Mid-Wake (1988)

Jerry Ahern's post-apocalyptic adventure, first published in the United States by Zebra Books in 1988, belongs to his Survivalist series about John Rourke; the scanned cover bills it as a Super Survivalist Special. Generations after a nuclear war, Russians operating from a domed city on the sea bed are fighting a hidden war against the Americans of Mid-Wake, a secret military complex under the Pacific, and Rourke, captured with Natalia, has to escape to warn his allies that the Russians are about to emerge. (Open Library)

Watches

Rolex Submariner: Locked with Natalia in the brig of a Russian submarine, Rourke notices that for some reason his captors have not taken his watch, and keeps count of the hours by it while she sleeps against his arm. Later, still a captive, he remembers a novel whose hero used his Rolex as an improvised set of brass knuckles and decides a diving watch is worth more to an escape than one blow (p. 93). The watch times the rest of the book: he wipes steam from its luminous black face to read it under emergency lighting (p. 189) and counts down a naval bombardment by it (p. 468). The text names the Submariner and gives no reference.

Source text: John Rourke glanced again at the Rolex Submariner on his left wrist, Natalia’s head resting against his chest, the weight of her body against his left arm. (Jerry Ahern, Mid-Wake, scan cataloged as New English Library, 1989, whose copyright page gives first United States publication by Zebra Books in 1988, p. 51; the watch left to him is on p. 49; Internet Archive scan OCR)