Ready to Roll

by Suzanne Brockmann

  We get candidates who make it most of the way through Hell Week, only to snap a bone in their foot. Boom, they’re rolled, but most of ’em quit because the idea of repeating Hell Week is too much.

  That’s a big part of what we’re doing here.

  We’re culling the herd.

  We don’t want the men who just barely squeak through. We want SEAL candidates who are willing to do Hell Week five times in a row, if that’s what we ask them to do.

  So an hour into Hell Week, that culling begins. We hit ’em hard with the cold. We send them into the ocean for a little surf torture.

  What exactly is surf torture? (laughs)

  It’s pretty simple. We send the SEAL candidates into the ocean. Again, full unis, boots and all. They lock arms and sit in a long row, right where the surf hits the shore. Sounds fun—like what little kids do when they go to the beach, right? But it’s nighttime and the Pacific is a cold bastard, even in the daylight. The candidates have to sit in freezing water, getting punched by the waves, and it all gets very un-fun very fast.

  And yeah, we’re pretty PC these days. We’ve got a medical team and an ambulance trailing us around, all week long. Hypothermia is a thing, so our candidates are only in the surf for fifteen minutes at a time. We bring ’em out, give a quick med check, but then they go right back in.

  We’ll do surf torture regularly throughout the week. We use it as a punishment. And we use it as a reward. Congratulations, gentlemen. You’ve won yourselves an opportunity to sit and rest! (laughs)

  I think more men quit during surf torture than just about anything else we throw at them.

  And that first session…?

  Most of ’em come off of that very first run sweating and breathing hard, but thinking I got this. The smart ones—the candidates we hope will make it through—are thinking We got this.

  Because that’s how they’ll do it. They need to stop thinking I and start thinking we.

  But even for those smart candidates—and maybe especially for those smarter candidates who already believe that they’re part of an indestructible, motivated team—it can be a total mind-fuck when the quitting begins.

  And it begins right then. An hour into Hell Week.

  Quitting is contagious. All it takes is one man to go, and the floodgates open. I’ve had classes where over a dozen candidates quit in that first round of surf torture.

  In this current class, I’ve got my eye on that one candidate who’ll start the stampede. This kid… I think maybe Zanella read him right, and he’s doubting his place in the program. It happens. Not everyone has what it takes to be part of the Teams.

  Our job as instructors is to help this individual by applying a little pressure and increasing his doubt until it becomes certainty. (smiles)

  Shortly after twenty-two hundred tonight, this kid’s gonna help me out by leading an entire pack of doubters straight to that bell.

  And then we can get on with the real work of turning the remaining class of candidates into U.S. Navy SEALs.

  * * *

  The walk from the mall to Burgers Plus was pleasant.

  The evening was cool and it wasn’t hard to keep the conversation going.

  Ryan had a lot of questions about where Ben had come from. Ben was one of the newest kids in school, after all.

  Of course, there were always lots of new kids near any U.S. Naval Base. Ryan had been a new kid himself, not too long ago. His mom was a Navy doctor—divorced from his dad, who was completely out of their lives.

  Now that he was in high school, Ryan stayed with his grandparents here in San Diego whenever his mom went TDY to places he couldn’t go, too. But when he was younger, he’d gone with her to Hawaii and even to Japan—that must’ve been cool. But he’d stayed home when she’d served aboard hospital ships in the Middle East. That had been hard.

  Ben could relate. As SEALs, both Danny and Izzy could go wheels up at any given moment. He and Jenn and Eden never knew where Team Sixteen was going, or if—when—they’d come home. It wasn’t an easy way to live. But it was worth it.

  “Hey, I asked where you were from, and we ended up talking about me,” Ryan protested.

  So Ben gave him the nutshell version of his previous life. He started the story in Vegas, because that was bad enough without going into the details of how he’d lived in New Orleans and barely survived Hurricane Katrina.

  Starting with Vegas meant he “only” had to tell the tale of his pushover alcoholic mother, his evil stepfather, and the attempt to “turn” Ben straight by sending him to “Pray the Gay Away” camp. Of course the story had a happy ending when Danny and Eden—with Izzy and Jenn at their sides—had rushed to Ben’s rescue. Still, he left out most of the drama—of which there had been a lot.

