The Team (7 page)

Chapter 18

R & R

The team trained hard all day. When they were finished for the day, they returned to the housing facility to shower and change. Normally, when agents were training at the facility, they lived there twenty-four-seven until the course was finished. The team made its own rules, however, and Mackey called Dex and told him he was taking the boys out for pizza and beer.

Dex didn’t love the idea of the men being out and about together at first, but then decided if they were a Navy All-Star Team, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to have pizza and beer together. He authorized it and arranged for a bus to drive them to DC.

Mackey’s announcement to the team that they were headed to Angelino’s Pizza in DC was met with a huge ovation. When Cascaes announced he was buying the first round, the ovation continued for another full minute.

An hour later, the team was on board a black bus headed to DC. The bus stopped near a parking lot and unloaded the team, and the sixteen hungry men entered the crowded pizza joint. A table for sixteen was going to take a while, so the men made their way to the bar and began ordering pitchers of beer. There were pool tables in the back, and once they had beers in hand, most of the men headed back to play pool and drink some beer while they waited. Mackey and Cascaes sat on two bar stools at the end of the bar and smiled at the sight of their men acting like college kids.

“We’ve got a good crew,” said Mackey as he watched Ripper and Moose laughing and back slapping each other.

Chris nodded.

“You don’t say a whole hellova lot, do ya?” asked Mackey. “I’ve known you for years and I still don’t
know
you.”

Chris made a surprised face. “Guess I’ve never been big on small talk.”

Mackey got him another beer. “I’ll get you drunk and get your life story.”

Chris took a long drink. “You want my life story? It ain’t all that, trust me.”

“I do trust you. And you should trust me, too. So give me something. Where’d you grow up? How did you end up in the Navy?”

Chris took a deep breath. Talking about himself was out of his comfort zone, but Mackey had become one of his trusted friends—in fact, one of his only friends. “Okay. I’ll give you the life story. Then we don’t talk about it again, okay?”

Mackey extended his hand. “Deal.”

They shook hands firmly.

“I grew up in Newark, New Jersey in the Iron Bound. Portuguese neighborhood. My father Ray was a first class drunken prick. Apparently he was nice to my mother at least once, because they had me. Then he decided my mom made a better punching bag than wife, and I watched him beat the crap out of her a few times a week for most of my first fourteen years on the planet. He popped me a few times, too, but Mom always got it worse. Eventually, I got old enough to know he was a psycho that needed a good ass kicking. I was just too small, so I started reading about martial arts. Eventually started hanging out at this Karate studio, watching this Japanese sensei teach his classes. I guess a few months of me stalking the place eventually went noticed, along with the occasional black eyes, and the old man started talking to me, asking me questions about why I was always there. I told him I wanted to learn karate, but I didn’t have any money. He asked me if I was having a problem at school because I had a pretty good shiner that day. I told him it wasn’t school, and he figured it out for himself. Invited me to attend his school if I’d clean up and work for him doing whatever he needed doing. My parents never knew where I was anyway, so I started going there every day.”

“I can see where this is going,” said Mackey quietly.

“Yup.” Chris took a long drink from his beer, draining his glass. Mackey refilled it immediately. “So I studied hard and this Master, Kenji Mokai , took me under his wing. Within a year, I became a pretty lethal weapon.” He took another long drink. “So one night, I’m home and Ray comes home blasted out of his skull and wants dinner. Mom had worked late that night and dinner wasn’t ready. Ray started beating the shit out of her, as usual.”

“Was Ray your real dad,” asked Mackey. “I mean, you call him Ray.”

“I call him Ray because that piece of shit doesn’t deserve to be called Dad. So anyway, he was beating her up pretty good and I’d had enough. I walked over and roundhouse kicked him as hard as I could in the solar plexus, just as I’d practiced for a year. Dropped him like a rock and told him he was never laying a finger on either of us ever again. When he tried to get up I broke his jaw and laid him out. My mother was begging me to leave before he woke up.”

“Jeez,” mumbled Mackey.

