He had a feeling, though, that there was going to be one hell of a lot of second-guessing this time around. Ever since the new Administration had come in, the political climate in Washington had turned distinctly chilly toward the military, and especially toward the military's elite forces. There were people in the House and on Capitol Hill, including the current head of the House Military Affairs Committee, who distrusted the elites, who associated covert operations with black, dirty, or illegal ops, with "wetwork" and lying to Congress. Hell, there were admirals and generals at the Pentagon who hated the special-operations forces, who claimed the elites grabbed the best men, the best equipment, and the lion's share of dwindling military appropriations. Together, the anti-special-forces people in the Pentagon and the anti-military people in Congress had formed an unlikely alliance with the goal of eliminating the elite military forces entirely. To that end, the HMAC had been holding special, televised meetings all week on the subject of special-forces appropriations, and the way things were going so far, it was all too likely that the SEALs were going to be closed down.
Coburn's entire naval career had spanned most of the SEAL Teams' existence. It hurt to think they might soon be cut. God damn it to hell, he thought. I'd like to see a battleship pull off what Third Platoon just did!
"So, Captain?" Senior Chief Hawkins said, jolting Coburn's darkening thoughts. "What's the verdict?"
"Oh, DeWitt's in the clear. I have no doubts about that. You two?"
"Agreed," Monroe said. "My God, jerking nineteen men out from under the noses of a Republican Guard battalion, with only one wounded among the hostages?"
"And only one casualty among the raiding forces. That's pretty damned good, no matter how you look at it. The whole platoon did magnificently. I'll stress that in my report."
"Roger that, sir," Hawkins saiddryly. "But will they buy it up on the Hill?"
"God knows, Ed. The way things have been going up there lately, we're going to be lucky if we have a Navy left when they get done with their cuts." He stood, gathering his papers. "Well, gentlemen, let's get squared away and get the hell out of here. We have long drives ahead of us if we're going to make that funeral this afternoon."
1615 hours (Zulu -5) Arlington National Cemetery
Rank upon rank upon gleaming white rank of tombstones graced those gentle, tree-shaped slopes of the Arlington National Cemetery. At the top of the hill among ancient, spreading oaks rested the brooding, white-pillared facade of the Custis-Lee Mansion, while opposite, across the dark, bridge-spanned reach of the Potomac, the white marble government buildings and monuments of Washington, D.C., shimmered beneath the haze-masked afternoon sun. Southeast, masked by trees, was the five-sided sprawl of the Pentagon; a mile to the northwest, also invisible, was the Iwo Jima Memorial. Arlington seemed suspended in time, removed somehow from the clutter and rush of the modern world, even when its stillness was broken by the roar of commercial airliners thundering over the Potomac from Washington National ... or by the sharp report of volleyed rifle fire.
The last echoes of the military salute hung suspended above the lines of tombstones and the grassy hillsides. As the final crack of the third volley faded, a Navy bugler in dress blues raised his instrument to his lips and began intoning the mournful, drawn-out notes of Taps.
A casket rested above the open grave, attended by sailors and officers who stood in ranks in full-dress whites, and a smaller group of civilians. Much of SEAL Team Seven was present, all who could make it up from Norfolk, over fifty officers and men standing motionless in white-clad ranks.
The leaders of each formation held their hand salutes as Roselli and Holt lifted the American flag from the casket and, with crisp, precise movements, folded it corner over corner from fly to hoist, ending with a thick, white-starred blue triangle with no red showing.
Taps wavered to a lonesome end, and Chief Boatswain's Mate Kosciuszko snapped "Two!" As one, hands held rigid in salute dropped with a crack. Holding the flag, Roselli pivoted ninety degrees, took two steps, and pivoted again in a rightangle turn. Three more steps and another squared-off turn put him directly in front of Captain Coburn, commanding officer of SEAL Team Seven, and the presiding officer for the morning's solemn service.
Master Chief Engineman George MacKenzie watched, face hard, as the captain accepted the folded flag, waited for Roselli to return to ranks, then turned sharply and walked the few paces to the waiting huddle of civilians. Donna Cotter, in black, waited for him with lifted chin. Little Vickie, grave and somber in a dark gray dress, stood quietly at her mother's side, looking up at Coburn with large eyes.
