An hour later they parked their car at an upscale steakhouse and went inside to enjoy their evening. They didn’t notice the white sedan that pulled in behind them.
Chapter 21
August, year 1.
The plane touched down in San Diego and Red boarded a bus for Coronado along with 113 other men. Some of them, like Red, were fresh out of boot camp. Others had been in the navy for awhile and were coming from various positions in the fleet. They were all destined for the same place however. They were all about to begin their six months of navy SEAL BUD/s training. Red wasn’t exactly sure what he was in for, but he knew it would be intense.
By the time the group got checked in and assigned their gear it was 8:30pm. One of the instructors stood before them and said, “Okay men, you are about to embark on a journey that will either make you or break you. There are 114 of you here tonight. Tomorrow morning you begin your pre-training. I promise you that you won’t like it. It will be rough. You will want to quit. Just remember, this is only the pre-training to orient you with the program. Your training doesn’t actually start for another five weeks. I suggest you get some sleep because you won’t sleep again for a long time.”
**********
The instructors woke them at 0430. They came in the barracks screaming and yelling through a bullhorn, “Get up, get up! Get dressed and get on the beach! Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!”
The 114 men jumped out of their racks and quickly dressed. Within minutes they were on the beach running laps around concrete pillars in the predawn darkness. The instructors barked orders and commands for the men to follow as they ran. The men tried to obey the orders from the SEAL instructors, but within minutes the class was completely disoriented and having trouble following instructions.
BUD/s is about physical training and endurance, but it’s about more than that. It’s about learning to work as a team, learning to depend on each other as a unit, and learning to follow instructions without hesitation.
The students lined up and rapidly called out numbers as they moved down the line. The first student in the line called out, “one.” The next student called out, “two,” then “three.” This continued on down the line in rapid-fire pace. When they reached the end of the line the instructors sent them running around the concrete pillars again.
After 30 minutes they switched to pushups, then jumping jacks, and then back to pushups. The calisthenics went on and on, seemingly without end. The instructors broke out the water hose and sprayed a steady stream of water in trainee’s faces and on their heads while they continued their pushups. It wasn’t even daylight yet on the first day. The dropout rate would be high. By the end of the 6-month BUD/s training program less than 20 of these students would remain.
The instructors had them turn over and begin doing an endless count of leg lifts while spraying the water hoses in their faces.
The first hour was almost over now and they moved to the pull-up bars. It wasn’t so much about how many pull-ups they could do. It was more about how hard they were willing to push themselves.
The sun had finally risen. At 8:00 the class headed down to the water front to begin their 4-mile run on the beach. They were all required to complete this 4-mile run in 32 minutes. As it turned out, none of them was able to finish inside of 32 minutes on this first try. The instructors sent them to the water to get wet.
Getting wet meant linking arms with their fellow classmates and lying on their backs in the surf in about a foot of water. They had to hold their heads up to keep the waves from crashing over their faces. Even when they held their heads up, some of the waves still covered their faces.
After about 10 minutes of getting wet the instructors yelled for them to get sandy. All the men ran back up to the beach and rolled in the dry sand causing it to cling to their wet bodies. Every part of their body from head to toe was covered and caked with sand at this point. The grit caused serious discomfort to various body parts as they were sent for another run.
The first day had barely begun when the first DOR occurred. Dropping on Request, or DOR, was the method students used to quit the program. They rang the DOR bell to signal their final decision and then left. Most of them would regret this decision for the rest of their life.
Red was hanging in there so far. He had managed to make it through all of the drills the morning had presented. He made the 4-mile run in 32 minutes and 28 seconds. Not fast enough to meet the 32 minute standard, but among the top of the scores.
It was now 10:00am on day 1 and the instructors introduced them to their boats. The men divided up into 8 man teams and each team was assigned a 10 foot rubber raft. They would be required to learn to work as a team to paddle the raft straight out against the surf to reach beyond the waves. The surf was coming in and they were battling 6-foot waves. It seemed impossible at first. The men began paddling out away from shore only to have the waves sweep them back in to shore. The instructors taught them to keep their paddles in the water and how to overcome the waves. This was a dangerous exercise because when the waves crashed into the boat, the rubber boat bent in odd ways. The men were often expelled from the boat in a disastrous crash with body parts and paddles flying in all directions. They had to recover, re-board the boat, and keep going.
Red’s boat team was struggling with this exercise just as all the other boat crews were. The 6-foot waves were powerful and treacherous. Paddling over them or through them took teamwork. Red’s boat team followed the instructor’s commands to paddle fast and dig deep. They were starting to figure this out and they were beginning to see a small amount of success.
They took the boats out of the water and each 8 man team carried their boat above their head as they went for a run on the beach. With the boat still over their heads they began pressing the boat by lifting it high in the air until their arms were fully outstretched over their heads and then bending their arms to lower the boat down to their heads; then raising it back up to full height again. Over and over these exercises were repeated.
