Seal Team Seven by Keith Douglass Page A

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.
    â€œMmm. 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.
    â€œI’d . . . prefer to go to the fleet—”
    â€œSince 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?”
    â€œY-yes, sir.” He looked broken, as though he’d just been sentenced to life at hard labor. “If you say so, sir.”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œNow get out of here.” He tossed the badge back to Wilson. “And take this thing with you.”
    â€œAye, 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. “Lamb!”
    â€œYes, sir,” replied the voice of his yeoman in the outer office.
    â€œWhat do we have in the replacement pool? E-4 or E-5.”
    â€œNot 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.
    This week, he was standing night duty, which left his days delightfully free. He’d brought Christine Jordan, his girlfriend of the past two months, to the beach for a picnic. She was nineteen and a freshman at San Diego State, a gorgeous,