Seal Team Seven Read Free

the eastern end of the lake. From there, the fourteen men, one SEAL platoon organized into two seven-man squads, had made their way to the southern shore.
    Roselli was with Blue Squad, six enlisted men under the platoon’s CO, Lieutenant Vincent Cotter. Gold Squad, if all had gone according to plan, should be forming up separately about a mile further to the west.
    By 2310 hours, the squad was ready to travel, its high-altitude breathing equipment and swimming gear wrapped up and stashed at the water’s edge, the men rigged out in their first- and second-line CQB rigs. Lieutenant Cotter lightly touched Roselli’s shoulder. You’re on point. Roselli nodded, pulled his NVGs back down over his face, and started off, taking the lead.
    They moved south, wading through mud and silt that gradually thinned beneath their boots until they were pressing ahead across firm, almost-dry ground, their passage screened by the dense sea of man-high reeds that stretched away endlessly into the darkness on all sides. They spaced themselves at five-meter intervals. Next in line after Roselli was Master Chief George MacKenzie, a long-legged, man-mountain Texan big enough to hump the squad’s sixty-gun and carry an MP5SD3 slung over his shoulder as well. The number-two man was also the squad’s navigator, checking compass and GPS frequently to keep the team on course. Cotter, the L-T, walked the number-three slot, and behind him came Electrician’s Mate Second Class Bill Higgins, the team’s commo man. Slot five was walked by the squad’s medic, Hospital Corpsman Second Class James Ellsworth; inevitably, everyone just called him “Doc.” The niceties of the Geneva Convention meant little to a SEAL team deep in enemy territory; Doc wore no red crosses and he packed an H&K MP5SD3 like Roselli’s, though his personal favorite for a primary weapon was a full-auto shotgun. Behind him, lugging an M-16/M203 combo, was Hull Technician First Class Juan Garcia, “Boomer,” the squad’s demo man. The tail gunner slot was occupied by Quartermaster First Class Martin “Magic” Brown, a black kid from inner-city Chicago whose expertise on the range with a Remington Model 700 had earned him a position as the squad’s sniper.
    Though each man was a specialist, their training and their skills overlapped. Two of them, the man on point and the man bringing up the rear, wore NVGs at all times, while the rest relied on night-adapted, Mark-I eyeballs. They traded off those positions frequently, though, to prevent night-goggle-induced eye fatigue, so the only slots that remained unchanged throughout the hike were three and four, the CO and the commo man.
    No words were exchanged between the members of the team. Communications were limited to hand signs, touch, and rare, nonvocalized clicks and cluckings over the technical radios. Mutual trust and coordination within the group were perfect, almost effortless. These men had worked, trained, slept, and practiced with one another for months, until each could sense the others’ positions and movements even in total darkness.
    Sometimes Roselli imagined he could even sense their thoughts.
    At the moment, of course, he didn’t need psychic powers to know what the others were thinking. Everyone was focused completely on the mission, and on their objective, now some ten kilometers to the south.

1515 hours (Zulu—5) Meeting of the House Military Affairs Committee Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.
    Congressman Farnum leaned forward, one hand clutching the base of the microphone as he played to the cameras in the room. “But Captain Granger, isn’t it true that these SEALs, these, ah, ‘NAVSPECWAR’ people, as you call them, isn’t it true that they present the Navy with special administrative and discipline problems?”
    â€œOf course, Mr. Chairman. As I’m sure there are similar administrative difficulties with other