SEAL's Code Page 5

  “Where’s Mama?” Luci asked, as she hung up her jacket and set down the large satchel, which doubled as a school resource catchall and overnight bag.

  “Said she was going out looking for you. Where were you?”

  Luci noticed an edge to Sarah’s tone. She smelled fear.

  “I told her I’d be late,” she said while pawing through the refrigerator.

  “She had company last night, and they didn’t leave until very late.”

  “They?” Luci examined Sarah’s complexion since her younger sister wouldn’t look her in the eye.

  “Two of them this time.”

  “As in they took turns?” Luci could not imagine her mother had stooped this low.

  “No. Not quite. Only one of them stayed with mama.” Sarah still wouldn’t look at her.

  Luci’s stomach churned. Staring down at the shiny, long hair of her fair-skinned sister, Luci was sure she’d see a blush on her pink cheeks. She’d long suspected Sarah’s father was a white man.

  “Sarah, next time this happens, you call me. No way should you be around this.”

  Sarah leaned back in her chair and set her pencil down. Her eyes were filled with tears and her lower lip quivered. Luci was instantly at her side.

  “Tell me they didn’t hurt you.”

  “Mother’s changing, Luci. The alcohol and other stuff is making her brain crazy. She offered…”

  Luci pulled Sarah into her arms and let the young girl sob into her chest.

  “Tell me. Tell me everything.”

  “Nothing to tell,” Sarah said between sobs. “After mother left for the bedroom with the other man, he whispered to me I’d be okay. He was different. Asked me to pretend he’d roughed me up a bit, make it look good. Oh God, Luci. I was so scared.”

  “So she stayed home at least last night,” said Luci.

  “I don’t remember what time they left, but it definitely was before sunrise, Luci. She woke me up, said they were going to get stuff for breakfast.” Sarah looked at her watch and solemnly shook her head.

  Luci had always wondered how a child could bring himself or herself to kill their parents. Now she understood.

  Chapter 8

  ‡

  Special Agent James Logan’s undercover name was James Akee. He’d been working with a special task force, funded by a grant from Washington, set up to stop the proliferation of violence and drug use at the Navajo Reservation. A number of young girls had been reported missing and they thought there was a connection.

  Runaways only happened once or twice a year, which was still too often. Years later, the community would find the girl in Las Vegas or Los Angeles, usually strung out on drugs and doing tricks. But lately, they’d found two girls left dead on the side of the road, and rather than a rare occurrence, it was becoming a larger and larger problem; so much so, that the citizens of the reservation wanted action.

  Local tribal police were great for identifying the good guys from the ones who carried guns and weren’t afraid to use them against young girls, cops, or even grandmothers. Last spring, the undercover agent James was replacing was found dead and full of heroine, the instrument of his death. The resulting shockwaves set off a chain reaction. Local law enforcement were all too comfortable with pulling Navajo men from their modest homes and interrogating them all night, in maneuvers not unlike soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The unintended consequence was that although they were charged with keeping the Navajo people safe, the people didn’t trust them as much as they trusted the local tribal police, whom they barely trusted in the first place.

  So, the only way to obtain information was to go undercover. James’ mission was to deliver to the FBI and local high-ranking law enforcement personnel the names of the worst offenders, and a list of suspects.

  And then he’d get out of Dodge.

  He’d accompanied George Yellowhorse to the home of Luci’s mother, Zelda on two prior occasions. Yesterday, he’d warned the little fifteen year old to be careful, and probably blown his cover a bit, but he justified it as keeping little Sarah safe. He really didn’t enjoy looking like he was a bad guy, since he felt somehow some of the bad stuff might rub off on him.

  Zelda’s daughter was a pretty young thing, and he knew her time was marked. He also knew her Uncle Corwin was due to be released on parole. Though Corwin was prohibited from contacting the family or having anything to do with Zelda’s two daughters. The older one he’d molested and he knew Corwin wouldn’t abide by any white man’s rules and had even less reason not to go to prison again. There, the Nomads, a particularly brutal prison gang made up of mostly Mexican-American and Native American members, protected him.

