A Time for Dying (5 page)
Authors: Jude Hardin
“Of course. So send your inspectors back in here if you want, but I can assure you that our security is top-notch. All I need is a healthy young man willing to give up a month of his time.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Lacy said.
26 hours and 18 minutes before the blast…
It had been a long day. An ego-crushing, humiliating, life-altering day. It was like striking out in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and bases loaded. It was the kind of day you wished you could do over.
The Navy hadn’t wasted any time in issuing Nathan Brennan a new set of orders. Tomorrow, no later than 0700, he was to report to the USS Gridley, right here in San Diego.
The Gridley. A destroyer.
They weren’t even going to put him on an aircraft carrier, where he could eventually work in his chosen field of avionics. For the next three years of his life he would sleep in a room the size of a walk-in closet, sharing the cramped space with five stinking, snoring, cussing squids who didn’t want to be there any more than he did. He was screwed. All because he couldn’t take three steps forward and jump out of an airplane. It was embarrassing, and depressing.
He dreaded making the call to his folks, dreaded telling them that he was not going to be a SEAL after all, that he was a total failure. Nobody made it through BUD/S and then rocked out of jump school. Nobody.
Yet here he was, alone on the second floor of an open-bay transit barracks, packing his sea bag, entertaining the notion of finding a bridge and making a different kind of jump.
He’d just stuffed his last pair of skivvies into the bag when an E-2 named Berryman walked in and said, “Kemp wants to see you in his office.”
Petty Officer Second Class Jeffrey Kemp was in charge of the transit barracks, and for the time being, he was Brennan’s immediate supervisor.
“What’s he want?” Brennan said.
“How should I know?”
Brennan stowed his bag in the locker by his bunk, walked out of the room and descended the stairs to the first floor. There was an E-3 in dress whites standing at parade rest outside Kemp’s office door.
Odd.
Brennan wondered what was going on, but he didn’t say anything to the seaman. He knocked, and a voice from within said, “Enter.”
Brennan opened the door and walked into the office. Kemp was sitting behind his desk, and there was an officer in the padded steel chair beside him. It took Brennan a second to realize that it wasn’t just any officer. Golden embroidered oak leaves that sailors commonly called
scrambled eggs
embellished the visor of his cover—his hat—and there was an anchor and a single star on each of his golden shoulder boards.
Brennan popped to attention.
Kemp rose from his chair. “Petty Officer Brennan, this is Admiral William B. Lacy. He would like to have a word with you.”
Brennan nodded. “Of course.”
The admiral got up and walked to where Brennan was standing. Looked him straight in the eye, smiled and said, “At ease.”
Brennan relaxed his posture, but only slightly.
Solemnly and silently, Kemp walked around to the front of the desk, exited the office and closed the door.
Brennan swallowed hard. “You wanted to talk to me, sir?”
“Yes. Let’s sit down, shall we?”
They sat, Admiral Lacy behind the desk and Brennan in the padded steel chair.
“Sir, if this is about the jump this morning—”
“We’ll get to that. First, I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition, sir?”
“First of all, let me just say that everything we talk about in this room stays in this room. What I’m going to discuss with you is classified. Top secret. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I studied your record on the flight over from Memphis. Very impressive. Do you still want to be a Navy SEAL, Petty Officer Brennan?”
“More than anything, sir.”
“I can’t make that happen. Only you can make it happen. But I can arrange for you to have another chance at jump school. There’s a class starting at Fort Benning in a little over four weeks. Interested?”
“Absolutely, sir, but—”
“But what are you going to do in the meantime? I want to send you TAD to a research facility near Memphis. It’s called CereCirc Solutions. We’re testing a new BCI, and we need a volunteer for the study.”
“BCI?”
“Brain-computer interface. Are you familiar with that terminology at all?”
“I saw something about it on television a while back,” Brennan said. “Handicapped people moving computer cursors and robotic arms. Doing it with their minds. Almost like telekinesis or something. On the show I saw, there were cables coming out of a woman’s head, and they had her hooked up to—”
“We’ve come a long way since then,” Admiral Lacy said. “The device we’re testing is about the size of a pea. It will be surgically inserted and turned on for the duration of the study, and then it will be permanently deactivated.”
“Surgically inserted where? In my brain?”
“Of course. But it’s a minor procedure. Local anesthesia. You’ll be awake the whole time. I know it sounds scary, but it’s actually very safe.”
“And what conclusions are the researchers trying to draw from this study?”
“We want to see if the device is suitable for military applications. If so, we’ll see about funding a second study, and a third. Eventually, we would like for at least one operator in each SEAL team to be outfitted with the device. We’re calling the program iSEAL, and if everything works out, it’s going to revolutionize covert warfare. Of course we’re a long way from our ultimate goal, but we have to start somewhere.”
“And that somewhere is me,” Brennan said.
He didn’t like the idea of being a lab rat, but the USS Gridley didn’t sound so great either. Apparently, volunteering for this iSEAL thing was the only way back to where he wanted to be. But at what cost? And even if he did manage to get reassigned to the jump school at Fort Benning, would he be able to make the freefall there?
Or, would he freeze up again, and maybe draw an even worse duty assignment than the Gridley?
“I know it’s a big decision,” Admiral Lacy said, looking at his wristwatch. “So I’ll give you some time to think about it. You have sixty seconds.”
Brennan felt his pulse in his eyeballs. If he wanted another chance to become a United States Navy SEAL, then this was the price. A hole drilled in his skull, and a foreign object implanted into his brain. Four weeks of being poked and prodded and examined like some sort of specimen in a Petri dish.
“Can I sleep on it, sir?” Brennan said.
Admiral Lacy’s eyes were still on the watch. “Twenty seconds, sailor. There’s a duty driver standing outside the door at parade rest, and there’s a van at the curb with the motor running. My plane back to Memphis is refueling as we speak. If you’re coming with me, I need to know now.”
Brennan took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
This concludes the sample chapters. If you would like to finish the entire novel,
iSEAL
is now available for purchase.
Thanks again, and happy reading!
Jude
Copyright © 2014 by Jude Hardin
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
February 2014
Cover Design by Emily Ward at Awarding Book Covers
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
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