by Jack Carr
There would be no one to meet him, no running hug with the wife and daughter, or Navy band playing “God Bless America,” just a Navy base going about its business on a stateside Monday morning. There was always enough back-and-forth traffic that he figured he could bum a ride to his truck at Team Seven from someone headed to the Amphibious Base. He was about to set down the unwieldy weapons case to open the door to the terminal building when it opened as if on cue and was held wide by a heavily tattooed arm belonging to a short, muscular figure holding a giant cup of Starbucks.
The bearded man’s face turned into a beaming smile behind a white-framed pair of surf shop sunglasses. The face was that of Ben Edwards, Reece’s closest friend and former Teammate. Reece and Ben had gone through BUD/S together, deployed together as enlisted SEALs, and maintained a close friendship even after Reece became an officer and Ben migrated into the black side of Naval Special Warfare. Ben had since left the Navy for the nebulous world of the nation’s intelligence agencies, though the lines between the two had grown increasingly blurred in the years following 9/11.
“Welcome home, bro,” said Edwards as he offered his hand.
“For a second, I thought you were a homeless guy,” answered Reece as he grabbed the shorter man for a bear hug.
“I figured you might need a ride. Let me get your gear bag.”
“Where’s my coffee?” Reece asked with a smile.
Despite being identical in age, the two men walked through the small terminal building looking like complete opposites. The tall, clean-cut figure of James Reece and the stocky, ink-covered Edwards dressed in shorts and battered flip-flops: they were almost a caricature of the stereotypical differences between officers and enlisted SEALs. As they headed into the parking lot, Edwards fished into the pocket of his black hooded sweatshirt and the rear hatch of a black Chevrolet Tahoe began to arc toward the sky.
“Does Hertz have a fleet of rental Suburbans and Tahoes just for spooks?” chided Reece as he lifted the heavy black weapons case into the cargo area of the SUV.
“Yeah, but they’re not up-armored, so don’t drive us through any shit neighborhoods.”
“Oh yeah, tons of slums here in Coronado,” joked Reece.
“My truck is at the Team,” Reece said as they climbed into the cab of the Tahoe. “This thing is plush. What is this, velvet?” he asked, rubbing his hand across the leather armrest.
“Anything is plush, compared to that shitbox you roll around in, man. When are you gonna get rid of that thing?”
“Ha! I’m driving the Cruiser until it dies. That’s the whole point of having one. Us officers don’t get those fat reenlistment bonuses.”
Ben laughed. “You were enlisted once, too, remember? All that tax-free reenlistment money could have been yours.”
He put the SUV in gear, slammed what was left of his coffee, and in a long, practiced motion that had obviously become second nature packed a can of Copenhagen that appeared out of nowhere with his right index finger before pinching a huge dip into his lower lip.
“How’s quitting treating you?” Reece asked mischievously.
“Nobody likes a quitter, buddy.” Ben smiled back, maneuvering the vehicle out of the parking lot and toward the gate.
“So I’m guessing you didn’t tell Lauren you were coming home because you figured the plane would never get here on time?”
“Yeah man, you know how those C-5s are, always breaking down, usually in Hawaii when the aircrew decides they need to spend four days in paradise waiting for a part to show up. Always cool to surprise her and Lucy, anyway.”
“I went by the house to check on them when I heard about the op. I knew from Boozer you weren’t hurt bad and I wanted to make sure they didn’t get bad info.”
“Appreciate it, brother.”
The inside of the SUV was dead quiet as they rolled through the gate of the air station. Clearly the small talk was over.
“I know what you’re thinking, man,” Reece said angrily without looking over. “My troop got wiped out, what in the fuck happened out there? It was a shit op from the beginning; none of us wanted to go in the first place. It’s my fault. I should have pushed back . . . I should have refused. Instead I said ‘aye-aye, sir!’ like some dumb-ass ensign and got all my guys killed.”
