by Weston Ochse
The song replayed seven times before the viewing was over. Finally they were left alone with their friend.
Each teammate, beginning with Holmes, took a private moment with the man, and Walker was left for last. He approached the smartassed SEAL, wishing his ruined face would crack a smile and he’d tell them one last joke. Eventually, Fratty’s body was taken away. He no longer belonged to just the SEALs. They’d return him to the world he’d died saving. He’d be cleaned up and sent to his family with the thanks of a grateful nation.
The surviving members of SEAL Team 666 were taken to the Pit. They put their gear away. They cleaned themselves up. Then for a time they just sat around the conference table and stared at each other. It was a long while before someone finally spoke, and when it happened, it was Holmes, beginning the after-action report.
Everyone knew that it had to be done. But not a single one liked it.
27
IMPERIAL BEACH. MORNING.
After the mission brief, they all turned in. The following evening there’d be a wake for Fratty, but for today, it was all about recovery. Walker was past tired. Toward the end of the briefing, he’d felt loopy, severe enough that he didn’t trust himself to speak. So when Holmes highlighted the fact that he’d disobeyed an order—which had almost compromised their mission—Walker had remained silent. It would be a conversation for another day. Sure, he’d disobeyed an order, but at the time it had been based on a sound decision. His view of the crew door had been partially blocked by the same air-vent cowling to which he’d repositioned. Rethinking the situation, he couldn’t be sure that from his initial position he would have seen the three men before they were close enough to fire at the SEALs in the hold.
He went to bed angry and exhausted. The battle aboard the ship replayed in his dreams that night. But as dreams are wont to do, they twisted reality, changing the Chinese soldiers into demons and the creature in the hold into a dragon. They fought a long hard battle, expending every last piece of ammunition. Just as they thought they’d won, a klaxon sounded from somewhere and a tide of orange-skinned homunculi erupted from the hold. They crashed into the SEAL team, their sheer numbers smothering the team’s members. Walker felt a hundred tiny hands pressing him to the deck, while a dozen more wrapped around his neck and tried to squeeze the life out of him. As his eyes bulged, he recognized the thing inside of them by the way it glowed from their eyes. He knew it as well as he knew himself … after all, it was himself for a time.
He awoke gasping and covered in sweat. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. Then he remembered he’d been installed in his new bedroom suite at SEAL Team 666 HQ. He rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom. He lowered his head into the sink and let the cool water run over his head. Then he turned so he could drink straight from the faucet. After several deep gulps, he stood and stared at himself in the mirror.
He’d slept ten hours. That was more uninterrupted sleep than he’d had in the last six months. It was actually too much. He felt groggy.
He threw on a shirt and some shorts and went into the main room in search of coffee. Ruiz was already there and offered him a mug. They sat on a leather sofa, staring at the ceiling and letting the caffeine attack the exhaustion that lingered in their systems.
“I was thinking last night about the mission,” Ruiz said after a good ten minutes. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt that read WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS, along with the school logo of Davy Crockett.
“Me, too,” Walker said.
“I know. We can’t help it, can we? Anyway, you’re the team sniper, which puts you at a great distance from the action.”
Walker thought it was stating the obvious. He didn’t know where the conversation was going. “So?” he said, letting the word draw long.
“So we all have a reason we were selected for the team. Most of the time we aren’t sure whether it was the way we answered a question, something in our past, or something else we aren’t even aware of. The psychs sure aren’t forthcoming.”
“What are you getting at?”
“It seems pretty clear to me why you were chosen. I mean, you’re good, bro, but there are a lot of good SEALs out there. But as far as I know, none of them do what you do when they get near something supernatural.”
Suddenly Walker knew where the conversation was turning.
“I can’t help but wonder that if you’d been with the team instead of standing off to watch our backs … if you would have felt that thing in the crate before the shit hit the fan. If you’d been there, then—”
“Then Fratty might still be alive,” Walker said, finishing the statement.
“Exactly. We wouldn’t have to attend another fucking wake for a dead friend.”
