Then Ruiz depressed the single red button set in the black plastic.
The boat went up in a ball of heat and red fire. The explosion stopped everyone in midplay. Tourists stood agog at the event, but the locals, those who knew that this was a place for SEALs and other Navy personnel to blow off steam, took it in stride.
The only ones who seemed to be concerned were the police, who began conferring with the lifeguard. It looked as if he was about to point them out, when a scream went up from the other side of the lifeguard station. The lifeguard leaped from his platform, grabbed his orange buoy, and ran toward the water, where a woman was holding a little boy’s limp body. As it turned out, it was a false alarm. Her son was just playing dead and ended up with a good scolding by the lifeguard. In the meantime, the three SEALs took advantage of the distraction and returned to the truck. Laws unhitched the trailer and left it in the parking lot.
28
When they returned, Walker had planned on calling Jen, but a Navy seaman was waiting for him near the front door. He held a stack of papers. When he saw Walker, he impatiently beckoned him over. Ruiz and Laws continued inside, while Walker sidetracked into an office. Bureaucracy had caught up with him. After being chastised for going on mission before he filled out his paperwork, he was provided with a stack of forms to complete. He spent the next two hours filling out everything from emergency notification forms to hazardous duty pay allotments. He transferred his jump log and dive log, updated his EPSQ clearance forms, and filled out enough paperwork to eventually satisfy the gods of administrivia. Even the clerk seemed satisfied, but there was one form left. It was a simple piece of paper that asked a single question, and it had a space for the answer and a line on which to sign. What song did he want them to play at his viewing? He took the paper in hand and sat back roughly in the chair.
He stared at the words, remembering Fratty’s viewing the day before. He supposed that he’d have his own one day. They were told not to worry about it, not to anticipate it. Theirs was the most dangerous job on the planet and the odds were against them surviving for very long. It was only because of the training and instructors like Reno that they were able to stay alive for as long as they did. And now they were asking for the song he wanted them to play in the event of his death.
“Can I have some time to think about this?” he asked.
The clerk shook his head. “I need to have it now. If you can’t decide, I’ll put down my favorite song.”
“What’s that?” Walker asked, hoping for some inspiration.
“Madonna’s ‘Material Girl,’” the seaman said with a straight face.
Walker definitely didn’t want that to be played at his viewing. It had never occurred to Walker when he was listening to Aldo Nova yesterday that he’d have to come up with one of his own. He found himself staring at the sheet. Minutes ticked by as he went through his mental catalogue of songs.
“Can we get this done?” the clerk said. “I have a date tonight.”
Walker looked at him. Yeah, he needed to hurry. He wouldn’t want the choice for his death song to get in the way of the young seaman’s sex life. He grabbed a pen, jotted down the title and the band, then signed the form. “Here you go. Are we done now?”
The clerk read the choice aloud: “‘Wheel in the Sky,’ by Journey.” He shook his head. “What is it with 1980s hair bands?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. He stacked the papers together and placed them in a classified carrier. Then he stuck out his hand. “Good luck, SEAL.”
Walker accepted the handshake. “Uh, sure. Thanks.”
The clerk walked out.
Walker got up and went into the main room of the Pit. Billings was there, as was someone new. As he came into the room, they all turned.
“Walker, this is your new team member. Chief Petty Officer Ali Jabouri, meet Petty Officer First Class Jack Walker.”
They shook hands. The new guy was of Arab descent. Although he wore a grim face, he had smiling eyes. He was shorter than the rest of them but didn’t act like it bothered him.
“Call me Yaya,” he said, with an accent that sounded more like Philly than Saudi Arabia.
“We’ve had Chief Jabouri’s file for some time now. While myself and the members of the Sissy share our most sincere condolences for Chief Fratolilio, I’m hoping that you’ll welcome Chief Jabouri.”
Walker caught her looking at him appraisingly as she said it. He also saw the other team members offering their own tight smiles to her statement. Her subtext was clear. They were gears in a supernatural defense machine. One gear broke and here’s another. Plug it in and get instant continuity of operations.
“Now that we’ve had introductions, I’ve got to be on my way.” She pointed at Holmes. “Can I see you for a moment?”
Holmes nodded but spoke to the team first. “No one goes into Fratty’s room until I get a chance to clear it.”
Everyone stared back at him. The thought had never crossed their minds. Until Fratty’s belongings were cleared, the room was essentially the man’s shrine. Not a single one dared to enter, much less remove anything.
Holmes turned to follow Billings into the conference room and closed the door behind him.
Everyone stared at each other for a few moments.
Yaya looked at Walker. “Is it always like this?”
Walker shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’ve only been here for two days.”
“Three,” Laws corrected, holding up three fingers. “Or it could be four,” he said, examining his own fingers with critical eyes. “Going back and forth across the dateline confuses me.”
“And you’ve already had one mission,” Yaya noted.
“Two,” Laws corrected again, holding up two fingers this time.
“Yeah. Two missions. I just now signed all my admin forms.”
Yaya raised his eyebrows. “I filled mine out…” He let it fade, then said in a much lower voice, “Last night.” He shook his head. “Listen guys. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to say.”
Ruiz went to the bar and grabbed beers. When he returned he passed them around. He opened his and held it up. “To the FNG.”
They all opened their beers and drank slowly and deeply.
Laws held up his left hand and spread his fingers Spock style. “Live long and prosper.”
Ruiz snorted in his beer and Walker couldn’t help but laugh. They’d turned a somber moment on its head and were soon lounging around the leather couches in the middle of the Pit, exchanging résumés. Common in every military unit since Hannibal’s poop scoopers had crossed the Alps behind the elephants, military members had shorthand for telling where they’d come from, where’d they’d been, the sorts of missions they’d done, and what their skills were.
Yaya had been born and raised in Philadelphia. He was a red, white, and blue American who’d joined the Navy right after 9/11. A modestly devout Muslim, the behavior of the few who’d flown jets into the buildings and a Pennsylvania pasture had so incensed and insulted him that he wanted to demonstrate that theirs was the exception rather than the rule. As it turned out, a belief in the spiritual is at the root of Islam and it was known that certain caliphs and mullahs were deeply involved with the supernatural. In fact, Yaya had let this be known during his screening interview, which he believed was one of the reasons that he was selected for Triple Six.
He’d been a member of SEAL Team 4 since Class 258. As an East Coast SEAL out of Little Creek, Virginia, he didn’t know many SEALs from the West Coast. But he’d heard of Holmes. Although Team 4’s mission was focused on Central and South America, Yaya had spent the last four years on repeated deployments to the Middle East. His most recent mission was as part of a task force to take down an old oil platform off the coast of Yemen that had become home to a force of AQAP (Al Qaida on the Arab Peninsula) pirates threatening ships entering the Gulf of Aden.