0930 hours (Zulu -5)

Headquarters, SEAL Seven

Little Creek, Virginia

There was a sharp triple rap on the door, and Captain Phillip Coburn looked up from the battered gray metal government-issue desk from which he ran SEAL Seven operations. "Come."

He was pretty sure he knew what was about to happen.

Electrician's Mate Second Class Charles "Chucker" Wilson opened the door and centered himself before the desk. The young SEAL was immaculate in his whites, with his white hat neatly folded and tucked into his waistband. Uncovered, he did not salute, but he stood at attention with his eyes focused on the big print of the Bon Homme Richard fighting the Serapis on the bulkhead at Coburn's back.

"Sir!" Wilson snapped out. "Request permission to speak to the Captain, sir."

"Aw, knock off the boot-camp crap, Chucker. Stand easy and tell me what's on your mind."

Wilson relaxed, but only slightly. "Uh, yessir. I mean, thank you, sir. I..."

Coburn sighed. "Spit it out, son."

The petty officer fumbled for a moment with the gold Budweiser on his white jumper. Damn. Coburn had thought this was why Wilson had requested the interview, but he'd still been hoping he was wrong.

Wilson dropped the SEAL badge on Coburn's desk. "I want to put in for a transfer. To the fleet."

"Shit, Chucker, you know what you're saying?"

"Yes, sir. I think I do."

"You just got your Budweiser... what? A month ago?"

"I didn't deserve it, sir."

"Bull. The officers who reviewed your record after your probationary assignment didn't agree. You questioning their judgment?"

"With respect, sir, they weren't at Shuaba."

"You don't want fleet duty."

"Yes, sir. I do."

"A SEAL? Scraping paint and flemishing lines? You'll be so bored you'll be climbing the bulkheads inside of six weeks. What the hell makes you think you want to stop being a SEAL?"

"Sir, I was the guy tasked with going through that control tower at Shuaba. I don't know what happened, but somehow I missed a hostile. And that hostile nailed the L-T."

Coburn tipped his steel, straight-backed chair, balancing on the two rear feet as he considered how to answer. "Chucker, we went through this at the inquiry last week. What happened was not your fault. It was not Lieutenant DeWitt's fault, it wasn't anybody's fault. There weren't enough men with Blue Water's ground element to adequately search that tower. As I see it, you did your best, you..."

"Begging the Captain's pardon, sir, but I was there. That last room we checked... I should've gone in and taken a harder look."

"You told us all of that at the inquiry."

"Captain, that whole building was dark and empty. It, well, it felt empty, and I must have gone in assuming that it was empty."

"Okay. So you screwed up. Made a bad call. That doesn't mean you can't be a SEAL. Even SEALs make mistakes."

"I screwed up, and the best officer I've ever known bought it. Sir, I've given this a lot of thought, and I'm looking at it like this. What happens next time I'm on a combat op? With some new platoon leader? I'm going to be there trying to keep my mind on the mission, and I'm going to be thinking about Shuaba. Maybe spend too much time checking a room. Wondering if I'm going to screw up again. Sir, you know as well as I do that you can't stop to think about stuff in combat. If you do, you're dead. And maybe some good guys are dead with you."

"And you think dropping out of the SEALs is the answer?"

"Yes, sir. I do. It's... what's best. For me. And for the Team. Look at it from the guys' point of view, Captain. They know what I did at Shuaba, and they know what I didn't do. Think they're going to want to go into a free-fire zone with a fuckup like me backing them up? I sure as hell wouldn't."

"Bullshit, Wilson," Coburn snapped, dropping the father-figure approach in a sharp change in tactics. "The Navy's got eighty-some thousand bucks tied up in your training, and you want to chuck it all the first time you run into some rough sailing? What are you, a quitter? If Hell Week didn't make you chuck it all, why should this?"

"This is different, sir."

"Bullshit. Once you're a SEAL, you're always a SEAL. I don't think you'd be happy any place but with the Teams!"

"Maybe not, sir. But I think it's better if I get out."

Coburn considered the youngster for a long moment. Wilson was just twenty-three years old, and though he had the lean and deadly look worn by most SEALS, there was a vulnerability about him as well. As though something inside had snapped. Maybe the kid knew himself, knew what was best for himself and his buddies after all.

"Mmm. Tell you what. I'll approve a transfer for you, Wilson, but not back to the fleet. There're plenty of spots open in the Teams where you can make yourself useful. Admin. Intelligence. Parachute packing. How about the SDVs?"

Wilson's lip curled at the mention of the Swimmer Delivery Vehicle teams. Most SEALs thought of an assignment to the SDVs as real dead-end to their career tracks, a purgatory to be escaped at the first opportunity. "I'd... prefer to go to the fleet..."

"Since when does the Navy give a shit what you prefer, mister? You claim you're thinking about what's best for the Teams? Well, so am I. We have a lot invested in you, son. You have a lot invested in you too. I'm not going to let you throw it all away, at least not without a chance to think about it. You read me, son?"

"Y-yes, sir." He looked broken, as though he'd just been sentenced to life at hard labor. "If you say so, sir."

"I say so. I'll have personnel draw up your orders this afternoon. I will also write up a recommendation for your next CO that you be allowed to return to a direct-action team once you've had a chance to think things through. Because I think you're combat SEAL material, and you won't be happy doing anything else."

"Yes, sir."

"Now get out of here." He tossed the badge back to Wilson. "And take this thing with you."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Coburn sat there, rocking back and forth on his chair for a long time after Wilson had gone. The kid would be back, he was sure of that much. But in the meantime, he'd left Coburn with yet another administrative headache, an open slot in Third Platoon's Gold Squad.

The real problem was Third Platoon's morale, which had been at rock bottom since Cotter's funeral. They would be lucky, Coburn thought, if Wilson was the only team member who quit.

He reached out and touched a button on his intercom. "b!"

"Yes, sir," replied the voice of his yeoman in the outer office.

"What do we have in the replacement pool? E-4 or E-5."

"Not a thing, sir. I'm afraid the cupboard's bare. At Little Creek, anyway."

Damn. He'd been pretty sure that that was the case. "Okay. Looks like we'll have to tap Coronado." He wondered who Seven would draw as a replacement for ET2 Wilson.

1045 hours (Zulu -8)

La Jolla, California

This early on a weekday the beach on the rocky coast north of San Diego was nearly deserted. Though the southern California sun was warm, a chilly breeze off the ocean had kept all but the most dedicated sun worshippers at home. The coastline here consisted of smooth, sandy beach stretching out from the base of a rocky bluff. North, at the top of the bluff, the roof of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography was just visible behind a screen of palm trees and shrubs. South, the shore grew swiftly steeper in a rugged headland rising in a sheer, black and red cliff above the crashing surf.

Machinist's Mate Second Class David Sterling was a SEAL... almost a SEAL, at any rate. He'd completed his twenty-six weeks of BUD/S and several weeks more in airborne training at Fort Benning. Now he was assigned to SEAL Team One's headquarters platoon at Coronado, where he was serving out his six months of probationary apprenticeship before winning the coveted eagle-trident-and-pistol Budweiser.