Deathrace (6 page)

“Done.”

“Don’t say anything about Kat. I’ll have to break that news to Milly a little at a time.”

“But don’t tell her why Kat has to go with us.”

“Naturally,” DeWitt said. But both he and Murdock knew that he’d have to tell Milly. There was no way around that kind of a challenge.

Ed arrived at his Coronado apartment off base at 1815. Milly was pacing the kitchen. She scowled at him, and her fists went onto her hips. Ed wished he was a religious man so he could say a prayer.

“I know, I know, he had to cancel out. That leaves more chicken for me.” He swept forward and kissed her, then kissed her again until her akimbo arms dropped and she grinned.

“Hey, maybe this isn’t such a bad deal, after all.”

Milly looked at his sandy, dirty cammies. “Shower,” she said and pointed.

A half hour later, they were eating the fine meal, when Ed began.

“We had a double whammy, Navy style, today. We got a new assignment, almost, but Murdock told them we needed another month for training.”

“Will you get the extra time?”

“I hope so. Think we will. Murdock can be damn convincing when he’s talking about the platoon.”

“What was the other whammy?”

“Oh, that. We have a new person to work into the platoon for this assignment, a damned civilian.”

Milly stopped the fork halfway to her mouth. “You’re joking. The SEALs have never taken along a civilian on a shooting mission. What is Washington thinking of?”

“Whatever it is, they don’t tell me. Now, how did your day go?”

Milly looked at him and smiled. “Hey, did I tell you that I’m just delighted that you’re back from your little three-day camping trip. I missed you. I don’t want you ever to go away again.”

They both laughed. It was a standing joke. She knew he had to go away, and he did, too. But in more than a year now, the two of them had weathered the separations. Twice he’d asked her to marry him. Twice she had said no.

“Ed, this is a dangerous game that you’re playing,” she’d said the last time. “I know it. You know it. I’ve read all the books about the SEALs. I know now that you do some covert work that nobody can be told about. I can accept that for now, this way. But I just can’t marry you, and start a family, knowing that you might come home the next time in a damn body bag.” Tears had welled up in her eyes and spilled over. She slashed them away with her hand.

For now they both accepted that, and made the best of what they had. Long, quiet walks along the crashing Pacific Ocean. Dinners out at curious and different eateries around the San Diego area. Bicycling up and down the streets of Coronado and then playing racketball. Going to plays and concerts. Walking through the zoo and Balboa Park. For now it was enough. Ed wasn’t sure how much longer it would be. She had never asked him to quit the SEALs, but he was sure that was what she was hoping for.

He helped her with the dishes, and cleanup, then they sat on the sofa, their thighs touching.

“So, tall Navy officer, what’s on the agenda for tonight?” Before he answered, she leaned over and kissed him, and eased him down on the sofa, so she lay on top of him.

The kiss lasted a long time. When she came up for air, he chuckled. “Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?”

She hit him on the shoulder. “That’s from an old, old movie. And yes, I am. After three good sessions, what do you have to do?”

“About three hours of planning out a training schedule for this civilian so nobody in the platoon gets killed. First weapons, then conditioning, parachute jumping, under-water—the works. Never know what we’ll need to do once we get in the field.”

“But you’re not going to tell me why it’s so important that this civilian go along with you on the mission.”

“Absolutely not. Top secret. Anyway, I don’t want to tell you anything to upset you while you’re looking and sounding this sexy.”

“Like the way you think, sailor. So, roll me over in the clover, big guy. As the English song used to go. Do they still sing that anymore?”

He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He had more important things to do right then.

Milly agreed with him, passionately.

6

Kat Garnet had been up since 5 A.M. She frowned. No, that would be 0500 Navy time. She had to immerse herself totally, unrelentingly, in Navy now, specifically Navy SEALs. She could do that. She had a fast breakfast, then tried on her clothes. They almost fit, probably the smallest that the Navy issued. Not exactly from some fancy down-town store. She grinned when she looked at the beige boxer shorts. So they were a long way from Jockey ladies’ briefs. She pulled them on. They nearly fit.

