The Shark Mutiny (57 page)

As usual, I have a list of serving officers who have no desire whatever to be formally acknowledged as my advisers. The subject is always too secretive, too classified in its nature, and my sources too senior for identification.

Do I want to be named in one of YOUR books? Are you kidding
! And yet they help me every year, ensuring that I am able to tell my story, handing me advice and detail, which they believe will give the public a greater appreciation of the armed heroes of the United States military.

Mostly my land attacks are planned with the help of former Special Forces officers. My insights into the diabolically secretive Intelligence world of Fort Meade are provided by a couple of former spies who seek only to highlight the sheer professionalism of the place.

However, at sea, my principal adviser, as always, is Admiral Sir John “Sandy” Woodward, the Task Force Commander of the Royal Navy fleet that won the Battle for the Falkland Islands in 1982.

On, and under, the surface, Admiral Sandy plots and plans with me to help bring readers right into the control room of the submarine. Without him, I could not bring reality to the subject of underwater warfare.

I did not trouble him with the final details of the court-martial, but rather relied on legal sources in the U.S. Navy, who again did not wish to be named.

They joined a whole range of new advisers who wished to protect their anonymity: the oil tanker captains who expressed their opinions on their highly combustible cargo; the oil company executives who tried to guess what they would have done in the face of crisis; the Aeroflot exec who told me all about the Andropov, not knowing the purpose for which it was being used!

One of my rare identifiable sources, however, is the excellent geopolitical writer, traveler and scholar Charles Stewart Goodwin of Cape Cod, who provided research on the ancient Chinese fleets and the contents of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. He knows how grateful I am. His own writings on global politics provide for me an unfailing guide.

For insights and expertise on the subject of reincarnation and post-traumatic stress, I have to thank Dr. Barbara Lane of Virginia, whose own book,
Echoes from the Battlefield: Past Lives from the Civil War
, is probably the best of its kind. Dr. Lane’s wide knowledge of both these subjects, plus a certain surefootedness in planetary matters, provided research of the highest order. In matters of battle stress, her own views dovetailed almost precisely with those of Admiral Woodward.

I thank also my friend Chris Choi Man Tat, whose suave and courteous manner running Kite’s, Dublin’s best Chinese restaurant, quite conceals the fact that he was once bosun on a gigantic crude-oil tanker plying between the Gulf and the Far East. His insights on the great ships were constantly helpful.

Finally I thank my friend Olivia Oakes, who thought she was coming for a quiet weekend with my family and ended up reading this manuscript for almost fifteen hours, checking spelling and punctuation. For any errors in this regard I intend, unfairly, to blame her.

The Shark Mutiny
is a work of fiction. Every character in it is a product of my imagination only, though there may be certain college baseball players who recognize their names but not their lives, nor any other connection with reality.

—
Patrick Robinson