“Compelling and visionary. DiMercurio’s characters run as deep as his submarines themselves!” --Joe Buff, author of Crush Depth and Thunder in the Deep "DiMercurio really knows his subs...his characters step right off the sub deck and onto his pages." --Larry Bond "A Master Rivaling Tom Clancy." --Publishers Weekly "Terrific." --San Francisco Examiner "Thrilling." --Associated Press "Superb storytelling." --Virginia-Pilot/Ledger Star

Excerpts of EMERGENCY DEEP,
a novel by Michael DiMercurio, 2004

The observation court's impeccably maintained shrubbery cast stark shadows across the moonlit cobblestone deck and the granite balustrade overlooking the cliff. Below, in the valley formed by the flow of the Severn River, the grounds of the United States Naval Academy filled half the horizon. Buildings made of forbidding tall granite walls and aged green copper roofs were crowded together on the waterfront estate, each one a seemingly invincible fortress. The vast central building, Bancroft Hall, spread out over acres, the eight wings of the world's biggest dormitory enclosing a tall rotunda and a thousand foot long mess hall. To the left, the wide playing fields were deserted, some illuminated by stadium lights, others dark. In the boat basin, dozens of lonely sailboats creaked against their moorings. Off to the right the academic buildings stood in rigid formation, their architecture more modern with their straight vertical slab sides, missing the snarling gargoyles and sculpted warship prows and carved shields of Bancroft Hall, yet still immediately recognizable as daughters of the nineteenth century structure. Behind the academic row the majestic chapel stood watch, its needle-like spire reaching up to pierce the starry summer sky, its massive bronze doors engraved with intricate detail, its stained glass visibly ornate even in the moonlight. Beneath its marble floor, Captain John Paul Jones lay quiet in his tomb, his massive sarcophagus guarded by three graceful black marble dolphins.

From the observation court, Bancroft Hall was dark except for a few lit windows, but at its front entrance the glaring floodlights lit the wide brick courtyard formed by the first four wings. A central flight of steps and gracefully curving dual ramps led up to the rotunda entrance, where heavy granite columns guarded the three story tall brass doors. Two large bore cannons faced each other at the entrance to the court, just beyond the menacing face of the Indian figurehead taken from the battleship Delaware, nicknamed Tecumseh decades in the past. In another five hours, the courtyard would be filled with a thousand midshipmen, marching in formation up the ramps to the war cadence drumbeats of a brass band playing in front of the steps, but at just after two in the morning of the July Monday, the courtyard was cemetery quiet, the only sound a humid summer sea breeze rustling the leaves of the trees beyond the walls of the second wing.

Tecumseh's eyes glared steadfastly toward the front windows of the fourth wing, to the right of the central doors of the rotunda. Across the sand colored bricks of the court and up the steps, beyond the granite columns and through the brass doors, the inside of the rotunda lay, its interior silent as a cathedral. The domed ceiling rose fifty feet above the marble floor. A circular mural was painted above the huge doors depicting a desperate sea battle, the battleship wounded and heeling far over as it fired its massive guns against a bitter enemy, flames spreading across the water, explosions rising from the pounding waves, grimacing sailors and officers bleeding and fighting and dying. To the right and left, cast iron rails of the upper decks of the third and fourth wing overlooked the domed space. Straight ahead, marble steps rose two stories to the immense hushed interior of Memorial Hall, where the names of the graduates who had fallen in battle were engraved in gold below a giant blue flag. The flag's faded white lettering could be read from far below on the floor of the rotunda, the block letters speaking from centuries past, spelling the words of the ancient command, DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP.

Through the double doors to the right, the fourth wing's five hundred foot long main shaft passageway was as wide as a freeway. Down a flight of steps the blue colored ceramic tile of the bulkheads changed to a drab brown, the space brightly lit even in the middle of the night. At the far end, the passageway turned a corner and narrowed, only ten feet separating the walls on either side. A hundred feet down this passageway was an intersection, and to the right, the back shaft passageway extended toward Tecumseh Court.

Four doors down on the left was a typical midshipman's room, identical to a thousand others, except for the brass plaque bolted to the wall beside the door. The plaque framed a portrait of a young man wearing a starched high-collar dress white uniform with a rugged face and haunted piercing eyes. The lettering of the plaque was a dedication to the man in the portrait, Commander Howard Gilmore, a Naval Academy graduate and captain of the World War II submarine Growler. In a sudden air ambush, Gilmore had been shot and wounded on the conning tower. If the crew took the time to get him down the hatch, the submarine would be doomed. In that split second Gilmore made the decision that earned him the Medal of Honor and this room's dedication plaque – he ordered his second-in-command to crash dive the submarine without him, shouting down the executive officer's protest with a terse order to save the ship: "Take her down!" The USS Growler submerged and her crew survived, but Howard Gilmore was never seen again. After his death, newly reporting midshipmen to the Naval Academy were all required to memorize the story of that day at sea and Gilmore's example of honor in battle.

To the right of Gilmore's plaque, the midshipman room's door was shut. On the other side of it, the overhead lights were off but the rays of the full moon shone though the Venetian blinds, the slanted bars of light illuminating the frowning face of the youth sitting silently at the desk. Across the desk in the shadows, another midshipman sat in silence. The two had been midshipmen for only seventeen days, but the odds did not favor their remaining midshipmen another seventeen.

The summer training period had begun on Induction Day in late June. The name given to freshman summer training, Plebe Summer, was deceptive. It had a Club Med ring to it, the words in the shiny Annapolis catalog filling young hearts with visions of a quaint summer spent sailing and going to orientation sessions on a college campus by the bay. Far to the north, at a former fort called West Point, Army cadets sweated through training labeled 'Beast Barracks,' a name much closer to the truth, but still far from describing the experience. During the summer, the thousand new midshipmen – the plebes – suffered a harsh probation period that combined the physical rigors of Marine Corps boot camp with the psychological trials of a Nazi prisoner of war camp.

