Friday, 13 May

1915 hours (Zulu -7)

C-141 military flight

Over the Rocky Mountains

"So at the captain's mast, my CO tells me he was of a mind to ship my ass off to Adak," the young sailor was saying. "Fortunately, this request for a warm body had just come through from Norfolk, and he decided the easiest course was to put me on the first available flight out of Diego."

Blake Murdock leaned back in the uncomfortable bucket seat and grinned. "What about your Volkswagen?"

"Aw, I arranged to have the Navy ship it to the East Coast. It wouldn't have made it over the mountains anyway. What I'm really gonna miss is my boat."

"Boat?"

"Yeah. A sweet little twenty-one-foot sloop I kept at the base marina. Her name was Docking Maneuver. I ended up selling her to a lieutenant commander in Admin."

"There is nothing," Murdock said, "like sailing."

"Yeah. I did a lot of racing too. Out to Catalina and back. You sail, sir?"

"Used to. My family had a yacht on Kent Island, on the Eastern Shore. Sometimes I think I musta frustrated Captain Ahab, three years before the mast and all that. I did some racing too back when I was at the Academy."

"Man. How the other half lives, huh?"

Murdock decided to change the subject. "So what about Christine?"

"Aw, that's ancient history. She wouldn't talk to me." He shrugged, then grinned. "Probably just as well. I don't think she appreciated everything I did for her up there on that hillside. Women!"

Murdock didn't answer that one, but turned and peered out the tiny window in the bulkhead at his back. The two of them were the only passengers on an Air Force C-141 Starlifter en route from Miramar Naval Air Station to Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, D.C. From there, they'd find another military flight down to Norfolk, or if necessary, hire a cab with the money from their travel allotments. It promised to be an uncomfortable five hours or so, sitting on the narrow bucket seats grudgingly installed for the odd passenger, sharing the cargo deck with stacks of chained-down crates, but space-available seating aboard military transports was one of the perks of military service. Murdock preferred these flights to the crowds aboard commercial airliners.

He wondered if all SEALs were just a little paranoid, nervous when there were too many strangers about.

"Hey, Navy," an Air Force sergeant, the Starlifter's crew chief, said. "Either of you guys want some coffee?"

"Sure," Murdock replied. "Black."

"Same here," Sterling added.

They waited for the Air Force sergeant to bring their coffee and leave before resuming their conversation, a reserve that was almost second nature among SEALS. Both men were traveling in civilian clothes, and neither knew a thing about the other save name, rank, and the fact that both were SEALS, but that alone formed a solid bond and a man-to-man rapport that frankly excluded all outsiders.

"So it sounds like you're E&Eing just in time," Murdock said after the sergeant had left. Their conversation was easy, despite the difference in ranks. Rank meant far less in the Teams than it did in the rest of the Navy.

"I guess you could say that, sir. You know what I'm really glad to be escaping, though?" "Christine's Dad?"

"Very funny. I could've taken him, no sweat."

"Yeah, right." He took a sip of the bitter black brew. "What, then?"

"Well, ever since I made it through Phase 1 of BUD/S, I've been wondering what my handle would be. Once I was a full-fledged SEAL and all. I mean, 'David Sterling' is kind of blah, know what I mean? I always thought 'Shark' would be a great nickname."

"So?"

"So I was telling some of the guys about what happened with me and Christine. I mean, they knew I was up for captain's mast, and they'd heard scuttlebutt about what had happened. So I told them." He made a wry face. "And they started calling me something."

"What?"

"Jaybird."

"As in 'naked as a,'" Murdock said, laughing. "Hey, it fits!"

"Yeah, well, it don't any longer, sir. You see, by getting shipped to the East Coast, nobody there'll know about me. I can tell 'em anything. 'Jaybird' will be safely buried back in Coronado."

"Don't be too sure about that, David. The Navy's a tight, close community, and the SEALs are tighter and closer yet. Hell, there probably aren't many more than a thousand SEALs in the world today. You're always running across some guy you knew at another duty station."

"Aw, you know how East and West Coast SEALs are always running each other down. I figure I'll be safe enough in NAVSPECWARGRU-Two. Don't you think?"

"It's possible, I guess." Murdock had been thinking a lot lately about that rumored chasm between east and west. How readily were the men in his new platoon going to accept him? "Where are they putting you anyway?"

"I don't know yet, sit, but I hear there's an opening in one of the action Teams. I've still got about two months to go on probation, so I've really got to keep my nose clean after all the fuss back at Coronado."

"I should damn well think you'd better, Jaybird," Murdock said, grinning.

"Aw, Lieutenant, don't call me that. Hey! What's your new station?"

"They've got a platoon waiting for me. Don't know any more than that."

"Huh. Maybe we'll be seem' each other again at Little Creek!"

"Could be. Anything's possible. Especially for SEALS."

2130 hours (Zulu -5)

Samelli's Bar

Norfolk, Virginia

They'd come to Samelli's to do some serious drinking, a part of the ongoing wake for the Lieutenant. MacKenzie ordered his usual Bombay gin, a taste he'd acquired during his tour with SEAL Team Six back in the eighties, then turned to face the gloomy cavern of the bar.

Things were just getting warmed up. Radioman First Class Ronald "Bearcat" Holt was on the floor of the bar, braced in push-up position on his fingertips. Lucy, one of the waitresses at Samelli's, was stretched full-length face-up on his back, bracing herself by gripping his belt. She looked tiny, and a little apprehensive.

"Okay!" Fernandez shouted, waving a fistful of money. "Gimme a hundred! Ready... go!"

"Hold it!" Roselli called, waving his hands. "Hold it!" Reaching down his leg, he slipped the black, double-edged leaf-blade of a Sykes-Fairbairn commando knife from a boot sheath.

"Hey, hey!" one of the bartenders warned. "No weapons in here! You guys know the rules!"

"It's all right!" Roselli replied, grinning. "Everything is perfectly under control. We must observe all the propri... all the propri... Everything's got to be kosher here! But this here op is turnin' into a damned sneak-and-peek!" Lucy's short skirt had hiked up on her thighs, exposing white panties.

Delicately, without touching her legs, Roselli used the point of his knife to tug the skirt back into a less revealing position. "Looks like real delicate surgery, Razor," Boomer said.

"Well, yeah," Roselli replied. "But we wouldn't want no Tail-hook charges brought against us, fellas, now would we?"

Some of the SEALs cheered, while others booed him. "You're a real gentleman, Razor," Lucy said sweetly. Several SEALs groaned at that, and Boomer hit him with a fistful of popcorn.

"Hey, I can't help it if I'm just too impossibly cool to be believed," Roselli said. "Right, the bets are covered, the lady's covered, are we set, gentlemen? Okay, go!"

Holt began performing push-ups at the rate of one per second. Some of the other SEALs began counting cadence. "One! And two! And three! And four!"

"C'mon, Holt, no cheating! All the way down!"

"I'm going' all the way down!"

"I don't think she's heavy enough!"

"Yeah, why don't you try it with a telephone pole?"