  “Greg, my stepfather… he died a few weeks ago,” Ben said. “There’s been, kinda noticeably, no word from my mom. But she’s a mess. She could be in prison for all we know.”

  “That’s… kinda awful,” Ryan said.

  “Nah,” Ben said as they stopped there on the sidewalk in front of the Burgers Plus. The 1950s era building that housed the restaurant had copious outside seating that would’ve spilled onto the sidewalk if not for a low metal fence containing it. The outdoor area swept around the side of the building, too. The rest of the property was a giant parking lot. He didn’t see Wade’s beat-up, ancient blue Dodge Dart, but there was even more parking around the back.

  “I mean, it was awful,” Ben continued. “But living here with Eden and Izzy, and Danny and Jenn? That’s been great. And Jenn just had a baby, so now I have a nephew, Colin. Wait, lemme show you.” He dug his phone out of his pocket, scrolling to the set of photos he’d taken during the welcome party when Danny and Jenn had brought Colin home from the hospital. “Check this out.”

  Ben had sat on the sofa and Jenn had put Colin into his arms, while Eden snapped photos.

  “It’s crazy how little he is,” Ben told Ryan now. “He’s got these tiny, perfect fingers, and he grabs onto your pinkie and… Oh, my God, the way he just glowers up at you, like he’s trying to figure out how the hell he got here. It’s hysterical. He’s so freaking adorable.”

  Ryan was leaning in close to look at the photos, swiping his way through the series, but now he looked up at Ben and smiled. “You’re adorable. I never would’ve guessed that inside mega-cool Ben Gillman is a baby-loving fourteen-year-old girl.”

  Ben had to laugh. “Yeah, well, my inner baby-loving fourteen-year-old girl is a hardcore feminist, so she and I will both take that as the awesome compliment that I’m sure you meant it to be,” he countered, and there they were, practically nose to nose, shoulders still touching as they smiled into each other’s eyes in what surely would’ve been a moment, had they not come to Burgers Plus to make Wade O’Keefe jealous.

  “I know you probably think I’m an idiot,” Ryan said quietly, taking a step back. Together they started moving again toward B-Plus’s main entrance. “I mean, I’m starting to think I’m an idiot, but… I just can’t give up on him.”

  It was then that Ben glanced up and saw Wade coming out of the side door of the restaurant. The football player was carrying a huge bag of trash.

  Wade stopped short when he spotted Ben with Ryan. He quickly covered it, turning away, but Ben could see he was upset from the jerkiness of his movements as he hauled the trash to the Dumpster that lurked in the far corner of the dimly lit parking lot.

  “Heads up,” Ben said.

  Ryan nodded. “I see him.”

  But then a female voice said, “Ben?”

  And Ben turned to see his sister-in-law, Jenn, sitting just on the other side of the low metal fence. She was wearing one of Danny’s SEAL hats and looking a tad messy, like she was taking a break from cleaning out the garage.

  “Hey!” Ben said. “Jenn. Wow! Hi! This is, um, Ryan. Ryan, this is my sister-in-law, Jenn.”

  “Hi, Jenn.”

  Ryan was trying, like Ben, to watch Wade with one ey
e while smiling at Jenn with the other.

  But Wade didn’t head back into the Plus after tossing that bag of trash. Clearly, his shift was over and he was done for the day. So, instead, he went farther into the parking lot, where a man—it had to be Wade’s older brother, they looked that much alike—was leaning against a dusty black truck, rather obviously waiting on something or someone. Probably Wade.

  “You guys look nice, all dressed up,” Jenn said as she widened her eyes at Ben in a silent Ryan, huh? The Ryan?

  “Ryan’s a friend from school,” Ben said, heavy with his emphasis. Because, yeah, he may have mentioned Ryan a time or two, in the safety of his home, under the assumption that nothing would ever come of his crush.

  Ryan was telling Jenn that they’d planned to go to a movie but then Ben got a craving for a chili dog, as across the parking lot Wade slowly headed for that truck.

  As Ben watched, Wade’s older clone straightened up. He was only slightly taller than Wade but had at least fifty pounds on him, and his movement and his body language was menacing. He radiated both anger and malice. And Ben couldn’t hear what he said, but he definitely said something in a tone that was sharply accusatory.

