Seal Team Seven (15 page)

“Where was it, Mac? Iraq?”

“You also know I can't tell you anything.”

Nagel took a deep breath. “Look Mac, I understand, and I wanna do you a favor, you know I do. But this is a decent town, and I can't have your boys trashing the place just because they need to cut loose. I've covered for your SEALs before, but . . .”

“Have you filed charges yet, Ray?”

“No, but—”

“Is the hotel manager pressing charges?”

Nagel glowered, then shook his head, almost reluctantly. “If they get paid, they won't file. I think the manager was so relieved to get them out of his place he, well, sorta forgot.”

MacKenzie pulled out his checkbook and began writing. The senior chiefs at Little Creek maintained a discretionary fund against just such emergencies. Roselli, Holt, Doc, Fernandez, and Nicholson would be encouraged to “contribute” to that fund, as they had a time or three in the past. He filled in the amount for three thousand, tore it off, and passed it to Nagel. “That's for the damages, Ray. If there's any change left over, maybe the Policemen's Fund? . . .”

Nagel accepted the check and tucked it into a desk drawer. “Thanks, Mac. The boys'll appreciate it. But I can't keep sweeping up the mess your SEALs leave behind them. . . .”

The lecture that followed was rough, but not as rough as MacKenzie had feared. At least this time around there would be no civil charges against his men, and he thought he could handle the military end of it informally, through extra duty and that “contribution” to the chief's fund. Of course, if they wanted a captain's mast, he'd let them have one.

He wondered, though, what the new CO would make of all this. Maybe it was better that he never know. . . .

They brought Roselli and Holt out to him, both men showing some nasty blotches around puffy eyes. “
You
two,” he said ominously, “have a shitload of explaining to do!”

Damn, what was the new lieutenant going to think?

Murdock stood appalled inside the barracks wing set aside for SEAL Seven personnel. There were going to be some changes made here if he had anything to say about it. . . .

Not all of the men of Third Platoon “lived aboard” at the Navy's Little Creek Amphibious Base. Kosciuszko and MacKenzie were both married, Murdock had noted while going through their records a few minutes earlier, and lived off base. Brown and Frazier were also married and lived in base housing, while Lieutenant j.g. DeWitt stayed in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters, the BOQ Coburn had mentioned.

The rest of the Third Platoon, however, was quartered here in the barracks, a large, two-story cinderblock affair painted a depressing olive drab and overlooking the dumpsters arrayed along the back of the enlisted mess across a dusty street. Large signs decorated the bulkhead outside the door: “To err is human. To forgive is not our policy.” “SEALs have nerves. They just ignore them.” There was trash on the floor, several beer cans and a plastic Diet Coke bottle. More alarming was the white bra dangling like a pennant from an overhead light, and the sheer panties on the deck just inside the door.

Otherwise, the place was similar to other enlisted barracks Murdock had seen. A fair amount of ingenuity had been used to turn a spartan and utilitarian open barracks into living quarters offering a semblance of privacy. The original dormitory space had been divided into “cubes” by plyboard partitions, each with two racks in a bunk-bed arrangement, plus gray, upright lockers, a table or battered government-issue desk, and occasional human touches like a guitar case or a stereo or a nude centerfold taped to bulkhead or open locker door. Each cube was separated from the world by improvised curtains hanging across its entrance, old sheets or blankets.

There were beer cans scattered about the barracks deck, and one body, a man clad in boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Murdock stooped to check the guy's breathing; he appeared to be sleeping off a binge, and didn't move when Murdock nudged him twice. He was clutching a woman's bra, a lacy black one, in his right fist.

Murdock stood as another man entered the passageway, a short, dark-skinned Latino with a thin, black mustache. He was wearing a towel and shower clogs and carried a bar of soap.

“What's your name?” Murdock asked.

“Boomer. Ah . . . Garcia. Sir.”

“I could be mistaken, Garcia,” Murdock said slowly, “but I thought the usual procedure was to shout ‘Attention on deck' when an officer walked in.”

