by Weston Ochse
He’d been a member of SEAL Team 4 since Class 258. As an East Coast SEAL out of Little Creek, Virginia, he didn’t know many SEALs from the West Coast. But he’d heard of Holmes. Although Team 4’s mission was focused on Central and South America, Yaya had spent the last four years on repeated deployments to the Middle East. His most recent mission was as part of a task force to take down an old oil platform off the coast of Yemen that had become home to a force of AQAP (Al Qaida on the Arab Peninsula) pirates threatening ships entering the Gulf of Aden.
Then the others introduced themselves to him. When they got to Walker, his story was much shorter. He told the story about how he was jerked out of training, which earned him a look from Yaya that was both shocked and impressed.
“I’m definitely not all that,” Walker said. “Right now I’m specializing in not doing what I’m told.”
Ruiz nodded. “You’re good at doing what you’re not told to do.”
“Ain’t no one does the kickin’ chicken better,” Laws laughed.
Ruiz held out his fist and kissed knuckles with Laws. “Amen to that.”
When Yaya gave a blank look, both Ruiz and Laws glanced at Walker for permission.
Walker shrugged. If they wanted to talk about it, then more power to them. He wouldn’t do it, though. It just felt too weird.
Ruiz and Laws jumped right in. They sat on the edge of their respective couches talking animatedly with their hands, diagramming the mission to Chinatown. When they got to the part where Walker fell to the ground and started thrashing, Ruiz demonstrated on the couch, by rolling on his back and shaking his arms and legs spastically. Soon, they were all laughing uproariously, even Walker, who found it funny in a self-conscious he-couldn’t-believe-it-happened-to-him sort of way.
Their laughter stopped when the door to the conference room opened and Holmes stepped out. He called Laws over and they spoke for a moment. While they conversed, Billings left with her briefcase in hand. Soon Laws returned to them. Holmes walked past, hardly acknowledging them. He went into Fratty’s suite and slammed the door.
“What was that all about?” Ruiz asked.
Laws frowned and shook his head. “Okay, here’s the scoop. SPG pulled some data off the hard drive. We have a mission brief tomorrow morning at 0900. Tonight’s the wake for Fratty at McP’s. We all need to go there. Until then you’re on your own.”
He turned to go, then paused. “Oh yeah. I’m in charge for the immediate future. Skipper has to stand before a board. Once he’s cleared, he’ll be back in command.” Then he headed to his own suite.
Walker sat back. “That was an ‘oh yeah’ comment?”
“He didn’t want to put any weight on it,” Ruiz said. “Happens every time. The brass conducts a board to ascertain the events surrounding a death of a SEAL. But in this case, it’s two within one month. First Lieutenant Chong, who Walker replaced, then Fratty.”
“They call it due diligence,” Yaya added.
“They going to ask us questions?” Walker asked.
“Probably.” Ruiz shrugged. “Just answer truthfully. We all saw what happened.”
“What did happen?” Yaya asked after a few moments of silence.
Walker got up to leave. With all the time he had, he could give Jen a call and see if she was available before he was due at the wake. He left Ruiz talking about the HAHO jump into the mission and the beast aboard the ship.
29
CORONADO ISLAND. MIDNIGHT.
Although buzzed from Fratty’s wake, they weren’t ready to call it quits. Walker and Laws liberated a cooler from a passed-out fisherman and headed down the beach. The lights of San Diego glowed in the distance like an earthbound galaxy. A barge bleeped its horn as it cruised forlornly down the middle of the empty harbor. They found a place to park, grabbed beers, and went down to the water.
McP’s had been closed for the wake and filled with SEALs old and new. Pictures and plaques adorned the walls. Team names and patches were everywhere. This was as much a museum to what it was to be part of a team as it was a bar. They drank beers and sang songs. They shared what stories they could about Fratty.
Then after a time, Holmes got serious. He pulled Walker aside, grabbed two beers, and took him down the beach a ways. They found a spot where only the surf and the stars could overhear. After Holmes opened the beers and passed one to Walker, he began.
“You might as well know that I knew your brother, Brian.”
Walker stopped drinking and started to ask a question, but then paused, seeing the serious look in Holmes’s eyes.
“In fact, not only did I know him, but I led the mission where he was killed.”
Walker lowered his beer slowly. “Like Fratty? And Chong?”
Holmes shook his head. “Not like them at all. They died performing their mission.”
The waves at night were a dark gray against an abysmal blue sky. Way out to sea, lights blinked from passing ships. The world seemed so large at moments like this, so improbably large. “So then how’d my brother die?”
“By disobeying orders.”
Walker glared at Holmes. The beer had become acid in his stomach. “So it was his fault? That’s convenient.”
Holmes took a slug of his beer and stared out to sea. “Your brother made a choice, much like you did on the boat. I told him to stay put, but he didn’t do it.”
“What happened?”
“We were on the road, chasing down a Taliban operative, and your brother set off an IED.”
“So where does the disobeying orders come in?”