The midshipman sitting in the moonlight was the tallest plebe in November Company's second platoon, third squad. His physique was wiry, his high school double varsity letters in track and tennis the result of natural speed and lightning-quick reflexes. His pale complexion and denim blue eyes were visible below his shorn scalp, which had once been covered with fine blonde hair. He tapped the end of a mechanical pencil on his blotter, thinking about the two full-ride Ivy League academic scholarships he'd turned down to come to this place. The nametag on the uniform hanging neatly in the closet behind him read 'Vornado,' a name he shared with the fighter pilot and admiral who had inspired him to come here, and whom he was about to disappoint.

The midshipman sitting in the shadows across from Peter Vornado shook his head in frustration. Midshipman Fourth Class Burke Kinnaird Dillinger stood almost a head shorter than Vornado, but had a weight lifter's build with every muscle defined, his shoulders broad, his neck thicker than Vornado's thigh, his biceps bulging. He had reported with a thick mane of wavy hair black as diesel oil, the only sign it had once been there the five o'clock shadow on his skull. His cold gray-blue eyes glared dangerously from under thick black eyebrows as he frowned across the desk. On Induction Day, Vornado had learned that his roommate was also the son of a flag officer, but while Admiral Vornado had commanded an aircraft carrier battle group, General Dillinger had worked in the dark corners of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Not that it mattered, Vornado thought, since they would be certain to be processed out of the Academy within days.

The silence was eventually broken by Vornado's baritone murmur. "We'd better think about this one last time, B.K. We do this thing, we stand a good chance of getting caught. And if we don't, we'll be asked about it. If we lie, we'll be kicked out for violating the honor code. If we confess, we'll be kicked out for a major conduct offense. Either way we're screwed. And either way it'll be damned hard to explain at home, and we won't even be able to get into the local community college. I want revenge as much as you do, but not if it costs me this much."

"We went over this," Dillinger said, a tone of annoyance in his smooth tenor voice. "We're at a decision point. We only have two possible futures. In one, that son of a bitch Whitehead and his classmates get the message not to fuck with us. He lays off our case and we go on to graduate. But if we do nothing, Whitehead hazes us right out the door. From the first day he was on us, and every day it's gotten worse. After what that bastard did tonight, I can't control myself any more. If we don't do this, we'd better face the fact that we'll never see the end of Plebe Summer. That's not something I want to explain back home. So you tell me, Vornado. What choice do we have?"

Vornado nodded. On Induction Day, minutes after they had left their hair on the barber shop floor and traded civilian clothes for ill-fitting crackerjack white cotton uniforms, Midshipman First Class Whitehead had swaggered in front of their ragged formation. Whitehead was a gaunt senior – a firstie – wearing a perfectly starched tropical white uniform with black shoulderboards and a splash of ribbons over his left breast pocket. There was a stark and seemingly intentional contrast between his tailored and starched white uniform and the plebe's shapeless coveralls. He wore a brimmed midshipman's cap over perfectly trimmed black hair. Around his waist was a black leather swordbelt and an officer's sword in its gilt scabbard. He kept one hand on the handle, as if he would unsheath it at any moment and slice off the head of one of the offending plebes. He wore a constant expression of barely controlled anger, his eyes wide enough to see white above and below his dull brown irises. In the first moments of Whitehead's command of the squad, he had introduced himself by putting his face two inches from Vornado's. His brown eyes drilled into Vornado's from under the shiny black brim of his spotless white hat, making Vornado feel naked in his ridiculous blue-banded sailor's cap. After glaring silently at Vornado for a long moment, Whitehead erupted into a foghorn scream that pierced Vornado's ears, tiny droplets of spit flying into Vornado's eyes.

Hey fuckface! Listen up! You are unworthy pond scum! You are lower than whale shit! You will not last one month at my Naval Academy!

Vornado had gulped and kept his eyes straight ahead, trying to stare calmly through the firstie to the wall beyond him, trying to ignore the older midshipman's hot breath on his face. The screaming continued for a miserable five minutes, but finally Whitehead moved down the row, stopping in front his second target, Midshipman Dillinger. Vornado listened with his eyes rigidly straight ahead as Whitehead made fun of Dillinger's name and screamed that he too would soon be leaving the Academy.

When Whitehead finally finished, he marched the squad outside. Vornado assumed they were on the way to be issued their gear, but instead found himself marched into McDonough Hall, one of the cavernous gyms, where a boxing ring waited. Whitehead paired up the squad, all of them evenly matched in height and weight except for Vornado and Dillinger. Vornado glanced at Dillinger's football lineman's body and wondered how long it would take to get knocked out. Whitehead's mismatch seemed meant to get Vornado killed, an assault by proxy. The two hadn't even exchanged a word of greeting before they were required to fight each other. Vornado pulled off his crackerjack pants and tunic, his required gym gear uniform beneath, and climbed hesitantly into the ring at Whitehead's insistence, his heart pounding in sudden terror as he saw the flexing muscles of the heavier plebe. Vornado had never boxed in his life, and his last fistfight had been in third grade. He strapped on the flimsy old leather headgear, wondering how much protection it would offer against the kind of punch Dillinger could throw.