“I told her the only one that was leaving was him. He didn’t wake up until the next morning. He remembered what happened and tried to get in my face, but I put him in a wrist lock and bounced his face off the floor, broken jaw and all. Put my knee in his back and told him if he ever touched my mom or me again, I’d kill him. Then I smashed his face a few times against the floor to make sure he knew I was serious. He stumbled out of the house and that was the last I saw of him. Some weeks later, he came back during the day and took a bunch of stuff from the house and left a nasty note for Mom. I found it before she got home and ditched it.

“A few years later, right when I graduated high school, Mom decided to get hammered and drive home late. Wrapped herself around a pole.”

“Jesus, Chris, I’m sorry,” said Mackey.

Chris shrugged and finished his beer again, which Mackey refilled. “So, with no parents and no money, I decided to see the world. Joined the Navy and never looked back. I have to say, it was the best thing I ever did. First time I was ever really happy I think.” He paused and reflected for a moment. “Man, the first time I was aboard a ship…” He looked Mackey in the eyes. “Greatest day of my life.”

Mackey hoisted his glass and toasted him.

“Anyway, I took every class, every course, every assignment. Decided I was a lifer. Ended up making the SEALs, and the rest is history. And now that you know that shitty-ass story, you don’t ever have to ask me again.”

Chapter 19

Mackey

Mackey stood up, but Chris gently grabbed his arm. “Whoa,” he exclaimed.

Mackey looked at him, surprised.

“I just told you more about me than I’ve told anyone in twenty years. Your turn, sit down.”

Mackey stared at him, then sat. He rubbed his chin. “I like interrogations to go the other way.”

“Exactly,” said Chris. He poured a beer and slid it to Mackey. “Your turn, Mack. Spill it.”

Mackey looked at the beer and made a face. “Okay, fine. Fair’s fair.” He took a long drink and sat with his back against the bar, watching his team playing pool and laughing. “Good bunch of guys.”

“Nice try. Spill it.”

Mackey rubbed his chin again. “I grew up in God’s country. Iowa. Not to rub it in, but I was lucky with my family. My folks were great. Hard working, simple folks who ran a big farm. Dad is Chris,
senior
, so I grew up as Mack. I grew up working the farm with my brother Wyatt. He’s three years younger than me. The real farmer of the family.

“Dad had lived on the same farm all his life. My grandparents’ farm. He was a pilot flying crop dusters when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Dad enlisted in the air force the next day. Because he was already a pilot, they grabbed him up and had him flying fighters in the Pacific as fast as they could get him there. When he came home, he went back to farming and flying crop dusters for most of the farms in our area. I think he made more money flying than farming. I was born in fifty-three. Learned to drive the family pickup at ten, but I was learning to fly when I was younger. I sat copilot every time dad went up. I loved flying as much as he did, and he could see that in me. He loved to fly, too, and I think it was good therapy. When I got older and flew in Vietnam, we traded war stories. First time he ever talked about his years in the Pacific we both had a good cry. They lost
so
many guys back in those days.

“Anyway, Dad and I had a great relationship and he had me flying for real by the time I was fifteen. He turned over the crop dusting business to me, and I built it up to a decent little business.” He laughed.

Chris looked at him. “That’s funny?”

“No, just thinking back. When I would finish dusting, I’d find a field where no one was around and do aerobatics and crazy shit the plane wasn’t designed for. It’s a wonder I never crashed that old bird, but it made me a good flyer. Loved those days.

“When I turned eighteen, it was 1975 and the war was still going on. Dad’s World War Two pictures had been on the wall for my whole life. He was the coolest, man. Like the old movie stars in the black and white movies. The day after my birthday, I told Dad I was enlisting in the air force. Dad figured I’d get drafted anyway. Better to be above the jungle than in it, so off I went. I was already a good pilot, and they put me in an OV-10 Bronco. It was a prop plane not much bigger than my crop duster, except it was a wicked good fighter surveillance plane.”

“So were you taking pictures or doing fire missions?” asked Chris.

Mackey sighed. “Well, recon missions had a way of turning into fire missions. I’d go out to gather intel and take pictures, and invariably, some ground troops would hit the radio screaming for help, and off I’d go. The Broncos weren’t really thought of as close ground support, but they could be very effective. I’d get close, act as forward air controller, and guide in the fast movers.”

“Any close calls?”

Mack studied Chris a moment. “This is between us.”

“Sure,” said Chris quietly, now fully curious.

