CHAPTER 27
Special Activities Equipment Locker beneath the Ember Hangar
Newport News, Virginia
October 30, 1250 Local Time
Dempsey shrugged the massive duffel off his shoulder, and it hit the ground of his cage with a dull thud. God it felt heavy, much heavier than usual. He stood paralyzed, suddenly too exhausted to even contemplate cleaning his weapons and gear. He took a deep breath. And then another. His vitality was leeched, as if half the blood in his body had been drained out. There was a briefing scheduled in the TOC in thirty minutes, but the thought of rehashing the events of the past twenty-four hours in front of Jarvis was almost more than he could bear.
The flight back from Arizona had been miserable. He’d cleaned himself up, washing the blood of his murdered colleagues off himself, but he’d not slept. He knew sleep was a lost cause, so he hadn’t even tried. Instead, he’d sequestered himself at a workstation, searching the databases for clues and conferencing with Baldwin on what new data had been collected or insights gleaned. The answer had been none, nada, zilch. Despite immediately involving local and federal authorities in the search for the terrorists, the Arizona state police and FBI BOLOs hadn’t found a thing. Not one suspicious traffic stop, not one drifter picked up along the border roads, not one call from a hotline or a concerned citizen. Even the DEA and FBI guys—pissed off for not being invited to the party until after the fact—had found nothing of value while canvassing the Cemex facility on the Mexico side of the border. No physical evidence had been left behind in the warehouses or the tunnels by al-Mahajer’s men. The cartel guys on site were dead or low-level pukes who knew jack shit; everyone important was gone. Al-Mahajer and his band of crazies were in the wind, somewhere inside the homeland, and Ember didn’t have a clue about their plan.
And it was his fault.
For the millionth time, he watched Mendez get blown to pieces on the video screen inside his mind. Just like Romeo.
Just like fucking Romeo.
The SEAL inside him knelt and unzipped the black bag. John Dempsey could not bring himself to do anything at the moment, so he let the SEAL do what needed to be done. The SEAL pulled out the Sig Sauer 556 rifle and broke it down—releasing the magazine, clearing the chamber and locking it open, reloading the lone round into the magazine, and then pulling the pin to separate the upper and lower sections of the machine gun. The SEAL laid out all the components on his workbench and methodically cleaned and oiled them. The SEAL put everything back together and stowed the war machine back in the rack among its brothers for the next mission. The SEAL pulled the battery from his radio and dropped it in the charger, cleaned his lights and sights with a lint-free cloth, and finally cleared and cleaned the pistol from his drop holster. And when the ritual was finished, the SEAL returned to the bag for something else to inventory or clean, and finding the bag empty the SEAL left, leaving John Dempsey alone—head down, palms flat on the workbench, eyes rimmed with tears.
“You okay?” Grimes asked.
He didn’t answer.
“You haven’t moved in a few minutes,” she said from the passageway in front of her cage, two down from his. “I’ve heard SEALs have the ability sleep anywhere, but I didn’t know that meant standing up.”
After a long, awkward beat, she padded over. She didn’t try to touch him. She didn’t say anything. She just sat down on the concrete floor, cross-legged in the corner of his cage. When she didn’t go away, he turned and glared at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on something in her hands. He watched her rotate a small object over and over, robotically, with her fingers.
“What’s that?” he asked, his curiosity eventually getting the better of him.
The left corner of her mouth curled up into a pathetic smile, and she tossed it to him. He caught it midair and opened his palm to find a Lego miniature. The little figurine wore a black mask and cape and had a bat emblem on the chest.
“Batman?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.
“It’s my lucky charm.”
A poignant memory from his final mission as a Tier One SEAL washed over him. Given all that he and his brothers had been through, it seemed that this one memory was what his subconscious kept coming back to—Spaz and Pablo arguing on a helicopter INFIL about which superhero would make a better SEAL: Batman or Spider-Man? Ironic, that this memory defined who they had been—not superheroes themselves, just ordinary men with extraordinary ambition and the will to do an impossible job for their country. He smiled, a genuine, fraternal smile, and sat down on the floor next to her.