Garcia stiffened, hands at his sides. “Attention on deck!”

Murdock nudged the body with the toe of his shoe. “What's this?”

“That's Doc,” Garcia said. “Uh, HM2 Ellsworth. Sir.”

“He always rack out in the passageway?”

“No, sir. We, ah, we had a bit of a party last night, sir.”

Murdock looked at the woman's undergarment in Ellsworth's hand. “So I see.”

Two more men stumbled from behind two of the curtained-off cubes, one wearing civilian clothing, the other in boxer shorts. Their reactions were definitely running a bit on the slow side. It took several beats for them to realize that Murdock was there and to shuffle into a position approximating attention in front of their cubes.

“Names?”

“Torpedoman's Mate Second Nicholson, sir.” He was the one in his underwear. He had the hard-muscled body of a SEAL and a face that looked too young to shave.

“Gunner's Mate First Class Fernandez. Sir.” Another Latino, stocky, heavier than Garcia, with black hair beginning to curl over his ears.

“And this is that crack SEAL platoon I've been hearing about?” He crossed his arms and shook his head in mock exasperation. “I don't believe it!”

“Sir,” Nicholson said. “It's Saturday.”

“I know what day it is, Nicholson. Thank you. Next time the Iraqis decide to take hostages, you can pass 'em the word that we won't attack until regular working hours.

“In the meantime, and before the Norfolk City Department of Health comes in and closes this establishment down, you're going to square this shithouse away. Understood? I said, ‘Understood?' ”

“Yes, sir!” the three chorused.

“Garcia!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lose the face fuzz.”

“But—”

“You're a SEAL, Garcia. You know that facial hair can break the seal on a swim mask.”

“But Lieutenant Cotter said—”

“I don't give a shit what Lieutenant Cotter said! Strip the lip!”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Murdock heard the resentment in Garcia's voice.

“Fernandez?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Haircut.”

Fernandez looked startled. “Aye, aye, sir.”

“Just in case there was any question, ladies, I am your new platoon leader, and we will be seeing a lot of each other in the next few days. Where's the rest of the platoon?”

The men traded uneasy, sidelong glances. “I ain't sure, sir,” Garcia said. “Maybe they left early.”

Murdock glanced at his watch. It was almost 1000 hours. “When you see them, you can tell them I will be holding an inspection of this barracks tomorrow afternoon. I will expect the flotsam cleared away, the contraband off the bulkheads and lockers, the personal gear stowed, and the deck waxed and shined.” He looked meaningfully at Nicholson. “And I don't give a shit if tomorrow is Sunday. Beginning Monday, I will begin talking to each of you individually. I want to get to know you, find out what the hell makes you think you're decent SEAL material. And . . .” He stopped, and nudged Ellsworth again. “Will two of you pick this up and get it to its rack? I have this thing about gear adrift. That is all.”

Murdock turned to make a dignified exit and nearly collided with a familiar figure in civilian clothes who was just coming through the door, a big, olive-green seabag balanced on one shoulder.

“Uh . . . Third Platoon?” the newcomer asked uncertainly, looking around.

“Jaybird!” Murdock said, taking a step back and smiling. “You're just in time!”

Sterling's eyes widened. “Oh, no . . .”

 

The SEALs stared after the lieutenant for several long moments after he'd gone.

“What the fuck was
that?
” Fernandez wanted to know.

“A prick,” Garcia replied. “Mickey Mouse himself with delusions of grandeur.”

“You guys notice his hand?” Nicholson asked. “He's a ring-knocker.”

“No shit?” Garcia said. “An Academy grad?”

“I don't care if he's John Wayne in drag,” Fernandez said. “We're SEALs. We don't hafta' take that shit.”

“Scuttlebutt is he's from Coronado,” Nicholson added. “A fuckin' BUD/S instructor.”

“He is,” Jaybird put in. “I flew out from California with him last night.”

“Aw, man,” Garcia said, disgusted. “I did my hard time in BUD/S. What is this shit anyway?”

