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session for Alpha Squad. He was there when the SEALs arrived at 0730 looking sleepy and ready to eat nails.
    â€œGood morning to you too, SEALs. Yesterday was oureasy day. Today we go up to the mountain and learn again how to fire our weapons. We’ll do fire and move and cover. Then do it again and again until we can do it in our sleep. I won’t lose a man on our next little party because some fucking SEAL in my squad doesn’t know how to fire, cover, and move.”
    He looked around, but not even Jaybird had a comment.
    â€œBring some cash with you because we’ll stop up in Pine Valley for some chow on our way home. No MREs. We load the truck in twenty minutes. I want every man to carry three times normal ammo. We won’t be taking the usual 20mm rounds, but plenty of 5.56. I’ll take some twenties in case we need them. Any questions?”
    He looked around. Nobody said a word. Yeah, he decided. It was going to be one of those days.
    Timothy Sadler, senior chief petty officer and top EM in the platoon, came into the office a few minutes later when Murdock assembled his gear.
    â€œDo we supply our own driver?” the chief asked.
    â€œHoward gets that assignment. The truck should be out front in less than five. You ready?”
    Murdock rode in the cab with Howard. There wasn’t much conversation. Murdock felt grumpy. No reason. He was almost thirty-three years old, unmarried, and still playing kid games with lethal weapons and roaming the world getting shot at by all sorts of unhappy campers. He’d been promoted to lieutenant commander, the fourth step up the officers’ ladder, and could have a career shot at making captain some day before he retired. Of course he couldn’t do that in the SEALs. Too few spots, too many candidates. So he was back to playing with lethal toys hoping he didn’t get too many of his men killed.
    His father kept trying to get him to resign and run for Congress. A real opportunity there, and then when the next opening came, he could go for Senator from the Great State of Virginia. Yeah, just what would make him, happy kissing babies and lying to everyone he met so he could get elected.
    Then last night Ardith Jane Manchester had called. They’d talked for almost an hour and she’d said she was considering a job in the San Diego area. She was almost certain that shewould be leaving Washington, D.C., and government service. So, with Ardith in town all the time, it would mean a better apartment and then the pressure to get married. He had enough troubles already.
    It was a three-hour truck ride in the updated version of the trusty old six-by-six basic military truck. They turned off Interstate 8 somewhere the other side of Boulder Oaks, just outside the boundary of the Cleveland National Forest, where they had a loose arrangement with the landowner that they could use his mountains for target practice as long as they closed any gates they came to and policed up their brass and any trash. They always did.
    They drove five miles on a dirt track to the left of the highway into sharp-rising hills and mountains. Howard had done this route before, and he came to a stop at a windblown live oak tree that had managed to stay alive through the last four droughts.
    Five minutes later Senior Chief Sadler had the squad in a diamond formation and looked over at Murdock.
    â€œMove them into a wide V formation so they don’t kill everyone in sight,” he said. “You and I will be at the center observing. Do a radio check.”
    He listened as Sadler had each man chime in on the personal Motorola radios.
    â€œAll working, sir.”
    â€œMove them out, Sadler. Keep five yards separation. No firing until my orders.”
    The sun was out, tempering the five-thousand-foot altitude, as the SEALs worked up the first slope toward a pair of twin peaks about eight miles distant.
    â€œHit the dirt,” Murdock called in the radio. “Okay,