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This is a story, with some sex. If you are looking for stroke, this will only waste your time. Reading her mother’s journal, Gerry decides that mother really did know best.
*
My father’s funeral was short and to the point, just as he wanted. Captain Jean Pierre Devereux, U.S.N. (Ret.), may have flown helicopters, but he was a sailor in his soul.
We sang “Eternal Father, strong to save” and the Navy service for burial at sea was said, despite his interment in the solid earth of the little Episcopal Church in St. Mary’s City, next to my mother’s grave. And then, clad in my regulation black dress and poker face, I accepted the sympathy of the assembled, taking what comfort I could from the obvious respect shown for my father by men in the uniforms of many services.
Among them, Dondi stood out, wearing a prayer shawl, sidelocks, and black hat. He knew Dad in Viet Nam and Desert Storm, and they were hunting buddies afterward. Dondi got his callsign from a round, guileless face said to resemble some cartoon strip character from before my time. He still looked that way when he took me aside afterwards and we sat in the Rector’s office to talk.
“Quite a disguise,” I said. “Covert ops? I’d have thought you would have worn your uniform.”
“I haven’t put on my uniform in several years. Besides, my haircut is no longer regulation. Just going back to my roots,” smiled Dondi. “In fact, speaking of going, I have to almanbahis leave soon. But I wanted you to know what your father really did in the service. I’m sure he never told you, and I can’t tell you all of it, but I’ll tell you about the last time he saved my life…”
*****
The expressionless CPO sat stiffly in the metal chair. He faced a lieutenant who, like the chief, showed his rank with flat black insignia sewn onto his desert BDUs. The drab plainness made the gold breast device-anchor, eagle, trident and pistol-even more prominent than it normally was, representing what it did. Even among professional military warriors, SEAL team members command respect.
But not good staterooms. Conversation was periodically interrupted by the massive whang of the steam catapult almost directly above. The carrier was launching aircraft. On January 14, 1991, flight ops were necessary around the clock in the Persian Gulf. In the early hours of the 16th, Desert Storm would begin.
The lieutenant spoke, “Solomon, you heard the briefing. We have to try to get that staff puke into that command trailer and keep him secure inside for two hours. I don’t know what lard-assed Pentagon genius decided that a SEAL platoon was the right unit to hold a static position inside an Iraqi missile site, but we’re stuck with it. With inadequate time to rehearse at that. We’re going to be hurt on this one, Sollie, and ordinarily I’d almanbahis giriş be counting on you to hold things together if I buy it – but not this time.”
Solomon automatically reached for the envelope with the broken “eyes only” seal in the lieutenant’s outstretched hand before those last words registered.
“I’m still going?”
“Yeah, but read those orders. Helluva note.”
Solomon’s eyes opened marginally wider as he scanned the page. “They’re going to disavow this if it comes out, aren’t they? It’ll be my ass while the desk pilots cover theirs, won’t it, Sir?”
The lieutenant took the orders back and locked them in his safe. “‘Fraid so, Sollie. Will you do it?”
“Why me, Lieutenant.”
“You’re a sniper. I guess they figure you’ve done it before. At least that’s the way the bastards think. Vital to national security, though, so sayeth the man who signed those orders himself. Will you do it? I won’t order you to.”
“Yessir. Don’t much like it though. Fuckin’ A.”
“Carry the M-14 instead of the McMillan 88. We may need the higher rate of fire, and your main job won’t be sniping this time.”
Solomon grinned, “‘One shot, one kill,’ don’t need no high rate of fire, Lieutenant.”
“Sure Sollie. Just carry the fucking M-14. And these three rounds go in the top of the magazine for your sidearm. Use them if you must carry out those orders. Be careful with them, though, almanbahis yeni giriş they carry some ricin derivative in that capsule in the hollow point. Hit your target anywhere and he’s dead. Sign here. They came from the Company and the Company wants them back if not expended. And accounted for if you use them.”
Solomon signed the receipt, repressing his feelings about the CIA’s obsession with unnecessary paraphernalia like poison bullets. God knows I don’t need these to kill what I aim at, he thought.
Solomon spoke, “We gonna outfit the staff puke? And the civilian?”
The lieutenant answered, “Weapons only. And a personal communicator for each. For the rest, they brought their own gear. Have ‘Cuda get on it.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
The lieutenant turned to put the envelope and the receipt in his safe as the door closed. His “Helluva note” was drowned out by the catapult’s whang.
The staff puke was bulky next to the lean efficiency of the SEAL Team members on the carrier’s fantail. Like a St. Bernard among greyhounds. But he had chosen the silenced H it was a time capsule. There was a traditional bound book in which she had written messages to me, family histories and anecdotes, and musings on many subjects, but the book rested in a large jewelry case with many drawers. Each of those drawers was labeled with a date or event, and each contained a special communication from my Mom. One drawer contained envelopes, one for each of my birthdays except my sixteenth and my twenty-first. Those two rated separate drawers. And there were drawers or envelopes for special events, like my first date. One was labeled “The bases.” I finally figured that one out after second base.