Suzanne Brockmann – Tall, Dark and Deadly: Get Lucky (страница 16)

It made her nervous. What exactly had she said and done while under the hypnotist’s spell to make the ever-smiling Navy Ken brood?

Syd had come out of the session feeling a little disoriented. At first she’d thought the hypnosis hadn’t worked, but then she’d realized that about half an hour had passed from the time she’d first sat down. A half hour of which she remembered nothing.

To Syd’s disappointment, Lana told her she hadn’t got a clear look at the rapist’s unmasked face as he’d come down the stairs. They weren’t any closer to identifying the man.

Luke O’Donlon hadn’t said a word to her. Not in Lana’s office, not in his truck as they’d headed back here to the base. He’d parked by the beach and gotten out, saying only, “Come on.”

They stood now at the edge of the sand, watching the activity. And there was a great deal of activity on this beach, although there was nary a beach ball, a bikini-clad girl, a picnic basket or a colorful umbrella in sight.

There were men on the beach, lots of men, dressed in long pants and combat boots despite the heat. One group ran down by the water at a pounding pace. The other group was split into smaller teams of six or seven, each of which wrestled a huge, heavy-looking, ungainly rubber raft toward the water, carrying it high above their heads while men with bullhorns shouted at them.

“This is part of BUD/S,” Luke told her. “SEAL training. These men are SEAL candidates. If they make it through all the phases of this training, they’ll go on to join one of the teams.”

Syd nodded. “I’ve read about this,” she said. “There’s a drop-out rate of something incredible, like fifty percent, right?”

“Sometimes more.” He pointed down the beach toward the group of men that were running through the surf. “Those guys are in phase two, which is mostly diving instruction, along with additional PT. That particular class started with a hundred men and today they’re down to twenty-two. Most guys ring out in the first few days of phase one, which consists mostly of intense PT—that’s physical training.”

“I’d kind of figured that out.”

“Navyspeak contains a lot of shorthand,” he told her. “Let me know if you need anything explained.”

Why was he being so nice? He could have managed to sound patronizing, but he just sounded…nice. “Thanks,” Syd managed.

“Anyway, this class,” he pointed again to the beach, “is down to only twenty-two because they had a string of bad luck—some kind of stomach flu hit during the start of Hell Week, and a record number of men were evac-ed out.” He smiled, as if in fond memory. “If it was just a matter of barf and keep going, most of ‘em probably would’ve stayed in, but this flu came with a dangerously high fever. Medical wouldn’t let them stay. Those guys were rolled back to the next class—most of them are going through the first weeks of phase one again right now. To top that off, this particular class also just lost six men in the fallout from that diving accident. So their number’s low.”

Syd watched the men who were running through the water—the candidates Luke had said were in the second phase of BUD/S training. “Somehow I was under the impression that the physical training ended after Hell Week.”

Luke laughed. “Are you kidding? PT never ends. Being a SEAL is kind of like being a continuous work in progress. You always keep running—every day. You’ve got to be able to do consistent seven-and-a-half-minute miles tomorrow and next month—and next year. If you let it slip, your whole team suffers. See, a SEAL team can only move as fast as its slowest man when it’s moving as a unit.”

He gestured toward the men still carrying the black rubber boats above their heads. “That’s what these guys are starting to learn. Teamwork. Identify an individual’s strengths and weaknesses and use that information to keep your team operating at its highest potential.”

A red-haired girl on a bicycle rode into the parking lot. She skidded to a stop in the soft sand a few yards away from Luke and Syd, and sat down, watching the men on the beach.

“Yo, Tash!” Luke called to her.

She barely even glanced up, barely waved, so intent was she on watching the men on the beach. It was the girl Syd had met yesterday, the one who’d been at the base with Lieutenant Commander Francisco’s wife. She was looking for someone, searching the beach, shading her eyes with her hand.

“Frisco’s not out here right now,” Luke called to her.

“I know,” she said and went right on looking.

