Read Online Diamondhead by Patrick Robinson - Free Book Online

in his mouth. His wealthy father had sent him to Choate School, and then to Harvard Law School, but the young Al did not relish the mountainous paperwork, written judicial opinions, and overall bureaucracy of a big law firm. So one day, despite his excellent law degree and ensured future, he just left and joined the United States Navy. He swiftly earned his commission, and rose rapidly to the rank of lieutenant commander and found himself serving as missile director on a U.S. destroyer in the Gulf War. The following year he became a navy lawyer on the base in Norfolk, Virginia, and then moved out to San Diego after he married a Hollywood actress.
     
    Everyone on the SPECWARCOM base understood that senior command was not anxious to destroy Mack Bedford, and the appointment of Commander Surprenant was a probable sign that he was not going down for murder. Nonetheless, opinion persisted among the men that political forces were making the accused SEAL commander a sacrificial lamb on the altar of appeasement in the Middle East.
     
    The court-martial would be heard in the courtroom of the Navy Trial Service in the middle of the San Diego base, far from the inquisitive eyes of the media, which had not, as yet, cottoned on to the judicial proceedings surrounding the incident on the bridge.
     
    The Trial Service appointed a five-man panel to sit in judgment on Lt. Cdr. Mack Bedford. As usual, they assigned one young lieutenant and three lieutenant commanders whose experience covered a wide range of naval activities both in war and in peace.
     
    The court-martial’s president, Capt. Cale “Boomer” Dunning, former commanding officer of a nuclear submarine, was only a few months short of promotion to rear admiral. This was another sign of sympathy toward Mack Bedford. Captain Dunning was a hard-eyed combat veteran destined for extremely high rank. In the opinion of the SEALs, his natural allegiance and loyalty would rest with the accused officer. He was also a known friend of Cdr. Al Surprenant, both of them having family homes back east on Cape Cod. On the face of it, the trial was somewhat stacked against the prosecution assembled by Harrison Parr, because the issue was political, and no one knew which way it would swing.
     
    And therein rested the disquieting aspect of the case. It was as if the final decision had been taken out of the navy’s hands, that somehow the verdict had been agreed before the trial started, won and lost before it was heard. Was Mack Bedford the officer whose fate was already decided? No one liked the sound of that.
     
    The days passed slowly in the two weeks leading up to the trial. Bedford himself became very withdrawn. The navy had arranged for him to spend this time in private officers’ quarters and make his own decisions about attending work and training with Foxtrot Platoon. Almost surreptitiously, new men had been brought in to replace those who had died.
     
    No one mentioned the tragedy, and the leading petty officers supervised the brutal fitness regime being played out on the long beaches, out in front of the world-famous Hotel del Coronado. Every day, damn near all day, they pounded along that tidemark in their boots and shorts, searching for the firmest wet sand, trying to beat the clock. Some days Mack Bedford joined them, running easily alongside the new kids, demonstrating a naval lifetime of supreme physical fitness, strength that bordered on that of a wild animal, determination, and discipline ingrained in him since he had first pounded this same stretch of beach as a BUDs student.
     
    In the evenings, he saw very few people, not simply because his close buddies had all died in the tanks but because he sensed he was now isolated until the court-martial was over. He spent long hours with Al Surprenant, endlessly poring over maps of that western side of the Euphrates where the SEALs had been hit by the missiles.
     
    Every night Mack wrote to Anne at their home in Maine, trying to