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In anticipation of this, the Shellbacks have been preparing. Oh, have they been preparing. All Pollywogs must navigate an obstacle course that, from what I understand, includes weeks' worth of the ship's food garbage. I've heard tell that the mess cranks have been saving up the garbage, even putting it in the ovens to ensure it's extra “ripe” for us on Wog Day.

Our aircraft commanders are Shellbacks, so they can't wait.

“The festivities will commence tomorrow evening at twenty hundred with the Wog Queen Beauty Contest,” Commander Claggett continues.

“Zack, you're all over that, man!” Matt says.

“Ah, dude, no way!”

“Dude, you're gonna own it!” Matt says.

The men dress like women in the Wog Queen Beauty Contest, walk a “runway,” the whole thing. They do it with gusto, too, because if they win, they don't have to go through the Wog ceremony the next day. But it's not as easy as it sounds. You have to be good—really good—to win. Like the shave-your-legs kind of good.

“All right, that's all I have. Anything else?”

“Nick, you're briefing at twenty hundred for a twenty-one thirty takeoff, right?” Chad asks.

“Yep, briefing to sit on my hands,” he says.

For the first time since I entered Commander Claggett's room, the others turn their heads to look at me. Their glances are brief, but disapproving, and the fun mood disappears.

 

27

We've shut down on
Nimitz
because we're briefing with the entire cast of this special ops exercise—two squads of SEALs, one SAS crew, the Shadow Hunters, and the Sabercats. When I arrive in the briefing space, the majority of SEAL and SAS team members are present. I don't see Eric, but then again, the last time I was with him, he said he'd see me in Singapore. Maybe he's not flying this time around. Although, this would be a marked departure from the flight schedule over the past weeks.

Which is ironic. The fact that he's directed every SEAL flight so far has gnawed at me because it's so out of the norm on so many levels. But suddenly, it seems stranger still that he
wouldn't
be here. That he wouldn't direct this exercise.

Commander Claggett divests himself of me, retreating to a far corner. Lego and Messy jump into conversations with team members, and I find a seat to the side and wait alone for the arrival of the Shadow Hunter crew.

I'm not alone for long.

“Hello, love,” Jonas says, sliding into the seat next to me.

I flinch. Another noiseless approach.

He responds with a laugh. “You're a tightly wound one, aren't you?”

“You just surprised me, that's all.”

“You know, this is unfortunate, really. I think Mr. Marxen's overblown reaction has affected how you view me.”

“No, it's not that. You're just—”

“Strong? Handsome? Worth your while?”

I smile in spite of myself, a small laugh escaping in the process.

“There, that's more like it,” he says. “You're a tough nut, but I knew you had a smile in there somewhere.”

In the fluorescent lighting, his blue eyes sparkle. So different from the black eyes two nights ago.

“You know, I'm thinking you need a strong bit of liberty in Singapore,” he says. “You're far too tense.”

“Yeah,” I say with a laugh, “I've been told that before—”

My head snaps up in surprise at the sound of Eric's voice. “Would you like me to find you another seat?” Eric says between gritted teeth.

“No, actually—” I start.

Jonas shoots to a stand opposite him, and the discord swirls, thick enough to taste.

He aims his piercing gaze at Eric. “So tell me, how is the evaluation coming?” Jonas says, motioning to me.

“What?” I ask.

Eric's eyes don't leave Jonas's. “Leave it,” Eric threatens.

“I don't recall date nights being included in the metrics,” Jonas says.

Metrics? Evaluation?

“Eric, what is he talking about?”

“You're crossing the line,” Eric says, fully ignoring my question.

“I'm only following you,” Jonas says. “Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? Isn't that what everyone always tells me to do? Follow the leader?”

Eric and Jonas move toward each other as I look up, squeezed between their towering forms.

“That's enough,” Eric warns.

“But you know, this time I
should
follow your lead.” Jonas purposefully shifts his eyes to me before bringing his laser focus back to Eric. “Whatever it takes to complete the mission, eh?”

Jonas slowly steps backward, moving away from Eric, whose fists are clenched, the veins in his arms bulging. Jonas begins to turn, then hesitates, looking down to me. “If I were you, love…” He straightens, turning to Eric, his eyes cold and threatening. “I'd watch my back.”

