“I’m fine, Captain. And you can let your spies go home too.”

“Yes, sir. Take care of that shoulder—I want to beat you fair and square on the golf course.” Patrick noticed Jackson motion to a young sailor who had been standing near the entrance to the workout room with a cell phone, who departed with Jackson. The base commander was a good guy, Patrick decided, but there was no doubt that he played the political battles as well as he undoubtedly played the real-world military battles—and making friends with potentially influential persons was one way to get ahead in the Navy.

Too bad he was sucking up to the wrong guy.

Patrick toweled off, tossed the bag of ice, then experimentally flexed his left shoulder. It felt pretty good, so he decided to forgo the steam room and instead take his son Bradley to the pool. He checked Bradley out of the daycare center and took him back to the locker room.

He didn’t notice a janitor set a bucket of smelly water and a mop in front of the door to the locker room after Patrick entered, put up a sign that said, “DO NOT ENTER” on the door, and then lock the door after he entered.

Patrick put Bradley in a pair of swim trunks he kept in his gym bag for just this purpose, changed himself, and led his son to the pool. He found the door to the pool locked. He turned to ask someone why the door was locked when he noticed that the locker room was very quiet—unusually quiet. No one else was in there. The place usually had at least a dozen men in there all hours of the day, but it was empty now . ..

... except for an Arab-looking man who stepped out from behind a row of lockers—carrying an automatic pistol in one hand.

Patrick immediately grabbed Bradley and dodged behind a row of lockers. The man didn’t follow—that meant there were others in the room, waiting for him.

“Dad? Aren’t we going swimming?” Bradley asked. He was obviously more concerned about not going to the pool than he was about being carried protectively by his father like a slippery football through onrushing linebackers.

“Shh,” Patrick whispered. He crouched as low as he could, almost duckwalking through the locker room.

He saw the second guy’s knees before he saw the rest of him, and he prayed it wasn’t an innocent sailor—because Patrick lashed out with his right foot, snapping out in a driving thrust against the stranger’s left knee. The knee buckled outward at an unnatural angle.

“Dad? Why did you kick that guy?” Bradley asked amid the stranger’s animal-like howling. “Is he a bad guy?”

Patrick wasn’t sure how to answer—until another automatic pistol clattered to the tiled floor. “Yes, he’s a bad guy,” Patrick replied as he picked up the gun. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Good job,” Bradley said.