He broke the button-size capsule that released the envelope’s seal, and the material parted when the envelope’s magnetic seal broke. A flat, brown butcher-paper-wrapped package tumbled to the floor. It landed with a familiar thump. Only one thing made a sound like that.

He smiled as he tore off the paper that wrapped the Pushkin book. Inside, tucked next to the tea-stained opening page, was a three-by-five-inch card of solid white. Only two words — With gratitude — were typed on it.

He didn’t know whether to smile or shudder at the realization that she somehow knew where he lived. So he just opened the book and began to read again: I live in lonely desolation, And wonder when my end will come.

“You need to be careful right now. See that set? See the way it’s breaking? You’re too far forward on the board, so slide back and paddle!”

Mario Giordini was not paying attention to the waves. He found it hard to look at anything but his instructor. When she arched her back to see how the next set of waves was shaping up, it was impossible to consider anything but the curve of her breasts beneath the long-sleeved black rash guard.

The Italian banker from Milan would be turning thirty next month, and he knew his mother would soon force him to finally settle down and get married. Thank God he was not married now.

“Mario, stay with me,” she said. “You’re going to have to dive under when this wave comes, okay? All the way under this time.”

He’d actually arrived the day after the final prisoner exchanges between China and the United States had been completed, the U.S. forces taken in Guam swapped for the Chinese forces who’d surrendered after the Americans had taken back the island. The two nations had shown they could pound each other into a weakened equilibrium, but having sunk most of each other’s fleets, neither wanted to take it to the next level. So the deal was status quo antebellum, a term Mario thought funny for its naive suggestion that anything could go back to the way it was before the war. And that was the opportunity for those who had been smart enough to sit it out. Half the hotels on the island had some kind of battle damage, but location had a permanent value. As did beauty, he thought, looking at the woman he’d picked up on a site visit to the Moana Surfrider hotel.

The question was, how was he going to make this particular investment pay off? Maybe ask her out to dinner and then try the tactic of testing a bottle of Italian prosecco against a California sparkling wine, which they ignorantly called champagne? It had worked enough times here, the girls grateful for a free meal and the chance to peek at luxury, even for a night. Or was she the kind of girl who needed a little narcotic persuasion?

“Now!” she shouted. Mario leaned forward on the board just as the wave approached. He meant to shove the board’s nose deep under the water and arch his back to drive it deeper still, but he froze. He just stared up at a blue wall closing in on him.

The wave sucked him up and launched him into the air, spinning him underwater. Salt water filled every cavity, worked its way into his nose and ears. He surfaced with a desperate gasp but the board kept racing toward the beach, locked in the wave’s rushing white water. The tug on his leash dragged him back down. He flailed harder, thrashing with open hands.

The next thing Mario knew he was on the beach, coughing as if he had just smoked two packs of cigarettes. She stood over him, backlit by sunset. He felt completely disarmed and at peace in the presence of such beauty.

“You know, you really are starting to get the hang of it,” she said. “But you have to learn to trust me. How about we go back out tonight? The moon will be full. It’s so amazing, like nothing you’ve seen back in Italy,” she said.

He nodded, already thinking of which bottle to bring.

“I know just the place,” she said, “quiet, just the two of us. And there’s not a better break for teaching. But you gotta promise me you’ll look out for that leash next time; it can be a real killer.”

“Tacking now, Dad!”

Martin Simmons held the sailboat’s tiller in his right hand and the jib sheet in his left. He’d stopped calling his father Daddy ever since he’d come back. The breeze picked up as the small Lightning sailboat edged closer to the Mare Island pier.

“Don’t let go of the jib just yet. Feel it fill, then… okay, now, now!” said Jamie Simmons. He sat hunched as low as he could, ducking the aluminum boom.

The sailboat tacked to starboard, and Jamie carefully shifted his weight across to the port side. Lindsey and Claire screamed with delight as the boat began to tilt. He watched his son, now eight, try to transfer the line and the tiller between his hands as the hull shifted underneath him. All the while, they were closing in on the barnacles.

“My turn next, Daddy!” Claire said from the bow. At least she still called him that.

The channel was so changed from a year ago. Much of the old Ghost Fleet was gone; some of the vessels were still at sea until the shipyards could complete their decades-long work of rebuilding the American navy, and some were lost forever. And on the ships that were back, fresh paint covered the rust and bloodstains while welders daily worked over their new scars.

Simmons reached over and nudged the tiller. There was so much to do, but this was exactly how he wanted to spend the day before the change-of-command ceremony. He was going to make the most of all of this.

The sailboat kept edging closer to the pier, about two hundred yards astern from the sleek metal box-cutter bow that still looked to him as if it were going in the wrong direction from the water.

“Watch your speed; I don’t think the Z could take a ramming even from us,” said Simmons.

Martin yanked the tiller, turning the sailboat into the wind. With no air flow over the sails, the sheets luffed and hung limp. The young boy searched frantically for the next puff of warm breeze to fill the channel, losing track of the sailboat’s momentum carrying them onward.

“Shit!” said Martin when he realized how far they had drifted, too late trying to turn the rudder. The sailboat bumped into the pier lightly; Jamie pushed off with his hand.

“Martin Simmons, who taught you that word?” said Lindsey.

“Grandpa,” said Martin sheepishly.

“Well, that’s appropriate,” said his father.

Jamie could see the boy was blushing even under his sun hat. He drew a cooler to his feet and opened it up. He got out a can of Coke, took a sip, then passed it to his son. “You’re doing great; your grandpa would be proud of you… and of your new vocabulary. We’ll just wait here for him to send us some wind.”

The sailboat slowly floated past the Zumwalt. One of the sailors onboard recognized the captain and snapped a salute. Claire saluted back first, then Martin, and, finally, Jamie, smiling.

The jib stiffened, and Martin took up the slack in the line as the wind picked up and the sailboat took off.

Writing a book is a team effort, which is what made this partnership such a rewarding experience. But the members of the team went well beyond the two of us.

Thank you to the DC defense-policy community and the Washington Metro system for leading us to continually cross paths at meetings, interviews, and subway stops and strike up a friendship and, now, a writing partnership.

We were drawn into trying our hand at fiction by our shared love of authors who had thrilled, inspired, and addicted us as readers. They range from Arthur Conan Doyle and Herman Wouk to William Gibson and John le Carré to Tom Clancy and George R. R. Martin. Part of the fun of this effort was revisiting old memories of reading books like Red Storm Rising on the way to the beach in the back of the family station wagon, and then going back to read them again decades later, this time to look for tips from the masters but enjoying them just as much.