“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 VERTICAL DIVE,
a novel by Michael DiMercurio, 2005

BOOK 1: STORM SURGE

He turned away from the dark window to look into her eyes, her face dim in the light of the three candles on the bedroom’s marble fireplace mantle. Her hair was long and as gleaming black as a raven’s wing, but it had been weeks since she had let it fall naturally to her shoulders. She had twisted it into a loose bun, her hair swooping low over her ears and rising in the back. She’d lost her figure, at least in the middle, but her legs were as long and slim and toned as they had been the winter before. Her chest had become bigger, but she had always been generously endowed. She had a thousand complaints about her body, but in his mind, there was nothing about her he would change.

She sank deeper under the covers and shivered as a sudden gust pelted the window with rain and the century-old house creaked in protest. “We have to check the weather report,” she said softly. The oak tree outside the house shook, its branches scraping the eaves. The candles dimmed from a cold draft as lightning lit the room for an instant, the rumble of thunder following. He tried to look out the window, but though it was early in the afternoon of an August Sunday, it was dark as midnight. Lightning struck again, the strobe light of it flashing in the room. He opened his mouth to speak but the sudden crash of thunder interrupted. He waited for the relative quiet of the wind before answering.

“Power’s out,” he said finally, his smoothly rich tenor voice deliberately soothing. “We’ll check the weather report when it comes back on.” He sat at the end of the bed, one hand on her leg. He wore only boxer shorts and an old gray T-shirt that spelled in blue block letters the word NAVY. The wind-burned skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, the crows feet arriving earlier than they did for most men. The gray in his hair had also come early, but at age forty, little else gave away his age. His body was still lean and muscled, though nothing like it had been when he’d had a shot at being the boxing champion of his class. His face seemed carved by a haphazard sculptor, his individual features far from perfect, among them a severely broken nose from a fifteen round fight he’d lost by decision, a slightly cauliflowered ear, a deep scar on his protruding chin, cold and harsh gray-blue eyes, the prematurely silvery gray hair and white but uneven teeth, but when regarded together, they gave him a uniquely rugged, tough look. His appearance was so distinctive that not long ago a local newscaster who’d seen him in a grocery store had been inspired to feature him in a long news segment about his job, which had made him temporarily famous and had been responsible for some of his mid-career success.

“There’s more to think about now than just us,” she said quietly. “You should turn on your laptop. Maybe you can get a wireless connection and see what’s going on with this storm.”

Her voice had always had a strange effect on him. There was a mysterious music to it that went beyond the mere melody of the sound of her vocal cords. There was an indefinable, barely noticeable accent that he hadn’t heard before he fell in love with her, but it was there in every sentence. She had grown up outside Philadelphia in Haddonfield, a colonial town on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, but the lilt and cadence of her voice didn’t sound mid-Atlantic. Sometimes when she spoke he would listen to her as if straining to try to identify a nearly forgotten but hauntingly familiar song playing on the radio, and soon he would lose the meaning of her words in the richness of the sounds of her voice. Over the past eight months he had studied her, more intensely than any woman he had ever known. Despite his attention, he still could not predict what she would say or do or feel next. It was one of a thousand of the quirks that he loved about her.

“Laptop’s in the truck,” he said. “I can stay here with you or get soaked going out to get it.”

They had met under the strangest of circumstances, and many would condemn him for choosing her. His career had survived because the people closest to him found no fault in his choice, but it didn’t alter the fact that he had become involved with a woman who worked for him. He and she had suffered through a terrifying maritime disaster that had silenced the critics. Their beginnings had brought them to the hour of their deaths, and if not for the man who had plucked them from the hellish flames, they would now be buried with the wreckage at the rocky bottom of a two mile-deep sea. In the days that followed, there were a dozen times he wondered if he had actually died or if the reality he was living now had just been imagined in that last half-second of life.

In this new life, nothing was like it had been before. It was fortunate for him that he had her, because without her the guilt of losing over a hundred souls in his charge would have ruined him. Before the disaster, he had been a more a man of action than reflection. The world had been simple, painted in black and white. There had been good and there had been evil. He had been on the side of good. Until the day that those good men had sent him on a suicide mission.

After the hydrogen bomb detonated, a hundred and seven of his crew lay quiet at the bottom of the cold Barents Sea. When he regained consciousness, there was no longer the pure good against unholy evil. Black and white had yielded to infinite shades of gray. There was a new quality to him, one of thoughtfulness, a quality he had never held in high esteem before. In this new reality, there was plentiful guilt about the horror of that day, but not the despair he would have felt if not for her. He looked across the bed at her. With her alive next to him, he felt an incredible, undeserved joy. That he had lived was a miracle, but the fact that she had lived was far more. It was a godsend, the granting of a feverish, desperate deathbed prayer.