  Wade, in return, was defiant—again Ben couldn’t hear his reply—but his shoulders were tight, and indeed, he was ready for it when his older clone swatted at him. Wade blocked the blow with his arm and his shoulder, which clearly annoyed the clone, who then grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him hard—bang—into the side of the truck.

  Wade went down onto his hands and knees on the pavement—that shove had made him lose his footing—as the clone climbed behind the wheel with a dismissive, “Get the fuck into the truck.”

  That Ben heard.

  As did Jenn who broke off her what’s-your-favorite-movie talk with Ryan to rise slightly out of her chair. “What just happened? Is he all right? Oh, my God, is that Wade O’Keefe? It is! Did someone just hit him?”

  Jenn, Dan, Izzy, and Eden had all accompanied Ben to his very first post-suspension meeting with the high school guidance counselor. Wade had shown up—late—with a shy-seeming young woman named Angel in tow, whom he introduced as his brother Cody’s wife. She was there with parental proxy, since his father was out of town on business and his mother was off visiting her sister.

  It was hard to imagine quiet, bespectacled Angel married to this lumbering, violent beast, but unless Wade had another brother…

  “It was just a shove,” Ben said. “Wade looks like he’s okay.”

  “Just a shove…?” Normally laidback, Jenn was indignant.

  “Wade’s brother, Cody, is a total troglodyte,” Ryan said.

  “Please don’t make a fuss, he’s probably already embarrassed,” Ben told Jenn, turning so he wasn’t part of the large group of people staring as Wade scrambled back to his feet.

  “Who, Wade? Or his brother? I’ve been reading a lot of Dr. Seuss lately,” Jenn said tartly, “and as lovely a rhyme as that was—get the fuck into the truck—I’m certain it wasn’t from Green Eggs and Ham.”

  “Really, Jenn, please. Don’t make things worse,” Ben stressed and she sat back down but clearly wasn’t happy.

  “I think it’s pretty obvious how it happens,” she muttered darkly as across the parking lot, Wade slid into the passenger seat of his brother’s truck. “Cody knocks Wade around, then Wade goes to school and does the same to you. And I for one am not okay with that!”

  Wade’s head was down, his face closed and sullen as his brother steered that truck out of the Burgers Plus parking lot. He didn’t look over at them—not even the briefest of glances. Ben could only guess at the mountain of self-control it must’ve taken for Wade to not look at Ryan, who was standing there with his heart spilling out of his eyes.

  “It’s way more complicated than you think,” Ben told Jenn, even as he gently reached out to touch Ryan’s arm. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

  Ryan nodded, but now his eyes were filling with tears.

  “Hey, Ben!” Dan appeared, carrying a tray laden with his and Jenn’s dinner—two burgers nestled atop giant salads complete with tomatoes and avocado slices, along with sides of baked sweet potatoes.

  “Excuse us for a sec,” Ben told Dan and Jenn as he gently pulled Ryan out of earshot. “Is Wade gonna be okay? What was that with Cody? Do you think he knows?”

  Ryan made a noise that was laughter-like, assuming it was still called laughter if it was completely filled with pain and despair. “About Wade being gay? God, no!” He was emphatic. “Cody doesn’t even suspect it. Which is a good thing because he’d kill Wade if he knew.” He shook his head. “I have no clue why Cody hit Wade. Although it’s definitely weird that Wade didn’t have his car. Maybe it broke down, and Cody was pissed about having to pick him up and drive him home from work…?”

  Ben nodded. “Okay, as long as you’re sure Wade’s safe.”

  “He’s as safe as he ever is,” Ryan said with resignation. “Look, let me buy you that chili dog, but then I think I’m gonna call my mom, have her pick me up. If you want, we can give you a ride…?”

  “Nah, don’t worry about me,” Ben said. “I’m not really that hungry. And I can catch a ride with Danny and Jenn. And huh, that’s weird. I wonder where Colin is.” When he’d first spotted Jenn, he’d assumed Dan had Colin, maybe neatly stashed in that front-pack carrier that they’d gotten at their baby shower. But the only thing Dan had been carrying was that tray filled with food.

  “Thanks,” Ryan said. “For everything.” And then he walked away, his phone already out as he called his mother.

