The Recruiter

by Dan Ames

  The screaming is louder, growing in intensity. And then Anna realizes that her mouth is open.

  And that she’s screaming.

  She weaves her way to the huddle of people under the basket, and she can see Beth on the ground.

  She pushes through.

  Anna sees Beth’s leg.

  By the time she finishes wailing “No!” blackness has engulfed her.

  Chapter 14

  Peter Forbes stands rooted to the bleachers. Next to him, Doug and the others are jumping up and down, yelling, clapping each other on the back, oblivious to the scene unfolding under the basket.

  “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” Doug shouts. His face is flushed, and a big dopey grin stretches across his face. He looks at Peter. “Come on, man! We won! Beth did it! We won!” Doug claps Peter on the back.

  Peter’s body is cold. His eyes are frozen to the small group of people under the basket. He wants to run onto the court. To go to Beth. But he can’t. He can only stand there. Unmoving.

  “Pete! What’s wrong with you? We won!”

  Peter watches the older woman push her way through the players. Peter recognizes her. She is Beth’s mother.

  The drunk.

  Oh god, no.

  “Pete,” Doug said, grabbing him by the arm. Doug looks out at the court. At Beth under the basket. He is shouting, as is everyone around them. “She’s going to be all right, man. Probably twisted an ankle.”

  All around them, the students are chanting. “Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye!”

  Peter sees Beth’s mother collapse to the floor.

  She never saw it coming, he thinks. And it’s not over yet.

  “Pete, stop looking like a zombie. Your girlfriend’s going to be all right,” Doug says again.

  Peter wrenches his arm away from Doug and starts toward the court. Toward Beth.

  “No, she’s not,” he says.

  Chapter 15

  Beth hears the screaming. She is short of breath, feels like a weight is pressing down on her lungs. From the fast break? The run down the court?

  No. She feels the warmth on her body. Feels the weight of the Tank on her body. Feels the sweat, the dampness of the girl on top of her.

  Beth cranes her neck to see the basket. To see if the ball went through, but it’s too late. She looks for the scoreboard, but it’s above her, and she can’t see it from that angle.

  The screaming continues. But whose fans are they?

  The Tank gets off her, and turns toward Beth, holding out her hand. Beth thinks she should reach out, take hold of the girl’s hand and get up. But once the weight is taken from her body, the signals from her leg reach her brain.

  The pain.

  It comes in a blinding flash like a bolt of lightning.

  The Tank, holding out her hand, looks down at Beth’s body, then brings her hand to her mouth.

  And starts screaming.

  Beth closes her eyes. The pain swarms her body. It attacks her leg like a thousand wasps, burying their stingers in her leg.

  No, Beth thinks. Not her leg.

  Her knee.

  She forces her eyes open. Tears are streaming from her face. Watery, indistinct images loom over her.

  She hears voices. Gasps. And more screams.

  Beth uses the sweatband on her left forearm to wipe away the tears. She tries to sit up even though hands push her back toward the court. She pushes harder and gets to a sitting position.

  And then she looks down.

  An optical illusion, she thinks.

  Her right leg, smooth and supple, is the way it always is. The quadriceps nicely defined, tapering down to her calf muscle where her shin narrows down to her white crew socks and Nike high tops.

  But her left leg isn’t…recognizable. The quadriceps, thick and strong, is there. But the knee…the knee…isn’t…

  …there…

  Beth remembers a time when she was trying to break a thick branch for firewood at a Girl Scout camping trip. The branch was too green. But she broke it, and then tried to twist it apart, the fibers and strands of wood not separating, just twisting. Beth remembers trying to break it off, but it wouldn’t, so she just twisted it and twisted it and twisted it until it was hanging there by a single strand…all mangled…

  Now it’s Beth’s turn to scream.

  She can’t bear to look at what’s left of her leg. Instead, she turns toward the faces around her. Beth sees her mother. Watches her mother’s face in the process of crumpling. Her mother falls to the ground.