“A group of kids was playing in the middle of the road. He was worried about them. We were in a natural ambush site. First he called to them, but they wouldn’t come, so he went to them.” Holmes took a final slug of his beer. “That’s when the IED went off.”
“Did he feel anything?”
“I doubt it. It was a very big bomb.”
Walker didn’t know what to say. He imagined his brother first trying to help the kids, then getting blown to bits. He took a slow sip of the acid in the bottle. Finally he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“It wasn’t the right time.”
“How come I feel like this is a lesson?”
Holmes turned to him. “Because everyone’s death should mean something. I’ve seen too many SEALs die, too many of our soldiers and sailors, too many bad guys. I’ve breathed death for so long I don’t know what life tastes like.” He stared hard at Walker for a moment, then turned and strode away. Walker stood there for a good ten minutes not knowing what to think or say.
Laws arrived bringing several beers, clinking together in his hands. He placed them in the sand, then retrieved one, opened it, and slung it back. “So he finally told you.”
Walker nodded. “You knew?”
“Yeah, I knew.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“It was his to tell you.” He took another drink. “I would have told you eventually if he hadn’t gotten around to it.”
“I used to think my brother’s death meant something,” Walker said.
“Sometimes the death doesn’t mean anything except in context for the living. I think your brother’s death can help you understand the man. I didn’t know him, but I know people who did and they all say he was a great SEAL and a terrific guy. He was a shepherd without a flock. I think he punished himself for not being able to take care of you and sought out avenues to take care of others.”
“So you think he felt bad about leaving me behind?”
“Of course he did. Anyone would. But it sounds like he made the right decision. He would have been a terrible father figure when he was younger.”
“According to Holmes, my brother died saving children.”
Laws grinned as he drained another beer. He went over to the cooler, grabbed two more, brought them back, and passed one to Walker. “Listen, I’ve been around. I’ve seen death on four continents. There are three kinds of death in this w
orld: those that we see coming and gladly embrace if it promotes the mission and/or saves lives; those we don’t see coming but know that our actions are inventing the possibility; and finally, those that are an absolute surprise. The measure of a man is in how he travels the path towards the inevitability of any one of those deaths. Because death is certain. By the very nature of our mission, we place ourselves in the second category. Your brother did just that. Sure, he disobeyed an order, but most of us would have done the same. Children of any race, creed, or religion are the progeny of us all.”
“Do you think that a part of him felt like he was doing something for me? Not for the me I am now, but for the me I was when I went into the orphanage?”
“Absolutely. He saw you in those kids. But that doesn’t make it your fault. You can’t control how someone else will act or deal with their own internal demons.”
“I know. It’s just that—”
“What?”
“I wish that I’d been able to tell him that I was never angry at him. That I loved him … that in my eyes, he was a great brother.”
Laws shook his head. “Shit, man. Don’t you think he knew it?”
“No. How could he?”
“Then all you can do is honor his actions and his name. Pay it back. Pay it forward. Remember that he saved those children and someday do the same.”
“That’s all I can do, isn’t it?”
“That’s all you can do.”
Then they proceeded to get totally shitfaced.
30
SUBIC BAY. 1985.
The first time his father knew something was wrong was when he found Jackie in the closet covered in the entrails of a roadkill pig. Walker had only remembered the scene recently. It played across his mind like something he’d seen, not something he’d done. But the memory of the smell of the rotting entrails, blood, and offal, the stench of the puddle of vomit and urine that little Jackie lay within—it was so powerful it had to come from his own memories, however imperfectly they were set within his mind.
At first his father had stood there, one hand on the door, the other at his mouth. What he was seeing wasn’t understandable, it wasn’t explainable. There were no words that could have been used to describe the feelings of helplessness, outrage, and fear that played a devil’s jig on his psyche as his youngest boy giggled with the voice of an old man.
“Halikan mo nga ako, Tay,” it said. Give us a kiss, Daddy.
His father had slammed the door shut immediately, leaving him in the darkness with his own insane giggles as he let the voices in his head take turns using his mouth.
“Why’d he do that?”
“You’re an ass licker.”
“Tatay?” Daddy.
“Fuck a duck.”
“Ibalik mo sya.” Make him come back.
“Suckie suckie on the rubber dubber duckie.”
“Tay, parang awa mo na.” Daddy please.
The door opened slowly, almost of its own will. Jackie’s father was already backing away from the sight of his child, the lascivious look of hunger curving his little lips into something inhuman.
“Fuck a duck, Daddy. Fuck a duck.”
It would take three months for the father to find a way to get his son back, and in saving him, he’d find his own demise.
31
KADWAN. TWO MONTHS EARLIER.
The shipment from Temple of Heaven Importers had arrived. He’d had a dozen men bring the thin, man-sized box into the room he’d spent the last six months preparing. The walls, ceiling, and floor bore the results of his creation. A single brazier mounted in each corner of the room provided a dull glow.