  Ben turned to go back to Danny and Jenn, and great. Now Danny was also wearing that OMG our little Ben’s on a date! expression.

  “We’re friends,” Ben told them both as he swung himself up and over the metal fence. “That’s all. It wasn’t a date.” And then, because he didn’t want to talk about it, he changed the subject as he sat down next to his brother. He went with the obvious bad joke, assuming he’d get gasps of outrage at worst. “So, I see you’ve already abandoned Colin. That didn’t take long.”

  But instead of laughing, Jenn put down her fork and said, “Oh my God, I hate this. It doesn’t feel right, it feels like I’m abandoning him, it does, and I’m so sorry Danny, but I just want to go home!” And then she burst into tears.

  The outburst was so unlike Jenn, who always had everything under control, that Ben laughed his surprise—sure that she was somehow punking him. But then Danny sighed and tossed his napkin onto his half-eaten salad.

  “Brilliant move, Genius,” he said as he got up from the table and went around to comfort Jenn. He wrapped his arms around her as he looked at Ben in exasperation. “Colin’s at home with Dr. Paoletti. He’s in very good hands. We were taking a break. Bus the tray for me, will you, please, then—if you need a ride, and it looks like you do—get your butt in the car.”

  * * *

  Hell Week started the way it always started, with a shit-ton of noise. Artillery simulators boomed and the team of instructors shouted through bullhorns as the current crop of SEAL candidates finished up their initial beach run.

  Izzy didn’t have to be there—his shift didn’t start until morning—but he liked the visual that came from witnessing Hell Week day one, hour one. This mental photograph of the hopeful mob of SEAL candidates humping it down the beach would be easily recalled in five and a half days. Izzy could and would compare and contrast it to the sight of the few dozen men left barely-standing. It would reinforce the SEAL adage of being one of the “few of the few.”

  And that wasn’t an ego thing.

  Okay, it was a teeny bit of an ego thing. Hard not to be.

  But it was most valuable when it came to welcoming new members to the team. Izzy knew that even the youngest, greenest-seeming SEALs had pushed themselves over the edge and were qualified to stand beside him.

  Tonight, however, it was Eden who was next to him, shivering slightly in the crisp night air. It was d
ate night, and it had actually been her idea to come out to the beach like this. Because she was here, they weren’t down at the water—civilians had to keep their distance—but they still had a good vantage point. Plus Izzy’d brought along a small pair of binocular-like NVGs—night vision glasses.

  He handed them to Eden, so she could take a look as the class ended their run and went almost directly into the churning ocean. Tide was coming in, which added to the suck-factor.

  “So this is where they start to quit?” Eden asked as she scanned the beach. “I mean, it makes sense. It’s so cold.” She glanced up at him and smiled, adding, “Shh! Don’t tell me that this isn’t cold, because I know. Jumping out of a helo into the North Sea is cold. But I’m not talking Navy SEAL degrees. I’m talking mere-mortal temperatures.”

  Izzy put his arm around her, and she did that thing that he loved, where she seemed to melt, completely, against him. He kissed her—it was hard not to when she was looking at him like that. But she’d asked him a question, so he answered it.

  “Yes,” he said as she shifted to lean back against him, still inside the circle of his arms as she looked through the lenses again. “This is where the mere mortals start to quit. The doubter who is also both an over-thinker and good at math will be the first to go. He hit the cold water, and he’s sitting there right now, getting slammed by the breakers, and he’s thinking This is seriously bad, and it’s only an hour in. And his math brain is going clickety-clickety-click. Twenty-four hours in a day; five days, eleven hours left to endure; that’s one hundred and thirty one hours, and soon he’ll think Screw this caca-doody or the crusty sailor equivalent, and he’ll push himself up and he’ll stagger out of the water and beeline it for the bell. Ding, ding, ding, he’s done, done, done. And his adiosing his ass out of there creates entropy. Before this very moment, there has only been I will succeed. But now all the other doubters and over-thinkers, regardless of their skill at math, are suddenly overwhelmed with doubt and fear. Now there’s a pop-up bubble in their head going Look! Quitting’s an option! As for the quitters—they’ve been waiting for this moment, and now it’s here. And they’re going At least I’m not the first, thank God.”