The Recruiter (A Thriller) (3 page)

He is sitting in the water. His teeth are chattering. His body is shaking. He has never been this cold in his life. It feels as if all of the heat has been sucked from his body and Freon poured into his guts. His head spins, and he is completely disoriented.

The waves come with maddening regularity, like big roundhouse punches that are impossible to avoid. They hit him in the face, and the last bits of his spirit are washed away with each onslaught.

He no longer remembers who he is, where he is, or why he is sitting in frigid water with a body that is screaming for the abuse to stop. His arms are linked with other recruits, the ones who have steadfastly refused to quit. He doesn’t know why they are still here. He only knows that his strength is gone, and that his mind is following.

Samuel is a ghost. His face is pale. His jaw hangs open. The doctors periodically check him for shock.

He sits in the water because he cannot move. He couldn’t get up if he wanted to. They all sit and wait, their heads bowed as if in penance, the waves slapping them with impunity.

Water goes up Samuel’s nose. It makes him gag and cough.

Nevens hears him.

Suddenly, Nevens is in Samuel’s face. “You! Get the water out of your mouth. It’s not a cock or your mommy’s tit, boy!” Through half-lidded eyes, Samuel can make out the vague shape and color of Nevens’ face. Samuel is too fatigued to be furious. He only senses the anger. The hatred.

His mother did protect him, and to hear Nevens talk about her…

Suddenly, Samuel’s arms fall free of the men next to him, and he leans forward just as a wave crashes into him. He topples over and briefly goes underwater. When he comes up, Nevens is in his face, yelling at him, calling him more names. Samuel hears a whistle, and the others are getting out of the water, but Nevens is telling Samuel that he has made a goon squad of one and that now he, Samuel, must run.

Nevens yells and suddenly Samuel is in front of the bell. He doesn’t know if he crawled there or if Nevens dragged him. But he is there, and his hand is on the rope. His head is pounding and he hears voices. His father’s. His mother’s. The other recruits telling him not to ring the bell. But Nevens voice is the loudest. It’s telling him he’s a quitter, a weakling who doesn’t have the guts to be a Navy SEAL.

And then Samuel rings the bell.

When the medics carry him from the beach and after he has been placed in a warm bed to sleep, Samuel thinks the clanging of the bell was the actual sound of his soul shattering.

Just as Samuel starts forward, Nevens groans and shifts position. Samuel drops back down into the grass and waits, his heart threatening to beat its way out of his chest. Sweat is exploding from his body. His stomach is clenched like a fist.

The woman rolls onto her back and pulls Nevens toward her. The two lay together as Samuel waits. When he is sure he hears the sound of soft, alcohol-induced snoring, he starts forward.

The waves crash softly on the beach, and Samuel makes no sound as he walks forward. His head is throbbing, and his hand goes to the spot above his right eye. He freezes for just a moment, and the sheer enormity of what he’s about to do washes over him, like one of the ice-cold waves during Hell Week.

He is moving quickly toward Nevens, his knife out, his left hand free, ready to grab Nevens’ head, pull it back, and use the knife to slit his throat. But in his approach, he kicks a small dash of sand forward, and it sprinkles Nevens’ forehead.

Samuel watches in disbelief as Nevens, even though he’s drunk and in a post-sex slumber, reacts with astonishing speed.

Nevens is almost on his feet when Samuel thrusts the knife forward. Samuel’s mind screams that Nevens can’t be moving this fast, that this wasn’t supposed to be how it would go. And a part of Samuel’s mind wonders if this will be the final failure, if Nevens hounding him out of Navy SEAL training was the second-to-last straw. That maybe Nevens and the rest of them were right—that Samuel doesn’t have what it takes to be a SEAL.

But Samuel pays that voice no mind. He is on Nevens, ramming the knife into him. He pulls out the knife and thrusts it in again. He’s got an arm around the instructor and rips the knife up. Nevens screams, and they both fall over the woman, who is struggling to get to her feet.

Before Samuel knows what’s happening, Nevens is on top of him, throwing punches of incredible force. Samuel feels pain in his ribs.

How can this be? Samuel wonders. He springs to his feet and rushes Nevens, who sidesteps him and lands a vicious karate chop on his forearm. The knife drops into the sand.

Both men freeze.

The knife seems to glow; a fractured image of the moon dances along the blade’s edge.

And then they dive for the knife. Nevens gets to it first, but Samuel grabs Nevens’ hand, and they roll on the sand, fighting for position.

