Authors: Joe Buff
McCollough shook Felix’s hand. This was the first sign Felix got that they’d have a serious discussion.
“Sit. Please.” The commander pointed to a chair beside his own. The two men were about the same age, but McCollough was a good foot taller. McCollough spoke with a heavy Boston Irish accent that Felix liked. He also enjoyed the commander’s lively sense of humor and his tolerance of the practical jokes of which most SEALs were so fond. As was the way in the SEAL teams, McCollough—as a commissioned officer—had spent much less time on field operations than Felix. The fact was, the SEALs worked their chiefs quite hard, but moved their officers up and away from the day-to-day grit rather quickly.
“Feeling rested?” McCollough asked.
“I wouldn’t mind a month on leave.” Felix meant it, but he smiled. His smile was short-lived. He knew at once McCollough’s question wasn’t small talk. Right now the commander was stone-faced, even dour.
“I need someone to lead another team, on a different sort of op.”
Felix thought fast. “You want my advice on picking the best lieutenant still fit for duty, sir? What sort of op?” The
Ohio
had seven separate eight-man teams under McCollough’s command. The team that had deployed from
Ohio
to the Brazilian coast—the one Felix and his men heard fighting off an ambush the night before they themselves were hit—had come back with several wounded, including their LT and their chief. With the death of the lieutenant of Felix’s team, there remained five lieutenants or lieutenants junior grade to choose from.
“What sort of op?” McCollough repeated Felix’s question. “The sort of op I want you to lead.”
“Sir?”
“You did a real good job back there. I need somebody mature and hard, not another kid with daydreams of glory, with his head stuffed full of all the generalist nonsense naval officers are supposed to know to enhance their ‘upward mobility.’”
“I’m not sure I like where this is going, sir.”
McCollough suddenly smiled, a disarmingly puckish grin. Felix knew that look. The commander used it to win people over to something he knew they wouldn’t welcome—something procedural, bureaucratic, dealing with navy regulations and hierarchy.
“Master Chief, I put you in a few weeks ago for what I prefer to view as a well-deserved battlefield promotion. I can think of no better time than now to inform you that the Senate’s rubber stamp came through. You’ve been formally approved as a limited duty officer with the rank of full lieutenant.”
“Thanks but no thanks, Skipper,” Felix said immediately. A limited duty officer was a chief or other enlisted person who’d won a commission through merit. The
limited
meant that, lacking the generalized training McCollough just mentioned, the officer’s future assignments would be confined to their existing specialty—in this case, SEAL operations.
McCollough sighed. “Look, do me a favor and take it for now. Once we’re through with this deployment, if you haven’t changed your mind…”
Felix shook his head vehemently. “Master chief is what I am, and what I want to be till I retire. It’s the best social club in the world. None of this officer politics crap, none of these jump-through-hoops promotion selection boards and mumbo-jumbo fitness reports. Let me just do what I love to do.”
“You see, my man Felix, that last part is exactly the idea. This next op, I need someone who can
command
. You’ll be off on your own with a team, exposed, beyond any means of support, and you may go head-to-head with kampfschwimmer in a knock-down-drag-out with no retreating allowed this time.”
Felix thought for a minute. “Sir, does this have something to do with repercussions from my team’s last action? The hard proof of Axis involvement in northern Brazil?”
“The answer is yes, and no, and I don’t know. We sent your report up the ladder, with my full and unconditional endorsement. But questions like yours, the answers don’t filter back down.”
“I understand.”
McCollough cleared his throat pointedly. “So quit evading the issue. To command, by navy regs and age-old custom, you have to be a commissioned officer…. You do geta raise, you know.”
“Effective immediately?” Felix’s wife and kids could always use the extra money.
McCollough nodded.
“But what about your exec?” McCollough’s deputy was a lieutenant commander, seasoned and mature himself.
“One, he doesn’t have the language skills. Two, I need him here. We have too much to do, getting ready for other near-term ops. And three, he just isn’t as good in the field as you are. I don’t think anyone in my complement is as good in the field as you.”
“First you bribe. Now you’re trying to flatter me, sir.”