He gulped as Whitehead rang the bell. Dillinger charged straight across the canvas, his speed remarkable for his bullish build. His immediate jackhammer jab sailed toward Vornado's face. For an instant Vornado felt himself freeze in fear, but without conscious thought, his body ducked and danced backwards, his right arm tensing and lashing out at the compact opponent. The punch connected, Vornado's right fist landing hard on Dillinger's ear. The force of his own punch threw Vornado hard into the ropes and spun Dillinger half to his right. Vornado bounced off the ropes, his momentum sending back him toward Dillinger, who fired a second jab that Vornado evaded. Dillinger, infuriated by Vornado's punch, attacked viciously while Vornado backpedaled. Dillinger lashed out with a right, missing as Vornado stepped aside and jabbed back. But then Dillinger faked left and moved right. A blurry fist the size of a truck came from nowhere and smashed into Vornado's face, snapping his head back. Blood spurted furiously from his nose, splattering sickeningly on the canvas. There was no pain at first, just the shock of being moved across the ring in an instant by sheer force, but the explosion of blood distracted Dillinger long enough that Vornado was able to connect with a left cross to Dillinger's eye, and the punch knocked Dillinger into the corner and opened a cut that spewed dark blood over half of his face. Dillinger's expression registered surprise and rage for a moment before he started across the ring for revenge. Halfway there the bell rang as Whitehead stopped the fight, screaming at Dillinger and Vornado to freeze and stand at attention. The pain arrived then, making Vornado dizzy, his nose throbbing in agony, the ring and the staring faces of his classmates spinning slowly around him. He and Dillinger stood stupidly bleeding and hyperventilating. Whitehead shook his head in disgust and waved disparagingly at them.

Usually drawing blood in the ring earns you an 'A,' but not for these lame second generation pussies. Take a long look at the 'blood brothers,' gentlemen. You won't be seeing them for long, because they'll be quitting as soon as the Commandant accepts resignations in week three, and if they don't they'll wish they had. And do you know why? Because they haven't earned the right to be here, that's why.

Whitehead ordered in the next pair and shouted at them to fight instead of cavort across a dancefloor like Vornado and Dillinger had. Vornado broke his rigid attention long enough to glance at Dillinger, who glared back with a dark smoldering anger, but Vornado knew the fury wasn't for him but for their firstie.

Three hours later, after equipment issue, Whitehead marched the squad back to the zero deck of Bancroft Hall and assigned them their rooms. You've got the Gilmore room, Vornado. Maybe some of his character will rub off on you, but somehow I doubt it. Vornado entered the Spartan room and dropped his new sea bag. The door opened and his boxing opponent walked in. He looked around and nodded cautiously in greeting.

"Peter Vornado, Norfolk, Virginia," Vornado said, extending his hand. "Nice fight. You scared the hell out of me."

A smile lit up the shorter plebe's face for just an instant as he clamped Vornado's hand in a tight grip. "B.K. Dillinger, McLean, Virginia. Thanks, but I just pretended you were Whitehead. Who would think a skinny guy like you could throw a punch like that?" Dillinger rubbed his eyebrow, the butterfly bandage fresh after the squad had waited outside the boxing complex's Misery Hall for the medic to examine him.

In the next days they had exchanged few words, their attention taken by the constant pace of Plebe Summer, the minutes stretched into hours by Whitehead's relentless hazing. It had not been enough for the firstie to shout insults at the two roommates in front of their squad, or to direct his fury at them every day. He carefully planned his brand of torture around the Academy's already miserable routine. The main fixture of the summer's training was the "come-around." In a come-around the plebes would "hit a bulkhead" by standing at rigid attention against the wall, "braced up" with their necks shoved into their chests, while Whitehead shouted abuse and made them recite their memorized "rates" of information they were required to know, testing their minds like no high school final exam ever had.

Sir, there are one hundred forty three days till Navy beats the hell out of Army, one hundred sixty-two days until Christmas leave, three hundred and thirty-three days till Second Class Ring Dance and three hundred and thirty-seven days until First Class Graduation. Sir, the menu for noon meal is hamburgers with cheese, onions and assorted condiments, potato puffs, baked beans, ice cream, iced tea with lemon wedges and milk. What time is it, sir, I am greatly embarrassed and deeply humiliated that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control, the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of my chronometer are in such inaccord with the great sidereal movement with which time is generally reckoned that I cannot with any degree of accuracy state the correct time, sir, but without fear of being too greatly in error, I will state that it is about four minutes, three seconds and eleven ticks past three bells, sir.

There was an absurd amount to memorize – the names and hometowns of the hundred plebe midshipmen in their company, the P.O.W. code of conduct, all twenty-seven verses of the four page long poem The Laws of the Navy, eight boat hails, six dozen professional engineering terms and their definitions, shiphandling commands, how to bring about a square rigger sailing vessel, Morse code, the coaches and captains of every sport, twelve Navy fight songs, the history of a hundred monuments and buildings on the grounds, the latitude and longitude of Annapolis, the number of bricks in Tecumseh Court, the scores of every Navy bowl game, fifty naval sayings, the heads of the academic departments, the officers of the professional development departments, and detailed knowledge of three front page newspaper articles and three sports page articles from that day's Washington Post. Each day the requirements multiplied.

But it wasn't just that they had to memorize a telephone book of information. They had to spit it out with Whitehead screaming in their faces at a come-around or at the meal table. At the table Whitehead called on Vornado and Dillinger constantly. The rule was "three chews and a swallow" before the plebe would have to belt out the answer to whatever Whitehead asked. Vornado had barely eaten in the last weeks, his weight dropping, his face becoming gaunt and hollow. Dillinger had lost weight even faster, his T-shirts and coverall pants hanging on him.