Eric erupts, snatching Jonas by the collar with viperlike quickness, and shoving him backward against the bulkhead.

I thought I had seen a cold look on Eric's face when he restrained Commander Egan. But compared to his expression now, he could have been whispering sweet nothings in Commander Egan's ear.

The air is electric. Chairs screech and feet scuffle as men mobilize. Mike is the first to get here. He puts his body between Eric and Jonas, grabbing Eric's arm, the one with the hand clenched around Jonas's collar.

“This is not the time,” Mike says in a low voice. “This is
not
the time.”

Peter is next. He grabs Eric's shoulders while Collin and Bartholomew do the same with Jonas. Eric still has Jonas in his grip.

“Let go,” Mike orders.

Eric releases his hold, one deliberate finger at a time.

“Is Martin stirring up trouble again?” a gruff, familiar voice asks.

My mouth drops as I watch Commander Amicus—Commander Amicus?—step in front of Jonas. What is Animal doing here?

“Of course it would be me,” Jonas says. “It could never be Marxen.”

Animal's steel-gray eyes stare into Jonas's without flinching. “Go on, get outta here.”

Jonas moves sideways, his eyes locked with Eric's in challenge until Bartholomew and Collin steer him away.

Mike pulls Eric around, pinning him to the bulkhead, hand on his chest. Animal quickly joins them.

“You all right?” Animal asks.

Eric doesn't respond, his jaw muscles working furiously, his teeth clenched.

Mike has moved away slightly to let Animal stand directly in front of Eric, the deference clear. In all the while I've known Animal, he's maintained a calm demeanor. Nothing fazes the man and it's no different now as he silently communicates with Eric, standing him down in a way I hadn't thought possible.

I look closely now at Animal, his black hair lying in a tangle over his broad, yet angular, face. His nickname suits him perfectly. His routinely unkempt hair, his well-muscled burly appearance—like a lean, mean grizzly bear. He's like Eric in that way—that quiet strength underneath.

“You need to brief,” Animal says. He inclines his head to the front of the room, sending Eric forward.

Only now do I notice the hum of background conversation is absent. Quickly replaying the events in my head, I realize the room has been silent ever since Eric grabbed Jonas.

“Take your seats,” Animal instructs those in the room. He looks down to me for the first time. “May I?” he asks, indicating the seat next to me.

“Animal? What are you doing here?”

“I'm here to fly with you.”

“But—”

“You know me. Always making the training rounds.”

True, Animal's job has him traveling to helicopter squadrons across the country to conduct training. “But, sir? Now? In the South China Sea?”

He motions to Eric, who has begun to speak. “The brief is starting,” he says.

I decide I can ask him after, but when Eric finishes, he whisks me from the room without comment, intent on getting the bird turned up quickly with no extraneous conversation.

I suppose this is a good thing. It doesn't allow me to dwell on the splinters that now pick at my conscience. Training rounds … Evaluation … Metrics …

*   *   *

Animal and I take off en route to the submarine,
Birmingham,
and I've no sooner gotten the ops normal call out of my mouth when the caution panel glows orange. At the same time, I feel a shift in the controls. The automatic flight control system, or AFCS, has switched off.

“Sir, did you…?” I ask.

“Of course I switched it off,” Animal says.

I should have expected this.

“Okay, let me hear it,” he says.

I let out a practiced exhale. “AFCS is for pussies,” I say, repeating Animal's mantra, something he has forced me to say a thousand times.

“Damn straight!”

When the AFCS is on, it makes the aircraft easier to fly. For most pilots, if the system switches off, you would feel the aircraft wobble and yaw immediately, the aircraft instantly squirrely. The degradation in controllability is normally so great, the rules state you can't transport passengers or fly at night without the system on.

“But sir—”

“The aircraft doesn't feel any different to me,” he says. “Lego, how 'bout you?”

“Smooth as a pig's belly, sir.”

