The Recruiter (A Thriller) (2 page)

He stands on the threshold of his destiny.

The streaking rays of sunset have faded completely from the sky. Reflections from the bonfire light the side of his face, shading the dark hollows.

Coronado, California, sits behind him. Home to the North Island Naval Station and the infamous Navy BUD/S program: Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. It is to this small island just off the coast of San Diego that young men volunteer to become Navy SEALs, knowing that in order to accomplish that feat, they must first pass the BUD/S program. They’ve heard the statistics—that over ninety percent of them won’t make it. That people have died during this training.

But on this night, Saturday night, they are not worried. They are drinking, celebrating, preparing.

Phase One of the SEAL training begins on Monday. This Saturday night party is a tradition, meant to punctuate the recruits’ last night of freedom before they turn their lives over to the BUD/S instructors.

Samuel looks west, out into the ocean. Behind him, the others are drinking, talking with slurred voices, dealing with their fears and anxieties the only way they know how: mainly, to deny them. But Samuel Ackerman is not in denial. He knows what’s at stake. Ever since his father told him he’d been a frogman for the Navy—the same group that later became the SEALs—it has been Samuel’s dream. To be the most complete, most highly trained, most physically fit soldier in the world: a Navy SEAL.

Samuel takes a drink from the can of Budweiser. His free hand, the right one, goes to his face, and he rubs a spot just above his right eye. Whenever he thinks of his father, he does this. It is the very spot where the old man’s boot crunched his skull—but Samuel doesn’t want to think about that now. This is his moment, not that monster who came back from Southeast Asia with the mind of a killer and the body of a junkie.

Samuel sits down abruptly and takes off his shoes and socks. He scoops up the can of Budweiser and takes a long drink. He walks forward, into the water. Southern California or not, the water is cold. It is something the BUD/S instructors are acutely aware of and use to their advantage at every moment. It is the cold mainly, along with the sleep deprivation, that causes so many to drop out, to ring the infamous bell that will be within reach at all times. When a recruit rings the bell, it means he quits. He is given a hot meal and a warm bed.

Samuel will not ring the bell.

He stands there, his feet sinking into the rough textured sand, feels his toes descend. The water is cold, and he knows that at some point he’ll be linked arm in arm with other recruits at some ungodly hour of the morning, sitting in the surf as wave after wave of ice-cold water smashes into them. It’s called Hell Week, and it’s when the majority of recruits drop out of the voluntary training program.

Samuel won’t drop out. He’s waited too long. Thought too much. Worked too hard.

He looks into the water, at its murky depths.
It will be settled there
, he thinks. Despite the running. The pushups. Carrying the boats on their heads. The complete sleep deprivation. The BUD/S instructors with their relentless taunting, pushing, deriding.

The water is where it will be decided. It is the water that washes away the will. That erodes the desire. That softens the heart.

Samuel is glad. He is good in the water, has been all his life.

He spits into the ocean and drinks the rest of his beer in one long swallow. He looks off across the water, at the dark horizon.

His destiny is there.

Waiting.

Samuel drives along the row of bars a block from the naval base.

The sidewalks are crowded with sailors, sailors and their girlfriends or girlfriends-to-be. Occasionally, groups of men can be seen leaving one bar and walking into the next one. They are drunk, alive, and ready to make the most of their time away from base.

Samuel drives for two blocks before he sees The Outer Bank, a clapboard tavern painted blue with a life ring and a pelican affixed over the front door. He drives past and circles the parking lot, looking for a black Chevy truck with the Navy SEAL bumper sticker.

He sees it and goes past, taking a parking spot at the other end of the lot that affords him privacy and an unobstructed view of the Chevy. He puts his car in park and shuts it off. The engine ticks.

Samuel turns the ignition far enough to work the electrical systems, and he rolls down the driver’s side window.

A gust of cool ocean air invades the car’s space, and Samuel breathes deeply.

Any thoughts of turning back are gone now.

From beneath the front seat of the Taurus, Samuel pulls a nylon scabbard. It’s big, nearly a foot long, and heavy, weighing a couple of pounds. Samuel holds it tenderly before popping the clasp and sliding out the knife.

Someone shouts, and Samuel glances up. A group of sailors crosses the parking lot at the end opposite from Samuel. They won’t see him.

