“Hey, darlin‟.” Justin LeBlanc, a SEAL best known as Cage, drawled in his deep Cajun accent as he looped an arm over her shoulder and gave her a light kiss on her cheek. “You are lookin‟ good,
chère
. How come yer standin‟ here all alone?”
“JAM went over to try his moves on the Viking chick.” She motioned with her margarita across the veranda.
“About time,” remarked K-4, Kevin Fortunato, another SEAL who had been following Cage but had stopped at the bar to get them both longneck bottles of cold beer. “He‟s been crazy in love with her, like forever.”
“You noticed?” she asked.
“Everyone noticed,” K-4 replied, while he gave her a slow head-to-toe survey, then grinned his appreciation.
K-4 had asked her out on a date several times, but somehow their schedules always conflicted. Maybe it was time. Oddly enough, she couldn‟t garner any great enthusiasm, despite his being an attractive man, and nice, too. Maybe that was the problem; he was too nice.
No, it was something else that kept her from forming any relationships, and not just her disillusionment with two-timing men in the vein of her father and ex-husband. It was as if she were waiting for something to happen. As if her body and her heart were in a self-enforced limbo. A holding pattern, waiting for the big bang.
She smiled to herself. Big bang? The last time she‟d been banged, it hadn‟t been all that big of an explosion. Maybe she should lower her expectations to a soft ooomph.
“I‟m intrigued by your work as a stunt double, Rita,” said Sly, another SEAL, who just joined the group. She shrugged.
“Lots of SEALs and Special Forces guys go into private security when they leave their teams. Like Blackhawk,” Sly continued. “But being a stunt double sounds kind of cool.”
“A lot of it is just boring, but, yeah, it can be cool on occasion.”
“Like?”
“Being set on fire.”
“Whaaat?” all three men exclaimed.
“There‟s a special retardant gel, but it dries quickly, so you have to complete the scene in less than five minutes, or you really will go up in flames. Plus, the Nomex suits are kept in a freezer to withstand the heat. You‟d shiver to death if you had it on too long.”
“Still sounds dangerous,” K-4 said, taking a long draw on his beer.
“It isn‟t if all the precautions are followed.”
“I like to see those car chases,” Cage remarked. “Ever done those?”
“Yep. And crashed against a concrete wall. Or so it would appear. It‟s all in the training.”
“Can anyone apply for those jobs?” Sly wanted to know.
“They can apply, but they won‟t get them. It takes a special kind of highly skilled person.
Most of the men and women I‟ve worked with, the top-of-the-line stunt doubles, are unusual, and I don‟t just mean their extreme athleticism. They have to be able to perform dangerous things under pressure, and have trained over and over to master a particular feat. No fear, or being able to do the stunt despite the fear. It takes a hell of a lot of courage to do some of the dumb-ass things we‟re asked to do. Persistence, too, if you want to make it in the business.
And discipline. Always, always, honing your craft.”
The guys all looked at each other, then said as one, “Sounds just like SEALs.”
They all wanted to know about some of the stars she‟d worked with. As old as she was, compared to the younger sexy starlets, Demi Moore got high marks with the SEALs. Probably because of her portrayal of G.I. Jane.
Soon the guys went off to join the volleyball game, K-4 promising to be back soon, but Rita realized that she wasn‟t really in a party mood. Setting her empty glass down onto a low table, she drifted through the crowd, stopping to talk occasionally to folks she knew, then found herself in front of the house, wondering if she could call a taxi to pick her up. JAM was clearly on a roll with Kirstin, and she didn‟t want to stay and cramp his style.
A woman she‟d met before was getting into a car out on the street, along with her husband and young son. It was Lydia Denton-Haraldsson, who owned a dance studio in Coronado.
“Hi, Rita,” Lydia called out. “Do you need a lift?”
“Could you? I would really appreciate it.”
Before she got in the backseat, Lydia introduced her. “Have you met my husband, Thorfinn Haraldsson? And my son, Michael.” Michael, about six years old, whose grayish blue eyes were already fluttering sleepily, was strapped in the car seat next to where she would be sitting in the back. “Finn, this is Rita Sawyer, she‟s a WEALS trainee.”
Rita shook hands with Finn and noticed his heavy gold ring etched with writhing serpents or dragons or something. Although they‟d never actually met, she recognized him from the SEALs training compound. He was a new SEAL, still in training, but having graduated recently into the teams. Thus far, he hadn‟t been assigned instructor duty.
