Sealed with a promise (2 page)

  Yelling erupted from the sector Barry controlled, and was followed by silence as Barry moved in. Do-Lord didn’t see what had caused the yelling. He had zoned out for an instant. A hollow feeling opened at the base of Do-Lord’s spine. Trying to suppress anger and frustration about seeing the only man he’d ever wanted to kill, he was doing his job mechanically, confident the others had it under control. Not acceptable. Another wave of guilt slid greasily into his stomach.

  The tall brass doors of the hotel opened and black-suited men appeared-that would be the security contractors ready to stop a bullet with their own bodies. Did they know the manner of man they were willing to give their lives for? Stupid question. Most of them, like most SEALs, took satisfaction from their patriotism and their sense of honor fulfilled, and left political ramifications to others.

  Behind them another head appeared. He spotted Calhoun’s Colonel Sanders white, wavy hair. From the ground he would be completely covered by his escort, but from Do-Lord’s vantage three stories above the street, he was completely open.

  Do- Lord brought the scope to his eye. The thing about the high-powered scope was that it brought objects into intimate closeness while it eliminated the rest of the world from consciousness. Waiting for a shot through a high-powered scope was strangely akin to meditation. There was the same detached peacefulness, the same merging of consciousness.

  Calhoun was two hundred yards away, but his face was all Do-Lord could see. It was closer than a handshake’s distance. So easy. A nice clear shot, and the man’s polished, smooth face, the kind of face it takes generations of money, power, and prestige to produce, would be replaced by a pink haze. You never see the bullet hit. Only the target centered in the scope, and then the pink haze. Sight, inhale…

  “Do- Lord, we have a bad guy in Alpha-2-east side of the newsstand-he’s getting to his feet.”

  Damn! He’d lost focus again. Jax’s ability to spot one terrorist in a mass of innocent people, was so acute it looked like ESP, but Do-Lord should have been scanning the crowd too, from his even higher vantage point.

  “I’ve got him.” Warren checked his distance finder. “Tan pakol hat, right? I make it 225 yards. Light wind. Easy shot.”

  Do- Lord found the target. A beggar, drowsing in the scant shade cast by the ramshackle stand, stirred as if awakened and rose slowly. His pakol hat, worn only by those who fought the Taliban in the early days of the war, was an ironic touch. And beggars were a common sight in this city. Even as Do-Lord spared a thought to wonder how on earth Jax
knew,
the man raised a Russian-made semiautomatic rifle to his shoulder.

  “Take him down, Do-Lord,” Jax ordered quietly.

  The rifle the bad guy hoisted wasn’t terribly accurate, and it was prone to jamming, Do-Lord assessed with absentminded professionalism. The man held the shoulder on which he rested the stock too high. Not a professional then. Maybe not trained. Vic and Littletree were converging on him, but the assassin could probably get a few rounds off before they tackled him.

  It was Do-Lord’s answer. The terrorist was a weapon already aimed at the man Do-Lord wanted dead. One slight hesitation. The terrorist could be the instrument of Do-Lord’s revenge.

  Jax wouldn’t order anyone else to fire into a crowd this dense, but the terrorist mentality had no such scruples. He wouldn’t care how many of his own people would be cut down by the spray of bullets. He didn’t care that his was a suicide mission. He probably didn’t care whether he killed the senator or not. His object was to cause fear, disrupt normal life, and force the U.S. to tie up resources.

  “Do- Lord, take him down,” Jax repeated. His voice sounded almost bored, but flexible and deadly as a rapier, it cut anyway.

  Do- Lord could see runnels of sweat making lighter streaks through the dirt on the man’s cheeks. From the moment he had the tango in his scope Do-Lord had been unconsciously tracking his own slow heartbeats. He inhaled, found the space between one heartbeat and the next, and squeezed the trigger.

  “What the hell took you so long?” Jax asked. Shoulder-to-shoulder they were jammed into the Humvee to be transported back to the base on the outskirts of the city near the airport.

  “Couldn’t get a clear shot.”

  SEALs lie. They succeed in their dangerous and deadly work by not appearing where they are expected and by not being what they appear to be. A cynical SEAL saying was: “Never tell the truth, when a lie will do as well.”

