Weston Ochse - Age of Blood

“Were you saying that about me?”

“Easy, Yank. If you’re going to work in this team, you have to take it when we give it, and give it when we deserve it. Our trust and camaraderie are what makes us special. Our ability to turn that into the fuel to run an operation against supernatural forces is what makes us Triple Six.”

“I hear you. It’s just hard. I’ve been fighting my whole life and this isn’t like any other team.”

“The sooner you realize that we’re not the enemy, the sooner you’ll enjoy being a part of Triple Six.”

“It’s been a long time since I trusted people enough to do what you’re saying.”

“It better not be too much longer.” Laws reached out and shook Yank’s hand and held it. “Holmes is right. We don’t need any dissent or discontent. You want to leave, then go. You want to stay, then change.” He let go of the other man’s hand. “Period.”

Yank watched Laws go. He knew the deputy commander was right. Yank had to rein in his reactions. They might have kept him alive on the streets of Compton, but there it was every man for himself. His existence as part of the team meant that he had to offer and accept a certain amount of trust.

He went to his bunk and grabbed the kit bag labeled PETTY OFFICER SECOND CLASS SHONN YANKOWSKI. That name really said his entire story. He could have chosen the name of his father, who’d ended up doing life in Chino. Yank had never met the man, but knew he’d been a thug for the Twenty-second Street Hustlers and part of the Bloods. His last name had been Johnson, but Yank had refused to take the name of a man he’d never met. He could have kept the name of his mother, who after spending his first six years clean and sober, had broken down into the sorry caricature of an L.A. drunk. Named Rennie Sabathia, his mother had called him Shonny, which went well with her last name. And he’d owned that name, right up until the day she’d died in the fire and he’d earned the burns on the side of his face. At thirteen, he’d met Joseph Yankowski, recently transferred from Chicago to Los Angeles as part of the longshoremen’s union. Uncle Joe, as Shonn learned to call him, ran a foster home in San Pedro, and Shonn soon found the first stable and safe place he’d ever known. Fostering turned to adoption and by the time Shonn turned eighteen and made his desire known that he wanted to join the U.S. Navy, he also changed his name to Yankowski, out of respect and love for Uncle Joe—not really an uncle, not even a relative, but more of a father than he’d ever imagined.

“You daydreaming?” Walker asked as he passed, carrying his own bag. “Come on, let’s see the weapons sergeant and see if NSW has anything we can use.”

Yank shook away the reverie and hurried after the team’s sniper.

Holmes stared at the table with the empty chairs. His SEALs were getting ready for mission. He should be too, but he couldn’t help contemplating the empty chairs. Not only did they represent the current members of Triple Six, but those he’d lost as well. The deaths of Ruiz and Fratolilio were fresh in his mind. Ruiz had died at the hands of the demon Chi Long and Fratty had been almost beheaded by a chimera in the hold of a cargo ship in the port of Macau. Not only had they been incredible SEALs, but they’d been incredible men, too. Then, of course, there was Chong, the sniper whom Walker replaced. He’d spent a year with the team without so much as a scratch.

Then came the mission against Geronimo. They still didn’t know who or what had killed Chong, but they’d taken the body, along with the body of HVT1, out of Pakistan. Leave no man behind. They’d brought Fratty back as well, but Ruiz hadn’t been so lucky. That he’d evaporated in the explosions of a dozen MOABs (massive ordnance air blast bombs) made Holmes confident that the enemy didn’t have him. Still, he wished he’d been able to return the SEAL’s body to Coronado.

And there were the others: Ling, Evans, Close, Smith, Forsythe, Unger, and Jensen. Each had gone down in the service of a nation who knew nothing of their sacrifice. Classified Code Word, the missions of Triple Six would remain unknown to the public probably long after America ceased to be a nation. Only a few select members of Congress and those who passed through the revolving door of the White House ever knew what a team of five dedicated, unheralded men were doing for their country.

Which was as it should be.

“Everything okay, boss?” Laws asked, poking his head into the room.

Holmes gestured for Laws to join him. As the other sat, Holmes silently acknowledged how lucky he was to have someone like Tim. Not only was his eidetic memory of incalculable worth to the team, but he was a true polymath. Like Leon Battista Alberti, the fourteenth-century Renaissance man who was at once an architect, an artist, an historian, an astronomer, and an athlete capable of jumping over a man’s head from a standing position, Laws had a sum of parts which seemed so much greater than his whole.

“What’s shaking, Kevin Bacon?” Laws asked, slipping his feet onto the table and leaning back. He wore a smile that he should have trademarked.

“Remind me how long I’ve been doing this?”

Laws leaned forward. “Uh-oh. It’s one of those conversations.”

“Just remind me.”

“Five years, three months, seventeen days, six hours, and about eleven minutes.”

“How many missions?”

“Forty-seven.”

“And how many SEALs have we lost?”

“Ten.”

Holmes was silent for a good minute, digesting the figures. He knew they didn’t really mean anything. Can one measure patriotism with math? Can numbers really represent the value of the well-being and peace of Americans? Still, he hoped for an algorithm, or maybe an equation that he could populate with these numbers to determine if it was all worth it.

“It won’t add up, Sam,” Laws said. “Stop trying to make it work out. We’ve done our best. And I wouldn’t have anyone else lead the team but you.”

Holmes waved away the compliment as he stared into the past. “I get that. No need to blow smoke up my ass. It just gets old sometimes.” He glanced up at Laws. “This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about moving on, you know.”

Laws nodded thoughtfully. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation. I’m not going to remind you what we told Yank today.”

Holmes sighed and leaned back. “Another new guy. Another Type A personality I have to mold and forge.”

“It’s in your blood. You love it.”

“Do I? I mean, do I really?”

Laws steepled his hands. “What would you do if you weren’t doing this? Do you really think you could go back to the teams?”

Holmes looked pained, as if the decision were too much to even contemplate. What he was experiencing wasn’t self-doubt, it was more the result of being in one place for too long. How many times was he willing to roll the same patriotic wheel through the mud just to get the same result?

“I do love it. With two failed marriages behind me, the only successful relationship I’ve ever had is with the SEALs. Billings told me that if I ever want to move on, I’d have a position on her staff.”

“Would you take it? Would you work for her?”

“She’s sharp and she’s smart. I just might.”

“So this is it? You’ve made a decision?” Laws’s patented smile returned. “You’re ready to go out to pasture?”

Now it was Holmes’s turn to smile, only where Laws’s grin always held the idea of a punchline, Holmes’s held the promise of pain. “Maybe not just yet. Let’s see about the senator’s daughter first, then I’ll make a decision.”