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  High Praise for Steven Wilson and

  Between the Hunters and the Hunted

  “Between the Hunters and the Hunted is a

  tremendously exciting read. The characters

  were well drawn; the action riveting. I

  couldn’t put the book down.”

  —Alan Topol, author of Conspiracy

  “A gripping, superbly told story of war at

  sea. A masterful blending of fact and fiction

  that thrusts the reader into the center

  of white-hot action and the heart of

  momentous events, which, had they

  been real, would have changed the course

  of history.”

  —Peter Sasgen, author of War Plan Red

  High praise for Steven Wilson and

  Voyage of the Gray Wolves

  “A stunning page-turner that grabs the

  reader and never lets go!”

  —Joe Buff, author of Straits of Power

  “A slam-bang confrontation on the high

  seas. A great read!”

  —Chet Cunningham, author of

  Hell Wouldn’t Stop: The Battle of Wake Island

  in World War II

  “The action is both taut and intense. The

  duel of wits between Hardy and Kern is

  reminiscent of the classic movie The Enemy

  Below. It is a nautical chess game with masters on both sides of the board…. Wilson

  takes us into the hearts and minds of both

  his German and British characters….

  A good read indeed.”

  —Times Record News, Wichita Falls, TX

  “Wow! What great page-turning action and

  captivating characters. Wilson will keep you

  enthralled and on the edge of your seat.”

  —David E. Meadows, author of

  the Sixth Fleet series

  “A fine adventure novel in the tradition of

  Alistair McLean; once you pick it up you

  won’t put it down.”

  —Tom Wilson, author of Black Serpent

  “Steven Wilson takes us on a taut, suspense—

  ful, engaging, and frightening saltwater

  thriller to the secret, dangerous undersea

  horrors of WWII submarining, where his

  war machines are as deeply soulful—and as

  realistically lethal—as his combat-weary yet

  inspired characters. No submarine fiction

  fan’s bookcase is complete without Wilson’s

  Voyage of the Gray Wolves. Bravo zulu and

  good hunting, Steven.”

  —Michael DiMercurio,

  author of Emergency Deep

  ALSO BY STEVEN WILSON

  Voyage of the Gray Wolves

  Between the Hunters and the Hunted

  ARMADA

  A NOVEL

  STEVEN WILSON

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  ALSO BY STEVEN WILSON

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Copyright Page

  For so appears this fleet majestical,

  Holding due course for Harfleur. Follow, follow;

  Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,

  And leave your England …

  —William Shakespeare, Henry V

  The destinies of two great empires … seem to be tied

  up in some goddamned things called LSTs.

  —Winston Churchill

  Chapter 1

  Something was wrong. Cole was aboard PT-155, standing to one side of the tiny bridge with the microphone in his hand, but it was much too light and yet he couldn’t quite make out the other PTs. Something was wrong.

  Then he knew—they were out in daylight. They never went out in daylight. A thick veil of fog smothered everything so that at first it looked dark. That was all right, the darkness was all right. But it was a false night. He could see the other boats, to port and starboard, but they were vague, ghostlike shapes that floated silently over the flat sea. He looked aft in confusion and could just make out DeLong with the 40-millimeter, its long snout trained over the stern. He was comforted by DeLong’s presence.

  “Some soup, huh, Skipper?” It was Harry Lowe. He was at the wheel, his easy smile just as much a comfort as the presence of Eckstam, Murray, or Tommy Rich, or any of the other crew members of Cole’s boat. Except that Harry Lowe was dead.

  Cole stood, stunned—watching his handsome executive officer pass the wheel lightly through his fingertips, scanning the compass, glancing out into the fog. But they were out in daylight—they never went out in daylight.

  You go out at night because that’s when the enemy convoys sailed, trying to pass unnoticed. Cole knew that—Lowe knew that—why were they out in daylight? Had somebody made a mistake? Cole’s mind stopped on that one word, mistake. It was a mistake.

  “Some soup, huh, Skipper?” Lowe said again, but this time, when Cole looked at him, half his head was missing.

  Cole stifled a scream, but when Lowe turned to him this time, he was fine.

  “What’s going on, Harry?” Cole asked. He didn’t hear himself speak. It was as if he had imagined the words.

  “Orders, Skipper,” Lowe said. Again that smile on a face so handsome most of the guys had said, at one time or another: “Mr. Lowe, you oughtta be in pictures.”

  “Orders?” Cole said, confused. He didn’t remember the orders. They go out at night—hunt for freighters, barges, and E-boats—because that’s when they go out. Maybe run up against MAS boats if they were lucky. F-lighters if they weren’t. F-lighters were thick skinned and the most heavily armed enemy boats.

  “We’ve got something off the starboard quarter, Skipper,” Lowe said, and looked at Cole expectantly. Cole didn’t reply—he was trying to think this situation out. Everything about it was wrong, and underlying that awareness was the sharp stench of fear. After a moment Lowe reminded Cole gently: “Better tell the other boats.”

