Ed De Witt came in; his grin was still ear-to-ear, Murdock saw.
“Sit down, sad boy, and tell me your woes.”
Ed laughed and sat. “Oh, yeah, it’s going good. I talked with the JG in Second of Fifth and I like him. He’s shouldering it for the time being. They do lots of training. Yeah. Your new man show up here for a look-see yet?”
“If he is, he’s hiding.”
The phone rang.
“Yeah, Third-Seventh.”
“Commander Murdock, sir,” Master Chief MacKenzie said. “I’m sending JG Belmer to your office with a guide. Should be there shortly.”
“Thanks, Master Chief. You do good work.”
They hung up. “He’s coming.”
Ed had picked up the file on Belmer, and read through it quickly. “Wow, second-string all-American in football. Not bad. At least he won’t have any trouble hitting the dirt.”
The two old friends talked about the last mission. Ed’s leg wound was healing, but it would be three weeks before he was back a hundred percent.
Then a knock sounded on the door, and a large man in desert cammies filled it. His floppy hat scraped the top of the doorjamb.
“Sir, Lieutenant (j.g.) Belmer, reporting as ordered.”
“At ease, Lieutenant, come in, sit down. Ed was just ready to stand up. Ever been to California before?”
“No, sir.”
“Lieutenant, this is Ed DeWitt, who is leaving the platoon. He’ll be on hand to help the new man merge into our operation here. Tell me, why do you want to join us?”
“Because you’re the top-rated platoon and you get all the action. We keep hearing that you go on missions on average of one a month. I want to get in on the action.”
“Lieutenant, did you know that over the past three years we’ve had twelve men killed during our missions?”
Belmer’s eyes widened. He swallowed, then looked at Murdock. “No, sir, I didn’t know that. I’d heard that your men do get wounded now and then.”
“We average about four wounds a mission, Belmer,” Ed said. “Last week we sent a KIA home in a coffin, and took three more wounds. Both Commander Murdock and I were shot last week.”
“Wow. I didn’t know.”
“Does that change your mind about wanting to join us?” Murdock asked.
“No, sir. Not one bit. It’s what I’ve been trained for, and so far I haven’t had one single mission. A guy could go stale that way.”
“Where are you from, Belmer, and how long have you been in the Navy?”
Ed sat back and listened. Murdock took notes. Early on Ed had had reservations about this young man. It was a gut feeling. There were two more to go. He knew long before the hour interview was over that Belmer would get a B rating, right in the middle. The other men would go above or below him. He’d have to wait and see.
After Belmer left the two friends talked it over.
“I wouldn’t want him protecting my back in a firefight,” De Witt said. “Nothing concrete, just my overall impression. He seemed to be more interested in telling his friends he was in Third than being here to help us run the outfit.”
“Grade him, with A the highest, C the lowest,” Murdock said.
Ed slid out in the chair, massaged his wounded leg, and scowled. “Is this part of my job here?”
“It is. Give me a grade.”
“Okay, I’d put him at a B. Depends on who else we get. When’s the next one?”
“At 1100. A JG from SEAL First, First Platoon.”
“I’ve heard they’re plenty sharp,” Ed said. “Hope their JG is a good one.”
Senior Chief Sadler led the platoon on the run to the Navy antennas just six miles down the Coronado Strand toward the outskirts of the town of Imperial Beach.
“Hey Senior Chief, this dry sand is a bitch to run in,” Jaybird squawked.
“Keep it up, Jaybird, and we’ll run back the same way, only twenty percent faster.”
At the Kill House, dug into the sand near the far end of the strand, they went through the routine of quick-firing at the pop-up targets. With fifty thousand variables on the computer-programmed targets, there was little chance they would ever see the same ones again.
“We’re keeping scores and reporting them to the CO,” Sadler said. “Top score gets my personal six-pack of your choice of beer. Now let’s do some good numbers.”
The Kill House was also known as a CQB, Close Quarters Battle house. It had been dug into the sand and had bullet-proof sides on all walls. There were three rooms with ceilings and all sorts of furniture. There were also terrorist figures and terrorists with hostages that popped up the moment SEAL boots hit the floor activators. The computer registered the hits and misses, and any time enough seconds passed without a SEAL response, the computer determined that the terrorist had killed the SEAL.
A pair of SEALs attacked the house, one taking the right-hand side of the first room, the other the left. When it was clear, they said so and moved to the next room and new problems.
Jaybird and Sadler were the first ones into the house. Jaybird took the left. Just inside the door he saw three terrorists pop up with a hooded hostage between them. He cut down the two on the right and shifted to the left, but the target had vanished.
Sadler had one target on the right, drilled it with a three-round burst, then at once two more terrs jolted upright almost in the center of the room holding sub guns. Sadler slapped down both of them with swinging bursts from his Bull Pup rifle set on 5.56mm.
The next room proved tougher, with one after another terrorist popping up after the SEALs thought the room was clear. They missed three of them.
“Damnit, I just shot a hostage,” Jaybird wailed.
When they came out of the last room, Sadler went to the side of the building to a weatherproof hutch and punched the button to get a printout of their score.
“Seventy-four,” Jaybird screeched. “We did better than that.”
“We could have,” Sadler said. “But they fined us fifteen points for that hostage you shot. The setups on the targets are tough today.”
After the last pair went through the Kill House, Sadler checked his watch. No time to make a second pass. He brought the men back to the beach, looked over the printouts, and yelled, “Look at this, you slackers. Van Dyke and Fernandez came up with the winning score. Eighty-nine. I bet they didn’t gun down any hostages like some people I know did. Okay, back to the compound. We have thirty-seven minutes for the trip. That’s a little over seven minutes to the mile. Who can set the pace?”
“Hell, Senior Chief,” a disguised voice yelped. “You know SEALs don’t fucking never volunteer for goddamned nothing.”
There were a dozen hoorahs, and then Lam moved out front of the pack. “I’m not volunteering, I’m just trying for a personal best. If any of you want to try to keep up with me, be my guests.”
He took off down the wet sand, where footing was sure and easier. The SEALs fell in behind him in a column of ducks, and Sadler brought up the rear.
By the time they hit the sand in back of the O course, they were puffing. Sadler knew that a seven-minute mile with their combat vests, packs, and combat weapons was a strain. He figured most of the men had about forty pounds on their backs.
The men stopped and blew hard. Some of them had hands on knees, bent double. Some sat on the sand. Others kept walking in tight circles to keep their hearts pumping as they oxygenated their spent blood.
“Oh, shit,” Senior Chief Sadler said. “We were supposed to swim back. Now we’ll have to swim out four miles and back four miles.”
All twelve of the SEALs threw their floppy hats at Sadler, who grinned at them and threw the hats back.
At 1100, Lieutenant (j.g.) Christopher Gardner knocked on the door and was invited into the Third Platoon office.
“I’m Chris Gardner from First Platoon of SEAL Team One.”