Five hours later the alarm on his clock radio went off, and Mack awakened fast, like all SEALs. He rolled out of bed and pulled on his canvas shorts, his navy-blue instructor’s T-shirt, socks, and combat boots. This morning he had a plan, and he needed to be on the move before first light in order to carry it out.
He went downstairs, fired up the Buick, and hit the road six minutes after he first awoke. Mack needed a beach, and they didn’t have any in his particular neck of the woods. He needed a beach because that was where SEALs trained. There were only two SPECWARCOM garrisons in the United States, one at Virginia Beach and one on the beach at Coronado, San Diego.
For all of them, there was something about training on sand. It was harder to run over, more demanding, and it sapped energy quicker. It also kept a top combat SEAL sharper because he was always looking for the firm ground at the top of the tide where the sand was not too deep.
Out there in Coronado, often at first light, the BUDs trainees were subjected to the most grueling regimen of physical fitness. And the one truly awful moment was when the instructors yelled at someone to “get wet and sandy.” Which was a schoolboy euphemism meaning, “Run into the goddamned freezing Pacific Ocean, boots and all, then come out and roll in the sand.” This was essentially torture because no one was allowed to stop. Boots filled with water, and the men had to squelch and chafe their way through the miles, in diabolical discomfort, with feet that were suddenly made of lead. But it honed them into fighting men, gave them an edge, because everything else was kid stuff compared to the rigors of BUDs training.
Mack’s part of Maine, and all the way up the coast to Canada, was devoid of long beaches. It comprised hundreds of coves, bays, harbors, islands, and rocky inlets. The entire Maine coast is only 250 miles long as the crow flies, but it has a convoluted coastal length of well over 3,000 miles, hardly any of it straight. Except in the most southerly stretch, from the Isles of Shoals, past Kennebunkport, and up to Richmond Island. Along there are some magnificent stretches of wild sand, some of them miles long, places like Old Orchard Beach, Wells, and Scarborough.
It was to this summer paradise that Mack was headed, maybe 40 miles from Dartford. He needed to be there before the tourists and vacationers showed up. It was still dark when he crossed the bridge at Bath and headed down to Interstate 95, where he’d been only a few hours before.
The sun was just rising when he pulled into the parking lot on the long beach and emptied his pockets. He pulled on a baseball cap and sunglasses, locked the car, and walked down the sand to the water’s edge. It was a calm day, just little wavelets lapping the shore.
Mack looked to his left and right. It looked a hell of a way in either direction. He set off, going east, into the rising sun, which reminded him of Coronado so long ago. It was a cool morning, much cooler than California, but the temperature of the sea was comparable. Cold. Darned cold. Maine had a lot of charms. The temperature of the ocean was not one of them. Unless you happened to be a walrus.
Mack had been training for several days now, on the road, but within a half mile he could feel the difference, the extra effort required, as he splashed along the tidal limit—
just like old times with the guys, banging our way along the beach past the old Hotel del Coronado.
He decided to make his first challenge after two miles, and he kept on going, driving forward like always. He was already asking questions of his body, and he was getting the right answers. His breath came easily, his legs had no ache, and at the two-mile mark, he closed his eyes tight. He tried to imagine Instructor Mills running alongside him, on an easy stride—
“YOU’RE NOT PUTTING OUT FOR ME, BEDFORD—YOU’RE RUNNING LIKE A GODDAMNED FAGGOT!”
That had usually been yelled at him when he was right up with the leaders, going for his life. Around him there was a ripple of suppressed laughter among the guys at the sheer mind-numbing unfairness of it, with possibly ninety men laboring behind the leaders.
And then the quietly uttered payoff—“Bedford, get wet and sandy.” Mac heard it then, and he heard it again now, echoing down the years, into his mind, those dreaded words that had contributed so much to the man he now was. He turned sharp right, and, in the glare of the rising sun, Mack Bedford rushed into the freezing Atlantic. Boots and all. This was BUDs revisited.
The shock of the water brought back a thousand memories as he plunged beneath the surface, swimming hard, keeping his head down, feeling the icy water numbing his face. He kept going, driving through the water, swimming with one of the most powerful overarm strokes the instructors had ever seen at Coronado. On the first day in the SEAL training pool, he had overheard an instructor asking, “What the hell is this guy, some kind of a fucking fish?”
Mack swam out for a quarter of a mile and then turned back, still going hard, all the way to the beach. He climbed out of the shallows and walked to the deep, dry sand and threw himself down, rolling in it, back and forth. Finally he stood up, rigidly to attention, and somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind, he heard the far-lost cry of the faithful—
HOO-YAH, MACK BEDFORD!
How could he forget that? How could anyone ever forget that?
Once more he turned to face the east, and he set off again, pounding forward, checking his watch, counting off the miles. Back at the top of the beach, a state parking lot attendant came on duty, and watched Mack’s exit from the water. He shook his head, confident he was staring at a person who had almost certainly gone stark-raving mad.
Twice more on the run, once at the four-mile mark and then again at the end, Mack hurled himself into the ocean, the last time washing away the sand that had made the exercise so uncomfortable. Then with a cheerful grin on his face, he strode back to the car. He could still do it, right? Like always. No problem. HOO-YAH, Mack.
He’d packed a couple of big towels in the back of the car, and he removed all of his soaking clothes and used one towel as a sarong and the other to cover the seat. The place was still deserted, since it was only seven o’clock.
Mack reached home at around eight thirty, took a shower, and put on dry clothes. The past few days had made him feel great, as he reached the kind of peak fitness known only to those who have spent a lifetime achieving it. His muscles felt supple, he knew his reactions would be razor sharp, and there was an inner strength deep inside that gave him supreme confidence.
