by Sandra Hill
“Here or in Afghanistan?”
MacLean literally growled. “Don’t screw with me, dickhead. I can make that hot water you’re dog-paddling through turn to boiling and peel your stupid skin off. While I’m at it, I might as well burn off that wayward dick of yours.”
Okaaaay!
Picking up a pile of pink telephone message slips, he began to flick through them, making a comment about each:
“John Sylvester from the State Department. Wants a meeting with you ASAP.
“Mullah Ahmed Bejah from the L.A. chapter of Muslims for Peace. They’re demanding that the boy be returned because of his religious background.
“Admiral George Wilson, CENTCOM. He wants your ass in the brig.
“Your grandfather, General Floyd, is trying to make it all go away, which is of course impossible.
“A representative of the Afghan embassy in Beirut—we no longer have one in the United States—is demanding immediate and unconditional return of Samir.
“Aljazeera TV. Five calls from them.
“One each from Larry King, Katie Couric, and Diane Sawyer. Not to mention People magazine and the New York Times.
“If you dare talk to any media, I swear, I will personally take the hide off you. Oh, and did I mention some image consultant at the Pentagon thinks you would make a great poster boy for recruitment…once this brouhaha all dies down?”
Zach tried to look suitably surprised and outraged, but, frankly, he’d had just as many calls, some even wackier, and some downright scary. Like death threats. How they’d gotten his unlisted number was even scarier. That didn’t count the two attempts to kidnap Sammy, once in D.C. when he first came back to the States and several days later at the airport in San Diego. That was before he’d taken security measures.
The commander inhaled and exhaled deeply, presumably to tame his temper. “What happened today?”
“My son kicked the babysitter, who already had a bruised hamstring. We had to call an ambulance because he was unable to walk, possible shin fracture, and then I had to get a backup babysitter. By that time, I was already late, and I did call in, but—”
Commander MacLean raised a halting hand. “The babysitter with the bruised hamstring? You wouldn’t be referring to Ensign Omar Jones, would you?”
“Roger that. Omar has custody of his little girl, you know, but she’s visiting his parents in Arizona this week. I figured he has experience with kids. Hah! Lotta good that did. Actually, I begged Omar after the first five babysitters quit. My son is not the most pleasant gremlin on the planet. Omar is multilingual, as you know, and a SEAL, both positive attributes when dealing with an Afghan version of Attila the Five-Year-Old Hun.”
His humor—his whole frickin’ monologue—didn’t go over big with MacLean, who continued to frown at him. “I thought your mother came here from Florida to help with the kid.”
“She did, but she quit two days ago. Her exact words were, ‘You made your bed, sonny, now sleep in it.’ Besides she had a modeling gig…something for the AARP magazine, I think.”
Still not a hint of a smile.
So, he blathered on, “My brother, Danny, is on leave from his Iraq deployment. He’s an Air Force pilot. But he just laughs at me. People do that a lot lately.”
MacLean frowned. “Who’s the backup babysitter?”
Zach hesitated before revealing, “Your wife.”
“Madrene?” MacLean’s eyes about bulged from their sockets.
“I couldn’t think of anyone else to ask.”
“And the kids?” The commander and his wife had two children, three-month-old and two-year-old sons, Ranulf and Ivan, the latter better known as Ivan the Terrible. He had been given that name before anyone had met Sammy. Now he was considered a saint by comparison.
“They are there, too. My son seems to behave better in their company, under your wife’s iron control.”
The commander gave him “the look,” the one that put him in the same class as dipwad newbie tadpoles. “Your babysitting woes—in fact, your being late—are the least of your worries, boy.”
Zach knew things were bad when MacLean referred to him as “boy,” seeing as how the commander had only a few years on him.
“I will not send him back…Commander, sir.” It was telling how often he referred to his son as “him” or “the kid,” he realized with an odd sadness.
“I understand that. You better have bodyguards around the kid, though, because, believe me, Mullah Arsallah has friends in low as well as high places. He won’t give up.”