  Lying didn’t bother Do-Lord. He hadn’t told the truth much since he was ten years old. But until now, he’d never lied to Jax. Do-Lord passed a hand over his face, pressing his thumbs against his eyes, fighting the urge to weep.

  “God, I’m tired,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Jax, slumping beside him. “And we’ve lost almost twelve of the twenty-four hours we had to get squared away before we leave.”

  “Grab some rack time when we hit the base. I’ll write your after-action report for you.”

  Jax grumbled and shook his head.

  “Shut up.” Do-Lord cuffed him lightly on the arm. “You know I write better than you do. I can do it in half the time. It’ll be waiting for your signature before chow.”

  Jax didn’t answer, but packed together as they were, Do-Lord felt him relax and his breathing become more regular. To let Jax nap for a few minutes, Do-Lord angled his shoulder to brace his friend against the jolts of a road that was more pothole than pavement.

  In his bones he still felt the deep tremors where past and present, like tectonic plates, ground together. When he’d made his vow, he’d been thinking like a kid, boiling with a violent compound of grief and teenage testosterone, pressurized by his sheer powerlessness.

  But he wasn’t a kid anymore.

  He had a promise to keep. It was time he stopped reacting and started thinking like a SEAL.

  
Little Creek, Virginia

  Funerals, yes. He’d pulled honor guard duty at too many of them. But in all his thirty-two years, Caleb “Do-Lord” Dulaude had never attended a wedding. In a surprise development, barely four months since the platoon’s return from the ‘Stan, Jax was getting married, and Do-Lord had to be the best man at one.

  Mellow November sunshine trickled into his cubicle from the window in the hallway, and his stomach growled. He pushed back the cuff of his gray and tan desert camo BDU’s to check his watch then rifled the pages of the etiquette book open on his desk to see if he had a chance of finishing it in time to get some lunch.

  His battered
2002 Bluejacket’s Guide,
a chief petty officer’s bible, specified in detail how to render military honors at a funeral, but it hadn’t helped much with a wedding. It said very little about his duties during the ceremony, only that he would be in charge of the arch of swords, which would take place outside the church. He figured there was a lot more to a wedding than that, especially among the upper-crust of North Carolina.

  This book on etiquette was the third he’d read. In his palm pilot he had a twenty-six item list of his duties as best man. He wouldn’t necessarily need to know all, but it was always the little things that got you killed. Since he had no idea which details would prove to be crucial, he ignored the rumbling of his stomach.

  Harder to ignore were his boredom with what he read and the tiny niggle of fear that the two staves on which he had depended, feeding his mind’s thirst for information and the engrossment of SEAL life, were failing him.

  
The tall white cake typically served at wedding receptions today was once the bride’s cake, whereas the wedding cake was a fruitcake, filled with nuts…

  “I looked for you in the NCO mess.” Burly Master Chief Lon Swales, also dressed in camo, interrupted him. From the first, although he didn’t take well to regulations, Do-Lord had loved the Navy’s prescribed dress code for every occasion. He always knew exactly what to wear in order not to draw attention to himself. “What are you missing lunch to read?”

  Do- Lord slid the yellow highlighter through his fingers while he considered lying. His fellow SEALs accepted his reading mania. He had a paperback stashed in a pocket anytime he wasn’t in combat gear-and a lot of times when he was. In desperation, after he’d exhausted all other printed matter, he’d even read paperback romances while in Afghanistan. Since pictures of scantily clad women were offensive to Muslims, the covers of many had been torn off, adding a new layer of meaning to the term “bodice ripper.”

  Everyone would really razz him, if they found out he’d moved on to etiquette books. On the other hand, the razzing would be worse if the guys learned he’d
lied
about reading up on etiquette.

  “Emily Post. Research. Boning up for Jax’s wedding.”

  The weathered skin around the Master Chief’s eyes folded into deep crow’s feet, and his lips quirked, but the expected teasing didn’t come. Instead, with perfect seriousness, he asked, “Have you read
Service Etiquette?
”

  “Swartz, Fourth Edition? Read it first. When I’m invited to the White House, I’ll sho’nuff do you proud.”

