The SEAL Who Loved Me: BWWM Romance

Chapter1

––––––––

The infamous black hawk down scenario that transpired years before, that became a blockbuster movie later, was fresh in Sergeant Brickman's head. Most of the people in his small Special Forces unit used Brick for his call sign. In the junior days of being a SEAL, he'd commonly been referred to as a brick shit house because of his six foot, two hundred and thirty pounds of muscle frame. Brick finally stuck and it suited him just fine. His team was part of an effort to extract a small group of Red Cross personnel from a small villa in the hills just outside of the sprawling metropolis (if there was even a need for a rescue operation). All of the brass were nervous, some of them two and three star generals; not a single career could afford to have a crisis to happen.

Brick went over the situation in his head as the helicopter took off from the aircraft career, floating in the Arabian Sea. The CIA had gotten intelligence from an informant that an up and coming war lord with a name that Brick couldn't pronounce, or remember, was plotting to seize all the food and medical supplies from the Red Cross outpost. The CIA reported that the warlords planned to seize the supplies at the Red Cross facility and sell them for ten times the price. The outpost’s location was situated away from the busy city made it easy to go undetected, or so it would seem. Brick wasn't sure what the CIAs interest in the outpost was, considering what was happening in the rest of the world, but it wasn't his place to question orders.

The SEAL team that those in command had put together included people who would be retiring shortly after the mission was over. Brick had served with them many times, on continents that spanned the globe.

As the helicopter banked sharply and dropped altitude, rushing toward the water beneath, SEAL operators hooted and hollered. Brick smiled as he looked over at his buddies, Ted and Ryan. He trained with them, had performed many ops with them and knew them like the back of his hand. They loved the feeling of danger, the way that the US government would throw them into volatile situations, and especially the helicopter rides into hostile environments that skimmed the ocean. The helicopter engine screamed as the pilot frantically manipulated switches and controls, trying to coax every last bit of lift out of the rotors spinning overhead.

A second gust of wind hit them, hard. As the helicopter was pushed through the sky, it continued to lose altitude. The sea below them was only thirty meters away and closing fast. Ted recklessly unhooked himself from his seat, grabbed onto some netting on the interior of the helicopter by the open door, leaned out of the flying vehicle, and got ready to skim his hand over the water as the distance between it and the SEALs continued to close.

Shit, Brick bellowed. Get ready to swim!

Ryan took the life jacket behind his seat and threw it at Brick's face with a chuckle. Neither Ted nor Ryan seemed concerned at the speed the helicopter was moving, if the landing gear dipped into the water,  the entire machine could  flip end over end across the choppy waves and then sink to the bottom. The handful of younger SEALs around them were putting on their black life jackets, a few of them crossed themselves. Brick hadn't had time to get to know each of the men in his charge personally, but he'd read their bios and wasn't surprised to hear murmurs of Catholic prayers from the two Latino SEALs. As Brick watched, the pilot pulled with all of his might on a lever behind him, it occurred to him for the first time that they might actually crash.

Fuck, Brick thought, hell of a way to go out. Inbound on the insertion point on the last mission. Downed by bad weather. Of all the luck.

Just as the helicopter seemed doomed to clip the ocean and go end over end, the pilot cheered as he started to get some response from the engine protesting loudly in the rear of the vehicle. The two bars that served as landing gear held, just a few inches above the water. Ted let his hand skim over the water like a rock thrown at super high speeds. The look on his face was one of sheer delight, like a child opening a gift for Christmas and finding just what it wanted. It made Brick hope that he could appreciate the moments like these, the wind rushing through the helicopter as SEALs shouted and Ted ran his hand through the water, because after this mission, that was it. All he would have left of this feeling of freedom would be in his memories. Maybe he could get a job as a private contractor but he didn't savor the idea of being a mercenary. Too often he had seen them hung out to dry by the people paying their salaries.

As the helicopter started to rise from the surface of the sea at the shore of Africa's horn, smoke hovered over Mogadishu in the distance in a thick haze. It made Brick wonder how many pits of garbage had to burn at the same time to achieve the effect. He hoped he didn't have to find out. The mission didn't have them going to the urban sprawl at all but missions could change. The one that they were on seemed vague right now in its intentions. As the helicopter settled onto the beach's sand and the SEALs piled out and sprinted for the cover of a palm grove – all of the goofing around and yelling that had been present during the ride disappeared, replaced by a steely determination. All of the SEALs were ultra-professional and knew this part of the world was in no way friendly to forces from the United States. They also knew they didn't have to be wearing the American flag for people to know who they were fighting for. The Black Hawk Down scenario was still fresh in the Mogadishuans mind who witnessed it.