He smiled at her from his great height. She was tall for a female, but this guy had to be six foot three, at least. His black hair was longish, and his eyes were the same compelling shade of silvery blue as his son‟s. “Thorfinn Haraldsson, huh? Another Viking!”
“To the bone,” Lydia agreed with a smile at her husband, who didn‟t appear to appreciate her remark about “another” Viking.
“Are you one of the Magnussons?” she asked.
“Nay, I am not,” he snapped, as if that were an insult. Then he softened and conceded, “Magnus is my uncle.”
As they were driving along, Rita asked, “When is the baby due?”
Lydia, who had a nice-sized bump sticking out from her maternity top, put both hands over her tummy and looked lovingly at her husband before revealing, “Babies, not baby. We‟re expecting twins before Christmas.”
“How nice!”
Finn took a hand off the steering wheel and squeezed one of his wife‟s hands.
“How‟s the WEALS training going, Rita?”
“Grueling but fun. I might change my mind after Hell Week, but for now, I enjoy working my body to the max.”
Finn made a snorting sound of disagreement.
“What?” she asked. “You don‟t think physical training can be fun?”
“Nay, I do not think for females there is any enjoyment to be found in muscle-punishing exercises. Holy Thor! The only way a woman‟s body should be worked
to the max
is beneath a man. Women in this country do not know their proper place.”
Lydia made a choking sound.
“Oh, and where do you think a woman‟s place is?” Rita asked, not at all surprised by Finn‟s attitude. Lots of SEALs ... heck, men in general . . . believed that women in the military was an oxymoron.
“In the bed furs with her man and in the birthing hut providing a husband with heirs.”
Lydia‟s choking sounds turned into groans.
Bed furs? Birthing hut? What century is this bozo from?
“Is he for real?” Rita asked Lydia.
“Oh, yeah. My very own male chauvinist Viking.”
Finn glowered at his wife.
She patted him on the arm, then told Rita with a wink, “My Finn gives male chauvinism a good name.”
If you say so
, Rita thought, but what she said was, “Isn‟t that nice?”
“I saw that wink,” Finn said. “You will pay later for making mock of me, sweetling.” Then he was the one who winked. At his wife. And flashed her such a hot look the air practically sizzled inside the car.
Rita couldn‟t help but be a little envious of the loving relationship these two clearly shared.
Maybe she should look for her very own Viking.
Then, reminding herself of the dinosaur attitude this man displayed, she immediately corrected herself. Maybe not.
Hell Week was hell! . . .
Hell Week began with a bang. Literally.
It was almost over now, and it had been Satan‟s play-ground, to be sure. Just one more day.
In the midst of a heat wave, the scorching California sun beat down on them like the devil‟s own barbecue pit. Not surprisingly, Satan‟s minions had been a bunch of Navy SEAL
instructors who were surely descendants of Lucifer himself.
There were thirty-five helmets lined up starting at the bell sitting on the corner of the Grinder. Ten more WEALS trainees had dropped out this week. That left only forty of them to complete the course, God willing. A nice even number to fill five IBSs.
The week from hell had started with Breakout while it was still dark on Monday. The women in the barracks were awakened by loud shouts from bullhorns in their faces, men clanging trash can lids together, the sounds of AK-47s firing blanks, and what appeared to be actual explosions outside.
Once mustered on the Grinder, which resembled an eerie horror movie set with its dull lighting and colored smoke and constant loud noise, she saw a scene of orchestrated chaos meant to intimidate the trainees into quitting. While male SEAL trainees might not mind having no showers or change of clothing since Hell Week started, the women did not like reeking, not one bit. To them, that was as painful as the muscle-wrenching exercises.
While the goal of Breakout had been to scare the crap out of them, the goal of the entire week was to make them as wet, cold, exhausted, and miserable as possible. And smelly.
JAM had told them at one point, “Eventually you‟ll be able to recognize the distinctive body odor of your teammates.”
To which one astute woman had replied, “Oh, that‟s something to look forward to. I much prefer Obsession.”
“News flash to swabbies. While you‟re out on a black op, perfume attracts gnats . . . as well as tangos. You wanna be bug . . . or bin Laden . . . bait, that‟s fine with me.”
The trainees had become used to instructors being bent over, in their faces, shouting orders.
