{"product_id":"deep-sound-channel-isbn-9780553762884","title":"Deep Sound Channel","description":"An electrifying new voice in military fiction, Joe Buff has written a riveting and totally realistic tale of military adventure-a spectacular novel that is sure to establish this outstanding author as the new master of the genre. Vividly authentic and impeccably researched, it takes readers into the not-too-distant future, when the United States is embroiled in a tactical nuclear war that will mark a new era of weapons and tactics, geopolitical alignments, and human courage....\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDeep Sound Channel\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe year is 2011, and in South Africa a reactionary coup has established a military government that has begun sinking U.S. and British merchant ships. NATO quickly responds, with only Germany holding back-until Germany starts nuking Poland and eviscerating the French. Now the South Atlantic is a battleground where nuclear-tipped missiles rule-and the only gun worth using is one that seeks and fires from deep beneath the sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn response, Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey Fuller and the crew of the nuclear submarine USS Challenger are called in to help. Ceramic-hulled and designed for maximum stealth, the Challenger is being sent to South Africa for a mission critical to stopping the war. Together with a team of Navy SEALs and assisted by Boer freedom fighter Ilse Reebeck, Commander Fuller must infiltrate the enemy coast and attack a compound where scientists are putting together the ultimate biological weapon-a violent, deadly microbe that has the potential to wreak global devastation. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor Jeffrey Fuller, the operation will take him back to his former life as a SEAL. It's his job to steer the team of operatives to shore; penetrate concentric arcs of armaments, minefields, and sensors; and destroy the death lab. If the mission works, the \u003cbr\u003ebioweapon will be destroyed and shock waves will cripple the South African government. If it goes wrong, fallout will kill thousands of innocent people. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDeep Sound Channel\u003c\/b\u003e provides a rare and telling look into the future of our military's weapons-and into the horrific violence of tactical nuclear war. It is a cutting-edge masterpiece that takes readers on a wild and unforgettable ride of suspense, nuclear warfare, and underwater adventure\"Puts the reader in the hull of a deep-diving combat Virginia-class submarine on a mission to hell itself....A superb high-water mark in naval fiction.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Michael DiMercurio, author of \u003cb\u003eThreat Vector\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003ePiranha Firing Point\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003cb\u003eDeep Sound Channel\u003c\/b\u003e is a hell of a read.\"\u003cbr\u003e--David Hagberg, author of \u003cb\u003eAssassin\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eWithout Honor\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An action-packed thriller that is all too real.  Lots of action, lots of grit.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Dick Couch, Capt., U.S. Navy (Ret.), author of \u003cb\u003eRising Wind\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nonstop and exhilarating...chilling and fascinating. Joe Buff takes the reader on a frightening ride in harm's way. A damn good story.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Eric L. Harry, author of \u003cb\u003eInvasion\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eArc Light\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A sobering look into the possible future of undersea warfare-the one environment where nuclear weapons can, and probably will, be used.\"\u003cbr\u003e--P. T. Deutermann, Capt., U.S. Navy (Ret.), author of \u003cb\u003eTrain Man\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eScorpion in the Sea\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003cb\u003eDeep Sound Channel\u003c\/b\u003e demonstrates Joe Buff's intimate knowledge of undersea warfare....Nonstop action!\"\u003cbr\u003e--Barrett Tillman, author of \u003cb\u003eThe Sixth Battle\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eWarriors\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eJoe Buff\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eDeep Sound Channel\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Dutchess County, New York, with his wife and fellow writer, Sheila Buff.A few days later, at Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLieutenant Commander Jeffrey Fuller looked up from his night-long labors at USS Challenger's weapons loading hatch, wiped his dripping brow, and watched in morbid fascination. The crewmen he'd been working with did too, and for once he didn't urge them back to it. They've more than earned a break, he told himself, so let them look. Let them see what this is all about, this tactical nuclear war at sea with the Berlin-Boer Axis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jesus,\" the submarine's chief of the boat said, looking east from under the lead-lined awning with its propane jets, radar and thermal antisatellite masking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yeah,\" Jeffrey said. What else was there to say? The young seamen just stared.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sun had breasted the horizon now, well past the first moment of nautical dawn, that special time of day that Jeffrey loved but rarely saw. The extra-yellow early light shone above the seventy-foot-high trees off in the distance, the long-abandoned coconut plantation on the other side of the lagoon. The light picked out the cloud-flecked sky, high scudding altocumulus over fluffy fractostratus blobs, and it illuminated the hideous procession in the foreground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Ranger,\" Jeffrey whispered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ATR(X) oceangoing salvage tug bore zero three five relative, crossing the line of bearing to the lighthouse on Leconte Point. Her charge's stem could just be seen, slowly making progress past the anchorage. Gradually, like some obscene burlesque, the hulk came into view, dragged by the tow cable whose catenary curved beneath the water and then up again. Slowly, almost teasingly, she moved out from behind the looming steel-gray side of the submarine tender, USS Frank Cable, against which Challenger lay moored.