Mack, in just a few days, had regained the old SEAL swagger, the feeling of physical and mental supremacy that rendered him, in his own mind, indestructible: the way all SEALs must feel when they go into combat.
He had prepared for this mission, because he understood there may be adversity. He must somehow steal into France, and he must be prepared if necessary to cope with armed security men. For a normal person, this would be a nerve-racking, tense operation. For Lieutenant Commander Bedford it was an extension of what he had always done. He was not nervous, and he was unafraid. Indeed, he was gratified to know his opponents at least would not be trying to hit him with a Diamondhead missile, even if their fucking boss did manufacture the damn thing.
He hit the parallel steel bar shortly after eleven and stared right over it thirty-two times, no sweat. It was, he knew, a superhuman performance. He’d never seen anyone beat that in all his years in the navy.
At noon he went to Harry’s office to collect the cash, and his partner had everything ready, the bank notes packed in bundles amounting to four thousand dollars each, fifty of them packed into a leather briefcase, three lines of six, in each of three layers. Crushed down tightly. Mack knew there was more room in the secret compartment in his own leather bag, under the attack board.
They had a cup of coffee together, and Harry handed over the first-class return Aer Lingus ticket to Dublin. Both men agreed not to meet or speak again. It was better that way. They should not be seen together anymore, not at this stage of the proceedings.
Mack had only one last request, that Harry arrange for him to use the near-Olympic-sized pool at the private golf and country club outside Portland. In the remaining days he did not want to run on the roads, and swimming represented the safest way to work out hard without straining or jarring joints, muscles, or tendons.
This was no time for accidents or mistakes. Mack wanted to swim more than fifty laps every day, to stay right on top of his game. And every day he drove to the country club, signed in as Mr. Patrick O’Grady, an Irish friend of Harry Remson’s, and completed his workout.
On Saturday afternoon, he finished packing and stowed the reservoir of cash under his underwater gear. He took barely any clothes, just underwear, shaving kit, toothpaste, and socks. He was unarmed, for the opening stage of the journey. He was wearing his light-blond wig, with the thin mustache, and rimless glasses. It was astounding how different he looked. He wore dark-gray slacks, black loafers, and a dark tweed sport coat. A blue shirt with a maroon necktie completed his innocuous appearance.
At four o’clock a black limousine pulled up outside the house, sent from a private car-hire firm in Portland, to be charged to the account of Mr. Harry Remson, chairman, Remsons Shipbuilding, Dartford, Maine.
“Good afternoon, Mr. O’Grady,” said the driver. “Logan Airport, right?”
“You got it. Aer Lingus. Terminal E.”
“May I take your bag, sir, and put it in the trunk?”
“No thanks, pal. I prefer to keep it with me.”
They pulled away, up the long country lane to the main road where Mack had arrived by bus, just a couple of weeks previously. They turned left, and neither of them noticed a dark-blue Bentley parked about a mile along the road outside the local garage.
The driver of the Bentley did, however, see them. Because he’d been waiting for almost an hour, half in disbelief, half in almost unbearable excitement. But he fought the feeling down as the limo swept past.
“God go with you, Mack,” breathed Harry Remson.
CHAPTER
8
Mack checked in with his Jeffery Simpson passport. The Aer Lingus girl,
neatly dressed in her emerald-green uniform, glanced at it briefly and allocated him a seat at the front of the aircraft, which she said was not full tonight.
Mack thanked her and walked upstairs to the security lines and put his bag on the conveyor belt for X-ray. The dials on the attack board instruments showed up like small travel clocks, and did not strike the operator like possible dangerous weapons. The rest of the contents were mostly paper and soft rubber, and the old leather grip came straight through.
The chimes did not spring to life as Mack walked past the metal detectors, and three minutes later he was in the newspaper shop, purchasing a copy of the French daily,
Le Monde.
He found the first-class lounge and settled in an armchair at a corner table, near the television. The Irish attendant said she would bring him coffee, and a sandwich if he wished, and there was no need for him to take any notice of any announcements. She would escort him to the aircraft at the appropriate time.
This particular lounge was very quiet since the flight to Dublin was the only Aer Lingus departure at night. There were perhaps six other people in residence, but Mack was the only one watching the ball game from Fenway Park.
The smoked salmon sandwich, wild Irish salmon no less, represented probably the best meal he’d eaten since Anne left for Switzerland. When the Red Sox loaded the bases and then jumped to a 3-0 lead, bottom of the first, he decided life was not really that bad after all.
They called the flight early, and Mack settled into his roomy green-patterned seat with the Red Sox still holding a 5-3 lead. It was warm on board, and Mack took off his jacket. The first-class attendant asked him if he’d care for a black velvet before they left.
“What’s a black velvet?” he asked.
“Guinness and champagne,” said the girl. “The lifeblood of Ireland.”
Mack declined, as he was resolved to decline all alcohol until Henri Foche lay dead, and he was safely home.
They took off on time, and Mack had a medium-rare Irish fillet steak for dinner. He read for a while, practiced his French with
Le Monde,
and noticed a photograph of Foche on page 8 of the newspaper. “Sonofabitch,” he muttered, and tried to fathom what the story said about the French politician. The answer was not much, except that he seemed to be making a speech in his hometown of Rennes the following day. The newspaper was dated
mercredi,
so he’d probably made it already. But Mack was gratified to see that a speech by the man he sought was now considered news on a national scale—
stop the sneaky little bastard hiding from me, right?