The Mercenary Option Read online

  “Salude, old friend.”

  “Salude, Frank.”

  The two men moved to the fire and sipped at their whiskeys, neither feeling the need to speak. Simpson had met Frank Filoso in the summer of his junior year in high school. The two of them had worked as soda jerks at an ice cream parlor in Eggertown. They served up frappes and sundaes and chased after the daughters of the wealthy who summered at the Vineyard or anchored their yachts in the Eggertown harbor. It was a friendship that had endured. Frank had gone to Boston College and Simpson to Northwestern, but they roomed together at Harvard during graduate school. They had gone to Vietnam together, and after the war they began their business careers together.

  Filoso quietly recharged their glasses. After another comfortable silence, he took a cautious sip and turned to his friend.

  “Y’know, as I think about it, I only saw Joey maybe a half dozen times after you guys moved out here permanently.” There was no hint of condolence in his voice. “Tell me about your boy, Joe. Seems like I hardly knew him.”

  “Well, I…I’m not sure where to begin.” Simpson pinched the bridge of his nose, searching for a place to start.

  “I do remember the first time I saw him,” Filoso added. He took a careful sip and continued. “He was playing club soccer against one of my boy’s teams. As I recall, he was a pretty fair midfielder, even in grade school.”

  “He could move the ball,” Joe Simpson admitted and began to talk about his son—haltingly at first, but he did talk. Each time the conversation lagged, Filoso nudged him gently with a question. Filoso himself enjoyed a large family, but he had lost a daughter in an automobile accident. Neither man referred to it, but it was yet another tie that bound them together. They were well into the bottle and now sharing anecdotes about the outrageous things that sons do to make their fathers crazy. There were silences that would have been awkward had they not been such close friends, but they also allowed themselves to share a laugh. For Simpson, it was the first time he had done so in what seemed to him like an eternity. Occasionally the talk drifted back to their own youths, or to the attack on the United States by terrorists, but Filoso easily steered them back to Joey.

  The first bottle lasted them almost two hours. Filoso inspected the liquor cabinet and wondered aloud why a man like Joe Simpson kept nothing on hand fit to drink. Then he retrieved a second bottle of whiskey from the pocket of his overcoat. Simpson slipped out to the kitchen and pulled a plate of sandwiches from the refrigerator that friends and neighbors had packed with food. The sandwiches gave them a break from the liquor, and somewhat revived them. Soon they were once again gathered by the fire with their glasses charged. They both had had a lot to drink, but the alcohol had little noticeable effect.

  “You know, Frank,” Simpson began, “I didn’t say anything at the time, but I was against him coming to New York. I wanted him away from the corporate headquarters. I thought he might do better at a regional office where he could get a better grassroots perspective. But he wanted entry-level corporate.”

  “If you’d spoken up, you think Joey would have listened?”

  Simpson shrugged. “Possible…it’s hard to say. When we did talk, we always listened to each other. But would he have listened this time? Probably not, but I wish to hell now that I had at least tried.” After a long pause, Simpson continued with a grim smile. “You know, Frank, he was doing pretty well. Not because he was the boss’s son, but because people genuinely liked him. It was clear to everyone in the office that he had a great future with the company; everyone liked and respected him. I dunno, maybe I should have insisted that he start at a regional office.”

  “It was his decision, Joe. Kids don’t listen to their dads. Remember when our dads tried to talk us out of going into the Marine Corps, out of going to Vietnam?”

  Simpson smiled wryly. “They couldn’t believe it when we threw away our deferments and joined up.”

  “We saw some shit over there, but that was a long time ago.” Filoso hesitated a moment before he continued. “Now the shit happens here. Never thought we’d see that, Joe, I really didn’t.”

  “But Joey wasn’t a soldier, Frank, he was just another bright young man going to work in a tall building in the city. One minute it was there, the next it was just a pile of ashes.”

  Filoso wanted to say, At least they found him, but he demurred. Joey’s remains had been discovered only ten days ago, among the last that were pulled from World Trade Center wreckage. “Wrong place, wrong time,” he offered, “and bad luck.”