They had both dreaded the results of the medical tests they had undergone in the next month while he waited for his new assignment. The nuclear explosion had given them doses of gamma, alpha and neutron radiation significant enough to kill them had they been in poorer health. But there were more results. There were the smallest diamonds of tears in her eyes as she told him he was to be a father. He was stunned. The thought of having a child together oddly seemed far stranger to him than their surviving last winter’s ordeal.

The coming child had changed him as much as his loss at sea had, forcing him to examine every aspect of his personality, to review every event of his life to see if he were worthy. He concluded that he would never have considered himself ready to be a father, but life had made the decision for him. In the month that followed, he had concentrated on his new job, the actions of performing it as natural as breathing. It was a surprise to him when he realized that his altered self was better at his life’s work than he had been before.

But he knew the changes in him came from more than the disaster at sea or his impending fatherhood. She had changed him. There was something about her that calmed him and gave him peace. She answered a vital question posed by his life. The moments he spent with her were the most important of his day. As he had learned from his father’s flawed example, he had always presumed in his previous life that what he did for a living defined him, that his work was the sum total of his identity. Now he realized that what he did had only an incidental relationship to who he really was. When he thought of himself now, in those first few seconds of waking in the morning or falling asleep in her arms at night, he saw himself as her husband first, a father second and a seaman a distant last.

In the second month of his new assignment, there were more medical test results. She had smiled as she told him that the size of the baby proved that they had conceived the child during their first time together, in the early morning hours of what should have been their last day on earth. Later that night she had watched his eyes for his reaction as she spoke, her voice dead serious: “You know we should have died out there.”

“I know,” he had said, staring back at her. She’d never spoken of it since, and had practically forbidden him to bring it up.

Her voice trembled just slightly, as if she were confessing a deep secret. “Do you think our baby is the reason we were spared that day?”

In the darkness he smiled at her, pulled her close to him and told her the rational truth, or at least the truth he thought he should believe. “Sweetheart, we lived that day because our target had the heart to risk his own life to rescue us, even though doing that damn near killed him. I don’t think it had anything to do with the baby.”

She shook her head slowly. “He may be a saint,” she said, “but Peter Vornado wasn’t the one who decided we’d survive the radiation.”

To that he had no answer.

Lightning lit the room suddenly as the house creaked again in a gust. The peal of thunder rattled the windows. She reached for him and pulled him closer to her. In the first months of her pregnancy she had always wanted to be naked with him in their big bed when they were together on weekends, but now she was always too cold. She dressed in heavy pajamas despite the warmth of summer on the Virginia coast, burying herself in the bedclothes.

He had wondered why she wasn’t like other pregnant women in the summertime, sweating and complaining. She had an uncommon serenity about carrying a baby. Being pregnant had given her a glow, making her even more beautiful than she had been the first moment he had set eyes on her.

The lamp at the bedside suddenly flickered, then came on steadily. The power had returned.

She quickly found the remote control and the plasma flat panel television came to life. She switched to the weather station. The forecaster seemed to stand high above the east coast of the United States as he pointed to the dense clouds over Virginia.

“…ever since Tropical Storm George came ashore late last night in North Carolina and Virginia, bringing with it several inches of rain and coastal flooding. But as you can see from the developing satellite image, George is nothing compared to the strength of Hurricane Helen, which formed off Bermuda four days ago. Helen is already a category three storm and is expected to become a category five hurricane within the next hours. The storm track of Helen is predicted to follow on the heels of George and make landfall here, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. If Helen’s course doesn’t turn, the East Coast should get a pounding not seen since the category five ‘Great Labor Day Hurricane’ that hit the Florida Keys in 1935 – ”

He blinked at the screen. When he’d left work on Friday there was nothing on the news about this hurricane, and now it was about to pound Virginia. Which meant he should already have been directed to get the ship to the safety of the calm waters hundreds of miles at sea. The phone should have rung a dozen times by now. He chanced a glance at her, knowing that she had to be thinking the same thing. There was a frown forming on her brow. She looked over, understanding in her eyes.

“ – emergency hurricane preparations are being made by federal and coastal state authorities as residents are being advised to evacuate – ”

The television and the nightstand lamp went suddenly black, the room again lit only by the candles. A violent banging sound came from below, startling her. He listened as the banging came again. It was too regular to be another clap of thunder and it wasn’t the tree’s branches smashing against the house.

“What was that?” she said. Her eyes darkened. An expression of fear came to her face. In all the time he’d known her, he had only seen that look a few times.

“Someone’s out there knocking on the door. I’ll get it.”