Luke shrugged and turned back to Syd. “Check out this group here.” He pointed at the men with the boats. “See this team with the short guy? He’s not pulling his weight, right? He’s not carrying much of the IBS—the inflatable boat—because he can hardly reach the damn thing. The taller men have to compensate for him. But you better believe that the vertically challenged dude will make up for it somewhere down the road. He’s light, probably fast. Maybe he’s good at climbing. Or he can fit into tight places—places the bigger men can’t. Shorty may not help too much when it comes to carrying something like an IBS, but, guaranteed, he’ll do more than his share in the long run.”

He was quiet then, just watching the SEAL candidates. The group of runners—the candidates in the second phase of BUD/S training—collapsed on the sand.

“Five minutes,” Syd heard distantly but distinctly through a bullhorn. “And then, ladies, we do it all over again.”

The instructor with the bullhorn was Bobby Taylor, his long dark hair pulled back into a braid.

As Syd watched, one of the candidates approached Bobby, pointing up toward the edge of the beach, toward them. Bobby seemed to shrug, and the candidate took off, running toward them through the soft sand.

He was young and black, and the short, nearly shaved hairstyle that all the candidates sported served to emphasize the sharp angles of his face. He had a few scars, one disrupting the line of his right eyebrow, the other on his cheek, and they added to his aura of danger.

Syd thought he was coming to talk to Luke, but he headed straight for the little girl on the bike.

“Are you crazy?” His less-than-friendly greeting was accompanied by a scowl. “What did I tell you about riding your bike out here alone? And that was before this psycho-on-the-loose crap.”

“No one wanted to ride all the way out here with me.” Tasha lifted her chin. They were both speaking loudly enough for Syd to easily overhear. “Besides, I’m fast. If I see any weirdos, I can get away, no problem.”

Sweat was literally pouring off the young man’s face as he bent over to catch his breath, hands on his knees. “You’re fast,” he repeated skeptically. “Faster than a car?”

She was exasperated. “No.”

“No.” He glared at her. “Then it’s not no problem, is it?”

“I don’t see what the big deal—”

The black man exploded. “The big deal is that there’s some son-of-a-bitch psycho running around town raping and beating the hell out of women. The big deal is that, as a female, you’re a potential target. As a pretty, young female who’s riding her bike alone, you’re an attractive, easy target. You might as well wear a sign around your neck that says victim.”

“I read this guy breaks into women’s homes,” Tasha countered. “I don’t see what that has to do with me riding my bike.”

Syd couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer. “Actually,” she said, “serial rapists tend to do something called troll for victims. That means they drive around and look for a likely target—someone who’s alone and potentially defenseless—and they follow her home. It’s possible once they pick a victim, they follow her for several days or even weeks, searching for the time and place she’s the most vulnerable. Just because all of the other attacks we know about occurred in the victims’ homes doesn’t mean he’s not going to pull his next victim into the woods.”

“Thank you, voice of reason,” the young man said. He gave Tasha a hard look. “Hear that, wild thing? Uncle Lucky’s girlfriend here sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.”

Uncle Lucky’s girlfriend…? “Oh,” Syd said. “No. I’m not his—”

“So, what am I supposed to do?” The girl was exasperated and indignant. “Stay home all day?”

Tasha and her friend were back to their fight, intently squaring off, neither of them paying any attention to Syd’s protests.

Luke, however, cleared his throat. Syd didn’t dare look at him.

“Yes,” the young man answered Tasha’s question just as fiercely and without hesitation. “Until this is over, yes. Stay home.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “But, Thomas—”

“How many times in the years that we’ve been friends have I ever asked you for a favor, princess?” Thomas asked, his voice suddenly quiet, but no less intense. “I’m asking for one now.”

Tears welled suddenly in Tasha’s eyes and she blinked rapidly. “I needed to see you. After hearing about that diving accident…”

The harsh lines of his face softened slightly. “I’m fine, baby.”

“I see that,” she said. “Now.”

Syd turned away, aware that she was watching them, afraid that her curiosity about their relationship was written all over her face. Thomas had to be in his twenties, and Tasha was only in her teens. He’d referred to them as friends, but it didn’t take a genius-level IQ to see that the girl’s attachment to this man was much stronger. But he was being careful not to touch her, careful to use words like friends, careful to keep his distance.