  Later, in the hospital, Beth remembers that moment. Remembers her mother fainting, remembers the words that flashed through her mind:

  Useless. Like always.

  Hands reach for Beth.

  She has stopped screaming and is now sobbing.

  The pain scorches its way up her spine and pounds her brain. She reels and slumps back onto the court. She thinks of Peter. Peter will help her. She imagines his strong, handsome face.

  Where is he?

  The voices and the images recede into blackness but before she joins them, two words escape her mouth.

  “Who won?”

  Chapter 16

  Samuel stands outside the squat brick building, the palmetto leaves slapping lazily against one another in the warm breeze. He lets the sun shine on his face. Lets it warm him.

  His hotel room was cold last night, an adjustable thermostat that ignored any adjustment and simply blew cool air around the small, dingy room. He has been in many hotel rooms recently, always paying cash, always staying away from the chains and going to anonymous places on the outskirts of the cities and towns he drove through. The trip to Florida from San Diego was a slow one. Samuel was careful to follow the speed limit, not wanting any record of his trip logged in a cop’s paperwork.

  Now, the naval base at Pensacola, Florida, is his new home. Where he will have to make due until his next chance for BUD/S training, eighteen months away. It was a long time, but he can do it.

  The Florida sun was hot, much stronger than southern California. In the week since he sent BUD/S Instructor Nevens and his blonde whore to the great boot camp in the sky, cold has always reminded Samuel of the water that night.

  Now, he pauses a moment longer, the sun’s heat intense on his face, his eyes shielded from the rays by sunglasses. Finally, when the warmth threatens to bring a line of sweat to his forehead, he turns and enters the building.

  The office is on the second floor. Samuel climbs the stairs with neither anticipation nor dread. He is starting back at square one. The frustration, the depression, are gone. Because he isn’t really starting back at square one. Nevens is gone.

  The door is open and he walks in. On the walls, there are photos and illustrations of ships, but Samuel ignores them. He walks toward the metal desk directly in front of him and the woman sitting behind it. The secretary is a woman in her forties with a tired face and a pointy chin, which she uses to gesture Samuel toward the two shoddy chairs just outside the door.

  Samuel takes the least flimsy chair and looks at the pile of magazines and newspapers on the cheap veneered table between the chairs. He skips the Sports Illustrated and the Men’s Health. Instead, he spies a newsletter published by the Navy, called All Hands.

  On the front page is a picture of deceased BUD/S Instructor Larry Nevens.

  Samuel’s heart shudders.

  He scans the story quickly. A brutal murder. Nevens was last seen with a woman, Rhonda McFarland, who is still missing. She looked like a Rhonda, Samuel thinks.

  There are no suspects in custody. A reward is offered for more information.

  Samuel reads on about Nevens’ background, noting there is no mention of what a prick he was.

  Finally, Samuel puts down the paper. He closes his eyes and slows his breathing.

  Suddenly, Samuel feels good. Confident.

  When he goes back to BUD/S training, he will be in better shape, mentally prepared for the ordeal ahead. But
through it all, he will have one thing on his side.

  He will be the only recruit who has actually killed a Navy SEAL.

  A small smile appears on Samuel’s face.

  When he looks up, the secretary is watching him.

  “He’ll see you now.”

  Chapter 17

  Samuel takes in Lowry, a thin man with narrow shoulders and a thin face hidden by giant aviator glasses. He looks like an insect, Samuel thinks.

  But the eyes behind the lenses are intelligent and quick. Samuel instinctively senses the man’s intelligence. Lowry’s office is neat as a pin. Not a paper out of place. Even the pens on the left side of the desk are symmetrically arranged.

  Weak, but smart, Samuel thinks. And a by-the-book kind of freak.

  “I see you almost made it through Hell Week,” Lowry says. The smile tries to tell Samuel that hey, it happens to the best of us.

  “Almost,” Samuel says, keeping his voice even.