Reds muscles screamed from the pain. He knew the program would be intense, but still he was surprised at the level of intensity. This was only day 1. What could the other days of the next six months possibly have in store? Red put this out of his mind. He knew that in addition to the physical challenge, this program would also present a mental challenge. He could allow no room in his mind for negativity or insecurity. Every fiber in his body and mind needed to be geared for success!
Once the instructors were satisfied with the amount of pain they had caused, it was back to the water to paddle out through the surf again. The surf had really picked up and there were now 9-foot waves to contend with. The boat crews were getting demolished as the waves crashed in on them.
Red was in the boat with his team paddling for all he was worth. A huge wave attacked the rubber boat and bent it sharply in the middle. Red’s worst fear came to reality in a split second. He felt a searing pain as his right foot was caught between the main tube and the cross tube, twisting his ankle. The entire team was thrown from the boat. Red’s teammates helped him back to shore.
By the time he reached shore, the ankle was severely swollen and would not support any weight. The instructors deemed him medically unfit to continue the training and his worst fear became a reality.
Chapter 22
September, year 1.
The hot water felt good as it pelted his head and shoulders. The alarm clock had gone off too early, as usual. Gabe had stumbled across the room to turn off the clock and shuffled into the bathroom heading straight to the shower. His brain began the process of waking up and shifted gears to begin thinking about the day ahead. By the time he turned off the water, he had mentally planned out his day.
His depression was completely gone. Life was good again. He loved his new job and felt like he was making progress every day. He h
ad reached a milestone yesterday. For his first few months at JLS he had been in the learning mode. He worked hard on his projects and was asking for help less and less as the weeks went by. Yesterday, for the first time in his career, one of the other engineers had come to him for help with a problem. Gabe had knowledge to contribute. He knew this was a tipping point in his career and he smiled as he thought about this while getting dressed.
The 10 minute drive to work that morning was uneventful. He parked the car and walked toward the building. He noticed a white sedan in the parking lot with a man inside. For a brief minute he thought the man had been looking at him. He dismissed this idea as he walked through the door. Time to go to work.
The door to Mr. Bentley’s office was open. As he walked by the door he casually said, “Hi Dan.”
“Gabe,” Dan hailed him.
Gabe was already three steps past the door. He stopped and took a few steps backward.
“Come on in Gabe,” Dan said cheerfully. “Have a seat.”
Gabe’s mind covered all the bases in the following second and a half. Had he done something wrong? Was he in trouble? Was he being pulled off a project? Was he being laid off? Surely he hadn’t done anything that would get him fired. Was the navy thing coming back to haunt him?
He sat down in the chair in front of the desk and looked at Dan expectantly.
Dan began, “Gabe, you’ve been with us now for four months. It’s time for your first review. Put your mind at ease. This is not going to be anything bad.”
Gabe was glad Dan led with that. He felt himself instantly relax a bit.
Dan said, “So, tell me how things are going from your perspective.”
“I think things are going really well,” said Gabe. “Every morning when I wake up I’m excited about coming to work. I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been here and I feel like I’m getting better every day.”
He relaxed the rest of the way when Dan answered, “I agree. I’m really happy with your progress. Steve tells me he came to you for help yesterday.”
Gabe tried to hide the feeling of pride that invaded him. It felt good.
“You should be proud of yourself,” said Dan. “It usually takes well over a year before new engineers get to that point. You made it in four months. I’m keeping a close eye on you and I am very impressed with your progress.”
“Thanks,” was all Gabe could say.
“I like to reward good performance,” Dan continued. “I think it’s time for your first raise. How does five percent sound?”
This was the last thing Gabe expected. He still lived at home with his mother and money really wasn’t an issue. He had developed a habit of giving her $400 from each paycheck. This made life much easier for her and he had no bills of his own. He hadn’t expected to get a raise at least until he had completed the first year. “It sounds great to me!”
“I’m also moving you to a different department. I think you’re a good fit for our robotics division. We’ve made a lot of strides in robotics in the past few years and there are a lot of opportunities there for a hard charging engineer.”
Gabe was excited and they spent the next 10 minutes finishing up the discussion.
**********
Dan took Gabe over to the robotics division to introduce him to Eric Carver and then left the two of them to discuss particulars. Eric was the project manager for the robotics division of JLS. He had been with the company for 6 years and had been instrumental in many improvements to their products.
“We’re looking for ways to make robots in smaller versions,” began Eric. “We have a model that is used by police departments for their bomb squads, a model that takes mowing the grass to a new level, and a model that vacuums floors. We have a model used by large corporations to deliver paperwork and other items to various offices. These models are also used by factories to deliver raw materials to the various processes.”
