“So, obviously, this is the decision we’re most interested in, Mr. Kemper. At this point you pursued the HVT and two others through the streets of Ramadi, doubtless surrounded by enemy fighters, by your fucking self.”
“Yes, sir,” Kemper said. He no longer seemed nervous, or even resigned, but confident. A fire burned in those dark eyes. “We had received casualties, but I’d arranged for their security and exfil. Taking a swim buddy with me seemed like it would only further jeopardize my teammates and add little to my situation. It was my hope to line up a shot as I turned the corner—where I would not even be out of a sightline from the rear element of my team. The fact that the targets had disappeared already suggested to me that they could not have gone far. With Variable in my ear—and you, as well, sir—I elected to attempt to complete the mission if the target was still within the block.”
“By yourself?”
“I collapsed the second line of security from the 3/8 into my position for fire support and exfil, sir.”
“You didn’t make that call until you had already decided to breach the room, where you confronted seven heavily armed fighters by yourself.”
“Until I had information on my situation, it didn’t seem prudent to pull the 3/8 Marines through insurgent-rich streets—putting them in harm’s way—until I knew I would need them.”
Jarvis let the long pause hang in the air, giving the impression he was carefully considering the information he’d received.
He didn’t need to consider it, actually. He knew what he would do.
“After which you single-handedly killed six of the seven insurgents, sustaining a significant injury in the process, and the HVT escaped.”
“Regrettably, sir.”
Jarvis sighed this time. “If you were confronted with the same situation again, Petty Officer Kemper, would you make the same decision?”
Kemper seemed to struggle a moment, but then looked up and held Jarvis’s eyes.
“Without the benefit of hindsight—yes, sir,” he said.
The SEAL’s voice had changed. Clearly Kemper felt confident, but there was something else—a fire that did remind Jarvis of himself. Of the young SEAL he’d once been—but perhaps also of the mission-focused man he’d become.
“I saw an opportunity to complete the mission against a high-value target—a target we’d briefed was crucial to not only turning the tide in the upcoming offensive in Ramadi, but also in what will likely be the next big phase of the war here, out west near Al Qa’im and the Syrian border—and decided that outweighed the risk. My team was secure and the CASEVAC and exfil were underway, and this seemed the best move.” He paused. “Next time, I would probably task one shooter to go with me as swim buddy, but at the time, it seemed the rear element needed to be together, and I judged it would take too long to pull Perry or Sandman from the front. I might change that decision, faced with the same scenario again.”
Jarvis paced, careful to keep his face a mask as he thought about what Kemper had said. This SEAL was not the door-kicking, black-and-white, mission-focused Team guy he imagined himself to be. He had weighed long-term strategic priorities in his decision, seemingly without being aware he had done so.
This is a SEAL the Tier One needs now and that my next task force will need someday.
But first, he needed to be reined in.
Kemper seemed to sense the hesitation, and jumped on it.
“Sir, they want to send me to Germany. I need to stay with the Team. I can rehab in garrison and be back in the fight when ready, but long before this deployment is over. Going home makes no sense, and will only add to the stress on my family that this assignment is already having.”
“There is talk of sending you farther away than just home, Jack,” Jarvis said, but kept some of the edge out of his voice now. He paced to the foot of the bed and stared at the wounded SEAL with hard eyes. “There’s no room for a fucking Rambo in real life—not in the Teams and especially not in this, the premier JSOC unit. We can make a real impact only when groups of warriors work together, complementing one another’s strengths and weaknesses. We function best as a collective, and when one operator goes rogue, it not only lessens mission success, it puts lives in danger. Hell, it’s why we do the ridiculous log PT in BUD/S, to show, from the very beginning, that you accomplish nothing alone and succeed only as a team. Team before self, Mr. Kemper. Any of that sound familiar?”
“Yes, sir,” Kemper said, but his eyes suggested the SEAL didn’t think he had violated those principles—other than by kicking in the door himself. “I agree with that, sir, and my brothers are my life. But stopping this asshole here meant preventing another dangerous mission later. We were tasked with a mission—”
Jarvis held up a hand, cutting him off.
