The last three days passed slowly. Mack spent most of them alone. He packed and shipped to Maine some books and memorabilia, his uniforms, permanent SEAL equipment, personal mask and flippers, bearing the number he had been given at BUDs. He would travel home in civilian clothes, carrying just his big battle-scarred leather suitcase, the one he’d carried to hell and back, from the Afghan mountains to Baghdad, ar-Ramadi, Qatar and Kuwait.
First thing tomorrow morning Jack Thomas would drive him to the North Air Station in the middle of San Diego Bay. Meanwhile, with less than twenty-four hours before his departure, Mack would attack the four-mile course along the beach, just one more training run along the edge of the water, straight down memory lane, one more attempt to drive his body to the limit.
He was, of course, no longer doing this in a manic last-ditch effort to hit a peak of fitness before combat duty on some foreign field, as he so often did. This run was not for any reason really. He was doing it, just… well… for the good times. The only difference was, now Mack would run all alone.
He jogged down to the ocean, and far down the beach he could see a BUDs Class pounding back toward him, strung out, in a long, irregular line, splashing, gasping, striving, driving on, keeping up, dropping out, instructors shouting, demanding to know whose heart wasn’t in it, who wanted to quit, who had nothing more to give. Nothing much changed here on the SEAL training beach at Coronado, where, every week, hearts were broken, reputations forged, and men became such men as they had never dreamed possible.
Mack could see a group of guests at the Hotel del Coronado standing out on the terrace watching the guys running. It looked like the opening scene from Chariots of Fire, but these runners were not the carefree young bucks of Cambridge University Athletic Club in 1920s England. These runners, right here in Coronado, wore khaki, the color of violent men.
This strip of tidal sand represented some kind of Greek tragedy where Navy SEALs prepared to go to war. It was a place of broken dreams, a place where ambitions were ruined, limitations ruthlessly exposed. Where only the best of the best could possibly survive.
“My country expects me to be physically and mentally stronger than my enemy…. If I am knocked down, I will get up, every time. …I am never out of the fight… I am a United States Navy SEAL.”
The words of the SEAL creed whispered through the mind of Mack Bedford as he settled into his stride, every pace a stretch, every ten yards of wet sand covered with maximum effort. That was the way to complete the run, the only way, to make every yard of the journey the hardest yard you ever ran – just to be the best, the best, always the best.
Mack passed the BUDs Class a mile up the beach, and then drove himself on to the two-mile mark, where he turned back, running with all of his strength toward his start point. Only a very few of the BUDs students would ever attain fitness like that, because Mack Bedford’s long years of brutal daily training – running, lifting, swimming – had granted him animal strength. He was not like other men. Nothing like other men.
He smiled as he looked across at the BUDs Class, sweating and straining, lifting logs the size of telephone poles, nearly killing themselves hoisting the huge weight above their heads, the bigger guys taking the biggest strain. Mack watched them finally drop the logs down onto the sand, heard the familiar thud that shook the beach, and then the old SEAL ritual.
Class leader: “Instructor Mills!”
Followed instantly by the class roar: “HOO-YAH, INSTRUCTOR MILLS!”
No one really remembers precisely how it happened, but US Navy SEALs have this private word: “HOO-YAH.” The BUDs students use it for greeting an instructor, and they use it instead of “Understand and will comply.” They use it instead of “Yes” or “Right away, sir.”
Standing there on the sand, catching his breath, Mack Bedford remembered his own stint as a SEAL instructor, pretending to be Genghis Khan, right here on this very spot. Frightening the living daylights out of the guys, pushing them, humiliating them, testing them, to find how much unfairness each of them could take without cracking. And how moved he was that, in the end, the survivors understood he wanted only the best for them.
“HOO-YAH, INSTRUCTOR BEDFORD!”
And now it was over. He walked back up the beach, and past the Grinder, the square of blacktop where generations of BUDs trainees had given their all, trying to become full-fledged SEALs. This was the square where they handed out the golden Tridents. The square where Mack Bedford, Honor Man, had received his from a SEAL admiral. That remained the proudest moment of his life.
