Age of Blood

3

Everyone cleared the briefing room and headed to their bunks in the dorm. They’d been at the New Orleans NSW Training Center for nearly a week and had expected to stay a week longer, so no one was ready to go. Still, the nature of being in the military had taught the SEALs of Triple Six the ability to pack and move with little or no preparation. They had their go bags already packed and would most likely travel straight to the mission, which meant their personal items would be shipped back to their building on Coronado Island.

Yank hurried after Laws. “What did that mean? What you said back there.”

“What did I mean with what?”

“When you damned the faint praise.”

“Ah. That. ‘Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and without sneering teach the rest to sneer; willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.’”

“Sounds like Shakespeare.”

“More than a hundred years too late for that. Alexander Pope said it.”

“It talks about fear.”

“Not like you think.” Laws cracked a quick smile. “It talks about one’s inability to criticize because of a fear of what someone else might think.”

“Were you saying that about me?”

“Easy, Yank. If you’re going to work in this team, you have to take it when we give it, and give it when we deserve it. Our trust and camaraderie are what makes us special. Our ability to turn that into the fuel to run an operation against supernatural forces is what makes us Triple Six.”

“I hear you. It’s just hard. I’ve been fighting my whole life and this isn’t like any other team.”

“The sooner you realize that we’re not the enemy, the sooner you’ll enjoy being a part of Triple Six.”

“It’s been a long time since I trusted people enough to do what you’re saying.”

“It better not be too much longer.” Laws reached out and shook Yank’s hand and held it. “Holmes is right. We don’t need any dissent or discontent. You want to leave, then go. You want to stay, then change.” He let go of the other man’s hand. “Period.”

Yank watched Laws go. He knew the deputy commander was right. Yank had to rein in his reactions. They might have kept him alive on the streets of Compton, but there it was every man for himself. His existence as part of the team meant that he had to offer and accept a certain amount of trust.

He went to his bunk and grabbed the kit bag labeled PETTY OFFICER SECOND CLASS SHONN YANKOWSKI. That name really said his entire story. He could have chosen the name of his father, who’d ended up doing life in Chino. Yank had never met the man, but knew he’d been a thug for the Twenty-second Street Hustlers and part of the Bloods. His last name had been Johnson, but Yank had refused to take the name of a man he’d never met. He could have kept the name of his mother, who after spending his first six years clean and sober, had broken down into the sorry caricature of an L.A. drunk. Named Rennie Sabathia, his mother had called him Shonny, which went well with her last name. And he’d owned that name, right up until the day she’d died in the fire and he’d earned the burns on the side of his face. At thirteen, he’d met Joseph Yankowski, recently transferred from Chicago to Los Angeles as part of the longshoremen’s union. Uncle Joe, as Shonn learned to call him, ran a foster home in San Pedro, and Shonn soon found the first stable and safe place he’d ever known. Fostering turned to adoption and by the time Shonn turned eighteen and made his desire known that he wanted to join the U.S. Navy, he also changed his name to Yankowski, out of respect and love for Uncle Joe—not really an uncle, not even a relative, but more of a father than he’d ever imagined.

“You daydreaming?” Walker asked as he passed, carrying his own bag. “Come on, let’s see the weapons sergeant and see if NSW has anything we can use.”

Yank shook away the reverie and hurried after the team’s sniper.