Dan Righter made Polasky feel like a boot camp sometimes, Ed mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Although Ed towered over the six foot, one hundred and seventy pound Lieutenant, Righter projected a powerful presence. Polasky unconsciously straightened a little whenever Dan was around him. Dan’s black, buzz cut hair, and his stiff demeanor made him a little standoffish. He never acted the part, but his teammates all simply felt him to be a cut above. Dan was the only married member of the team, which probably contributed to his maturity, in Polasky’s opinion. Having a wife and two children, in his chosen profession, leant itself to seriousness.
Polasky looked over at Doc, who was the only African American on the team. Ed grinned thinking about what would happen if he ever called Doc African American to his face. Eric Jameson, could have been an all pro, football running back. At six feet, three inches tall, and two hundred and ten pounds of solid muscle, he was a formidable soldier, in addition to his medical training.
Jameson’s nearly ebony skin made him stand out in stark contrast to the rest of his friends. Doc detested any mention of hyphenated titles when referring to his race, and he made no apology for it. Dan had quieted him down a number of times in the restaurant, when strangers had inadvertently made such a comment to Doc. Jameson, Dan, and Peace were the only college graduates on the team; but Peace was trying to get the other members through a program affiliated with the nearby college. Doc was third in command, and also held Chief Petty Officer rank.
JT Brigham, short for John Thomas, held Second Class Petty Officer rank. He had joined the Navy from Polasky’s home state of Tennessee. This made him a favorite of Polasky and his wife, Nancy, who Ed had married from his hometown of Chattanooga. JT’s freckles, and sandy colored hair, made him a magnet for Opie comments, which he took good-naturedly. Polasky grinned, knowing it would be unwise to provoke the easy going, angular, six footer.
The man sitting next to JT was the quietest of the crew. Tracer Robards, his real first name, much to Tracer’s chagrin, was Tracy. No one, who knew the short tempered Seal, ever called him by that name a second time. Polasky loved to hear Robard’s Massachusetts accent. The stocky, five foot ten inch, one hundred and sixty-five pound First Class Petty Officer sounded like a Harvard graduate when he wanted to. His crew-cut, dark brown hair, was always covered up by a Boston Red Sox ball cap, which he seldom took off. Tracer and JT were best of friends.
As Polasky reminisced, the restaurant door opened, and a striking young woman, with long, tied back, blonde hair walked in hesitantly. Ed could see her clearly through the partitioned gateway into the restaurant section, from where he stood at the bar. He watched her stand inside the door for a long moment, looking at all the Navy Seal memorabilia, and seascape themed decorations, covering the walls. It was only then Polasky noticed she walked with a cane held in her left hand.
Her strapped, dark blue, button up the center, summer dress ended just below her knee. She wore a simple gold chain around her neck, which matched the gold earrings she wore, and offset her tanned skin attractively. Ed guessed her height at five feet, five inches, and her weight somewhere in the one hundred ten pound range. When approached by his wife, Nancy, the young woman smiled, and Polasky’s eyebrows went up slightly, knowing beauty when he saw it. Nancy listened to her for a moment, and then pointed to the bar. Ed traded looks across the way with his wife of thirty years, but she only smiled and shook her finger at him.
With a slight limp, the young woman walked through the partition gateway, separating the bar and restaurant. Even with a cast from her left knee to her ankle, she managed a fluid stroll when she walked. Bull, Tracer, and JT, who were facing the gateway, noticed her immediately. They gave the others the high sign. Dan and Doc turned to glance at the young lady. Dan shook his head, and smilingly told them to get back to work.
The young woman saw the Seals look her over, and she smiled back at them self-consciously, before continuing to the bar, and sitting down in front of Ed. “Hi, could I have a draft please?”
Polasky listened to the soft, musical quality of her voice, smiling back at her attentively, before replying. “May I see some ID please, Ma’am?”
“Oh, of course, I’m sorry,” the young woman fumbled with her cane and purse for a moment before pulling her billfold out of her small black purse. She held up her driver’s license for Ed to see.
