"This is Doubleday in HQ," a voice said. "Sir, you have a visitor here."
"Who? Oh, never mind. I'll be right up." He sighed as he cradled the receiver. Probably Captain Mason and someone from the Pentagon, with the final word on Sun Hammer. What was he going to tell him, that the men were ready? That they could take down a ship at sea loaded with two tons of the deadliest poison known to man?
Ten minutes later, he walked through the front doors of SEAL Seven's headquarters, his boondockers tracking the recently mopped and waxed linoleum deck. He felt sweaty, grimy, and tired, and if this was some bigwig from Fort Fumble, as the Pentagon was sometimes called, he hoped he wasn't being graded for neatness.
He recognized his visitor's back as soon as he walked into the officers' lounge, and felt a sharp twist in his gut. This was no Pentagon VIP.
The man, an old, white-haired, craggy-faced version of Murdock, turned, his back as ramrod stiff, as unyielding as the younger man remembered. "Hello, son."
"Father! What the hell are you doing here?"
"I heard you'd been transferred. I thought I'd come down and look you up." He looked around the lounge, at its peeling paint and shop-worn, fifth-hand furniture, nodding as though it met all of his expectations. "This is where you work now, eh?"
Murdock's lips compressed into a tight white line. "I was seriously wondering if you had anything to do with this. They yanked me out of the middle of a Phase One class in Coronado, had me about bust a gut to get out here."
"And you thought I arranged it to get you back to the East Coast?" The older man shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I could arrange a transfer, you know.
"We've been over that ground, Father. You know how I feel."
"Yes. You seem to have this idealistic notion about your career path. Damn it, Blake, didn't anybody ever tell you that these special-forces units like the SEALs are a dead end career-wise?"
"It's what I want. I'm very good at what I do. Sir."
"Um. I daresay you are." He looked Murdock up and down. "You're looking fit enough. Nice southern California tan."
"What did you want to see me for, Father? My platoon has a heavy training schedule today."
"Well, actually, I heard you might be going overseas soon. On, ah, business."
Murdock glanced about the empty room. Even here in SEAL headquarters there were things that weren't openly discussed. And he wasn't sure what his father's security clearance was.
Hell, the man was a member of Congress, for God's sake, and on the House Military Affairs Committee to boot. Still, the reserve that had built up between the two men, an impenetrable wall for the past five years, remained. Murdock did not immediately reply.
"Look, Blake," the older Murdock said. He spread his hands, as if to demonstrate that he was unarmed. "I know this must be a bad time. But I wanted... I wanted to see you once, before you left."
"I don't know that I'm leaving, sir." He was dying to know what his father knew... and unwilling to be the one to ask.
"Son, this mission coming up is going to be dangerous. And thankless. Definitely a case of damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't."
"How the hell do you know about this?"
"The Joint Chiefs have been keeping Congress informed, of course. Some of us, at any rate. I'm on the mailing list."
"What about Farnum?"
The older Murdock cracked an uneasy smile. "My esteemed colleague from California has, ah, such a pressing schedule, I believe it was decided that it was unnecessary to add to his work load."
Murdock knew how it worked. Notification of Congress about upcoming military operations had long been a sore point in the tug-of-politics between Capitol Hill and the Pentagon. The actions of some congressmen during the debate over Nicaragua during the eighties had, in Murdock's view, been nothing less than treasonous. More than once, covert operations had been given away to Managua by left-leaning representatives, and American advisors and other personnel had died as a result.
The elder Murdock appeared to read his son's thoughts. "I know how you feel about some of my colleagues. There are quite a few powerful men and women on the Hill who are no friends of the military. But you can't lump me in with men like Farnum."
"Of course not. You've been doing your bit to keep the bastards from disemboweling the armed forces. And I appreciate that. All I want is to be able to live my own life. All I have lined up for my 'career path,' as you call it, is to do what I want to do. I'm not going to be some politician's trained, uniformed poodle, okay? I happen to think the SEALs are important, that they're needed."
"I understand that, Blake. I don't think you realize it, but I do understand. And I'm trying to tell you that the SEALs have some pretty powerful enemies, and not just on the Hill. I'm talking about the Pentagon, here."
"Nothing I haven't heard before." A substantial number of the decision-makers and policy-setters in the military still disagreed with the whole idea of elite special forces. General Norman Schwarzkopf, the strategic mastermind of Desert Storm, had been well known for his mistrust of units like Delta or the SEALS. Most military commanders disliked them for the simple fact that they skimmed off the best troops from conventional forces and often got priority treatment when it came to funding and special equipment.
People actually within the Special Warfare community, of course, had a different perspective on the problem.
"Well, it looks like the hammer's going to come down pretty hard in my committee," the congressman said. "Farnum and some of the others have latched onto the SEALs like bulldogs, and they aren't going to let go. And I'm damned worried about this business in the Indian Ocean.
"Uh, I really don't think it's a good idea to talk about some of this stuff. Not here."
"Maybe you're right. But look at it from my point of view for once, Blake, okay? I'm on a committee that is examining the role of Navy special forces. Now, a crisis comes up where those forces have a chance to do what they've been trained to do, and it just happens that the son of one of those committee members is leading the team. If you succeed, it's going to look like the whole operation was set up to give me support. I won't have a power base I can rely on. What I have to say up there will be discounted. Follow?"
"I think so."
"But if what I hear is true, your chances of succeeding are, well, they're not good. Like damned near impossible. What happens to your precious SEALs if the son of a congressman on the Military Affairs Committee comes back a corpse?"
"I don't think..."
"What happens if half of Africa gets contaminated with radioactivity because the SEAL son of the congressman screwed up? It'll mean the end of everything you say you believe in, Blake, not to mention my own political career."
"Not to mention your son."
"Well, yes. Of course. I didn't mean to imply that..."
"The hell with your politics, Father, and the hell with you. The SEALs have a damned important role to play, more so than ever with the world falling apart the way it is." He looked down at his dirty combat blacks, then wiped at the greasepaint smeared on his face. "They're not interested in appearances or tact or appropriate social behavior. They're concerned with the way the world really works. I'm a SEAL. I'm going to carry out my orders to the best of my ability and I'm going to do what I've been trained to do for as long as the Navy will let me do it. And I am not going to let you or Mother or anyone else not in my immediate chain of command tell me what to do with my life. Not any more. Clear?"
Murdock sighed. "Clear. Speaking of your mother, Blake, she sends her best."
"I'm sure she does."
"You really ought to bury the past, son. She does love you, you know, and you've managed to break her heart. All she ever wanted was what's best for you. As I do."
"Then stay out of my life. Sir. Even if you manage to kill the SEALS, I will set my own course. I will not accept a nice, safe posting to some congressional staff because I am not a lap-dog, and I most certainly will not refuse a mission because it might be politically inconvenient for you. Now, sir, I have that training schedule to complete. If there's nothing more?"