Takedown

The receptionist provided them with a keycard, but it got them only as high as the twenty-third floor. From there they walked up one more floor and realized why the freight elevator wasn’t working. Its charred doors stood wide open, and it didn’t take much of an imagination to realize what had happened. A severed hand and a lone Quantico boot with part of a leg sticking out of it, suggested at least one person, or probably more had been standing near the elevator when it exploded. What was left of the car was probably in the basement, and Harvath didn’t envy the forensic team that would have to go through it later.

As they continued on, each of the rooms they cleared was empty, until they reached the one that must have been used for bin Mohammed’s dialysis treatments. There they found another man-a marine, by the looks of him, who had taken a couple of severe blows to the head, but who was still alive. With no choice for the moment, they quickly made him as comfortable as possible and then continued with their sweep.

At the end of the hall, they found one last survivor-Sayed Jamal. He was Flexicuffed to a chair and had been beaten almost beyond recognition. Because this was Jaffe’s operation, Harvath didn’t need to recognize the prisoner to know who he was. He felt for a pulse and found one. It was weak, and even with immediate medical attention the man was probably not going to make it.

Leaving him alone, they went to clear their last and final room-the interrogation’s nerve center. After deeming it to be safe, they stared at the sophisticated electronic equipment as well as the dry-erase boards, the relationship diagrams, and the multiple photographs that had been taped up along the wall. Seeing one that bore a resemblance to the prisoner across the hall, Cates asked, “Is this what the guy in the other room used to look like?”

Harvath looked at the photo and nodded.

“They really did a number on him. Who the hell is he?”

“His name is Sayed Jamal. He’s an al-Qaeda bombmaker who-”

Suddenly, Cates spun around and seeing that Hastings was no longer in the room said, “Oh, shit!”

“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Harvath as Cates ran for the door.

“Sayed Jamal was the man behind Tracy ’s last bomb in Iraq.”

Harvath was about to echo Cates’s Oh, shit, when the crack of a single round being discharged in the interrogation room stopped him dead in his tracks. Without even seeing it, he knew that Tracy had killed him.

Ninety-Seven

GRACE CHURCH

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

JULY 10

Search-and-rescue efforts throughout New York City had turned to search and recovery. Because of the overwhelming number of dead needing to be buried, churches were conducting group funeral masses. But in the case of one of their distinguished parishioners, Grace Church had made an exception.

At a special request from the family of Master Sergeant Robert Herrington, traffic around the church had been blocked off by McGahan and several officers from various NYPD Emergency Service Units. The media respectfully kept their distance.

As a dark blue hearse rolled forward and came to a quiet stop in front of the church, a lone bagpiper played. Supported by his teammates, who had all been granted leave from Afghanistan to attend the service, Bob’s family watched as his flag-draped casket was removed from the vehicle and carried up the stairs by pallbearers in full military dress.

There were a significant number of soldiers in attendance, many from some of the world’s most elite fighting units-men Bob had had the pleasure of either training or fighting with. More than a few of them owed their lives to the brave man who had so tragically lost his life just a week before.

Some of the soldiers Harvath had known previously and some of them he didn’t, but he had gotten to know almost everyone the night before at Bob’s wake where, despite the sad circumstances and aided by lots of cocktails, everyone seemed to be able to come up with several fu

For Harvath it was cathartic and something he desperately needed. His entire assignment in New York had been a catastrophic failure. Mohammed bin Mohammed had gotten away, as had the man who had been leading the Chechens, whom Harvath suspected was also the man who had helped spring Mohammed from Libya House, killing Bob Herrington in the process.

The SEALs have a saying that the only easy day was yesterday, but nothing about yesterday was easy, nor were any of the six days before that. For the last week, Harvath had remained alone, convalescing in his hotel room after having been patched up at the VA. He ran the operation through his mind again and again and again, each time trying to figure out a way he could have done things differently. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t think of anything he could have said or done that might have saved Bob’s life. This realization, though, did little to assuage his guilt.

Harvath let that guilt simmer, and it invariably turned to anger, which he focused directly on the bureaucracy back in Washington. Like most people, he wanted answers, but not even Gary Lawlor had them for him. He urged Harvath to be patient, but Harvath had no patience left. He called his pal at Valhalla and began negotiating the terms of his new job.

Inside the church, the guilt, the anger, and the sheer exhaustion with the system still weighed heavily on Harvath as he sat alongside Tracy Hastings, Rick Cates, and Paul Morgan, who had told the VA doctors to go to hell when they refused to discharge him for Bob’s funeral. In the end, it was Sam Hardy who finally stepped in and made it happen.

It was good to be there with them, and Harvath tried to let go of everything he was stewing over so he could say a proper good-bye to his friend.

As the reverend introduced both himself and the military chaplain who had come from Fort Bragg to assist in the service, he informed the mourners that the program was going to be short and simple-marked not by saying good-bye, but by saying hello as Bob was welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. With a smile on his face, the man then apologized for not having enough holy “water” or wine on hand to make his service as enjoyable as the Irish wake from the night before. The crowd, many of who were still hung over, chuckled good-naturedly.

The invocation was given and then came the readings, most of which were given by Bob’s teammates. The final reading was one Harvath had heard umpteen times, but which had never really hit him as hard as it did today: There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

As Harvath turned to look at Tracy, Rick, and Paul, he could see they were each fighting a losing battle to hold back their tears.

When the priest finished his sermon, one of Bob’s teammates, a man named Jack Kohlmeyer, was invited to share some of his reflections. Kohlmeyer was the perfect speaker and spoke eloquently and with the right degree of humor to help ease the sadness everyone was feeling.

“I only knew Bob for a short time. He and I met about three years ago in a valley beneath the mountains of Afghanistan. There I was at eight thousand feet, packing an eighty-pound rucksack, about to head up into the mountains, and Bob just sat on his cot laughing at me-in front of everyone, ‘Nope, you don’t need that,’ he’d say. ‘Or that. Or that. Nope, you don’t need that either.’ ”

Harvath had had the same experience with Bob just days earlier and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“But Bob could get away with it,” continued Kohlmeyer. “He could get away with laughing at us for looking silly. Bob’s trick was that he laughed not at us, but with us. He didn’t laugh to make us look foolish, he laughed to win us over and to make us his friends. And in that he was successful.