  Cole knew to do that. He should have done it immediately. He had the microphone in his hand and he always took station on the starboard side of the bridge so that when he got the word from radar he could pass it on to the other boats. He looked at the microphone as if it were some mysterious device. He pushed the TALK button, held it close to his mouth, and said: “Cole, to all boats. Starboard quarter.” He realized that he didn’t have the distance and speed and suddenly grew frightened because in this fog—just like at night when there are no stars and no moon and you might as well be swimming in ink—the enemy could be on you in no time.

  Cole turned to Lowe, Harry Lowe with the Clark Gable mustache on William Powell features with a Robert Taylor smile, and was about to ask him speed and distance, because he was suddenly very afraid.
But now everything was in slow motion, and his words hung in his throat. He felt as if he were drifting with no way to control what he was doing.

  He had to warn Lowe. He remembered now. It wasn’t in daylight, in a thick fog. It was at night, and it was very cold. And then he had the speed and distance, but it didn’t make any difference. He had to tell Lowe but he couldn’t; he could feel his body moving like a plump, tethered balloon, but he had no voice.

  Lowe was smiling at him again and Cole grew angry, wanting to scream at Harry Lowe to pay attention to what he was doing, to call off the attack because it was a trap. He heard himself screaming, but his words were sucked into the silence of his dream, and he felt rage and impotence. Call off the attack! He was cursing Harry Lowe now, something he had never done when Harry was alive; but Harry wasn’t listening, he was just maneuvering the boat into position, sailing inexorably toward his own death.

  Now Cole was sitting in the tiny shack that they used for the ready room at the base, trying to explain to a very sympathetic but tired debriefing officer what had happened and why Harry Lowe’s blood and brains were all over him. Cole leaned forward in his chair—he didn’t have enough strength to hold himself upright—and told the debriefing officer, who kept yawning, what had happened.

  “Why’d you go out in daylight?” the debriefing officer asked, sliding his hand over his mouth to cover a yawn.

  Cole tried to straighten up to answer, but he thought if he stayed hunched over like this, he could hold himself together. He didn’t tell the debriefing officer that he was afraid that his body would fly apart like Harry Lowe’s head. Cole realized that the officer had asked him a question. “We didn’t,” Cole said, trying to make the man understand. “We went out at dusk, like we always do. We ran into the convoy at oh-two-forty-eight.”

  A tiny yawn was forced into submission by a shrug. “Yes. But why did you go out in daylight?” he asked again. And then he looked at Cole with a mixture of sympathy and pity and said: “Was it your fault?”

  “My fault?” Cole thought, and realized that he could save himself by just waking up—knowing now that it was a dream and he didn’t have to put himself through this. Everything was very familiar now, and the confusion that Cole had felt earlier in the dream was replaced by dread. He knew where the dream was taking him. “No,” he said. “You see, the E-boats and F-lighters were hiding behind the slower vessels. In the convoy. We didn’t pick them up until it was too late.”

  An excuse.

  The debriefing officer was writing something down, and Cole knew that what he just said was an excuse. It was my fault. I should have known better. I should have made sure.

  Cole could tell now that he was close to waking up, how, he wasn’t sure, but something told him that he would wake up soon. It wasn’t much comfort.

  He was on the bridge of PT-155 again, but this time they were in the middle of a battle. Red and green tracers were sawing through the air and someone had fired star shells into the fog in a vain attempt to illuminate friend and foe. They were on the step now, racing ahead at full speed, with the boat shaking from the recoil of the guns, her hull trembling out of fright or excitement.

  Cole knew what was going to come next. He’d seen it when he was awake and a thousand times in his dreams, but he couldn’t stop it. The memory of it, the sight of it, was always present. Harry Lowe, rich, good-looking, decent—“That Mr. Lowe is a helluva guy,” the crew said …

  Cole’s eyes shot open. He saw the patient blades of the overhead fan turning slowly, pushing a touch of air throughout his room. He rubbed his face roughly, felt the tears mixed with the sweat, swung his legs out of bed, and dropped his feet to the floor. Sometimes the tears kept coming even after he woke up. He stifled his sobs with the ball of his fist, trying to choke back the sounds and the taste of guilt.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, knowing that none of the other officers were up yet, thinking that maybe he could get dressed and make his way to the base galley for coffee. But he decided against it. There was always some guy over there who wanted to talk about something or other, and Cole just wanted to be left alone.

  Guilt had become his companion. It was in him at all times; sometimes he could hardly feel the weight of it, but he could always feel its presence. It snapped at him when he had nearly forgotten that it was there. Cruel reminders of his faults, responsibilities, mistakes—sometimes embellished or distorted—guilt taking a perverse pleasure in coating reality with imaginary failures. It didn’t make any difference—he accepted them all.

