Sealed with a promise (3 page)

  “The
outboard
is secured with four three-inch bolts- four, did you hear me brothers,
four!
”

  “Preach it, brother!” yelled Jax, a huge grin breaking across his face.

  “Hallelujah!” someone in the back exulted.

  “Which should always be tightened-”

  As they caught on to the joke, more joined into the irreverent fun. Their instructors
did
pursue safety and equipment maintenance with something close to religious fervor.

  “Before and after each use-”

  “Thank you, Jesus!”

  “Or after four hours elapsed running time.”

  “I believe! I believe!”

  “Praise the Lord!”

  “Yeah. Praise Duluade!” Jax added.

  Lon rose laughing. Instructors made training as tough as they could, but they gloried to see trainees demonstrate the out-of-the-box thinking that was the SEALs’ hallmark. “Metcalf, lead us in a closing hymn.”

  “I’ve got a home in glory-land that outshines the sun.” Metcalf’s rich baritone began the old church-camp song, so easy anyone could sing along. When he got to the chorus of “Do, Lord, oh do, Lord, oh do, remember me,” the mess hall rang with clapping and stomping.

  “That’s when the guys nicknamed you Do-Lord, isn’t it?” Lon broke in on Do-Lord’s train of thought, returning him to the present. “And you and Jax have been friends since BUD/S.”

  “Yeah, the Philadelphian with a silver spoon in his mouth and the Alabama cracker, raised in trailer located on the hind end of nowhere.”

  The older man’s eyes sharpened. “Alabama?”

  “Sure. You knew that,” Do-Lord deepened his drawl. “That’s why I talk this way.”

  Lon snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. “How much you drawl depends on how much bullshit you’re spreading.”

  Do- Lord nodded gravely. “That too. Why did you come looking for me?”

  “I just got the report on Delvecchio’s condition.”

  “Carmine? How is he?” Carmine was a trainee who had finished BUD/S but who still had a six-month apprenticeship to serve before he would be a full-fledged SEAL, ready to operate.

  Lon took a deep breath, eyes squinted with pain. “He’s been moved to Bethesda. He’s got leukemia.”

  “
What?
” Do-Lord’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “I told him to report for sick call-three, four days ago, but I didn’t think anything was wrong with him. I was tired of him saying he was tired.” Do-Lord slammed the stupid book on etiquette shut, disgusted that he had been studying the social customs of the upper class while a man he was responsible for had been seriously ill, and he hadn’t realized it. “I thought he was goldbricking. Showing up late looking like hell. Phoning in his PT.” Do-Lord pushed his hair back from his forehead, a gesture left over from Afghanistan. Dark red hair like his wasn’t uncommon among Afghanis, so while there he’d let it grow, and with his more rangy than stocky build he’d blended in better than some of the darker guys. SEALs, who might have to leave the country undercover at any time, were allowed relaxed grooming standards, but Do-Lord had cut his hair as soon as he returned to the U.S. “The poor SOB.”

  “Cut yourself some slack. You took the appropriate action when you had cause to do so. You know how these gung-ho kids try to cover up.”

  “That’s right. I
do
know.” Do-Lord wasn’t going to let himself off the hook. “I’ve seen men trying to run on broken legs and showing up for roll call with one-hundred-four-degree temperatures. I should have suspected something else was going on.” Do-Lord felt like breaking something, but SEALs don’t make violent gestures. When they’re violent, it’s for real.

  “I should have been paying better attention to his motivation.” Maintaining smooth function of the team on a day-to-day basis was done by chiefs. The blend of skills and personalities that would meld a pack of all-alpha dogs into a cooperating team was as difficult to analyze as an alchemical formula. A man whose performance was lackluster might be outstanding if assigned to a different group. “And don’t bother reminding me the platoon Jax led in Afghanistan was tight,” Do-Lord went on. “Unusually so, even for SEALs. It’s breaking up now, scattering to different posts. It’s normal for us to resent the new guy, although he isn’t the cause of the changes. It wouldn’t be rational to expect him to fit in.”

  “Are you going to have both sides of this conversation, or am I allowed to speak now?” The older man’s amused drawl was a gentle, but unmistakable, rebuke.

  Do- Lord pressed his lips together and nodded.