  It was a complicated mess he was walking into with his eyes wide open. Although it was sure dangerous for the Navajo girls, it was sure as shit feeling dangerous for him too.

  James was waiting for Yellowhorse, who was going to give Zelda a ride back to her house again, then they had some business to attend to, and that’s why he was hanging around. The two of them were standing next to the driver’s door of George’s Jeep, waiting for her to exit. The woman was almost twenty years older than George, but her appetite for drugs turned her into the kind of woman Yellowhorse liked to play around with. James knew it was a volatile and dangerous combination.

  “You wanna follow us over to the house? She’s got a kickin’ daughter, as you know.”

  “Bullshit. I’ll bet she’s only fourteen,” James answered.

  “Not that one, Zelda’s got the schoolteacher who is past the age of consent. ’Course you’d have to work a little on your persuasion skills.” Yellowhorse’s teeth were the same color as his namesake. Zelda was staggering down the driveway toward the car, mumbling to herself.

  James knew he should take George up on the offer, if only to make sure he didn’t mess with the teenager. He figured the schoolteacher might be able to handle herself, but he was uncomfortable with the attention Yellowhorse was increasingly giving Sarah.

  He agreed, feigning interest in a possible hookup, and found himself following behind the old Jeep the Navajo wanna-be gangster jacked up with expensive wheels and rims, as if he was into off-roading for sport instead of outrunning local officials. In the front seat with “The Horse,” Zelda was doing a good job of distracting him. They were weaving all over the road.

  He never thought when he joined the Bureau he’d be running around impersonating a Navajo who wanted to go after young girls, but he kept reminding himself of the end game: get the bad guys. And that meant he had to hang around the biggest low-lifes around.

  The Tohe family home was a plain wooden box like all the housing was on the reservation, except someone had planted some flowers in front and put in a couple of tomato plants staked in metal cones. Someone should have pulled down the American flag long ago, it was so tattered and faded.

  He could never get used to the fact that no one had lawns like he’d had where he’d grown up in California. Judging from the appearance of the scrawny tomato plants, the soil didn’t look very hospitable either.

  George and Zelda, hands all over each other, staggered inside the front door, slapping the screen door behind them. James stepped inside without invitation since the door had been left wide open for him.

  “Well look who’s decided to come home,” quipped Zelda, addressing someone. He shot a glance up and was stunned with the quiet Navajo beauty standing in front of him.

  He could see enough similarity to the older Tohe woman to know for sure she was the daughter George spoke of. She was even prettier than the younger one. Her strong dark eyes examined him like he was road kill. He knew he deserved that, and secretly gave her a high five for knowing the difference.

  “How would you know?” the woman snapped back. James noticed the younger sister’s head whip up to attention, and the two shared something.

  “I brought your mother home, missy. Don’t give her a bad time,” Yellowhorse barked as Zelda gave him a peck on the cheek and d
isappeared into a bedroom, closing the door behind her. In two minutes, they heard the shower water running with the familiar rumble and groan of water lines protesting.

  The scene was awkward. James felt the need to fill the silence. “I’m James Akee,” he said as he extended his hand and took a step toward the daughter.

  The right side of her face twitched into a squint, upturning her upper lip, and she crossed her arms without responding and without shaking his hand in return. He liked that she had a backbone and was not in favor of the scene. In a normal setting, she would have been exactly the kind of lady he’d try to chat up, but under the circumstances he worked to try to remember the role he was playing.

  “Yellowhorse, this is not my idea of much of a party,” James said to fill the space with some noise.

  “No kidding,” George said, frowning at the older sister.

  The older sister looked him up and down, her eyes lingering on his shoulders and a bit below his belt. He felt himself blush, which drew a barely perceptible smile on the lady’s face.