While the meal interrogations and come-arounds were severe, it was the special come-arounds Whitehead conducted for Dillinger and Vornado that were making them the most miserable, each one a new torture. In Whitehead's special come-arounds he kept them from the rest of the squad, double timing them up four flights of stairs to an empty fourth deck room. While Whitehead walked, they were required to "chop" down the center of the passageways, which meant they had to run with their chins braced, their eyes straight ahead, and turn by "squaring the corner," pivoting while shouting "Go Navy, sir!" or "Beat Army, sir!" Once in the room, Whitehead would hammer away at them to resign. When they refused, he would make them hold their rifles straight out from their bodies, arms parallel to the deck, until their arms shook and their skin was slick with sweat. Or he would make them hang from the top of the tall room door, their hands bleeding from the door's sharp metal plates. While their muscles shook from the strain, Whitehead would scream in their faces that they were useless, that they had cheated the admissions process, that they had no place at the Naval Academy.

In the hours of Whitehead's special come-arounds, the thought rose in Vornado's mind that perhaps he should quit, but then he saw his father's face and heard his father's voice as the naval officer ran down the gangway of the gigantic aircraft carrier and scooped young Vornado's six-year-old body into his arms after a long deployment. It was the happy memories that made Whitehead vanish for a few merciful seconds. Vornado tried to keep his mind away from the painful memories – his mother's long sickness when Vornado was a second grader and her death during the hot summer before third grade, the battle lost to the cancer that turned a beautiful energetic woman into a sad wraith. Vornado's father had struggled to balance his seagoing career with raising Vornado and his little sister, calling in Vornado's unmarried aunt to live with them, an emergency wartime measure that had become permanent. Vornado's father had never remarried. He claimed there was no time between being a father to his children and to the men of the fighter squadron he commanded. The older Vornado's long deployments were the worst, but when he would return home, the family was happy. Vornado's sister Diana had gone through a dark time when their mother died. Vornado had stepped in to help her then, and it was her letters to him now that were helping him. That and the long letters from his father, explaining things about the Navy that Vornado had never known, telling him stories from his own experience at Annapolis. Two years before, Vornado's father had been awarded his third star, and duty had taken him back to sea. Vornado was worried about Diana with the old man deployed and him locked down during Plebe Summer. But there was little he could do except write her letters during the few moments he was allowed as free time.

In Vornado's letters to his sister, he never mentioned Whitehead or his special come-arounds. Tonight's special Whitehead come-around had been dramatically worse than the ones before. The empty fourth deck room was equipped with a telephone. The room's window was open to the wide copper roof deck, a large box outside the window a few feet from the edge overlooking a seventy foot drop to the courtyard below. Dillinger was ordered to wait outside, braced at attention against the bulkhead. Vornado stood at attention while Whitehead ordered him to pick up the phone, dial his father, and announce he would quit the Academy. Vornado responded with the closest expression a plebe could come to refusing a firstie's order, by barking out, Beat Army, sir! Whitehead ordered him to climb out the window. Vornado obeyed, feeling like an idiot standing at attention under the stars of the hot July night. Whitehead ordered him to look down to the courtyard below. While he was on the fourth deck, the building had a ground floor – the "zero deck" – and two sub-basements, making the ledge seven stories high. Vornado looked over the edge, a terrible vertigo turning his stomach. With an effort of will he came back to attention. Whitehead ordered him to climb into the box. With a sense of unreality Vornado complied, knowing he was making a terrible mistake. Three more times Whitehead ordered Vornado to quit, and three times Vornado refused. He felt the box spinning left, then right, a loud scraping noise vibrating beneath Vornado's body as Whitehead pushed the box four feet to the edge of the roof. Vornado could barely believe it when he felt Whitehead tipping the box. He leaned hard into the opposite box wall, his heart hammering in fear.

Whitehead's voice became quiet for the first time since Vornado had met him. He whispered from outside the box that distressed plebes sometimes came to this part of the fourth deck and jumped out the window, ending their problems with Plebe Summer and avoiding the shame of quitting or being kicked out, and that Whitehead's classmates waited below to grab the box so the Commandant's investigation would reveal that Vornado was a suicide victim. After a pause, he gave Vornado one final order to quit.

Vornado couldn't find his voice. In the panic of the moment he wondered what Dillinger would do, and realized that his volatile roommate would just get out of the box and smash his fist into Whitehead's face. No, Dillinger would never have gotten into the box in the first place. As Vornado completed the thought, the box suddenly tilted. Whitehead was really doing this. The box tipped and began a sickening free-fall. Vornado's stomach rose up in terror, his mind spinning in fury and helpless fright. The box slowly tumbled in its flight until it was upside down. Vornado shut his eyes. For horrifying endless seconds the box fell.

The box's motion suddenly stopped, the impact sudden but soft. The box was upside down, its lids opening and dumping Vornado onto a bare mattress on the room's floor. He stared incredulously at the room around him, thinking in a stupor that instead of landing on the courtyard far below, he had fallen into the room. Vornado felt himself vomiting, but nothing came up, because he hadn't eaten in two days from Whitehead's hazing at the meal table. The dry heaves continued for three more convulsions, Vornado's eyes clamped shut against the tears of fear and rage erupting against his will. He could feel himself shaking, and realized that he was about to get up and throw a punch at Whitehead.

Vornado's father's voice spoke from a distance in his mind, telling him that this was what Whitehead was hoping for, an assault by a plebe on a firstie less than three weeks into Plebe Summer. That was how Whitehead would get Vornado discharged, because there could be no extenuating circumstances. The senior officers would believe that a plebe who would attack his firstie in the stress of Plebe Summer would certainly crack in battle, and Whitehead would have won. If Vornado could just keep himself from throwing that punch, there was nothing more Whitehead could do to him. With that thought Vornado regained control of himself. He rose to his feet, his body still trembling. He came to a rigid, braced attention, and shouted in his baritone voice, "Beat Army, sir!"