“I’m sure you did what you could, Reece. Everyone in the community has heard it was a shit op. What the fuck were they thinking, anyway? When was the last time they pushed a target down to you instead of you guys coming up with your own?”
“That’s what was crazy, Ben! You know it’s never like that. If anything, they’re telling you what targets you can’t hit, not which ones you have to. Now they’re gonna fry my ass for their bad intel, and I deserve it for letting my guys go out.”
“You don’t deserve shit, Reece. You’re as solid as it gets, and everybody knows that.”
“Yeah? I hope you told that to all of my guys’ wives and kids at their funerals. Sorry, man, not trying to put this on you. What are you doing on the west coast anyway?”
“Looking for talent, man. Workload is crazy these days with the conventional stuff winding down. We’re constantly needing new guys. You ready to come work with me yet?”
“I’m sure as hell gonna need a job but I think I’ve had enough of this shit. When they throw me out of the Navy, I’ll open a sandwich shop or something.”
“You’d have to touch mayo,” Ben said, shaking his head. “That would never work.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll have to think of something else then.” Reece’s hatred of condiments was well known throughout the Naval Special Warfare community.
As they passed the Hotel Del Coronado and turned right toward the Silver Strand, they passed Miguel’s Cocina, where they’d eaten with their wives dozens of times over the years. Well, with Reece’s wife and each of Ben’s three former brides.
“Too early for a margarita?” Ben joked.
“Never too early for a margarita. Just don’t take me to Rick’s. Don’t think I could show my face in there right now,” said Reece, referring to a hole-in-the-wall SEAL hangout bar in downtown Coronado. Operators would return from deployments and toast their fallen comrades in blackout sessions that often turned ugly. Rick’s was a safe haven where they could blow off some steam without ending their careers, and there was always a steady supply of willing women looking to be a SEAL wife for the night.
“Ah yes, Rick’s Palm Bar and Grill, home of the world-famous ‘Slamburger.’ I think I met wife number two in there?”
“Ha! I think you did,” Reece said, remembering happier times.
“I’m actually banging this little spinner of a bartender in there now.”
“Yeah? How old is he?” Reece asked, grinning.
“Fuck you. Heather, I think her name is. A bit of a Frog Hog but she does this amazing thing with her tongue. . . .”
“Okay, okay. Stop,” said Reece, holding up his hands in mock defeat. “I don’t want to know.”
They passed through the gate to the Amphibious Base after showing their IDs and steered around a group of exhausted and soaking-wet BUD/S candidates running down the road with an inflatable boat balanced on their heads. “Shit, must be Hell Week. Poor bastards,” Ben commented without a touch of sympathy for the aspiring frogmen.
“I’d trade a hundred Hell Weeks for the week I’ve had,” Reece said, mostly to himself.
Ben spotted Reece’s white 1988 FJ62 Toyota Land Cruiser in the parking lot of the Team building and pulled into the empty spot behind it. Both men were quiet as they transferred Reece’s gear into the truck. When they were finished, the two friends faced one another and Ben Edwards extended his arm for a handshake.
“Call me if that piece of shit doesn’t start.”
“Thanks for the ride, man.”
Reece needed to check in at the Team before heading home to surprise his wife and daughter. He walked across the parking lot and up the sidewalk of what looked more like a small offic
e building than a den of amphibious commandos. He wondered how the guys would look at him as he took a deep breath and opened the door to what had always been a safe haven. He’d barely made it through the entrance when a chief from one of the other platoons went running by him with panic on his face. He knew immediately that something was wrong.
“What’s going on, Chief?” Reece pled. The forty-something chief spun around and faced Reece as he slowed his pace to a backward jog.
“Cops are at Boozer’s, you need to get your ass over there,” was all he said before turning and running out the front door of the building. Reece sprinted after him and covered the distance to his Cruiser in seconds.
