CHAPTER ONE
Timeline: SEAL Camp (TDD #12) is set both in the present day, and about a year and a half after the end of Night Watch (TDD #11). Embrace the time warp!
Lieutenant Jim “Spaceman” Slade couldn’t keep up as his SEAL Team ran across the barren desert.
True, his team for this training op was almost entirely tadpoles—relatively new additions to SEAL Team Ten—which meant they were significantly younger than he was.
In a world where you were the “old man” at twenty-eight, Jim’s thirty-four years made him ancient. Especially for a big guy. And like most of the bigger SEALs in the Teams, Jim felt his advanced age most prominently in his rapidly decaying knees.
His men somehow knew he was hurting—his poker-face was perhaps a bit too tight—and they slowed down. For him.
A SEAL Team was only as fast as its slowest member.
And having a member as slow as Jim could get the entire team killed.
Not here, in this SoCal desert, a short helo ride from the Navy Base in Coronado, but out in the sandbox in A-stan and points unknown, for damn sure.
“Yo’kay, sir?” Petty Officer Rio Rosetti slowed to run beside Jim. He was one of those lean, compact, wiry guys. Provided he made chief, he’d probably still be a SEAL—and outrunning future tadpoles—well into his fifties.
But Jim couldn’t hate the kid. He could only hate himself.
The other two tadpoles—Thomas King and David Williston, the newest member of Team Ten—joined Jim on his other side. King spoke up. “How can we help, sir?”
So Jim did something that he wouldn’t’ve been able to do, had this been a Real World mission, and not just a training op.
He took himself out.
“New scenario,” he told them, as he slowed to a stop. He wasn’t out of breath—that wasn’t the issue. He was aerobically fit. But his freaking knee—the left one, the “good” one—was on fire. “Your team leader—me—sustained a direct hit from a mortar round. There’s nothing left; nothing to carry out; nothing to bring home.” He looked at King who, as a lieutenant junior grade, was the highest ranking among them. “You’re now in charge, Lieutenant. Complete the mission, and get your men safely to the extraction point.”
Normally imperturbable, King’s dark brown eyes widened just a little. “Aye, aye, sir, but before I leave you here, outside of the context of this training op, I must ask: do you need medical aid?”
“I can find my own freaking medical aid,” Jim growled at the kid.
Now King didn’t so much as blink. Clearly he’d made note of the fact that Jim had not said no. “With all due respect, LT—”
Jim cut him off. “I have my phone, I have flares, and I have a shit-ton of pain in my knee that’s going to require another month or two of rest.” At best. He’d just come off of an extended rest period, after having surgery on his “bad” knee, which was now his new “good” knee, which meant it was only throbbing in contrast to the stabbing fire lighting up the other. “Trust me, the few short minutes that I’ll be alone after you leave and before the hospital corpsmen find me will be time well-spent, managing my goddamn frustration.”
But King still hesitated.
Rio spoke up. “I’ll hang back, sir,” he addressed King, “just a bit, until the corpsmen make contact with the LT. Then I’ll run to catch up.”
The kid was faster than the rest of the team.
“I don’t need a babysitter—” Jim started, but King cut him off.
“With all due respect, sir, I’m in command.” He nodded to Rio—“Do it”—then turned to the rest of the men. “Let’s go, move out.”
And just like that, they were gone. Even Rio, who moved off with the team toward the horizon, where he’d hover to make sure… what? That Jim didn’t get eaten by a giant sand lizard…?
He sighed as he used his phone to call for medical assistance, then sat down in the dirt to wait. The morning was hot and the sky was blue—and some kind of vulture circled closer to check him out.
“Screw you, asshole, I’m not dead yet.”
He already knew what his options were. More surgery. He didn’t have to like it, he just had to do it. But he’d already had both knees done. He’d spent more time in the hospital and physical therapy in the past few years than he’d spent out on missions. And as much as he hated staying behind to heal and rest, he knew he’d hate it more if he went out on an op and couldn’t keep up.
Which meant he’d have to face the idea of pulling himself permanently out of the Teams. Or—worse yet—getting pulled out.
Retirement.
Jesus.
The idea made his anger and frustration fade and left him feeling… what?
Tired. And empty.
As the helo with the medical team finally approached with a wash of noise from the blades, Jim stood and waved to Rio, who waved back and finally vanished, ready to run at his top speed for however many miles, probably without breaking much of a sweat.
The way Jim used to do when he first earned his Budweiser and joined Team Ten over a decade ago.
What was he, if couldn’t be a Navy SEAL?
Lieutenant Jim Slade had absolutely no clue.
* * *
Ashley DeWitt quickly ducked behind the Dumpster that sat in the corner of her condo association’s parking lot.
