Chapter 10

Capt. Susan Clement was looking at the surface of her desk. It was cluttered with papers as though some mini-tornado had swept everything up into a spiral and then as quickly set it all down again; some was strewn about on the floor; some other things to the sides of the room. Under one of the 2 chairs reserved for guests was a small picture with 2 images, the glass cracked and the antique silver frame dented at the corner from striking the hard linoleum floor.

In Capt. Clement's scarred left hand was a note. On FBI letterhead, in simple, straightforward words, it calmly informed her she had a problem; it stated in 2 words the reason why 2 of her officers were dead; it told her that if something wasn't done immediately, a third death would be inevitable. Capt. Clement was so angry that tears welled up in those icy blue eyes; she trembled, and her teeth locked to prevent some fearful, primal scream of rage. She just stared at her desk. 2 words. A name.

Mightily, Capt. Clement regained her composure and slowly walked to the closed door of her office. Opening it, she found the turned faces of her 2 assistants, CWO Larry Springer and CPO Diane Potts looking at her with concern. They had heard a terrible series of crashes in the office; they had not heard a sound for 5 minutes afterward. They both knew better than to interrupt. "I'll be out for the rest of the morning," Clement explained tersely as she stepped through the ante-office and past the 2 chiefs. As she walked past, she was putting on her hat. The 2 non- coms stood up and saluted; they hadn't seen her this way before. The icy blue eyes burned hellishly.

It had started to rain on Aziz's smoldering island. The type of rain that sucks the life out of everything caught under its torrents was revitalizing Lt. Tracy Parker as she made her way through the dense undergrowth beyond the hole out of which she had climbed. The mud and muck that had covered a lot of her still naked body was rinsed off within the first minutes of the rain beginning. The drops were soft and soothing to the scratched and bruised body of the beautiful lieutenant. With deliberate and rapid strides she noiselessly made her way eastward towards the hot spring that would provide entry into Aziz's underground compound.

Tracy was hefting the lightweight sub-machine gun in her right hand; the stock was folded up for minimal interference in her motions. As she moved, she ducked and shifted -- around the trunk of a tree, now beneath some low branches, now over a fallen trunk. The vegetation was thick and lush. If it weren't pitch black, she'd have seen the deep green of the leaves and the stunning beauty of the blossoms; intense reds, violets, yellow and whites. It was, far enough away from the heat of volcanically heated springs, to be a virtual Garden of Eden; but under the soft reddish glow of Tracy's hand-held torch, the leaves were black; and anything not black was a deathly shade of red. "We lost Paradise finding out about life; and all we got was death in return," Tracy recalled her mother's words shortly after her father's death. Tracy had just graduated.

Graduation was held in May. She remembered the day because the sky was so blue it seemed to wrap around the objects set against it and drown them in its blueness -- the Chapel dome, the State House cupola. The President had just given his speech. What followed was a flurry of white hats that obscured the sky for a moment and landed among the jumping and howling graduates in crunching and thumping percussion. As Tracy turned from her umpteenth hug, at the podium, she caught the eyes of her father, Admiral Zachary Parker. He had just shaken hands with the Commander-in-Chief and was about to turn and leave when his eyes caught sight of his beautiful daughter. For the briefest of moments, their eyes met; she saw him smile; a tear rolled out and just caught the sun as it rolled down his cheek as he turned away. The first and only time any person had seen a tear in her father's eyes. She felt tears well up in her eyes with the love she felt at that moment for her father in the middle of 1,400 howling, cheering new officers on a trampled lawn in a little town by a bay.

A few more hugs had to be done with before she could turn around and address her father, the Admiral. As a brand new officer, she gave her father her first "official" salute. It was smart and crisp and very Navy. The Admiral snapped to attention letting her hold that salute for a moment while Tracy's mother snapped away with the disposable camera. She noticed that her father was looking old in the sun, tired and thin. But in his dress whites, at attention, gold, ribbons, medals, and 4 stars glinting in the sunlight, every j.g. around them stopped and stood gape-mouthed and snapped to attention and a salute as well. Admiral Parker was tall and square; if one had looked up Navy in the dictionary, his picture would be there and would be all that anyone would need to know about what the word meant. Tracy perceived that at least a hundred j.g.s had now snapped to attention in the midst of family reunions and back-slapping congratulations; 100 new officers waiting for the first return of salute as officers by a real, honest to God, war hero, blue water Navy admiral.