As the palms and wide-leafed foliage of the grove concealed them, the SEALs formed a huddle to discuss what would happen next. The movement to a staging area just a few miles further into the hills than the Red Cross outpost was about twenty miles away and they needed to be there by morning.

Well, Brick said. Looks like we'll be hiking all night instead of sleeping.

You really think it will take all night? Ryan asked.

Not if I lead the way! Ted said, enthusiastically.

Brick nodded and smiled grimly.

Lead the way, Ted, Brick said. Let's see if these younger SEALs have the stuff to keep up!

*

Dina listened to the heartbeat of the small child lying on the table in the makeshift medical tent. The sound of fluid crackling and popping in the child's lungs signaled some kind of lung infection, given the high fever present. Dina knew it would be hard to tell the parents anything they didn't already know. Dina knew the parents, whom she'd met briefly about twenty minutes before, were doing their best to raise a several children. It was just hard for the people who lived on the outskirts of Mogadishu. Healthy food and clean water weren't things that were guaranteed to anyone living in this region of the world. As Dina helped the young child down from the table and into the arms of its parents, she knew the only thing she could do was give them some antibiotics.

After speaking with both parents for a few minutes, she watched them leave, walking down the dusty dirt road that led to the Red Cross outpost. She wasn't sure if she would ever see them again but she hoped the child would be all right. It could have been nothing; the little bit of fluid in the lungs, but then again, it could have been the start of something serious. If it was something serious, the parents had the foresight to get help early; that kind of thinking could save the lives of so many children.

But at the same time, there were a lot of children that died anyway, even after their parents made the trek to the nearest doctor to get medicine. What was making matters even worse was that in recent months there had been a rise in shamans and witch doctors in the area – not the kind that generally showed up in fairy tales – but the kind that convinced parents to give the family cow in exchange for a few words whispered in sing-song chant over the child's body. Sometimes instead of a cow, it would be a night with the wife that was wanted in exchange for service. Whatever was offered up got nothing in return because the quacks preyed on the superstitious beliefs long held by the natives. Sometimes Dina wondered if a few of the more flamboyant shamans actually believed their claims; that they knew how to make people better by grinding up certain bones and cooking the mixture in some bread, or however they decided to do it.

Dina learned long ago not to try and make sense of things that happened here in the Horn of Africa. She had come to the outpost about two years earlier to do humanitarian aid for the Red Cross, which took her family somewhat aback. Dina had been at the top of her class in her almost all the high schools in Atlanta. She was also the only one of her family to complete any kind of secondary education. Her father was a concrete contractor most of his life and hadn’t been afforded the opportunities a young black that Dina had been afforded. So when Dina explained she needed to go to Africa, he was ultimately baffled saying, You don't need to leave Atlanta to do humanitarian aid for Africans! While her mother had embraced her and told her that she loved her. Dina was always thankful for the way her mother juxtaposed her father's ill temper. And just like always, after a few hours had passed, he had calmed down and hugged her. That was the last time Dina had seen her family. She thought of them now as she turned her gaze away from the family retreating back down the hill on the dusty road.

Being in a country where Americans were hated was hard, even though Dina was dark and dressed in the same clothes as the natives so as not to draw attention. She was getting a good handle on the local dialect after all the months of not being able to communicate with anyone. It was lonely, even though she could speak with people now, a kind of loneliness that she had never felt before in her entire life. Dina had been popular in high school, and even more so in college when her curves showed up out of nowhere to make her a buxom black women with an Afro and quick wit. There had always been some man in her life who was madly in love with her when she'd lived in America. Living without a man to make her feel special was still new to her, but she was doing much better now than when she'd first arrived.

Dina still shuddered when she thought of the first few months of living at the Red Cross outpost. For some reason, she’d thought that she would be able to maintain a relationship with her then boyfriend, an old flame from high school that had rekindled at the end of her college career. But that had proved impossible. There weren’t many ways to communicate with people back home from the outpost. Every few weeks the Red Cross would send out any outgoing mail and disseminate any incoming letters and care packages. Other than that, sometimes the satellite phone worked well enough to have a two or three-minute conversation before the call was lost. Dina knew she had to break the relationship off, so that's what she did. It had been hard to try and explain her feelings for someone she really did love but couldn't be with, especially through snail mail.

Dina never really considered herself a writer, but found that words didn't fail her when she sat down with pen and paper, and the intentions to tell her lover that they weren't dating