Still at attention, MacKenzie strained to hear the old, proud, and formal words as Coburn leaned forward and spoke to the widow. "On behalf of a grateful nation and a proud Navy, I present this flag to you in recognition of your husband's years of honorable and faithful service, and his sacrifice for this nation."
Coburn handed Donna the folded flag, then saluted her. Across the neatly landscaped grass, the officer in charge of the rifle salute party rasped out, "Port ... harms! Order ... harms!"
Ritual. History. Tradition. Men died. The service went on. "Honor detachment, dis ... missed!"
The neat blocks of white dissolved. Small groups of two or three or four gathered here and there, talking in low voices. Others began the long walk back up the hill to the parking lot beyond Halsey Drive.
MacKenzie waited, uncomfortable in the stiff and unaccustomed embrace of his whites, as a small mob of people, military and civilian, filed up to Donna Cotter, speaking to her, clasping her hands, touching her pain. It was a long line. The Navy community was close, the Navy's Special Warfare community closer still. There was no one present on that hillside, military or civilian, who didn't know what being a SEAL--or a SEAL's wife--meant.
George MacKenzie, born and raised far from the sea in Midland, Texas, had been in the Navy for eighteen years, a SEAL for fourteen. Tall, lanky, normally quiet almost to the point of invisibility, he was the son of an air-conditioning repairman who'd never been in the service. He'd joined the Navy because by the time he'd graduated from high school, he'd been sick to death of the endlessly flat, barren-brown monotony of the West Texas plains, and because he'd imagined the Navy would give him his best chance at seeing something of the world beyond Midland.
He'd never imagined in his wildest dreams just how much of the world he would see ... or from what vantage points.
As an engineman second class, he'd volunteered for BUD/S. Duty in the engine room of the U.S.S. Guam was boring, but he'd been fascinated by the dangerous look of a SEAL platoon assigned to the ship one day for an exercise. After that, the Navy had never seemed boring again. Serving with SEAL Team Two, he'd seen combat in Grenada. After that, he'd transferred to the super-secret SEAL Six--"The Mob," as its members called themselves--a small and tightly knit Team designed as the Navy's counter-terrorist unit. In 1985, he'd taken part in the aftermath of the Achille Lauro hijacking, surrounding the Egyptian 737 with the terrorists aboard when Navy F-14 Tomcats off the Saratoga forced it to land at Sigonella. Unhappy at the social breach opening between SEAL Six and the rest of the Navy SPECWAR community, MacKenzie had transferred again in 1987. After a tour as an instructor at BUD/S in Coronado, he'd shipped out with SEAL Four in Just Cause and Desert Storm.
Then, right after the Gulf War, Lieutenant Cotter had called him up and offered him the chance to become a plank owner of the newly formed and highly secret SEAL Seven. He'd been with Seven since the beginning, right there alongside the L-T and Captain Coburn and Senior Chief Hawkins, lending his long experience to the unit's training and organization.
How many men had he known along the way who'd been killed in action? How many friends? Somehow, he could imagine all of them, standing there on that Arlington hillside with him that morning, the dead in ranks with the living, their dress whites heavy with the medals they'd won in actions from Colombia to the Persian Gulf. He could remember each one of them, their names, their faces, their
totemic warrior's nicknames like "Shark" and "Gator" and "Mad Dog."
Losing friends like those was never easy. If anything, it got harder each time.
June, MacKenzie's wife, was standing alone beneath a tree on the far side of the funeral party, but he couldn't go to her, not yet, not before he'd discharged this one, final duty. The group of friends and supporters around Donna Cotter was thinning out. Steeling himself, back ramrod stiff, MacKenzie walked toward the widow. Vickie, he was relieved to see, had already been led away by a relative. "Hello, Donna."
She was an attractive, dark-haired woman of about thirty, heavyset but with a proud, no-nonsense bearing. Her green eyes locked with his. "Mac. Thanks for coming. For being here ."
"I'm sorry about Vince, Donna. I really am. The guy was one in a million."