  Simpson looked at him sharply. “Just what is the right place and the right time for the United States these days? ‘Pay any price, bear any burden,’ that’s what Jack Kennedy said. Hell, Frank, we’re not the sole remaining super-power; we’re just a super eunuch. Somalia, Bosnia, the Gulf War, Kosovo, and now this al Qaeda group that has become an international infestation. We simply don’t have the wherewithal to deal with these problems effectively—and with finality. So we cleaned out the Taliban; now what? When it comes to major states that sponsor terrorism, there will always be too much debate followed by too little resolve. We’ll always be kissing ass at the UN. Our nation has the resources, but we don’t have the killer instinct. We have to take the gloves off. I tell you, Frank, somehow this has just got to stop. We can’t let these people do this to us.”

  Simpson rose and made his way to the side bar for the bottle. He returned and recharged their glasses, then slumped back into his chair.

  “Sorry to go on like this, old friend, but this is not just about Joey’s death. Sometimes the folly of our nation’s affairs gets to me. How many other fathers will be made to grieve over their sons because our country has lacked a coherent foreign policy for most of a decade? For too many years we did nothing. After the Soviet Union died, we just stood around gloating over the corpse and watching our stock portfolios. Bill St. Claire’s not a bad man, but he was left with too many years of bad decisions. Now they’ve brought their war to our doorstep, and we seem incapable of running them to ground. Now bin Laden and most of his senior aides have slipped away. Saddam’s still thumbing his nose at us. We put on a good show in responding to terror and aggression, but we have no plan to preempt it. We just respond, and that’s not enough.”

  Filoso spread his hands in agreement. Who was he to argue? Joe Simpson had served as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia for close to four years. He was widely regarded as an expert on foreign affairs. Senior career foreign service officers still called him for advice, although he had left his ambassadorial post over a decade ago.

  “How’s Annie?” Filoso ventured. “I saw her only briefly at the service.”

  “About the same, as near as I can tell. Joey’s death has changed little between us. This morning I found myself thinking it might, but I was wrong. She wants her own life now, and very little to do with me.” Simpson pulled his hand across his face and sighed. “She still blames me for Pru’s death, and I’m not going to change that. It’s like I don’t have a daughter, Frank. God help me, but it’s like both of my kids are dead. But I think she’s got a pretty good man. There’s something to be said for that.”

  Filoso nodded in a knowing way. He too had daughters, and they were often a mystery to him. Sons and sons-in-law were much easier to understand and deal with. Filoso also knew that no price could be put on a good son-in-law, one that loved and cared for your daughter.

  Prudence Simpson had been horseback riding alone while Joe was out of town. It was late fall, and the weather had been much like it was today, only colder. She and her mount had taken a bad fall, and the horse had rolled on top of her. Her injuries were serious, but she had died of exposure trying to crawl back to the house. Annie had been out late with friends and thought her mother had gone to bed early, as she usually did when Joe was gone. It was Annie who found her mother the following morning, near one of the barns.

  Filoso knocked back the last of his drink, drawing his lips tightly across his teeth and
savoring the warmth of the whiskey.

  “How’s the business?”

  Simpson shrugged indifferently. “Doing well. Very well, as a matter of fact. I expect our earnings to be up twenty percent from last year.” He sighed and drained his glass. He didn’t really want to talk business; he was just going through the motions. “How many stock options are you still sitting on?”

  Filoso shrugged and feigned a bewildered look. “I’m not sure. The share prices keep going up, and you keep declaring stock splits. I can’t keep up with ’em.”

  Joe Simpson was one of the wealthiest men in America, and Frank Filoso had had a hand in it. Simpson was to beef what Boeing was to commercial aviation. At Northwestern, he had taken a degree in business, but he often visited the stockyards in Chicago. He studied the ranching and meatpacking business, and quickly learned that the United States raised the highest quality beef in the world but was not terribly efficient at it. Simpson thought he knew how it could be done better. But there were severe export limitations on American beef, and the dynamics of the cattle business was changing rapidly. Government subsidies were soon to be a thing of the past, and the government was becoming more mercenary about grazing rights on federal land. With a keen understanding of the cattle business, capital markets, joint ventures with multinational corporations, and sound business instincts, he’d built a meatpacking empire. Iowa beef was now on the tables in Kobe and Stuttgart, and Joe Simpson collected a small fee on nearly every steak and hamburger that came from America. The dominant players, Conagra and Archer Daniels Midland, never took Simpson and his Ameribeef enterprise seriously until it was too late. Demand quickly began to exceed what he could supply. In the beginning, he and Frank Filoso had been partners, the first two employees of Ameribeef. Years later, after their first public offering, Frank wanted to take more time off with his family, and Joe wanted to take the business to the next level. So they parted ways, financially; Joe got the company, but Frank, so as not to take cash from the business, had taken out-of-the-money stock options. He believed in Joe Simpson. His holdings were now valued in the tens of millions. Joe often thought that Frank had made the better decision. Tonight he was sure of it.