Dear, sweet God! The smell back here was horrific. Tomorrow morning was weekly garbage pickup day and the container was already overflowing. Add the heat of the southern California sun…
And yet here she crouched in full cowardly-hiding mode, despite the eyeball-melting stench.
She peeked around the corner and…
She quickly pulled back, because yes, that was Brad—not just some random man who looked vaguely Brad-like. Tall, lean, early thirties, with closely cropped light-brown hair and blue eyes, a lot of men looked like Brad. Particularly when he wore one of his expensive dark suits with a white shirt that showed off his gleamingly handsome, golf-tanned face.
After a year of silence, her crazy ex-boyfriend had begun emailing and calling again. Can we meet? We really need to talk.
She’d blocked and deleted, choosing to use silence as her answer. But now he’d shown up at her condo door—which was a little alarming because it had been years, plus a cross-country move, since she’d seen him last. During their tumultuous breakup, when Brad had gone into the worst of his I know if I just keep showing up, you’ll take me back phase, she’d lived in Boston, in a student-level apartment in a relatively sketchy neighborhood, with her best friend Colleen.
But shortly after graduation from law school, Colleen had gotten married to the man of her dreams. She’d happily moved to Southern California, passed the bar, and gotten a job practicing family law in the San Diego suburb of San Felipe. It wasn’t too long before she’d talked Ashley into moving out here, too, to work with her at the very same small law firm.
Colleen had wanted Ashley to move into the guest bedroom of the apartment she and her husband shared, mostly because she knew Ashley hated living alone. But they were newlyweds, so Ash had bought this condo with the money she’d inherited from her grandmother—her mother’s mother—and tried her best to feel confident and safe.
Although, the truth was, Ashley couldn’t remember a time since her incredibly protected and, yes, privileged childhood that she’d felt completely safe.
Which was why she spent a great deal of time exactly like this—quivering with fear as she hid from conflict.
Just this morning, over at the courthouse, she’d escaped into the ladies’ room to avoid an altercation with Greg Ramsey, the always-angry husband of one of her clients. Ashley represented his soon-to-be-ex-wife Betsy in a messy divorce. And instead of standing her ground and coolly admonishing Mr. Ramsey over his inappropriateness, and reiterating that all communication between he and his wife needed to come through his lawyer, Ashley had chosen, instead, to hide from the man.
Truth was, she was a little afraid of him.
Real truth was, outside of the structured control of the courtroom, she was a little afraid of everyone and everything.
And okay, she wasn’t that much of a wimp. She wasn’t afraid of her younger brother Clark, and Clark’s college roommate, Kenneth.
Yay?
As Ash peeked out from behind the Dumpster again, she saw Brad getting into a car parked in one of the slots set aside for visitors. Her heart sank as she saw that it was a black Lexus with darkly tinted windows and California plates. No way was that a rental car, which meant he was most likely living here again, in California, where he’d gone to college, and a mix of fear and anger made her throat tighten.
She’d slept better when he’d lived on the other side of the country, in New York. Not because she thought he’d hurt her. He wasn’t violent, he wasn’t even close to a psycho stalker. At least she didn’t think he was.
But she was afraid that he was right. And that if he pressured her hard enough, she’d do something really stupid and weak, like finally give in, forgive his lies, and take him back.
As Ashley watched, Brad started his car’s engine, the red taillights flashing on. But he didn’t pull out, and he didn’t pull out, and as she realized that he wasn’t leaving, her heart dropped ever farther. He was just going to sit in his car with the air conditioner on, waiting for her to come home.
And, God help her, she was too much of a coward to face him.
Her phone rang, and she immediately silenced it, glancing at the screen and… The universe was presenting her with an awesome Exhibit A. Her father was calling again, to give her his daily pitch on why she should move back to New York and join his prestigious law firm. She didn’t need to take the call—she’d heard his words often enough. What are you doing out there, working for lower wages than you’d get even as a public defender? Come home to Scarsdale, where you belong. You’ve proven your point. You win—I’ll fast-track you to partner. You’ll have a corner office, and in just a few years, your name’ll be beneath mine on the door…
But really, she didn’t want to take the call. Instead, she’d hide from her ongoing battle with her father by letting him go to voice-mail. She’d respond later, via email. Sorry, too busy with work to talk. Hope you’re well, hugs to Cynthia…
Instead, she checked her email as she hid back behind the Dumpster, breathing through her mouth. She responded to a message from her boss, Jessica Rae Cofer. The local women’s shelter had approached their tiny firm with another pro bono request. Another battered woman, like Betsy Ramsey, attempting to legalize her separation from a monster through divorce. Did Ashley have time to add another non-paying client to her already busy schedule?
Of course, she did. Always. Ash quickly fired back her response.
There was an email about a scheduling issue from opposing counsel on one of her paying cases, so she checked her calendar and responded to that email, too.
