Suddenly the sound of a helicopter rang over the surf. He spied it about a kilometer out. It was a Blackhawk from the 160th. It came close and flared.
She put a hand on her hair and turned away from the landing.
When it hit the sand, she ran toward it, low, her eyes down, as if she’d done it a hundred times.
He followed and climbed into the seat beside her.
The helicopter rose and pitched to the right, as if heading for downtown San Diego.
After smoothing her hair and brushing the sand from her clothes, Billings reached into her bag and handed him an envelope.
“Here. Sorry there’s no ceremony. We were going to wait until you finished but there’s a mission that has to be conducted now.”
He accepted the package. It was just a plain manila envelope. He slipped his finger under the flap and tore it open. Inside were four things. The first was a letter of commendation from the president of the United States, congratulating him for becoming a SEAL. The second was a graduation certificate from the Naval Special Warfare Command announcing that he was a graduate of BUD/S Class 290 and a U.S. Navy SEAL. The third was a SEAL trident pin, freshly minted and as shiny as he was dirty. The fourth and final object was three brass 9s clumped together.
He stared at these for a long minute. He even let his fingers rub the gold trident of the SEAL BUD/S logo. He’d wanted this more than anything. He’d bled for it. He’d cried for it. But somehow, now that he actually held one in his hands, it felt less than what it should have.
He glanced up at her. “I guess there’s something to be said for a little ceremony, huh?”
She gave him a tight smile. “You’re a SEAL inside. No ceremony will make it any different.”
He was struck by the raw truth of what she said. It sounded like something Instructor Kenny or Instructor Howard would say. It was very odd to hear it from a person who wasn’t a SEAL.
“And the three nines?” he asked.
“The what?” She turned knitted brows toward him.
He held up the badge. “This brass thing with the three nines.”
She reached out and turned the object in his hand 180 degrees. “Those aren’t three nines.”
He looked at them in the new configuration. “Three sixes.”
“Six Six Six,” she said. “That’s your new team.”
SEAL Team 666? He’d never heard of such a thing. The U.S. government had played fast and loose with numbering over the years. They’d created SEAL Team 6 long before they had a Team 4 or Team 5, just to make the Soviet Union think they had more SEAL teams. Even now, SEAL Team 6 still existed, but under the name DEVGRU, which stood for United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group. Although the reality was supposed to be highly classified, the truth of the matter was plastered all over the Internet. If that couldn’t be hidden, how could something with a name like SEAL Team 666 be kept a secret?
He couldn’t help but laugh. “No really. What does it mean?”
She raised a single eyebrow, much as Leonard Nimoy famously did on the original
“Seriously,” Walker prodded. “What does it stand for?”
“Knowledge of SEAL Team 666 is governed by a special access program, or SAP. SEAL Team 666 is a highly classified special unit under the direct command of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, with direct oversight from the Office of the Vice President and the President. The classification of the group is compartmentalized Top Secret SAP.”
“You’re serious.” He sat forward. “What’s the mission?”
“You’ll get a mission brief shortly,” she said, pointing toward the airfield below. They hadn’t gone all the way to San Diego, just to the other side of the island. “I had the liberty of having your things packed and sent over.”
“Thanks, but most of them need a good cleaning. Maybe by next week I’ll—”
“No. You don’t understand. You’re going to get a mission brief from the team leader. You leave in less than an hour.”
Walker looked at his hands and legs. They were filthy from the surf and physical training. “Can’t I just clean up?”
“Jesus, Walker. You’re a SEAL, not a princess. Act like one.”
He was so startled by her tone and delivery that he barely noticed they’d landed until she exited the helicopter, running low beneath the whirling blades. He ran to catch up.
5
NORTH ISLAND NAVAL COMPLEX AIRSTRIP. NOON.
The FNG walked up the ramp of the C-141 Starlifter as if he were late for the first day of elementary school. To Senior Chief Petty Officer Tim Laws, who’d lived and breathed the movie industry while growing up in Hollywood, the kid was one part young Steve McQueen and another part Ryan Phillippe. The FNG, perennial military term for the Fucking New Guy, wore a buzz cut of blond hair topping a face made of angles and deeply set blue eyes above a mouth whose usual form, Laws guessed, was a smile. Now it was doing everything but smiling. This was the sort of man who wore his heart on his lips.
“Stow your gear and get out of those UDTs. This isn’t a swim meet. This is an op.” Lieutenant Commander Sam Holmes gestured to an empty space of bench along one wall of the interior of the aircraft. A rucksack with weapons stacked on top of it. “That’s your gear. No time to personalize it. You’ll just have to make do.”
Alexis Billing, the Sissy administrator, came next, a phone plastered to the side of her face. She plopped down near Holmes, but made no notice of him.
Laws watched as the new guy dropped his seabag and shoved it under the bench, strapping it to the wall for flight. Good. At least he’d been aboard an operational aircraft before. Laws had been with SEAL Team 666 longer than anyone. He’d seen seven members come and go. Four had left under their own power; the others had left in body bags. He figured he’d do the same when the time came. There was no other place he’d rather be.
The boy sat down and stared at a manila envelope in his hands. He rubbed something through the paper, then folded the envelope roughly, bent over, and stuffed it into his seabag. When he straightened, he grabbed one of the weapons on top of his rucksack—a Stoner SR-25 sniper rifle. To the kid’s credit, he broke it down, inspected the barrel and bolt assembly. After he snapped it back together, he checked the ammunition.
He was probably acutely aware that everyone’s eyes were on him, even if like Fratolilio they pretended not to notice. But he didn’t act as if he knew it. Instead, he acted the opposite, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He seemed to have recovered from his previous nervousness. Laws had to give the boy praise for having the chops to insert himself into such a close-knit group.
Like he had a choice.
When the administrator chose you, that was that. How and why a person was chosen was up for grabs. No one really knew. Sure, there was speculation. Every member knew that the rubric was based on some of the questions in screening and selection, but which ones? The two days were loaded with
Laws had long ago given up trying to figure out why the people who’d been chosen had been chosen. In the end, they seemed like naturals.
Tony Fratolilio was your classic Brooklyn Italian. He had joined the Navy instead of jail and made himself into quite the computer specialist. His street savvy never really left and he found himself breaking into all sorts of sensitive networks if there was a payday involved. Of course he’d been caught, but the boy’s charisma and natural affinity for animals had the administrator sending him through BUD/S training class 243 as her own personalized U.S. Navy SEAL.
Johnny Ruiz was another who didn’t fit the mold. He was a Mexican from West Virginia and spoke English with such a cracker accent that it was suspected he was just trying to pull one over on everyone. Ruiz had come from SEAL Team 3 with deployments to Yemen and Somalia. A graduate of Underwater Demolition Training as well