“I had over a hundred combat missions. Only one of them was what I’d really call close.” He took a long drink of his beer and scanned around to make sure they had some privacy. “I was up doing what I did every day. Looking for SAM sites, troop movements, the usual shit. I get a call from ground troops, and I could hear it in the radioman’s voice, you know? The kid was terrified. I think he was crying. I could hear small arms fire in the background. They were being overrun. I got him to calm down and give me his location, then hauled ass over there and started strafing the dinks. Sorry—Vietnamese. Our guys were in a rice paddy in a trap. Mind field had them pinned and they were getting shredded by the NVA in the jungle all around them. I flew circle after circle, firing everything I had. Machine guns, rockets.” He sipped his beer, his eyes looking into his past.

“Small arms fire began taking my Bronco apart. I got hit a few times in the legs and forearm. My plane had a little fire cooking in the cockpit. But that kid on the ground kept directing fire, and I could see how close the enemy was. Mortars and RPGs pounding our guys. I couldn’t leave—no way. So I just kept at it. I finally managed to get some close air support called in, and the jets naped the jungle and ended the fight. By the time I got back to base, my plane and I were both in pretty rough shape.”

“Shit,” said Chris quietly. “Purple Heart for that one?”

Mackey flashed a fake smile. “And a Silver Star. The sergeant on the ground insisted on finding out who saved their ass and was relentless about that medal. We actually stayed good friends for years after the war. He died a few years ago; Agent Orange most likely.”

Chris clinked his glass. “To the fearless flyer.”

Mack clinked his glass, but said, “I was too busy to be scared at first, but let me tell you, the flight back to base, bleeding all over, watching the plane burn—I thought I was toast, man. Scared shitless.

“So anyway, I did two tours and then one day a guy in a suit shows up.”

“CIA?” asked Chris.

“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you. Yeah. The company. They pulled me from the air force and a few months later I was flying in Russian, Chinese, and Korean airspace on a regular basis. Not that I ever said that, or you ever heard it. I ended up liking what I was doing. It was exciting. And I wasn’t in East Bumblefuck, Iowa, anymore. I told my dad what I was doing, but as far as Mom and Wyatt knew, I was flying commercial jets and was away a lot. I always managed a few trips a year home to visit. Thanksgiving every year for sure. Mom and Dad are both gone now, and Wyatt runs the farm with his wife and three boys. We keep in touch.”

Chris nodded, thinking how nice it must have been to have a normal family. He pictured a white picket fence and a farmhouse, then his crazy drunk father, and took a swing. “Ever married?”

Mack laughed. “No. For the same reasons as you. How the hell do you have a normal relationship with anyone when you can’t tell her what you do, and you’re never fucking home?”

Chris smiled. “Yup.”

“Got laid plenty, though.” They clinked glasses and laughed. “When I was running a few things with the Russians, I had a few chicks inside that I used to use for information, you know? Man, those Russian chicks were so friggin hot. I swear I was ready to go KGB after a weekend with this one Ukrainian chick.” He laughed and closed his eyes for a second, picturing the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Anyway, by the time I was forty, I knew I was a bachelor for life. I’m way too fucked up now to be a good husband.”

Chris laughed. “Yeah, I hear you. I think about the shit I’ve done and seen. How could I ever have a normal conversation with anybody about anything?”

“Exactly. My few friends are guys like you. The guys I trust with my life that I work with. That’s about it. And the occasional piece of ass for a very short interval, until they ask me questions I can’t answer.” He shrugged. “In my next life I’ll fly for United and have six kids.”

“Yeah, right,” said Chris with a laugh. He looked over at the group of guys drinking and laughing by the pool table. They’d kill and die for him and vice-versa.
They
were his family. He thought about what Dex had said earlier. Some guy named Hill wanted him out—wanted the team to fail. The thought of his family being taken apart and dispersed out into the armed forces made him angry. They wouldn’t fail. His men would never let him down, and he’d die before he’d fail them.

Mack laughed, too. “Well, in
this
life, I’m going to retire and buy a big boat down south somewhere. I’ll be drinking cold beer and fishing and chasing pretty girls. You can come visit when you’re on R and R.”

“Deal,” said Chris.

A young waitress walked over to them and told them that their table had been set up. It was time for pizza.