  Lon chuckled at Do-Lord’s tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that
Service Etiquette
covered protocol for every social occasion a person in the military could encounter, no matter how unlikely. “Stranger things have happened.” He took a seat in the straight metal chair in front of Do-Lord’s desk, and in an almost gentle voice he asked, “How’s it going?”

  “Tell you what…” Caleb let the sentence hang while he tossed the highlighter on the desk and rolled his desk chair back to stretch out his legs. “It’s boring as hell, but it’s not as bad as that outboard motor service manual you made us read during Hell Week.”

  Do- Lord saw with satisfaction he’d struck the right note with the Master Chief. Twelve years ago, Lon had been a BUD/S instructor to the class that included Jax, an ensign, and Do-Lord, except he hadn’t earned his nickname yet.

  “Hey, I was just trying to help you stay awake.” Lon settled into his chair and hooked his thumbs over his belt, his innocent tone belied by a devilish grin.

  “Yeah, right.” During Hell Week the trainees were allowed a total of four hours sleep. During so-called rest periods, harsh consequences would descend on anyone who fell asleep
and
on all those near who allowed him to nod off. Listening while someone read aloud was bad enough, since few people did it well. Trying to stay alert while boring material was read aloud would turn their few minutes of respite into torture.

  Lon’s expression grew thoughtful, his eyes on a distant past. “Until that night I didn’t think you were going to graduate. Some guys never get it that being a SEAL isn’t about taking punishment, or endurance, or even being the best or the baddest.”

  Though fewer than twenty percent graduated from the toughest training in the world, it wasn’t because instructors tried to wash a trainee out. They did, however, use any means to make a trainee aware of his weak areas and the need to overcome them. “You were doing your part, but that’s all you were doing. For all the physical stuff we do, ultimately, making a SEAL is mental. A man must decide he’s personally responsible for the success of the team and the welfare of every member. He has to find within himself whatever makes him able to do that. You were holding back, side-stepping opportunities for leadership, letting your boat crew not do as well as they might have, because you didn’t like being noticed.” Lon’s eyes twinkled. “So we noticed you-a lot.”

  “That’s why you handed
me
the manual to read aloud!” Until this moment, Dulaude had never suspected the instructors had intended to make him
uncomfortable
by singling him out. He shouted with laughter at the double irony. For Dulaude, being
made
to read was a “get out of jail free” card. Thinking only of himself, he had known exactly how Br’er Rabbit felt in the briar patch. He could easily pretend to mumble through it.

  “Yup. We figured you’d be miserable trying to read aloud, and you’d make everybody else miserable.” Lon chuckled in reminiscence.

  But Dulaude had looked out at the faces of the men gathered in the mess hall at 3:00 a.m. Of a starting class of one hundred twenty-nine, around fifty red-eyed, battered men remained. More would quit before the night was over, because the pain, cold, and exhaustion would only get worse. White with fatigue, shoulders slumped, neither hopeful nor interested, longing only for sleep, they had watched him with faces set to endure.

  Except for Jax. His eyes had been so bloodshot he looked like a creature from a horror movie, but still they lit with expectation. He seemed to think Dulaude intended to do something to keep them awake.

  Dulaude had glanced down at the manual Chief Swales had stuffed in his hands. Gray print on flimsy gray paper, it was designed to blind any reader it didn’t render comatose. However, Dulaude could read a page at a glance and had something close to eidetic memory. Up to now, he had concealed his reading ability as he had his real IQ. He had learned early that both made him stand out, and drawing the attention of authorities was never a good thing.

  A crazy idea came to him, one that would blow his “average” cover forever, but would get everyone else through the next fifteen minutes.

  “My brothers-s!
Listen-n
to the
word-d
of the
naval command-d,
” he began with the over-articulated cadences of a tent preacher. “Verily I say unto you,
this
”-he waved the manual-“is what you must know about the 175 horsepower four-stroke outboard, and
if
you have faith, it is
all
you need to know.”

  A murmur went through the assembled men, a rustle, as awareness that something novel was happening penetrated their tired brains.