“Mr. Kemper, I’m inclined to give you a second chance to prove I’m not wrong about you. I’ll discuss this with Lieutenant Commander Mercer, but I intend to recommend this be a life lesson we let you prove you’ve learned from. But if you show me I’ve made a mistake, Jack”—he leaned in now, hands on the bed rail—“I will fuck you beyond your ability to imagine. Are we clear?”
“Clear, sir,” Kemper said, relief in his eyes. “About going home, though, sir, I—”
Jarvis let out a barking laugh. “You can’t seriously think you’re in a position to make demands.”
“No, sir,” Kemper said, looking at his hands—one just fingers sticking out of a bulky dressing. “But if I don’t reengage with this team until they return from this deployment—”
“Enough,” Jarvis said, cutting him off again. “Here’s what we’ll do. You stop being an asshole to the medical staff here. You go to Germany and begin PT there. If they clear you for self-driven PT in a few weeks, then you’ll return to the squadron here in Al Asad and work the TOC until the JSOC surgeons clear you for duty. In that time, you will commit to seeing the big picture of these operations, and then take that perspective with you into the field. You’ll work with the N2 and JSOC J2 to see the big picture in the intelligence analysis during the day, and help run the TOC at night. Questions?”
“None, sir,” Kemper said, the fire back. “And thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Jack,” Jarvis said and laughed. “Mercer is still going to want a piece of your ass.”
“He can have it, sir,” Kemper responded immediately. “That young medic out there will confirm I have plenty of ass to go around.”
“All right, then,” Jarvis said. “I’ll have Thiel pull together a bag for your trip to Germany.” He stuck out his right hand and the SEAL shook it firmly. “I have a long memory, Jack. One day, you’ll owe me for this.”
“You won’t regret it, sir,” Kemper predicted. “And I’ll follow you anywhere you ask me to go, sir. Anywhere, anytime.”
Jarvis spun on a heel, keeping his smile to himself.
He intended to collect on that one day.
But for now, he had to figure out a way to sell this to Mercer—and somehow let the superb SEAL officer believe it was his idea.
Chapter 8
Al Asad Airbase
Anbar Province, Iraq
Five weeks later
As he felt the C-130 turn to taxi, Kemper rhythmically squeezed a rubber ball in his left hand. Each squeeze brought pain, tearing from below at the angry red wound that wrapped his forearm. But the pain was background noise, a futile protest of the flesh against the iron will pounding with his heartbeat. The muscles inside his forearm—where absorbable sutures still held the tissues together—could scream all they wanted. He was a SEAL, damn it, and his body was a servant to his mind. He transformed the pain into heavy metal music in his mind and PT’d to the rhythm.
Squeeze . . . squeeze . . . squeeze . . .
Leaning forward, he looked out the round window into the darkness and toward the red lights on the south side of the runway. As he squeezed, he let the fingertips of his right hand probe the thick red scar where the jihadist’s dagger had
cut him to the bone. In time, the angry serpentine scar would soften . . . bleach pearly white from sea and sun and time. But for now, it called for attention—advertising loudly to all the world his mistake in Ramadi.
“Know where you’re going?” someone asked from behind him, and he turned to see an Air Force loadmaster beside him, a long cord stretching from his helmet to the bulkhead farther forward. “You’re not with those guys, right?” he asked, gesturing with his head to the group of two dozen clean-cut military members in Marine digital cammies marked with Navy insignia.
“No,” Kemper replied, smiling. “Not with them.”
The crewman nodded, looking him up and down, taking in the thick beard, the backwards ball cap, and the unmarked clothes.
“Didn’t think so,” he said and smiled back. “Got someone meeting you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “All squared away. Thanks for the lift.”
The Air Force man nodded and headed aft to talk to the other passengers—Navy support personnel for the Marines here, Kemper guessed, turning back to the window. Outside, he spotted a white Toyota Hilux near the fence line, Thiel sitting on the hood.