CHAPTER 9
San Diego, California
BOOZER WAS A BACHELOR and lived in a cookie-cutter apartment complex just off Interstate 5 near UCSD. It was the kind of place you’d find in every suburban city in the country, except the rent was probably double or triple what you’d pay in Middle America. Identical clusters of buildings and parking lots where young professionals and grad students lived among one another in anonymity, their lives separated by metal studs and cheap Chinese drywall. There was no traffic this late in the morning, and Reece drove like a man possessed. Boozer was a stud who could certainly handle himself, but Reece had a gnawing feeling that this was not going to end well.
Reece had been to Boozer’s place only once before and he couldn’t remember which building was his in the maze of two-story garden-style apartments. He took a guess and turned right as he passed the leasing office and blew by the first turn when he caught a cluster of emergency vehicles to his left. He slammed on the brakes and threw the truck into reverse before cutting the wheel hard and stomping on the accelerator. When he reached the police cars, he quickly pulled into an empty space, slammed the shift lever into park, and raced toward the apartment. He ignored the police officer commanding him to stop and bounded up the stairwell. Brushing past an EMT, he tried to make it through the open front door of Boozer’s apartment but was grabbed by two burly cops in uniform.
“He’s one of my guys! I need to get in there!” Reece begged as he struggled against the two men who had pinned him to the doorjamb.
“You don’t want to see this, sir!” the older of the two officers said as they loosened their grip.
Reece broke free and stumbled into the living room of the apartment as the too-familiar smell of blood and death filled his nostrils. Two detectives in civilian clothes with handguns on their hips were standing in front of a light brown futon couch, one of them holding a large DSLR camera with a flash sticking upward. They turned toward the commotion, and when they did, Reece could see Boozer’s lifeless body sitting in boxers and a white T-shirt, his legs extended toward the two detectives. His usually pasty-white legs were deep purple in color and his face wore a mask of shock. A gaping exit wound was visible just above his left ear and a massive amount of blood, brain, and skull were splattered across the couch and onto the lampshade sitting on the end table. A SIG Sauer P226 was lying in an awkward position on his lap, the hammer cocked and ready to fire. Reece stood in shock, unable to move or speak. The two uniformed officers who had restrained him took him gently by the shoulders and steered him with care through the door of the apartment and into the hallway. Both had served combat tours in Iraq as reservists and knew the familiar look of a grief-stricken comrade. Reece sat down on the steps and put his head in his hands. What in the hell was going on? How could so many bad things happen at once? Various officers and NCOs from Team Seven had arrived at the scene and the chief that Reece had seen in the hallway guided him toward the parking lot, making him sit on the tailgate of an ambulance.
Reece’s boss, the commander of SEAL Team Seven, appeared minutes later along with his command master chief, the senior enlisted SEAL in the command. Commander Cox was a good leader, a fair guy, and a legit warrior. He’d obviously had other plans for today, as he and the master chief were both in their full dress uniforms, something you didn’t see often in the Teams. He had probably been dealing with family members of the men killed downrange. The two men quietly conferred with the other officers and NCOs on the scene as well as the detective in charge of the investigation. One of the enlisted SEALs pointed toward Reece, the commander turning to walk toward his grieving subordinate. Still seated with his head in his hands, Reece did not see his boss approach until he was a few feet away. He started to rise to greet him but Cox pushed him downward with a firm but kind hand on the shoulder.
“Rough week, Reece, I know. I’m sorry about your Troop and I’m sorry about Boozer. There will be plenty of time later to point fingers, but for now I need to worry about you. I can’t stand by while another life is wasted like Boozer’s. Dan is taking you to Balboa. I want you cleared by the docs before you take another step. Does Lauren know that you’re back?”
“No, sir. I was going to drive home after I checked in at the Team. Then I came straight here.”
“Get cleared at Balboa and then head home. Take the rest of the week off, and on Monday we need to sit down and talk about the op.”