Flying without noticeable interruption when switching the AFCS off has always been my goal. And it's because of Animal that I'm able to do it. When he was the officer in charge on my last cruise, after my first shipboard landing, he declared I no longer required the AFCS, and for every flight thereafter, he turned it off. He never made an exception, either.

And those rules about not transporting passengers or not flying at night? Animal scoffed at those and we did it anyway. Routinely.

I feel I need to do my due diligence, however, and remind him of the rules. “But sir, it's night and we're carrying pax.”

“What do you think they did before they invented AFCS?” he asks. “They had passengers then. They still had to deliver 'em. And they still had to fly at night. No reason we shouldn't be able to do that now.”

Not a lot's changed with Animal since I last flew with him. I smile. “Aye, aye, sir.”

*   *   *

We start the exercise by dropping Peter's and Jonas's squads to the
Birmingham,
followed by Mike's squad to the frigate,
Melbourne
. The
Lake Champlain
is also included in the rotation, the teams taking turns between each ship and submarine. Over and over, we repeat the sequence, rotating crews from platform to platform.

Our final run will be to the
Birmingham,
and we wait now on the deck of
Nimitz
to pick up Mike's team. I count eleven men walking toward the aircraft for this last go-round. Odd. The SEALs have been working in teams of eight or sixteen throughout this cruise, including this evening—no deviation.

Mike is usually last in the aircraft, but now, three others follow. Because everyone's faces are camouflaged tonight, I only recognize one of the extra men—Jonas. Even through the black face paint, those eyes shine through. Strange that he's with Mike's squad.

As Eric calls us in, I wonder if he can actually see us, make out the form of our helicopter in the night sky when we're working without lights. I know my night vision has improved, catching shapes as I hadn't before—like now, when the sail of the
Birmingham
emerges seemingly from the air itself.

As Lego directs me in, I find the faint demarcation between ocean and sky, a sky of diamonds. The diamonds are up and the black nothing is down. Keep the diamonds up and the black nothing down and the helicopter will remain airborne.

Lego keeps me steady and on target with his calls; however, the amount of time spent over the sub's deck is definitely longer than over the ship's. Having any kind of visual reference to a ship's superstructure allows my inputs to the controls to happen far more quickly, because I can already sense that we're moving off target. But now I'm referencing an only semivisible sail and relying almost exclusively on Lego for positioning. As a result, my corrections come just that microsecond later than normal.

It's not horrible—we're in and out in less than thirty seconds—but I've gotten used to some awfully fast transitions over a ship. As Lego gives the clearance to go, I nose over and gain altitude, arcing around the aft end of the
Birmingham
. For a brief moment, I can discern eleven black shadows slinking across a solid obsidian surface, but just like that, they've disappeared into the night.

 

28

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” I flap my wings and crow reveille once more. “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

Em and I share a look that says it all. Are we really doing this? Are we really standing on the bow, drenched in maple syrup, covered in feathers, and crowing reveille as the sun rises? Because it's Wog Day, the answer is yes.

And as weird as this is, I'll take it any day over arguing with Em. Without consciously agreeing to do so, we put our flight-hours spat aside so we could join forces to conquer the challenges of Wog Day.

Underneath our feathers, we wear our khaki uniforms inside out and backward as all Pollywogs are required to do. We've also donned knee pads underneath our pants, and gloves on our hands, because on Wog Day, crawling is the only acceptable mode of transport. And just for me, long sleeves under everything to cover the bruises on my arms that are doing anything but fading.

After we finish crowing, our handlers determine that it's time for Wog Breakfast. So we crawl along the main deck, passing through a gauntlet of fire hoses that spray hundreds of gallons of seawater on the two hundred or so Pollywogs that crawl in line with us.

It's the shillelaghs that make this crawl so torturous. Shellbacks line the main deck, armed with two-foot-long strips of fire hose, fashioned with duct-taped handles. I steel myself for the next blow as they aim for the butt and back of the legs. The Shellbacks are motivated in part by the T-shirts that Em and I wear, worn inside out and backward, of course, that our air detachment Shellbacks were so careful to stencil. In clear, bold, black lettering, our T-shirts read,
AIR DET WOG—SHIP'S COMPANY CAN'T BREAK US
. Great.