Whitehead's expression was murderous anger. "You weak, bony pussy," he said in disgust. "Get in the passageway and hit a bulkhead."

Vornado jogged from the room, stopped at the wall, did an about-face and came to a braced attention while Whitehead called Dillinger into the room. As he waited, he wondered if Whitehead were about to do the same thing to Dillinger. Eventually Dillinger emerged, his face red and his uniform soaked in sweat, his eyes dark and unreadable. They had been marched back to their rooms. Vornado had been tempted to ask Dillinger what Whitehead had done to him, but Dillinger's expression had warned him off. Neither did Vornado volunteer anything about his experience.

That had been five hours ago, and neither plebe had been able to sleep. Two hours after taps, they left their beds and sat at their desks, both deep in thought. Vornado tapped his pencil on the blotter, still weighing their options as he stared out the window.

Across the desk Burke Dillinger bit his lip, waiting for his roommate to make a decision. It was amazing how much the tall, self-assured Vornado reminded him of his older brother. There was just something about being the oldest that seemed to make all the difference in life. How easy it must be, Dillinger thought, to sail through life with that innate confidence. His brother and Vornado just seemed to have that natural certainty that when they gave an order that it would be followed immediately. Neither had any of the doubts or worries that Dillinger struggled with every day.

It had been two years since his life had been turned upside down by his father's stunning admission at the dinner table. For Dillinger's entire life, he had known his father to be a salesman for General Dynamics, a gigantic defense contractor. The old man would be gone for months at a time, working on sales projects. Then between the salad and the steak one night, his father announced that he had been promoted. He now had three stars. Dillinger had looked up quizzically at his father, who went on to announce that he was taking over as Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, and that he was now a lieutenant general. It took the younger Dillinger some time to realize that his father had been an Army officer all along, but had been a field agent for the obscure intelligence agency, and now that he would be a headquarters man, he could drop his cover story. A cover story that had made him a liar.

The elder Dillinger had been a West Point grad, with an office downstairs with his diplomas and his Bronze Star, but there was also an honorable discharge certificate framed on the wall, along with General Dynamics sales awards, photos of his father in a suit and tie shaking hands with customers, and binders filled with sales data. As Dillinger had dropped his fork to the plate, all he could think was that his own father, while preaching West Point's code of "Duty, Honor, Country," had lived a damned lie. Dillinger couldn't shake a sense of betrayal. The only thing that had helped was being chided by his older accomplished brother Matt, who had insisted he get a hold of himself and move on.

Dillinger had never excelled at school like Matt had, but he had thrown himself into sports, finding success where his brother hadn't. He knew he would not gain entry to an Ivy League school, and even if he did, there would be no competing with Matt, who was bound for Harvard Law after his graduation this academic year. Dillinger had decided on applying to Annapolis out of defiance to his father, who had never missed an Army-Navy game in thirty years and who had always lost his voice the day after every game from cheering for his beloved Army team. And yet, going to a service academy was also a salute to the old man, an attempt to wear the uniform to emulate him, or perhaps to distinguish himself from his bookish older brother. And while he was going to the Naval Academy, he would enter the Marine Corps and become an infantryman as his father had been. Or a Navy SEAL, a commando. The day the letter had come awarding him an appointment to Annapolis had been his happiest. But the recent developments with

Whitehead meant Dillinger would be coming home a miserable failure less than a month after leaving for the Academy. Dillinger bit his lip in frustration at Vornado's indecision, thinking he would have to do this alone.

"I don't know about you," Dillinger announced. "But if I'm going to get thrown out of here, I want it to be for kicking Midshipman First Class Whitehhead's ass. I'm going down fighting with no regrets. And I'm doing this with you or without you. You've got about thirty seconds to decide before I leave the room."

Vornado looked up suddenly. "Give me the details, B.K. How do we do this?"

Dillinger bent down and opened the desk's built-in safe, the only privacy a plebe had. He pulled out a roll of duct tape, a zipper bag filled with long plastic cable ties, two black ski caps and two pairs of black sweatgear. Vornado stared at the pile.

"We put on the black gear and take Whitehead out to the river. Let him swim with his hands and feet tied up, the bastard."

Vornado shook his head. "River's too far. It means carrying him a quarter mile, either through Bancroft Hall or out in the yard. And his room's right on T-Court. I've got a better idea." Vornado laid out his plan, and Dillinger nodded.

"By the way," Vornado whispered while he put on the black sweatshirt and pulled down the balaclava ski mask over his face. "Where'd you get all this stuff?"

"I called my father last weekend. I told him what I needed and he sent it in a care package."

"You tell him what we were doing?"

"No, but I think he has an idea."

Vornado swallowed hard as he realized what he was about to do. "Ready?" Vornado asked.

Dillinger nodded as he stood. He walked up to Vornado with his fists held straight out from his body. At first Vornado stared at him, but then saw what Dillinger wanted. As if they were about to start a boxing match, Vornado balled up his fists and punched both of Dillinger's. Dillinger grinned and turned toward the door and opened it.

The passageway was brightly lit by the overhead florescent fixtures. The clock loudly ticked over a minute, now showing the time to be half past two. They hurried down the passageway in a fast walk. It was the first time they had been in a passageway without chopping down the center in a brace and squaring corners. Whitehead's room was all the way down the hall toward Tecumseh Court, the three-man first classman's room with the corner view of the wide expanse of brick between the wings. Just outside his door were the double doors to the court, their use restricted to the upperclassmen. Outside Whitehead's door Vornado glanced at Dillinger through the ski mask, only his roommate's eyes visible in the small eye holes. Dillinger's glance was steady and intense. Vornado nodded, and they pushed Whitehead's door slowly open.