  With Frank’s departure, Joe reorganized the company using advanced production and distribution technologies and the principles of total quality management. He quickly began to attract some of the best young management talent available. Ameribeef now ran smoothly and efficiently with little direction from Joe Simpson. He still held the title of CEO and Chairman of the Board, but the capable managers he had trained over the years saw to the day-to-day operations of the company and made high-level management decisions. It had been the crowning achievement of his business career—the development of a bright and talented corps of managers to continue what he and Frank had started. Some achievement, Simpson thought bitterly. A number of those fine young managers had been lost last week, along with Joey, but others in the regional offices could step up; they already had. The Ameribeef New York corporate office had been up and running at an alternate location two days after the disaster.

  Suddenly he flung his glass into the fireplace, sending shards off the firebrick and into the dying embers. Filoso raised an eyebrow and regarded him thoughtfully.

  “What’s it all about, Frank? I mean, what’s it fucking all about, anyway?”

  “Life and death, my friend, life and death. You’ve just had more than your share of death.” The smaller man opened his hands in resignation. There was nothing more to say. Filoso glanced at his watch; it was 11:45. “I gotta get on the road.”

  “And go where?” Simpson said. “The roads are ice, and you’re probably still driving that ridiculous Italian sports car, right?”

  Filoso shrugged. “Angie’ll be waitin’ up for me.”

  “So call her. You know where the guest room is. If the roads are still bad in the morning, I’ll take you back in the Jeep.”

  Filoso shrugged again. The two men slowly made their way up the stairs, clipping lights off as they went.

  • • •

  For the next week or so, Joe Simpson stayed very close to home. Each morning he checked in with his corporate offices, but the business was running quite well without him, as he knew it would. The reconstituted management team had done wonders in the wake of the disaster. So he stayed on the Vineyard.

  Simpson was a man who relished a harsh climate and was more comfortable during the off season in a resort town. In the evenings he would drive into Eggertown or over to Ipswich for a quiet dinner. About half of the establishments on Martha’s Vineyard were closed for the season, but those that did remain open seemed to accrue a measure of warmth in their perseverance. Most days he simply wandered over the estate or along the cold, deserted beaches. There is something very sober and candid about a New England winter beach, something that urges a lone trespasser to be honest with himself and about his place in the world. Joe Simpson did a lot of thinking while he walked on those beaches. He visited the graves of his wife and his son one more time before he caught the ferry for Woods Hole. It would have been more convenient to call for the corporate helicopter, but he decided against it. He was a different man from the one that had buried his only son ten days ago. Joe Simpson was once again a very focused man, one who moved with a great deal of assurance and sense of purpose.

  Friday morning, February 22,

  Coronado

  At 6:45 A.M., Garrett Walker wheeled up to the front of the imposing three-story building just off the Strand Highway. The sun was not quite up, but there was a pink glow behind the skyline of San Diego. Lights still twinkled through the clear morning along the sweeping arch of the Coronado Bridge, and it promised to be another gorgeous southern California day. There was a series of parking slots with “E-9” painted on the curb—slots reserved for cars belonging to the command’s master chief petty officers, enlisted pay grade nine, the most senior enlisted rank. Normally he would have simply ridden his bike through the chain-link gate near the door and placed it in the bike rack just inside the compound. But today he parked it in one of the reserved spaces out front. He didn’t bother locking it; no one in his right mind would steal a bicycle from in front of the SEAL Team Three compound. Garrett replaced his helmet with a khaki garrison cap, set at a rakish angle down on his forehead, and walked through the entryway to the quarterdeck.

  A young petty officer behind a counter that guarded the front door got to his feet. “Good morning, Master Chief.”

  “Morning, Mantalas. How’re you today?”

