“Fuck that. Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t deserve the promotion.”
“Richey, that’s exactly why you deserve it. Nothing’s worse than an entitled asshole in command.”
It was nice of him to say so, but Doug had been on that last mission; he knew what had happened. Richard stared at the empty tumbler, trying to figure out what to say to make his friend understand.
Doug kept talking. “You didn’t screw up. It could have happened to anyone. Besides, what’ll you do if you get out? You have some kind of plan?”
He didn’t. His skill sets were highly developed, but highly specialized. He could spend ten minutes underwater on one breath. He could infiltrate and escape any country on Earth undetected. He could snipe a Somali pirate on a life raft from a hundred yards on rough seas.
He said, “Private sector? Make a fortune while the joints still work, then find a beach somewhere to retire to?”
Doug gave him that “bullshit” look again. “Sounds like a waste of meat to me. Maybe you can buy an ice cream stand.” He smiled, indicating he’d meant to tell a joke. But he kept studying Richard. “That last trip out really spooked you.”
His team was on call to mobilize for rescue operations. The four weeks of boredom and two days of terror routine. This time they’d been tasked with rescuing hostages from pirates in the Arabian Sea. The target he’d shot had been fifteen years old. At the time, all Richard cared about was that the guy had an AK-47 pointed at a boatful of civilians.
The people he was killing were younger and younger, while he was feeling older and older. He didn’t know where it ended. When it was his turn, he supposed. So what was the point? Just do as much good as he could until then. By shooting teenagers.
Yeah, it had probably spooked him.
Doug’s phone rang. “I have to take this. My sister’s been in labor all day and Mom said she’d call with news. I’m going to be an uncle.” He grinned big as a sunrise.
“Congratulations,” Richard said as Doug trotted out the door. Richard was happy for Doug, and Doug’s sister, the whole family. But that left him sitting alone, staring at the rows of bottles on the back wall.
“Can I get you something else?” The bartender was an older woman—Richard couldn’t guess her age, either a worn fifty or a youthful sixty-something. Not the usual young and hip type of bartender. She might have been doing this her whole life.
He gestured with the empty tumbler. “Naw, I’m good.”
“Looks like you got left.”
“He had a phone call. He’ll be back.”
He must have looked like he was in need of conversation, because she kept going. “You stationed out at Coronado?”
“That obvious?” he said.
“We get a lot of you boys out here. You have the look.”
“What look is that?”
“Let’s just say we don’t get a lot of trouble here, when you and your friends are around.”
It wasn’t his build, because he wasn’t that big. It was the attitude. You spotted guys like him not by the way they looked, but by the way they walked into a room. Surveyed the place, pegged everyone there, and didn’t have anything to prove.
Doug came back in and called out to the room, “It’s a girl! Seven pounds eight ounces!” Everyone cheered, and he ducked back out with his phone to his ear.
“Well, isn’t that nice?” the bartender said.
“I wouldn’t know.” It just slipped out.
“No siblings? No kids in the family?”
“No family,” he said. “Mom died last year, I never knew my dad.”
“Well, I’m sorry.”
“It’s just how it is.” He shrugged, still staring at his empty glass, trying to decide if he needed another. Probably not.
“Then you’re all alone in the world. The soldier seeking his fortune.”
Is that what it looked like? He smiled. “I know that story. You’re supposed to give me some kind of advice, aren’t you? Some magical doodad? Here’s an invisible cloak, and don’t drink what the dancing princesses give you. Or a sack that’ll trap anything, including death.” He’d have a use for a sack like that.
“Got nothing for you but another Jack and Coke, hon. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. I’ll tip big anyway.”
“You change your mind about the drink?”
“Sure, I’ll take one more.”
Doug came back in then. Richard expected him to start handing out cigars, but he just slapped his shoulder.
“I’m an uncle! I’m going to head up to L.A. this weekend to see them. Can’t wait. I have no idea what to bring—what do you give baby girls?”
“Blankets and onesies,” the bartender said. “You can never have too many blankets and onesies.”
“What’s a onesie?”
Richard raised his fresh drink in a toast. “Congratulations, brother.”
“You know what you should do?” Doug said, and Richard got a sinking feeling. “You should come with me. You’re going on leave—get the hell out of San Diego, come to L.A. with me.”
“I am not going to hang around while you visit a baby.” He couldn’t borrow someone else’s family.
“You have to do something,” he said. “You can’t just stay around here. You’ll go crazy. More crazy.”
A soldier seeking his fortune. He didn’t even know where to start. He didn’t want to look at his hands.
“You think I’m crazy?”
“I’d be lying if I said we weren’t worried about you.”
God, it was the whole team, then. “Right, okay, I’ll find a place to go on vacation. Do something normal.”
“Good.”
Normal. As if it could be that easy.
He didn’t remember learning to swim—he always knew. He did remember the day he noticed that none of the other kids at the pool had webbed feet and hands. He counted it a stroke of profound good luck that he never got teased about it. But everyone wanted him to hold his hands up, to look at them, to touch his fingers, poke at the membranes of skin, thin enough that light showed through, highlighting blood vessels. He loved to swim, and for a long time didn’t notice how sad his mother looked whenever he asked to go to the pool of their low-end apartment complex.
They didn’t have much money growing up, and he joined the military because it seemed like a good way out, a good way up to better things. He was smart. ROTC, active duty, advanced training, special forces—it all came easily to him, and he thrived. He was one of those masochistic clowns who loved SEAL school. They trained underwater—escape and survival. One time, their hands were tied behind their backs; they were blindfolded, weighted, and dumped into the pool. They had to free themselves and get to their scuba gear. Terrifying, a test of calm under pressure as much as skill. Richard had loved it. He’d gotten loose and just sat there on the bottom of the pool for a long minute, listening to the ambient noise of everyone else thrashing, taking in the weight and slowness of being submerged. He’d been the last one out, but he’d been smiling, and his pulse wasn’t any faster when he finished than it had been when he started.