She sank further under the covers and nodded as he stepped into his jeans. He carefully lifted one of the candles from the mantle and carried it down the stairs. When he opened the door the storm blew into the foyer and extinguished the candle flame. He had a momentary vision of a utility truck in the driveway, illuminated by a flash of lightning, and a short stranger in drenched yellow raingear standing on the porch.

The visitor shouted over the noise of the storm, “Commander Dillinger?”

He grabbed the figure by the collar and pulled him into house and slammed the door behind him.

“Good God, get in here out of the rain, man,” he said.

The soaked guest pushed off his hood. It wasn’t a man at all, but a woman, who in the dimness of the foyer looked like she was in her early twenties.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, wiping the rain out of her face.

He recognized her. She worked for Smokin’ Joe Kraft, the boss. “Petty Officer Leonah, right?” She nodded. “Let me get you a towel,” he said, turning.

“No thank you, sir,” she said. “There’s no time. Hurricane Helen’s coming. CinCLant’s ordered the entire Atlantic fleet to sea immediately. I’ve got to get to the other captains.”

He turned to look at her. “Why didn’t you guys just call?”

“Phones are out,” she said, glancing out at the storm.

“We’ve all got cell phones.”

“The cell and wireless networks became overloaded and crashed after a dozen cell towers got knocked out by lightning, so Admiral Jones invoked the emergency wartime sortie procedure, which means we should be landing helicopters in people’s front yards to collect them, but the choppers are all grounded in this weather. So they sent me out to notify the commanding officers, who are responsible for getting the rest of their people to their ships.”

“If you ask me, Paully Jones should have waited till the storm blew through.” He gestured out the window. “Going out in this is insane. It’s goddamned unsafe. And it’ll take hours to get my men aboard with all the phones out.” He didn’t mention that the engineroom had been torn down the week before for some unusually invasive maintenance, and that would add more time until they could leave. And running out to sea in a storm like this was begging for a major accident.

“Sir, Helen’s coming faster than they thought. The fleet needs to get to safety before the sea state rises too high. That’s just my guess, Commander. I didn’t dream up the orders, sir, I just follow them.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Who’s next on your list?”

“Only two left. Captain McDonovan of the Virginia and Captain Vornado of the Texas.”

“Vornado’s on my way in. I’ll take care of notifying him.” It was ideal, because both his and Peter Vornado’s chief engineers lived in Vornado’s neighborhood, and the engineers were the first ones required aboard, to wake the nuclear reactors and start the steam plants. This way he could spend a few minutes with his old Annapolis roommate before they went to sea.

“Thank you, Commander, but if you can’t find him, don’t waste time. Just get to your ship and radio squadron staff when you get in. We’ll track him down.” She pulled her hood back up, stiffened to attention and threw him a quick salute. “Good luck out there, sir.” She turned, opened the door and vaulted back out into the darkness of the roaring storm.

Commander Burke Dillinger stared at the puddle of water on the marble floor of the foyer as the lightning flashed in through the windows, his mind far away. When he looked up she stood halfway up the curving staircase. His eyes drifted to her swollen stomach and he thought for the hundredth time that from a few yards away the only sign that she was eight months pregnant was the circle of her belly. Above and below, she seemed no different than she had been before.

“Natalie,” he said, regret in his voice, “we’ve been ordered to sea. I have to go.”

“I know,” she said slowly. “I heard. I’m worried about you. Going out in this storm – it doesn’t make sense.”

“Did you see the size of the hurricane on the global weather image? I’m not the one you should be worried about. You need to evacuate. And I don’t want you driving to your mother’s by yourself. I’ll arrange a car service. Or maybe you and Rachel Vornado could get out of town together.”

“Burke,” she smiled as if indulging a wrong-headed but beloved child. “I’m a big girl. Too big,” she laughed. “I can take care of myself. Come on, I’ll help you pack.”

Her expression and laughter were the first upbeat gestures he’d seen from her all day. She’d been preoccupied and sad since the storm began, but when he asked her why, she’d said that she was always disturbed by severe thunderstorms. She wasn’t much of a liar, but she wouldn’t budge from her story. He had wondered if he had done something wrong to bring on her melancholy, but she had smiled and kissed him. “Storms like this make me feel like I’m in a scary movie that I can’t walk out of, that’s all.”

He frowned at her. Natalie Dillinger, formerly Lieutenant Commander Natalie D’Assault, U.S. Navy, retired, was one of the toughest and most resilient women Dillinger had ever encountered, yet she claimed to be afraid of a little rain.

She turned and hurried back up the stairs. When he got to the bedroom she was a flurry of motion. His sea bag lay on the bed. She folded clothes and placed them carefully but quickly into the bag. She rushed past him into the bathroom and packed his shaving kit, and when she emerged her eyes were swollen and the wet streak of a tear had come down one side of her face.

