She came over and brought him a large glass of water, having watched him torturing himself on the pipe. “I can’t quite see why you need to prepare yourself for another combat mission,” she said. “You’re home now, and you’re not going back.”
“Fitness is just a bad habit,” he grinned. “I’ve had it for a long time, and it’s hard to kick.”
“I know. But there’s fitness and fitness. One of them has to do with general well-being and health. The other kind is what people do before trying to throttle a polar bear with their bare hands.”
“That’s my kind,” said Mack. “You haven’t seen any polar bears locally, have you?”
Anne laughed at him, as she always did. Well, nearly always. She gazed at him with admiration. He really was the most incredible specimen of a man. Thirty-three years old, tall, without one ounce of extra weight, broad shoulders, and a manner that could charm the stony heart of a highway state trooper. Anne did, however, suspect there were certain Middle Eastern terrorists who might not wholly go along with that view.
“I’m making a fish pie for dinner, with the other half of the bass and some scallops I picked up at Hank’s.”
“Plenty of cheese in the sauce,” said Mack. “With hot French bread and a baked potato. That’s my girl.”
“Anything else?”
“One nice cold beer, and I’ll go to bed happy. If you’ll have me.”
“Yes, please,” she said sassily, heading back to the house with a spring in her step Mack had not noticed since before his last tour of duty in Iraq.
He chugged his pint glass of water and stared at the bar, which in his mind had defeated him. Temporarily. “You bastard,” he told it. “I’ll get you tomorrow.”
He pulled out his super-cell phone and checked in with Harry, just to make sure the money was in place.
“All done, Mack,” he said. “Money’s gone. One million smackers to the clinic. No bullshit.”
“You’re a goddamned hero, Harry,” he replied. “They’re leaving Tuesday night.”
“Yup. I already checked. Boston to Geneva. American Airlines, 9:30 P.M. I’ll have business-class return tickets here tomorrow morning. Want to come and pick them up? We can have a chat.”
“I’ll be there 1100 hours, six bells. We’ll have coffee on the Forenoon Watch.” He heard Harry Remson chortling away as he put down the phone.
Mack flexed his arms and decided he had recovered. He walked to the side door of the garage and stepped inside, walking across to a small storage area to the left of the Buick. And there he found the packing crate he had shipped to Maine from Coronado. He’d meant to unpack it last week, and there were items in there that he wanted to move to the house—books, memorabilia, and of course his uniforms, which would hang in his bedroom closet until he died. There were also a few items he did not wish Anne to know about—not for the moment, anyway. This was SEAL stuff, things that spelled out a thousand words to him but were meaningless to anyone who had not done what he had done.
He hauled out the books and uniforms, walked back, and placed them on the hood of the Buick. Then he delved into the box and pulled out his SEAL underwater goggles, top-of-the-line scuba diver’s gear that had once been bright red but was now colored the dullest gunmetal gray, with not a glint of light reflecting off them. Every SEAL had a mask like that.
Then he pulled out his state-of-the-art wet suit, a truly superb piece of modern underwater equipment, light but incredibly warm, with layers of a plastic/sponge compound insulating the wearer. It was jet black in color with a fitted hood, tight across the back of the neck, forehead, and chin. At the top of each leg were four black metal “popper” studs, and to them were attached Mack’s special SEAL flippers, too big for ordinary mortals. On the instep of each one was painted his BUDs Class number, 242, precious numbers that signified the sun and the moon and the earth to Mack.
BUDs 242. Seven little marks, the marks that reminded him of a grim black-top square in Coronado where a legendary SEAL admiral had pinned on his chest his golden Trident, which would forever confirm that out of 168 starters, he, Mack Bedford, was one of the 11 chosen to step forward into America’s most elite fighting force. Only then was he able to have the class number painted on his flippers. BUDs. The Basic Underwater Demolition course, where they test the mettle of would-be SEALs. It was ten years ago now, but he remembered it as if it were yesterday. He just stood there in the garage, cradling his wet suit, the one he had worn when he led them through the depths of the Persian Gulf to capture Saddam’s offshore oil rig.
He glanced again at the numbers, and the memories shed a mantle of sadness over the former commander. They were memories of the best of times, when he had tackled every obstacle they threw at him and then punched that BUDs indoctrination right on the nose. He’d run that beach until he’d darn near passed out, he’d swum the laps, on the surface and under it. They’d tied him up, ankles and wrists, and shoved him in the twelve-foot deep end of the pool. They’d made him row the rubber boats until he thought he’d die. He’d dragged those boats, run with the goddamned things on his head. He’d hauled those boats up rocks, he’d hauled tree trunks, and he’d sure as hell hauled ass. They’d yelled at him, insulted him, called him a faggot, driven him to the limit of his endurance. Once they’d kept him in the freezing Pacific for a couple of minutes too long, and then had to ship him to the hospital when he passed out from hypothermia. And had he quit? Nossir. He told the ambulance drivers to take him right back to the beach, where he dived right back into the water.
BUDs 242. Those numbers told him everything he needed to know about himself. And when they made him one of the youngest lieutenant commanders in the history of the SEALs, he felt for the first time in his life that he had achieved a worthwhile ambition. Because that promotion was bigger than BUDs. Ten other guys had made that and stood alongside him when the Tridents were handed out.