  “I’m not holding you responsible for Delvecchio, and neither is anyone else. But I am worried about you. You haven’t been yourself since Afghanistan. You fake being laid-back better than anybody I know, but you’re too tight. I know you’ve got a degree in clinical psychology, but you can’t treat yourself. Find somebody to talk to, get it off your chest, and get your head back where it needs to be.”

  Lon was thinking post-traumatic stress. The thought had occurred to Do-Lord too. It explained the difficulty paying attention, the sense that some nameless something was wrong, the oppressive boredom. He was sure it explained the crazy moment in Afghanistan when he’d almost fired on a man he was tasked to protect. He still woke up in a cold sweat from nightmares in which he saw Calhoun in his rifle scope and
did
squeeze the trigger.

  He’d put the whole event down to combat stress, some aberration induced by the fatigue of unrelenting vigilance in a land where the enemy could be anyone, anywhere. The popular press often attributed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (once called “battle fatigue” until it was recognized that many people who hadn’t been in wars had the same symptoms) to one horrific, traumatic event.

  In fact, people were amazingly resilient, and one terrible event in an otherwise stable, supportive environment didn’t usually induce PTSD. Instead it was an accumulation of stresses: being in constant danger from which there was no escape, assaults on the emotions which one dare not feel, morally ambiguous situations which many were far too young to comprehend, much less grapple with, that eventually overwhelmed the mind’s defenses.

  The men he was responsible for, he carefully monitored for signs of combat stress, but apparently it had snuck up on him. He still couldn’t believe that, even for a second, he had risked the careers of every man in the unit, especially Jax’s, his best friend. His own career he wouldn’t have needed to worry about. Someone would have seen to it that he left Afghanistan in a body bag. And he would have thought the punishment just. He was grateful that the deeply indoctrinated ideals of loyalty, responsibility, and awareness of consequences had pulled him back from the brink, but the shame of that moment crawled up his face in a hot slither. He couldn’t possibly, ever, tell anyone.

  Anyway, he already knew what a therapist would tell him. In Afghanistan, though he had done what he
should,
he hadn’t done what he wanted to. Therefore, what was troubling him now was lack of closure.

  He was determined to stop thinking like a hotheaded teenager and start thinking like a SEAL. Whether caused by PTSD or not, if he had lived up to his promise, instead of burying his past when he buried his mother, the moment in Afghanistan would never have happened.

  When he made the vow with a teenager’s intensity, he’d wanted justice and seen it in black and white, a life for a life. With planning, nothing would be easier than to kill Calhoun. But now that he’d had time to think rationally, a clean head shot was too good for the senator. If he thought about justice for his mother in a balanced way, Calhoun hadn’t murdered Do-Lord’s mother. He had destroyed her life. It was a subtle, but important distinction.

  So, thinking like a SEAL, he needed to do the most damage to Calhoun’s life with the least expenditure of resources. That was exactly what Calhoun had coming.

  The first step was to gather intelligence, and he had begun. He had bought a cheap laptop to be destroyed later, which he used only for surfing the Net for every detail he could glean about Calhoun. Eventually, he would learn where Calhoun was vulnerable.

  Most men returning from deployment had the occasional image or idea they couldn’t dismiss. He had it under control. His symptoms weren’t anything to worry about unless they didn’t go away. He slid his trademark lazy smile onto his face hoping it was good enough to get past Lon’s radar. “You’re right. I guess I just feel sorry for Carmine-it’s a tough break. It sucks, and I wouldn’t want it to happen to anybody.”

  Lon appeared satisfied. “Right. In case a bone marrow transplant will help, Davy will take blood samples from anyone who wants to donate. In the meantime, see if there’s anything Carmine or his family need.” Lon shoved out of his chair. “But while you’re at it, plan to get away. You know I’ll approve leave anytime you ask. We call the world of operations the ‘real’ world, but if we really believe that’s reality, we’re in trouble.”

  
Sessoms Corner, North Carolina

  The trailer he grew up in could have fitted, with room left over, into the double parlor of the late Victorian house where a wedding breakfast for Jax and his bride Pickett was taking place. A corner of Do-Lord’s mouth kicked up in amusement. The
most
room would have been left at the ceiling. Decorated with intricate crown molding, these ceilings were easily fifteen feet.