“Natalie, what’s wrong?”

“Burke, you’re exasperating me,” she said, her voice breaking on the words. He had only seen her cry once, the day she’d told him that she was pregnant. “I’m pregnant, hormonal and my husband is leaving in a storm for parts unknown. What do you expect me to do?” She turned to him and he hugged her, the baby in her stretched abdomen between them. She liked it when he held her tightly, but he was worried he would squish the baby. He looked down at the bulge, wondering again if it were a boy or a girl. Natalie didn’t know and didn’t want him to know, insisting that a child’s gender should be a surprise. He looked back up to her face and wiped his hands across her cheeks to dry her tears.

“I’m sorry to leave like this,” he said gently, kissing her lips. She sniffed, kissing him back perfunctorily.

“Come on, Commander. Let’s get you to sea.”

“We should talk about what you’re going to do,” he protested.

“You just worry about you and your people. I’ll take care of the house.”

“To hell with the house,” he said emphatically. “It’s been here a hundred years. If it’s the house’s time, it’ll go. If not, it’ll be here standing. I want you out of town.”

“I know,” she said, looking down. “But you’re out of uniform and you need to mobilize.”

The impulse seized him to make love to her before he left. It was odd, because the last thing on his mind was sex, but this sortie to sea could keep him away for a week, and when he got back, the house might not be here anymore. Four days from now this very spot might be a pile of hurricane-flattened rubble. It occurred to him that this could be the last time they might have sex in this bed. Natalie’s romantic thermostat had always run hot, and pregnancy had increased her appetite even more, but the last month had been difficult for her. She had been nauseated with an odd late-term morning sickness, and for the first time in their relationship she hadn’t wanted sex. It had been weeks since they had been together, and that and the nausea had worried Dillinger, but this was his first time as a father. It was probably to be expected. Dillinger had stoically withstood the sexual drought, but the idea of disappearing for a week made him suddenly crave her. He missed her already. He pulled her into a deep kiss, but she circled her tongue once around his and pushed him away.

“There’ll be plenty of time for that when you get safely home, young man,” she said, smiling bravely. But the tears had returned and her nose began to run. “Go on, get out of here. You’re holding up the whole Navy.” She turned away from him and pulled a fully rigged working khaki uniform out of the closet and handed it to him. “Get dressed while I use the bathroom and I’ll meet you at the front door.”

That was his Natalie, he thought. Vulnerable and hiding under the covers from a thunderstorm one minute, the next pragmatically rushing him out the door and ready to stare down a category five hurricane by herself. There were times he wondered if somewhere deep inside her, she made conscious decisions about which emotions to feel next, because while she certainly had emotions, they didn’t have her.

He sighed in disappointment, but realized she was right. He ditched his jeans and stepped into the creased khakis and his at-sea boots. He checked himself in the mirror as he tucked in his shirt, then grabbed his bag and hurried to the foyer. He found his raincoat and shrugged into it, pulled on his garrison cap, then turned to the foyer table to take the keys to the truck. He tossed the keys back, thinking Natalie needed the truck to leave town. He got her car keys and as he looked up, she came down the stairs. Her expression seemed stern and forced.

“Take care of yourself,” he said. “I left you the truck. It’ll be better in the weather.”

She nodded, as if she didn’t trust her voice. She sniffed once and pulled him into a hug. He felt the baby digging into his midsection and he kissed her throat.

“I love you,” he said. He couldn’t seem to make himself move. Something seemed wrong about this. It felt he was leaving for a year instead of a week.

She bit her lip. This time her voice was gentler. “I love you, too, honey. You’ll be back week after next. We’ll take a few days off and do something.”

He smirked. “Yeah, like replace the windows in this old place.”

“You didn’t say you’d be careful.”

“I’ll be careful, but – ”

She suddenly reached behind him and opened the door and the rain blasted into the house. He felt her hand in the small of his back pushing him out into the storm. She slammed the door shut behind him. He turned and shouted through it.

“Bye, sweetheart!”

“Be careful!” she shouted back at him.

He knocked his platinum Academy ring twice on the wood of the door, an ancient gesture of farewell.

His uniform was soaked by the time he retrieved his laptop from the truck and loaded it and his sea bag into the trunk of Natalie’s car. He climbed into the driver’s seat and backed out of the driveway, the house invisible in the blur of the rain on the windshield. He looked up to try to see the window of the master bedroom, but the dimness of the candlelight couldn’t be made out from the street.

Dillinger pressed his palm against the foggy side window. “Bye, Natalie,” he whispered. After a moment he hit the gas and the big Mercedes accelerated down the soaked street.

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