Samuel turns his attention back to the knife. It glistens in the moonlight, and he is tempted to test the edge, but he doesn’t—he knows it’s razor sharp. He worked with it into the small hours of the morning last night to get it so that it would cut like a razor.

He slides the knife back into the scabbard and stows it beneath the seat. Samuel glances at the Chevy, sees it sitting, quietly waiting for its owner to return.

At the thought of the truck’s owner, Samuel instantly begins going over his plan one more time. Has he forgotten anything? Is there some minor flaw that he’ll realize at this late moment which will cause him to abort? The machinations go through his mind quickly. He looks at it from every conceivable angle. There are places things can go wrong, definitely. But if things fall into place, he is prepared to move.

It is a good plan. It is the tactical part that pleases him the most. The other part, the slaking of his thirst for revenge, is just an added bonus.

That’s what he tells himself.

But he knows it isn’t true.

The fact is he’s been shit on his whole life. Never really given a fair break. The cards have always been stacked against him. So he retreated. He withdrew. Told himself that he really didn’t want the things everyone else wanted. He lived a life of denial. Because he was forced to.

But then they took the one thing that he had allowed himself to desire. The one thing he truly wanted all his life.

It reminded of the times when his father used to…

Stop!

This wasn’t about the old man.

This was about him. Samuel.

And the bastard who had hounded him from BUD/S training.

Nevens.

It is Hell Week, and his strength is gone. Not ebbing. Not dissipating. It is gone.

His muscles have gone from rock hard to soft rubber. He is surprised that they even have the strength to hold his bones together. He is exhausted to the core of his being. Everything he sees, hears, and feels is distorted by bone-numbing fatigue. He has never been this tired.

Samuel figures he has run at least a hundred miles. He’s been in the water so long that he can’t remember not being wet. And cold. The cold is the worst. He can’t remember the last time he was warm.

The recruits have been divided into six-man boat crews. Samuel’s crew is one of the worst and has been singled out by BUD/S instructor Nevens, a narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered man, whose face has taken on a nightmarish quality to Samuel. Like the killer who wears the hockey mask in the slasher movies.

The boat teams have been ordered to carry their boats up and down a series of hills. Samuel is in agony. The boat feels as if it’s on his shoulders alone. He grits his teeth. The burning in his shoulders and chest is intense. There is yelling, and Samuel pumps his legs as they try to climb the hill. The man in front of Samuel trips and falls. The boat sags perilously before the recruit scrambles back to his feet.

Ahead, the other boat crews have made it. Samuel and his team cajole the boat up the hill and over.

They are the last group over the hill.

Before they can rest, BUD/S instructor Nevens is in their faces. Screaming at them. Calling them names. Quitters. Losers. Pussies.

In the back, Samuel flinches.

His father used to call him a pussy.

And then Nevens is in Samuel’s face. Telling him to quit, that he doesn’t belong out here. Spittle stings Samuel’s cheeks. Nevens tells him to go ring the bell. He turns Samuel’s head so that he can see the bell sitting on its wooden platform.

Waiting to be rung.

Samuel turns his head and stares straight ahead, but doesn’t really see. He senses Nevens there. He can make out the man’s hatchet face, the crew cut, the blazing eyes.

For a brief moment, Samuel sees his father yelling at him. Cursing him. Beating him.

And then Nevens is gone.

Samuel’s boat crew is put on Nevens’ goon squad: meaning by finishing last they are given extra running and pushups to do while the other boat crews rest.

Samuel knows that if they continue to be on the goon squad, they’ll never make it through Hell Week.

He does his pushups. Sand is in his mouth, and he grinds it between his teeth. His jaws are clacking from the cold.

Nevens is wrong. He’s got the fire, he’s got the heart. And right now, that flame is being molded into a pure, cold hatred for Nevens.

Samuel’s got the heart.

He wonders, does Nevens?

It is nearly two in the morning when Samuel hears the sound of a woman’s high-pitched laugh. He glances in the direction of The Outer Bank’s front door and sees what he has been looking for.

BUD/S Instructor Nevens—Larry to his friends—is walking out of the bar with his arm around a big-haired blonde. Samuel’s heart quickens. He’s seen it before; the last three weekends, in fact, Nevens has come to this bar and picked up one of the local floozies.
They’re easy pickings to him
, Samuel thinks,
just like the SEAL recruits.

Samuel watches Nevens open the door for the blonde. When he steps back to let her by, she puts her arms around his neck, and they kiss. Nevens grinds his pelvis into her.