With one great heave, Nevens rips the knife away from Samuel and slashes wildly. The tip of the knife catches Samuel on the side, and he feels a flicker of pain. Nevens comes toward him.

“You,” Nevens says. His eyes are shining brightly.
Too
brightly,
Samuel thinks. He looks at Nevens’ body, sees the blood pumping from his chest where Samuel opened several deep gashes.

Samuel crouches, warily circles Nevens.

“Why?” Nevens asks.

Samuel can see the light starting to go out of Nevens’ eyes.

“Because I’m going to be a SEAL.”

The knife begins to lower and Samuel can see Nevens’ legs sway. Nevens laughs and then falls forward.

Samuel waits, thinking it’s a trick, and only then does he realize that the woman is screaming. Her shrill voice spurs him into action. He pounces on Nevens, rips the knife from his hand, and slits his throat.

The woman is sobbing now, on her knees. Samuel advances on her. He puts down the knife, takes her long hair, and bunches it around his fist. She flails her arms at him uselessly. She is sobbing when Samuel grabs her jaw with his other hand and twists his body with all of his strength. The woman’s neck breaks with the sound of a muted snap.

The water is cold, and it reminds Samuel of Hell Week. But tonight it doesn’t bother him. He welcomes it. He has his arm around the blonde and is pulling her out to sea, out to the cross rip that starts a few hundred yards from shore. The blood is washed from Samuel’s clothes, and he swims with power.

At last, he feels the tug of the current, and he lets go of the blonde. He treads water, fighting the current until he sees that she is being taken out to sea. He then turns and kicks hard for the shore, breaking through the current after several minutes of hard swimming.

It has taken him farther down the shore from where Nevens’ corpse is, but he makes it back, and emerges from the water reborn. It has cleansed him. His breathing is normal, and he feels strong. Powerful. Like a God.

Samuel drags Nevens to the blanket where Nevens and the blonde had been having sex. Samuel looks down at the fallen BUD/S instructor. The pride, the pieces of his soul, all re-forming inside him.

The pain in his head has subsided.

He has killed a Navy SEAL. And now, when he goes back to BUD/S training in eighteen months, there will be no Instructor Nevens to defeat him.

Samuel picks up his shirt from the sand where he’d thrown it before taking the blonde out for her swim. He reaches into the pocket and pulls out a pair of surgical gloves and then the baggie with the used condom inside. He drops the condom onto the blanket, then stands over Nevens.

The wind from the ocean has changed. It’s colder and there are ominous clouds rolling in.
It will rain soon,
Samuel thinks.

He takes a long look at the ocean. It will be some time before he sees it again. At least eighteen months.

And when he comes back, he’ll get what he deserves.

He’ll be a Navy SEAL.

In the girls’ locker room of Lake Orion High School, Beth Fischer attempts to slow her heartbeat, to keep her muscles loose, to keep the adrenaline from pouring into her veins like a river overflowing its banks. She sits quietly in front of her bright orange locker. The carpet is a dull green. The bench upon which she sits is lacquered pine, with hundreds of scratches and dents, a few gouges, and indecipherable graffiti.

Beth feels in control of her body. Some players try to pump themselves up, but for Beth, it’s about keeping things under control. Her success has always been about control.

She stands and stretches again, although she’s already as limber as she can possibly be. She reaches back and lifts her right foot, catches it, and pulls it up against her butt. The muscles in her arms pop from her skin. She feels her quadriceps tug with the stretch, and when she drops her foot, the muscle snaps into place. Firm. And strong. She repeats the process with her other leg and then bends down and touches her toes, pulling her hamstrings, her face against her knees.

Beth straightens, rises up and down on her toes. Her calf muscles are clearly defined, standing out against the smooth skin like half discs of steel. She hops in place. A teammate walks by and pats her on the rump. A locker slams somewhere. Beth turns and sees her reflection in the window of the coach’s office. Her face is sharp, her jaw set. No one would ever call her cute or say she had the prom-queen look. But there is a tranquil beauty in her lean, strong face. The reflection doesn’t do her gray eyes justice, but even in the reflection, she can see the intensity.