She looked down at the grass for a moment, then raised her eyes to his once again. She held the folded flag pressed against her breasts like a talisman ... like a shield. "You've got to tell me, Mac. What happened?"
It was his turn to look away. Across the Potomac, the cherry blossoms had exploded in a sea of pink around the white dome of the Jefferson Memorial, their colors captured by the Potomac's sluggish waters. "You've seen the official letter, Donna. You know I can't say anything else."
"Damn you, Mac. If you think I'm going to buy that old 'training accident' line, you're nuts. Was it that thing in Iraq the other day? It was, wasn't it?"
Operation Blue Sky had rated a page-two couple of columns in Wednesday's Washington Post, with a shorter follow-up yesterday. All that had been said was that Iraqi troops had tried to stop a UN inspection team from leaving, and that U.S. military forces had rescued them. An unnamed member of the inspection team had told the press they'd been rescued by "American Special Forces." Iraqi sources claimed that the UN people had been released, the situation resolved "in the interests of international peace and cooperation," but that American aircraft had nevertheless bombed a school outside of al-Basra, killing two students and wounding a third. The Navy SEALs had never even been mentioned.
Which, of course, was exactly the way they preferred it. When their C-130 had touched down at NAS Oceana on Wednesday, there'd been no one waiting to meet the grim coterie of commandos as they filed off the transport, a thirteen-man honor guard to a lone, flag-draped coffin. No press, no cheering crowds, no speeches.
And that was as it should be.
Sometimes, though, that could be cold for the families who'd been waiting back in the world of bridge clubs and shopping malls, of the formal functions and the politics of naval social life.
How many times had he been over at the Cotters', barbecuing ribs on Vince's backyard grill, drinking beer and swapping stories with SEALs and SEAL wives. The formal gulf between officers and enlisted that existed through most of the rest of the Navy was all but nonexistent in the Teams. Vince and Donna Cotter were his friends. Damn, he couldn't lie to her, not about this.
And he couldn't tell her the truth either.
"Donna," he said, choosing his next words carefully. "If the munchkins say he died in a training accident, then as far as I'm concerned that's exactly what happened. But I can also tell you that Vince was the best warrior, the best leader, the best officer, the best friend I've ever known. He was a hero, and I'm proud to have known him."
The woman started to say something, then stopped, her face creasing with iron-held grief that could no longer be denied. "Oh, Mac, Mac, what am I going to do without him?"
MacKenzie opened his arms and enfolded her in an embrace, holding her close as she sobbed, the flag, Vince's flag, trapped between them. After a while, June came up and put her arm around Donna's shoulders, leading her away up the hill.
MacKenzie turned his back on the tombstones and spent a long time after that just standing there on the grass, staring at the Washington skyline.
Damn. Third Platoon would never get another CO as good as the Skipper. DeWitt might pass inspection, but he didn't have enough time in grade for promotion to full lieutenant. That meant they'd bring in someone else, an outsider. He wondered who the newbie was going to be.
Monday, 9 May
0620 hours (Zulu -8) SEAL Training Center, Coronado, California
Hell Week had begun that morning at precisely 0001 hours--one minute past midnight--and the men of BUD/S First Platoon, class 1420, were running. The sun was just beginning to cut through the chill that had lingered over the Silver Strand throughout the predawn hours, and the surf was breaking in long, emerald-green rollers that sparkled enchantingly in the morning light. First Platoon was less interested in the picturesque beauty of the ocean, however, than in remaining upright.
Organized into six boat teams of seven men each, the platoon numbered forty-two men, and they were running along the beach through soft sand that shifted unpredictably beneath their boondockers. Each team carried an IBS--an Inflatable Boat, Small--balanced on their heads, a black rubber craft that had long been a mainstay of both the SEALs and the old UDTs.
Twelve feet long and six feet in the beam, the boat could carry seven men and one thousand pounds of gear. Fully equipped, as they were now with everything save motors, each weighed 289 pounds.
Each boat crew struggled to run together, supporting the balky mass of its IBS on their heads, bracing the boat unsteadily with arms aching from endlessly repeated push-ups earlier that morning. The shorter men in each team held empty coffee cans wedged between their heads and their boat so that they could carry their share of the load. The exercise appeared to be mindless harassment, but it had the positive benefit of providing yet another excuse for the recruits to learn to work together ... or else. As did nearly every other aspect of BUD/S training.
