Eventually, and after a long and unpleasant phone conversation with the Officer of the Day at Coronado, the La Jolla police agreed to relinquish the case to the military authorities. The Navy would deal with David Sterling.
Friday, 13 May
1915 hours (Zulu -7) C-141 military flight Over the Rocky Mountains
"So at the captain's mast, my CO tells me he was of a mind to ship my ass off to Adak," the young sailor was saying. "Fortunately, this request for a warm body had just come through from Norfolk, and he decided the easiest course was to put me on the first available flight out of Diego."
Blake Murdock leaned back in the uncomfortable bucket seat and grinned. "What about your Volkswagen?"
"Aw, I arranged to have the Navy ship it to the East Coast. It wouldn't have made it over the mountains anyway. What I'm really gonna miss is my boat."
"Boat?"
"Yeah. A sweet little twenty-one-foot sloop I kept at the base marina. Her name was Docking Maneuver. I ended up selling her to a lieutenant commander in Admin."
"There is nothing," Murdock said, "like sailing."
"Yeah. I did a lot of racing too. Out to Catalina and back. You sail, sir?"
"Used to. My family had a yacht on Kent Island, on the Eastern Shore. Sometimes I think I musta frustrated Captain Ahab, three years before the mast and all that. I did some racing too back when I was at the Academy."
"Man. How the other half lives, huh?"
Murdock decided to change the subject. "So what about Christine?"
"Aw, that's ancient history. She wouldn't talk to me." He shrugged, then grinned. "Probably just as well. I don't think she appreciated everything I did for her up there on that hillside. Women!"
Murdock didn't answer that one, but turned and peered out the tiny window in the bulkhead at his back. The two of them were the only passengers on an Air Force C-141 Starlifter en route from Miramar Naval Air Station to Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, D.C. From there, they'd find another military flight down to Norfolk, or if necessary, hire a cab with the money from their travel allotments. It promised to be an uncomfortable five hours or so, sitting on the narrow bucket seats grudgingly installed for the odd passenger, sharing the cargo deck with stacks of chained-down crates, but space-available seating aboard military transports was one of the perks of military service. Murdock preferred these flights to the crowds aboard commercial airliners.
He wondered if all SEALs were just a little paranoid, nervous when there were too many strangers about.
"Hey, Navy," an Air Force sergeant, the Starlifter's crew chief, said. "Either of you guys want some coffee?"
"Sure," Murdock replied. "Black."
"Same here," Sterling added.
They waited for the Air Force sergeant to bring their coffee and leave before resuming their conversation, a reserve that was almost second nature among SEALS. Both men were traveling in civilian clothes, and neither knew a thing about the other save name, rank, and the fact that both were SEALS, but that alone formed a solid bond and a man-to-man rapport that frankly excluded all outsiders.
"So it sounds like you're EEing just in time," Murdock said after the sergeant had left. Their conversation was easy, despite the difference in ranks. Rank meant far less in the Teams than it did in the rest of the Navy.
"I guess you could say that, sir. You know what I'm really glad to be escaping, though?"
"Christine's Dad?"
"Very funny. I could've taken him, no sweat."
"Yeah, right." He took a sip of the bitter black brew. "What, then?"
"Well, ever since I made it through Phase I of BUD/S, I've been wondering what my handle would be. Once I was a full-fledged SEAL and all. I mean, 'David Sterling' is kind of blah, know what I mean? I always thought 'Shark' would be a great nickname."
"So?"
"So I was telling some of the guys about what happened with me and Christine. I mean, they knew I was up for captain's mast, and they'd heard scuttlebutt about what had happened. So I told them." He made a wry face. "And they started calling me something."
"What?"
"Jaybird."
"As in 'naked as a,'" Murdock said, laughing. "Hey, it fits!"
"Yeah, well, it don't any longer, sir. You see, by getting shipped to the East Coast, nobody there'll know about me. I can tell 'em anything. 'Jaybird' will be safely buried back in Coronado."
"Don't be too sure about that, David. The Navy's a tight, close community, and the SEALs are tighter and closer yet. Hell, there probably aren't many more than a thousand SEALs in the world today. You're always running across some guy you knew at another duty station."
"Aw, you know how East and West Coast SEALs are always running each other down. I figure I'll be safe enough in NAVSPECWARGRU-Two. Don't you think?"
