The Recruiter (A Thriller) (9 page)

Something was bubbling at the back of Commander Todd Lowry’s mind. It was an odd sensation, although not entirely unfamiliar. Kind of like being at the grocery store with three items in your basket when you know there were four things you needed. It was just bothering him. He hated loose ends. Was definitely not a loose-end kind of guy. Some called it anal retentive. He called it having your act together.

It was the end of a very bad week.

He looked through the report again on the death of Wilkins: it was bad. Accidents happened, but rarely did they result in someone’s death. And never someone under his command.

The gruesome and horrifying aspect of Wilkins’ death aside, Lowry focuses on how it will affect his career. A bit clinical—yes, he supposes it is. But the military doesn’t just wage wars on battlefields. The corporate aspect of the Navy can be just as bloody. You kick ass and take names. You think of yourself first. That’s how you get ahead. That’s how you’re successful.

Lowry looks again at the report. A chain slipped here, a safety lever wasn’t thrown there, and bam! You’ve got a dead petty officer. Lowry sets aside the report and inspects the last official papers Wilkins had completed. His weekly log, preparations for a speech he was going to give on the future efficiency prospects of naval ordnance, several seaman assessment reports. One of the reports catches his eye for two reasons: a) it’s got a lot of below-average checkmarks, and b) it’s the name of the newest recruit.

Ackerman, Samuel F.

Lowry skims the report. He’s about to fold the report up and put it away when it hits him—the thing he couldn’t remember, hanging out on the fringe of his consciousness.

Ackerman.

Lowry fishes through the papers on his desk and comes up with the latest edition of
All Hands
. He flips through the pages, his heart beating fast, his mouth dry, the gears in his mind churning and grinding with a grating precision. He skims and finds it. Larry Nevens. BUD/S instructor. Murdered.

Lowry checks the date.

He sits back in his chair, short of breath.

Ackerman was in the BUD/S program but didn’t make it. Nevens was most likely one of his instructors.

Lowry checks the date again, then flips to his personal calendar and pinpoints the day he met with Ackerman.

It fits.

But could it have really happened? Did Ackerman kill his  BUD/S instructor, get transferred here to ordnance, and then, facing a poor initial assessment, orchestrate the death of his supervisor, Petty Officer Third Class Wilkins, for…what?

Lowry shakes his head. It’s crazy. No way. The kid would have to be totally nuts, for one thing. And he, Lowry, would have to be nuts to suggest the whole freaking scenario to someone. And even if he went ahead with reporting to someone, who would that be? One of the JAGs?

What evidence does he have? What motivation will he point to? Is he, Lowry, really prepared to suggest a homicidal maniac is in their midst?

Lowry thinks of his career. Twenty-five years of solid duty he’s contributed to the Navy. Does he really want to risk it all on some half-cocked theory?

CYA, Steve. Cover your big ol’ hairy fucking ass.

He thinks for a moment and then it comes to him. He’ll make an official entry in his journal, dated, stating his suspicions. He’ll send an email to the JAG knowing full well it will never get read; it’s called passing the buck. Nothing will ever happen. But if it does, he’ll be able to say, “I passed my suspicions on to the right people. THEY were the ones who didn’t handle it.”

And now for the most important part of the plan.

Get rid of fucking Samuel F. Ackerman.

In the late afternoon, Florida’s thunderclouds act like schoolyard bullies: they threaten often, but rarely follow through.

Above the open sea near the Pensacola naval base, a bank of dull orange spreads out beneath the gray clouds, and a stiff breeze turns the bay next to the Navy yard into rough chop. On the far horizon, a few fishing boats are scattered along a deep shelf. Crab traps, marked by a single white spherical buoy, follow the shoreline.

Under the fading intensity of the afternoon sun, Samuel is on his ninety-seventh pull-up and feeling good. Shaky. Exhausted. His body screaming in agony. But good.

He’s never done one hundred pull-ups in a row. The highest he’s ever gotten is ninety. Sweat is streaming from his face, and his arms are quivering, but he feels strong. He tightens his muscles and raises himself, his triceps hot and angry, his hands in agony. He lifts his chin over the bar—ninety-eight—and drops back down, his feet locked behind him.

He hangs his head, resting.

A motorboat speeds by on the bay, its hull pounding into the waves with hollow booms. An egret pokes its beak into the shallow water looking for mullet.

Samuel lifts his head up and looks at the bar just as he hears footsteps approaching on the sidewalk behind him. His shoulders constrict, his abs tighten, and he lifts himself, slowly but powerfully. His chin is inches from the bar when a voice calls out to him.

“Ackerman?”

Samuel thrusts his chin forward, but it isn’t quite over the bar, and he feels a stab of pain as the skin breaks. His head snaps back, and he nearly lets go of the bar, but manages to hold on.
Come on!
he yells at himself. He pulls and his body slowly rises. The pain in his arms and chest are joined by the throbbing of the cut along his chin. He closes his eyes and heaves, using the pain to help him lunge upward, and he clears the bar—ninety-nine!—then slowly eases back down, hanging from the bar as if in sacrifice.