“Your brother had such a hard-on for freaking Batman,” he said.
“Yeah, he did.” She chuckled. “It started when he was five and he never grew out of it.”
“Believe me, I know. We could be in the middle of a firefight, and there was your brother going on and on about Batman.” He cleared his throat and then did his best Spaz impersonation. “Hey, Senior, help me settle an argument. Pablo thinks that Spider-Man would make the best Tier One operator. I told him only Batman is badass enough to make the Teams, much less our unit.” Dempsey started laughing. “God, he really was a Spaz.”
Her eyes lit up. “That was pretty good, Dempsey. You sounded just like him.” Then, her smile suddenly morphed into a grimace and she started to sob.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” she said, crying and laughing at the same time. “I just miss him, that’s all.”
He pressed the stupid little Lego Batman into her palm and wrapped his hand around her fist. “Me, too,” he said, choking on the words. “Me, too.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said, suddenly turning to look at him. “What happened to Mendez is not your fault. You know that, right?”
He met her gaze. “It absolutely is my fault. I led the team into the trap. I didn’t see that fucker hiding inside the cage.”
She shook her head. “Being ambushed is the implicit risk of every capture/kill op we run. And it wasn’t just you who missed the jihadi in the cage, nobody saw him.”
“But as the team leader, I’m accountable for the team’s safety. When no one else recognizes the trap, I’m the guy who is supposed to. If you don’t get that simple operational principle, you have no business being a member of Special Activities, Your Highness.”
She exhaled with exasperation. “I don’t like when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“When you say shit like that. When you call me Your Highness, and Lady Grimes.”
“Grimes is your name,” he retorted, lamely.
“No, it’s not. My name’s Kelsey Clarke.”
“Not anymore it isn’t.”
“That’s where you and I—and the rest of you NOC-using motherfuckers—disagree. Kelsey Clarke will always be my name. Elizabeth Grimes is just a character. She’s a myth; she’s a legend. The way I see it, I’m an actor playing a part in Kelso Jarvis’s grand film noir. But someday, the director is going to yell ‘cut,’ and when that day comes, Elizabeth Grimes is no more. When that day comes . . . I finally get to go back to being me.”
“Well, la-di-fucking-da for you,” he snarled and looked away. “Must be nice.”
They sat in silence for a moment before she said, “I’m sorry, John. That was selfish of me.”
“Forget it,” he said. “If I were you, I’d feel the same way. Hell, I’m no better—stalking Kate and Jacob on Facebook every chance I get.”
She scooted closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder. Neither one of them said anything for a long time. “Have you thought about starting over? You know, if you found the right girl, I mean?”
He shook his head. “Don’t want to. Kate’s the only woman I ever loved. The kind of love we had can’t be replaced.”
“I understand,” she said, hesitantly, “but nobody said you have to replace her. Love doesn’t have quotas you know.”
“Yeah,”
was all he said, but he made sure his tone put an end to where he guessed this conversation was headed.
She lifted her head off his shoulder and glanced at her watch. “We gotta scoot. Brief in two,” she said and got to her feet.
As she was on her way out of the cage, he grabbed her wrist. “Hey.”
“What?”
“If I can’t call you Your Highness or Lady Grimes anymore, what the hell am I supposed to call you?”
She smiled at him. “How about Liz, or Lizzie. Or you could call me Beth, maybe Bess . . . do I look like a Bess to you?”
“You’re not a Bess, that’s for sure,” he said, getting to his feet. He studied her face for a beat. “As far as pet names go . . . I’d say you look like a Lizzie to me.”
The genuine smile he got back told him he’d made the right choice. “Lizzie, it is,” she said, turned, and headed to her cage.
