Proximity: A Novel of the Navy's Elite Bomb Squad

by Stephen Phillips

  “Got it. Fontaine and the others on the Secret Service op, where’d they go?”

  “Houston, Texas, sir. The President comes in there about once a quarter.”

  “Hmm... good. We do much Secret Service support here?”

  “Not really, sir. We pretty much eat, sleep, and breathe MCM.”

  “That is what I’ve heard, Chief. So, are you busy right now? I’d like to get the lay of the land.”

  “A tour? No problem, sir. We can do that.”

  Adjacent to the offices in the front of the building was a conference room. After the conference room was the passage to the rear of the building. There was a locker room with showers and a large vault shared by both detachments that housed all of the classified material.

  The six inch steel door was open but an inner door that looked like a gate was closed. Inside was a skinny black man dressed in utes and boots. His blue t-shirt had bold yellow letters on the back that read:

  BOMB SQUAD

  TECHNICIAN

  IF YOU SEE THIS MAN RUNNING

  TRY TO KEEP UP!

  Chief Keating knocked on the cage.

  “Hey Dee, come meet the new OIC.”

  The Tech stood and opened the cage.

  “Hi, sir. SK1 Delgado. Guys call me ‘Dee.’”

  “Nice to meet you, I’m Lieutenant James Jascinski.”

  “Welcome to Ingleside.”

  “Thanks.”

  Keating spoke up.

  “Delgado’s is in charge of publications and manuals. He maintains all pubs classified and unclassified. He also controls all of the crypto gear, radios, encrypted GPS and the like.”

  “Good, I’m sure we’ll be doing a turnover of secret material in the next few days. I look forward to getting to know you.”

  “Me too, sir.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Downloading message traffic. We get it right here in the vault via that desktop computer over the base LAN.”

  “Great. We’ll let you get back to it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The rear of the building had a dive locker for maintenance and storage of all the diving gear, an equipment office, an equipment storage room, and the highbay.

  Detachment Two was still cleaning gear from their morning dive. Chief Keating introduced Jazz to each of the men, but he was not retaining any of their names.

  Jazz and Keating stepped on the trailer and climbed into Det Four’s twenty-four foot, rigid hull inflatable boat or RHIB. RHIBs became very popular for use by the U.S. Navy in the late 80’s and early 90’s especially for specialized units. The boat incorporates a strong fiberglass hull giving strength and allowing speed through the water. Just above the waterline inflatable rubber pontoons comprise the freeboard. The pontoons give the RHIB superior stability, especially in rough seas.

  The RHIBs the Navy bought for MCM detachments had twin 150 horsepower engines with a hard mounted towing bar above them. They employed a single center console design so that there was plenty of deck space for an EOD team to travel great distances, up to 150 nautical miles, with all of their diving and support equipment. The whole boat was painted a camouflage scheme of light blue and gray. From a short distance the RHIB’s outline would not catch even an observant eye.

  “You’re going to spend a lot of time in this boat,” Keating remarked.

  Det Four also had a fifteen-foot Mark-5 rubber boat for operating onboard the MCMs and MHCs and an F470 for casting out of aircraft. Keating explained that one crew cab pickup, one standard pickup, and one HUMMVEE belong to Det Four. They also had a container box about a third of the size of a tractor trailer. It housed the fly-away dive locker or FADL that was used to perform maintenance on all of the det’s diving equipment.

  After the tour Jazz and Keating headed back to the front of the building.

  “Is there a place to stow my gear, Chief?”

  “Uh, yes, sir. There is a locker in the officer’s head for you to use for uniforms, civvies and PT gear. There is a bigger locker in the back for your dive gear, field equipment. All your hooya stuff.”

  “Great. I’ve got some gear to move in.”

  Some of the initial issue gear he obtained in Charleston. A pair of command sweats, t-shirt, and shorts went into the locker in the officer’s head. A Protec helmet, mask, fins, snorkel, booties, and gloves went into the locker in the equipment room. He pulled out the mission knife that the Admiral had given him and hung it by its straps on a hook in the back of the locker.