She rolled up the cammies legs two narrow turns, then put on the Navy bra and the cammie shirt. It didn’t nearly fit. She stuffed it in the pants and tightened the belt, then looked in the mirror and saw silver bars on her collar. She took them off and put them in her shirt pocket. The black jungle boots came next, with the socks rolled down over the tops to keep them from snagging. Like the boxers, the boots almost fit. Somebody must have checked. She realized she’d be spending a lot of time walking and running in those boots, so they better fit right. She’d know after the first day.

She put on the cammie-splotched floppy hat and took another look. It would have to do. She picked up the plastic-enclosed pass she had been given, and an ID card, also sealed, and put both in the big front-flap shirt pocket.

Kat paced the floor of her small quarters a minute, saw that her waterproof wide-plastic-banded watch set for military time showed that it was 0730. Time to move.

She pushed open the door and headed for the main gate, to go across the highway to the SEAL headquarters on the other side of the road.

When she stepped into the SEAL “quarterdeck,” she found it to be only a lobby for the headquarters. She showed her ID card to a sailor behind a counter and he snapped a salute.

“Good morning, Lieutenant. I’ll have a man take you down to SEAL Team Seven, Platoon Three.”

At once a sailor in blue dungarees appeared at a locked door to her left and motioned to her.

“This way, ma’am.”

For a moment, Kat felt almost pampered, but she knew that wouldn’t last. She had to become “one of the guys” to make this mission work. She had made up her mind about one thing: She was going to be so damn tough nobody would question her, and she wasn’t going to get herself or anyone else killed on this mission.

A short walk later and she was shown into a building and to an open door. She stepped inside an office.

“Lieutenant Garnet, we were just talking about you,” Murdock said from behind his desk in the eight-by-eight-foot room. He didn’t get up. Two others were in the room. She knew one was the other officer in the platoon, DeWitt. The third was an enlisted man she remembered seeing. They all wore desert cammies.

“Good morning, Lieutenant Garnet,” Murdock said.

“Good morning,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, neutral.

“One suggestion, Kat. While we’re at the base and in training, we all wear our rank. For you it will mean a certain amount of on-base respect, and some protection. The regular Navy likes to know who is who. Do you have the bars?”

“Yes.” She took them out, and DeWitt pinned them on for her.

“As I said, we’ve been talking about you, Kat. You must have figured that out. Lieutenant DeWitt has been assigned as your personal trainer. He’ll turn you into a SEAL so fast you’ll wonder why you run those marathons.”

He handed her an H&K MP-5SD. It was almost two feet long and weighed a ton. She reconsidered—maybe five or six pounds.

“This is called an MP-5. It’s a Heckler & Koch submachine gun. It can be set for single-round, three-round fire, or fully automatic. Don’t be afraid of it. This weapon is going to be your constant companion. You’ll work with it, shoot it, swim with it, hike with it, sleep with it if you want to.

“The first priority for you is to learn to fire this weapon, to get good with it so you can hit what you aim at. This is a form of insurance for you, and for the rest of the SEALs who will be with you. That’s first up for you this morning—lots of weapons training, and live-round firing. DeWitt.”

“Right this way, Kat. We’ve got packs waiting.” They left the office and picked up backpacks.

“Usually we don’t use these on a mission, they’re for training. Oh, carry that weapon in both hands with the muzzle facing left at a forty-five-degree angle across your chest. Easiest way to carry it, and it’s ready to use in a half a second.”

She lifted the pack.

“Only ten pounds, Kat. Mostly ammo. Want to get you started off easy.”

She slipped into the pack, adjusted the straps, and held the submachine gun the way she had been told.

They walked away from the buildings, through a gate and onto the sand. A sand dune had been dozered up to replace the sand ripped out by winter storms. They went down to the hard sand along the water and turned south.

“We’ve got about three miles down to a spot we use for live firing. Since time is important, we’ll run. How about a six-minutes-a-mile pace.”

“That I know about,” Kat said. She had resolved to talk as little as possible, to record everything, and to remember everything. She started off at the six-minutes-a-mile pace, and was soon glad it wasn’t a five-minute mile he wanted. The pack bounced and jolted on her back until she worked out a slightly different stride to move with its sliding motion.