And they never referred to them by name. It was maggot, or swabbie, or tadpole, or newbies, or slugs, usually preceded by the F-word. Or sometimes it was the colorful, “You pukes!”
Speaking of which, they‟d also become used to puking their guts out in the sand and water when pushed to their limits.
“Surf Appreciation, ladies,” F.U. yelled, now that they‟d completed a round of Helen Kellers, the politically incorrect name for a particular rotation. The SEAL instructors rarely called them ladies, and when they did, it usually presaged some form of torture in the name of exercise, which Surf Appreciation was.
“Come on, come on, drag your sorry asses out into the water, darlin‟s,” Cage prodded in a slow Cajun drawl. They knew the drill. Their sorry asses, covered by filthy BDUs, stomped out into the pounding surf in heavy boondockers and sat down with their arms linked together. In the cold, cold water of the Pacific, they faced the shore where the Marquis de Sade‟s men stood watching them with arms folded across their chests. While waves as high as ten feet broke over their heads, their bodies kept being sucked backward. Teeth chattering, it was a constant fight to hold their ground, and the rotation lasted until they were almost at the point of hypothermia.
After that, as a way for them to warm up, they were told to run. Of course!
Pain, pain, pain, that was the name of the game, all to condition their bodies to the horrors they might face on a real mission.
Following a brief lunch in the chow hall where some of them fell asleep over their trays of food, they were told to prepare for Rock Portage, one of the most dangerous tests a SEAL or WEALS candidate faced. It was so dangerous that the ratio of instructor to trainee became one to one. The women geared up in wet suits with Nomex hoods and flippers, then walked to the hated IBSs.
Before they left, Commander MacLean came over and told them, “Remember, it‟s all a case of mind over matter.”
“Yeah,” Wendy whispered to her. “They don‟t mind, and we don‟t matter.”
“That‟s for sure,” she agreed.
“Good luck!” the commander added.
Now in the water once again, they climbed into their IBSs, eight each, and paddled to a count shouted out by the coxswain, which was Wendy, over to the smooth area beyond the breaking waves facing the Hotel del Coronado shore. On arriving, they paddled in place, waiting, about a hundred yards from the shoreline, where jagged black rocks stood up like sentinels of death.
The goal was for each boat, one at a time, to make a safe surf passage, riding a wave, through the treacherous rocks, without breaking a limb or drowning. At least they were performing this operation in daylight. In BUD/S the SEAL trainees went out at night. The Hindenburg factor was multiplied dramatically in moonlight. Not that this wasn‟t bad.
Rita was going to be the bowline man for her team . . . or was that bowline woman?
Whatever. Once a perfect wave . . .
please God, let there be a perfect wave
. . . rose behind them, they tossed their paddles aside and lifted themselves to straddle the tubes on both sides, Rita at the forefront on her side. One of the women let loose with a rebel yell when Commander MacLean, on the shore, raised his hand. “Go, go, go!” a SEAL instructor from a nearby boat shouted.
In they went, way too fast, like a giant surfboard, except not so fun. At the last moment, Rita jumped into the water and found a secure spot between two rocks. “Take a bite! Take a bite!”
someone screamed into a bullhorn.
“I‟m biting, I‟m biting,” she muttered to no one in particular as she wrapped the bowline around her waist. A few seconds later, the boat came closer on a second wave, and she reached for the stern line.
But it was a rogue wave and it twisted in on itself, overturning the boat. So powerful was the force that it snapped her bowline and hurled her up into the air. She heard shouts of alarm and screams before she came down, striking the back of her head on one of the rocks.
Then everything went blank.
Men! Clueless through the ages . . .
“I can get a tongue thickening.”
Steven and every sailor within hearing distance turned to stare at Oslac.
They were on Steven‟s favorite dragon ship,
Wind Breaker
, on the return trip from Birka . . .
a very successful trip, by the by, in which they had traded amber for fine Frisian wine, pottery from the Rhineland, oats and barley, samite silks, iron kettles, swords, bows and arrows. Ells and ells of Northumbrian wool to supplement the lesser quality Norseland fleece to make clothing for one and all at Norstead and Amberstead over the winter months. Six horses, a goat, and three cows to be serviced by their randy bull Ornulf, best known as Ornulf the Ornery. Ornery had no finesse in the bedsport . . . or was that pasturesport? As a result, after a few tries, the female cows ran when they saw him coming.