  Yellowhorse turned to him, “Forgot to ask her something,” and walked into the bedroom.

  The older sister ignored Yellowhorse’s comment and took a quick couple of steps closer to him and faced him head-on with that fine attitude.

  “Thank you for protecting Sarah.”

  He was going to shrug it off, but the lady leaned in to him and whispered, “She told me what you did.”

  After a quick check at the closed bedroom door, he answered her. “Not my thing.” He tried to roll his shoulder and look casual, but he could see the woman hadn’t stopped drilling him with her dark eyes, hands on her hips.

  “As it should be.” She extended her hand. “I’m Luci. I don’t know why, but thank you for doing it. This place is dangerous for her,” she said as they shook hands. Her fingers were strong, and she gripped his palm like he was giving her a one handed lift up. Afterward, she quickly stuck her palms back on her hips.

  He knew his cover had just been blown, but he was fairly sure Luci wouldn’t give him away. It wouldn’t be in the younger one’s best interests to do so.

  “Your mother needs to stay away from Yellowhorse or you both are in danger. Trust me on that.” He delivered it with his real voice, coming from the real white hat he was inside.

  “Noted.” There was no smile in her stare, but he could see she accepted him.

  Yellowhorse was having an argument with Zelda, which erupted into a string of name-calling. James’ charge burst through the bedroom doorway, flew past him in a rage, swearing in what he thought was Navajo. The guttural cadence of his voice spewed vitriol. James followed him to the front door, stopped, and turned. He nodded to the two sisters who were now standing together arm in arm.

  It wasn’t fair, he thought as he saw how defenseless they looked. But he’d do his best to try to protect them.

  Chapter 9

  ‡

  Danny showed up at the Indoc Center in San Jose as he’d been instructed. He was medically cleared for basic training. A former SEAL had put them on a fitness schedule so he could help monitor them and get them in the best shape possible so they would have a fighting chance at passing BUD/S, Basic Underwater Demolition training. Danny had worked hard the four weeks prior to the swearing in, harder than anyone else did, often doubling the amount of physical training.

  Although usually less than ten percent passed, the Navy was trying to up that percentage and reduce the number of broken bones, stress fractures, and accidents that could permanently injure a recruit, or at the least, roll him back to another class. He found most of the P.T. fairly easy. His instructor even warned him about getting shin splints or injuring himself and thus risking his chance. But Danny took it on like he was doing penance, making up for living the pot-smoking and drinking life of his teens. By the time he showed up at Great Lakes, he was the fittest he had ever been.

  His training in Michigan had gone by so fast he barely had time to wear out any of his clothes. He volunteered for anything, including extra cleanup duty, color guard, leading chanted runs. He’d taken every test given to him, and one afternoon, about forty-five days into basic, he was called into Chief Petty Officer Miller’s office.

  “Begay, you’re going to be a dental tech.” The chief had prematurely grey hair at the temples. His desk was so polished it was a better reflector than the metal mirror in the men’s locker room.

  “Sir? But I don’t want to become a dentist or a dental tech.”

  “Well, we need four more out of this class, and I’m recommending you. That’s a pretty big honor, son.”

  “Sir, thank you, sir, but I’m here to become a SEAL.”

  “Well, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. You know what your odds are? Impossible. Might as well just write it off. That would mean your brain power and skill set would be lost tying knots at sea or puking over the handrails. Hell, you could work on a sub crew if you wanted to, Begay.”

  “But I want to become a SEAL.”

  Miller stood. He was shorter than he’d calculated, and Danny could tell it made him uncomfortable to look up to Danny’s six foot three strapping frame. Danny lowered his head to Miller and tried to deliver his calm statement of purpose. “I’m going to be a SEAL, sir. I was guaranteed that when I signed—”

  “I know all that, but you and I know it ain’t gonna happen. Since when did you consider you lived under a lucky star? I didn’t read that in your personnel jacket. Raised by your mother in Hippie Dippy land in Northern California; they don’t grow SEALs up there. They grow dope dealers, tree huggers, and campus activists.”