  Jazz looked at it for a moment. He wondered if his father was really free of his own notions of failure. Jazz felt that he was mostly free of his father’s expectations. He thought that perhaps the knife was finally, just a knife.

  Now it will get some good use, he thought.

  Since it was a quiet day at the det, Jazz decided to obtain the service records of his new shipmates and review them. He went to the personnel office on base. As the relieving OIC he had the authority to draw and review his men’s records at any time. It was a common practice when checking onboard a command, but he did not want to do it in front of Keating. Jazz drove home with the service records on the passenger seat.

  Melanie was not home. Jazz figured she went to the pool with the kids. He surveyed the ranch house they were renting. They still had not unpacked all of the boxes. Melanie leaned pictures against the wall below the spot she thought they would go.

  Jazz stripped to shorts and sunglasses, smeared sunscreen over his body and got a beer from the refrigerator.

  I will never get used to this heat, he thought as he sat down at the picnic table.

  Jazz skipped Reed’s record and went right to Keating’s. He wanted to find out more about the man he met today.

  Keating spent his whole career in naval diving. He started as a fleet diver, working in the salvage Navy. All of his evaluations were glowing for the first ten years. Keating was on his way to reaching the pinnacle of the Navy’s diving community as a Master Diver.

  Then something odd happened, instead of continuing to pursue this path, Keating applied for EOD and was accepted. His first assignment in EOD was at EOD Mobile Unit Four in Key West Florida working with mine-hunting mammals.

  Damn, Jazz thought. This guy has forgotten more about diving than I’ll ever learn.

  Next Jazz perused SK1 Delgado’s record. Delgado was not an EOD Tech very long; his two year anniversary would be in the fall. Jazz was surprised that ‘Storekeeper’ was a rate allowed into EOD. Most of the rates were ordnance related; Gunner’s Mate, Aviation Ordnancemen, Torpedomen. Others were classic Navy rates with obvious advantages in the diving world; Boatswain’s Mate, Enginemen, Hull Technician.

  Jazz surmised that as a Storekeeper, Delgado was perfect for the pubs vault. He undoubtedly had the management skills required to maintain hundreds of volumes of ordnance related manuals.

  The Texas sun worked Jazz into a good sweat. Sunblock started to run into his eyes. He went back into the house to clear his eyes and grab another beer.

  Melanie came home while Jazz had his head in the fridge.

  “Jazz, I’m home!” she called out.

  He looked up.

  “Daddy!” The boys squealed simultaneously, running toward him with outstretched arms. Jazz quickly set his beer down. He scooped up his sons in a bear hug. Growling, he ran around the room with them as they laughed with glee. Finally he set them down, collapsing in feigned exhaustion.

  Melanie was laughing as she handed Jazz the baby.

  “What is so funny?”

  “I always wanted to say that, ‘Hey hon, I’m home!’ You’re home early. Is this how the EOD thing goes? I like it.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see.”

  Melanie picked up the beer from the counter and drank from it.

  “Damn, it’s hot.”

  “Yeah it is. So’d you go to the pool?”

  “Yep, met one of the other wives.”

  “Oh. Who?”

  “J
eannie Ball. She is married to Ted Ball.”

  “I haven’t met him yet.”

  “She said he’s at some school. Anyway she’s very nice and I was very cool about the whole ‘officer’s wife’ thing.”

  “Good.”

  The Navy has strict etiquette regarding relationships between officers and enlisted men. This often spilled over to the wives’ support groups. Melanie had seen it in their previous wardroom functions. One memory that remained with her was from a luncheon she attended shortly after she gave birth to Nicholas. Children were not invited.

  After two hours of tea and small talk she began excusing herself. The hostess cornered her.

  “Melanie, honey you can’t leave yet,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “The captain’s wife is still here. Nobody can leave until after she does.”