Polasky nodded. “Thank you. Dark or light?”
“Dark, please,” the young woman answered after a moment.
Polasky went to the bar tap to pour a dark draft beer for her. He watched all the Seals, except for the three college graduates, elbowing each other, and glancing up from their computers like recalcitrant school kids. He shook his head, grinning again at the antics of the young killers at the table. Ed brought the tall draft beer back to his customer, and set it down on a bar napkin in front of her.
“That’ll be $2.50, Ma’am.”
The woman put four, dollar bills on the table, and smiled up at Polasky as she sipped the beer. “Thank you, please keep the change.”
She leaned forward. “Could you tell me if there’s a man here named Pauley Peacenik?”
Polasky looked at her curiously for a moment. “He’s at the table behind you, Ma’am.”
The young woman turned slightly on her bar stool and looked back at the large booth. She smiled again at the men as they looked up at her from their computers. Only Dan and Peace were not looking at her, as Peace continued to point out a line of computer dialogue on Dan’s screen. She returned her attention to Ed after a moment.
“Yes, I see him,” she said. “My name is Jill Gregory. Could I ask a favor of you?”
“It depends,” Ed replied, smiling to take the bite out of his words, as he tried to cover his complete befuddlement at where this was going.
“Would you introduce me to the Navy Seals in the booth? I was told you were a retired Seal, and you know all of them.”
“Well, Jill,” Polasky hedged, “I’m the owner, Ed Polasky, and I was a Seal for a long time. I do know those guys, but you don’t need me to intro you to them. All you’d have to do is wave them over, and they’d probably kill each other getting here.”
Jill laughed, and it sounded to Polasky like small silver porch Christmas bells in a very soft breeze. She took another long sip of her beer, before looking up at Ed again. “I’m sorry, Mr. Polasky, I’m a little nervous. Some friends of mine from school, and me, traveled down to Chile about six months ago. We… well, I…”
“You were one of those airhead… I’m sorry, students, who they pulled out of the jungle last month, right?” Ed asked, interest plainly showing on his face now.
Jill sipped her beer again, nodding. “Yep, I was one of those airheads. If not for those guys in the booth, we’d be dead, or still rotting in that God forsaken jungle. I… I just wanted to meet them, and say thanks.”
“How did you ever find them, and how did you know Peace’s name? No one should know them. You should have gotten the run around until you gave up,” Polasky observed. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s a real foul up if someone at the base gave you their names, and told you right where you could find them.”
“Believe me, Mr. Polasky, no one from the Navy told me anything about them,” Jill said, reading the front of Ed’s black t-shirt once again: When you absolutely, positively need something destroyed overnight, US Navy Seals. “My Father tried to find out who had saved my life for me. He tried all the official channels, including the Navy Seals’ official web page on the Internet, with no luck. He finally hired a private detective in the San Diego area to look for a Navy Seal with scars all over his face. I…”
“So that’s how you did it,” Ed laughed. “Okay, so you found out who Peace was, and from there, you’ve made your way here. I can’t wait to rag those guys about how easy it is for an assassin to come and clean their clocks. I’ll tell ‘em they’ll have to kill Peace for their own protection.”
Jill laughed uneasily, an
d Ed picked up on it. He patted her hand. “Don’t worry, I’m just kidding. Two of the guys ain’t here. They left after dinner. Peace teaches computers to these guys. The other two Seal Team members, Nick Turner and Tony Chin, are real good with them already.”
Jill sipped her beer as she listened to Polasky, trying to get over her nervousness. “I figured they would be in the bar here, throwing down shots, and alternating between arm wrestling contests and knife throwing.”
This time, it was Polasky’s turn to laugh loudly, drawing curious stares from the Seals in the booth, who rarely saw Polasky take to a stranger so easily. “You’re alright, Jill. Let me tell you something. Three of those guys are college graduates. Peace has a Master’s Degree in computer engineering from Cal State Berkeley. The only training they do in here is on their laptops. C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”
Jill put a hand on Ed’s arm, halting him. “Mr. Polasky, one other question, is Peace’s last name really Peacenik?”
