“I’ll do you one better, mate. I’ll show you.”
“Great. Let’s draw it up.”
“No, I mean I’ll show the men meself. On the Goliath.” Cahill hoped Jake would agree for the self-serving reason of ridding himself of the extra commanding officer aboard the Specter.
“You think you can handle it?”
“Yeah. I’ll get it done. Nobody wants me ship back more than I do.”
The elder legionnaire protested. “I want it back. We lost six of our men. I must bring these…”
He looked at Jake and queried him in French. The American plugged the gap in the man’s English. “Assholes.”
“These assholes to justice. They killed my friends.”
“Right, mate. We all want it back.”
“I’m okay with you going, Terry. Nobody knows the ship like you, and your presence could come in handy. But I don’t know enough about frogman ops to give an intelligent opinion.”
The legionnaire frowned. “You don’t know enough about what frogs?”
“Frogmen. That’s what Americans call experts in combat swimming operations.”
“No, you don’t. But I do, and I don’t like it.”
“Bringing Terry’s a compromise. You’d give up a man’s swimming expertise in exchange for knowledge of the target.”
“Maybe.” The legionnaire walked around the table and studied the Australian’s physique. Cahill felt naked.
Then the commando hoisted his buttocks onto the table, arched his back, and reached for Jake. “Hold me.”
Though surprised, Jake obliged. Then he broke into a smile as he realized the commando was setting up a physical demonstration and test. As the American provided leverage, the French fighter extended his legs. “Push my legs down with just your arms.”
Cahill pressed his palms into the elevated thighs, which felt like laser-cut steel. When his shoulders and triceps proved powerless, he gave up. “I can’t budge them.”
“Make it easier. Now push my feet.”
Cahill tried with better leverage, and again he yielded. “I can’t.”
The legionnaire slid off the table and to his feet. “Now you and your legs.”
Jake sounded giddy. “I hope that bare hairy ass of yours is strong.”
The Australian wiggled his buttocks onto the table and then leaned back into the American. As he extended his legs, they became lead weights, and his stomach began to tremble.
His routine of jogging and light resistance training three times a week gave him a respectable build, but it failed to optimize him for swimming.
The legionnaire’s tone was condescending. “You no swimmer. I could blow on your legs and make them fall.”
Defeated, Cahill started to relax and quit.
“No! Not a swimmer, but don’t quit. You hold strong for one minute, I let you swim. You have no training, but show me toughness.”
“Give him credit for ten seconds already?”
“Okay, Jake. He goes for fifty more seconds.”
The world turned red, and sounds became distant, but Cahill’s burning, trembling muscles held.
Jake’s encouragement gave him strength. “Thirty seconds. Come on, Terry.”
A yelp of wincing pain escaped the Australian’s throat, but he kept his resolve.
“Twenty seconds to go, man. Are his feet still high enough?”
“Barely. I grade very nicely since he tries very hard.”
Just when Cahill thought everyone supported him, Henri poked fun. “What if he dies? I think you’re giving him an aneurism.”
But the mechanic’s chiding gave the Australian commander the needed spark. “Henri?”
“You can still talk? I’m impressed.”
“Kiss… me…”
Jake started the countdown. “Ten seconds!”
“Bare… hairy…”
“Five, four, three, two, one!”
“Arse!”
Cahill rolled sideways and lowered his feet to the deck. He pressed his torso into the chart and let it bear his weight. Blood coursed through his sore abdomen, and he feared his first steps. So he delayed them and became a statue against the table. “I’m going swimming, then?”
The legionnaire nodded. “I must teach you much in a short time. But you can come. Meet in crews dining area in five minutes.”
Jake’s support sounded sincere. “Good job, Terry. That was impressive. Let’s get everyone geared up. Swimmers topside in twenty minutes, boarding the helo in thirty.”
Jake and the legionnaire departed while Henri cocked his head and stared at Cahill. “It seems impossible as I say it, but that might be more painful than it appears.”
“I didn’t peg you as the sadistic type, mate.”
“Nor did I picture you as the masochist.”
“Good, then. Off you go. Back to your station.”
“Of course, of course. But first, how about a small wager?”
“What the bloody hell’s wrong with you? Did you pull the wings off flies as a child? Did you slap kittens for fun?”
“It’s completely harmless, and you can only win.”
“Just get it over with.”
The Frenchman extended his palm. “If you can stand straight, face me, and kick my hand, I’ll give you one hundred Euro.”
Cahill scoffed and stood. Then fire consumed his belly, and after he realized he’d be lucky to place one foot in front of the other, he leaned back into the table. “Go to hell, you mongrel.”
A wide smile cut across the Frenchman’s face. “You’ve been a wonderful sport.”
“Thanks, I think.”
Twenty minutes later, Cahill stood behind the Specter’s surfaced conning tower. His wetsuit pinched him in private places, and the diving equipment strained his steps. As the deck rolled, the smoldering flames of his tired abdomen burned, and he wondered if his muscles retained any usefulness.
Standing in a vertical wall of rotor wind, he awaited queueing from the elder legionnaire, who watched a fellow commando rise in a harness towards the hovering helicopter.
While waiting, the Australian’s adrenaline flow slowed, and a mix of soreness and fatigue crept over him. Realizing he’d skipped a night of sleep, he considered himself unready for his pending challenge.
Judging himself a dunce for having forced his way onto the dive team, he wanted to quit and turn back.
The dangling harness returned to the legionnaire’s reach, and the legionnaire commando held it while yelling over the whipped air. “You go now, Terry.”
With his pride, the Goliath, and the fleet’s future at stake, he choked back his doubts.
He waddled forward in his swim fins, wiggled into the constricting web of belts, and then gave the legionnaire a thumbs-up.
The Specter became an oblong abyss of blackness below, and groping gloves pulled him into the aircraft’s cabin. Red lighting bathed the helicopter’s interior.
When the legionnaire reached the door, he wiggled from his harness and joined an Omani crew chief in snapping and checking cables between the winch and the men.
The deck angled, and the aircraft climbed.
Cahill’s nerves tingled as he slipped his face into his mask and tested his air. Appearing like an alien astronaut, the legionnaire stood before him and studied him through his face shield.
A transducer over the commando’s mouth spat forth electrified words. “You look good, Terry.”
Cahill’s amplified voice sounded foreign as he responded through his transducer. “It doesn’t feel good.”
“You’re not used to it. You are fine in the water.”