DeWitt looked at her and smiled. “Yes, you know what a six-minutes-a-mile pace is. Can you do that for twenty-six miles?”

“Not with this pack on, for damn sure.”

DeWitt grinned. “Good, you’re human, after all.”

Twenty minutes later they stopped at a twenty-foot-high sand dune with grass and shrubs growing on the top. The face of it had been bulldozed out almost vertical to set up a safe twenty-yard shooting range. DeWitt got down to business.

“At this point we don’t care if you can field strip the MP-5 or not. All we want you to be able to do is shoot it, and hit what you’re aiming at. That’s our job this morning. This weapon has a folding stock so you can hold it close or, if you have time, pull out the stock for a better aim. It has a thirty-round magazine, and will fire single-shot, three-round bursts, or fully automatic. However, we like to think that SEALs are better shots than to have to hose down a spot with thirty rounds to hit one man.”

He watched her. She had a slight frown, and seemed to be memorizing everything he said.

“Understand yesterday you fired a weapon for the first
time. First a forty-five pistol, and then the G-eleven. This isn’t quite so hot as the G-eleven. But it will do the job. Now, let’s do some dry firing for position.”

Back in the office of Third Platoon, Murdock had tried again to lay out a training schedule. He and DeWitt had worked over it since seven that morning, and it still didn’t look right.

“This whole thing might be useless if Stroh says we have only ten days to get on that plane,” Jaybird Sterling said.

“Not a chance. Stroh saw how serious I was. I’ll call the President direct if I have to. No sense slaughtering a whole platoon and still not get the mission accomplished. We’d just show our hand, and the Arabs could throw a division of troops around wherever the factory is and make it impossible for any outfit to get in there.”

“So, we keep the same sequence for Kat: weapons, fitness, water training and rebreather, then jumping?”

“Still looks the best. We can modify it as we go along. After her individual training, we still need two weeks to work her in with the rest of the troops.”

“At least. In our combat formation, where does she walk?” Sterling asked.

“With our squad. Lampedusa out front, then me, then Holt with the radio. You’re behind Holt and right in back of you is Kat. You’ll baby-sit her.”

“Figures. By the time Mr. DeWitt gets her trained, I hope to hell she’ll be able to work right along with the rest of us.”

“To be prayed for. Now for the rest of the troops. Get them up and ready—we’re hitting the obstacle course. No tadpoles over there this morning. Every man gets timed. Anybody who doesn’t do it in ten minutes, drops, and does a hundred pushups. Ten minutes later he does the course again—until he’s under ten. I’m the first one out of the chute.”

Two hours later, all but two of the men of Third Platoon
had done the beast of an obstacle course in under ten minutes. Those two ran it again. This isn’t any ordinary course. It includes the usual barriers, plus a twenty-foot vertical wall climb, a go up and down a sixty-foot-high cargo net, a rope climb, a shinny up a sixty-foot tower, a slide down from it on a rope, the stump jump, parallel bars, a rope climb up a wall, a thirty-foot barbed-wire crawl, the weaver, a rope bridge, the log stack, the five vaults, and the swing rope combo. When the men finish, they are told their time, then drop, and do twenty push-ups.

Murdock gave the last two men through the obstacles a five-minute break, then he stood.

“Gentlemen, let’s go for a little run.”

They hit the hard sand and ran south for a mile at a seven-minute pace, then moved into the soft sand and did another mile. When they were two miles from the gate, Murdock turned them around.

“Too damn hot out here today,” he said. He led the twin line of SEALs into the surf, running, splashing along at the seven-minutes-per-mile pace in sometimes wet sand, sometimes a foot of swirling ocean water, depending on when the waves broke.

Within two minutes the SEALs were soaked to the skin from head to toe.

Murdock watched the men as he ran backwards. Yes, they were doing it, holding up. The three new men had settled into their places now that they knew an assignment was coming up. His wounded troops were responding as well. In two weeks they would all be hard and fit, and ready to try something new: like working with a civilian woman on a mission where the smallest misstep could mean death to yourself, and some of your fellow SEALs.

It was entirely new territory. No woman had ever participated in a SEAL covert operation before.