It was while she was answering another email from her little brother Clark—No, if he adopted a shelter dog, she would not be able to dog-sit for him. Yes, she loved dogs and yes, she was a pushover, but her condo association had a strict no-pets rule, sorry—that she realized that she was simply accepting her fate.
She’d reached the point where she’d prefer to spend god-knows-how-long hiding from her life behind a stank-fest of a Dumpster rather than risking getting upset—or facing someone else’s potential upset, anger, or disappointment.
Something had to change.
She had to change.
On impulse, she texted Colleen. Is that trained-by-a-Navy-SEAL class thing you were telling me about still open?
Colleen’s husband was a man-mountain of a Navy SEAL chief named Bobby Taylor, and he’d told Colleen—who’d told Ash—about a week-long class at a place called SEAL World, run by a former SEAL chief named Duncan Something. Or maybe it was Something Duncan…? Anyway, his class combined Outward-Bound type activities with exercises designed to boost self-confidence. Participants—mostly corporate types—apparently gained self-respect and self-esteem through the physical challenges.
Colleen didn’t text back—she called. “I’m looking it up right now,” she said, without any greeting. She’d been wanting Ashley to take this course ever since she’d first found out about it, years ago. “And yes, Dunk’s website says—whoa! He’s had a cancellation. He’s usually completely sold out, but there’re still a few slots open for a class that starts… oh, this Saturday.”
“Saturday?” Ash echoed. It was already Thursday. “Crap, that’s too soon.”
“No, it’s not,” Colleen said. “It’s actually perfect. It gives us just enough time to get together, so you can fill me in on your cases—so I can handle anything that comes up while you’re away.” She raised her voice, calling to their boss, who always worked with her office door open. “Jess, you okay with Ashley taking off for a week, to take that Navy SEAL class thing I was telling you about? I’ll cover for her.”
Ashley could hear Jess calling back, “Yes, absolutely!”
“I’ll come over tonight,” Colleen told Ashley. “You’ll have time tomorrow to shop for any gear that you might need—but not enough time to second guess yourself and get scared.”
“Yeah, thanks, I’m already terrified,” Ashley said. “I don’t know, Col. I had this flash of Maybe I need to do something, but now…”
“Why are you whispering?” Colleen asked.
“Um…”
“Are you hiding in some bathroom again?” Her friend’s voice was not unkind. “Look around you. Take a moment and take a deep breath. Is this really where you want to be? I believe, completely, that you are so much stronger than you think. And I think this class is exactly what you need so that you can start believing that, too.”
Ashley looked around, but didn’t dare take a deep breath. Colleen was right. She had to do this. And she was ready. Or at least as ready as she’d ever be. “Can you do me a huge favor?” she asked her friend. “And sign me up…? Right now…? On the website…? Use your credit card—I’ll pay you back.”
“We’re past the date where you can cancel and get a refund,” Colleen warned her.
“I know,” Ash said. She’d surfed the SEAL World website many times, wishing she were brave enough to take the plunge. “Do it. Now. Quickly, please, before I chicken out!”
* * *
Jim sat in his truck.
He knew he had to turn the key, start the engine, drive out of the Navy base. He had to pick up something for dinner at the grocery store. He had to go home, ice his knees, cook his dinner, ice his knees, eat, and again ice his knees. Twenty minutes at a time.
He had to rest.
That was the doctor’s order—and it was a literal order because the doc was a captain, and outranked Jim. Get a coupla weeks of rest while the medical team reviews these latest MRIs and scans. At that point, we’ll take another look, and talk about your options.
When the captain said that, he’d seen Jim’s face, and had both sighed and chuckled. Based in Coronado, the man saw a lot of injured SEALs, and he knew that, to them, rest was the nastiest of all of the four-letter words.
It had been four years since Jim had taken any leave that wasn’t connected to rehabbing his injured knees—it was all right there in his record.
So as the doc signed the necessary papers, he’d clarified. Take a real vacation. No running, no basketball, no jumping out of airplanes. Exercise in moderation, preferably in a swimming pool, with a daiquiri in your hand. Walking is okay—in moderation—to get from your room to the hotel lounge. Feet up when you can, and plenty of ice. Make use of the time off, Lieutenant. Visit family or friends.
In other words, get the hell not just out of his office and off the base, but out of California, too.
Jim knew not to push and ask exactly what options the doc thought the medical team might come up with. Best case would be more surgery, while the nightmare scenario would be horrific. Desk job A or desk job B. Oh, hey, maybe he could teach. Be a BUD/S classroom instructor. That would be fun…
A tap on his window made him jump. Great, he was already losing his edge.
But it was Thomas King, the young lieutenant who’d taken command during the training op. His buddies Dave and Rio were with him, but they were standing back a bit.