McCollough smacked the table. His face turned red. “I never flatter anybody and you know it! Take the promotion! I don’t have all day to waste coddling you. And
you
don’t have any time to waste getting ready for this assignment.”
“Uh, okay, Commander. Okay. But it still stands, if I don’t like it, later, you send in the forms and I go back to master chief forever?”
“If you and I are still alive in a month, that’s a promise. Meantime, get ready to leave the ship. You’re taking men from my third platoon and transferring to
Challenger
once we rendezvous.”
“Jeffrey Fuller’s boat?”
“That ought to make up somewhat for your inconvenient change in rank.”
“Yeah, if I don’t mind being squashed to the size of a peanut, down at fifteen thousand feet.”
“
Challenger
’s crush depth is classified. Keep your educated guesses to yourself. You should know better.”
Felix was taken aback. “Sir, what’s really the matter?”
McCollough sighed, and rubbed his bloodshot, overworked eyes. “After we drop you off, we’re heading across the Atlantic. My men are tasked for antimine warfare and sabotage around the extreme north flank of the pocket to help prepare waterspace access for the convoy landings. Plus joint suppression of enemy air defenses in coastal Saharan Africa.” JSEAD. “Clandestine intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting for
Ohio
’s Tomahawks and other Allied warships and planes.” ISRT. “Sexy-sounding catchphrases from the Pentagon, but it’s going to be a bloodbath…. You ought to be glad you’re getting off now.”
“You know I don’t see it that way, sir. Don’t send me on some sideshow.”
Not now, when my friends and teammates are going to be put in harm’s way.
“I’m not—and it won’t be a sideshow. You lead a team that is also preparing the waterspace in a big way. Something new, when you and your men deploy from
Challenger
. Something real important, a breakthrough if it works. You’re going to be a force multiplier, in a very big way.” A small group whose efforts greatly leverage the power of main-line fleet units. “My exec will give you briefing materials. Study them hard. The operators from third platoon are already trained. You’ll have to use both of
Ohio
’s minisubs to shuttle your men and the special equipment across to
Challenger
quickly.”
“Yes, sir.”
This is getting interesting.
McCollough reached in a pants pocket. “You’ll need these.” He passed across to Felix a pair of not new collar tabs. Each had the two silver bars of a full lieutenant.
Felix had a sinking feeling. “Where did you get these, sir?”
“From someone who should have listened to you better than he did, and paid the price.” Felix’s dead lieutenant.
“Mother of God.”
“Wear them in his memory.”
Felix hesitated.
“If you think they’re cursed,
I
think you’re the man to break the curse.” McCollough stood. Again he shook Felix’s hand. “The rendezvous with
Challenger
is eighteen hundred tomorrow evening. That gives you less than thirty-six hours…. And congratulations,
Lieutenant
Estabo. I mightnot see you before you go…. Ask my exec for the Orpheus package.”
T
hirty-six hours later, in the Caribbean Sea aboard
Challenger,
Jeffrey sat alone in his cabin rereading his orders for the umpteenth time. The USS
Ohio
was nearby:
Challenger
’s minisub, and the pair of minis from the other sub, were busy completing the transfer of SEALs and their gear.
Since reboarding
Challenger
off Norfolk, Jeffrey had decided to set the proper tone from the start. As much as possible, he intended to delegate. In this, his second deployment as
Challenger
’s captain, with no
acting
in front of
captain
to limit or excuse his role, his hands-on style of leadership needed to change. He simply had to let go of the day-to-day nitty-gritty, as familiar and reassuring as it might be, or he’d be overwhelmed. There was just too much else for him to think about, on a higher level. He had to roll his sleeves back down, button the shirt cuffs nice and tight—and let his officers be the ones to plunge into details.
So far, this new tone of leadership was working well. People seemed to appreciate the increased trust he was placing in them. At the moment, Lieutenant Sessions, the navigator, was officer of the deck in the control room, and had the conn. Lieutenant Commander Bell, the executive officer, was overseeing
Challenger
’s end of the underwater rendezvous.