  It was true, and a damn funny thing to say. Danny had to work to stop from showing how it amused him. He had to say something or he’d burst out laughing. The whole company had made fun of him and his hippy community.

  “Sir, may I be honest with you, sir?” he found the strength to ask.

  Miller nodded.

  “I’ve given a lot of thought to that, sir. Only way but up for me. I can’t get any lower on the rung of usefulness. I’m going to become a Navy SEAL, unless I can’t. And then I’ll figure it out from there. But right now, I’m hunting me down one of those Tridents.”

  “It’s not true. They don’t get all the cute girls.”

  “Not interested in those creatures right now.”

  “And why the hell not? Something the matter with you?”

  “I can always do all that after I become a SEAL.”

  He remembered his first look at the other men who were going to become his recruit class 388. There were a hundred and ninety-seven of them. Odds were that only twenty would survive the ordeal. Danny didn’t think those odds were too bad.

  He scanned the room. He’d met two professional football players, a farm team pitcher who turned down a chance at the Majors to try out for the SEALs, several honors Naval Academy grads, two Olympic swimmers, the son of one of the Joint Chiefs, and then Jeffrey Parker, last season’s contestant on The Bachelorette, of all things. The kid was movie star handsome and smooth as silk with his sales skills. He’d been an athlete in college, but bailed when he invented a video game that made him several million dollars. He didn’t need to be there, but Danny understood why he was. The guy could sell corn to the Navajos, Danny thought. He took an instant liking to him. Although not Native American, somewhere behind the man’s baby blue eyes lurked a Coyote in disguise, the legendary spirit warrior/trickster of his people.

  Another reason Danny liked Jeffrey was that he’d not had any family he was close to. He knew there was some history there, but didn’t pry. Jeffrey said nothing about his upbringing, but was continually curious about Danny’s.

  “So you like talk to your ancestors, then?” Jeffrey wanted to know.

  “Not really. More like we know they are there. But I’m not really one to talk. I’ve never been that close to it.”

  “I see you mumbling things. Talking to people in your sleep, chief.”

  “Vivid dream
s. With all this physical training we’ve been doing, I sleep hard, don’t you?”

  “Fuckin’ A. But I don’t dream of dead family members.”

  It was an odd remark and Danny reminded himself not to bring up the issue of family again, until Jeffrey was ready to open up about it.

  The two were inseparable during Hell Week, giving each other the thumbs up when they heard the DOR, or Drop on Request bell.

  “Still here,” was the silent refrain they mouthed to each other when they could have eye contact.

  By the time they’d finished Hell Week, over half the class was gone. Danny and Jeffrey congratulated themselves as they saw the row of helmets along the walkway outside the equipment room, all belonging to guys who went home. Their dorms were sparse, cinderblock-type construction Danny was familiar with on the res. The view out the one window in their room was of a dirty inlet floating with garbage. They referred to it with lavish words, calling it the romantic “babbling brook of love.”

  Though hard, neither man found anything that took them to the brink of wanting to quit. But at the beginning of Second Phase, things turned for Danny. This was where his swims became timed swims. He had to do basic combat diving, going through a variety of obstacles with various pieces of equipment. Danny had never thought of himself as a swimmer, and this particular phase was making him understand that perhaps he wouldn’t be able to go forward.

  In the middle of the training, he developed a sore throat and swallowing became a problem. He also started getting so tired his times were increasing. Jeffrey was screaming at him during their tandem swims and Danny just didn’t have the energy to push further.

  One weekend, Jeffrey took him to a clinic and there they got the results that Danny had come down with mono. All the long days, lack of sleep and forced physical exercise had taken a toll on his body. Jeffrey was struggling as well, but didn’t have the added burden of Danny’s medical condition.