Lt. Cdr. Mack Bedford. That was priceless, a singular honor, just for him . . . and then they took it all away. At least they took as much away as they could. But they could never take away the words that were written on his heart:My country expects me to be stronger than my enemy, both physically and mentally. . . . If I am knocked down, I will get up, every time. I am never out of the fight. I am here to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. I am a United States Navy SEAL.
Carefully, he reached down in the packing crate and retrieved another of his most cherished possessions, his “attack board,” the kind they issue to SEAL commanders launching underwater assaults on the enemy. The board was light, made of strong polystyrene, around eighteen inches square, weightless in the water. Into its flat surface were set three instruments: a clock, a compass, and a global positioning system. The board is held out in front, with both hands, as the SEAL leader kicks through the water with those massive flippers. It saves him having to stop to check either the time, the direction, or the team’s position. All of it stands right in front of him, softly illuminated but betraying no glare to enemy searchers or sentries on the surface. Mack had located the Iraqi oil rig using this personal attack board.
He leaned down and found his battle-scarred leather bag. Into the bottom he packed the attack board, covered it with his carefully folded wet suit and flippers, and tucked the big underwater mask alongside. The suitcase had a concealed false bottom, and in the space beneath it Mack would pack passports, driver’s licenses, and two hundred thousand dollars worth of cash, euros for Ireland and France, pounds for England, and dollars for a U.S. emergency. Everything below the false bottom would be paper or cardboard, and none of it would show up on the X-ray machines in airports. The leather grip would be his only hand baggage. It would never be more than three feet away from him.
He put the bag down, behind the packing crate, and carried the books and uniforms into the house. They had a family supper, and afterward Mack and Tommy watched the Red Sox. Anne was upstairs packing for the journey to Switzerland.
At around
nine Mack drove over to Harry’s house and apologized for the late, unexpected visit. Harry, who had just finished dinner with his wife, Jane, was unfazed. “Come on in,” he said. “We’ll have a night-cap, and you can give me the news.”
Mack followed him into the study and handed him a piece of paper. On it, for the first time, he had written down his date and time of departure, six days from now—a Saturday, arriving Sunday morning in Ireland, when customs and immigration staffs would be less diligent. He hoped.
“Tickets in the name of Jeffery Simpson,” he said. “Open return. Better make it first-class. That way I can pretty well guarantee I’ll get a seat anytime I want it, and I might be in a hurry.”
Harry nodded. “No problem, pal,” he said. “I had a call this morning—the documents will be here by FedEx Monday. Cash, Wednesday morning.”
“Perfect. And I just wanted to let you know I will take the cell phone, but it’s only for dire emergency. I know the number cannot be traced, but after I hit Foche, there’ll be a nationwide manhunt for the killer. And a phone can be traced by the police. Not the number. But the area where it was utilizing the satellite signal. And that might put me in more danger than I need.”
Harry Remson poured two Scotch whiskies with soda. Then he said slowly, “Mack, is the exit the hardest part?”
“Yes. Incoming, nobody’s looking for me. At least I hope not. Outgoing, the whole fucking world’s looking for me. I need to get away in the seconds after I pull the trigger—before Foche hits the ground.”
Harry nodded as if he were an expert on high-profile assassinations. And then he stated something that had been on his mind for a few days. “Mack, I’ve never asked you. But from the very start of this proposal you shied away from any deep involvement. By the time you decided to fire Raul, you wanted to stay at arm’s length. Jesus, at one point I thought you were going to bail out on me altogether. And then that night, something happened. You arrived here at Christ knows what time and announced not only were you in on the project, you were actually going to carry it out. Jesus, that’s a big turnaround. What happened? Because it wasn’t just Tommy, was it?”
Mack smiled ruefully. “No, Harry, it wasn’t just Tommy. It was the magazine.”
“What magazine?”
“The one you gave me, the Foche magazine.”
“Interesting article, right?”
“Harry, it was more than that. There was a picture of Henri Foche standing outside his arms factory. I recognized him right away. Because I’d seen him before.”
“You had? Where?”
“He was standing on the far side of the Euphrates River in Iraq. The far side from us, that is. I had my glasses trained on him for about five minutes. He was instructing the fucking towelheads how to fire the missile from its launching post. Looking through the sights, showing them how to aim it. I’d recognize him anywhere.”
“And then?”
“Two missiles came in. We all saw ’em flying across the river, and they hit my tanks, burned three of my best friends alive, just incinerated them in some kind of a blue chemical flame. Both missiles ripped straight through the fuselage of the tanks.”
“And what kind of missile was it?”
“It was the Diamondhead, the one the United Nations banned in all countries as a crime against humanity. My guys were not attacking anyone, and they were killed by a missile that ought not to be used in any war. So they weren’t killed in battle, were they? They were murdered in cold blood.”
“The Diamondhead was mentioned in the article, correct?”