Walker inhaled during the silence that followed. Was this the life he’d subscribed to? “How many wakes have you attended, Ruiz?”
“Total? Thirty-two. For my own team members from all my team assignments? Six. For SEAL Team 666? Two. You can see them on the wall. They’re the best America has ever made. Their only faults were to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and to not know how, or why, or fucking when a creature that the rest of the world doesn’t even know exists was going to reach out and snuff the life from them.”
Laws entered the room and grabbed a cup of coffee of his own. “Easy, Ruiz.”
“Fuck easy! This shit sucks.”
Walker nodded. It was the only thing he could do. As bad as he felt now having lost one team member, he couldn’t imagine losing six.
But Laws laughed, drawing angry glares from both Ruiz and Walker. “‘This shit sucks,’” Laws repeated. “It could be a T-shirt. It could be a slogan. Or maybe, ‘Don’t Die and Make It Suck.’”
Walker chuckled in spite of himself in recognition of Laws’s gallows humor.
Ruiz grimaced and turned away, but Laws wouldn’t let him get away so easily. “Come on, man. I know this shit sucks, but you can’t let it get to you.”
Ruiz turned farther away.
“Hey,” Laws pressed. “What is it you rednecks do in West Virginia when you’re mourning? Look at goat porn?”
Ruiz turned halfway back, seemed to think about it for a moment, then turned the rest of the way. He stared at Laws. “We blow shit up.”
Laws laughed out loud. “Hear that, Walker? Ruiz says he blows shit up when he’s sad. Fuck it. Let’s go blow something up.”
Ruiz’s face actually brightened. “Seriously?”
“Absolutely. Grab some clothes and some Semtex and we’ll go out and do it.”
Ruiz looked back and forth between Walker and Laws, waiting to see if it was a joke. After a minute, he took off.
After he’d gone, Walker asked, “Are we really going to blow something up?”
Laws nodded.
But Walker couldn’t make sense of Laws’s reaction. While everyone else was in a state of mourning, Laws seemed to be as nonchalant as if it were any other day.
Laws pointed a finger at Walker. “Don’t confuse my ability to compartmentalize with lack of caring. I deal with this in my own way.” He removed his shirt, revealing dozens of words written on his torso. At first they seemed to be in a strange language; then Walker realized that they were printed in reverse. They were names, indelibly etched into his skin with tattoo ink. Laws pointed to them. “These are—were—my teammates and classmates. Everyone I’ve served with since I’ve been into the teams. Your name’s going to go up here as soon as I can break away.”
Walker noticed that about a third of the names had lines through them. “And the lines through them?”
“Are the friends I’ve lost.” He pointed to the name Anthony Fratolilio. “This is for Fratty. I’ll cross him out after the wake. But crossed out or not, he’ll always be a part of me. I can see him and he can see me.”
“Why is it in reverse?”
“Most people wear tattoos as a statement to the world. Something they want someone else to notice. I don’t give a shit about
that. These are for me. They’re for me to look at and remember.” Laws lowered his voice. “They’re so I won’t forget. Ever.”
Half an hour later they were in Ruiz’s red two-and-a-half-ton pickup and heading into what constituted the town of Coronado. They pulled an old wooden skiff they’d appropriated from BUD/S school. They stopped for a six-pack of Longboard and headed for Imperial Beach.
Imperial Beach was down the isthmus from Coronado. The southerly drive down the highway was bounded by state beaches and the Pacific Ocean on the right and military housing on the left. That soon gave way to marinas and then the low-slung buildings of Imperial City. Originally constructed as a place for farmworkers to go, its proximity to Tijuana made it a place where most San Diegans feared to tread. So other than the families and descendants of farmworkers from the Greater Imperial Valley, most of the population was composed of military members who’d lived and retired there.
A bronze statue of a surfer had been placed on the boardwalk and was a frequent target for graffiti artists and vandals. It was currently wearing a white and black polka-dotted housedress with a purple plastic lei. That a police car was parked nearby and the officers had made no effort to remove the clothes was a testament to what the city thought of the statue.