Lieutenant Blake Murdock trotted easily alongside the lead boat crew. Tall, lean, powerfully muscled, he paced the recruits with an easy gait in deliberate contrast to their exhausted stumblings. In a malicious addition of insult to injury, while the recruits wore shorts and white T-shirts already drenched with sweat, Murdock wore a khaki uniform, flawlessly, crisply pressed and creased, the railroad tracks of his rank gleaming in highly polished gold on his collar, his eagle-trident-pistol badge shining above two rows of colorful ribbons. The only concession he'd made to the morning's workout was his boondockers, identical to the footgear worn by the recruits. Dress shoes did not stand up well to sand and salt water, nor was it a good idea to run in them. The boondockers were spit-shined, however, until they shone like dress Corfams. Murdock had made a point of running with the trainees throughout the past weeks, effortlessly pacing them without showing a wrinkle, without showing even a single stain of sweat in his uniform as the recruits struggled to match his pace.
The other instructors wore blue staff T-shirts and olive drab shorts as they harried the trainees. "Get in step there! Hup! Two! Three! Four! Pick up your feet, you tadpoles! Come on, come on! Get together!"
Tomorrow, the boat crews would start running with their instructors as passengers in the rubber boats, paddling the air as they shouted "encouragement," standing up, moving around, and in general doing everything they could to upset the crews' physical and mental equilibrium.
Keeping the recruits off balance was a key part of the program. Reveille that morning had been a dark, smoky, and piercingly noisy chaos of automatic gunfire, smoke grenades, and flash-bangs detonating outside the barracks windows as the instructors screamed confusing, often contradictory orders into the ears of the dazed recruits. "Fire! Fire on the quarterdeck! Fire party lay to the quarterdeck! Down on the deck! Give me one hundred! Outside! Outside, you pussies! Get wet! Into the surf! Fall in on the grinder in boondockers and jockstrap! Move! Move! Move-move-move!" They'd stampeded from the barracks into the night, most of them half dressed, as a SEAL chief petty officer fired bursts from his M-60 over their heads.
For these recruits, those able to stick it out anyway, the next five days would be an endless and agonizing round of mud, exhaustion, pain, and humiliation, a grueling trial of f
itness and stamina during which they would be lucky to get a total of four hours' sleep.
Hell Week. This was the end of BUD/S Phase 1 training, the culmination of weeks of running, boat drills, running, pushups, running, swimming, more swimming, and running, running, and more running. Phase I was partly for physical conditioning, of course, but far more than that it was deliberately designed to eliminate the quitters, to weed out that seventy percent or more of each SEAL class that did not have the peculiar twist of mental conditioning, stamina, and determination that was vital for service with the Teams. It had been suggested more than once that BUD/S training was two-percent physical and ninety-eight-percent mental.
"Ladies," Murdock had told the class during formation the evening before, "the next five days and nights have been lovingly crafted to make you do just three things quit, quit, and quit! We are going to do our level best to make all of you see the error of your ways and give up this crazy idea you have that you could actually become SEALS. We've lost a few people already, but hey, we were just getting warmed up with them. They were the lucky ones, sweethearts, the guys who looked deep down inside their souls and realized that they just didn't have what it takes to be a Navy SEAL.
"I can promise you that we're going to lose a hell of a lot more of you before this week of fun and games is over. The United States Navy invests something like eighty thousand dollars in each and every man who finally pins on the trident-and-pistols." For emphasis, he'd tapped his own SEAL pin as he walked down the line of young, skin-headed recruits standing rigidly in their underwear in front of their racks.
"It is our solemn duty to ensure that all those taxpayer dollars are not wasted in this new era of government fiscal responsibility," he'd continued, "that those of you who finish this course--if any of you finish this course--are truly the elite, the very best men in body and spirit we can produce. In short, ladies, SEALS. Of course, I very much doubt that any of you have what it takes to be SEALS."
It was a canned speech, one that Murdock had delivered numberless times before to numberless SEAL recruits. He'd been stationed with the Training Division at Coronado for almost two years now.
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