That night he dined alone in his room. The last supper. He couldn’t face company, understanding, questions, support and sympathy. Not tonight. He sat in solitude, still trying to accept that in five weeks he had somehow gone from highly regarded SEAL lieutenant commander to civilian, with an official officer’s reprimand forever hanging over his head.
Captain Dunning had mentioned the word “panic.” What a truly shocking allegation. If anyone had asked, Mack would have settled for “blind rage.” But not “panic.” He reached for a pocket dictionary he always kept in his room. And the definition made him feel, if anything, worse: Panic – a feeling of fear and anxiety. If anyone had panicked at the bridge, it sure as hell was not him. He could have been accused, probably fairly, of seeking revenge for his dead buddies, or even of using unreasonable force. Those moments had, after all, occurred during his own “hours of the wolf.” But not fear and anxiety. The hell with that.
Mack slept not a wink through his last long night within the confines of his personal alma mater, SPECWARCOM. It was a night he had never dreamed would come. If he slept, he would wake up a civilian. Which was probably why he lay awake, staring at the ceiling, torturing himself over the events that had all proved to be beyond his control. He couldn’t face company and understanding.
At first light he climbed out of bed, showered, and stepped into his civilian clothes. He put on a clean white shirt, dark-gray slacks, loafers, and a blue blazer. He wore no tie but still looked every inch an officer. He picked up the morning newspaper and had a cup of coffee, black with sugar, and then sat quietly to wait for 0730 when Lt. Barry Mason would arrive to collect him and walk with him to Jack Thomas’s armored vehicle for the drive over to the air base. He felt like a man awaiting the arrival of the executioner.
Barry Mason arrived on time and picked up the leather bag. Neither of them felt like speaking. The young lieutenant just nodded and said, “Mack,” before adding, “This is probably the most God-awful fucking day of my life.”
“Mine too,” said the boss.
They stepped out into the morning light and began the 300-yard walk toward the main gate, and as they did so, both men became conscious of throngs of people crowding around the entrance, beyond which was parked the armored vehicle. It quickly became apparent that it was some kind of formation. It also became apparent that every single member of the SPECWARCOM campus, officers and other ranks, were, on this morning, at the gate.
They stood in silence. It was an unmistakable silent protest at the “justice” that had been handed out to the retiring SEAL officer. As Mack and Barry walked between the two four-deep lines of stonefaced men, a chief petty officer suddenly roared at the top of his lungs, “LT. CDR. MACKENZIE BEDFORD!” That deep-voiced SEAL response split the morning air, echoing up into the clear skies, rehearsed yet at once spontaneous. Every last man from admiral to BUDs student shouted the response – “HOO-YAH, MACK BEDFORD!” It was a cry from the uneasy soul of this stern and dedicated garrison of Special Forces. The last HOO-YAH.
Mack Bedford looked to neither his left nor his right. But as he reached the gate and the barrier was lifted, he turned one final time and formally saluted them all. Then he turned away, toward the waiting car. And no one saw him fighting to control his tears as he left them.
They rode in silence out along the familiar road to North Island. When they reached the air station’s administrative building they pulled up and
stepped out onto the holding area. The US Navy Lockheed Aries jet was already running, and Lieutenant Mason carried Mack’s bag to the steps that led up into the cabin. He handed it over while Jack Thomas stood to one side, visibly more upset than the other two.
Mack put down the bag and threw his arms around him. “Thanks, Jack,” he said. “Thanks for everything.”
Jack managed to mutter, “Goodbye, sir.”
The lieutenant commander picked up his bag in his left hand and walked toward Barry Mason. “Goodbye, kid,” he said. “It’s been a privilege to serve with you.”
Lieutenant Mason shook Mack’s hand and said softly, “You’ll always be a hero to me, sir.”
And with that, Mackenzie Bedford left them, moving swiftly up the steps and taking his seat on the right side of the aircraft. The door slammed shut, and it immediately taxied to the end of the runway.