"It's possible, I guess." Murdock had been thinking a lot lately about that rumored chasm between east and west. How readily were the men in his new platoon going to accept him? "Where are they putting you anyway?"
"I don't know yet, sit, but I hear there's an opening in one of the action Teams. I've still got about two months to go on probation, so I've really got to keep my nose clean after all the fuss back at Coronado."
"I should damn well think you'd better, Jaybird," Murdock said, grinning.
"Aw, Lieutenant, don't call me that. Hey! What's your new station?"
"They've got a platoon waiting for me. Don't know any more than that."
"Huh. Maybe we'll be seem' each other again at Little Creek!"
"Could be. Anything's possible. Especially for SEALS."
2130 hours (Zulu -5) Samelli's Bar Norfolk, Virginia
They'd come to Samelli's to do some serious drinking, a part of the ongoing wake for the Lieutenant. MacKenzie ordered his usual Bombay gin, a taste he'd acquired during his tour with SEAL Team Six back in the eighties, then turned to face the gloomy cavern of the bar.
Things were just getting warmed up. Radioman First Class Ronald "Bearcat" Holt was on the floor of the bar, braced in push-up position on his fingertips. Lucy, one of the waitresses at Samelli's, was stretched full-length face-up on his back, bracing herself by gripping his belt. She looked tiny, and a little apprehensive.
"Okay!" Fernandez shouted, waving a fistful of money. "Gimme a hundred! Ready ... go!"
"Hold it!" Roselli called, waving his hands. "Hold it!" Reaching down his leg, he slipped the black, double-edged leaf-blade of a Sykes-Fairbairn commando knife from a boot sheath.
"Hey, hey!" one of the bartenders warned. "No weapons in here! You guys know the rules!"
"It's all right!" Roselli replied, grinning. "Everything is perfectly under control. We must observe all the propri ... all the propri ... Everything's got to be kosher here! But this here op is turnin' into a damned sneak-and-peek!" Lucy's short skirt had hiked up on her thighs, exposing white panties.
Delicately, without touching her legs, Roselli used the point of his knife to tug the skirt back into a less revealing position. "Looks like real delicate surgery, Razor," Boomer said.
"Well, yeah," Roselli replied. "But we wouldn't want no Tail-hook charges brought against us, fellas, now would we?"
Some of the SEALs cheered, while others booed him. "You're a real gentleman, Razor," Lucy said sweetly. Several SEALs groaned at that, and Boomer hit him with a fistful of popcorn.
"Hey, I can't help it if I'm just too impossibly cool to be believed," Roselli said. "Right, the bets are covered, the lady's covered, are we set, gentlemen? Okay, go!"
Holt began performing push-ups at the rate of one per second. Some of the other SEALs began counting cadence. "One! And two! And three! And four!"
"C'mon, Holt, no cheating! All the way down!"
"I'm going' all the way down!"
"I don't think she's heavy enough!"
"Yeah, why don't you try it with a telephone pole?"
"Or Big Mac!"
"Screw you, Razor!" Holt called out.
"An' twelve! An'
thirteen! An' fourteen!"
Another quiet Friday night at Samelli's, MacKenzie thought, wrapping his big hands around his glass of Bombay gin. Samelli's, a little bar and restaurant on Little Creek Road in east Norfolk, had long been a popular watering hole for naval personnel, but since the creation of Team Seven it had become virtually a private domain, SEAL territory, and all others enter at your own risk.
"He's getting' tired. Look at his face!"
"Aw, he's just getting' warmed up!"
"... twenty! An' twenty-one! An' twenty-two!"
Actually, MacKenzie reflected, it was rather quiet tonight, and that worried him. There were only seven SEALs in the whole place, counting him, all wearing civvies and none of them even bothering with the handful of Marines and Navy personnel already there when they arrived. Outwardly the boys were as rambunctious as usual, and as determined to get drunk, but there was a hard edge to their laughter, a bitterness to their jokes and banter that typified what MacKenzie had been noticing all week.
The platoon's morale was way the hell down. Lately, good-natured hazing or kidding was more likely to be taken as an insult, and there'd been a number of fights during the past few days. In a booth over in one corner, Doc Ellsworth was ignoring the push-up contest. He'd picked up two pretty SEALettes, a blonde and a redhead, and was demonstrating his famous double-beer-drinking trick, holding two open bottles of Budweiser upended in his mouth at once, no hands, and chugging the contents down in a steady series of gulps. The girls, a couple of military groupies MacKenzie had seen hanging out at Samelli's with his boys before, watched wide-eyed. The rest of the SEALs were clustered around Holt and Lucy.