At attention, Admiral Parker quickly glanced about him. All the men and women in their dress whites; his Navy. At that moment, he was indescribably proud of his daughter, of the service, of his country. They were the best. And his daughter, she may have been the best of the best. She had graduated 5th overall; top woman. She was beautiful and smart, fit and ready. He snapped a salute in return; it almost cracked from the crispness. He held it a bit longer for the effect and released it. The 100 or so j.g.s released their salutes and whooped again. Tracy stepped up to her father. "Permission to hug and kiss the Admiral?" Tracy asked facetiously. "Permission granted little lady," her father picked her up and tried to squeeze the little girl out of her, it seemed. Tracy noticed that he seemed to stop the hug a little short and put her down a little quickly. But, her mother, Emily, came up and gave Tracy a quick peck on both cheeks and a bearish hug of her own. Tracy's mother was still very beautiful; but the years had begun to show; the few gray hairs, a little more hip, a few more crow's feet. "You look beautiful, dear," the Admiral's wife gushed. "I want a photo of the 2 of you together." So, Tracy and her father stepped up beside one another. He smiled at her and she smiled at her mother. Her mom snapped the picture. And then, a final picture of the 3 of them together for the last time.

Dressed in black for the funeral, Tracy's mom didn't shed a tear. Tracy was in dress clack; she was thankful for the visor of her hat; she pulled it low to try and hide the tears. During the fly by, 3 F-18s swooped low over Arlington National Cemetery. In the gray, cold skies of that sleeting December day, as their roaring engines passed low and slow overhead, it seemed that their passing yanked away the desire to live in her mother; and it seemed to puctuate and accelerate the deeping depression that everyone had felt. He had died quickly from lymphoma; it was diagnosed a week after graduation and by December he was dead. Tracy watched it all happen. People marveled at how quickly the cancer had taken Admiral Parker's life.

Anything but quickly, Tracy saw the whole thing in slow motion. Her gift, she once noted to Tom, was the ability to see the most terrible moments in her life in slow motion. When she had injured herself, or was in an accident, those moments seemed to slow right down and happen frame by frame. She witnessed it as almost a bystander; in pain but oblivious in the case of injury; panicked but detached in case of her one and only car accident. And now with her father, she watched over the course of a few months as he seemed to shrink and die; every moment a frame to be compared against the last. Tracy shut her eyes.

As the limousine pulled up to the house for the reception, Tracy's mother turned to her and said "We lost Paradise trying to find out about life; and all we got in return was death." She stepped out of the car and very deliberately walked into the house. Tracy's mom never left that house again.

Through the ordeal, Tom was with her. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Broadbent, a frigate stationed out of Norfolk and in port for 3 months following a tour in the Persian Gulf. He wasn't going to leave until the Spring. Tracy, on special leave due to her father's illness and rank, was still awaiting word from the new Special Operations Unit program that had been created a month prior to graduation. Tom was against it. He thought a bunch of women SEALs couldn't work. "It's stupid and not a great career move, too." he countered in one of their now frequent arguments on the subject. "I can't see anyone being very successful as an American Gladiator with the U.S. Navy. Can't you get a ship or a posting somewhere else?" Tom didn't understand; he was from the "old school." But, the 4th son in a family of 7 boys, Catholic, Italian-Americans from Youngstown, Ohio, how could he know better. His mother didn't get it. "She's an American and not good for you Tom," her mother had actually warned in front of Tracy when both visited his parents right after graduation. Tom explained that she probably didn't intend Tracy to hear the remark; Tracy knew otherwise. And that was just the start.