SEAL Team 666: A Novel

“I don’t want … Never mind.” He closed his eyes for he didn’t know how long. He wasn’t stupid but he felt like it right now. He had to get his thoughts in order. He’d never wanted to be jerked out of training. He’d been so close to finishing he could almost taste it. All he’d wanted to do was become a SEAL, join a team, and live the life. And it was a glorious life to be lived. Whether he would be stationed in Guam, Virginia Beach, or Coronado, it would be a life of fresh air, exercise, shooting, and being part of a brotherhood. He’d be on call to do the bidding of the president. He’d be a real live action hero, whose life was one long video game. He’d be that guy everyone else pretended to be, sitting day after day in their easy chairs, doughnut boxes and beer cans stacked around them as they shot, fought, and killed, using a video version of himself.

This unit wasn’t exactly what he’d thought of when he’d wanted a brotherhood, though. A regular SEAL Team consisted of six platoons and a headquarters element. Each platoon had thirteen enlisted men, led by a chief and an officer. There were also SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams, Underwater Demolition Teams, and Naval Special Warfare Teams, each offering support in their own way.

Looking around at the five of them, seven if you counted Billings and the dog, their team was awful short of a regulation unit. There was supposedly analytical support, a group of top-secret nerds to parse their information and provide them with the next target, but he didn’t know who or where they were.

Fratty leaned forward and petted Hoover behind the ear. “This isn’t like any other team,” he said, as if he could read Walker’s thoughts. “We allow for a certain amount of individuality. But we need to get to know you first. We have to be able to trust you not to do something that’s going to get us all killed.”

“But I—”

“Don’t need to comment on this anymore. It’s over and behind us. Now our job is to rest, clean up, and be ready for the next mission.”

Walker took the hint and disassembled his own weapon. He loved the Stoner. It was so much more portable than the Barrett 50 he’d used on the Somali pirate last year. As he broke the Stoner down, he removed the rotating bolt carrier group. It was virtually the same as the piece-of-shit M16, which fired 5.56mm, but the Stoner was bored for 7.62mm as opposed to the 12.7mm of the Barrett. And also like the M16 and the AR15, the Stoner used a gas-impingement system to automatically move the bolt back and forth, enabling semiautomatic fire down the twenty-inch barrel. Rather than the regular floating barrel, the Stoner was reworked to incorporate the URX II Picatiny-Weaver Rail System, allowing for better application of any mounted hardware such as laser sights, telescopic sights, reflexive sights, tactical lights, and forward grips. It was a sweet weapon for sure and one that Walker was happy to have. Too bad he’d never had a chance to fire it. Still, he wiped it down and re-oiled it, just as he would have had he used it, just as he’d been trained to do.

When the weapon was put back together and racked into the weapon carrier on the wall above him, Walker asked, “Is it always like that?”

Laws had pulled out a comic book and was lying on his back and reading it. “Do we always kill beegees?”

“No. I mean the … things.”

“Like the homunculus? We get all sorts. About half the time it’s nothing, something that any other team could have handled. But the other half is a challenge.”

“So that’s our specialty. When you said it before, I didn’t really believe it. But now that I’ve seen it…”

“We’ve been down some gnarly rabbit holes,” Laws told him. “We have a mission log back at the Pit. When you get there, you can read all you want, that is, if it won’t scare you too bad. It’s like if Stephen King wrote nonfiction.”

Walker chuckled. “What’s the Pit?”

“Home sweet home.” Fratty grinned. “It’s our office, team room, and hooch. It’s where we live, work, and play when we’re not off staking some otherworldly beegees.”

Ruiz laughed and shook his head. “Y’all are so Hollywood. You make everything sound so grandiose. What he means is that Pit stands for the Mosh Pit. It’s your new home.”

The pilot announced that they were descending, then ran through a pastiche of a commercial flight mantra, to include recommending that tray tables be put away. The members of the team checked their weapons in the brackets, buckled in, and leaned back as they prepared for landing.

Hoover rolled over and scratched herself behind the ear.

“Been to sniper school?” Ruiz asked.

“Scout Sniper in Hawaii.”

“Just checking to see if they pulled you out of that early, too,” Ruiz cracked.

“Very funny,” Walker said.

“Didn’t you hear about the sniper took out the Somali pirates last year?” Laws asked. “This is that guy.”

Walker felt a twinge of pride, which immediately turned into embarrassment as everyone’s eyes suddenly turned toward him.