"Forty-three! Forty-four! Forty-five!"
Doc spit out the two empty bottles, then leaned across his table. "Aw, shit, guys!" he called. "Wouldn't it be better if Lucy was underneath him while he was doing that?"
"Yeah Doc's right! Hey Holt, you dumb ass! You got it backward! The girl's s'posed to be under you!"
"Fifty-two! Fifty-three! Fifty-four!"
"Wait! Wait!" Garcia shouted. "I'll fix it!" The SEAL positioned himself, then dove head-first toward the two people on the floor, landing on top of Lucy, who squealed and wiggled beneath him. Holt oofed and staggered a bit under the impact, then continued pumping away. "Sixty! Sixty-one! Sixty-two!"
"Hey, it's a Lucy sandwich!" Nicholson called. "Samelli's house specialty! Looks real good!"
Roselli laughed as Garcia kissed Lucy on the cheek. "Looks like fun, anyway. Can anybody play?"
"What the fuck's going' on back there?" Holt demanded from the bottom of the pile, though he never missed a beat. "Garcia! Get your ass off of there! That ain't in the bet!"
"Yeah, get the fuck out of there, Garcia!" Miguel Fernandez shouted, his dark face flushing darker as he advanced on the unlikely, heaving trio. "I got money riding on Ron and you're screwin' up the bet!"
"That ain't all that's ridin- on Ron," Roselli said, snickering.
Fernandez grabbed Garcia by his waistband and hauled him off Lucy bodily. She gave a loud scream and almost fell off Holt.
"Put me down, you pussy!" Garcia bellowed.
"Who's a pussy, you piss-balled, penny-pricked little son of a bitch?" In an instant, the atmosphere had transformed from camaraderie to vicious, flaring anger. Fernandez launched a swift right hook that connected with the side of Garcia's head and sent him tumbling across a table.
"Knock it off, you two!" MacKenzie bellowed, moving toward the two antagonists. On the floor, Holt kept doing his push-ups with Lucy still clinging to his back.
Garcia scrambled up off the floor and came back, fists clenched, but when he threw a punch it was only a feint. His foot came up instead, slamming into Fernandez's side.
MacKenzie suddenly stepped between them, reaching out with two long arms and snagging both combatants by their collars. "I said knock it off, shitheads!" He didn't raise his voice, but the cold deadliness behind the words somehow penetrated the two SEALs' blind anger. "I don't give a shit, but the L-T wouldn't like to see you two kill each other. You boys read me?"
"Mac," Garcia said, panting. "That bastard-"
"Stow it, Boomer! Chill out!"
"Chief-"
"You too, Rattler. I said the L-T wouldn't like it!"
That stopped them cold. MacKenzie could feel the fight drain out of both men.
"Now shake hands."
They shook ... then embraced, hugging each other warmly. MacKenzie stepped back, nodded approvingly, then turned to face the bar again.
"Aw, now ain't that sweet," he heard from the front of the restaurant. "The SEALies are hugging."
"Must be springtime," another voice said, a bass, gravelly rumble. "Mating season fer fuckin' SEALS."
"You boys listen to your momma there and be nice to each other!"
The SEALs went dead quiet at the intrusion. A dozen strangers had entered the bar, and now they were closing slowly around the tight-knit group. They too wore civilian clothes, but the close-trimmed hair above their ears, "whitewalls" in military parlance, gave them away.
Marines. Marines out on liberty and cruising for trouble, from the look of them.
"You SEALies're making too damned much noise," one of the Marines growled. He was drill-sergeant lean, recruiting-poster handsome, and had the cold look of a competent killing machine.
"Yeah," a second man chorused. "A man can't hear hisself think." This one stood six-two and must have weighed two-fifty, all of it workout honed, chiseled, and sweat-polished slabs of muscle. When he lunged his blond head forward and scowled, he forcibly reminded MacKenzie of that wrestler guy on TV ... what was his name? Hulk Hogan, yeah.