  “Not bad, Master Chief. The skipper was asking for you; said for you to go right on up to his office.”

  “Thanks, Manny.”

  “Uh, Master Chief, I got one of the guys from Team One coming over to relieve me. I’ll see you out back with the others.”

  Garrett nodded. He punched the key to the cyber lock and slipped through the security door that led up to the second deck. He paused at the entrance marked “Commanding Officer.” Garrett rapped twice on the doorjamb and stepped inside. He was dressed in a fresh set of summer khakis with six rows of colored ribbons neatly arranged under his SEAL pin. Two stars and a fouled anchor, the insignia of a master chief petty officer, rested on each collar point. His belt buckle was buffed to a high gloss, the shoes spit-shined. The garrison cap, now neatly folded, hung flat from his belt. He was scrubbed and shaved, and if the large amounts of tequila he had consumed the night before had any effect on him, he didn’t let it show. Garrett Walker was the very picture of a squared-away chief petty officer in the United States Navy.

  “You wanted to see me, sir.”

  Behind the desk, Commander Gary Stennis looked up at Garrett. He was an impressive man, even in his canvas swim trunks, faded blue T-shirt, and desert boots. Stennis was a Naval Academy graduate and relatively new to Team Three. At one time he had been a nationally ranked triathlete, and he still placed well in local events. He was tough, demanding, and fair, which was what SEALs expected of thei
r commanding officers. Stennis also tended to let his junior officers and senior petty officers handle the day-to-day running of the team, which made him a respected leader. He rose from the desk and walked around to face Garrett.

  “Master Chief, it’s a sad day in this man’s Navy when we lose an operator like you.” He paused, trying to find the right words. His features were firm, but there was genuine compassion in his eyes. “You don’t need to again hear how much we’ll all miss you here at Team Three.” He looked away from Garrett and pursed his lips. “I’m just sorry, that’s all. If there’s something you need or anything I can do, you call me, here or at home, understood?”

  “Understood, Skipper. And thanks for your endorsement on my request for a medical waiver. You did what you could, sir. It just wasn’t in the cards.”

  Stennis nodded. There wasn’t anything more to say, and he knew it. He reached back to the desk and retrieved a starched desert-cammie fatigue cap, pulling the bill within a few inches of his nose.

  “SEAL Team Three will be standing by at zero seven hundred. At your pleasure, Master Chief.” He stepped past Garrett and left the office.

  Garrett slowly made his way to the adjoining building and up to his platoon’s bay of lockers. This wasn’t a fancy athletic club, but the Navy recognized the importance of an adequate locker facility for their SEALs. Each SEAL had his own wire-mesh storage bay. The floor was tiled, and there was ample room to house swim gear, wetsuits, and personal field equipment. Garrett had cleaned out his storage bay earlier that week; all that remained were his PT gear and a change of civilian clothes in one of the wall lockers. He had not looked forward to this day, but he had planned for it.

  This was the painful part, and Garrett knew it—the ritual of doing, for the last time, some of the things he had done by rote for so many years. His only comfort was that he was a man who seldom took the routines of a Navy SEAL for granted, and he certainly didn’t on this day. He didn’t rush, nor did he let the empty feeling that occasionally surged through his bowels slow his movements. Carefully, he removed his uniform, hung it on the front of the locker, and donned his blue-and-gold T-shirt, blue side out. He pulled on the standard-issue canvas UDT trunks. Then he laced on his tan jungle boots and carefully rolled the socks down over the top, wrapping the lace ends in the folds. They were well broken-in and as comfortable as moccasins. All the other SEAL teams wore green jungle-pattern camouflage fatigues and green and black boots. Since most of their recent deployments had been to the Middle East, the men assigned to SEAL Team Three wore desert-pattern fatigues and tan boots. Finally he stepped to a full-length mirror and pulled on a freshly starched fatigue cap. A blackened master chief petty officer emblem was pinned to the front panel, just above the bill. Garrett quickly inspected himself. He was just as lean and muscular as the day he walked onto the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to play football for the Wolverines. And that was twenty years ago. The waist was the same, the stomach perhaps harder, and if anything, he had added bulk to his chest, shoulders, and thighs. Except for a few scars and the lines at the corners of his green eyes, he still had the physique of a college athlete.