"Roger that, sir," Hawkins said dryly. "But will they buy it up on the Hill?"

"God knows, Ed. The way things have been going up there lately, we're going to be lucky if we have a Navy left when they get done with their cuts." He stood, gathering his papers. "Well, gentlemen, let's get squared away and get the hell out of here. We have long drives ahead of us if we're going to make that funeral this afternoon."

1615 hours (Zulu -5)

Arlington National Cemetery

Rank upon rank upon gleaming white rank of tombstones graced those gentle, tree-shaped slopes of the Arlington National Cemetery. At the top of the hill among ancient, spreading oaks rested the brooding, white-pillared facade of the Custis-Lee Mansion, while opposite, across the dark, bridge-spanned reach of the Potomac, the white marble government buildings and monuments of Washington, D.C., shimmered beneath the haze-masked afternoon sun. Southeast, masked by trees, was the five-sided sprawl of the Pentagon; a mile to the northwest, also invisible, was the Iwo Jima Memorial. Arlington seemed suspended in time, removed somehow from the clutter and rush of the modern world, even when its stillness was broken by the roar of commercial airliners thundering over the Potomac from Washington National... or by the sharp report of volleyed rifle fire.

The last echoes of the military salute hung suspended above the lines of tombstones and the grassy hillsides. As the final crack of the third volley faded, a Navy bugler in dress blues raised his instrument to his lips and began intoning the mournful, drawn-out notes of Taps.

A casket rested above the open grave, attended by sailors and officers who stood in ranks in full-dress whites, and a smaller group of civilians. Much of SEAL Team Seven was present, all who could make it up from Norfolk, over fifty officers and men standing motionless in white-clad ranks.

The leaders of each formation held their hand salutes as Roselli and Holt lifted the American flag from the casket and, with crisp, precise movements, folded it corner over corner from fly to hoist, ending with a thick, white-starred blue triangle with no red showing.

Taps wavered to a lonesome end, and Chief Boatswain's Mate Kosciuszko snapped "Two!" As one, hands held rigid in salute dropped with a crack. Holding the flag, Roselli pivoted ninety degrees, took two steps, and pivoted again in a rightangle turn. Three more steps and another squared-off turn put him directly in front of Captain Coburn, commanding officer of SEAL Team Seven, and the presiding officer for the morning's solemn service.

Master Chief Engineman George MacKenzie watched, face hard, as the captain accepted the folded flag, waited for Roselli to return to ranks, then turned sharply and walked the few paces to the waiting huddle of civilians. Donna Cotter, in black, waited for him with lifted chin. Little Vickie, grave and somber in a dark gray dress, stood quietly at her mother's side, looking up at Coburn with large eyes.

Still at attention, MacKenzie strained to hear the old, proud, and formal words as Coburn leaned forward and spoke to the widow. "On behalf of a grateful nation and a proud Navy, I present this flag to you in recognition of your husband's years of honorable and faithful service, and his sacrifice for this nation."

Coburn handed Donna the folded flag, then saluted her. Across the neatly landscaped grass, the officer in charge of the rifle salute party rasped out, "Port... harms! Order... harms!"

Ritual. History. Tradition. Men died. The service went on. "Honor detachment, dis... missed!"

The neat blocks of white dissolved. Small groups of two or three or four gathered here and there, talking in low voices. Others began the long walk back up the hill to the parking lot beyond Halsey Drive.

MacKenzie waited, uncomfortable in the stiff and unaccustomed embrace of his whites, as a small mob of people, military and civilian, filed up to Donna Cotter, speaking to her, clasping her hands, touching her pain. It was a long line. The Navy community was close, the Navy's Special Warfare community closer still. There was no one present on that hillside, military or civilian, who didn't know what being a SEAL — or a SEAL's wife — meant.

George MacKenzie, born and raised far from the sea in Midland, Texas, had been in the Navy for eighteen years, a SEAL for fourteen. Tall, lanky, normally quiet almost to the point of invisibility, he was the son of an air-conditioning repairman who'd never been in the service. He'd joined the Navy because by the time he'd graduated from high school, he'd been sick to death of the endlessly flat, barren-brown monotony of the West Texas plains, and because he'd imagined the Navy would give him his best chance at seeing something of the world beyond Midland.

He'd never imagined in his wildest dreams just how much of the world he would see... or from what vantage points.

As an engineman second class, he'd volunteered for BUD/S. Duty in the engine room of the U.S.S. Guam was boring, but he'd been fascinated by the dangerous look of a SEAL platoon assigned to the ship one day for an exercise. After that, the Navy had never seemed boring again. Serving with SEAL Team Two, he'd seen combat in Grenada. After that, he'd transferred to the super-secret SEAL Six — "The Mob," as its members called themselves — a small and tightly knit Team designed as the Navy's counter-terrorist unit. In 1985, he'd taken part in the aftermath of the Achille Lauro hijacking, surrounding the Egyptian 737 with the terrorists aboard when Navy F-14 Tomcats off the Saratoga forced it to land at Sigonella. Unhappy at the social breach opening between SEAL Six and the rest of the Navy SPECWAR community, MacKenzie had transferred again in 1987. After a tour as an instructor at BUD/S in Coronado, he'd shipped out with SEAL Four in Just Cause and Desert Storm.

Then, right after the Gulf War, Lieutenant Cotter had called him up and offered him the chance to become a plank owner of the newly formed and highly secret SEAL Seven. He'd been with Seven since the beginning, right there alongside the L-T and Captain Coburn and Senior Chief Hawkins, lending his long experience to the unit's training and organization.

How many men had he known along the way who'd been killed in action? How many friends? Somehow, he could imagine all of them, standing there on that Arlington hillside with him that morning, the dead in ranks with the living, their dress whites heavy with the medals they'd won in actions from Colombia to the Persian Gulf. He could remember each one of them, their names, their faces, their totemic warrior's nicknames like "Shark" and "Gator" and "Mad Dog."

Losing friends like those was never easy. If anything, it got harder each time.

June, MacKenzie's wife, was standing alone beneath a tree on the far side of the funeral party, but he couldn't go to her, not yet, not before he'd discharged this one, final duty. The group of friends and supporters around Donna Cotter was thinning out. Steeling himself, back ramrod stiff, MacKenzie walked toward the widow. Vickie, he was relieved to see, had already been led away by a relative. "Hello, Donna."

She was an attractive, dark-haired woman of about thirty, heavyset but with a proud, no-nonsense bearing. Her green eyes locked with his. "Mac. Thanks for coming. For being here."

"I'm sorry about Vince, Donna. I really am. The guy was one in a million."

She looked down at the grass for a moment, then raised her eyes to his once again. She held the folded flag pressed against her breasts like a talisman... like a shield. "You've got to tell me, Mac. What happened?"

It was his turn to look away. Across the Potomac, the cherry blossoms had exploded in a sea of pink around the white dome of the Jefferson Memorial, their colors captured by the Potomac's sluggish waters. "You've seen the official letter, Donna. You know I can't say anything else."