CHAPTER 10
BY THE TIME THE DOCS at Balboa Naval Medical Center had cleared Reece to go home, it was after 6:00 p.m. Dan Harvey, a lieutenant from the operations shop, had driven him to Balboa and babysat him all day as the doctors did their thing. He drove Reece back to the Team to get his truck and was kind enough not to say a word during the trip. After telling the shrinks what they needed to hear to be sure he wasn’t going to eat a bullet or chase a handful of pills with a bottle of Jameson, the last thing Reece needed was some well-meaning new guy trying to cheer him up. His wife and daughter would be somewhere in the dinner-bath-book bedtime ritual, and he’d arrive just in time to see his little princess before she went to bed.
Reece thought he knew what love was when he met his beautiful wife, Lauren, but he’d never known complete, unconditional love until his daughter, Lucy, was born. She was her mother’s spitting image, with enormous blue eyes and blond curls. Reece had killed insurgents on multiple continents, gone through the most rigorous military training in the world, and had stood his ground in confrontations with both admirals and master chief petty officers, but he was helpless in resisting the will of his three-year-old baby girl. When she said “sit,” he sat. When she yelled “Daddy!” he dropped everything and bowed to her wishes. She had him wrapped around her tiny little finger, and they both loved every minute of it. After six long months, he was going to see her face in person in the next few minutes. He couldn’t wait to scoop her up in his arms and hug her for as long as she would put up with it.
He thanked Dan for the ride and hopped into his Cruiser that one of the chiefs had driven back to the team, leaving the door unlocked and the key in the visor. It wasn’t like anyone was going to steal his truck from the Team Seven parking lot. The chief obviously didn’t know the weapons case was in the back. With all the turmoil of the day, Reece had never gotten a chance to turn it into the arms room. He was always wary about driving around with a box of weapons from work in his personal truck, given California’s crazy gun laws, but under the circumstances he decided to risk it. He would bring the weapon’s case home and run by the Team to turn it in late tomorrow morning after he caught up on some desperately needed sleep.
It was a ten-minute drive from Team Seven to the small house that his family had rented on the island for the past three years. He couldn’t wait to get home. Homecomings from a war zone are difficult to describe to those who have not experienced them firsthand. They are exceedingly powerful experiences, made all the more remarkable when children are part of the picture. Emotional floodgates that have been held at bay month after month are finally opened, allowing those feelings of love and devotion to pour through all at once. Homecomings made the deployments almost worth it, almost. Those pent-up feelings, forced to take a six-month back seat to the mission of defending the nation, were now free to be expressed. For the Reece family, this one would be even
more special; this would be their last. Reece had reached a rank where he would be precluded from leading men into combat, which is what he had joined the SEAL Teams to do in the first place. That it coincided with Lucy getting to an age where she needed him around made it a natural transition point for a man who had spent his entire adult life at war. It was time for a change and he knew it. It was time to focus on his family.
Reece thought back to his last homecoming, when Lauren had kept Lucy up way past her bedtime in anticipation of Reece’s return, but not telling her why, just in case there was a delay, as happened so often with military transportation. The strains that such delayed returns placed on families could be significant; most guys would not tell their families exactly when they were coming home, lest they disappoint them with the inevitable delay. Delays of a day seemed like a week while a delay of a week felt like a month.
Reece remembered an entire Army brigade that was at the airport in Baghdad, ready to go home after a year in country, only to be turned around to fight for another four months. Some were even already safely back in the States and had to return to the quagmire that was Iraq. The sting of the deaths during those extended months must have been exceptionally hard to bear. Reece tried not to think of how the families of servicemen killed in action felt about the present-day struggle in the cradle of civilization.
On that last return, Reece had a taxi let him off at the end of the block so as not to ruin the surprise for Lucy, doing his best not to sprint down the sidewalk to his house. He had texted Lauren that he was almost home as he crept up past the front gate in the darkness. Before knocking he peered through the stained-glass section of the door to see Lucy curled up with Lauren on the couch watching what was inevitably a Disney movie. He had paused and let his eyes mist over with emotion, looking through the colored glass at the two people he loved more than anything else in this world: his family.