Two minutes later, he was slumped in a chair next to Smith in the TOC. At the end of the table to his left sat Chunk, his eyes wide as he scanned the slick high-tech room that was Ember’s nerve center. His fellow SEALs were tucked in at Dempsey’s house, with strict orders to contact no one. As far as the world was concerned, the small contingent from SEAL Team Four was forward deployed somewhere in support of OGA. Chunk had spent the last fifteen minutes with Quinton Thomas—Ember’s Head of Security—who had told him almost nothing, but instead had explained all the ways he would be fucked if he ever discussed the little bit he did see about their operation. The SEAL still believed that they were a covert team from the CIA, and that was for the best.
As Dempsey watched Chunk, the wonder disappeared and he went back to grinding his teeth. For the first time since they’d met, there wasn’t a smile on the LT’s face. He must have felt Dempsey’s gaze, because he turned and gave a solemn nod.
“You all right?” Smith whispered to Dempsey.
“Yes, Mom,” Dempsey snapped, with more venom than he had intended.
Smith narrowed his eyes.
“Sorry,” Dempsey said, looking away. “I’m good, boss.”
Smith let it slide.
Grimes dropped into the seat beside them. The seat beside her—Mendez’s spot—sat painfully empty. Dempsey noticed that Adamo had taken a seat on the far side of the table, away from him and the others. He sat with his arms across his chest, his eyes locked on the empty table in front of him. Something in his expression caught Dempsey’s eye—a melancholy he’d not seen before. Maybe Adamo was feeling—
“This won’t take long,” Jarvis said, entering the room from his office. The screens behind him were dark, not a good sign. He scanned the faces in the room, drummed his fingertips once on the podium, and said, “We all know what happened, no point in rehashing or reconstructing. We lost three good men, and we have a fourth in critical condition. I’m not here to assign blame, and even if I were, we don’t have time for that right now. Rafiq al-Mahajer is in the homeland. Right now, as we speak, he is plotting carnage. And I think we’re all painfully aware of how effective this terrorist is at dealing out death and destruction.”
Dempsey ground his teeth, making his jaw pop, garnering sideways glances from Smith and Grimes.
“I’m going to be straight up with you—we’re as blind as we’ve ever been,” Jarvis continued. “For the past three hours, I’ve been in constant contact with FBI’s Joint Counterterrorism Task Force and there’s no chatter. It’s pin-drop quiet on every media channel. I have NSA doing a signals dump, but that’s a long shot . . .”
“They’ve pulled rabbits out of hats for us before,” Smith said, almost hopeful.
“When they knew what they were looking for, but I don’t think al-Mahajer is plugged into the regular in-country circles they monitor. He recruited his own fighters outside the US, and he came in black. In my opinion, that was by design. Whatever network ISIS has in place here, he’s not touching it. He’s compartmentalized and he has OPSEC discipline. Don’t get me wrong, I have Ian and the boys looking at NSA data, but the same constraints apply. If he’s not talking, they won’t find him. We also have our friends in Mossad working on our behalf as well, but so far they have nothing to report.”
“Sounds like we’re fucked,” Dempsey grumbled.
Jarvis nodded solemnly. “Maybe, but failure is not an option. Never give up the fight.”
“Never give up the fight,” Dempsey conceded. It was the Tier One way.
“We will find something, and when we do, I need everyone at this table ready. That means I want you to rest and decompress. I know you all want to honor Mendez and the two other operators we lost, but remember, we are still in mission and sleep is a weapon.”
“What about us, sir?” Chunk asked. Dempsey could see the SEAL officer’s leg was bouncing up and down with fury.
“I can’t tell you what our timeline will be,” Jarvis said. “As soon as we get something actionable, we’ll mobilize. That could be hours, it could be days. I probably should release you guys back to your command, in case they have tasking for you.”
“I’d prefer not, sir,” Chunk said. “We’re just back from deployment and in training mode at present. Nothing short fuse in our near future. If it’s okay by you, we’d like to stay on here TAD and see this thing through.”
No surprise there. Chunk had lost one brother, and Gyro was in the hospital. For the young SEAL officer, getting al-Mahajer was personal now.
Jarvis nodded. “We can do that, Lieutenant.”