Blood streams from the cut on his chin. The sweat from his face pours down, works its way into the cut, and stings like small needles.

Samuel pushes aside the pain, the fatigue, and focuses on the voice. He knows it. Knows to whom it belongs.

Lowry.

“One more,” Samuel says, his voice a ragged gasp. “Sir.”

Samuel begins the pull. His hands are shaking, his triceps are on fire, and his entire body screams in pain. His focus—one hundred pull-ups—begins to waver. Why is Lowry here? What does he want? Did the Internal Affairs officer, Purgitt, talk to him?

His head momentarily blanks, and his left hand slips from the bar. His right arm screams, his entire body weight pulls at it.
No! No! No!
Samuel panics, feeling his fingers loosen from the bar.

“Whoa, Nellie,” Lowry says, his voice faintly mocking.

The words register in Samuel’s mind and like a match to gasoline, fill his head with an explosive fury. He thrusts his left hand back up, grabs the bar, and pulls. His body rises, a shuddering Phoenix, and the bar comes into view
. One hundred, one hundred, one hundred.
The number is a mantra in Samuel’s mind. And then, just like that, he’s over.

He’s over.

One hundred!

Samuel lowers himself back down and drops from the bar. His hands feel like gnarled roots. His arms, back, and chest are on fire. The rest of his body is one huge ache.

His knees buckle, and he sits in the sand.

“How many?” Lowry’s voice is still amused, but the mocking tone is gone.
It better be,
Samuel thinks.

“One hundred.”

Lowry whistles. “Good show.”

The sweat is pouring from Samuel. His shirt drips with perspiration. He needs a drink.

Lowry clears his throat then says, “Listen, normally I would do this in my office, but I needed to track you down right away. There’s been a change of plans.”

Samuel studies Lowry’s face. The big glasses, the weak chin.
He looks like a weasel,
Samuel thinks. And like a weasel, he’s about to squirm out of something. Samuel has a fair idea of what it’s going to be.

“There are some changes in ordnance due to Wilkins’ death. Things are going to be reshuffled a bit. These changes are going to affect a lot of people. Including you.”

“How so, sir?” Samuel asks. His mind is calculating. The change can be anything—he doesn’t give one piece of shit what it is—as long as he’s eligible to go back to BUD/S training in twelve months. That’s all that matters.

“You’re being rotated out.” Lowry gives him a good ol’ boy smile.

“Where to, sir?”

“You’re going home, son.”

Samuel’s heart drops into his shoes. He’s being discharged? Impossible! He’s not eligible for BUD/S training—

Samuel sees the look on Lowry’s face. It’s not the face of a man kicking someone out of the Navy. Samuel realizes what he’s going to say a split second before Lowry utters it. He looks out over the water, sees the egret spear a mullet and swallow it whole.

“I’m going to be—”

Lowry claps his hands together.

“—the best damn recruiter Lake Orion, Michigan, has ever seen!”

Samuel keeps his gaze out toward the water. The waves have grown bigger, the swells more intense with white water foaming at their peaks.

“Best of all, “ Lowry continues, “you can head out to Coronado in less than a year for BUD/S training. Maybe this time you’ll make it.”

Samuel smiles back at Lowry.

“I’ll make it. Or die trying.”

The physical therapist is a moderately portly woman with a big smile and eyes that Beth thinks have seen a lot of pain. Mostly others’. Her name is Judy, and she gets right to work.

“We’ve got a lot to do, Beth. How’s the drainage?”

“It’s been seeping like a Vermont maple with a bucket slung around it.”

Judy smiles and says, “A sense of humor is going to be very important for you to get through this, Beth.”

“I promise to be a barrel of laughs, Judy.”

“Now did they drain it recently?”

“Yesterday,” Beth says. A terribly horrible procedure that Beth would like to block from her mind forever. For now, the brace is back on, and Judy is pulling Beth to her feet. The crutches are leaning against the wall in the physical therapy room—an odd little space full of mats and pads and exercise bicycles and weights. A bright room Beth views as a torture chamber. She knows instinctively that she will grow to hate this room, hate Judy, and probably hate herself.

But most of all, she’ll hate the room. Probably have nightmares about it.

Judy instructs Beth on the proper way to stand and then says, “Okay, let’s apply just a little bit of pressure. Okay, Beth?”

Beth complies, and the pain shoots through her body. She gasps, feels the blood drain from her face. She starts falling, and Judy catches her, but a wrenching pain rockets up her leg and she screams.

Judy eases Beth into a chair.

The fury and anguish rise up in Beth, and she holds her face in her hands, tears streaming between her fingers.

“It’s all right, honey,” Judy says. “That was good.”

