The Final Storm Read Online Free PDF

the ocean. I haven’t sailed this tub through one patch of pink water. But what the hell do I know? I’m just out here fighting the enemy. Those engineers and design folks have the tough job, figuring out how much cream to put in their coffee. Now they say we sank every damn ship the Japs have. I’m not believing any of that, not for one second. Somebody’s gotta know we’re out here, and maybe they’re watching us, some smart damn destroyer captain shadowing us. He scanned the blackness, thought, okay, stop that. Hockley would have raised hell down there if anything was around us. And you don’t need to show anybody on this crew a case of the jitters. Most of them are too young, too green to know just how human I am. A sub captain’s got ice in his blood, yeah. That’s it. Ice. Nerves like steel wire. That’s what they’re told anyway. That’s how they think I got this job.
    He thought about that, wasn’t really sure how he got the job. Yep, I wanted it. It was a plum job, of course, a sub commander ranking among the navy’s most elite. Nearly all of us are Annapolis grads, the
elite
, by damned. Yeah, that was tough, worth it for sure. My parents were all gooey about it, my old man bragging to his neighbors. Hell, why not? His boy did good, not like some of those clowns I grew up with. He recalled the graduation with a smile, hats thrown in the air, all the slaps on the back, loud, boisterous calls for what was next, all that
glory
. But that was nearly a decade before Pearl Harbor, and nobody knew anything about what was
next
. Ask my buddy on the
Tang
. Or those poor bastards on the
Growler
, or the
Swordfish
. Glory, my ass.
    “Captain. Radar reports a sighting, sir.”
    The noise jolted him, the voice of Gordon, his exec. He grabbed the microphone, held it to his mouth, pressed the button.
    “What is it, Gordy?”
    “Sighting at two four zero, moving … um … zero four zero … looks like ten knots.”
    It was a bad habit Gordon had, that first burst of excitement, tossing out estimates before he had the precise numbers.
    “Slow down, Lieutenant. What’s their range?”
    “Sorry, sir. Seventeen thousand yards.” He paused. “Ten knots confirmed.”
    “Stand by, Gordy. Send Fallon up here.”
    “Aye, sir.”
    He glanced toward the compass, his sub moving almost due north, and he stared out toward the direction of the sighting, behind him to the left. Ten miles. Nothing to look at yet. But he’s heading roughly toward us, might cross behind us. Ten knots is pretty damn slow. Must be a real piece of junk. He had a sudden flash, his mind fixing on a new thought. Or he’s on the
prowl
, looking for something. Yep, that’s a whole lot better. If we can get the jump on a Jap warship, that’s a whole lot bigger prize than sinking some tub full of rice.
    The young seaman, Fallon, rose up through the hatch, a nineteen-year-old who had a knack for precision, and the sharp eyes to match. Fallon stood stiffly, said in a low whisper, “Sir?”
    “Richie, man the TBT. We’re too far away to see anything, but that’s about to change.”
    “Aye, sir.”
    Fallon turned close to the high-power binoculars, affixed to the railing of the conning tower, what the navy called the Target Bearing Transmitter. The binoculars were connected electronically to the instruments below, part of the system that impressed every officer in the fleet. It was called the TDC, for Torpedo Data Computer, a bulky piece of equipment near the radar station that, in combination with the radar system, could compute a target’s speed and heading, which would translate that information for the precise heading and speed the sub should maintain when firing torpedoes. The captain never pretended to know how it worked, and as long as he had crewmen who knew how to operate the thing, that was fine with him. They had already been credited with sinking seven Japanese merchant ships, and if the man who invented the TDC wanted a pat on