by Brandon Webb
Finn tilted his glass and tapped it against Schofield’s.
And all at once it clicked.
That’s what had been missing since he set foot on this ship.
No morning address.
No address at all.
He thought back to that pair of steel-gray eyes he’d seen that morning, up on Vulture’s Row. He’d been on board the USS Abraham Lincoln for twenty-four hours now, and he hadn’t yet heard the sound of that man’s voice.
“Tell me something,” he said. “When was the last time you heard your captain here on the Lincoln give an announcement or address?”
Schofield thought about that. “I guess that’d be maybe four, five months ago. Just before we reached the Gulf. Some joker tossed a chem light overboard one night. After we went through the whole man-overboard alert and muster call, the skipper got on the 1MC.”
“And said what?”
Schofield pursed his lips and frowned. “Gave us all a tongue-lashing worthy of William Bligh.”
Finn took that in. “When else?”
Schofield thought some more. Shook his head. “Honestly, that’s the only time I can remember.”
They both fell silent again as they drank.
So the guy had never talked to his people, not but once in eight months to bawl them out over some trivial screwup?
This was not Finn’s idea of a captain.
Not by a long shot.
11
August 2, 0600. The whistle, the bored voice. “Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up.” No “Good morning, shipmates!” No captain’s address.
And no Finn. The broom closet was empty, its narrow steel rack swung up and latched to the bulkhead (“triced”). Its assigned resident had spent the past few hours exploring the lower decks of the ship where the under-dwellers worked, pacing out their days in the recycled air and sunless passageways below the water line. If the pilots and officers were the Lincoln’s Eloi, down here was where the Morlocks toiled and slept.
Now, as reveille sounded and the ship’s nighttime red lights switched over to daytime white lighting, Finn turned and headed back above to intersect with the breakfast crowd.
On deck 4, as he passed the gym they called the “Jungle,” something brought him to a halt. The hormonal ozone of gathering human thunderheads. He slipped inside the gym to look for its source.
There, by the weight bench. The tall helo pilot who flew him in two nights ago, talking to a brick bunker of a guy who stood rooted there flanked by his two rat-faced buddies. Finn recognized the trio from mess the day before: an enormous redneck mechanic with his entourage of two. Brothers, he guessed. Same litter.
“Hey,” he heard the pilot say. “You planning on reracking those weights?”
Under the gym lights Finn could see her more clearly than from the back of her darkened helo. Her eyes were pale blue, the bleached color of prairie sky, her hair not Hollywood blond but long-years-of-work-under-the-sun blond. West Texas. Ranch country.
It wasn’t hard to see what was going down here. Bunker Guy had just finished his lifting routine and left the weights lying in disarray—intentionally, Finn suspected, as a diss—and West Texas wasn’t happy about it.
Finn suspected that West Texas wasn’t happy about a lot more that had nothing to do with Bunker Guy, and that she hit the gym hard and often to work out whatever it was—that dark undercurrent of grief and anger he’d sensed two nights earlier on the helo, which he guessed she tried to keep hidden. But anger was like magma; it would always find its way to the surface.
Bunker Guy stood to his full height. West Texas was tall but this guy was enormous, tall enough to look down at her as he talked.
“Yeah, sorry about that, ma’am. Want me to spot you?”
Challenging her. Clearly had a death wish, talking to an officer like that.
West Texas looked up at him without blinking. “No, Tucker, I want you to rerack your weights. I’ll wait.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He had not gone about this strategically. Fully expecting her to be intimidated and back right the fuck down, he hadn’t calculated an exit strategy in the event that she didn’t. His only options now were to escalate, never a smart idea with an officer, or back right the fuck down himself and rerack the goddamn weights.
He reracked the goddamn weights.
Without a word the pilot lay down on the bench and began her routine.
Tucker turned and noticed Finn. His face curled into a snarl. “What. You here to rescue the lady?” Still trying to pick a fight. Maybe he couldn’t take out his aggression on an officer, but he looked like he’d sure as hell be okay with decking this SEAL sonofabitch who thought his shit didn’t stink.