  Their eyes meet and something momentarily flashes through Lowry’s before he looks back down at the folder in front of him. He briefly imagines slitting Lowry’s throat and feeding him to the sharks. A calm, peaceful feeling makes its way through his body.

  “You’re from Wisconsin?” Lowry asks.

  “Yes. A town called Silver Lake.”

  “All your life?”

  “Yes.” Samuel gives a nearly imperceptible nod.

  Lowry leans back in his chair. “I’m from Michigan. Don’t miss it at all. All that snow and bitter cold.” He shudders as if a blast of Arctic air has stormed through the office. “I’ll take Florida any day. Golfing in January! Can’t beat it, my man.” Lowry smiles, and Samuel notes the crooked teeth. Samuel imagines that Lowry doesn’t smile too often.

  “I’m going to assign you to ordnance. According to your enlistment papers, you expressed an interest in weapons. Does that sound good to you?”

  “Sure.”

  Lowry jots something down in the folder, then looks up at Samuel. “Are you planning to try again at BUD/S?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Now it’s Lowry’s turn for a slight nod.

  “Well, welcome aboard. Report to Hangar F2 tomorrow morning at 0800 sharp. That’ll be all.”

  Samuel leaves the office.

  Outside, he steadies his hands. The sun has disappeared, hiding behind a thick wall of black clouds. The air is cool.

  Rain, Samuel thinks.

  Chapter 18

  Samuel is pleased to learn that he’ll have his own room. Apparently, space is so limited that the only bunks available are the private rooms normally reserved for officers. A single room is a rarity among the lower ranks of the Navy. Not that Samuel’s a newbie, exactly.

  The room is very small, about eight feet by ten feet. A single bed takes up one wall. A desk and dresser are along the other side. Samuel stows his gear in the footlocker at the foot of the bed. Before closing it, he reaches into the sleeve on the outside of his duffel bag. From it, he pulls a single sheet of paper, folded several times. He takes it to the desk and carefully unfolds it. Smooths it out along the top of the desk. From the desk’s top drawer he takes a push pin and tacks the paper to the small bulletin board on the wall above the desk.

  Samuel goes to the bed and lies down on his side, so he can look at the picture. It’s of a Navy SEAL, his face in camo, a knife in his hand. The eyes jump from the page. Deep blue. Bright. Dangerous. It’s the same picture that Samuel has been looking at since he was very young. It was from a magazine. A National Geographic maybe. That face. Those eyes. They’ve given Samuel strength during times when he’s desperately needed it. Now, he looks into those eyes.

  They remind Samuel of his own eyes.

  He can see himself in their place. Stalking. The knife in his hand. He’s done that, in fact.

  He doesn’t know how long he sleeps. He rises slowly, gets his running gear out from his duffel and runs along the course outside the barracks. The air is cool, cleansed by an afternoon rain. He pushes himself along the jogging path.

  He runs approximately seven miles, then finishes his workout with pull-ups, push-ups, and sit-ups.

  When he’s done, his body is flooded with adrenaline, his mind drenched with endorphins. He feels powerful.

  Nothing will stop him.

  And no one.

  Chapter 19

  “If you ain’t ordnance, you ain’t shit.”

  Samuel wants to laugh at his supervisor, a man named Murphy. Crew cut. Pale face.

  “That’s our motto around here,” he says. “You like it?”

  “Yeah,” Samuel says. He thinks Murphy is shit, and the pathetic pride he takes in being in charge of ordnance is shit too. But he keeps it to himself.

  Murphy walks ahead of him, along a row of missiles and bombs. Samuel sees pimples at the base of Murphy’s head. “These are drones we use for training,” Murphy says. “You’ll work with these for approximately three months before we assign you to a ship where you’ll use the real deal. You know what I’m saying, Samuel?”

  “Yes.”

  Murphy walks Samuel around a corner where an ordnance team is working on loading a bomb rack. They move fast, hoisting together at the count of three, sliding bombs into racks, clamping them down, moving missiles suspended by thick chains along a pulley system.