  “I have a babysitter that needs to go to work and an infant that needs to be fed. I’m sorry, but I’m going.”

  Everyone else was pleasant but she knew that they were talking about her as she drove down the street.

  “I would have pumped my breast milk and had the sitter feed my baby.”

  “She thinks she’s special because her husband’s an admiral’s son.”

  Melanie never went to another officer wives’ function. She went with Jazz for the group functions only because it was a political necessity.

  The enlisted and officers’ wives did not mingle. Oddly Melanie found the separation to be more driven by the enlisted wives that the other way around. She was often treated differently and even shunned by other women when they discovered she was married to an officer.

  The Jascinski’s heard and hoped that the EOD world was different. Because of the small number of officers, familiarity with the men was simply unavoidable. The more relaxed relationship of the men carried over to their families. Melanie decided that she would make an extra effort to fit in.

  After she put the kids down for a nap, Melanie joined Jazz on the patio.

  “Whatcha reading?”

  “Service records.”

  “Isn’t that a little creepy?”

  “Nah, it is important to know who I’m working with. I’ve just been reading about Ball. What did you say his wife’s name was?”

  “Jeanine, but she goes by Jeannie.”

  “Yeah, anyway, he seems like a good guy. Hell, they are all good people. They wouldn’t get into EOD if they weren’t.”

  “Who else do you have in the det?”

  “Well, apparently this is a period of personnel transfers. There’s a Senior Chief Reed who is leaving soon. He came here from the shore det in Earle, New Jersey. I’ve got a Chief Keating who I met today. He is good to go, a very experienced diver. There’s a guy named Quinn, a guy named Sinclair, and an SK who I met today named Delgado.”

  “A Storekeeper?”

  “Yeah, I thought that strange too. I guess it is a source rating. Anyway all three of them came here right from EOD school, but not recently. Delgado is coming up on two years. The others have been here longer.”

  “Was the Warrant in today?”

  “No, most of them were on a Secret Service mission in Houston.”

  “Ooh, 007 stuff,” Melanie said sarcastically, with a smile.

  “You really don’t care about this stuff do you?”

  “Not impressed in the least. I told you before, I’m proud of you, but not impressed by what you do. What makes me happy is seeing you excited about this. That’s what is sexy.”

  “Don’t use that word around me right now.”

  “Sex?” she giggled.

  “Please I can’t take it.”

  Melanie stood up, leaned over and kissed Jazz softly.

  “Care for a nooner, 007?”

  “Hooya.”

  TWELVE

  Nasih

  Nasih decided to check his email messages one more time before his meeting with Gabriel.

  From: smit1941

  To: bb6

  Subject: toolbox

  I looked in my basement and my toolbox was not there. The wife must have sold it at a yard sale or something.

  The message angered him so much that, screaming with rage, he ripped the monitor from its cable and threw it across the room.

  “Toolbox” was the codeword for the weapons that he was importing into the United States. By using “basement” in the email as well as the phrasing, the author was telling him that the shipment was lost. “Wife” meant that the American’s captured it at sea.

  The United States Navy boarded and searched Green Leon. Her cargo, weapons and explosives intended for his operatives in America, were confiscated along with the ship.

  Nasih’s mission was just postponed two years, but his dignity could not wait that long. Now he would be unable to supply his cells, he would have to move only with his insurgents. Suddenly, Gabriel and his friends grew in importance.

  I will still be able to count on the Italians, he thought calming himself down.

  Nasih descended the stairs from his apartment above the Army-Navy store in Aransas Pass. The manager was coming toward him from the front of the building.

  “Is everything alright, hon?”

  “Oh, yes, Mrs. Shields. I was moving my monitor and I dropped it. I’m fine really.”

  Nasih was adept at creating plausible lies. He smiled at his landlady as he got into his Land Cruiser.

  Nasih had long ago decided that his intelligence was a curse. He resented the fact that his wealthy father had the ability to send him to the best schools. It indoctrinated him in the faith, but the analytical ability it provided also led to his removal from the battlefield.

