“How could the two have such different cultures?”
“Why are any cultures different? Some of it was the training and advancement structure. Unit operators almost always started out as regular, conventional infantry, with all the discipline that entails – then moved up through either the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment, or the Special Forces teams. Sometimes both. Those guys put in years, often a decade or more, before being invited to try out for Delta. But team guys… well, a lot of sailors went directly from boot camp to BUD/S. And DEVGRU, all of Naval Special Warfare, is by design pretty isolated from the rest of the Navy. A lot of these guys, all they’ve ever known is being elite warriors. Killers. Cowboys. I don’t think it’s good for your head.”
“The wild west needs cowboys. Maybe we’re all responsible.”
Homer shrugged. “Maybe. And maybe operating in the shadows has risks – not just to your body, but to your soul. All those instant life-or-death decisions in dark rooms with few witness and no drone coverage, killing enemies as they slept with our silenced, customized MP7s – which got defended as being no different than dropping a bomb on an enemy barracks. Well, it is different – that much killing, up close, brings out the worst in people. Seeing so many of your brothers fall doesn’t help – more DEVGRU guys died in the wars after 9/11 than in all our previous history. Arguably, it started when a-Q tried to behead Neil Roberts on Takur Ghar.”
“He was a friend of yours?”
“He was a DEVGRU guy – and the first SEAL to fall after 9/11. It was a wake-up call for a lot of us: This is real. The attempted beheading was bad. I remember someone saying, ‘Hey, you wanna play by those rules? Okay, fine.’ Trying to out-brutalize Tier-1 guys was a bad idea – for everyone. Us especially.”
The wind noise ruled for a few beats, before Homer finished.
“But, in many ways, I guess it ended as it began. Demo Dick, the original rogue warrior, would have approved. Maybe it was always in our DNA. A pirate outfit from the start.”
And then the road noise ruled again.
* * *
“Welcome to Virginia,” was the next thing either of them said.
“Welcome to Virginia,” Homer echoed.
She stole a look across at him. This was it – most of their journey behind them now. They were actually in the state they were going to, though with a fair bit left to traverse, to get down to the southwest corner. But their final fueling stop had also been accomplished without mishap, or even evident danger – and their next stop would, Sarah guessed, be their terminal one.
Dam Neck.
She said, “Let me ask you this – with all that going on, why did you stay? For that matter, why’d you join in the first place?”
Homer smiled. “Kili used to ask me that sometimes.”
“Wait, who’s Kili? Wasn’t he a dwarf?”
Homer smiled. “You know your Tolkien. Yes, Kili was one of the dwarves. Also their archer. That’s how our Kili got his nickname – bearded, a little vertically challenged, and a sniper of incredible natural talent. But, most importantly, he was my brother. My best friend in Red Squadron. Or anywhere in the teams, for that matter.”
Sarah smiled in turn. “So he was the one you confessed to. Your doubts. Your misgivings about the team.”
“Yes. And, more than once, he suggested me trying out for Six might not have been the smartest thing I ever did. He may have had a point. I realize now, maybe when it’s too late, that there’s more to this life than work. More even than service.”
“Is it too late?”
“I don’t know. It feels very late in the day. For everything. And, honestly, I’ve just been working non-stop these last two years. It’s left less time to think.”
Sarah nodded, letting the wind whistle.
When Homer spoke again, he said, “Honestly, I always had trouble finding the balance. A lot of team guys never could. It’s hard to do this work in a way that’s not all-consuming. To balance it with any kind of a normal life.”
Sarah said, “Let me ask you this. Were you working nonstop because of the importance of your missions? Because you had no choice? Or were you dodging life because it’s too hard?”
Homer laughed sadly. “I don’t know. I hope not. Maybe it’s a challenge for anyone trying to do anything at a very high level. Everything, and everyone, becomes a distraction.”
Sarah shrugged. “Those distractions are life.”
Homer had no answer to this.
* * *
“So why did you keep doing it, then?”
“What? Stay in the military?”
“No. Take it all the way to the limit. Join DEVGRU. Was it because it was expected?”
“No,” Homer said. “Not really. Most of the guys who make it to Green Team do it because that’s just who they are – super-high over-achievers. Relentlessly competitive. They want to be the best of the best, prove themselves over and over again, at the highest levels. Then higher still. Almost nobody gets to be a SEAL who isn’t like that.”
“But you’re not.”
“Some part of me is. A small one, I hope. And one I try to keep under control.”
“Why try out for the top-tier unit, then?”
Homer sighed. “I guess I thought I could do more, be of service at a higher level. Do more good. Help more people. Also, the retention bonuses are pretty outrageous.”
“What? Didn’t see that one coming.”
Homer smiled. “I had a family. I had to provide for them – including if one day I didn’t come back.”
That last phrase had more resonance, Sarah figured, than he intended. “But you are now. Coming back. And you did stay.”
“Yes and no. Why do you think I took that last assignment?”
“I presume because you had to. What was the assignment?”