Beth looks at the face in the window. She thinks about everything that’s riding on this game. It’s the first game of the state tournament, and her school is playing the team picked to win it all. But that’s just a part of the prize. Tonight is also the biggest game of the season as far as the number of scouts who will be at the game. Most of them have been recruiting Beth since she was a sophomore and won the job of starting point guard on the varsity squad. Since then, her stats have improved every year. She led her team to the conference championship and was all-conference player of the year, leading everyone with points, assists, and steals. Only one question remained among the scouts: could she do it against bigger, stronger opponents than her somewhat weak conference forced her to face?

She doesn’t intend to disappoint them.

Beth turns away from her image and goes to her locker. She opens the door and looks at the picture taped inside. It’s a faded color photograph. The edges are folded and bent, and one part is held together by a piece of Scotch tape. In the picture, a young man with light brown hair and bluish gray eyes looks into the camera. She can see the similarities with this image and the one she just looked at. The man in the picture is wearing Army fatigues and an M-14 machine gun is strapped across his back.

Her father.

Beth looks into his eyes. She can see the quiet bravery in his eighteen-year-old face. The same age then as she is now. She draws strength from the picture. And calmness. It’s as if he has the ability to focus her. To remind her what’s important. And that to fight with courage is sometimes the best you can do.

The coach calls out for the team to gather. Beth hears the quiet voice of her teammates as they gather around the coach’s chalkboard.

Beth slams the locker shut.

The sound echoes like a gunshot.

The Lake Orion High School gym is big, with a capacity of nearly two thousand people.

Anna Fischer walks slowly, unsteadily, up the bleachers. She has never been here before, and isn’t used to walking on bleachers, the big steps, the big fall should one misstep. She walks slowly. Looking down, stepping, looking up, then looking down again, taking another step.

She carries a big soda in her hand and a program in the other. She is an older woman in her fifties, tall and thin with a sagging face and tired eyes. She’s wearing blue jeans and a blue cotton sweatshirt that has had more than its share of tumbles in the dryer.

Anna takes another step, her foot goes too far and she stops it in time, but her balance starts to go. She puts a hand out and grabs something, pushes herself upright. She looks down. Her hand is on a man’s head. He looks at her, a surprised “O” on his face. Anna smiles sheepishly and takes another step, then another one before she sits down, quickly.

It is a good spot, about three rows from the top. She doesn’t want to sit at the very top because she thinks it’s too visible. She would rather sit a few rows down, try to blend in a little bit. Beth doesn’t know she is at the game, and by the look of the number of people at the gym, tonight wouldn’t be the night to distract her with her presence.

Anna takes a deep breath and then takes a long drink from her soda. It’s Diet Coke, or at least half of it is. The other half is some fine sour mash from the great state of Tennessee. After Anna has drained a quarter of the cup’s contents, she pops a stick of gum into her mouth and chews it. She doesn’t want to cause any trouble here. Doesn’t want to embarrass Beth, whom she has heard is the star of the team.

But Anna wants to watch her play. And she feels she has a right to watch her play. Beth is her daughter, after all.

The pep band picks up, and the local team runs out onto the court, forming itself into two lines for a layup drill. Anna knows the basic terms. Her husband taught her them when they were dating. He’d taken her to some games, and they’d even horsed around at a playground basketball court not far from his apartment. He’d been good. Anna could still remember the ease with which he moved. The power in his legs when he exploded toward the basket for a dunk. She’d marveled at his pure athleticism. It had been one of the things she’d loved about him.

Now, Anna picks out her daughter in one of the lines. She can see the light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Can see the stern expression. Anna thinks that her daughter looks older than the other girls. More serious. Maybe more under pressure?

The thought prompts Anna to take the gum out of her mouth and drain more of the whiskey and soda.

No, Beth doesn’t look older,
she thinks. She’s just projecting her own beliefs onto her daughter.

Anna watches as Beth catches a pass and drives to the basket, springs up, and lays the ball up gently against the backboard. So easily. So effortless. So smooth.

Just like her father.

A kind of black flower blooms briefly in the pit of Anna’s stomach. So unfair that Vince died.

A sign in the home student section catches her eye: “Beth is #1!”
Yes
, Anna thinks,
Beth is #1.
Because all she has left is Beth. And in the dark hours of sobriety, Anna wonders if the cancer ruined that for her too. Or, she wonders, maybe she ruined it all herself.

Anna wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. She’s failed Beth time and time again. Beth no longer believes in her. But now, Anna can see that these people believe in Beth.

So maybe the damage she’s done to her only daughter isn’t as bad as she thinks. She thinks about it, then puts the straw back in her mouth.