This set off another bout of laughter, and it was almost a minute before Ed could answer. “Yes Ma’am, that’s his name. His Father went to Woodstock. You know, that big outdoor Rock & Roll, drug fest. Anyway, his Dad was a real hippy type. He went to Canada after Woodstock, to stay out of the military draft, and he took Peace’s Mom with him. He changed his last name to Peacenik while he was up there. After the amnesty, they moved back down to the US, but kept the last name as just one of those rebellion things.”
“Wow, that must have been a real treat to grow up with a name like Pauley Peacenik,” Jill replied, finishing the last of her beer.
Ed nodded, picked up her glass, and refilled it. He waved off her money as he set it down. “This one’s on the house, young lady. I’m seldom surprised, and no one’s made me laugh like you have for quite a while. Peace and Dan have been together since they were in the first grade. Dan used to look out for him. Ready for your intro?”
Jill smiled and nodded her head. She maneuvered her cane to help her get back on her feet, as Polasky came around the bar. He took her arm and guided her over to the booth. All of the Seals glanced up, looking questioningly at first Jill, and then Polasky. Peace stood up, recognition, as well as surprise, clear on his face. He was dressed in a plain black t-shirt and jeans, as were the others. Peace held out his hand to her, and after a second’s hesitation, Jill grasped it.
“Jill,” Peace proclaimed. “Right?”
“I… yes, it is. How did…”
“You were one of the students,” Peace said. “I have a photographic memory. I saw you and Ed laughing at the bar, but I didn’t get a glimpse of your face.”
“Anyway,” Ed broke in. “Let me introduce you formally as Jill requested. Boys, this is Jill Gregory. Jill, you already know Peace. The guy next to him is Dan Righter. Then Doc Jameson, JT Brigham, Tracer Robards, and the big goon over here on the end is Bull Jenkins. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do. Nice meeting you, Jill. If these guys give you any trouble, just let me know, and I’ll have my wife Nancy come in and slap the punks around.”
This brought on a gale of laughter, as Ed returned to the bar. As Jill shook hands with the other members of the team, Peace brought over a chair for her to sit down in at the open end of the booth. Jill smiled her thanks, and set her beer down on the table. After they had all sat down again, the Seals waited for her to say something. Jill sipped her second beer, continuing to smile nervously, until finally Peace broke the silence.
“When’s the cast come off?” Peace asked.
“Only another week or two to go,” Jill replied. She set down her glass, and folded her hands on the table. “I just wanted to say thanks. You guys saved us, I…”
“Say,” Bull broke in, grinning at her. “Ain’t you the one that fell in love with my partner, Peace?”
“Bull,” Dan warned, as the rest of the Seals laughed, along with Jill, who noticed Peace just continued to watch her quietly. “You’ll have to forgive Bull, Jill. His Momma dropped him right on his head when he was just a baby.”
“That’s a lie, Lieutenant,” Bull replied indignantly. “My Momma couldn’t even lift me up.”
“Although we appreciate the trouble you went to, Jill, you really didn’t have to hunt us down,” Doc said, after the laughter died down. “It’s what we do.”
“I… I know,” Jill said, hesitantly, before looking around the table determinedly. “It’s just, you guys don’t know what it’s like being imprisoned, and terrorized for months, never knowing if they’d just come in and blow our heads off one day. Seeing you guys burst through the door, and tell us we were going home, was the best day of my life. I needed you all to know how grateful I am. I never should have been there in the first place. I was a naive idiot. We all were.”
The other Seals looked at Peace, who continued to smile at Jill.
“Peace there knows how it feels,” Bull said solemnly. “When we pulled his ass out of Iraq, he was one sorry looking individual, right Peace?”
Peace looked over at Bull, nodding in agreement. “I was the king of Useful Idiots. I had about five seconds to live, when you and Dan busted into that dungeon.”