“Two of SEAL Team Thirteen’s inactive members are stationed outside my building, sir, for the time being. Including Scary Larry Wilson.”
His boss didn’t find that reference as amusing as Zach did. Scary Larry watching over Sammy the Snot. Whooboy! Actually, Wilson was a nice guy…a thirty-something SEAL who was on temporary suspension for breaking some ass-backward Navy rule. He’d hired him in the interim to help guard his son.
“I promise I’ll get this resolved soon.”
MacLean rested his elbow on the desk and put his chin in one hand, staring at him as if he were mud under his boondockers. “The Pentagon wants to know why—and how—you had sex during a live op in Afghanistan six years ago.”
Zach grinned. “Under a tarp in the mess tent.”
“Pfff! I’ll be sure to tell them that. Not!”
“I didn’t ask for this situation, sir, but I take responsibility for all of it. And I will resolve all the…issues.”
“Floyd, you’ve got as much sense as an armadillo crossing a four-lane highway.” MacLean shook his head at him. “What a cluster fuck! I hope you have a good lawyer.”
“I do, sir. My grandfather retained Jack Delaney for me.” His grandfather, Army General Frank Floyd, retired, was a notorious World War II ace pilot who still served in the Pentagon as a consultant, despite his advanced age. Delaney was a D.C. attorney with a reputation for winning at all costs.
The bill, which would be monumental, was being footed by his father, an aging lothario who still thought he was Hollywood’s answer to Cary Grant, playing just such a role, Dr. Lawrence Bratton, in one of the long-running TV soap operas, Light in the Storm. Incredibly, the old blowhard thought he could still give George Clooney a run for his money.
His mother, who’d divorced his father about twenty affairs ago, back when they all still lived in Bangor, Maine, had her own life as a senior citizen model. She’d kill him if she ever heard him refer to her that way.
His family, dysfunctional as it was, were there for each other in times of need. And, man oh man, Zach sure was needy now.
MacLean nodded at the mention of Delaney. “Well, for the time being, you’re assigned here at Coronado as an instructor.”
Zach had expected that. In fact, he’d expected far worse punishment as he’d worked out every day, waiting for his sentence…uh, assignment. Gig Squad, at the least.
“Don’t look so smug, Floyd.”
Uh-oh! Zach didn’t like the smirk on his commander’s face. Incoming bomb about to zing me.
“You are the brand-new assistant commander of the Navy’s half-assed, birdbrained, in-your-face WEALS, boy.”
“WEALS? Oh, no! No, no, no! Not that SEAL wannabe bunch of women!”
“Exactly. Women on Earth, Air, Land and Sea. The latest BUD/S class just ended, and another won’t start for three months to accommodate this program.”
“What the hell do I know about teaching SEALs or WEALS or anyone, for that matter?”
“SEAL instructors aren’t professional teachers, as you well know. It’s a temporary duty billet like any other. Behave yourself, and you might be put back on the teams.”
So much for that argument! “Who’s the commander?”
MacLean’s face flushed a bright red. Even his partially bald head was red.
“Wha-hoo! What did you do wrong to get this assignment?”
“Nothing. I was just in the wrong place at the wr
ong time.”
Zach knew how that could happen. Best to make yourself as invisible as possible in the military. “Man, I never thought I’d see the day that they’d allow women into the teams.”
“They’re not. Listen, terrorism has escalated so much in the past five years that we can’t keep up with the demand for SEALs out in the field. Same with all the other special forces units in other branches of the military. Women can fill a need.”
“You’re talking about lowering the standards, aren’t you?”
MacLean nodded. “Let’s face it. There’s no way a woman, no matter how strong, would be able to withstand a real Hell Week. For example, I think we’ll pass on log PT. Those telephone pole buggers weigh three to four hundred pounds each.”
“So do IBSs.” Inflatable Boats, Small, were heavy rubber boats, an integral part of BUD/S training. “You gonna eliminate those, too?”
He shook his head. “No, we’re gonna give them a try. Somehow they seem more manageable. I don’t know. We’re playing by ear…or muscle. But don’t worry, we’ll push them to their limits. They’ll have to work harder than they ever have in their lives to survive…till they can kick ass and take names like any special forces unit.”
