Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,103
anyone knowing they’ve been there. (Or at least not until things start blowing up!) SEALs are the U.S. Navy’s contribution to U.S. Special Operations, so they’re frequently used when water—oceans, lakes, rivers—is involved.
SOCOM: Special Operations Command.
SOP: Standard Operating Procedure.
SPEC OPS: Special Operations.
SQUAD: A unit of 8 to 15 troops.
STERILE: An item, usually a uniform or a weapon or other gear, that has been stripped of any marking that could attribute it to the U.S. Military. Also known as sanitized.
STERILIZE: To make an item or place sterile. To remove all evidence of occupation or ownership. To sanitize.
TAD: Temporary Additional Duty. The Navy’s version (they’ve always got to be different, don’t they?!) of TDY or Temporary Duty.
TANGO: Radio call sign for the letter T. Also nickname for a terrorist.
TDY: Temporary Duty, used by the Army and Air Force. (See also TAD.)
UA: Unauthorized Absence. The Navy equivalent to AWOL.
UDT: Underwater Demolition Teams. The World War II granddaddies of the SEALs. Also known as Frogmen.
USO: United Service Organization, established in 1941 to build morale by entertaining servicemen.
WATCH ONE’S SIX: From a clock face position, twelve is immediately in front of you, six is directly behind you. If someone is watching your six, they are watching your back, to help protect you.
WESTPAC: The Western Pacific area of operations. Also used to refer to a tour aboard a Navy ship, usually six months in length. For example, before entering the BUD/S program, Mark Jenkins did two WESTPACs in a row, one aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise.
WHEELS UP: Slang for leaving town or going out on a mission. (Example: Jenk grabbed his seabag and ran for his truck after getting the call that Team Sixteen was going wheels up.) Refers to an aircraft lifting off. As the plane heads for cruising altitude, the landing gear, including the wheels, goes up.
WTFO: What the Fuck, Over? A question commonly raised among sailors.
WWII: World War II, the war against the Axis of Germany, Japan, and Italy. It began on September 1, 1939, and ended on August 14, 1945.
XO: Executive Officer. Second in command to the CO or Commanding Officer. Lt. Jazz Jacquette was Lt. Commander Tom Paoletti’s XO of SEAL Team Sixteen.
Meet Shane Laughlin, the hero of Born to Darkness, in a special bonus story about his final mission as an officer with SEAL Team Thirteen—the mission that strips him of his command, earns him a dishonorable discharge, and leaves him blacklisted and unlikely to find work in the darkly futuristic world of the mid-twenty-first century.
BONUS STORY: SHANE’S LAST STAND
By the middle of the twenty-first century, much of the world has changed for the worse. Despite advances in technology, crime has increased, drug use is rampant, and the threat of terrorism hits closer and closer to home. And in the dark days of America’s second Great Depression, the divide between the haves and the have-nots continues to grow.
Many things are different in this dark and murky future, but one thing remains the same: Navy SEALs are still Navy SEALs.
And the only easy day was yesterday.
CHAPTER ONE
Something in Shane Laughlin’s ankle snapped upon landing.
Or maybe it tore.
Either way, it sent him to the ground, and he bumped and scraped and bounced, jarring the injury over and over as his chute dragged him across the rocky terrain.
Shane bit back a curse. It was the least-graceful landing of his entire military career, and it took everything he’d learned in countless training sessions to get the parachute back under control, even though Magic and Owen both scrambled to help him.
“You okay?” Magic asked, as Owen took possession of all of their chutes.
Jesus, Shane’s ankle was on fire. What the hell had he done to himself? Whatever it was, it was bad. Still, he pulled himself to his feet and tried to put weight on it—and would’ve landed back in the dust had Magic not caught him, the pain making him see actual stars.
But he shook them away, giving Magic an “I’ll be fine,” because they didn’t have time for this. The mission not only required the drop zone be fully sanitized—with the SEAL team’s eight chutes rolled into vacuum packs and carried back out—but that it be fully sanitized quickly and quietly. And that meant sitting here shouting fuck was not an option.
Regardless of the studies done that proved swearing helped diminish pain.
“Yeah, I think I’ll take that as a no,” Magic said as Shane signaled his senior chief—a height-challenged but wiry fortysomething named Johnny Salantino—who’d made note of the goatfuck in action and was