“Sunday dinner here,” Maria said. “We always have chicken with gravy and stuffing and the whole thing. Be pleased if you and Helen and Charlie can come.”
Helen looked at her father. “Daddy, can we come, please. Linda has some of the best computer games.”
“They’re easy, that’s why Helen likes them,” Charlie said. Helen swatted at him but missed.
“Sure, we’ll be here. Don’t let us wear out our welcome.”
“No danger of that Senior Chief. Hope you get a good slot in the Team.”
“I will, or I won’t take it. Nineteen years of seniority still means something in this man’s Navy.”
They waved, and Dobler drove the car away and toward his house.
Murdock picked up the phone in his office. “Third Platoon, Murdock.”
“About your second interview. He should be over in about five minutes, will that be all right with you, Commander?”
“Ardith, when did you… No, I won’t ask. You and your contacts. I’ve been back for almost twenty-four. Where have you been and what took you so long?”
“That’s what I like, a warm welcome for a traveler,” Ardith Manchester said a catch in her voice and a beautiful smile coming over the line. “I’ve missed you, too. Now about lunch. I’ll pick you up, no I don’t have my car. I’ll see you on the Quarterdeck about one o’clock. The Master Chief says you should be done with interview number three by then. We could have a fancy lunch where they serve those little bitty things that are attractively arranged and taste like wallpaper, or we could go to Jack-in- the-Box, or that little Italian place here in Coronado where they have that combination lunch/wine tasting.”
“I think I just bought a wine-tasting lunch. What’s new around the Beltline?”
“The usual. Lobbying, vote trading, pork barreling, and backbiting. All the regular D.C. stuff. That’s why I like to come west.”
“I like you to come west. How about Ensenada, Mexico, for a couple of days. I can wrangle some liberty.”
“Sounds good, rush that interview, will you?”
“Can do. Oh, you’ll know me by the white carnation between my teeth. I’ll probably be the only one with a flower.”
He rushed the interview. This senior chief wasn’t the man he wanted. He had already made up his mind on number two, the one Master Chief MacKenzie liked. He changed into civvies and hurried up to the Quarterdeck.
It was four days since Detective Sergeant Sanchez had been found dazed and injured in the alley behind the El Gallo Colorado. They kept him in the hospital for two days until his voice cleared up. His trachea has been bruised and his voice box shaken up but not damaged. At once he had applied for two weeks’ medical leave and had come north to watch for the gringo sonofabitch who had assaulted him. He carried two weapons, had a third hidden under the seat of the rented car, and his Tijuana Police credentials.
For two days he waited at the Anderson apartment, but the big man didn’t come. This was the third day and he had hopes. About noon a car stopped in front with two men in it. One was Anderson. Sanchez had to order himself to wait, it had to be when Anderson was alone. Not yet.
An hour later, Anderson came out of his apartment, got in a car in the parking lot and drove. Sanchez followed the man a short distance out on the Strand heading toward Imperial Beach. Anderson turned off right into an unmarked parking area in front of several one-story buildings. Sanchez was so surprised that he kept on driving past. There was no gate, no guard. He had to drive down several miles to turn around and when he did it was in the Silver Strand State Beach. He turned around and drove back. This time he turned left into the same parking lot Anderson had. Only then did he see the sign, “NAVSPECWARGRUP.” He memorized the strange words or combination of words, turned around and drove out. No one paid any attention to him.
There was no area around that parking lot where he could wait in his car. He drove back to the Anderson apartment and parked. He wrote the strange assortment of letters on a pad and studied it. They made no sense whatsoever. He took the pad and walked down the street. Sanchez stopped the first man he met.
“Sir, could you help me? I have this long word, and I don’t know what it means.”
The middle-aged man in a suit and with a pin on his lapel looked at the pad and chuckled. “You’re not Navy are you, son? That’s not a word, that’s an acronym, sort of. Stands for ‘Navy Special Warfare Group.’ So it’s really four words. That’s just out on the Strand. Where the Navy SEALs do their training. SEAL stands for Sea, Air, Land. The Navy SEALs. The toughest, meanest, roughest bunch of killers the world has ever seen. They can be nasty. I used to be Navy. Retired Commander. That answer your question?”
“Yes, Commander, thank you,” Sanchez said and walked away. SEALs. He had heard of that elite bunch of special warfare men. So was this Anderson a SEAL or just visiting someone there?
He could sneak up to Anderson’s apartment before he came home, slip the lock, and check inside. But that would be risky. Anderson might be home any minute. Still, it might be helpful. He wanted the man down and dead before the sun came up. No, he would break into the place. Too risky. So how?
Challenge him? Yes. Put up a challenge, mano a mano. One on one. Him against the SEAL. Knives. He’d heard the SEALs like to use knives. Good. Only the SEAL would not know that it would not be a fair fight. The man was a killer, a hired assassin. He didn’t deserve to be treated fairly.
Sanchez took his notebook, and with a ball-point pen printed out the challenge.
“Anderson. I’m Sanchez. We met in Tijuana last week. I demand satisfaction. You and me, one on one, at a neutral site. Weapons of your choice. We fight until one man can’t get up. You shamed me. I must fight you and win. Tonight at midnight out on the Silver Strand State Beach. Beside the first restroom. I’ll be there. Will you be there or will you chicken out?” He signed it Sanchez.
The detective sergeant folded the note once and fastened it to Anderson’s front door with two strips of tape from a roll in his pocket. Then he left as any salesman might, got in his car, and drove down the street several blocks to a shady spot, and took a nap in the front set. He might need it before the night was over.
In the early evening he ate a good dinner in a Mexican restaurant, then walked four miles before he went to his car. On a quiet residential street, he parked. He dropped down on the grassy parkway, and did a hundred pushups. Then he sharpened a fighting knife that he carried. The fine stone let him put a razor-like edge on the six-inch blade. Nothing else to do but wait. At eleven o’clock he drove to the state beach and checked it out. No other cars there. He put his car at the far end of the parking and walked back to the first restroom building. He would wait in the moon shadows at the far side of the structure. There anyone driving in couldn’t see him. Yes, the headlights would give away the oncoming car.
It was 11:05. Detective Sergeant Sanchez relaxed against the building. Several cars zipped along the highway heading toward Imperial Beach or the other way into Coronado. None of them slowed or stopped. It could be a long wait.
Howie Anderson saw the note on his door the moment he went up the steps to his second-floor apartment. He didn’t find a lot of notes taped there. He ripped it off and read it.
“How in hell—” Howie stopped, looked around the complex parking lot, then unlocked his door and stepped inside, closing the heavy door quickly.
There was no way the little Mex detective could find him there in Coronado. But he had. He had even offered him a challenge a fight, just the two of them. More like a bushwhacking as soon as he poked his nose into that parking lot. Yeah, a fair fight, it would be fair all right. Fairly deadly. The little bastard had been totally humiliated when he had his ass kicked in TJ. He could settle the score only by killing the man who did it to him.