SEAL Team 666: A Novel

Walker recognized the members of his class when they came, led by Instructor Reno. His classmates looked questioningly at him, but he couldn’t answer. All he could do was nod and watch as they passed. Reno paused beside the body and looked hard at every one of them. Unlike the others, he had something to say to Holmes.

“I get them ready. You take them out. You bring them back. Just tell me, SEAL, is it mission complete?”

Holmes swallowed hard as he nodded. “They all came home,” he said, voice cracking.

“Good. Then I’ll keep sending you more.” Then Reno left, only pausing to touch each and every member of the team on the arm. It was a small touch, but it weighed heavily enough.

As Reno departed, Walker couldn’t help wonder what would have happened if Holmes had answered differently. No SEAL had been trained in recent memory without Reno. One had to wonder if a SEAL could even be trained without him. Walker watched him leave, feelings of fear, admiration, love, respect, and the desire to grow up and be just like him swirling in the midst of his abject thoughts.

The song replayed seven times before the viewing was over. Finally they were left alone with their friend.

Each teammate, beginning with Holmes, took a private moment with the man, and Walker was left for last. He approached the smartassed SEAL, wishing his ruined face would crack a smile and he’d tell them one last joke. Eventually, Fratty’s body was taken away. He no longer belonged to just the SEALs. They’d return him to the world he’d died saving. He’d be cleaned up and sent to his family with the thanks of a grateful nation.

The surviving members of SEAL Team 666 were taken to the Pit. They put their gear away. They cleaned themselves up. Then for a time they just sat around the conference table and stared at each other. It was a long while before someone finally spoke, and when it happened, it was Holmes, beginning the after-action report.

Everyone knew that it had to be done. But not a single one liked it.

27

IMPERIAL BEACH. MORNING.

After the mission brief, they all turned in. The following evening there’d be a wake for Fratty, but for today, it was all about recovery. Walker was past tired. Toward the end of the briefing, he’d felt loopy, severe enough that he didn’t trust himself to speak. So when Holmes highlighted the fact that he’d disobeyed an order—which had almost compromised their mission—Walker had remained silent. It would be a conversation for another day. Sure, he’d disobeyed an order, but at the time it had been based on a sound decision. His view of the crew door had been partially blocked by the same air-vent cowling to which he’d repositioned. Rethinking the situation, he couldn’t be sure that from his initial position he would have seen the three men before they were close enough to fire at the SEALs in the hold.

He went to bed angry and exhausted. The battle aboard the ship replayed in his dreams that night. But as dreams are wont to do, they twisted reality, changing the Chinese soldiers into demons and the creature in the hold into a dragon. They fought a long hard battle, expending every last piece of ammunition. Just as they thought they’d won, a klaxon sounded from somewhere and a tide of orange-skinned homunculi erupted from the hold. They crashed into the SEAL team, their sheer numbers smothering the team’s members. Walker felt a hundred tiny hands pressing him to the deck, while a dozen more wrapped around his neck and tried to squeeze the life out of him. As his eyes bulged, he recognized the thing inside of them by the way it glowed from their eyes. He knew it as well as he knew himself … after all, it was himself for a time.

He awoke gasping and covered in sweat. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. Then he remembered he’d been installed in his new bedroom suite at SEAL Team 666 HQ. He rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom. He lowered his head into the sink and let the cool water run over his head. Then he turned so he could drink straight from the faucet. After several deep gulps, he stood and stared at himself in the mirror.

He’d slept ten hours. That was more uninterrupted sleep than he’d had in the last six months. It was actually too much. He felt groggy.

He threw on a shirt and some shorts and went into the main room in search of coffee. Ruiz was already there and offered him a mug. They sat on a leather sofa, staring at the ceiling and letting the caffeine attack the exhaustion that lingered in their systems.

“I was thinking last night about the mission,” Ruiz said after a good ten minutes. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt that read WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS, along with the school logo of Davy Crockett.

“Me, too,” Walker said.

“I know. We can’t help it, can we? Anyway, you’re the team sniper, which puts you at a great distance from the action.”