“We do a lot of work in the dark,” Jaybird said. “Does the mounted flashlight have a handy switch for on and off?”
“To simplify matters, it’s on the back of the flashlight. It could be rigged with a solenoid down by the trigger housing. Any questions?”
There were none, so she went on. She picked a yellow tennis ball from a box. “Any of you play tennis? If you use one of these, it’s a love game every time.”
She stepped forward, and threw the tennis ball as far as she could away from the men. It arced out forty feet, and when it hit, went off with a sharp cracking explosion.
There were some murmurs from the men.
“That’s a camouflaged impact grenade. As long as it hits something fairly solid, it will explode. It’s about the same power as your usual M-67 fragmentation grenade. Now, tennis, anyone?”
“Probably not, Livy,” Murdock said. “We don’t do that much undercover work.”
“Fair enough. Here’s an item you should be aware of. We don’t know all about them yet, but they are on the market, and we expect that they have been sold in some quantity to terrorists.”
She held up a weapon with an inch-thick solid barrel and a folding stock.
“This is the Russian-built VAL Silent Sniper. As you can see, it’s sound-suppressed, and has a twenty-round magazine for the nine-millimeter rounds. It fires the heavy bullet at subsonic velocity due to the silencer. The nine-by-thirty-nine round is said to penetrate all levels of body armor out to four hundred meters.
“Now, the folding stock makes it easy to transport and conceal.
That’s why we are certain that this weapon will be showing up more and more around the world in the hands of criminals and terrorists.
“We haven’t completed our testing of it, and only recently obtained two of them, so we should know more in the future.”
“How much does it weigh with that heavy barrel?” Colt Franklin asked.
“Good question. Actually, it weighs two and a half kilos, almost exactly the same as your Colt M-4A1 carbine, and your H&K MP-5 when they are without the suppressor.”
She watched the SEALs for a moment. “Any questions about this weapon? You may never see one; then again, the next batch of terrs you hit may have a potful of them.”
She looked at Murdock, then went on. “I understand that you use the Heckler and Koch G-11 as a standard weapon. Good. I like it. It works well in the field. And from a security standpoint, it leaves no brass to be identified later by some irate nation.
“We understand that Germany is now in the process of bringing out an advanced version of this weapon, which was created in 1990, but we don’t have any of the new models yet. We’ll keep you informed if and when we get one and what the availability is.”
“What about some real spy stuff?” Al Adams asked.
Livy smiled. “You mean like an umbrella with a poison dart in the end, a BMW with a rocket engine and machine guns under the headlights, and a pen that explodes when it’s turned the wrong way?”
“Yeah, like them.”
“Sorry, most of those extreme measure items went out with the Cold War. There really are few enemies now that our field agents are asked to kill. From what I hear, this platoon’s body count is probably higher than that for all the Company personnel in a year.”
She looked around. “Commander Murdock. That about takes care of my indoctrination for you. Don Stroh says he’ll have some items to talk to you about from time to time. Just to keep you informed.”
“Thank you, Miss. Poindexter. Tell Don we’ll be waiting for his call. Now, it’s time the foot soldiers out here got back to basics.
Today is the land phase of our training. I understand you have brought us some more rations.”
“Yes, they were unloaded into your bus when we arrived.” She looked around. “Thanks, guys. Have fun in the sun, and don’t get those nice clean uniforms all dusty.”
The seaman quickly had the displays boxed up and put back in the Humvee. He started the engine, and the Humvee moved back down the lane toward the gate, and then back toward San Diego.
Murdock stretched and looked up at the sun. “Okay, SEALs. You have five minutes for a piss call. Then it’s back to work.”
They hiked away from the bus with full vests and weapons, combat ready, in their sweat-stained cammies.
A half-mile out, they halted, and Murdock gave them hand signals.
He wanted Ed’s squad to take the lead in a diamond formation. His squad would follow in another diamond. The signals told them to stay ten yards apart.
“Anytime you see a red flare, that will be the signal that we’re taking fire from that flank. You will form into a line of skirmishers to that side, take cover wherever you can find it, and return fire on my first burst of three rounds. Move out.”
7
The Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven had been moving across the barren landscape of Southern California for two hours. It had been almost a month since the four men in his platoon had been wounded in Iraq.
The two men with shrapnel gouges had healed completely — Ron Holt, with the bullet through his arm, was back to ninety percent and had been taking training with them after only a few days’ rest. Kenneth Ching, with the slug through his thigh, had been the slowest to heal.
After a month, though, he was back to full training. This was his second hike in the desert. He was holding up well, Murdock decided.
Every day when Murdock came over the quarterdeck and waved at Master Chief Mackenzie, he expected to find orders from Don Stroh. There were even news accounts now of the North Korean saber rattling along the border. Commentators said it was intended to distract the population from being so short of food and other necessities. The idea was to hate the Americans instead. Murdock was pleased the way his men had recovered and moved back into the training-and-conditioning mode.
Conditioning was the most important aspect now. Mahanani had blended in well with the rest of the platoon. He was easygoing, never got angry, could lift his weight in elephants, and was the first to be there when another man needed help.
At the moment they were about halfway through a twenty-mile hike.
It wasn’t colorful or dramatic or even interesting. It was step after step, sweat it out, swear it up, but by damn get there.
Ken Ching slogged along just in front of Harry
“Horse” Ronson. Now and then Ching lagged a little behind Ron Holt, who was ten yards ahead of him.
“Come on, Chinko, let’s keep up with the rest of them,” Ronson called from his spot just behind Ching.
Ching looked back, and gave Ronson the middle-finger salute.
Ronson bristled. He hated that sign, had been in more than one bloody brawl because of it. He tried to put a cap on his anger, but couldn’t.
“What’s the matter, Chinko, can’t take a little ribbing?”
“I can take any shit you can shit out, bastard horse-face,” Ching said, his anger coming through instead of good-natured jawing.
Ronson charged him. Murdock, working as Tail End Charlie in the formation, saw the move, and sprinted up to the pair just as they came together. Ronson landed a pounding right fist against Ching’s jaw, and the shorter man sagged backward, but at the same time launched a roundhouse kick that caught Ronson in the belly and drove him down to his knees.