So shallow. So self-centered, as though the universe revolved about her and her money— and privilege-centered point of view. And so like her, and like his father too, for that matter. That conversation had been the final, the irrevocable straw. A week later, Ensign Murdock had cut short his graduation leave and put in for BUD/S SEAL training at Coronado. After a week of physical fitness testing he'd been accepted. The training had been hellishly difficult, but he'd thrown himself into each new physical and mental challenge with a whole-heartedness he'd not even known he possessed. The alternative, he'd thought, was to brood... and in that direction lay only destructive self-pity, possibly suicide, certainly a betrayal of everything he and Susan had hoped and planned for. When he'd completed both SEAL training and the follow-up airborne course at Fort Benning, Georgia, he'd specifically requested a West Coast assignment. So far as he was concerned, the further away he could get from his family and their plans for his life, the better.

As a member of SEAL Team Three, he'd missed out on seeing action in Panama, but had participated in the Gulf War. As a squad leader the following year, he'd run some highly classified missions along the North Korean coast before being promoted to lieutenant and getting assigned back to Coranado as a senior instructor.

"Three! Four! Three! Four!"

Turning away for a moment as he continued counting the cadence, Murdock spotted a familiar figure leaning against the hood of a jeep parked by the Strand highway. Maybe?..

"Three! Four! Three!"

He waited then, a long, long silence during which the waves crashed against the sand just beyond the dune at his back, and sea gulls screeched and shrilled at one another as they circled overhead. He could hear the gasping breaths of the recruits as they strained against their chest-high burdens.

"Anyone want to quit?" he called, his voice almost friendly.

There was no reply from the waiting trainees.

"Oh well. Thought I'd try. Four!" The logs went into the air and stayed there. "Two!" Murdock called.

One of the instructors jogged up and saluted. "Sir?"

"Take over, Kaminsky. You know the drill."

The petty officer grinned, a death's-head rictus. "Aye, aye, Sir. We'll make 'em sweat!"

As Murdock strode away, Kaminsky started the cadence anew. "And... three! Four! Three! Four!"

Leaving the grunting, heaving platoon to their telephone poles, Murdock walked over to the man standing by the jeep. Chief Frank Bowden was a thickset black machinist's mate who'd been in the Navy for eighteen years and in the Teams for twelve.

"Morning, Lieutenant," the chief said, saluting crisply. "My, oh, my, but you're up bright and early."

"Out with it, Bow. You look like the proverbial cat with the proverbial canary feathers on his snout."

"Could be. I just came down from Admin. Seems there's a packet for you there, swim buddy."

"What... orders?"

"All the way from BUPERS. Word is they came through Saturday."

"God damn! And nobody told me?"

"I just did, man."

"How 'bout running me back there?"

"Hop in, Lieutenant. It'll be my pleasure."

A quick cruise down Silver Strand Drive brought Murdock back to the cluster of buildings that was the heart of SEAL school. The main building was a light tan, brick structure. Above the doors in front of the glassed-in foyer were the words: NAVAL UNDERWATER DEMOLITION SEAL TRAINING DIVISION.

To the right of the walk leading up to the building was a life-sized replica of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a net draped over his right hand, a trident in his left. A sign on the trident read, "So you want to be a frogman?" A plaque recorded the statue as a gift from an earlier SEAL training platoon upon graduation.

As Bowden parked the jeep, a platoon of trainees marched past. These were Phase 2 men, wearing olive-drab fatigues and caps instead of shorts and white T-shirts. At this stage of their training, they were less into mud than they were into demolitions and weapons training.

"Gee, I want to be a SEAL!" the petty officer in charge of the column singsonged.

"Gee, I want to be a SEAL!" came the chorused reply.

"Eat seaweed with every meal!"

"Eat seaweed with every meal!"

"Hoo yah!"

"Hoo yah!"

"Sound off!"

"One! Two!"

"Sound off!"

"Three! Four!"

"Cadence count!"

"One! Two! Three! Four! One, two... three-four!"

SEALs spent far less time marching than they did running, since traditional drilling on the parade ground was useful only to instill cooperation and esprit de corps. Still, Murdock thought, these men looked sharp, damned sharp. Lean, hard, and ready to kick ass and take names.

"Bein' a SEAL just can't be beat!"

"Bein'a SEAL just can't be beat!"

"Get more ass than a toilet seat!"

"Get more ass than a toilet seat!"

Mother, Murdock thought wryly, would not approve. He returned the salute of the formation's leading petty officer, then crossed the road behind them, past the scowling Creature, and up to the training center's front door.

"See that girl all dressed in green?"

"See that girl all dressed in green?"

"She goes down on SEALs like a submarine!"

"She goes down on SEALs like a submarine!"

No, Mother would definitely not approve.

A second class yeoman in whites manned the front desk in the headquarters foyer. "Hey, Burman. What's the word."

"Good morning, Lieutenant Murdock," the yeoman replied. "I guess you're looking for this." He handed him a thick manila envelope. Murdock rapidly opened it, broke out the top sheet, and began reading.

ON RECEIPT OF THESE ORDERS, YOU WILL PROCEED TO THE U.S. NAVY AMPHIBIOUS BASE, LITTLE CREEK, VIRGINIA, WHERE YOU WILL TAKE COMMAND OF THIRD PLATOON, SEAL SEVEN, UNDER COMMAND AUTHORITY USNAVSPECWARGRU-2.

YOU ARE AUTHORIZED SEVEN DAYS' LEAVE IN WHICH TO MAKE ARRANGEMENTS FOR TRANSFERRING PERSONAL EFFECTS.

Murdock looked up, stunned. He was going to NAVSPECWARGRU-Two, to Norfolk? It was hardly credible. There was a long, long history of rivalry, even outright animosity between the two SpecWar groups. The West Coast SEALs thought their East Coast counterparts were too hidebound, too tied to rules, discipline, and spit shine; the East Coast SEALs thought the Californians too laid back and easygoing, without a proper respect for attitudes and traditions military.

"Where you headed, Lieutenant?" Burman asked.

"Son of a bitch, they're sending my ass to Shit City," Murdock replied, using an old Navy term for Norfolk. "I'm going to be running a platoon at Little Creek."

"Bummer," the yeoman said, shaking his head. "Course, that could mean you're going up against the Rags."

"Maybe." Murdock was too stunned to even begin to unravel his own feelings at the news, but already a nasty suspicion was forming in his mind.

So help me, he thought, clutching the orders as he turned and strode toward the Bachelor Officers' Quarters, if my father had anything to do with shanghaiing me back to the East Coast...