  “One team I trained,” Murphy says, “finished here and two days later I saw them on CNN, on a carrier, loading the real thing to drop over there. One of them wrote, ‘This Bomb’s For You’ on the missile. That’s the kind of group we are, Samuel. We don’t take crap from anybody.”

  Samuel doesn’t say anything, watches the sailors working on loading the bombs.

  Christ, he thinks. Why did he ever put down an interest in weapons when he first joined up? Samuel thinks about it. His memories of his mother dying when he was in high school. The foster home he went to where they openly despised him but loved the paycheck that social services sent them for his expenses.

  “…points…”

  “Sorry?” Samuel sees Murphy watching him.

  “Nip points,” he says, pointing at the pulley system surrounded by an ordnance team of three. “I was telling you that one of the biggest dangers of working in ordnance is nip points. Places where two moving parts come together. They can pinch off fingers, hands, even limbs. Nip points. You’ve got to be careful.”

  Careful, Samuel thinks.

  I can be careful.

  Chapter 20

  The dream is in sepia tones: warm browns, burnished golds, rich shadows. It’s late autumn, late in the day, and Beth is a young girl. She’s sitting on her father’s shoulders. A basketball is in her hands. Beth is just strong enough to lift the ball. Beneath her, her father maneuvers the two of them closer to the basket. When they’re right under it, he reaches up and lifts her as high as he can. The rim is just a foot away. Beth tries to push the ball up, but she loses control, and the ball falls from her hands. Her father laughs and sets her down. He chases after the ball and brings it back. He’s about to scoop her up into his arms, but he steps back, his face full of mute horror.

  “What’s wrong?” Beth says.

  She looks down at her left leg, and it’s bent backwards, all twisted and mangled. She’s wearing Barbie tennis shoes, and her left one is pointed backward. Blood is on it. Her father starts screaming, and she turns to him, to tell him to stop screaming, that he’s scaring her. But her father is dead. The blotchy skin on his face hugs his bones. Now Beth starts screaming, and he smiles at her, a gruesome baring of his teeth.

  Beth is still screaming when the sepia tones begin to blaze, turning the whole picture smoky, leaving the images in a heap of charred remains.

  Beth awakes in her hospital room. Her mouth is dry and she’s crying. Her tongue feels thick and wooden. She’s awake but everything seems unreal and disconnected.

  “Drugs,” she says. “I’m on drugs.”

  A sound reaches her ears. It’s not a pleasant sound. But i
t’s familiar. She takes a certain comfort in that. But not much.

  “Water,” she says. A vague shape crosses in front of her and a moment later, it looms over her. Something is held to her lips, and she instinctively drinks. The water is cool but not cold. It slides down her throat; her parched tissues soak it up instantly.

  “Beth?” The voice is even more familiar to her. Mom. Her mom? The thought works its way through Beth’s highly medicated consciousness.

  “Mom?”

  A gasp at the sound. Then the voice calling out: “Nurse! Nurse!”

  “Mom.”

  “Shh. Everything’s all right. Nurse!”

  “Where am I?”

  “The hospital. Beaumont Hospital.”

  The sepia colors come back. They wash over Beth like the first stages of deep sleep. She succumbs to them for several minutes. Then she opens her eyes again. This time, there are no shadows. No vague shapes. She sees her mother sitting in a chair, wringing her hands. Next to her is a giant bulletin board tacked with cards and balloons. A door is to the left. It’s open, and Beth can see a small room with a toilet inside.

  Beth looks at the television bolted to a shelf suspended from the ceiling. The screen is blank. She wonders where the remote control is. Beth looks down at her body. It’s hidden beneath the blankets. Her pajama top is white with blue stripes.

  I can’t feel my leg.

  The images start ricocheting through her mind. The basketball game. The Tank. The end where she steals the ball and races down the court.

  The collision.

  Beth remembers looking down at her leg. Her strong, smooth, beautiful leg. How it was mangled and bent and…destroyed.