“Our latest achievements are used by police departments in hostage situations. They are sent in unnoticed by the bad guys and provide the police with an insider’s view of the scene. We wouldn’t be called JLS if we weren’t always striving to make things just a little smaller. We’ve got these down to about the size of a mouse. We are working on a model that would be about half this size, but we are up against some stumbling blocks right now.”
They spent the rest of the day looking at drawings and technical manuals. Gabe had a sneaking suspicion that he had found his element. Ideas were coming to him already.
Chapter 23
January, year 2.
“Things are progressing nicely,” said Dr. Bowles from the head of his conference table. “Give us an update Dan.”
“We’ve had a big breakthrough at Brainstorm,” Dan began. “Ever since Jillian joined the team six months ago things have started to come together. Before we hired her, we were attempting to capture the brainwaves using a headgear full of sensors. We were having trouble decoding the signals and just couldn’t quite grasp the data. Since Jillian became involved we have experimented with tapping directly into the central nervous system. The results have been amazing. Our programmers have been making new breakthroughs everyday. They have zeroed in on capturing the signals dealing with eyesight. We have reached the point that we can see what the subject sees, although our image is still a bit blurry and we are still stumbling with decoding colors correctly.”
“We moved Jamie two months ago from the audio and video surveillance project to the control and manipulation project. Things are progressing nicely. He really is a genius. He became even more effective after we hired Jillian. I think her problems finding a job were weighing pretty heavy on him. He continues to impress me every day and it’s amazing how fast he came up to speed and took the lead. It’s like he is in a whole different league than our other electronics engineers.”
“Monica continues to excel as well. An interesting development has occurred. She and Jillian have become good friends. They eat lunch together every day and are becoming quite close. It’s the collaboration of the two of them that has pressed our progress forward at such a rapid pace.”
Dr. McCoskey spoke up. “I think it’s time to bring them in.” There was a minute of silence as they all looked around the table at each other, silently feeling each other out.
After a minute, Sally broke the silence. “What’s your line of thought, Ed?”
He thought for a few seconds and then answered. “We all know that eventually we are going to have to get all the players in the same room together. We’ve created the pieces to the puzzle, but until we put the pieces together, the project cannot come to life. I think we’re ready to breathe life into the project.”
Sally responded, “But we are making good progress right now. At some point in time our progress will slow down because of the need to pull them together. That is the time to bring them in, not now. We’ve all agreed on the need for secrecy on this project. This project is unlike any we’ve ever undertaken. Word on the street is that our competitors have strong suspicions we are onto something big. They are dying to find out what it is. I’m sure their tech spies are out in full force. The best way to protect our secret is to keep the pieces to the puzzle stored in different locations without knowledge of each other.”
‘Blah, blah, blah,’ thought Dr. Edward McCoskey. ‘Who does this little bitch think she’s talking to. She’s only 35 years old; just a kid really. She should be home cooking supper for somebody and doing laundry.’
Dan was next, “I think Ed might be onto something. Sally’s right about the pace not slowing down yet. That means we haven’t saturated their ability to work separately. On the other hand, she’s also right about the tech spies being out in full force, although I’m looking at that from the other side of the coin. If we bring the players together, our rate of advancement on the project will accelerate immensely. The faster we bring the project to c
ompletion, the faster we can patent it and protect our investment.”
Dr. Bowles studied the group for a minute and then said, “All of you make good points. For now we will keep our team separated. We will meet each month to reevaluate.”
On the outside Dr. McCoskey was calm and accepting. On the inside he was seething. Sally belonged in a skirt bent over a desk. He’d be glad to do it to her. He pictured that in his mind for a second. The thought of the skirt pulled up over her hips aroused him. He forced the thought from his mind. Better not to mix business with pleasure.
Chapter 24
January, year 2.
Red was excited and apprehensive. He had spent the last 4 months onboard the USS Bunker Hill, a Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser, while his ankle healed. He was now as good as new and just received word that his request to be recycled through BUD/s training had been approved. The ship had just pulled out of Hawaii and the crew was settling in for the seven-day trip back to their homeport in San Diego. Red had been mess cranking on the Bunker Hill and was glad to know this was his last cruise in that capacity.
The Bunker Hill was a 567 foot long guided missile cruiser with a crew of 370 men. Although this was a relatively small crew by navy ship standards, to Red it seemed like a lot of mouths to feed. He’d never peeled so many potatoes and washed so many dishes in his life. He got up early every morning to make breakfast for the crew. By the time everything was cleaned up from breakfast it was time to begin making lunch. Then after lunch was cleaned up it was time to start making dinner. As if that wasn’t enough, he also had to serve mid-rats between 11:00pm and 12:30am to the nighttime watch standers. Fortunately he only had to serve mid-rats every 4th day. This was a much slimmed down version of a meal, usually leftovers or soup and sandwiches. It didn’t take as many people to prepare, so the mess cranks took turns and each of them only worked mid-rats every 4th night.