Yup. Death wish.
Finn noticed Tucker’s rat squad inching in toward their guy’s flank. Backing him up. Like a street gang challenge.
Finn didn’t move. “Fighting’s not really my thing,” he said.
Tucker rocked back on his heels and made a face of mock surprise.
“A pacifist,” he said to his rat boys. “A fuckin’ Navy SEAL pacifist.” He ark-ark-ark’d a few times: his impression of a seal barking. Ratface 1 and Ratface 2 laughed in chorus. Tucker turned to Ratface 1. “You know what that is?”
The rodent reflexively obliged. “No, what?”
Tucker grinned. “That’s what you call an ‘oxymoron.’ ” Turning back to face Finn. “Are you an oxymoron, pacifist?”
“Let me think,” said Finn. He tilted his head two degrees, then righted it again. “No. Just don’t see the point.” He gave a nod in the pilot’s direction. “Besides, she didn’t look like she was the one needed rescuing.”
Ratface 2 blurted out a haw-haw-haw! before realizing he was running with the ball in the wrong direction, then abruptly shut up.
Finn turned back to the door. As he exited, he glanced over just in time to see West Texas shoot him an undisguisedly hostile look.
Good morning, shipmates! he thought. It’s another antagonizing day at sea!
12
Finn arrived at Jittery Abe’s just in time to stand at the end of the line next to a short, muscular kid in a red jersey. The kid nodded deferentially and took a step back, inviting Finn to get in line ahead of him.
“Oh, hey,” said Finn, waving the kid back into place and taking the spot behind him.
The kid shrugged and nodded his thanks.
Finn nodded at the kid’s jersey and lifted one eyebrow. “I-why ay-oh, why ay-ess, right?”
IYAOYAS: the ordie’s creed. If You Ain’t Ordnance, You Ain’t Shit.
The kid broke into a grin. “Copy that, Chief!”
“Just Finn,” said Finn.
“Finn.” The kid’s grin grew wider. “Like Huck Finn?”
“Something like that. What’s your name, airman?”
“Tom, Chief.”
Finn nodded. “Good to meet you, Tom Sawyer.”
And just like that, the two were best buds.
That’s one, he thought.
Finn had clocked this kid the day before, on the flight deck during FOD walk. Round face, stub of a nose, narrow thick eyebrows that lent him a thoughtful look. He was young, and not just in years, but he had solid character and it was clear that the guys he worked with trusted him. No doubt because he had a trusting nature himself. Finn would have bet money that this kid had a girl back home, and that by the time he got back his heart would be broken. But he’d get through it. Those who were gifted with a trusting nature, Finn had observed, had a certain naïve resilience.
A few minutes of small talk later Tom had his order and it was Finn’s turn. He ordered a small coffee, black. Gave Tom Sawyer a two-finger salute and headed the other direction. Took the coffee with him down a passageway, hooked a l
eft, tossed the coffee in the trash, untouched. Leaned against the bulkhead and checked his watch.
His first day on board Finn had drawn curious stares as he made his way around the decks. Today, as he walked the passageways in his desert tan flight suit, hardly anyone noticed. He’d become part of the fabric. It was always this way. Strange as his physical appearance was, he could blend in, then disappear. He was, after all, a sniper; he knew how to stalk.
After waiting three minutes he circled back around and got in line at Jittery Abe’s again, this time stepping in right behind the master-at-arms he’d seen the day before at the port-side CIWS mount, the one with the high gravelly voice.
The MA turned his head, noticed the SEAL insignia on his chest. Nodded.
Finn nodded back. Smiled.
Emboldened by the smile, the MA said, “Hey, can I ask you a question?”
Finn said, “You mean, a second question?”
The man’s face went blank for a moment, then relaxed in a chuckle. “Ha. You got a point there. Yeah, a second question.”