"Shouldn't be a problem for you shit-for-brains jar-heads then," Fernandez said, his argument with Garcia forgotten now. "Seein' as how you guys can't think anyhow."
"Ooh," the first Marine said, shaking his hand as though he'd burned it. "We got us a wise-ass tough-guy SEAL here, men. I think maybe we'd better house-break it, don't you guys?"
"Hey, no fighting in here!" a bartender called from behind the bar. "Take it outside before I call the SPs!"
"Aw, this won't take that long, Pops," another Marine said. "We just gonna do a little after-hours moppin'up for you here."
"Yeah, no fuckin' Navy puke SEAL alive can take on the Marines," the big guy said. He curled his forearm up, flexing it, and muscles popped and rippled impressively from wrist to bull-massive neck.
"So you grunts figure you're better'n SEALS, huh?" Roselli demanded, stepping closer. There was a nasty glint in his eye.
The big Marine apparently didn't see that glint or else was too drunk to care. "Fuck! All you SEALs are pussies! Right, guys?"
"Right on, Fred!" There was a chorus of assent, but Fred probably never heard it. Roselli had turned slightly, his hands had blurred, and then the Marine was hurtling through the air upside down, touching down neatly and briefly in a big bowl of popcorn on the bar, then somersaulting behind the bar with a shattering crash and a sudden snow flurry of snack food. Lucy screamed and scrambled to get off Holt before another flying body landed on her. The two SEAL-ettes with Ellsworth shrieked and ducked under the table, while other Samelli's patrons ran for cover. A second Marine slammed face-first into a decorative wooden pillar, clung to it lovingly a moment, then slid limply to the deck.
Sipping his gin, MacKenzie briefly considered the tactics of the situation. Clearly, it was his duty as senior man present to break up the fight before someone got hurt or Samelli's suffered any more wear and tear to the crockery. The men of Third Platoon looked to him for leadership, and to set a good example. He was, in fact, a father figure for these younger boys, and he took his position in that regard quite seriously.
Picking up his glass, he turned and leaned against the bar, watching approvingly as Nicholson dropped into a perfect Hwrang-do defensive stance, lightly touched a charging bullMarine, then stepped aside as the Marine hurtled past and collided noisily with a chair. MacKenzie had been wo
rried about the platoon's morale, but as he thought about it, maybe what the boys needed most was a good fight. He winced as Holt, risen now from the bar-room floor like a fury from Hell, seized two leathernecks and slammed them together, head to head. Yeah, something to get the adrenaline flowing, something to remind them of how good it was to work together.
Fernandez and Garcia were back to back now, covering each other as they took on separate frontal assaults. Good ... good! A Marine brought a chair down on Boomer, smashing him to the floor. Fernandez whirled, leaped, and brought the assailant down with a slashing kick to the face.
A Marine grabbed Doc Ellsworth in a bear hug. "Watch it, fella," Doc said. "I'm a non-combatant." Suddenly the Marine's face turned purple and he crumpled to the deck at Doc's feet, gasping for breath. Doc fastidiously brushed himself off, looked down at his writhing victim, and said, "If that pain persists or if you notice any blood in your urine, come see me during sick call tomorrow."
Holt slammed into the bar next to MacKenzie. "Damn it, Big Mac, ain't you gonna help?"
"I am helping," MacKenzie replied. He took a sip, then lowered his glass. "I'm not putting you all on report for fighting. Oh-oh, watch it there."
A few feet away a Marine grabbed Fernandez from behind and was trying to hit him with a bottle. Holt roared, the sound startling enough that the Marine dropped the bottle just as Holt lunged forward, tackling both men and driving them to the deck.
And suddenly, it was very, very quiet in Samelli's.
"Clear!" Boomer called, standing astride a limp Marine.
"Clear!" Holt said.
"Clear!"
"Clear!"
"Clear here!"
"And clear!" The other SEALs chimed in from various parts of the bar, and MacKenzie did a quick head count. Six SEALS, still on their feet. Counting him, seven. Twelve Marines down. Very down.
MacKenzie sighed, then reached down and turned the head of one unconscious Marine so he wouldn't drown in a puddle of spilled liquor on the deck. Straightening up again, he reached for the wallet in his hip pocket. "Awfully sorry for the mess, Pete," he said, handing a fifty and five tens across the counter to the owner. "That cover things?"
Seal Team Seven 01 - Seal Team Seven Page 9