  Painted a cheerful lime green and filled with comfortable upholstered sofas and chairs as well as what even he recognized as priceless antiques, these were clearly rooms to be lived in, not just displayed to company. The house had been in the family for over a hundred years, and oil portraits of ancestors, not all terribly good, were scattered among hunting scenes and landscapes.

  By the time he’d helped himself to the sausage casserole, fruit compote, fried green tomatoes, venison loin in gravy, and grits on the table in the dining room, the autumn leaf design on the porcelain plate was completely obliterated. He carried it very carefully across priceless Oriental carpets, grateful he wasn’t expected to balance it on his knee. The warm sunny day, unusually balmy for November in North Carolina, had allowed the hostesses to set tables outside on the wide porches where thick white paint gleamed on columns and rails.

  A light breeze carried the scent of autumn leaves and the earthy tang of newly-dug peanuts. It fluttered the peach tablecloths and played with pretty girls’ hair. A couple of the girls smiled invitingly. He smiled in return, but he set his plate down at an empty place at the table where Jax’s bride, Pickett, sat with two of her cousins. Pickett looked bright as an autumn leaf herself with her gold tumble of curls and orange silk dress.

  Last night at the wedding rehearsal, Jax had caught him watching Pickett and leaned over to say, “Pickett’s mine. Get one of your own.” Jax’s words kept reverberating in his mind. They popped up at the oddest, and sometimes most inconvenient, times. Jax had said them in jest-well, partly in jest. Jax laughed when he said it, but there wasn’t a doubt in Do-Lord’s mind he’d also been warned away.

  Jax had it wrong. Do-Lord liked Pickett. He thought she was perfect-for Jax. During the rehearsal he hadn’t been eyeing Pickett so much as trying to understand how she came to be best friends with Emmie Caddington, who was the maid of honor. Pickett and her sisters, who were her other attendants, were all remarkably pretty, remarkably poised women, while the friend had to be one of the blandest people he’d ever seen. It was like she intended to be a nonentity, but in a reverse way she stood out precisely because there was nothing about her to draw the eye. Still, birds of a feather flock together. Puzzling how she could be Pickett’s friend was a way to keep himself entertained through the interminably silly proceedings.

  SEALs believed in rehearsal. A practice run for the ceremony was the first item on the three-day wedding agenda that had made total sense to Do-Lord-until he found out it was bad luck for the bride to rehearse her own part, so she sat on a pew, while the maid of honor pretended to be the bride. SEALs rehearsed one another’s roles all the time. But unless they thought Emmie would marry Jax if Pickett was out of commission, making her rehearse Pickett’s role in addition to her own didn’t make a lick of sense.

  He also hadn’t seen why Emmie, whose arm was in a cobalt blue sling (the only colorful thing about her) had to mime bending down to straighten Pickett’s train, which as maid of honor was one of her duties. She shouldn’t have been doing it at all. Being able to use only one arm made her clumsy, and it had to hurt like hell. He was standing right there, he could move the damn train. He’d give her credit. She hadn’t complained once, but he’d been so irritated after a while, he’d had to find a way to take his mind off it.

  Pickett smiled and indicated the empty chair when she saw him approach the table. Do-Lord carefully laid his fork to the left of his plate and put his knife on the right. Chiefs were taken in hand by older chiefs as soon as they were promoted and taught table manners that could get them through a formal seven-course banquet. The wedge of quiche on Pickett’s plate looked untouched. Offering to serve others before seating oneself was good manners, but it was genuine concern that made him ask, “Can I get you anything from the buffet?”

  Pickett shook her head. “Thank you, but I have to leave in a minute. Jax and Tyler will be here soon, and I can’t let Jax see me. Bad luck, you know.”

  Oh yes, the notion that it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. There seemed to be no end to traditions and superstitions surrounding a wedding. No limit to how seriously intelligent, educated people took them. “Why is it bad luck?”

  “Because, if he
sees
her, he might change his mind,” one of the cousins joked with a horsey laugh. Between guys a jab like that might be a sign of affection, but Do-Lord didn’t miss the way she flicked her eyes to see if the punch connected.