Now at the front of the line, the MA placed his order and turned back to Finn after paying with his Navy Cash card. Everything on board a navy ship ran on Navy Cash. That and cans of Monster, which were hoarded and traded like prison-yard cigarette packs.
“What exactly is a SEAL doing here? I mean, no platoon, no squad, just one SEAL?”
Finn opened his mouth, paused a second, then said softly, “That’s classified.” He leaned an inch closer and dropped his voice even further. “If I told you, I’d have to…” He glanced left, then right, then back at the MA. “Well, you know. Coffee, black,” that last said to the barista.
The man chuckled again. “Copy that.” He stuck out his hand and got a brief shake from Finn. “Mason. Frank Mason.” He jerked a thumb at the MA standing next to him. “This here’s Dewitt.”
“Let me guess,” said Finn, then tipped his head toward Frank’s silent partner. “First name Ernest?”
Frank did the blank face again for a full three seconds, then barked a laugh. “Ha! Frank and Ernest. You’re funny!”
Finn shrugged, then nodded in Dewitt’s direction. “Hey. He’s Dewitt.”
Frank paused—then laughed out loud again, a high wheezy laugh. “Ha! That’s good. That’s really good.”
Finn glanced at his watch. “Uh-oh. Gotta bounce. Later, gents.” He stepped out of the line and started walking away.
“Hey,” Frank called over. “What about your coffee?”
“You guys have it. I’ll get one later.”
That’s two.
Three, with Schofield.
Tom the ordie, Frank in security, Schofield the ATO officer. They were the first three nodes in his fledgling onboard HUMINT network. Human intelligence. His own personal grapevine and early warning system. Finn did this everywhere he went, and it worked every time. He’d done it in urban Iraq and backwater villages in Afghanistan. It had worked in Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen—
Yemen, mostly. Though in Mukalla, not so much.
No, it hadn’t worked too well there, had it.
A whole settlement wiped out. Three dozen Yemeni locals slaughtered. On their watch. His and Kennedy’s.
Hence the disgrace.
And no one could tell him how it happened.
13
Finn sat out on the little strip of catwalk by the CIWS mount, watching the fierce Arabian sunlight playing over the water. The Lincoln’s strike group was spread too far apart to see any of the other ships from here, but they were far from alone. The Gulf’s surface was littered with little fishing boats, the ones the locals called “dhows.” Flocks of black-and-white terns swooped in and out, following the larger dhows’ wakes, diving for leftovers. To the north, he could just make out the Iranian coastline. They were currently on an east-southeast heading, beelining toward the Strait of Hormuz. About to leave the Gulf and start the homeward trek.
He reached down and picked up the large blank sketch pad at his feet, one of a dozen he’d bought at the ship’s store, and a fresh charcoal pencil. The pencils he’d brought on board with him. Never went anywhere without them.
He began sharpening, his little finger looped through the steel ring forged at the end of the knife’s haft.
The very first lesson he learned in close quarters combat training consisted of three words: “primary,” “secondary,” “tertiary.” In plain English: always have a backup. And a backup to your backup.
His primary, a Remington .300 Win Mag, was now locked up in the ship’s armory. His secondary, a Heckler & Koch .45 semiautomatic pistol, was keeping the Win Mag company. His primary and secondary were both gone.
This four-inch piece of steel was his tertiary.
Which suited Finn just fine. In an all-steel environment like this, bullets didn’t make much sense anyway; ricochets would travel at near original velocity and be unacceptably risky. Besides, unlike most of his sniper school classmates, Finn was not a lover of guns. Before joining the military he had never even handled a rifle, and despite the fluency he acquired through SEAL selection and sniper school, it was still not his native language.
Finn set the knife down at his side and began to sketch.
A memory floated up. Final training exercise—FTX—at sniper school.
Their instructor was a holdover from the early days, when sniper school instructors thought they were glorified BUD/S instructors whose sole purpose in life was to break these guys.