“A mission in North Korea. Very high-risk. But it took me out of the country, and away from Dam Neck, for at least six months. That’s why I was in the UK at the time of the Fall. That’s where Alpha team was training and staging. Anyway, the reason I took it was because I felt I needed to get out of there, at least for a while. I’d seen too much. And the tension was getting to me.”
“What tension?”
“Between doing the right thing, on the one hand…”
“And on the other?”
Homer hesitated before answering. “Betraying my brothers.”
“Sounds like an impossible choice.”
“I thought sometimes about transferring back to a white SEAL team. But that’s a hard move to make, to pull the trigger on. Also, I was getting close to my twenty. I figured I could serve out the rest of it away on detachment, and then muster out. Ultimately, I guess I left it in God’s hands.”
Sarah sighed. “What are we going to find there, Homer?”
“You mean at Dam Neck?” He also took a breath. “With no chain of command anymore, with the NCA totally gone…”
“NCA?”
“National Command Authority. In our case, it went from the DEVGRU commander, to the JSOC commander… to the President.”
“No one in between?”
“No one that mattered. No one who could say no to us. Anyway, however hamstrung the oversight used to be, at least there used to be some. There was a structure – including a moral one. Now, with them operating on their own, with nothing but chaos around them, a void of order… Ultimately, it’s anyone’s guess.”
He took a breath and exhaled it, perking up.
“But, whatever’s gone wrong with the culture, however many men, or even whole squadrons, might have strayed off the reservation, I still believe in team guys. There were always good people there. The best. And there still will be. I know it.”
Sarah tried to smile. But she also remembered his comment from the night before, back in the barn:
My faith is all I’ve got.
The Circle
“My watch,” Homer said.
Sarah nodded, killed the lights, and rolled them t
o a stop in the center lane. The sun was below the horizon now, and full-on darkness descending. And while they’d agreed it wasn’t too dangerous to burn the headlights on the highway – still, with no other illumination, the danger was now obstructions, such as jack-knifed tractor-trailers, coming out of the darkness too quickly to react to.
They were risking another blowout, or worse, this way.
NVGs already down, Homer got out and circled around the front, while Sarah slid across the cab inside. He got back in, put it in gear, and rolled them out again.
They were now on their last stretch of highway, Interstate 64, straight down the middle of the Virginia Peninsula, heading toward the city of Hampton, at land’s end. Even now, they were coming into the outskirts of Newport News, and the numbers of abandoned vehicles and other debris on the highway were multiplying fast.
In fact, Homer had only been driving five minutes when he let off the gas and slowed them – almost but not quite to a stop.
“What?” Sarah asked. With no NVGs, not to mention with the headlights out, she couldn’t see a damned thing.
“Tractor-trailer,” Homer answered. “Two hundred meters out.”
“Jesus,” Sarah said. “Jack-knifed? I thought that was a totally made-up example.”
“No, not jack-knifed. It’s neatly parked across all four lanes, plus the emergency lane. From median to guard rail.”
“Don’t suppose we can move it?”
“The tires are flat. Probably deflated.”
“So, I don’t suppose it was left there by accident.”
“No,” Homer said. “What’s your read?”
“That someone doesn’t want us in Newport News.”
“Yep. But that’s good news.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because that means someone’s alive in Newport News.”
Homer rolled them through a tight U-turn and then back to the last exit, where he made a sharp left, back off the highway again. And straight into a dense residential area.
He knew that whoever had blocked the highway might have died a long time ago. But he also knew that, even if they hadn’t – and he could almost feel Sarah thinking this…
That just made them more dangerous.
* * *
As they rolled quietly through the blacked-out surface streets, looking more obviously post-Apocalyptic than the long stretches of relatively clear highway, Sarah whispered,
“Tell me we’re just looking for a way around.”
“That. But I’m also hoping to find a man on the ground.”
“What for?”
“Advance intel.”
Homer decided not to say on what, but from Sarah’s next comment, she already knew. “Yeah, I was actually meaning to ask about that. Since we can’t radio your old teammates, are we just going to rock up? Knock on the door?”
“Yeah. No,” Homer answered. “Unfortunately, if we do that, we risk getting lit up, probably at standoff distance.” He peered into the darkness, rolling them through a left-hand turn and onto a larger surface street that paralleled the highway, heading south into Newport News. The road was big enough that it didn’t have houses on it, but it was lined with developments on both sides, all of them densely packed with ranch houses and McMansions.
And all of which were likely to have people in them.
In one state or the other.
Homer figured he owed Sarah more of an explanation. “We’ve got no drone coverage or other aerial ISR. We can’t radio ahead. And there’s no good physical vantage on the Annex itself – which is by design, to keep the place private. They’ll always see us coming first. Which leaves—”
“Yeah,” Sarah said, sounding resigned. “Local knowledge.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve learned my lesson. We’ll be careful.”
“And not trust anyone – right?”
“We’ll see,” Homer said. “I know people in this part of the world. They were practically my neighbors.” He scanned the darkness. There was no movement, or other activity. “Anyway, I think the idea may be a bust. I’m not seeing any signs of life.”