“And afterward?”
“Once trained, they’ll be incorporated into the new U.S. Liberty Teams.”
Zach frowned. “That antiterrorist squad? I heard about it starting up a year or so ago, then nothing.”
“It’s still in the works. Just ran into a few snags, which could be expected when you try to combine SEALs, Green Berets, Army Special Forces, and every other Rambo-like idiot warrior group in the world, not to mention, now, WEALS.”
“I can see dozens of complications with this WEALS program. Sex, as in instructors and officers hitting on the women. Serious distractions, like breasts bobbing all over the place. Female periods. PMS, for chrissake!”
“That’s not the half of it. In pretraining last week, we were doing duck squats when one of the women accidentally farted. F.U. and one of the other instructors laughed. She burst out bawling with embarrassment and ended up ringing out.”
Any SEAL trainee, or WEALS trainee for that matter, could DOR, drop on request, at any time. All they had to do was walk to the northeast corner of the grinder where there was a ship’s bell, place their personalized helmets on the ground, and ring the bell three times. In fact, there was a 40 percent dropout rate during the first phase of BUD/S. He had no idea how high it would be for WEALS, which had started with ninety-five women.
“And there’s more. The Navy has appointed a female ombudsman, Captain Lenore Feldman, to handle complaints from the WEALS trainees. Think anal with a capital A. Her big thing is memos.” The commander picked up a memo as if it were something repugnant. “Look at this,” he added, shoving a pink slip his way.
MEMO
From: Captain Lenore Feldman
To: Commander Ian MacLean
Subject: WEALS
PMS is a legitimate medical condition according to Code 722, Article 7.
Zach shook his head at the absurdity. “I can only imagine the scenario: ‘Please, Instructor Floyd, sir, can I be excused from PT today? I’m in a bad mood.’”
“Here’s another one. Can you believe it?”
MEMO
From: Captain Lenore Feldman
To: Commander Ian MacLean
Subject: WEALS
Excessive hollering in some circumstances can be considered harassment. No nexus, but open to interpretation, case-by-case basis.
“You know, SEALs are not the most politically correct beings on the planet. Next they’ll be giving us sensitivity training. Find our inner female, or some such crap. This is going to be a nightmare,” Zach concluded.
“More like a field of land mines. We’ll have to be careful where we step, but I’ll be damned if I’ll change special forces training just to accommodate these women. If they want to join the game, they’re gonna have to play by our rules. Anyhow, we’ll have a briefing later this afternoon. All SEALs, SEAL trainees, and any testosterone-oozing body within a mile radius of the compound will know by tomorrow what they can or cannot do.”
Including no laughing at farts. Unbelievable! Zach nodded. “So this is going to be my punishment.”
“It’ll be fun.”
Zach was too appalled to say anything but, “Hoo-yah!”
A woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do…
Britta figured that she must have landed on her head when she fell over the cliff, knocking her unconscious. Or was she dead? Could this be the famed Other World? If so, its glory had been vastly exaggerated, in her opinion. There was not a gold sword or one-eyed god in sight.
Or mayhap this was Muspell. It was certainly hot enough. But, nay, Britta did not think she had done anything so bad in her lifetime to merit those eternal fires.
Still, I must be in bad odor with the gods. Naught goes right with me anymore.
When Britta emerged from the haze she found herself in, it was not her head that throbbed but her backside. She wasn’t impaled on the sharp rocks but sitting in a flat, sandy arena.
A man wearing short, thigh-exposing braies and a short-sleeved shert leaned over her, his clean-shaven face florid with anger. To her shock, she realized that she was dressed in a similar fashion, right down to the heavy skin boots. Into her ear, the man shouted, “Lady, get yer butt in gear and climb back up that cargo net. NOW!” He had a ruddy complexion, which got redder, a clear sign of his anger.
Best he be careful. She knew a man, Snorri the Red, who’d had a similar ruddiness. One day in the midst of one of his yelling fits, he just dropped over, dead as a lutefisk.