Laws, Ruiz, and Walker found the city boat ramp and lowered the skiff into the water. Ruiz paddled it out, while Laws and Walker parked the truck, then found a spot on the beach to observe the events that were about to transpire. Although it was nine in the morning, the beach was filled with tourists and families. Several pods of surfers gathered together where the waves hit the best, taking turns, and sometimes fighting over the waves as they tumbled in.
The beer was cold and hoppy. Walker drank half of his, then leaned back on an elbow and watched the women in their bathing suits. From young to old, they were all beautiful. He was reminded of Jen. He hadn’t been with her for almost three months. Something was always getting in their way. He needed to find the time to be alone with her, some time when he wouldn’t be called to mission, or she wouldn’t be called away to work. It occurred to him that now would probably be a perfect time. It was a Saturday morning, and although her schedule was a lot like his, chances were that she was off work.
But here he was on the beach, supporting the mourning rites of a teammate.
Just then, Ruiz waved to them. He was about fifty yards out. He’d dropped anchor and dove into the water. He didn’t surface until he was more than halfway back to shore, assisted in the distance by his flippers. By then he was in a crowd of people wading in the surf. He leisurely paddled the rest of the way in. Soon, he was plopping down beside them, grabbing a beer and drinking deeply.
They each finished a beer, then opened another. Ruiz pulled a small electrical device from his beach bag, which Laws had brought from the truck.
“For Fratty,” he said, the held out his bottle with the other hand.
Walker and Laws clinked bottles and repeated the toast.
Then Ruiz depressed the single red button set in the black plastic.
The boat went up in a ball of heat and red fire. The explosion stopped everyone in midplay. Tourists stood agog at the event, but the locals, those who knew that this was a place for SEALs and other Navy personnel to blow off steam, took it in stride.
The only ones who seemed to be concerned were the police, who began conferring with the lifeguard. It looked as if he was about to point them out, when a scream went up from the other side of the lifeguard station. The lifeguard leaped from his platform, grabbed his orange buoy, and ran toward the water, where a woman was holding a little boy’s limp body. As it turned out, it was a false alarm. Her son was just playing dead and ended up with a good scolding by the lifeguard. In the meantime, the three SEALs took advantage of the distraction and returned to the truck. Laws unhitched the trailer and left it in the parking lot.
28
THE MOSH PIT. AFTERNOON.
When they returned, Walker had planned on calling Jen, but a Navy seaman was waiting for him near the front door. He held a stack of papers. When he saw Walker, he impatiently beckoned him over. Ruiz and Laws continued inside, while Walker sidetracked into an office. Bureaucracy had caught up with him. After being chastised for going on mission before he filled out his paperwork, he was provided with a stack of forms to complete. He spent the next two hours filling out everything from emergency notification forms to hazardous duty pay allotments. He transferred his jump log and dive log, updated his EPSQ clearance forms, and filled out enough paperwork to eventually satisfy the gods of administrivia. Even the clerk seemed satisfied, but there was one form left. It was a simple piece of paper that asked a single question, and it had a space for the answer and a line on which to sign. What song did he want them to play at his viewing? He took the paper in hand and sat back roughly in the chair.
He stared at the words, remembering Fratty’s viewing the day before. He supposed that he’d have his own one day. They were told not to worry about it, not to anticipate it. Theirs was the most dangerous job on the planet and the odds were against them surviving for very long. It was only because of the training and instructors like Reno that they were able to stay alive for as long as they did. And now they were asking for the song he wanted them to play in the event of his death.
“Can I have some time to think about this?” he asked.
The clerk shook his head. “I need to have it now. If you can’t decide, I’ll put down my favorite song.”
“What’s that?” Walker asked, hoping for some inspiration.
“Madonna’s ‘Material Girl,’” the seaman said with a straight face.