Perfect
, Samuel thinks.
He’ll be good and distracted.

The Chevy starts up, and Samuel follows the little black truck out of the parking lot, its SEAL bumper sticker mocking him every inch of the way. Fuck you, Samuel says to the bumper sticker.

The lights of the strip fade in Samuel’s rearview mirror as Nevens takes Fourth Street toward the beach. It’s a route familiar to Samuel, as he’s followed Nevens here twice before. Samuel has to be careful to hang back far enough so Nevens doesn’t spot him. Samuel knows that Nevens has most likely had a lot to drink. In a previous reconnaissance mission, Samuel watched the BUD/S instructor toss down ten beers in a little over an hour and a half. But Samuel knows that he still has to be careful.

Samuel is feeling good. He’s got it back together. It was natural, he tells himself, to feel a little nervous taking that first step. But now he’s had time to adjust, to let the realization sink in that he is now
operational
. And he’s not dead tired now. He hasn’t been beaten into submission by fatigue and extreme cold.

How will Nevens handle him now?

Nearly a half mile ahead, Nevens turns onto the small two-track that Samuel knows he favors. This is bimbo-fucking territory. Where Nevens chooses to deflower his plenty-times-deflowered women.

Samuel casually drives past the entrance to the beach without even bothering to look. He knows what he would see: Nevens and the blonde making out in the front seat of the truck, then breaking free, and Nevens grabbing the blanket from behind the truck’s bench seat along with a stash of beer or a bottle of booze.

Samuel pulls ahead into the parking lot of a strip mall that houses a grocery store, drug store, real estate office, and a dentist’s office. There are enough cars in the parking lot, especially near the grocery store, that no one will remember seeing a white Ford Taurus.

Samuel parks the car, retrieves the knife, and walks across the street to the sidewalk that runs parallel to the beach. There is a slope of sand with tall grass that hides the beach from the road. When there is no traffic coming from either direction, and when he is beyond visibility of anyone in the parking lot, Samuel scrambles over the rise and scurries to the bottom.

He pauses, lets his eyes adjust to the darkness, takes in the reflection of the moon off the ocean. It’s a bit choppy out there tonight, a stiff wind coming in from the water.

Samuel relishes the moist air. He’s always loved the ocean, the water.

He takes the knife from its scabbard and slips the scabbard onto his belt, pushing it toward the back so it will be out of the way.

He has chosen this area carefully. There is another small rise in the sand, and on the other side of that will be Nevens. Samuel remembers watching Nevens fuck a cocktail waitress in the same spot last weekend. She was loud, a screamer. And Samuel remembers with revulsion the sight of Nevens’ bare ass, even more pale in the moonlight, on top of the woman, moving in a slow rhythm.

Now, Samuel creeps toward the same bluff. He moves softly, not sure which way Nevens will be facing. The last two times, Nevens was facing away from the ocean, as they start on their backs looking toward the ocean, and then when he climbs on top, he’s facing the other way.

Samuel crawls toward the top of the small bluff and now he can hear them. The woman is moaning. There is a grunting noise, and the sound of a metal can hitting another metal can.
Nevens, polishing off another beer,
Samuel thinks.

At last, he reaches the top and peeks through the long grass. The woman and Nevens are both kneeling, Nevens behind her, both facing the ocean.

Samuel slowly sinks back down and works his way around the bluff. He must approach Nevens from behind as well.

It takes him nearly ten minutes to get into position. All the while, Nevens’ thrusting has never stopped.
That’s good,
Samuel thinks.
He’s helping cover any noises I make.

Samuel pauses at the top of the bluff.

There is only one way to accomplish this.

Quickly, and without hesitation.

His knife is in his hand. His heart is beating wildly. His mouth is dry. There is a pounding in his head, and pain radiates from a spot above his right eye. He absentmindedly rubs it.

He has to do it. With Nevens out of the way, he’ll make it through BUD/S the next time. Nevens hated him. Had it in for him.

Samuel remembers what his father did to him, and how afterward, he vowed he would never let another man do that. And Nevens had. He’d humiliated Samuel. Demeaned him. Stopped him from achieving the thing most precious to Samuel: his dream of becoming a Navy SEAL.

And now Nevens was going to die for it.

Samuel starts forward with his knife gleaming in the moonlight.