“Move it, move it, move it!” the man continued to scream.
“What?” She glanced upward and saw not the cliff face but a high wall made of rope. And women, in similar attire, were climbing upward. Could they be Valkyries? Nay. None of them looked goddesslike in beauty. And, truth to tell, if they were all virgins, she would bite her best sword. Not in that scant attire.
One of them fell down, dusted herself off, and immediately started over. Some men, blowing metal whistles, smirked as they stared at the women’s fabric-strained buttocks sticking out like obscene boulders above them.
“You heard me, birdbrain. And you know the correct response. Yes, Master Chief Uxley, sir. Say it with the proper respect.”
Birdbrain? Is he calling me birdbrain? “What did you say?” Britta was about to clout the insulting man aside his head, which had been shaved nigh bald, but then she reminded herself that she was in some strange place. Mayhap she should play along till she got her bearings.
“Are you mocking me? Are you mocking me? Drop, sister, and give me ten,” the man hollered, spittle pooling at the corners of his mouth, as he jabbed her in the chest with a forefinger.
“What?” she said again. What has got the miscreant’s bald head in a blaze?
“You heard me. Push ’em up, sweetie.” He said “sweetie” as if it were a slur and pointed to a woman behind her who was raising and lowering her body, which was level with the ground, but never quite touching it. She assumed this was what he wanted her to do when he mentioned “pushing-up.”
“Yes, Chieftain, sir,” she said, dropping down to the sand. But what she thought was, Go swive a goat, Chieftain, sir.
Anger flared in his eyes. “Master chief. Not chieftain. Now give me thirty for insubordination.”
I would like to give you something, you witless cur, but it has naught to do with pushing-ups. Gritting her teeth, Britta decided that compliance was the wisest course of action till she determined where she was.
Thus it was that she found herself raising and lowering her body like a lackwit, along with a half dozen other women. If this was meant to be punishment, she had news for the man with the flaming face. Flogging was punishment. Kneeling on a stone floor for a day was punishment. Eating gammelost was punishment. Being imprisoned in a nunnery was punishm
ent. Raising and lowering the body in sand was not punishment.
The whole time she and the other women did the pushing-ups, the chieftain kept goading them. “Are you sure you don’t wanna ring out? Nothin’ wrong with bein’ a quitter. It’s only your first day. You gotta have a fire in the gut to succeed here, ladies. I don’t see a spark in a blasted one of you.”
One woman muttered, “I got fire,” and the rest echoed her refrain. Britta did, too, figuring it must mean something significant.
“Do you really wanna put yourselves through this pain? Wouldn’t you like a nice manicure about now?” the miscreant leader continued.
“For a certainty, it would be nice to have a man to cure me.”
The chieftain’s face got ruddier, his eyes bulging.
That was her cue to remain silent, she suspected. Since none of the other women were quitting, she followed suit. When in doubt, just follow your instincts; that had always been her philosophy. When she completed the exercise, which was more difficult than it appeared, no doubt due to her recent bout of mead madness, he ordered her once again to climb the rope wall.
She started to climb, then turned back to stare down at the chieftain. “Dare to look at my arse, you bloody lecher, and you will find your face in the sand when I come back down.”
His sputtering and the other men’s laughter could be heard as she climbed up the rope netting, not an easy task, since it swayed and moved to and fro with the climbers. It would have been easier if she were barefooted. Leastways, she could grip the ropes with her toes. This way, her skin boots could get no purchase. But anger fueled her, and she soon reached the top, which she straddled, as best she could, panting for breath. She had not realized how high it was…more than two floors of a fortress castle. She tried her best not to look downward.
Glancing around, Britta realized that from this vantage point she had a bird’s-eye view of a vast region. She should have recognized the scent of salt water in the air, but still she was surprised to see the blue ocean on one side with extremely large metal ships not so far away. Not a low-riding wood dragon ship in sight. Was it a harbor of some kind? If so, where was the market town that usually catered to the incoming and outgoing traders on longboats and knarrs?