  He knew that something special was going to happen when he was summoned to the council from the position where he was fighting the Soviets. There were rumors that he was going to the Balkans to be a leader in the jihad planned there. He would never forget what his leader said that night in the dessert.

  “I want to say before the whole council that taking you from the battlefield in this case is not an insult. It is an honor. In fact you have been chosen because of your ability for a different battlefield, one that is far more dangerous and that requires more courage and more cunning....”

  Nasih was still disappointed. For fifteen years now he trained cells of the faithful, in Libya, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and Yemen then inserted them in Europe, especially the Balkans, and finally the United States. In the last six years, he also trained and guided insurgents, members of the local populations whose means satisfied Nasih’s ends. Only in the Balkans did he have any real effect. He needed something big to happen in the United States. Nobody thought of him as a warrior any more.

  Nasih tried to re-focus his thoughts as he drove the quiet road slicing through the length of the barrier island named Mustang.

  Soon there will be hotels here, he thought.

  He was certain that the cancer of alcohol and debauchery that accompanies western beach resorts was spreading from South Padre Island even now. Unless something changed, it would only be a matter of time before these sand dunes would be soiled with western sin.

  The notion reminded him of Dubai, where he was assigned to work in a shop that catered to the British ex-patriots and oil company employees so that he could learn English and begin a study of the great adversary. While he was there he watched miles of pristine oceanfront become scarred with skyscrapers, plush hotels and condominiums.

  Nasih gripped the steering wheel of his Land Cruiser, recalling that the buildings themselves actually angered him. He was certain that western corporations, and really the Jews, were behind it all. It was clear in their design. Their height was a western symbol of power, with no attached practicality in the Middle East. Why build a seventy-story high-rise when there is plenty of open desert to spread into?

  Ironically Dubai’s behemoths lay mostly dormant. Their only real attraction was their own luxuriousness and they were priced for only the wealthiest of tourists. They did
not even employ the local population; the staffs were imported from Pakistan and the Philippines.

  Nasih wondered how many local businessmen put their life savings into the hotels after being assured by the aristocracy that their investment would return ten-fold. How many herders’ sons were lured away from their father’s house, only to be cheated out of their wages? To make matters worse, those footing the bill and watching the progress from the air conditioning of their luxury limos did not care if it all collapsed. The wealthy knew before it began that their cousins in government would subsidize them. If the elite did not make their money from the bending backs of the herders and merchants, they would make it from their taxes.

  While he watched all of this happen, Nasih patiently did as he was directed; he learned English and bided his time.

  He turned left, leaving the pavement and crossed through an access road cut through the dunes onto the beach. The wind was still today, a pleasant surprise. Once reaching the beach proper, Nasih turned left again and headed north with the sea on his right.

  In a short time he saw the mile marker that he was looking for. Nasih stopped the truck and got out. He walked north a little more, surveying his surroundings. As far as he could see, there were only two other vehicles stopped on the beach. Both appeared to be older men fishing. There was some traffic, but it was light. Most people were still working on this early Wednesday afternoon. Nasih determined that there was only one vehicle passing on the beach before him every ten minutes.

  He walked up one of the dunes for a better vantage and to ensure that there was nobody on the other side. It was clear.

  After years of attempting to completely rid himself of the practice, he still had to remind himself not to squat in the manner of his childhood. He doubted that anyone would recognize it as the habit of an Arab, but they might think he was trying to take a shit. It would be poor form to attract the attention of a park ranger.

  Looking out at the Gulf of Mexico, Nasih again focused on the memories of Dubai. He imagined, fantasized really, that maybe here his work, his patience, would finally come to fruition. Maybe his disappointment at being selected to leave the battlefield in Afghanistan would finally be wiped clean. Maybe his years of murderous restraint while smiling and being pleasant with the condescending British and the arrogant Americans, would be released. Maybe through this intrigue and manipulation the will of Allah would finally be done. Maybe it would be Allah’s providence that he should save this beach.