And he hated Finn. Had spent the entire course trying to figure out how to flush him and his partner, Boyd. But Finn was just too good. “Little motherfucker stalks like a fucking patch of mist,” Finn had overheard him complain to a colleague. “Melts into the goddamn scenery and pops up like a bad dream a thousand fucking yards away.”
Boyd had sucked at stalking, but Finn coached him through.
When the FTX arrived the instructor set up an extra pair of watchers fifty yards in front of where he sat, determined to stop Finn from reaching the target no matter what it took. Finn stalked himself and Boyd right up to the instructor’s perimeter, then set his rifle down, circled around to within thirty yards of the man’s backside, and tossed a pebble at him. Popped him square between the shoulder blades. Which was the signal for Boyd to take his shot.
Finn passed.
Boyd passed.
The instructor was rotated back to some bullshit admin post.
Sometimes a rock was as good as a gun.
Just then Finn felt a shift in the catwalk beneath him.
He looked up. The ship was veering due south again. Reverting to that familiar box pattern, the carrier strike group’s equivalent of treading water.
Finn understood what was happening. Ozone. Thunderheads. There was some diplomatic dustup with Iran and an order had come down. They couldn’t transit the Strait yet, as much as the crew was aching to go. For the moment they were trapped here in the Gulf, awaiting word from Washington as diplomats and back-channel proxies arm-wrestled and the talking heads on CNN batted around their little balls of yarn while waiting for more catnip.
And still not a word from the captain. Christ on stilts.
“Hey!”
Finn looked over his shoulder and saw Frank, the master-at-arms, standing at the hatchway.
“Ha,” Frank said, his glare softening to a smile when he saw who it was.
“Yo,” said Finn, nodding with his chin. The knife was gone, salted away in a pocket the instant he’d heard Frank’s approach.
Frank glanced out at the ocean and took a full breath of the salt air. He looked to Finn like he might like to sneak out there himself and spend some time reading a book, too. The MA looked at the big Gatling gun, then back at Finn. “Whatever you’re doing here,” he said, “it looks…sketchy.” He grinned, pleased with himself. Frank, the wit.<
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He came closer and looked at what Finn had drawn. “Whoa,” he said.
Now Finn looked at it, too.
It was a nighttime scene, in meticulous detail, sparse shrubby vegetation surrounding a walled-in little cluster of houses. In the center, a large wooden doorframe set into a wall built of mud-brick and rubble. Though the scene was dark, gashes of heat lightning sliced open the sky, its pale glare sufficient to see that the door had been shattered to pieces.
Finn felt a shudder of revulsion.
“Hey, that’s pretty good,” said Frank. “Really lifelike. Where the heck is that?”
“Someplace scary,” said Finn.
Frank chuckled. “Copy that.” He stood up straight again. “All right, then. But see that you’re in by ten thirty, young man, or I’ll dock your allowance.” He chuckled again and withdrew, leaving Finn alone out there.
As Finn had figured he would.
Make someone laugh and they trusted you. Finn didn’t get it. But he knew it worked.
“Whoa,” he said in Frank’s voice. And gave a soft chuckle, perfectly replicating the MA’s high-pitched gravel.
The Team guys used to say Finn was a hell of a manipulator. He didn’t see it that way. As far as he was concerned, he was just following the Golden Rule.
Interact with others the way they want to be interacted with.
He looked down at what he’d drawn. Carefully tore the page from the pad, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it overboard. Then picked up his charcoal pencil and began again.
Really lifelike.
That it was.
And Finn had absolutely no memory of ever seeing it before.
14
Up in the library the TV was tuned once more to CNN, the talking heads going round and round about something out of Iran.
Hormonal ozone. Human thunderheads.
Finally a PC station freed up. Finn hit both Gmail boxes.
Nothing.
Not from his teammates. Not from Kennedy. Not from anyone.
It was now two full days since he’d had that telegraphic conversation with Kennedy. Give me twenty-four. Twenty-four meant twenty-four. His lieutenant would have been in contact by now if it was at all physically possible.