For a moment they stood in the room, the door silently shutting behind them. It was strange to be in the room of the midshipman who had tortured them so relentlessly for the past three weeks. His sword and swordbelt were lying across a desk chair. A freshly drycleaned tropical white uniform hung outside the closet, fully rigged with shoulderboards and ribbons. His freshly polished white shoes lay on top of a page of newspaper on the desk. The room was perfect other than that small amount of clutter and the rumpled blanket of Whitehead's bed. Whitehead lay on the sheet in his boxer shorts and white T-shirt, snoring softly in the predawn darkness.

Dillinger handed Vornado a cable tie and took one for himself. Vornado carefully moved Whitehead's arm so that his wrists were together, then wrapped them with the cable tie. The hasp of the tie made a slight buzzing sound as Vornado tightened it up, but Whitehead didn't stir. Vornado looked over at Dillinger, who had pulled the covers off Whitehead's ankles and tightened a cable tie on his ankles. The next part was tougher, because odds were that Whitehead would wake up and struggle. Before they left their own room they had pulled off the correct lengths of duct tape so the tape wouldn't make a ripping noise as they unwound it. Vornado took the shorter length and carefully and gently placed it over Whitehead's mouth and wrapped it back over his lower ears to the back of his head, then slowly turned his head so he could get the tape around the other side. When he finished, Whitehead twitched but didn't wake up. Dillinger had pulled a longer length of duct tape off his black sweatpants and wrapped one end around Whitehead's wrists and then circled his waist. They would have to lift him off the bed to finish this part, and odds were this would be when he woke up.

Dillinger lifted Whitehead up from the mattress. He made a noise and his body kicked suddenly. Whitehead's eyes came open and widened in panic, and he tried to get up. Vornado pinned Whitehead's shoulders and Dillinger grabbed his legs, but the thin firstie writhed in fury. Vornado began to regret the idea, now seeing that Whitehead would be too strong for the two of them to abduct from the hall by themselves. Suddenly Dillinger cocked his fist and smashed it into Whitehead's stomach and immediately Whitehead stopped struggling and collapsed in a fetal position on the bed, coughing into the duct tape binding his mouth. Quickly, while Whitehead had the wind knocked out of him, Vornado lifted him enough to finish wrapping the duct tape around his waist and arms, immobilizing his upper body.

Without a word the two plebes grabbed their squad leader and carried him out the room door, down the hall and through the second class doors to Tecumseh Court. Whitehead recovered from the body punch enough to begin struggling as they carried him, but it only slowed them down slightly. With his wrists tied to his waist and his ankles tied together, all he could do was bend and twist. Vornado felt naked in the harsh floodlights of the court. Surely the watchstanders in the main office next to the rotunda would see them and run out to stop them. They hurried across the court until they reached the snarling Indian figurehead statue of Tecumseh, Dillinger pushing Whitehead into the tall marble base of the monument. Dillinger produced the roll of duct tape while Vornado forced Whitehead to stand straight. Dillinger made half a dozen rapid laps of the statue, tying Whitehead to it with the duct tape. The unrolling duct tape made loud rasping noises in the quiet courtyard as it unwound. Whitehead's eyes st red at them in impotent fury. He made muffled sounds from his mouth, the duct tape gagging him. Dillinger made the final wrap around the firstie, making his head fast to the marble obelisk, the tape passing across Whitehead's eyes.

When they were done, Dillinger stood back for a moment, then produced a permanent ink marker and wrote the word on Whitehead's forehead that Whitehead had taunted them with for the last weeks: PUSSY.

Vornado was about to turn to run back to the fourth wing's second class doors when Dillinger wound up with his fist and fired a punch at Whitehead's forehead. Whitehead's skull rebounded into the hard marble surface with a sickening crunch. The firstie's body relaxed and he hung limply from the duct tape.

"Jesus, B.K., what the hell did you do that for?" Vornado hissed, pulling Dillinger away. Dillinger cradled his hand in pain, cursing quietly. Vornado dragged Dillinger away from Tecumseh toward the hall. The plebes broke into a sprint toward the second class doors. They hurried down the passageway past Whitehead's door and to the safety of their room. The door shut behind them as they stripped off the black sweats and pulled their regulation gym gear back on. Vornado felt a mixture of elation and fear, with a pang of regret as he remembered the sound of Whitehead's skull smacking the marble.

"What about this stuff?" Vornado puffed.

"Back in the safe for now," Dillinger said. "I saved the box it came in. I'll mail it to my brother during tomorrow's free period."

"What if they investigate?" Vornado whispered from under his covers, his body slick with sweat.

"Let them," Dillinger whispered back, the anger clear even in his whisper. "They ask me what I was doing, I'll tell them the truth. I was deep in sleep, dreaming."

Vornado shut his eyes, but knew there would be no sleep for him the rest of the night. Twenty minutes later, he could hear the sound of Dillinger snoring from across the room.

The plebes of November Company, second platoon, third squad, formed up outside Midshipman Whitehead's room for morning 0615 come-around, as usual. There was no sign of Whitehead. Vornado braced against the bulkhead, waiting. Several minutes passed with no sign of a firstie. Vornado glanced across the passageway, finding Dillinger, who stood impassively at attention, his face betraying nothing. After ten minutes of waiting, the two-striper company subcommander, Midshipman Lieutenant Adcock, walked slowly up.

For a minute he stood in front of the squad, sleepily tucking in his shirt and wrapping his sword belt around his waist. When he finished he looked up with a serious expression and spoke in a low voice.