He’d kept in the loop on the SIPRNET the last few weeks, so he knew taking out Zarqawi would no longer be his honor. Nor had it been tasking for his brothers in the Tier One. The terrorist had bought it from a precision bomb just a couple of days after their op, dropped on his head after tireless work from OGA and military intelligence professionals squeezing their assets in Ramadi. That had done nothing to curb the violence, however. Power abhors a vacuum, and the death of Zarqawi had come before the 3/8 Marines gained control of the city center and set up combat outposts throughout the city. If anything, the sectarian violence had surged after the assassination, and the new, fractured leaders of the insurgency in Ramadi were killing more people than ever.
Kemper squeezed the ball harder and harder, remembering Alan from SEAL Team Three telling him about the insurgents executing children—their bodies hung from walls as warnings to other who might help the Americans—and he gritted his teeth. He needed to get back in the saddle as soon as possible, because the sporadic attacks on Americans in outposts in Ramadi were only increasing and becoming deadlier. Whatever jihadis were leading the violence in Ramadi needed to meet with some frogman justice.
He intended to be part of that justice as soon as possible.
Squeeze . . . squeeze . . . squeeze . . .
A loud pop made the sailors clad in Marine cammies jump in unison, like one single organism, and stare at Kemper.
“Sorry,” he called out, holding the remnants of the rubber ball up as an explanation.
If my arm’s good enough to pop a fucking rubber ball, I should be good to get back in the fight.
He gathered up his gear—just an oversized backpack, since all his other gear and weapons were still on the JSOC compound—and headed to the rear of the plane, smiling sheepishly at the sailors, who regarded him with curious fascination. Several months into his deployment beard, Kemper imagined himself looking quite the sight. The cargo plane lurched to a halt, but the sailors remained, seat belts in place, perhaps expecting a flight attendant to announce they had arrived at the gate.
Kemper chuckled to himself as the rear ramp began to lower. He waited next to the helmeted crewman standing at the break, controlling the ramp’s descent. As the ramp approached the ground, Kemper stepped onto the still-descending platform and nodded to the Air Force loadmaster.
“Thanks again, bro,” he said.
“Happy hunting, dude,” the man said, shooting a thumbs-up.
He’d hauled enough people, this guy, that he knew when he saw a warrior, Kemper supposed. You could keep your uniform slick, but an operator looked like an operator, however you dressed him up.
Thiel slid off the hood of the pickup and wrapped him in a bear hug as he approached the Hilux. “How’s the arm, bro?”
“Five by, brother,” Kemper replied, the circle of fire from his rumination still bright around him. “You guys gettin’ some?”
Thiel grinned. “Yeah, bro,” he said and slipped into the driver’s seat as Kemper tossed his backpack into the bed of the truck. “And then some. We have a nice stream of intel working, and we’re kicking some serious ass. We’ve operated twenty-eight of the last thirty days, killed I don’t know how many shitheads, and have pulled fourteen intelligence-rich HVTs off X’s all over western Iraq.”
“Are we evening the score in Ramadi?” Kemper asked, slipping into the passenger seat.
Thiel looked at him as he started the truck by flipping an ignition switch instead of using a key. His face seemed genuinely confused, but Kemper got it immediately. After he’d left, they’d continued to prosecute targets over and over, while all he’d had to process in his mind, night after night, was his failure in Ramadi.
“Nah, bro,” Thiel said. “Nothing of strategic value in Ramadi right now. We pulled one of Zarqawi’s lieutenants out of a shithole goat farm west of the glass factory a few weeks ago, but that’s the last time we’ve been there. Team Three is doing some righteous shit out there, but it’s not JSOC Tier targets for now.”
Kemper nodded and said nothing, unsure why a funk hung over him at this news. They were the Tier One, the instrument of justice and strategic badassery for JSOC. Ramadi was a white-side war now.
He looked out the window as they drove around the south edge of the flight line, lights out, following the red lights beside the perimeter road toward their little chain-link-fence-secured compound. The sun teased the horizon with a splash of light, the sky responded with a purple-toned pout, and Kemper looked at his watch. He could use a few minutes before facing the rest of the gang inside the compound.
