“Great,” Murdock said dryly. He handed the beaker to one of the corpsmen. “How about another water, Doc?”
“That’s your third one,” the corpsman said in amazement. It was a liter beaker. “Are you sure you don’t have to go?”
“You’ll be the first to know,” Murdock assured him.
Doc Ellsworth entered the compartment, freshly showered and dressed in a clean unmarked flight Suit. He cast a professional eye over Murdock’s backside. “Hey, Lieutenant, we’re going to have to get you a laminated chit for when you go through airports. You’ll never make it through a metal detector after this.”
“What’s the word?” said Murdock.
The Doc turned serious. “The Professor is still in surgery. He’s critical. Razor’s in surgery too. I saw his X-rays, the ankle’s pretty well shattered. They’ll just clean things up in there. When we get to CONUS they’ll open up the leg again and screw everything back together.”
“Is he looking at a medical?” Murdock asked. Meaning a medical discharge or loss of SEAL qualification.
Doc shrugged. “Time will tell. Mister DeWitt’s fracture didn’t get any worse. He’s in plaster now. He may have bruised some internal organs; we’ll be keeping an eye on him. As far as everyone else, you’re talking first-and second-degree burns, bruises, sprains, ripped and pulled muscles. I’ll be handing out Motrin for quite a while.”
“You did a hell of a job, Doc.” Murdock smiled. “Shit, just the positive thinking alone.”
Doc grinned back. “I kept telling you, sir, but I guess you had to experience it for yourself. Now you see that it works, you’ll be thinking extra positive next time and you won’t get hurt at all.”
“You must have converted Jaybird. I don’t think he got a scratch.”
“It’s his aura,” Doc explained. “Son of a bitch has an aura so bright you could read by it.”
From the puzzled looks they were getting, no one else in the compartment had the slightest idea what they were talking about.
“Get some sleep, Doc. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Doc Ellsworth took another look at Murdock’s situation and shook his head sadly. “I’d tell you to have fun, Lieutenant,but you aren’t going to.”
They had to stab him so many times to administer the local anesthetic that Murdock started to wonder if he shouldn’t just self-administer another syrette and let them go ahead and probe.
Don Stroh walked in. Evidently, Murdock thought, he’d flipped a coin with Kohler and lost. “Blake, what can I say except that I’m sorry for everything.”
Murdock made no reply.
Stroh went on. “The word from the overhead imagery is that the warehouse was absolutely flattened. Communications and signals intercepts indicate that you took out close to five hundred Syrians and Hezbollah, both at the warehouse and afterward.”
Murdock thought that went a long way toward evening the score for the Beirut bombing. But what he said was, “I lost a good man, and I didn’t have to. My men are wounded, and there was no need for them to get hurt.”
“Blake, I …”
“Look, Don, I know it wasn’t your call not to launch. But you can tell those assholes back at Langley that they better pray we don’t take some leave when we get back and go spook hunting. Fuck!” Murdock looked over his shoulder. “Jeez, Doc, what are you using, a bayonet?”
“I’ll talk to you later, Blake.”
“Sure, Don.”
Stroh left, and a whole platoon of SEALs came thundering in.
The doctor looked up from Murdock’s ass and said in outrage, “Get all these people out of here!”
The corpsmen looked at the burly SEALS, then at each other, as if to say: “Who, us?”
“It’s okay, Doc,” Murdock said. “They’re family.”
“Hi, Sir!” said Jaybird Sterling, as usual the spokesman. “We just talked with Doc Ellsworth. He said your ass was a sight to behold, so we had to come in and check it out for ourselves.”
Murdock could hear the doctor grumbling behind him. “It’s okay, Doc. We’ll be lucky if they don’t head right for the mess deck and sell tickets to the crew.” He turned to his SEALS. “I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to tell you how proud I am of every one of you.”
SEALs had the balls to do just about anything except accept a compliment without screwing around like a bunch of hyperactive schoolboys. They grinned, shuffled their feet, hung their heads, punched each other on the shoulders, and made remarks like, “We know you’re just saying that ‘cause your ass is hanging out, sir.”
“Okay,” said Murdock, “I showed you my ass, now get the hell out of here. Jaybird, you and Magic hold on for a second.”
The rest of them left. Jaybird said, “The helicopter guys are taking pictures of our bird down in the hangar deck. They think it’s probably the record for the most hits taken by a Blackhawk that still kept flying.”
“They said another few minutes and that engine would have caught fire,” said Magic.
“Thanks for getting me up that ladder, you two,” said Murdock. “I ran out of gas.”
“No problem, sir,” said Magic.
“You try carrying around a moose like Razor and that’ll happen,” said Jaybird.
“What I really wanted to talk to you about,” said Murdock, “is my choice for who’s going to pinch-hit for Razor as platoon chief.”
“Don’t worry about a thing, sir,” Jaybird said earnestly. “We may get a little crazy every now and then, but while you’re laid up we’ll back the guy one hundred percent.”
Murdock began to shake with suppressed laughter, so much that the doctor, by now highly annoyed, had to halt work behind him.
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Murdock, straining to hold it in. “Because you’re the new platoon chief.”
Jaybird’s jaw dropped all the way to the deck. He stood thunderstruck. “No way, sir.”
The laughter burst out of Murdock. “Way,” he insisted between guffaws. Magic Brown fell to the deck laughing. “You’re kidding, right, sir?” Jaybird said hopefully.
Murdock had to hold onto the table to support himself. He shook his head and managed to squeeze out, “Date of rank. You’re the senior first class. Can’t do anything about it. Hey, Magic,” he called down to Magic Brown, who was still writhing on the deck. “Guess what? You’re the new leading petty officer.”
“Whatever you say, sir,” Magic gasped, holding onto his belly. Every time he looked up at the expression on Jaybird’s face, he went hysterical again.
Murdock wiped the tears from his eyes. “You’re going to love the prestige. I’ve heard you say it before. The chief just dicks off and orders people around.”
Jaybird opened his mouth to protest.
“No, no, that’s okay,” said Murdock. “I want you to consider this a reward for a job well done. You can start with the equipment. Make sure everything we brought aboard is cleaned, accounted for, and packed for disembarkation. Get Razor’s inventory list out of his quarters. We left a lot of gear behind in Lebanon, including some very expensive sniper rifles. Prepare a list with serial numbers so we can start work on the paperwork to write it off as lost in combat. While you’re doing that, start putting together a chronology of events and statements from everyone, including Miguel and Red, for the after-action report.”
Jaybird’s mouth was still hanging open.
“Get some chow first,” Murdock said benevolently. “And a good night’s sleep. You can get cracking on everything tomorrow morning. Then come and see me in the afternoon and I’ll give you the rest of the things to do.”