Both SEALs stood and watched it race down the blacktop, gathering speed to 200 miles per hour before lifting off to the southwest, leaving the great military cemetery on Point Loma to starboard. Mack stared out at the lines and lines of white and gray headstones, and he thought again of Frank and Charlie and Billy-Ray and the rest, and the aura of sadness rested crushingly on his mind.
Within him once more, he sensed the rising “hours of the wolf,” the anger, the resentment, the desire for brutal vengeance. But it was too late for that. Much too late.
Back on the edge of the runway Barry and Jack stood to attention. As the aircraft left the ground they both snapped one last formal, solemn salute to the departing SEAL commander. Unrehearsed. Then Barry Mason shook his head, and said, “HOO-YAH, Mack. You were some kind of an officer.”
The Aries banked hard left over the western reaches of San Diego Bay and turned onto its course over the southern part of the city and out over the northern peaks of the Sierre Madre. From there the aircraft headed east, straight across Arizona, New Mexico, North Texas, and Oklahoma. They flew at around 500 miles per hour to Tennessee, running north of both Memphis and Nashville. They crossed the Appalachian Mountains and dropped down to 20,000 feet over North Carolina before landing in Norfolk, the great US Navy base that lies hard by the southern coastal border of the state of Virginia was 1700 hours, and they were right on time. Mack’s onward flight, another Aries, was waiting, engines running, as if a slightly embarrassed navy did not wish to spend one extra second saying goodbye to Mackenzie Bedford.
Mack grabbed his bag and walked down one set of aircraft steps and straight to another 50 yards away. No one met him, no one spoke to, no one made contact. The second flight was empty save for the flight crew, and they took off immediately on this 650-mile journey to America’s most northeastern state.
It took almost two hours, and by the time the aircraft arrived it was dark, around 2100, long after the last coastal bus from Brunswick had left for the picturesque ride down Route 127 to Georgetown and Bay Point. Mack was given an officer’s room in which to spend the night, and the following morning, shortly after 0700, he walked out of the base and down to the bus stop.
The summer morning was already warm, and there were seagulls overhead wheeling above the bays, swooping down toward the mighty Kennebec River, the longest in Maine, and the great waterway that for four centuries has floated Maine-built ships of all types down to the sea on its high, rough tides.
Mack’s bus was on time. It was an elderly single-deck wagon that would take him down a little-used route to his home on the outskirts of the little town of Dartford on the east bank of the river. Dartford lies ten miles downstream from the great shipbuilding town of Bath, home of the century-old Bath Iron Works (BIW), whose motto is “Ahead of schedule and under budget.”
Here great yachts, cruisers and warships have rolled out of the workshops and down the ways to the Gulf of Maine in an unstoppable convoy of excellence. J. P. Morgan’s gigantic black-and-gold yacht Corsair, all 343 feet of her, was built at BIW. As was Mike Vanderbilt’s sensational America’s Cup J-Boat, Ranger, winner in 1937, and never beaten in any race she ever entered.
In World War II there were more destroyers built at BIW than were constructed in the entire empire of Japan – eighty-two of them. Today, BIW still concentrates on guided missile destroyers, frigates and cruisers, principally for the US Navy.
Bath stands on a fabulous deepwater harbor with a mean range of tide of 6.5 feet. All the facilities at BIW are on the west bank of the Kennebec, and above it all, like a spare part from Jurassic Park, looms the tallest lifting crane in the Western world – old Number Eleven, which can hoist a 220-ton modular ship’s part straight off the jetty and into place on the hull, accurate to about a billionth of an inch, depending on who’s driving.
The Kennebec River itself is 150 miles long, rising way north out of Moosehead Lake, which stretches for more than 30 miles among the high peaks of the Longfellow Mountains. The upper reaches are scarcely navigable until the hard-flowing stream out of the mountains reaches Maine’s capital city of Augusta, 45 miles from the ocean.
At this point the Kennebec widens, and by the time it reaches Bath it becomes saltwater and tidal, so powerful are the ebb and flow from the gulf. The lower reaches are truly majestic, as the great river surges by wooded islands and jutting promontories, coves, back channels, and marshes.