"Gentlemen, Mr. Whitehead has been taken to Hospital Point. He's in serious condition with a head injury. Somebody apparently pulled a recon raid and tied him up to Tecumseh. The Commandant will be conducting an investigation. A new squad leader will be here later today. If you thought Mr. Whitehead was tough, you'd better prepare yourself for Mr. Kaminsky. Mr. Kaminsky will be the brigade commander when the academic year starts."

Vornado stared straight ahead in his braced attention. The word "investigation" sent a shiver down his spine. And the fact that the new squad leader would be the number one midshipman at the Academy made his stomach suddenly sour.

The door of the room that had been Whitehead's opened slowly. Midshipman First Class Kaminsky stood in the doorway.

"Come on in," he said to Vornado in a deep, authoritative but quiet voice. Vornado jogged into the room and came to attention on the other side of the door. Kaminsky reached behind him to shut it. "Carry on and sit down," he said, motioning to the desk where Whitehead's white shoes had been last night.

"Aye aye, sir!" Vornado barked, pulling the chair back and sitting on the front three inches of it, his upper body at rigid attention.

"I said carry on, Mr. Vornado. Relax," Kaminsky said. Vornado relaxed his posture, glancing up at Kaminsky and seeing him for the first time, the tall firstie previously a blur in his peripheral vision. Kaminsky had shaved his large head. His shoulders bulged from his tropical white uniform, his biceps crowding the shirt sleeves. A powerlifter, Vornado thought. He should get along well with Dillinger, at least until he finds out what we did.

Kaminsky stood away from the desk, looking out the window at the sun-drenched Tecumseh Court.

"I suppose you realize why we're here," Kaminsky said, still staring out at the courtyard, a tone of weariness in his voice. "I'm not just the first set brigade commander, I'm the brigade Honor Committee chairman."

Vornado tried not to gulp in guilt, but felt his heart racing as Kaminsky turned to face him. Kaminsky looked at him for a moment, his eyes on Vornado's nametag. He turned back to the window and drummed his fingers on the window sill.

"Mr. Vornado, just so we know what we're talking about here, I want you to recite the honor code."

"Aye aye, sir," Vornado said, coming back to attention in his seat. " 'A midshipman will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do,' sir."

"Fine. You can relax. Let me tell you how I got to be involved in the Honor Committee," he said slowly. "It was plebe year. I got called in by my company officer, who told me I had been reported for an honor offense. With an honor violation, there's no warning. If they find you guilty, you're separated from the naval service, that very day. That was bad enough, but the alleged honor offense was that I took a quart of milk from the mess hall." Kaminsky slowly moved across the room and sat down at the desk across from Vornado. "Now, we take milk from the mess hall all the time. The firsties did it, so did the second class, the youngsters, and if there was any milk left, the plebes. No one had ever considered it an honor offense. It didn't even occur to anyone. But somehow it occurred to the man who turned me in. Ridiculous or not, they had to conduct a full investigation. It took a week of meetings to get through all the procedures, and of course I was found not guilty. But during it all, I guess the Commandant got a sense of who I was, and I was ordered to be the company honor rep. It wasn't long till I was a regimental striper. If I hadn't been put up for the honor offense, odds are today I'd just be a one-striper, keeping my head down and trying to graduate. Funny how things worked out."

Vornado said nothing, not sure if Kaminsky expected him to say anything. The older midshipman paused, glancing down at the table.

"Later on, I eventually found out who had accused me of the honor offense." Kaminsky laughed without smiling. "Fred Whitehead."

Vornado stared at the firstie, his mouth open.

"Funny thing," Kaminsky said, standing again and wandering back to the window. "During our Plebe Summer Whitehead was almost run off by our firstie, Smokin' Joe Kraft. Mr. Kraft had it in for Whitehead. Three special come-arounds every day, laps and pushups and flaming fits. Whitehead was the squad's shit-screen." Kaminsky looked over. "Kind of like you and Dillinger were."

Vornado swallowed, wondering if Kaminsky's past tense meant anything ominous.

"Mr. Kraft was convinced that Whitehead didn't belong here. I saw all the stuff Kraft pulled on Whitehead, and I felt sorry for him. When Whitehead survived all the harassment and made it to the end of Plebe Summer, I figured Whitehead had bested a firstie asshole. And then Whitehead pulled the honor violation trick. I saw it then – Mr. Kraft had been right all along. He had looked into Whitehead's character and seen something no one else could see."

Kaminsky turned and returned to his seat at the desk, his eyes staring into Vornado's. "Another funny thing, Mr. Vornado. Mr. Kraft was the son of a three star admiral. He never made a big deal of it, but all of his classmates did. They'd pile on Whitehead, screaming at him that if the son of a three star admiral wanted him out, he should pack his trash and resign."

Vornado exhaled, his throat suddenly tight.

"You're the son of an admiral too, aren't you?" Kaminsky kept staring at Vornado's eyes.

"Sir, yes sir," Vornado said.

Kaminsky found something on his desk, a remote control to his huge stereo. He stared down at the buttons on it, then began to turn it in his hands.

"Mr. Vornado, I'm going to ask you a direct question and I want you to give me a direct answer," Kaminsky said. "Bear in mind that you are on your honor."

Vornado gulped, knowing his protruding Adam's apple had just jumped. Kaminsky had to know his every thought. "Aye aye, sir."

"Did you participate in the recon raid that injured Mr. Whitehead?"

Vornado exhaled, knowing this moment would come. He also knew there was no way he could look Kaminsky in the eye and lie about this.

"Sir, ye— "

Suddenly the stereo boomed, making Vornado jump half out of his seat, the music blasting into the room from the large speakers. As suddenly as the music started, it stopped, plunging the room into pin-drop quiet.