Beth snorts, a wet, sloppy sound that she instantly recognizes as perhaps the most pathetic sound she’s ever made.

Judy takes it in stride. “Maybe just a little too much pressure too soon. Okay?” Judy pats her on the back.

And then Beth hears the words that she knew were coming and that she knows she will dread for the next nine to twelve months.

“Let’s try it again.”

Bird passes to McHale. McHale kicks it back out to Bird who sinks a twenty-footer. The rotation perfect, the form, the touch, it’s all perfect.
I used to be able to do that,
Beth thinks.
I had that touch. But I also had speed. And I had the instinct. The killer instinct.

She looks down at her leg on the ottoman.
A year,
she thinks.
A year before you’ll let me play ball. By then, the scholarships will be gone, I’ll have lost the edge. It’ll take me another year to get back to that level, if I can.
Besides, only one school had been willing to give her a scholarship. And now that scholarship is in the quick little hands of the Tank. She’ll be there for four years. Why would they give another scholarship to a point guard? Answer: they won’t.

God, fucking help me,
Beth thinks.

ESPN takes a break from the ‘87 Celtics Lakers game and a commercial comes on. A ship slashes through the wide-open ocean. A helicopter lowers a stretcher into the water, men and women in uniform stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

The Navy.

Beth immediately flashes to memories of her father. He was in the military.

Could she follow in his footsteps? She almost laughed. What a joke. A ruined knee, can’t play basketball. So join the military? A friend of hers had done it—through  something called DEP, the delayed entry program. She could join and then wait almost a year, year and a half, before she actually got shipped out.

Yeah, but the Navy?

No,
Beth thinks.
Not for me.

She looks around the living room. The dingy carpet, the ugly walls, the image of her mother slapping her.

Hitting her.

Fucking A,
Beth thinks.

She visualizes the picture of her father.

What would he think of her joining the Navy?

She sits there, the pain in her leg momentarily forgotten, the crisp passes and amazing moves of Magic and Bird forgotten. The cheap clock on the wall chimes the hour.

Beth hears none of it.

Instead, she reaches for the phone.

Samuel waits in line with fifty or so other sailors who have completed the recruiter training. Their grades (pass/fail) are posted on a single sheet of paper on the second floor of the Alfred P. Knox Building. Most of them are anxious to see that they’ve passed and can then apply for where they’ll be posted.

Samuel already knows where he’ll be going.

Lake Orion, Michigan.

It is warm in the hallway. No windows are cracked, the air hangs flat and heavy and wet. A thin line of sweat has broken out along Samuel’s forehead, and he wipes it off with the back of his hand. His shoulders are tense, and he rotates his head, feeling the muscles pull and relax with the effort.

It’s been a dreary two weeks for him. Day after day of classes, sitting in a big room with two hundred people going over endless information on salesmanship. Learning how to master the art of luring young people into the eternally grasping hands of the Navy. Not really an art though. A science. They even have a name for it: PSS. Professional Selling Skills. Samuel, waiting in line and tired of staring at the neck of the sailor in front of him, unconsciously reviews the tenets.

1. Opening. Be positive. Friendly, but in an honest way. Move promptly to the business at hand.

2. Probing. Use open probes to help discover the needs of the potential recruit.

3. Acknowledging. Build empathy by acknowledging the potential recruit’s needs.

4. Supporting. Show how benefits of Navy meet expressed needs of potential recruit.

5. Closing. Review next steps.

Five professional selling skills designed to swell the ranks of the Navy and guarantee more funding.
It is all about money,
Samuel thinks. Well, he can’t blame them. After all, he has his own agenda.

The line moves forward, and Samuel can almost make out the paper ahead of him. Ackerman should be the first on the list, as usual. There’s little doubt in his mind that he’s made it. The principles were easy. He’s always hated salesmen, but their tactics are easy to learn, understand, and use. Besides, the classes are designed to help even the stupidest motherfucker on the planet learn the system. They weren’t out to fail anyone.

In his mind, potential recruits seem like tomatoes ready to be squashed. Simply convince them to step up onto the conveyor belt and ignore the giant metallic hammer waiting for them at the end of the line. Samuel has no respect for the Navy, by and large. Most of the sailors are idiots. Stupid kids with dead-end lives who will never amount to much.

Like he used to be, in fact.

Only the elite members of the Navy, and of the military in general for that matter, are worthy of Samuel’s respect.

At last, the line is done inching forward, and Samuel is face to face with the report sheet.

Ackerman, Samuel F.

Pass.

Samuel’s face shows no sign of emotion. He walks down the stairs and out into the Florida sunshine. It was a chore. A huge pain in the ass. And it’s really just the start. He has eleven months and three days before he’s eligible to participate in the BUD/S course.

In the meantime, he’s had his recruiter training. Now he must pack, make travel arrangements, and play the part of the recruiter.