go, through years of hard work and tough hands-on experience, and even admirals paid attention when they had something important to say. Then Felix’s CO announced what to Felix seemed terrible news: a promotion to commissioned officer, with the rank of lieutenant. Felix tried to refuse — he loathed the make-or-break fitness reports and political crap that came with being an officer. His CO made it quite clear that a refusal would not be tolerated. With Felix’s proven field-craft skills and leadership ability, the promotion was thoroughly deserved. More to the point, it was necessary, because Felix had to be an officer to command an urgent mission….
The memories of that mission were still as painful as Felix’s wounds, inflicted by a German Kampfschwimmer commando who died with Felix’s dive knife deep in his guts. The memories haunted his dreams.
Felix had another knife scar, on his face, a jagged line from below his left eye down to the jaw — but that was from twenty years before, when he was a teenager and had gotten jumped by some punks from a gang in Miami. That old scar made Felix stand out in a crowd, and made him look much meaner than he was. Felix could be mean, but only when forced to be or provoked; he thought of himself as the archetypal happy warrior. He loved being in the SEAL teams almost as much as he loved his family or God.
“Excuse please,” someone said to Felix in a thick accent he didn’t recognize. “Is this for shuttle van to navy base?”
Felix nodded. He too was waiting for the van. The Norfolk base was eastward, across the river from the hospital. Felix usually lived and worked at the separate amphibious warfare base, but had business now at the main navy base, where big ships including cruisers and supercarriers tied up, some nuclear subs were home-ported — and major command headquarters was located.
The foreigner, in casual civilian clothes, was Felix’s height, five feet five, not tall. Unlike Felix, built like a tree trunk, muscled as heavily as ever thanks to physical therapy plus hard daily workouts he did on his own, this stranger was skinny, almost malnourished looking. He sported a black mustache so bushy it looked as if it needed a serious trim.
The man opened his mouth to start to say something.
Felix didn’t feel like idle chitchat. He turned halfway away and tried to scowl.
The white navy shuttle van pulled up, and Felix boarded. He flashed his ID to the marine who was riding shotgun. Felix worked his way to the back of the van and sat in the far corner of the last bench seat.
The foreigner was the only other passenger, and he followed Felix and sat right next to him. The van drove away from the curb.
“I know your face,” the other man said. “I bet you not know mine.” The man caressed his own chin. “A nice new face, no?”
Felix sighed distractedly; the guy was talking nonsense.
The other man laughed, and his laugh was infectious. He winked at Felix. “If you knew things what I do, you want my autograph too, maybe.”
The man reached for his wallet and showed Felix a smart ID card, bright blue with a gold stripe down the middle. It showed the man’s recent digital photo, not as a still but a video that panned from full face to profile and back again while Felix watched. This ID verified its owner as a U.S. government employee with a very high security clearance. The man’s name was listed as “XXXX” and the card gave little further information — at least without being plugged into a computer reader.
“You can call me Mr. Smith, or Mr. Brown, or Johnny Appleseed.”
“Johnny Appleseed doesn’t fit you, somehow.” Felix was already engaged by the man’s irresistible charm. He seemed only slightly older than Felix, who was in his mid-thirties, but he moved and talked with an assurance that normally came with many more years.
The man leaned close to Felix. “I think, you, me, we go to same meeting now.”
Felix was suddenly cautious again. He didn’t comment.
“I know another name. Friend of yours. He’s a good friend of mine also.” The man leaned close and whispered in Felix’s ear, “Jeffrey Fuller.” Then he started rolling up his shirtsleeve. Felix expected him to show off a tattoo.
Felix was unimpressed, and impatient. Everyone knew the name Jeffrey Fuller. And it was an occupational hazard, being a Navy SEAL, to be accosted by people who wanted to either adore or impress you, or buy you a beer, or sometimes — foolishly — pick a fight. The gold officer’s Special Warfare qualification badge on Felix’s khaki uniform, centered above his spread of colorful ribbons, was enough to guarantee that much.
Then Felix saw the man’s bare arm. There was no tattoo, but the scars from shrapnel and a bullet wound. They looked about six months old, judging by the state of healing.
The man stared Felix right in the eyes, and suddenly the stranger’s eyes were hard, cold, killer’s eyes. “Our mutual friend will be at the meeting. I got these standing next to him. Other good men died.” The man rolled down his sleeve. For a moment his gaze was a thousand miles away.
Felix was able to place the man’s accent now. He was a Turk, definitely, yet his speech bore hints of a German upbringing too.
The Turk whispered in Felix’s ear again, and used a hand to mask his mouth. “We all three go on big trip soon. You’ll enjoy.” The man gave Felix a puckish grin, and his eyes were softer now. Then he flashed that harder look, as if flaunting the fact that he could turn it on and off at will.
Ilse Reebeck was pissed off. She sat in a small, windowless meeting room, at Headquarters, Commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, where she served now on Admiral Hodgkiss’s staff as a combat oceanographer. She wore her workaday blue uniform as a lieutenant in the Free South African Navy, including the ribbon for her Legion of Merit, awarded by her country’s grateful government-in-exile.
Across the little table from Ilse, near enough to be in her face, sat a pair of male FBI agents. They called themselves special agents. The only things special Ilse saw about these two was their pushy arrogance, and their eagerness to invade her privacy. Ilse had gotten her Ph.D. from Scripps, outside San Diego; she knew a lot about American culture and conversational idiom.
One of the men leaned forward, even closer. “When did you first start having sex with Jeffrey Fuller?”
Ilse was outraged. “That’s none of your damned business.”
The FBI agent didn’t blink. His partner sat there, silent. In their dark gray business suits, clean shaven, tall and fit and earnest, the pair of them might as well have come from a cookie cutter.
“Commander Fuller was your commanding officer at the time.”
“Only nominally,” Ilse shot back. “He was acting captain, and I was a civilian then.”
“So you do admit to having sex.”
The agents had asked for this interview, claiming it involved routine inquiries on something in which Ilse was only tangentially involved. She’d told them she’d be glad to help. They’d said they’d explain more in person. Obviously, they’d lied.
“This is absurd. I’m not answering any more personal questions.”
The agent who’d been doing the talking was undeterred. He reached into his briefcase and triumphantly pulled out a sheaf of papers.
“We have it all logged.”
“You have
“Phone messages left for you at your quarters from numbers that can’t be traced. ‘Don’t overfeed your cat. He’s getting pudgy.’ We know you don’t have a cat…. Here’s another. ‘The full moon looks beautiful tonight,’ on a night when the moon was just a thin crescent.”
“I thought they were wrong numbers or something. Everybody gets strange things on their voice mail now