“We’re heading over to the bar, sir,” King said as Jim put his window down. “You up for a burger and a beer?” He smiled. He didn’t smile often, but when he did, it transformed his usually stern visage and made him look more like the twenty-something kid that he was. “Rio’s buying.”
As one of the many men of color in the SEAL Teams—and King’s skin tone was a very dark brown, which meant that to certain parts of white-bread America he was the quintessential image of a “big, scary” black man—Thomas King had earned his right to become both a SEAL and an officer. And yet he still got mistaken for an enlisted man, particularly when he was dressed in BDUs, thanks to ingrained assumptions and willful ignorance. On top of that insulting goatfuckery, Lieutenant King could return Stateside from a dangerous mission and get his ass shot and killed simply from walking down the street, or standing in his backyard, or shopping in a department store.
So maybe it made sense that Thomas King was the only man who had the big enough balls to invite him to go out with them, particularly since Jim had been sitting here glowering at the world.
Still, he knew that King and the other tadpoles didn’t really want his company. And he didn’t want theirs. He was at the end of his career, and they were right at the beginning—with all that hope and promise and excitement in front of them. “Thanks, but no,” Jim said. “I’m heading home.”
King turned away, but then turned back. “You know Senior Chief Duncan, right, sir? Randy Duncan…? Dunk? Left the Teams about two years ago?”
Of course Jim knew Dunk. Everyone knew Dunk—a salty old senior chief, who’d been with Team Two since forever. He was one of those lean, wiry guys who ran marathons for fun. Dunk had lost a leg in Afghanistan while literally saving a busload of nuns and orphans, and had since learned to walk and run with a prosthetic. He’d even had the chance to stay with the Teams, but chose instead to leave. Last Jim had heard, Dunk had hiked out to Machu Picchu with a long-time civilian friend.
“Message received, Lieutenant,” Jim said. Unlike Dunk, he still had both legs, both firmly attached. Time to stop feeling sorry for himself.
But King looked surprised and then dismayed. “Oh, no, sir,” he quickly said. “I haven’t gotten to the message, which is that Dunk started a boot camp for, well, corporate types who want a challenge.”
“Yeah, I’d heard he was doing that,” Jim said.
“Every session’s filled,” King told him, “Even if someone drops out, there’s always someone else ready to take their spot. He’s got a week-long class that starts on Saturday, and one of his regular instructors—Deak Lundlee, you know, Crocodile Lundlee…?”
“I’m well acquainted with Croc,” Jim said.
“Well, Croc’s gotta drop out because Sheila, his wife, got the flu and… Anyway, Dunk called me, to see if maybe I could talk Dave or maybe even Mike Lee into coming with Rio and me, to replace Croc, but…” He shook his head. “Mike’s out of the country and Dave can’t break free. But then I thought of you.”
“Train a group of SEAL wannabes,” Jim said dryly. “Oh, joy.”
“The money’s insane,” King told him bluntly. “And it’s not awful. Like I said, it’s only a week and… well, it’s not exactly fun. But it’s fun-ish.”
Jim looked at him. “Quite the ringing endorsement.”
“Dunk’s great,” King said with a shrug. “And Lieutenant O’Donlon’s an instructor this session, too. Syd, his wife, is going on some kind of writing retreat, so…”
Luke O’Donlon—known by his nickname Lucky—tended to be a walking party.
“Why on earth do you spend your downtime teaching at Dunk’s camp?” Jim had to ask.
King glanced over his shoulder to where Rio and Dave were both checking their phones for email and texts. He lowered his voice. “To be honest, sir, I’ve been avoiding this… well, girl. She’s way too young, so… it helps if I make myself scarce whenever I can.”
That made sense.
“Dunk’s camp is just outside of Sarasota, in Florida. West Coast—Gulf of Mexico. Can’t beat the location. This time of year, the weather’s perfect.”
This time of year, the weather was pretty damn perfect in San Diego, too.
“I’m just saying that you could get rest and make some cash,” King continued. “Dunk’s still got the scooters he used when he first got out of the hospital, and he still gets around in a golf cart—I know he’s got more than one. Plus, he’s a great guy and you’d be helping him out. He told me he’s gonna have to cancel the session if he can’t replace Crocodile. So I’m begging you, too—I have the next few weeks free, and I cannot stay here in town.”
Jim sighed. “My grumpy ass presence is gonna cancel out O’Donlon’s blinding golden glee. You know that right?”
King smiled. “Believe me, I’m plenty good with fun-ish. I need distance—and the cash isn’t gonna hurt. Is it okay with you if I text Dunk with your number?”
“He’s already got it,” Jim said. He knew Dunk well. “But yeah. Have him call me.”
“Thank you, sir,” King said as he backed away, fast. “You won’t regret this.”
“I already do,” Jim grumbled, but Thomas King and his buddies were already gone.