Page 11 of Fall of the Trident
“Honestly, no.You convinced me.”He glanced at his watch.His driver would be there in two minutes if he wasn’t already waiting outside.“Sorry, Levi, I’ve got to catch a plane.Don’t forget to call me in the morning.I’m really hoping to see you for lunch.Love you, son.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
On the way to the airport, he called the twins.Neither answered the phone so he left messages inviting them to lunch.Maybe one of them would be able to meet him.
“Sir, the other two on my manifest are on board.”The pilot glanced toward the driver.“Is anyone else accompanying you?”
Usually, an admiral traveled with his aide, but Trevor hadn’t selected a new one yet.Lieutenant Spooner had been given command of a platoon in Group 2 and moved during the summer rotation to Little Creek.He really needed to pick somebody but hadn’t had the time.In truth, he hadn’t taken the time.Before the last one left, Marta had given him a file filled with possibilities.He’d move that job up the priority list a few notches.
“Thank you.No.We can take off when you’re ready.”He jogged up the steps to the cabin and slid into the seat across the table from Marta.Now that she was back in full makeup, he realized how beautiful she was without it.The wet hair slicked back in a ponytail looked just as appealing as soft curls at her shoulders.
Her navy-blue pantsuit and light blue blouse brought out the blue in her normally silverish eyes.He wanted to tell her how pretty she looked but didn’t dare.It could be misconstrued, and he’d end up with a sexual harassment complaint.He’d wait until he could talk to her in private.He would ask her out.Soon.
“I’m sorry, Mar—” He caught himself before he addressed her casually.“Ms.Markel, that I canceled your half-day off.And since we’ll be traveling far past the normal workday, I expect you to take a day off next week.”Fuck.He sounded so formal.So cold.
“Thank you.I’ll let you know which day I’ll be gone.”Such a frigid response.
“Please fasten your seatbelts.We’ve been given a priority takeoff.We’ll be in the air shortly.”The pilot didn’t lie.They were off the ground within minutes.
“I believe this is our first trip to Little Creek together.”That should be a neutral topic.“Did you travel much with Admiral Abrams?”
“Before I answer that question, is he a friend of yours?”Knowing Marta, her tone told him she didn’t like the man.
“No, and never was.”His statement seemed to please her.“Am I sorry he retired?Absolutely not.Nor do I know why he suddenly removed himself from consideration for his fourth star.”
Marta grinned.Like everything else surrounding the SEALs, she seemed to know who fired the shot and who buried the body.Most of the time, she could give you the longitude and latitude of said rotting corpse.
“To answer your question, Admiral Asshat, as I prefer to think of him, had me join him on his first inspection of Group 2.That’s when I realized he was a cheating son of a bitch.”She spat out the last few words.
Trevor leaned forward.“Really?I knew there was something I didn’t like about him.He was far too arrogant for my liking.”Although Trevor didn’t like gossiping, he thought of this more as information gathering.
“You’re absolutely right on that account as well.He had an attitude that since he wore stars, everybody should treat him like a powerful king.”Marta straightened her back.“I don’t tolerate infidelity, and I made my opinion known to him.His girlfriend had been waiting for him in the Visiting Officers’ Quarters.Not only is that a security breach that he’d arranged for an unaccompanied civilian to get on base and be unsupervised, but it also seemed to be the purpose of the trip.He spent less than three hours with the men, yet we were there for two whole days.That’s misappropriation of funds.”
She folded her hands on the table between them.“I made good use of my time meeting with the support staff.That’s when I learned their affair had been going on for over a year.The Group 2 administrative assistant said that he scheduled a long lunch out in town at least one day a week.In the months before he left to take over as NSW commanding officer, he’d be gone two or three times a week.”She shook her head.“His wife was the sweetest woman, and their two children were magnificent.”
“I take it she didn’t know?”Trevor asked.
“Not when I took that first trip.”Her grin became sadistic.“Admiral Asshat never asked me to travel with him again.When he had me arrange for a personal visitor of his to stay in the VOQ on Coronado, I suggested to his wife that she might want to take over a basket of Southern California fruit about an hour after his special guest arrived.I also gave her a key to those quarters, just in case nobody answered the door…so she could leave the basket with a note.”
Trevor burst out laughing.“I don’t ever want to be on your bad side.I take it she caught him…” It wasn’t a question.He was hoping she’d continue with the story.
That beautiful grin brightened her face.“Oh, yes.Both were naked as the day they were born.It was obviously round two because the bed was torn up.Admiral Asshat had his girlfriend bent over the couch arm and he was…let’s just say that I named him well.He certainly got his money’s worth out of the little pills he had to take.”
“And you know about his little blue pills…why?”Until Marta had left his office a few hours ago, Trevor hadn’t had an erection since his wife had gotten sick.Before that, he and Carol had an active sex life.He hadn’t missed the fact that Marta’s hug and quick brushing of lips had stirred him physically.Hopefully that meant he didn’t need to take any kind of Viagra.
Her lips straightened into a flat line once again.“I had to get away from him one morning and I announced that I was going to run over to the pharmacy.He had the gonads to ask me to pick up his medicine while I was there.So, that meant I actually had to go to the pharmacy.Imagine my embarrassment when I asked the second class petty officer for his prescription, explaining that I was his administrative assistant.The man’s smile made me want to puke when I handed him the bag.”
“Was getting caught the reason why he retired so quickly?”
“It wasn’t quick enough for me.The typical two-year tour was only cut short by six months.Admiral Asshat spent more time with his attorneys than he did paying attention to the men under his command.That left Rear Admiral Finger Fucker in charge most of the time and you saw the way he handled command.”Marta didn’t like his second-in-command that he’d inherited with the new job, but Trevor wasn’t thrilled with him either.He didn’t seem to do anything Navy related but always looked busy.
When Trevor had taken command of NSW, morale had been the lowest he’d ever seen in his thirty-year career.SEALs were caught human trafficking underage foreign girls.Never in his life would he have believed it.As soon as it had been reported to him, he cleaned up that fucking mess.
When her name for his former executive officer caught up to his thoughts, he couldn’t control his laughing.“Finger Fucker.”He could barely say the words.“Jesus, Marta, I hate to think what name you’ve created for me.”He threw his hand up in the air in the stop gesture.“Maybe I don’t want to know.”
A blush had creeped up her throat into her cheeks.“Good.Because I’m not going to tell you.”
She went on.“I will tell you this, though, I wasn’t the one who called the Inspector General.I don’t know this for sure, but I believe the girlfriend did.We both know that at your level, it’s a very small community.He got a scolding from the Secretary of the Navy.Shortly after that he supposedly dumped the girlfriend and made up with his wife.When the IG discovered that girlfriend wasn’t the first, he became too much of a security risk.”