“Yeah,” Fernandez added. “I wonder if that dude's always so full of sweetness and light, man.” He pointed at Jaybird. “I thought you California SEALs were 'sposed to be laid back and mellow, man.”

“Hey, don't blame me,” Jaybird said. “I hardly know the guy!”

“Obviously,” Nicholson pointed out, “he's an officer an' a gentleman. Far above us enlisted pukes. Say, how'd you get a handle like Jaybird anyway?”

On the deck, Ellsworth gave a mournful groan. “Hey,” Garcia said. “Couple a' you guys gimme a hand here.”

Together, they got Doc to his rack.

For a long time after that, they discussed the new lieutenant's manner, bearing, attitude, and probable ancestry, comparing it point by point with those of Lieutenant Cotter.

So far, the new guy didn't measure up well at all.

The sun glared with brassy heat from the flat swells of the Indian Ocean, as two ships, the
Yuduki Maru
and her escort,
Shikishima,
plowed steadily eastward at eighteen knots. Twenty days out of the French military port at Cherbourg, she had another four weeks' voyage ahead of her. Her course lay due east across the Indian Ocean, south of Australia and New Zealand, then turning northwest, passing through Micronesia and the empty waters of the western Pacific until she entered her home port of Tokai, ninety miles northeast of Tokyo.

Yuduki Maru
's long-way-around voyage had been dictated by the volatile rumblings of international politics. Like some twentieth-century Flying Dutchman, she was pledged to remain always at least two hundred nautical miles from land. Forbidden outright to enter the waters of South Africa, Indonesia, Chile, or Malaysia she had a sharply limited choice of courses. The Straits of Mulacca, twenty-three miles wide at their narrowest, and the South China Sea, a den of modern-day pirates, both had been closed to her.

In the interests of secrecy, her final course had been set only days before she'd left Cherbourg. Not that secrecy remained absolute. The Greenpeace vessel
Beluga
had dogged the tiny flotilla since their sailing, remaining just over the horizon, making certain that the Japanese ships did not break their international quarantine.

Captain Chuichi Koga,
Yuduki Maru's
master, was unconcerned with the
Beluga,
as he was with the quarantine and with the crowds of protestors who'd mobbed the fences at the naval base perimeter at Cherbourg. The total voyage, Cherbourg to Tokai, should take seven weeks. Koga, a professional, confident, and supremely competent officer of the merchant marine who demanded absolute punctuality of himself and of his crew, had no doubts whatsoever that they would arrive in port on schedule.

Yuduki Maru
was small for so long a voyage, with a length overall of 119 meters, a beam of less than eighteen meters, and a full-load draft of just over six meters. She had a displacement of 7,600 tons.

Nevertheless, she was an impressive vessel. Like her sister ship, the
Akatsuki Maru,
she had been an American cargo ship—sailing under the name
Atlantic Crane
—before her conversion to her new and highly specialized task. She'd been refitted in a Belfast shipyard, her hatches strengthened, her huge, forward deck crane removed, and her electronics suite upgraded and modernized. Large sections of her cargo hold had been sealed off and converted to carry extra reserves of diesel fuel so she could manage her forty-thousand-kilometer voyage without refueling. Some of her cargo space had also been converted into accommodations. Besides her usual crew of forty-five, the
Yuduki Maru
carried thirty armed guards.

And, of course, there was the comforting presence of the
Shikishima
a kilometer to port. Captain Koga, like most of his superiors, would have been far happier if a couple of Japanese Navy destroyers could have escorted
Yuduki Maru
on her long passage. Unfortunately, Japan's postwar constitution specifically prohibited any of her 125-odd military vessels from being deployed outside Japanese waters. For that reason, escort duties had been assumed by the Kaijo Hoancho, an organization analogous to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Shikishima
had been specially built for this task at a cost of twenty billion yen, a 6,500-ton cutter armed with machine guns and one of the American Phalanx close-in point-defense systems. She also carried a Kawasaki-Bell 212 helicopter on her fantail landing platform.