Walker definitely didn’t want that to be played at his viewing. It had never occurred to Walker when he was listening to Aldo Nova yesterday that he’d have to come up with one of his own. He found himself staring at the sheet. Minutes ticked by as he went through his mental catalogue of songs.
“Can we get this done?” the clerk said. “I have a date tonight.”
Walker looked at him. Yeah, he needed to hurry. He wouldn’t want the choice for his death song to get in the way of the young seaman’s sex life. He grabbed a pen, jotted down the title and the band, then signed the form. “Here you go. Are we done now?”
The clerk read the choice aloud: “‘Wheel in the Sky,’ by Journey.” He shook his head. “What is it with 1980s hair bands?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. He stacked the papers together and placed them in a classified carrier. Then he stuck out his hand. “Good luck, SEAL.”
Walker accepted the handshake. “Uh, sure. Thanks.”
The clerk walked out.
Walker got up and went into the main room of the Pit. Billings was there, as was someone new. As he came into the room, they all turned.
“Walker, this is your new team member. Chief Petty Officer Ali Jabouri, meet Petty Officer First Class Jack Walker.”
They shook hands. The new guy was of Arab descent. Although he wore a grim face, he had smiling eyes. He was shorter than the rest of them but didn’t act like it bothered him.
“Call me Yaya,” he said, with an accent that sounded more like Philly than Saudi Arabia.
“We’ve had Chief Jabouri’s file for some time now. While myself and the members of the Sissy share our most sincere condolences for Chief Fratolilio, I’m hoping that you’ll welcome Chief Jabouri.”
Walker caught her looking at him appraisingly as she said it. He also saw the other team members offering their own tight smiles to her statement. Her subtext was clear. They were gears in a supernatural defense machine. One gear broke and here’s another. Plug it in and get instant continuity of operations.
“Now that we’ve had introductions, I’ve got to be on my way.” She pointed at Holmes. “Can I see you for a moment?”
Holmes nodded but spoke to the team first. “No one goes into Fratty’s room until I get a chance to clear it.”
Everyone stared back at him. The thought had never crossed thei
r minds. Until Fratty’s belongings were cleared, the room was essentially the man’s shrine. Not a single one dared to enter, much less remove anything.
Holmes turned to follow Billings into the conference room and closed the door behind him.
Everyone stared at each other for a few moments.
Yaya looked at Walker. “Is it always like this?”
Walker shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’ve only been here for two days.”
“Three,” Laws corrected, holding up three fingers. “Or it could be four,” he said, examining his own fingers with critical eyes. “Going back and forth across the dateline confuses me.”
“And you’ve already had one mission,” Yaya noted.
“Two,” Laws corrected again, holding up two fingers this time.
“Yeah. Two missions. I just now signed all my admin forms.”
Yaya raised his eyebrows. “I filled mine out…” He let it fade, then said in a much lower voice, “Last night.” He shook his head. “Listen guys. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to say.”
Ruiz went to the bar and grabbed beers. When he returned he passed them around. He opened his and held it up. “To the FNG.”
They all opened their beers and drank slowly and deeply.
Laws held up his left hand and spread his fingers Spock style. “Live long and prosper.”
Ruiz snorted in his beer and Walker couldn’t help but laugh. They’d turned a somber moment on its head and were soon lounging around the leather couches in the middle of the Pit, exchanging résumés. Common in every military unit since Hannibal’s poop scoopers had crossed the Alps behind the elephants, military members had shorthand for telling where they’d come from, where’d they’d been, the sorts of missions they’d done, and what their skills were.
Yaya had been born and raised in Philadelphia. He was a red, white, and blue American who’d joined the Navy right after 9/11. A modestly devout Muslim, the behavior of the few who’d flown jets into the buildings and a Pennsylvania pasture had so incensed and insulted him that he wanted to demonstrate that theirs was the exception rather than the rule. As it turned out, a belief in the spiritual is at the root of Islam and it was known that certain caliphs and mullahs were deeply involved with the supernatural. In fact, Yaya had let this be known during his screening interview, which he believed was one of the reasons that he was selected for Triple Six.