexpensive labels, and every one of them was Americanmade.

Jeffrey had had little appetite at lunch. Now his stomach rumbled,not that anyone else would notice in this din. As a waiter passed, hegrabbed a bite to eat -- a cracker with cheese spread.

Jeffrey realized that none of the hors d'oeuvres he'd seen all afternoonincluded seafood. This wasn't surprising, considering the amountof nuclear waste and fallout built up by now in the Atlantic. Some scientistssaid the ecological damage wasn't really that severe, that theocean was very vast and so the toxins were hugely diluted. The relativelysmall tactical atomic warheads now -- used by both sides hundreds ofmiles from land -- weren't much compared to the many megatons theU.S. and USSR and other nuclear powers had tested in the atmosphereor in the oceans in the early Cold War. But it was very different, at leastpsychologically, in an actual shooting war. No one was taking chances,which was too bad. Jeffrey loved seafood.

He quickly went from feeling fulfilled to feeling glum. Some of theatomic weapons detonated in the oceans had been set off by his ship, onhis orders. Jeffrey wondered for the umpteenth time how many whalesand dolphins he'd killed, collateral damage to the environment as hewent after high-value enemy targets. He rationalized that the Germansand Boers had started it all, this limited tactical nuclear war at sea.Allied forces needed to use nukes in self-defense. High-explosiveweapons just weren't effective enough when the enemy was firing at you with fission bombs. And precision-guided high-explosive weaponsweren't the cure-all some pundits had thought they'd be before the war.The Axis had figured out how to distort the Global Positioning Satellitesignals, and how to detect and jam or kill a ground or airborne laser-target-homing designator. Some defense analysts had warned aboutsuch things, before the war. Maybe they hadn't been able to get the rightpeople to listen.

Jeffrey was self-aware enough to witness his own mood swings. Sohere I am, in glamorous wartime Washington, D.C., wearing my country'shighest medal for valor, and I feel like crap. He grabbed for another horsd'oeuvre as a pretty young waitress went by. I need to raise my bloodsugar. That should help. The waitress paused politely and Jeffrey took adumpling filled with some sort of meat. Then he watched what healready called "the process" start again.

The waitress saw his star-shaped bronze medallion out of the cornerof her eye. She turned to look at his face, to make sure it was really him.Of course it was him: Commander Jeffrey Fuller, United States Navy,captain of USS Challenger. War hero. The man of the hour. On nationalTV, and on the cover of every newsmagazine -- the Internet was soplagued by Axis hackers and misguided hoaxes that most people usedhard-copy newspapers to follow the war and the troubled economy.

"Um, sir, I ..." the young lady stammered.

Jeffrey met her eyes and waited. Submariners were very good at waiting.

She smiled, and hesitated. Then she positively beamed, and leaned a few inches too close. "Congratulations, Captain." There was a hunger, awanting, in her eyes ...

Excerpted from Tidal Ripby Buff, Joe Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.