D. M. Ulmer 01 - Silent Battleground Read Online Free PDF Page A

for an end run.  The well positioned others mentioned had a lot of affect over Bostwick’s promotional chances.
          Bostwick knew he’d lost the round.  “Perfectly, Commodore. I’ll withdraw the recommendation.  And now, if you please, sir, details on this Soviet thing.”
    ***
          Dave Zane opened the refrigerator and drew a glass of wine from his readybox of Franzia.  He spotted two bottles of Mount Ste Michele Chardonnay.
      “What time is Brent coming, Bea?” Dave asked, addressing his daughter Beatrice by her pet name.
          “About six.  For dinner … okay, Dad?” 
          “Not gonna ask how I know?”
          “Nope.”
          Dave liked Brent Maddock and saw much of himself in the young officer.  He hoped something would come of his relationship with Bea.
          Settling into his recliner, he balanced his glass of wine on the arm.  Several logs crackled in the family room fireplace as he fired up the TV with his remote.  A news anchor flickered into view: top item, growing Soviet displeasure over the Iraq-Iran situation.
          The TV narrator said, “It seems the Iranians are about to resolve the current war in their favor,” then digressed to conjecture on the meaning of this, irritating Dave.
          Damn newsies believe a good voice and camera presence qualifies ’em to interpret what’s not interpretable.  Why the hell don’t they stick to the facts instead of their half-assed theories? Maybe a body could then figure out what’s happening.
          The camera zoomed in on the anchor’s stern look.  “Earlier today, President Andrew J. Dempsey warned that any foreign military forces placed into the Iraq-Iran conflict would surely result in the gravest of consequences.”
          Dempsey’s words are tough, Dave thought, but he’s gotta know backing an opponent into a corner leaves him one option.  Fight.
          Thirteen years earlier, Dave retired from the Navy at the rank of captain, Submariner Engineering Duty Only (EDO), and now made his home on Bainbridge Island, not far from Bremerton Naval Shipyard, the site of his final posting before retiring.  As a civilian, he took up a profitable second career in domestic real estate sales then lost his wife Dale after a four-year bout with cancer.
          Bea set out on her own after college then moved home to recover from a disastrous relationship.  Alarmed at Dave’s deterioration over the loss of his wife, Bea stayed on with him.  She adored her father, a rigid standard by which she measured all her suitors.
          Dave’s submarine career began at Submarine Base, New London, Connecticut in the summer of 1957 where he attended the Officers’ Submarine School.  He sired Bea in fertile flats, nickname for married student officers’ quarters.  A train roared through the base each day at 5:30 a.m., a full hour before anyone had to get up.  Awake with an hour to kill, young couples did what came naturally and a high birthrate resulted with Bea numbered among that bumper crop.
          Veterans of World War II ran the submarine Navy when Dave entered the service.  Consequences of the Navy being caught off guard at Pearl Harbor remained fresh in their minds thus operational readiness held top priority.  Performance at sea in simulated combat operations made or broke careers.
          The year 1957, eleven years after Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech, found the Cold War at full tilt; the Kremlin conceded the U.S. Navy had an insurmountable lead in surface combatants.   It planned to counter by using the same leverage demonstrated by the United States during WW II.  Fifty-five percent of combined Japanese merchantmen and warships went to the bottom, compliments of U.S. submarines that comprised only 1.6 percent of the Navy’s wartime complement.
          The Soviets launched a vigorous submarine building program and by the