“Grab some breakfast before we head back?” he asked. “That little Pakistani dude will be firing up the made-to-order omelet station about now,” he added, knowing from a prior deployment that those omelets were Thiel’s weak spot.
And sure enough, his teammate grimaced and then smiled in anticipation. “We’ll grab the guys, then head down,” he said.
Kemper nodded, but would have preferred this first meal to be just the two of them. He had no idea what the rest of the team thought about his actions in Ramadi that night a month ago, but it would have been nice to get a temperature reading from Thiel before finding out the hard way.
“Cool,” he said.
“First,” Thiel said, his expression suggesting he hoped to get information from Kemper rather than convey it, “the CSO is back in country and wants to meet you privately for some reason. What’s that about, Jack?”
Kemper shrugged, but felt his pulse tick up at the news. Jarvis had said Kemper owed him, but it seemed a little early to collect. Maybe the boss simply wanted to check on his investment.
“No idea,” he said. “He had my back, I can tell you that, but I’ve not had any contact with him while in Germany. Shit, you and Perry are the only ones that checked in regularly. I got a few obscene messages from Romeo and Sandman, but that’s it. I got no idea what the boss man wants. I didn’t even know Jarvis was back playing in the sandbox.”
Thiel nodded. “No one did—hell, no one does. He asked me to drop you here at the gate, then wait for you while he takes you somewhere. He’s acting all spooky and shit. Guess I thought you might read me in.”
“I would if I knew anything, bro,” Kemper said, his curiosity now more than piqued. “But I got no idea.”
They took the short access road, then bore left, following the road that led to the JSOC compound and little else. Outside and left of the two gates, another Hilux sat idling with the lights out, as light discipline demanded on the base even now—five years into the war.
“See you when you get back, Jack,” Thiel said, putting the Hilux in park. “Maybe you can tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Maybe,” Kemper said with a smile, getting out of the truck, then closing the door and leaning in through the open passenger side window. “See you i
n a minute?”
“He said he needed less that twenty,” Thiel replied.
Kemper left his backpack in the rear of Thiel’s Hilux, opened the passenger side door to the other truck, and slid in.
“Hey, Jack,” Jarvis said. He was dressed in 5.11 Tactical cargo pants and a plaid, short-sleeved Oakley shirt. The CSO grinned at him as he put the truck in drive and pulled away, passing by the compound and heading east along the dark perimeter road. “Sorry to be so mysterious, son, but I thought there was someone you might like to meet. Not everyone in the unit is read in on this—in fact, I can count them on one hand. I figured I’d grab you before you check in. Hope you don’t mind.”
Kemper shook his head, completely confused.
Not everyone is read in? Then why grab me? I’m just an E-6 squad leader . . .
Kemper felt suddenly very uncomfortable. He had no idea what to say to the legendary SEAL driving him around the dark flight line, so he said nothing.
Just before the easternmost approach end of the main runway, Jarvis pulled the truck off the pavement and onto a dirt road. After about two hundred yards, the road descended below a berm, and Kemper spied a small cabin-style building beside a fuel depot he’d never noticed before. Jarvis pulled up to a gate where a man, fully kitted up in black gear over blue jeans and a grey T-shirt, stepped up to the driver’s side window.
“Oh hey, Captain Jarvis. They said you were coming. Head right in.”
The man pulled a heavy gate aside, then closed it behind them as Jarvis drove the truck into a small lot with three other identical Hilux pickups. He parked the truck and turned to smile at Kemper.
“You ready for this, Jack?”
“For what, exactly, sir?” Kemper asked.
Jarvis turned further in his seat, the sinewy muscles in his forearms rippling in the moonlight as he gripped the steering wheel.
“The thing about our world, Jack, is that every time you think you’ve made it, that you’re at the highest security level, the most read-in on the badass assignments in our super-secret-squirrel-shit community, you eventually come to realize that there is always another level above you. You know what I mean?”
Scars Page 5