Peace looked over at Jill, a look of commiseration showing plainly on his face. “I was a Human Shield in the Iraq war, along with a group of my idiot friends. Only three of us out of nearly a dozen lived. The Iraqi guards gave me these scars on my face, and an education I never received in college.”
Jill listened to Peace, entranced by his story. She had thought he had been scarred in battle with the Seals. “I guess you do know how I feel.”
“Actually,” Dan explained, “Peace here refused evac with the other two guys we rescued. Like he told you, he has a photographic memory, and he remembered the entire route the Iraqi’s had traveled to drop off the other Human Shields. By the time we found him, he had learned Arabic, and spoke it fluently. He stayed with us until he took us over the whole route, even though he looked like hell. It saved us a lot of valuable time, and turned up some important discoveries.”
“I don’t know,” Bull said, doubtfully. “He smelled so bad, if I’d had a choice, I’d have rather hunted the sites down myself.”
This brought laughter once again from everyone, including Peace.
“Bull had to carry me a lot of the way, at least when we couldn’t ride,” Peace explained. “He still claims his sense of smell died during the time he was hauling me from place to place.”
After a few more moments of laughter, Dan stood up, and closed his laptop. “If you all will excuse me, I have a family to spend some time with. We done here for tonight, Peace?”
Peace closed up his computer, with the rest following suit, and stepped out to let Dan and Doc get by him. “I think we’ve tortured these computers long enough.”
Jill had stood up, as the Seals made ready to leave the booth. She put her hand on Peace’s arm, which caused some eyebrows to raise amongst his comrades. “Do you have to go right away?”
Before Peace could answer, Bull was at his side, comically pointing his finger down at him. “Don’t you dare stay out too late, young man. Nice meeting you, Jill.”
The other Seals laughed, and followed his lead. Each of them said goodbye to Jill, and gave Peace a mock salute, which he ignored. Dan waited until the others were on their way out of the bar area before turning to Peace. “I guess you’ll find out how in the world Jill here found us?”
“I will, Dan, goodnight. Say hello to Becky and the kids for me.”
“You bet. Are you still coming over for dinner tomorrow night?”
“I’ll be there,” Peace promised. “I told Danny I’d be catcher for you to pitch to him. He hates shagging your wild throws.”
“He’s only four,” Dan laughed. “They’re all wild throws to him. Goodnight, Jill, nice meeting you.”
“Thanks, Dan,” Jill replied. “It wasn’t as easy finding you guys as you think.”
“I hope not,” Dan replied, waving at Polasky, before leaving.
He turned back suddenly. “Say Peace, bring Jill along tomorrow night if she’s still in town.”
“I’ll be in town,” Jill added.
“Goodnight, Dan,” Peace smiled at his friend.
Dan nodded with a grin, and left.
Chapter Four
College Boys
“Can I get you anything, Peace?” Polasky called out from the bar.
“I’ll have what Jill’s having, Ed,” Peace replied, gesturing for Jill to sit in the booth. Jill sat down across from where Peace had been sitting while he went to the bar and collected his beer from Polasky. He then pushed his laptop over and set his beer down. After sliding in across from Jill, Peace took a sip of his beer.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” Peace smiled.
Jill smiled back, noting Peace’s scarred face looked far less sinister when he smiled. “For a while there, I didn’t think you’d see me again either.”
She explained how she tracked the Seal Team down, and how she had known to come to the restaurant. Peace listened intently, and laughed at her reference to his scarring as a prime factor in the discovery. He looked over at Polasky, who was pretending not to be listening.
“Now I know what you were laughing at, Ed,” Peace commented to the bartender.
“I told her the guys would have to take you out, so they wouldn’t have to worry about being tracked down again,” Ed grinned.
Peace laughed in delight at this new information. “I will definitely relate that part to the guys tomorrow. Thanks for your support, buddy.”
“Anything to help a friend, Peace,” Ed replied. “She also interrogated me about your last name. She thought it was cute, didn’t you, Jill?”
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