Michael DiMercurio
Dark Transit
Meet the Author
Michael DiMercurio is an American veteran of the U.S. Navy Submarine force, engineer, project management and construction expert, bestselling author, commentator and humorist.
DiMercurio graduated academically first in his U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis) class with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering despite the class-A conduct offense of parking his hotrod in the admiral’s space. In the face of Navy misgivings, DiMercurio was a National Science Foundation scholar to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating with an S.M. master’s degree in mechanical engineering.
DiMercurio joined the crew of the Cold War-winning nuclear fast attack submarine USS Hammerhead where he earned the nuclear Navy’s coveted “qualified in submarines” gold dolphins, allowing him to stand command watches as officer of the deck submerged. DiMercurio rose to become the “bull lieutenant,” the most senior of the eight junior officers aboard and fifth-in-command. Hammerhead conducted numerous top secret North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea operations, including “snapping up” and trailing three Soviet nuclear submarines and crossing the Gulf of Sidra’s “Line of Death” to hide under a Russian nuclear cruiser to catch a targeted incoming Soviet attack submarine. While DiMercurio was a rebellious practical joker of an officer, invariably violating the captain’s direct orders not to smoke cigars in the control room, he was undisputedly a tactical genius at detecting and trailing Soviet submarines.
After DiMercurio and Hammerhead won the Cold War and defeated the Soviet Union’s sweeping octopus of world communism, making the world safe for democracy, with liberty and justice for all, amen, DiMercurio left active duty for civilian heavy industry project and construction executive management. DiMercurio built chemical and power plants in sites from Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, India, Ontario, and dozens of sites in the USA, experiencing harrowing dealings with Mafia contractors, Rajasthani criminal thugs and transgender barflies.
DiMercurio authored nine USA Today bestselling Navy submarine fiction novels such as Vertical Dive, Emergency Deep, Attack of the Seawolf, and Threat Vector and the satirical non-fiction work, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Submarines. He was a commentator on Fox News during the 2005 Russian submersible AS-28 rescue, personally calling out Vladimir Putin to man up and accept Western rescue efforts rather than deliberately letting his sailors die as he did in 2000 during the Kursk sinking. Suitably chastised, Putin gave the green light to British and American rescue divers and equipment, and the sailors lived.
As a commentator and columnist, DiMercurio writes essays on topics as diverse as international politics, conspiracy theories, the humorous side of divorce, military and civilian office politics, modern electronic-aided dating and even such wildly ambitious topics as grammar and understanding women.
DiMercurio hangs his hardhat in Undisclosed Location, USA, and when he isn’t writing, providing incisive content on social media sites, annoying the females in his life, masterfully leading complex projects himself or educating inexperienced project managers, he can be found lazing in a mellow cloud of cigar smoke, sipping Kentucky bourbon or riding his obnoxiously loud Harley.
DiMercurio’s website is www.terminalrun.com and his twitter is twitter.com/MikeyDiMercurio. He can be liked on Facebook at http://facebook.com/michael.dimercurio.author.
Dedication
Dedicated to the United States Submarine Force
Deep, Silent, Fast, Deadly
“The great lie at the heart of all states is that other people are not the same as us. It is the excuse for violence, the rationalization that makes it possible to wield a weapon in the first place: it’s okay to kill them, they would do the same to us, they’re different than us. It’s the foundation of every atrocity small or large throughout history. The lie that the others are different. And once that lie is used to justify violence, it can’t be relinquished. The ends become the means, and violence must be called down not just for the reason of the lie, but in defense of the lie.”
“So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”
“Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that ‘violence never solves anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.”
“The spectrum of conflict today is neither linear nor predictable. We must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option.”
“The recent tragic loss of the Argentine submarine San Juan, the fire raging amongst moored Russian Kilo-class submarines at Vladivostok (a drill, Moscow claims), and the fortunately nonfatal but highly expensive flooding of the Indian nuclear powered submarine Arihant highlight that despite being arguably the most fearsome weapon system on the planet, submarines remain dangerous to operate even when not engaged in a war. Even brief breakdowns in crew discipline or mechanical reliability can rapidly turn the stealthy underwater marauders into watery coffins.”
“Unlike other warships a submarine has no peacetime role. She cannot ‘show the flag’ or be used to entertain foreign dignitaries. She is unsuitable for the pomp and ceremony for which war vessels of all nations are in such great demand and she is hardly the ideal vehicle for carrying a Head of State on official visits. She has no facilities or surplus space available to enable her to provide aid when natural disasters such as earthquakes, flood and volcanic eruptions occur in remote areas; and she can only offer limited assistance in a rescue situation. The submarine, unlike her surface sisters, is solely a vessel of war. Thus, by definition, her Commanding Officer is, in Winston Churchill’s stirring phrase, ‘a Captain of War.’