"Sorry about that," Kaminsky said as he looked down at the remote control. "This thing's a little touchy. I'll ask you again, Mr. Vornado. Did you pull the recon raid that got Whitehead hurt?"

"Sir, yes I – "

Again the bass thrum of the music screeched from the stereo system, the music playing longer this time. After twenty seconds of driving beat, Kaminsky shut off the stereo again.

"Let's see if we can get this straight," Kaminsky said, his head nodding to an imaginary beat, as if he were dancing to the music, the motion comical, as if he were deliberately trying to rob the moment of its seriousness. "Mr. Vornado." Kaminsky blatantly pointed his remote control at the stereo, his finger poised over the play button. "Did you participate in the recon raid that got Mr. Whitehead hurt?"

Vornado looked into Kaminsky's eyes, a dawning understanding finally arriving. "Sir, no, sir. I slept through the night. I learned about it at morning come-around."

Kaminsky nodded seriously, as if he were a professor who had just made an obscure point clear to a slow pupil.

"That's what I thought," he said, finding a pen and scribbling something into an open file on his desk. "Thank you, Mr. Vornado. You can return to your room. If you would, send in Mr. Dillinger."

His heart hammering, Vornado bolted to his feet at attention, barked, "aye aye, sir." He braced up, jogged to the door, opened it on the latch, then chopped to the center of the passageway where he pivoted ninety degrees to the right while shouting, "Go Navy, sir!" He chopped down to the Gilmore room with his chin shoved into his chest until he reached the passageway outside door of his room. He pivoted again, shouting "Beat Army, sir!" and pushed open the door.

Inside the room with Dillinger were four upperclassmen, all of them in working khaki uniforms, which looked strange since every upperclassman had only worn tropical white uniforms the entire summer. Vornado came to attention, braced up and sounded off, yelling, "Midshipman Vornado, Fourth Class, sir!"

One of the upperclassman grinned from his perch on the desk. "Relax, asshole," he said. Vornado released his brace, and saw that the upperclassman was a junior, a second classman. The other khaki-clad midshipmen also wore the insignia of second classmen, a gold anchor on each collar. Two of them came up to him, close enough to scream in his face. Vornado tensed, wondering what new torture awaited, but one second classman put his hand on Vornado's shoulder, and the other grabbed his right hand and pumped it in a warm handshake. The second classmen were grinning. As if from a distance, he could hear their words: Good job, Mr. Vornado…excellent work…twenty-third company evidently has a plebe class with some balls for once.

Vornado stared at them, then remembered that Kaminsky wanted to see Dillinger. Just as he was opening his mouth to speak, the door opened and Kaminsky appeared.

"Attention on deck!" Vornado shouted, sounding off as he had before. Dillinger also jumped to his feet, sounding off and bracing at attention.

Kaminsky took in the situation and shook his head in mock disgust, shaking the second classmen's hands.

"Get the fuck out of here, you guys. You're contaminating plebe indoctrination."

"Oh, come on, you got our backs, Vic," one of the khaki uniformed midshipmen said. "We were just telling young Vornado and Dillinger here some Whitehead stories. Just so they know the whole Academy isn't a bunch of Whiteheads."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Kaminsky said, as if he were a weary father shepherding unruly children. "Go on, get out of here. And don't come back till the academic year starts or you're going to read about it."

"Oh, the brigade commander speaks," another of the juniors said sarcastically, making a sloppy salute. "Yessir, mister six striper, sir."

When the last second classman left, Kaminsky looked over at Dillinger. "Mr. Dillinger, I want to see you in my room, please."

When he was alone in the room, Vornado paced the floor, wondering what was going to happen, his head spinning from his interview with Kaminsky and seeing the mob of second classmen. Finally he heard the sound of Dillinger chopping down the passageway, his distant "Go Navy, sir!" and the closer "Beat Army, sir!" as he squared the last corner and came through the room door.

Vornado looked at him, trying to read his face. Dillinger's face was frozen in dismayed shock. Vornado's heart sank. Kaminsky must have blamed the whole thing on Dillinger. But as he watched, Dillinger broke into a sudden grin, his face lighting up, his previous expression an attempt to play a trick on his roommate. Vornado stared at him.

"Well? What the hell happened?"

Dillinger shrugged. "He asked me if I did it, and I told him the truth. I slept like a baby last night. He nodded as if he completely believed me. He wrote something down and sent me to the room."

"So that's it? We're off the hook?"

Dillinger nodded, still grinning. He walked over, holding out both fists boxer style the same way he had before they'd taken out Whitehead. Vornado banged his fists against Dillinger's. Dillinger moaned in pain, gripping his right fist. Vornado stared down at it, the bruise from Dillinger's punch to Whitehead's forehead making his knuckles a blotchy red and purple. Vornado stared at the bruise.

"Kaminsky see that?"

Dillinger nodded. "I banged it on the desk a few days ago. Hurry up, we'll be late for come-around."

Vornado nodded. Almost as if he were dreaming, he turned and walked to the window and looked out at the grounds of the Academy, seeing Tecumseh and the double cannons at the entrance to T-Court. For the first time since he reported here, he had the feeling that this place was somehow his, that he belonged here after all. He looked out at the bricks of Tecumseh Court, and thought about his father walking across those bricks years ago and saw himself walking across them as an upperclassman.

Tecumseh glared back at him, his perpetual stare unchanged by the events of the night and the morning afterward. Vornado smiled and put his sailor's cap on, latched open the door and sprinted behind Dillinger into the passageway with his chin braced into his chest, pivoting as he squared the corner.

"Go Navy, sir!" he shouted.

USSDEVILFISH.COM Michael DiMercurio Princeton, New Jersey E-mail: readermail@USSDEVILFISH.COM