“Yes, Harry, it was. There’s an accusation that Foche was the manufacturer, but no one seems able to prove it. In all the world, only I know the truth, because I saw him, just before my guys were burned to death. He was plainly the manufacturer, standing there next to his fucking Mercedes, wearing his pimp scarlet handkerchief, instructing Iraqis how to murder American soldiers.”
“He was wearing that handkerchief in the magazine,” recalled Harry.
“That handkerchief was the one deciding factor. When I saw that, I had him. But I’d have known it was him even without it.”
“Mack, you have as big a reason to take him out as I do.”
“I have a bigger reason. Those guys were like family to me. We’d fought together all over the place. And to watch them burn like that—it was as if I’d died and gone to hell. I don’t have a better way to explain it.”
“Has this become a mission of revenge for you?”
“You’re damn right it has. This Foche murdered my guys. And in France he already seems to be untouchable, because he’s going to be the next president. But I am going to make sure he never becomes president of France. You can bet on that. Because I’ll find him.”
Harry was thoughtful for a moment, and then he said, “Mack, we’re equal partners in this. My money; your brains, skill, and planning. Just don’t let it get in the way—that rising red mist of anger about the guys. Stay cool, and stay focused.”
“That’s the way I’ve been taught, Harry. This is just another mission—Taliban killers, al-Qaeda killers, insurgent killers, missile killers. They’re all the fucking same to me. But this one won’t get away.”
Harry Remson put out his right hand, and Mack took it. “Partners,” said Harry.
“Partners,” replied Mack, and they shook, with a new unspoken warmth.
The two men walked to the front door together, but after Mack had left, Harry was faced with a brand-new problem. His wife, Jane, walked into the study and asked him why it was necessary, these days, for Mackenzie Bedford to arrive at this house at unusual hours.
“Oh, we were just talking about some business deal that may come to fruition. If we have to close down the yard.”
“Oh, were you? Well, I’d prefer to put my cards on the table. And I heard you and Mack discussing the possibility of having this French politician, Henri Foche, murdered.”
“Are you crazy? We did no such thing.”
“Didn’t you? Then I’ll quote you two or three phrases I heard Mack use: ‘after I hit Foche,’ ‘nationwide manhunt,’ and ‘after I pull the trigger—before he hits the ground.’”
Harry turned to face his wife of thirty-two years. “Jane,” he said, “neither Mack Bedford nor I had a choice in this matter. You must believe me, and you must trust me.”
“Trust you! Trust you? You mean I should just sit here quietly and watch you two plan to assassinate the next president of France, which will, without question, put us all in jail for the rest of our lives? Do you really think you could get away with it? My God, Harry! The FBI would be in our front yard within a week. In all the years we have known each other, I have never once heard you suggest anything quite so utterly unreasonable.”
Jane Remson, at the age of fifty-eight, was a very good-looking lady. She was svelte, petite, and chic, always beautifully turned out, with a mane of lustrous natural-looking blonde hair. The combined process of this dazzling example of twenty-first-century preservation was privately estimated by Harry to have cost somewhere in the region of seven billion dollars.
He appreciated her and loved her as she loved him. But she had never before spoken to him quite like that. Still, he reasoned, he had never decided to assassinate the next president of France before.
And Miss Jane, as the household staff still called her, was not finished. “Harry,” she said, “I am asking you to call this whole insane thing off.”
“I cannot do that,” he said. “And perhaps you should keep in mind that I am not going to assassinate anyone. I’m staying right here. And I shall never breathe one word about such a plot to anyone. And I would be obliged if you would do precisely the same. It has nothing to do with you, and, in a way, nothing to do with me.”
“HARRY! How can you be so naive? I stood outside that door and heard you and Mack Bedford discussing the killing of Henri Foche. And in my view you will both be caught by the police and charged with his murder.”
“Eavesdropping is a very dangerous game,” said her husband. “And no one should do it. Because you only hear about one-tenth of the truth. It is obvious, and has been for some time, that if Henri Foche should win the presidency, this shipyard will have to close. There are many options. And Foche has many enemies. You happened to hear one tiny snippet of the conversation, just a fraction of the discussion.”
“Well, it did not sound like a snippet to me. It sounded like a very sinister piece of planning. And I can’t understand why Mack would even be talking about it. It’s not his shipyard, and you cannot be so stupid as to be paying him to murder Foche. That’s fairyland. And what if he gets caught, or shot by Foche’s security guards? How long do you think it would take the police to trace him right back here to Dartford, and in a matter of days associate you with the crime?”
Harry had rarely seen his wife so fraught with anxiety. He knew, of course, she had only his best interests at heart. But there was a clarity about Jane’s assessment that was beginning to unnerve him. And he decided to pull rank. “Jane,” he said, “you have lived very well off my family business for several decades. Every comfort I could provide you came from Sam Remson’s shipyard. I have never thought of myself as the owner, just the custodian for future generations. I know we have only two daughters, but that has not changed my thinking. I owe it to this family, these workers, and this town to do all in my power to prevent Henri Foche from becoming president and closing us down. If we could land just one more order from the French Navy, I could hire a couple of top international salesmen and send them out looking for new business. We have never in one hundred years had to do that. What I cannot survive is three or four years with no work. . . . ”
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