SEAL Team 666: A Novel

Walker thought it was stating the obvious. He didn’t know where the conversation was going. “So?” he said, letting the word draw long.

“So we all have a reason we were selected for the team. Most of the time we aren’t sure whether it was the way we answered a question, something in our past, or something else we aren’t even aware of. The psychs sure aren’t forthcoming.”

“What are you getting at?”

“It seems pretty clear to me why you were chosen. I mean, you’re good, bro, but there are a lot of good SEALs out there. But as far as I know, none of them do what you do when they get near something supernatural.”

Suddenly Walker knew where the conversation was turning.

“I can’t help but wonder that if you’d been with the team instead of standing off to watch our backs … if you would have felt that thing in the crate before the shit hit the fan. If you’d been there, then—”

“Then Fratty might still be alive,” Walker said, finishing the statement.

“Exactly. We wouldn’t have to attend another fucking wake for a dead friend.”

Walker inhaled during the silence that followed. Was this the life he’d subscribed to? “How many wakes have you attended, Ruiz?”

“Total? Thirty-two. For my own team members from all my team assignments? Six. For SEAL Team 666? Two. You can see them on the wall. They’re the best America has ever made. Their only faults were to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and to not know how, or why, or fucking when a creature that the rest of the world doesn’t even know exists was going to reach out and snuff the life from them.”

Laws entered the room and grabbed a cup of coffee of his own. “Easy, Ruiz.”

“Fuck easy! This shit sucks.”

Walker nodded. It was the only thing he could do. As bad as he felt now having lost one team member, he couldn’t imagine losing six.

But Laws laughed, drawing angry glares from both Ruiz and Walker. “‘This shit sucks,’” Laws repeated. “It could be a T-shirt. It could be a slogan. Or maybe, ‘Don’t Die and Make It Suck.’”

Walker chuckled in spite of himself in recognition of Laws’s gallows humor.

Ruiz grimaced and turned away, but Laws wouldn’t let him get away so easily. “Come on, man. I know this shit sucks, but you can’t let it get to you.”

Ruiz turned farther away.

“Hey,” Laws pressed. “What is it you rednecks do in West Virginia when you’re mourning? Look at goat porn?”

Ruiz turned halfway back, seemed to think about it for a moment, then turned the rest of the way. He stared at Laws. “We blow shit up.”

Laws laughed out loud. “Hear that, Walker? Ruiz says he blows shit up when he’s sad. Fuck it. Let’s go blow something up.”

Ruiz’s face actually brightened. “Seriously?”

“Absolutely. Grab some clothes and some Semtex and we’ll go out and do it.”

Ruiz looked back and forth between Walker and Laws, waiting to see if it was a joke. After a minute, he took off.

After he’d gone, Walker asked, “Are we really going to blow something up?”

Laws nodded.

But Walker couldn’t make sense of Laws’s reaction. While everyone else was in a state of mourning, Laws seemed to be as nonchalant as if it were any other day.

Laws pointed a finger at Walker. “Don’t confuse my ability to compartmentalize with lack of caring. I deal with this in my own way.” He removed his shirt, revealing dozens of words written on his torso. At first they seemed to be in a strange language; then Walker realized that they were printed in reverse. They were names, indelibly etched into his skin with tattoo ink. Laws pointed to them. “These are—were—my teammates and classmates. Everyone I’ve served with since I’ve been into the teams. Your name’s going to go up here as soon as I can break away.”

Walker noticed that about a third of the names had lines through them. “And the lines through them?”

“Are the friends I’ve lost.” He pointed to the name Anthony Fratolilio. “This is for Fratty. I’ll cross him out after the wake. But crossed out or not, he’ll always be a part of me. I can see him and he can see me.”

“Why is it in reverse?”

“Most people wear tattoos as a statement to the world. Something they want someone else to notice. I don’t give a shit about that. These are for me. They’re for me to look at and remember.” Laws lowered his voice. “They’re so I won’t forget. Ever.”

Half an hour later they were in Ruiz’s red two-and-a-half-ton pickup and heading into what constituted the town of Coronado. They pulled an old wooden skiff they’d appropriated from BUD/S school. They stopped for a six-pack of Longboard and headed for Imperial Beach.