“My Winkler can take on your switchblade anytime, Miggy,” the senior chief said.
The rest of the team laughed.
“You guys are a bunch of racist assholes,” Ruiz said with a disgusted shake of his head. “Except for you, White,” he said to the assistant platoon commander, Lieutenant Charles White III, aka Charles “Not” White.
“Technically I’m half a racist asshole, Miggy. My mom was as white as Hart over there. And I like both Mexican and Tex-Mex.”
Only in the locker room atmosphere of the Teams could you get away with needling a Mexican guy for his “switchblade,” or calling him Miguel when his name was actually Michael, or nicknaming a black guy—halfblack guy—with the last name of White “Not.” But when you trusted that guy with your life on almost a daily basis—and vice versa—race was just one more potential topic to give someone shit about.
Senior Chief Baylor and Ruiz had been best friends for years, but the entire platoon was as tight as brothers. Theywere the only family most of them had. That was part of why they’d been handpicked for Team Nine. Men without families could deploy on covert ops without anyone asking questions.
Donovan leaned closer to him as if he meant to whisper, but he intended for the entire sub to hear him. “They’re both delusional. I don’t know what White’s excuse is, but Baylor is from Texas. They still think they’re a separate country down there.”
The senior chief just lifted an eyebrow. “This from the guy from the People’s Republic of Berkeley?”
Donovan just beamed that shit-eating grin of his. “Free love, brother.”
Senior Chief Baylor muttered a curse and shook his head. But Brian thought there might be the barest hint of a smile hovering around his mouth. It was hard to tell with all the dive gear. Although Brian suspected it would be hard to tell even without it.
Dean Baylor epitomized the old navy slang of a sea dog. In his case, a bulldog. The senior chief was the most experienced man in the platoon and the leader to the enlisted men. He was a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails veteran sailor in the old-fashioned sense of the job who always seemed to have the answer—most of the time before the question had been asked. Even his unimaginative vanilla “Tex” code name made sense—no one would dare give him a shitty code name like Cookie. He was feared, loved, and respected; the men would follow him anywhere.
“You get too much of that as it is, Dynomite.”
Dynomite—not Dynamite. Brian had erroneously assumed Donovan’s code name had come from his skill with explosives. But it actually came from the TV character Kid Dyn-o-Mite portrayed by Jimmie Walker inGood Times. “Good times” were what Donovan showed women. Apparently lots of them. With the laid-back California surfer boy thing he had going—Brian had never seen so many ugly-assed Hawaiian shirts in his life—he probably had them lining up. But he wasn’t a surfer. Donovan had been a star water polo player at the University of Southern California, recruited by the SEALs after graduation.
“I told you he was delusional, MIT,” Donovan replied. “It isn’t possible to get too much. I’m sure they taught you that in one of your physics classes? There has to be some kind of natural law for that. Newton’s law of attraction maybe?”
“It’s the Law of Universal Gravitation, asshole,” the senior chief said. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Ivy League?”
Brian nodded but didn’t take the bait. He wasn’t going to point out that MIT—the school he hadn’t even gone to—wasn’t in the Ivy League. Instead he nodded and tried not to shudder at the thought of being called Ivy for ten years.
Donovan just smiled and shrugged. “Same difference. It all ends the same way: with me having a good time.”
Brian laughed, as did the senior chief. At least he thought the gruff grunt was a laugh.
Unlike the enlisted men in the regular forces, most SEALs were college educated, but Brian was still surprised to have Newton make his way into a conversation. Especially since he knew that the senior chief had only spent a couple of years at a junior college. But Brian had learned early on that the distinction between college-educated SEALs and non-college-educated SEALs was a piece of paper.
“Five minutes to game time, boys. Be ready.” The voice of Lieutenant Commander Scott Taylor stopped the ribbing cold.
Brian’s sub-related nausea and nervous energy were forgotten as he, like each of the other thirteen men, went into battle mode and began the final preparations for their infil.
The platoon was calm, methodical, and cool. No one watching would ever have guessed the importance of the mission—code name Operation White Night—that they were about to embark on. It looked like just another day at the office. If going to the office could get you killed or start a war if you were caught, that is.
They weren’t just going deep behind enemy lines; they were diving right into a political shit storm without a proverbial paddle.
Donovan seemed to read his mind. He smiled as he lifted his regulator to his mouth. “Welcome to the Teams, kid. Nowlet’s go see what that crazy motherfucker is up to. And one more thing.” Brian looked up. “Don’t fuck up.”
That was the plan.
What was the worst thing that could happen? Brian winced. Probably not something he should think about right now.
“Hooyah,” Brian said with a nod before putting in his own regulator.
Mother Russia, here we come.
•••
“Take five,” Lieutenant Commander Taylor called out.