  Jordan Cole took a deep breath, wiping the corners of his eyes with the heel of one hand, and stretched the stiffness out of his back. Harry Lowe.

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and lapsed into an inventory of duties out of habit. All of the boats needed engine overhauls. The few remaining boats, his guilt reminded him, but in a surprisingly gentle manner as if to show Cole that guilt was not without compassion.

  His eyes fell on a gray, battered metal ammunition box. In its previous life it had held .30-caliber ammunition, according to the stenciled legend on its side. Now Cole used it for another purpose. Pictures from home, his will, mementoes of friendships, and a stack of letters bundled by a thick rubber band.

  Sometimes Cole would slide a letter out and read it, remembering Rebecca. There weren’t many letters—eight in fact—but there were so few because Cole wrote nothing in return, and Rebecca did what Cole wanted her to do. She stopped writing. One tiny victory for Jordan Cole.

  He sat on the edge of the bed for several minutes, his mind frozen into inaction by fatigue. The best way to stop thinking, Cole thought one day. Insomnia. Lack of sleep turned the brain to mush; pretty soon you don’t have enough energy to form a single coherent thought.

  He stood, fished around the room for his clothes, and got dressed. He glanced at his watch; oh-two-oh-five, and shook his head in disgust. Two fucking hours—he’d slept for less than two hours. He’d decided that maybe he’d go over to the galley and pick up some coffee and head to the duty shed, find a quiet corner, and settle in, listening to the radio chatter.

  Cole had the door open when he turned and glanced at the ammo box. He hadn’t read her letters in a while. He’d thought about her, first with regret and then with anger at what she’d done, and finally with a longing so intense that he could barely stand it. Well, he thought, it’s over anyway. Things happen, there’s nothing you can do about it.

  Guilt reemerged, refreshed and ready to accompany Cole. Lowe’s face flashed before his eyes—guilt taunting him again. And in a whisper so faint that it could have been the distant rustle of leaves, guilt told him: “There was plenty you could have done about it.”

  Chapter 2

  The English Channel, Spring 1944

  Seaman 1st Class Foster watched a tiny blip dart across the SG radar screen under the slow pass of the strobe. “Hey, Mr. Lewis? Take a look at this.”

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Lewis shook his head in disgust as he moved through the crowded Combat-Information-Center to the radar station. Foster should have made petty officer, but his mouth and holier-than-thou attitude had kept him at seaman 1st. Maybe he had the prerequisite ten hours of training, but that had been on the old SC radar and the SG was far more complex than the SC. Lewis never let on that he still didn’t completely understand the intricacies of the SG. Not to the captain or the exec, and certainly not to the enlisted men. And never, never to the chiefs. They could make a young, inexperienced officer’s life a living hell aboard a destroyer escort. Better to act like you knew what you were doing even if you didn’t, especially in the CIC. They sure didn’t teach you that at the Reserve Midshipman’s School.

  The tiny room, pulsating with life, was stuffed with speakers, situation tables for surface and air activities, and plotting boards with the names, call signs, and other data of the ships in the convoy. The bulkheads and overhead were alive with cables, wires, and conduits—the nerves that carried the informa
tion in and out. It was a clearinghouse for information that came in from radio, radar, sonar, and from the lookouts positioned at various stations on the Southern. It was dark in the CIC; the only light allowed was the eerie red glow of the emergency lamps. To the uninitiated the cramped room was a confusing maze of instruments half hidden in the gloom. The five or six men who manned CIC were ghostly images who moved silently in the tiny space, caring for the instruments. The fragile electronic gear needed constant tending; rangefinders, radars, transmitters, identification gear, direction finders, and receivers, everything sensitive to saltwater, salt air, and the pounding that the ship endured while under way. The only other movement was that of the strobe arm that flicked across the pale green face of surface and air radar screens.

  “Foster, how many times have I asked you not to say ‘Hey, Mr. Lewis’?”

  “Yeah, but, sir, something screwy just happened.”

  “You see, that’s what I mean,” Lewis said. He’d tried since he came aboard to bring a sense of dignity to the USS Jeremiah B. Southern, but the captain and the other officers had ignored his efforts. The crew followed suit, behaving in a lackadaisical manner, completely lacking in professionalism. Lewis studied the screen. It was blank except for the column of steady ships in the convoy. “I don’t see anything.” He was tired and anxious for his relief. They had been steaming Condition II, half the guns manned and the men working four on and four off because they were nearing E-boat Alley. It was a state of readiness ordered by the captain. To Lewis it was a waste of time and another example of Captain MacKay’s inability to grasp the obvious: the Nazis were on the ropes, anybody could see that. And the invasion would be a cakewalk. Lewis had seen the buildup in the ports, the long columns of infantry marching along the narrow British roads, and the flights of bombers that thundered overhead on their way to Germany.