“You wouldn’t, though,” Sarah said. “You don’t get to be a survivor, or not for long, by leaving signs lying around.” She sniffed at the air. “But someone around here is alive.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s wood smoke. Someone’s got a fire going.”
“Huh.” Homer rolled them to a stop, opened the door, and climbed up over the roof again, scanning the sky in every direction through his NVGs. Sure enough, there was a faint heat signature, an expanding funnel rising up into the sky, from their three o’clock, about four hundred meters out.
“You’re right,” he said, climbing back in, getting them rolling again, taking the next right.
“Great,” Sarah said. “I just love being right…”
* * *
“Yeah,” she whispered as Homer rolled them to a stop again. “Definitely living people in there.”
They were still 50 meters from the house with the heat signature, which was presumably smoke coming out of the chimney, invisible in the night. But the entire block had been enclosed in fencing, a base of ten-foot steel hoarding topped with razor wire and broken glass. They couldn’t see through, but the fact that it had stayed up all this time suggested it was buttressed or barricaded from behind.
Sarah snorted quietly with laughter. “Jesus.”
“What?”
“We’ve made it to season five. Alexandria.”
Homer actually got the reference. “Well, we are in Virginia.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Come on.”
“Goddammit. That’s exactly what you said last time…”
But Homer was already out of the truck, NVGs down, rifle at low ready, moving fast and smooth through the night.
Sarah had little choice but to follow.
When she caught him up again, he was kneeling in front of the fence, rifle slung behind him, manipulating something small and delicate with both hands. He’d found a gate. And he was now picking the lock.
Sarah swallowed a curse, not wanting to make noise – but before she could stop him, he had the lock sprung and the gate open, pushing through to the interior.
Once again, she had little choice but to tag along.
Behind the fence was an average suburban front yard, but gone to seed. The two of them followed a concrete path, stepping over heavy weed growth in the cracks, and up two wooden steps onto the front porch, which creaked.
There, Homer pushed his NVGs up on his head. He slung his rifle behind him, and put his hands in plain view. And he knocked on the door, three times, quiet but crisp.
Sarah shook her head. It was exactly the same as the first time she had laid eyes on him. It was how he’d made his appearance at her cabin in the woods. Aside from thinking this was a terrible idea, she did find it strangely reassuring.
At least people are true to their nature.
She was slightly surprised when the door cracked open, not in the least surprised when what was behind the crack was the muzzle of a gun, pointed at Homer’s mouth – and surprised again when the homeowner opened the door all the way…
And simply invited them in.
Then again, she thought, people will surprise you.
* * *
“I’m Roger. This is Jen.”
“Homer. This is Sarah.”
“Come on in. You’re both welcome.”
Homer nodded his thanks, and when he glanced across at Sarah, he could see her working to keep the amazement, never mind suspicion, off her face. He knew her more than well enough by now to know what was going on in that head of hers.
Once the front door was shut, plus triple-locked and barred, the man, Roger, switched on a small flashlight and directed them to the living room, to the right off the entryway. The woman, Jen, went around and turned up a couple of lamps, which had been burning at the lowest setting. They wer
e oil lamps, just like the ones Sarah had in her cabin.
“So. What can I get you folks?” Jen asked.
But before they could answer, Roger had raised his weapon again. Not all the way up. But up. Everyone froze. Sarah turned and gave Homer an I fucking told you so look. But he didn’t respond, or even look away. He just regarded Roger calmly.
“Carbine, huh?” he said. In the lamplight, he could see he was staring over the top of a Beretta CX4 Storm. “Unusual choice.”
“Red Squadron, huh?” Roger said. He nodded at Homer’s shoulder patch, also now visible in the light. If he thought that was a good thing, it wasn’t immediately obvious.
“Not for a long time,” Homer said. “I’ve been away on detachment, operating out of Britain.”
“Oh, really. For how long?”
“Since before the Fall. Six months before.”
Roger squinted at him in the low light. “And you haven’t been back since?”
“No.”
The man’s expression changed. His face said he’d decided to believe him. It was as simple as that. “Well… you’re a team guy.”
Homer nodded. Folks in this area knew the drill. All the East Coast SEAL teams, the even-numbered ones, were based in the area, around Little Creek, close together. And SEALs were a part of this community.
Roger not only lowered his weapon, but put it down entirely, propped up against the couch. Nodding at it, as they all took seats, he said, “Unusual, maybe. But also pragmatic. Takes the same nine-millimeter rounds as my Beretta pistol, and even the same magazines.”
“And nine-millimeter is widely available,” Homer said.
“Yep. Also, since it fires pistol rounds, it’s easy for me to handle. And it perforates a brainstem as good as anything.”
“Living or dead ones?” Sarah asked.
Roger smiled. “As long as the living stay off our lawn, they’re pretty safe from me plinking at them. Pretty safe.”
Everyone smiled at this – except Sarah. Homer could see how she sat stiff and upright on the couch, right hand resting two inches from the SIG on her belt. But if their two hosts noticed this, they didn’t seem alarmed by it.
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