Direct Action (4 page)

The platoon got a laugh out of that and shrugged off the praise. Murdock knew that in their secret heart of hearts, most SEALs felt that officers were a fairly useless bunch of dicks whom the Navy forced them to carry along on missions. So he humored them about it, which you could do while still remaining the boss, especially since in his experience the officer was the first guy everyone looked to when the shit hit the fan. Murdock also knew the boys were secretly pleased when the lieutenant gave them an attaboy, which was why he did it.

By then Higgins had finished in the head, so Murdock rinsed off first his equipment with fresh water, then himself. A dry flight suit and boots were waiting for him when he got out. Then he sat down with the platoon and turned to his weapons and equipment, all the time worrying about Ellsworth and Frazier.

Fifteen minutes later Razor stuck his head into the compartment. “They’re back,” he announced, ushering in a soaking-wet Ellsworth and Frazier.

Murdock let out a sigh of relief at getting all his boys back unhurt. The difference between the SEALs and nearly every other military unit was that SEALs expected
not
to lose people. This was the very reason their selection and training were so brutal. Only thirty-three SEALs had been killed by enemy action during the entire Vietnam War. During the Gulf War no
SEALs were lost despite missions that included taking down oil platforms and inserting agents directly into occupied Kuwait City. SEALs felt that if one of their own was killed, it was because someone had screwed up. That always weighed heavily on Blake Murdock’s mind.

The rest of the platoon gave Ellsworth and Frazier a warm and friendly welcome along the lines of: “About fucking time.” “Now we can get out of here.” “Any day, there, you two.”

“Fuck you all,” Doc Ellsworth replied.

When the din died down, Razor Roselli stepped to the fore. The crowd hushed, waiting for his thoughts. “What took you so long, Doc?” Razor asked with deep but utterly insincere concern. “You get a cramp?”

The platoon cackled. The Doc popped the shoulder straps of his dry bag and dumped it onto the deck. It was bulged out to the size of a filled Navy seabag. “This pig was weighing me down,” he said. “You’ll shit yourselves when you see what’s in it.” He opened up the dry bag, took out a nylon duffel, and unzipped it. The duffel was filled to the brim with U.S. currency, all apparently one-hundred-dollar bills.

The platoon whooped in exultation. The general consensus was that there sat the makings of a platoon party that would go down in Naval Special Warfare history, with enough left over for a new car for everyone.

Before Murdock or DeWitt could find their tongues, Chiefs Roselli and Kosciuszko took charge, the human equivalents of a bucket of ice water to the nuts.

“Razor and me,” Kos Kosciuszko announced, while Roselli zipped up the bag, “and Mister Murdock and Mister DeWitt are going to count all this. Then we will fucking seal it.”

“You sure you don’t want to reconsider that, Chief?” said a voice from the back of the mob.

“Yeah, Chief,” said someone else. “Think it over. This could be one of those once-in-a-lifetime shots you come to regret when it’s time to retire.”

Unlike most SEALs, who only took their work seriously, Kos Kosciuszko took life too seriously to accept a ribbing in the proper spirit. And, of course, the platoon knew it. “My reputation isn’t worth ten times that money,” he informed them with a murderous look on his face.

“Don’t make me blow the head off anyone who just wants to sneak in and have another little look in the bag,” Razor Roselli added with his usual evil smile. He knew most of them were joking about copping the money, but it was a lot of temptation to be sitting there at close quarters. All it would take was for one guy to get a stupid attack and do something he’d regret.

Thank God for the chiefs, Murdock thought. Then he chuckled. Otherwise he might have been tempted himself.

As it turned out, there was three million dollars in the duffel, all hundreds, all crisp and brand-new.

“You keep doing that, sir, and you’re going to give yourself a hard-on,” Razor Roselli cautioned Ed DeWitt, who was unconsciously fondling a large stack of bills.

DeWitt whipped his hand away as though it was on fire, and everyone laughed. Then he recovered nicely. “Just practicing in case the lieutenant makes me sleep with it.”

There was more laughter. Murdock good-naturedly declined the CIA man’s joking offer to take the money off his hands.