While he sat languidly in lotus position, becoming one with the room, the men placed the box in front of him and hurried out, their eyes flashing their naive fear. He waited for the scurry of their steps to diminish, then resumed listening to the screams that were just on the edge of hearing. The power and energy of the women’s pain mixed inextricably with the swaths of their blood that he’d finger-painted upon the cold stone walls. He’d added the crushed petals of flowers to the mix, creating alternate pigments that breathed life into his work. So instead of a mere abattoir, he now had six planes of hand-painted hell, created through the agony of one hundred and fourteen women, three boys, seventeen men, and an elephant. What had once been a universal red had been transformed into an elegant multicolored creation of geometric slashes and curls, as if his artistic command of their lives had caused the blood to reshape into its own outraged intelligent designs.
With the mad screams of the dead loud in his ears, he opened the box before him. It took a while. The Chinese loved their knots and used them to keep both good and evil at bay. Finally he lifted the lid and stared at the thing that lay within the luxurious gold satin interior.
It glistened below him, telling the story of so many people who’d allowed their bodies to be colored. A tattoo of a snake here, a dragon there, a garish anchor with a naked Western woman next to the letters of someone’s long-forgotten lover, and a hundred more, all stitched together with thread stolen from the mandala rugs of Tibetan monasteries.
Touching it with a trembling finger, he felt its paper-thin fragility. Yet no matter how fragile it seemed to him, to the other it would be like a suit of titanium Kevlar. The men and women who’d gone into the creation of this wonder would keep the creature from latching onto his soul. It would allow him to survive the channeling and give him power over the one who’d been speaking with him all these months.
Trust me, it had said.
But he knew better. The suit of tattooed skin would be his commentary on the being’s desire to be trusted.
He unfolded his legs and stood tall. His angular shoulders and hips pressed against his rib-thin, naked brown body. His skin was a road map of self-discovery, crisscrossed with charts from thirty years of self-mutilation.
As he stepped into the suit of other people’s skin, he was delighted to hear the screams grow louder.
32
GOLDEN BUDDHA. IMPERIAL BEACH. LUNCH.
Walker and Ruiz sat in the ratty vinyl booth comparing birth dates on the Chinese zodiac. They were dressed in loose-fitting cargo pants, Hi-Tec boots, T-shirts, and hoodies. The hoodies hid the 9mms in quick-draw shoulder holsters. Their cargo pockets were filled with magazines. Each also had an MK3 knife strapped to his left calf. Walker’s T-shirt was from a restaurant in Salt Lake City called Steaks and Bitches, and had a prominent picture of a cowgirl with a steak on the end of a long fork. Ruiz wore an Old Navy shirt.
“You’re a cock,” Ruiz said.
“And you’re a goat.”
“But you’re a cock.” This time his smirk was in full force.
Walker shook his head. “It’s a rooster.”
“They’re the same thing. ‘Cockerel’ is the term for a young male fowl. We call them cocks for short. ‘Rooster’ is the slang term for a mature male. They made you a cock. Not me. Anyway, don’t blame me, blame the Chinese zodiac.”
Walker stared at Ruiz as though he’d just answered a Double Jeopardy question as the young Chinese waitress delivered their hot tea and bowls of steaming hot and sour soup. Ruiz dug in right away. Walker waited until the waitress left, then reaffirmed, “I’m a rooster.”
“Cock,” Ruiz said in between slurping his soup.
Walker ate a few spoonfuls. The taste was heavy with mushrooms, the way he liked it, and only had a bit of bite. He usually evaluated a Chinese restaurant by their ability to make hot and sour soup. This one was pretty terrific. It was going to be sad at the end of the day when they were no longer able to make the soup. But that’s what they deserved for housing a Snakehead sweatshop and way station in their basement, or so said the intelligence gleaned from the ship’s hard drive. At first, SPG wasn’t sure if it had any relevant information, but then one of the analysts began tracking the ship’s route of travel based on navigational buoy beacon responses along the coast and discovered that the ship had been anch
ored off the coast within ten nautical miles of the restaurant. What turned out to be a gold mine was a deeply hidden file with latitudinals and longitudinal, each with notations using the word “Pifu,” which translated roughly to “skin suit.”
When they finished, the waitress brought two heaping serving dishes of twice-cooked pork and Mongolian beef, along with a large bowl of steaming white rice. As he had with the soup, Ruiz dug in right away.
“You’re actually going to eat?” Walker asked.
“Sure, why not?”
Why not? Walker checked his watch. They were six minutes from making their move, that’s why. He looked around the restaurant. Five other tables were occupied. Three of those were regular customers. One table held a heavyset, mean-as-a-Rottweiler NCIS agent named Alice Surrey, and at the other sat Laws and Yaya. Holmes was still waiting for the board. He was forced to stay back and keep Hoover company. While Laws was yammering away at one thing or another, Yaya looked miserable. Or at least his eyes did, because that’s the only part of him that wasn’t covered in black fabric. Being the newest member of the team and conveniently Middle Eastern, he was chosen to wear the burka. Not only did it lend some authenticity, but it allowed for a lot of fabric with which to hide the weapons he had secreted beneath.
“Y’all might as well eat,” Ruiz said, barely intelligible around a bite of food.
“How can you eat at a time like this?”
“The food is good. Eat.”
“You’re a goat, all right.”