Jeffrey took a deep breath to relax. He smiled to himself. This little corner of the eastern Caribbean Sea—hard by the Lesser Antilles just west of Guadeloupe—was crowded.
One ceramic-hulled fast-attack sub. One big boomer-turned-SSGN. Three Advanced SEAL Deliver System minisubs at once…This has to be some kind of record.
All the islands of the Caribbean, Jeffrey knew, from Cuba and Jamaica down to Trinidad and Tobago, were the exposed tops of huge mountains that jutted steeply out of water more than fifteen thousand feet deep. For the rendezvous,
Challenger
needed to hover shallow, to respect the diving limits of the steel-hulled
Ohio
and minis. Jeffrey was eager to be on his way, but wasn’t terribly nervous about an enemy attack: with Puerto Rico to his north, and ally Venezuela to his south, with Cuba officially neutral but rabidly anti-Axis, these were friendly waters. The Lesser and Greater Antilles helped bar entry by hostile submarines. The local area was regularly swept for mines.
Jeffrey was far more concerned about the bigger picture of his orders. Alone in his stateroom, he envied his officers and men. They could focus on specific tasks in the here and now, difficult as they might be. This would give them a sense of purpose and shared camaraderie, and occupy their thoughts in a positive way. On Jeffrey’s shoulders, and Jeffrey’s alone, rested the far larger burden: that his superiors had guessed right, that the engineers and scientists were more than just starry-eyed tinkerers—and that
Challenger
would get where she needed to be to set up Orpheus, and do what she needed to do while using the secret device’s help, before it was too late. For all the plans and preparation, for all everyone’s efforts and well-meaning aid back on shore, Jeffrey could still be caught fantastically out of position, and out of range.
Captain Fuller knew that all through history, naval battles and even entire wars sometimes hinged on which ships or squadrons were in the right or wrong place at a single, unforgiving moment in time.
The SEAL team leader, newly arrived on
Challenger,
came to Jeffrey’s cabin to report aboard and introduce himself. The two men hit it off in a big way on sight. Something about the dark-skinned Brazilian American, with his lively eyes, ready smile, and confident, bone-crushing handshake, made Jeffrey feel less worried about the future.
“I’ll show you yours if you show me mine,” Felix Estabo joked.
Jeffrey laughed. In private, they were comparing war stories from their time in the SEALs, and talking about their wounds.
“Forget it,” Jeffrey said, and started to crack up completely; Felix had exactly the sick sense of humor that he himself enjoyed. “An AK-forty-seven round through the bone of my left thigh. You’ll just have to take my word for it.” Jeffrey gestured at the door into the head he shared with the XO’s stateroom. “Privilege of rank, Lieutenant, so you won’t be catching glimpses in my shower, either…Even if you
were
a master chief this morning, and even if master chiefs
do
secretly outrank captains.”
And this was another reason Jeffrey liked Felix a lot: the SEAL was a very down-to-earth and practical man, who knew how to work the system and get things done. He was career navy, just like Jeffrey. At different times, they’d been through the same SEAL training and testing: they shared a lot of common ground. Plus, Felix was outside the strict chain of command of Jeffrey’s vessel, so they both could afford to be a bit informal while alone.
Felix stroked the scar down his own face. “You’re just jealous, Skipper.
This
thing”—he pointed to the scar—“was one heck of a chick magnet back in high school.”
Jeffrey was surprised. “That one’s not from a German bayonet?”
“Nope. Miami gang thugs jumped me when I was fifteen. I wandered into the wrong neighborhood after dark.”
“You’re lucky you lived to talk about it.”
“Well, let’s say they were drunk or stoned or both, and I was neither, and they kept falling over each other to draw first blood. Besides, I was very motivated. They just thought it was cool to mug or cut up a Latino kid. I was fighting to survive.”
“How many of them were there?”
“Five. Fortunately they only had knives.”
“So what did you do? Run?”
“Nope. Before I really saw them they got me cornered in this alley.”
“Then what?”
“Backed up to cover my rear, grabbed a garbage can lid as a shield, picked up a whiskey bottle and broke it, and let them come at me.”
“And you were what, fifteen? Weren’t you scared?”