The fishing boat headed south, and the
Kamehameha
, unneeded, drifted away. After a leisurely journey of several days and a confinement below deck that drove the platoon of active SEALs crazy, the boat emerged into the Gulf of Aden and then the Indian Ocean. One night two U.S. Navy SH-60F Seahawk helicopters plucked 3rd Platoon and all their gear from the fishing boat and carried them to the aircraft carrier
U.S.S. Nimitz
. A C-2A Carrier Onboard Delivery aircraft flew them to the British/American naval base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. At Diego the platoon boarded a C-141 jet transport for a very, very long flight back to the U.S.

0645 hours

Naval Amphibious Base

Coronado, California

Blake Murdock hated garrison life with a burning passion. Even the sound of the BUD/S tadpoles singing as they ran by his window was no compensation. The field was where you dove, fired weapons, and blew things up. Garrison was where there were always mounds of paperwork waiting whenever you returned from the field. And there was way, way too much command supervision here at Coronado.

Team Seven had originally been stationed at Little Creek Amphibious Base near Norfolk, Virginia, the home of the East Coast SEALs. But then someone up in the chain of command became offended by the aesthetics of having an odd-numbered team in the midst of all the East Coast “evens”: Teams 2, 4, 6, 8, and SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 2. Murdock also suspected that all the action Team Seven had been seeing was beginning to grate on the “Jedi Knights,” the high-speed-low-drag hostage-rescue specialists of Team Six up at Dam Neck, Virginia. A turf war was inevitable.

And with Team Six firmly established as Delta Force’s
counterpart in the elite Joint Special Operations Command, it was more than clear who was going to win. So after the typical bureaucratic power games at command level, Team Seven was shipped off to Coronado and Naval Special Warfare Group One, the West Coast home of the “odd” SEAL Teams: 1, 3, 5 and SDV-1, not to mention the Special Warfare Center and the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course.

Since Team Seven still didn’t publicly exist in the SEAL order of battle, and carried only four platoons instead of the official (but almost never fully manned) ten, it had been redesignated a “black” team. The mission was now primary support for the intelligence community, with special classified intelligence missions known only by their code words, dirty little jobs that didn’t officially happen, the kind of ops that the platoon referred to as “weren’t there, didn’t do that.” Like Port Sudan.

The headquarters was located in the fenced-off Special Warfare area of the base, but the building wasn’t marked—even though all SEALs knew what it was. The important thing was that no one other than SEALs knew.

For Murdock Coronado had two main disadvantages. The first was operational: they were now five hours further away by air from Europe, and therefore less likely to be employed. Exactly what Team Six must have had in mind. But then again, they’d gotten the Sudan op, so maybe there were some advantages to playing with the CIA. That is, as long as you remembered to sit with your back to the wall when you were around those boys.

The second disadvantage was more personal. There were far, far more opportunities for his wild young SEALs to get into trouble. San Diego was just across the bay. L.A. was a short drive north. And the Mexican border and the sinful pleasures of Tijuana were just a stone’s throw to the south.

Murdock dearly loved his job, but it was getting to the point where he was afraid to step over the quarterdeck each morning
and hear what new atrocities 3rd Platoon had committed the night before. Granted, the boys were expected to blow off some steam after an op, but they’d been back two weeks and weren’t showing any signs of slowing down. The weekends were even worse: more time to get into mischief.

But of course Murdock did step over the quarterdeck in the morning, and of course SEAL Team Seven’s Command Master Chief was hovering nearby, checking on the uniform, haircut, and shave of everyone, officer and enlisted, as they showed up for work. And officer or enlisted, if you weren’t squared away, you were going to hear about it in a hurry.

A smart officer always took the pulse of the Command Master Chief for early warning of impending disasters, and Murdock was a smart officer. It also helped if the Command Master Chief was George MacKenzie, who had previously been the platoon chief of 3rd Platoon and had kept Murdock out of more trouble than he could say.

“Morning, Master Chief,” said Murdock. “Got time for a cup of coffee?”

“Good morning, sir,” the chief replied. The formality was for public consumption; now Mac took care of all the platoons in the team, not just one. “I’d love to, but
you
don’t have time this morning.”

And it had been a pleasant morning, up until now. “Okay, Mac, give it to me straight.”

“Well, sir, Jaybird and Doc sort of ran amuck last night.”