“They can bunk at my place,” Dempsey offered. “I have plenty of empty bedrooms.” That would help him maintain security on the SEALs as well. They were professionals, and Dempsey trusted them to a point, but Ember couldn’t have them in public or in contact with anyone until al-Mahajer was contained.
“Done,” Jarvis said. “We’re on a one-hour fuse, people, so clean your gear, repack your go-bags, and check your comms so that they’re ready to go. When we mobilize, it’ll be right fucking five minutes ago.”
Everyone nodded.
“Any questions?”
Dempsey was about to ask Jarvis if he would be joining them for Mendez’s memorial, but knew the answer, so he held his tongue.
Jarvis fixed his gaze on Adamo, and when the CIA man looked up, the Director of Ember curled his index finger twice, beckoning Adamo to follow him. Without a word, Adamo pushed back his chair from the table, stood, and followed Jarvis out of the TOC. Dempsey watched with equal parts irritation and curiosity as the two men disappeared into Jarvis’s office.
I wonder what that’s all about.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Smith standing beside him, looking down. “Where and when for the toast?”
“My house, say thirty minutes?”
“Roger that,” Smith said, and turned to Grimes. “Does that work for you?”
“Yep,” Grimes said.
“All right, see you then,” Smith said and turned to leave.
“Hey, Smith,” Dempsey called after him, getting to his feet. “You gonna be here for a few minutes? Despite my long-standing policy never to let assholes into my house,” Dempsey said with a grimace, “if you want to bring Adamo with you, I promise not to make him wait in the car.”
Smith flashed him a sardonic smile. “I’m glad to hear that, because I was planning on dragging his ass along no matter what you said. Like it or not, bro, after that op, Adamo is blooded. He is officially one of us.”
Dempsey scowled and as he turned to walk away said, “Simon Adamo will never be one of us.”
CHAPTER 28
Kelso Jarvis’s Office
Ember Headquarters
“Have a seat,” Jarvis said, gesturing to the chair opposite his desk.
Adamo hesitated. “If this is you firing me, I’ll save you the trouble and—”
“Sit down, Adamo,” Jarvis interrupted, exasperated. “I’m not firing you.”
Adamo dropped into the leather chair and folded his arms across his chest. The man looked abso
lutely haggard—unshaven face, heavy bags under bloodshot eyes, and a gray pallor that was not entirely due to the fluorescent lights. Hell, Adamo looked even worse than Dempsey, and that was saying something. Jarvis stared at the man a long moment before saying, “So, what went wrong out there?”
Adamo screwed up his face. “Your man Dempsey is outta control, that’s what went wrong. He rushed into both raids without a fully developed tactical picture and that’s a cold fact.”
“Ember is a lean organization and our Special Activities Division is a short-fuse entity. Could Dempsey have done more due diligence? Yes. Would we be any better off if he had? I’d argue no. In fact, we’d probably be worse off because al-Mahajer would have an even bigger head start than he does. Sometimes you have to act on incomplete information.”
The CIA man exhaled and met his gaze. “I understand that, but you asked me a straight question and I gave you a straight answer. I’m sure you were hoping the DNI was going to send you some guy who’d come in here and kiss everyone’s ass and yes-sir every decision, but that’s not me. I’m not here to make John Dempsey’s life easy . . . or yours for that matter.”
“I know that, which is why I personally requested you for the liaison position.”
Adamo sat forward in his chair. “What? That’s not how I understood it went down. The DNI assigned me to this post.”
Jarvis shook his head. “No. The DNI mandated that Ember have an agency liaison. Then, he gave me pick of the litter.”
“And you picked me?” Adamo asked with a laugh. “Why would you do that?”
“I’m not looking to build a task force of clones. I want a team where each member augments and stretches the other members’ capabilities. You bring unique skills and field experience to the group. Throughout your career, you’ve repeatedly demonstrated that you’re not willing to sacrifice your integrity for personal advancement. Last and most importantly, I picked you because of your work on the Iranian illegals program.”
Adamo shook his head. “That chapter in my life is closed. Permanently.”
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