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInstinctively Jeffrey did the target-motion analysis in his head. Angle on the bow starboard zero four zero, mark. Speed five knots, course one six five. Distance to the track, call it 1,200 yards.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeffrey noticed there was comparative silence now. Work topside had ceased on all the other ships as well. Only the incessant roar of jets and turboprops and helicopters persisted, off past his right shoulder at the airfield. Overhead, birds soared, oblivious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRanger's wake washed under Challenger, and she started pitching slightly as if in homage. The nylon mooring lines stretched, creaking softly. Thankfully the light breeze was from behind Jeffrey, from the west.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRanger's island superstructure was gone, Jeffrey saw, except for a tangled mess of wreckage, a livid stump three meters high. Her flight deck, warped and twisted, was more or less still there, except for the aircraft elevators, which all were missing. Edge-on to the enemy cruise missile blast, Jeffrey figured, the flight deck was peeled upward as the atomic shock front's ground reflection diffracted over the vessel. Stress loadings of the incident wave, severe drag and compression forces, and explosive negative pressure gradients did the rest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"My God,\" Jeffrey said out loud. \"You can see right through her hull.\" He watched the sunrise glowing where the hangar deck had been, and in the other empty spaces lower down. Those once were all compartments, where her crew had worked and studied, slept and messed, written letters home. Tortured longitudinals were what remained of her first platform deck amidships, forward of engineering. Along her waterline arced the discharge from many pumps, undoubtedly P-250 portable gasoline-powered units, keeping her afloat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"They're finishing the detailed decontamination,\" COB said, pointing out the little figures in nuclear-biological-chemical protective suits on the hull, busy with the scrubbing and the sealing. \"Aging will have happened on its own.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Iodine 131,\" Jeffrey said, continuing the idle shop talk in spite of himself, \"radon 222, the shortest half-lived stuff.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOB nodded. \"The gross washdown would have been completed after putting out the fires.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The naval architects will claim her now, I think,\" Jeffrey said. \"To improve their damageability models.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It isn't right,\" COB said. \"She's a tomb, not a pile of data.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere and there patches of hull plating still clung to Ranger's side. The plates were pressed inward against the frame members, whose outlines stood out clearly. The plates seemed plastered to her flank like sheets of canvas in the wind, a devil's wind. Everything was black, deep coal-mine black, except for splotches where the fires and ocean salt had oxidized her steel a matte pastel red-brown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"She fought hard,\" a junior officer said with awe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A Presidential Unit Citation for sure,\" a senior chief said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Awarded posthumously,\" COB said, an obvious tightness in his throat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The larger battle won,\" Jeffrey said, \"but at such cost.\" It was better if they talked, he told himself. It eased the pain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeffrey saw two seamen wipe their eyes--maybe they'd had friends aboard, or maybe not. He watched as Ranger moved on through the lagoon, toward its closed end at the south point of the atoll's miles-long V, toward shallow water and foul ground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Message from Frank Cable, sir,\" COB said when there seemed no point in watching further, being formal for the benefit of the enlisted men, all petty officers themselves. \"Captain's due back in fifteen minutes.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA group of crewmen had been standing close together at the bow, huddling like at a funeral, near the dozen hatches for the Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile vertical launch system. The men got back to work, unbidden, at the torpedo loading gear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Last one, correct?\" Jeffrey said, eyeing the lethal cylinder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Confirmed, last nuclear torpedo,\" COB said carefully.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeffrey initialed the checklist, then held out his clipboard for COB to countersign. The old chief would have his thirty years in soon, Jeffrey knew, but with this war the navy wouldn't let him go. Not that he would want to, and victory was much too tenuous to plan that far ahead. COB, whose given name was never used aboard, came from a clan of Latino Jersey City truckers. Black sheep of the family, he instead had gone to sea.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt least COB had a family who cared. Jeffrey sighed to himself, then stood up straighter. \"Let me give you guys a hand.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey positioned the crane's long burden carefully, then eased the two-metric-ton weapon onto the loading cradle and secured it. Jeffrey watched the cradle first elevate to line up with the channel through the hull, then trundle down toward the transit rack in the torpedo room three decks below.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA variable-yield warhead, the cryptic markings on the fish's glossy green side said 0.01 to 0.1 kilotons. Maybe that didn't sound like much, till you remembered these were meant to go off underwater. \"Up to almost one percent of Hiroshima,\" Jeffrey said, mostly to himself. The casing at the back for the fiber-optic guidance wire was labeled no step.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCOB cleared his throat. \"The message said we have two guests. Passengers. No honors to be rendered.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Very well,\" Jeffrey said. He shrugged. \"Security, I guess.\"","brand":"Bantam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300215116005,"sku":"NP9780553762884","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780553762884.jpg?v=1767724950","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/deep-sound-channel-isbn-9780553762884","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}