“Does the Captain know?” were the first words Murdock got out, even before inquiring as to the nature of the crime. Jaybird and Doc running amuck wasn’t exactly what you’d call a news flash.

The Captain, as every naval commanding officer is called, regardless of rank, was Commander Dean Masciarelli, known in the teams as the Masher, the newly arrived C.O. of Team Seven. Another result of the move to Coronado was that the team was now led by a standard-issue commander instead of a
captain. Murdock didn’t want be the first one to test the new skipper with any major liberty incidents. From all indications, the man didn’t have much of a sense of humor.

In the old days all that SEAL officers aspired to was command of a team and retirement as a commander. If by some stroke of luck you made captain, that was just pure gravy. Now the SEAL community regularly produced a couple of admirals, and the no-mistakes-on-my-watch mentality and political gamesmanship had gotten almost as bad as the rest of the Navy.

“No, sir, he doesn’t,” Chief MacKenzie said calmly. “And with any luck he won’t. Razor’s kept the lid on.”

Murdock resumed breathing regularly. If the Command Master Chief was going to acquiesce in keeping the lid on the incident, it had to be something less serious than murder, armed robbery, or consensual sodomy. “You going to tell me what happened, Master Chief, or are you going to leave me hanging a while longer?”

MacKenzie’s eyes gleamed mischievously. “Oh, no, sir, I wouldn’t deprive Razor of the pleasure of telling you himself. He’s waiting in your office.”

“You want to come along?”

“I’d love to, sir, but Mister DeWitt hasn’t arrived for work yet. On Friday his belt buckle looked like he’d polished it with snot, so we’re going to have a little talk this morning about how many quarterdeck watches he owes me.”

“Enjoy, Master Chief.” Old Mac had taken to Command Master Chief like, well, like a SEAL to water.

As advertised, Doc Ellsworth and Jaybird Sterling were waiting outside his office. To Murdock’s utter shock, they both came smartly to attention and chorused, “Good morning, sir!”

“Morning,” Murdock grumbled on his way through the door. Fuck, he thought; it had to be serious if those two bastards were resorting to textbook military courtesy.

Also as advertised, Razor Roselli was waiting in the office with the kind of expression on his face that, as the platoon liked
to say, came from having to eat shit donuts first thing in the morning. Murdock collapsed into his chair and said, “Okay, Chief, let’s have it.”

The Razor nodded and stuck his head out the door. “In!” he commanded.

Ellsworth and Sterling marched into the office and centered themselves in front of Murdock’s desk, remaining at attention.

“They’ve both been informed of their rights under Article 32,” said the Razor.

“That right?” Murdock asked them.

“Yes, sir,” they both said.

Roselli began. “Sir, these … these two little diddy-boppers got in the firewater last night and danced their way into a real hairball.”

Murdock got a real kick out of his chief’s tone of righteous outrage. In his years with the teams Razor Roselli had destroyed more bars, worldwide, than insurance arson. But that was how SEAL chief petty officers were made. When Razor was a troop and fucked up, the platoon chief had hammered him. Now that he was a platoon chief, it was his turn to be Dad. On another level, though, it made Murdock uneasy. If the Razor was going to make the two of them stand at attention while he told the tale, it had to be a real beaut.

The Razor continued. “You’re aware of the carnival that’s been on base the past week, sir?”

It wasn’t fitting together, but Murdock had hopes. “The one for the kids, right? Rides and games and all that?” What did they do, he wondered, fuck someone’s daughter on top of the Ferris wheel?

“Yes, sir,” Razor said crisply. “They also had some animals. It seems that a camel went missing last night.”

“A camel?” Murdock asked in disbelief, shooting up straight in his chair and staring at Doc and Jaybird. They were giving him the innocent puppy-dog look. “You mean a full-size, Mark-1 camel? Hump and all?”

“That’s right, sir,” the Razor went on, straight-faced. “This camel disappeared from the carnival, and then turned up again in the process of being inserted into the garage of the Special Warfare Group commanding officer.”

“Not Commodore Harkins,” Murdock pleaded with Doc and Jaybird. “Not his fucking personal quarters.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” the Razor assured him, while beads of sweat began to break out on Jaybird and Doc’s upper lips. “These two were interrupted in the act by Chief Master at Arms Marlowe, who was on patrol at the time.”