Dartford itself lies on the north bank of a deepwater bay that cuts northwest out of the main stream. It started off as a boatyard at the beginning of the nineteenth century but slowly grew into a major shipyard surrounded by a small town almost entirely dependent on the shipbuilding industry for its existence.
In the boom years, when Bath Iron Works was swamped with work, the yard at Dartford was used as a runoff to construct warships. As the years passed, many a skilled shipwright, engineer, or welder made the southern journey from the ironworks to set up home in the picturesque seaward community of Dartford. Though dominated, like Bath, by the industry, this was a more bucolic spot, with a small fishing fleet and a way of life that was more relaxed. At least it was as relaxed as may be expected on the spectacular, but often viciously cold, windswept coast of Maine, where the summers are short, the snows long, and the seas powerful.
Mack Bedford’s family members were true Down-Easters. His forefathers hewed granite and sent massive tree logs down the Kennebec River to help build some of America’s greatest cities. His greatgrandfather built yachts at BIW, but his grandfather came to live in Dartford around the same time old Sam Remson took over the shipyard and started to build warships.
The Bedfords had been a fixture at both Remsons and Dartford for almost a century, ships’ engineers, and in the case of Mack’s father, a guided missile specialist, one of Harry Remson’s most valuable men. Mack himself was the first male member of his family for six generations to seek a life beyond the rugged coastlines, rough waters and awesome beauty of the Pine Tree State.
Remsons had built frigates for the US Navy, and the yard had provided many specialist parts not only for Bath Iron Works but also for the huge naval shipyards at Newport News, Virginia, Todd’s in Seattle and General Dynamic’s Electric Boat Division in Connecticut.
But the complex patterns of modern warfare had caused an undeniable shrinkage in the numbers of ships being ordered by the US Navy, principally because no one dares to sink them – at least not very often, save for the occasional bunch of turbaned maniacs happy to detonate and destroy themselves and the warship together. Strike rate since 9/11: zero.
Remsons’ survival now depended not on the US government handing them a $500 million frigate contract every three years. It depended on Marine Nationale, the French Navy, and its regular order for Remsons to build them a guided missile frigate. It came every three years, the only orders placed by Marine Nationale outside of France since the 1980s.
The French have, by any standards, a powerful navy, larger than Great Britain’s, with a twelve-strong submarine fleet, fifteen guided-missile destroyers, twenty frigates, a 40,000-ton Charles de Gaulle aircraft
carrier, and more than 45,000 personnel with 6,500 active reservists.
The old tradition of purchasing one frigate from Remsons every thirty-six months was continued partly out of loyalty to a shipyard where the craftsmanship was legendary. And partly because the French Navy enjoyed owning state-of-the-art US technology. However, almost every other warship in the French fleet was built at the naval yards in either Brest, Brittany, the main Atlantic base of Marine Nationale; Cherbourg on the English Channel; Saint-Nazaire on the Loire estuary; or Lorient on the north coast of the Bay of Biscay.
Remsons was unique in the French military’s pantheon of operations. As the years passed, and every order for US frigates and destroyers seemed to go automatically to Bath Iron Works, the position of France in the lives of Dartford’s citizens grew in importance. The fact was, without the Marine Nationale, Dartford would almost certainly perish.
And there were rumors, always rumors. But during the past six months, with the French elections looming, there were worse rumors than usual: that a new Gaullist potential president was on the rise and had made it clear that there would be no foreign orders for the French military. None, that is. Rien. That included guns, missiles, tanks, aircraft, and ships. In the future, everything would be made in France. France for the French. Viva la France! And the proud little shipyard on the coast of Maine was facing the Valley of Death. More than 87 per cent of Dartford residents owed their living to Remsons.
It was to this rather gloomy prospect that Mack Bedford was now headed. Because of the overriding problem of Tommy’s illness, Anne had spared her husband from the worst of the rumors. He now sat quietly on the bus as it rolled down Route 127, all along the east bank of the Kennebec River, upon which an unusual gusting summer squall was blowing off the gulf, against the ebb and causing a very rough surface.
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