by James Phelan
“They figured I wouldn’t be seeing today’s sunrise,” Walker said. “That’s why they spoke frankly.”
“And what happened, exactly, in that forest?”
“One guy tripped and fell. Then three of them met with Murphy.”
“Four?” Grant said, his eyebrows raised. “All dead?”
Walker shrugged.
“What’s that mean?” Grant asked.
“The guy who fell might be alive,” Walker said. “But I doubt it. Regardless, he won’t be moving from where he fell, so if he’s not yet dead, he will be soon.”
“Jesus.” Grant looked at the two of them. “You’re civilians now—you can’t go around killing people. I’m a Federal Agent, do you understand? Murphy, do you know that? What all this means?”
Murphy was silent.
“It is what it is,” Walker said. “The Murphys are leaving now, with Somerville and her team, who will take them to a safe place. Your guys too, and you, since it’s your job—you’re tasked with their security, right?”
“They’re leaving the city?” Grant said. “When?”
“Momentarily,” Walker replied.
“Okay, okay,” Grant said, looking at Murphy. “Good. You should get out too, with your wife and kids.”
Murphy just stared at the NCIS guy.
Grant was silent for a beat, then said, “None of your teammates were dumb enough to say no to our offer of protection. Nor did they stall. They all came back with the agents who went to collect them. Think of your family, for Christ’s sake. You think they’re safer around here, or with a bunch of SEALs in a secure facility guarded over by a platoon of heavily armed agents?”
Murphy looked to Walker and then back to Grant. “My family is leaving, with Somerville and the FBI, to a secure site here. I’m staying around until this afternoon. Until at least 17:30. Then we’ll see what’s what. Fact is, I unknowingly had a hand in starting whatever this is, and I’m going to help Walker stop it.”
90
“They’re chipped,” the JSOC Admiral said. “All SEALs for the past year have been chipped with micro GPS markers, as part of a new program that allows us to locate them if they’re captured or cut off from comms. DoD is looking to roll out the program across all frontline troops.”
“Congress will love that,” Hutchinson said.
McCorkell looked to Hutchinson then back to the Admiral. “And?”
“They’ve just turned up. Dead. Murdered.”
“Where?” Hutchinson asked.
“We pulled them out of a lake in Little Rock.” He looked down at the brief report. “They were in the water at least twenty-four hours.”
“Little Rock, Arkansas?” McCorkell asked.
The man with ultimate authority over the SEALs nodded, his mood heavy. “They left for there two days ago, Navy flight, to then head on up to help NCIS look for Murphy. They were good men, as capable as any SEALs. They and a crew from the west coast have helped in bringing in all the Abbottabad Team Six guys over the past week, each time without incident. Until this.”
“How were they killed?” Hutchinson asked.
“Gunshot.” The Admiral looked down at his desk. “Who would do this?”
“Single shot to the head?” Hutchinson asked.
The Admiral looked at the paper in his hands and nodded.
Hutchinson said, “The same guys who killed the Team Six SEALs killed your men.”
“They didn’t just kill them,” McCorkell added. “They replaced them.”
“Replaced them?”
“Yes. There were four guys out there masquerading as your A Team, going after Murphy. And Murphy and my guy Walker got them early this morning.”
It took the Admiral a moment to catch up with that, then he said, “Bill, what’s going on here?”
“Something’s coming, Admiral,” McCorkell said. “Something catastrophic.”
•
Grant looked at those in the room. His two agents. The ex-SEAL. And the—the whatever Walker was. A giant. Grant had to look up to him.
Walker watched him in turn. He could have been a jockey, Walker thought. Or a flyweight boxer. He looked wiry, capable. His nose was a small flat bud, like it had been mashed a few times as a kid or teen. Probably from hard-scrabble fights, where he’d forged a reputation for being nothing like the pushover that he seemed. Walker had met plenty of short aggressive guys like that in the military. Napoleon complex, some called it. But Walker never underestimated people on their physical characteristics; it wasn’t so much the size of the man in the fight, but the size of the fight in the man. He could see Grant had plenty of it in him.
“I’m sticking with you,” Grant said to Murphy. “You’re still a target here—in danger. Woods, you stick here too. Levine, you go with the Murphy family, take care of them. Until after 17:30, then we’ll see what’s what.”
“Negative,” Levine said, staring at Grant. “I’m lead agent; this is my op. I’m with Murphy, all the way. Woods will go with the Feds to cover the babysitting duties. End of story.”
Grant looked at Levine, considered rebuking her, then shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “You stay with Murphy here. Woods, you will stick with his family.”
“Sir—”
“And I will accompany you all to the safe house,” Grant said, looking from Levine to his other agent, then to Walker. “Until this blows over after 17:30 with nothing doing, and you, Walker, will look like the jackass you are.”
91
“Why NCIS?” Murphy asked.
Walker said, “Because they’re your cops.”
The two of them were in Somerville’s room. The others had left to work out the logistics of their movements for the day. Walker was ready to crack this wide open, starting with more interrogation of the SEAL.
“But why are they the ones handling our protection?” Murphy said. “I mean, I get that they would want to investigate the murder of SEALs, but some of us are retired and have been for years. Why not the FBI or US Marshals or someone like that?”
“Because it all goes back to one perp, one attacker, one case,” Walker said. “And the Pentagon has far more money than anyone else, so they’ve taken charge.”
“I guess that sounds right.” Murphy stood by the window, looking down at St. Louis. “And then there’s the whole secrecy thing.”
“Secrecy thing?” Walker said.
“We’re not known outside SEAL land,” Murphy said. “Our IDs, I mean, and that stands after we leave. In case of reprisals, just like this. But NCIS could get our details, if anyone could, right?”
“Yeah . . .” Walker was checking his email on his phone, but he stopped and looked up at Murphy. “Did you see the shots in Abbottabad?”
“Bin Laden?”
Walker nodded.
“Nope.” Murphy shook his head. “I heard them. I was on the ground floor. I got up there a few moments later.”
“How’d you feel?”
“At first? No different. A bit of jubilation I guess, a couple of days later. It was just an op. Our ROE stated that anyone at the target with or in reach of a weapon was to be put down, and that’s what happened. Afterward, when it sunk it, sure, it felt good, knowing that we were the ones who got him, finally.”
“You didn’t think it was too quick an end for him?”
“Nope. He knew what was coming, the moment he heard the helos and then our breeching charges. But, really, he knew we were coming for him, and winning the war, for the best part of ten years. Al Qaeda is nothing now.”
“There’s a hole in your record,” Walker said, looking back at Murphy’s file, emailed through courtesy of McCorkell.
“There’s plenty of holes.”
“We’ve got all your tours listed here,” Walker said, scrolling through the file. “Three in ’Stan, three more in Iraq, a three-month training session, another tour of ’Stan, one aboard the Zumwalt in the Gulf of Aden doing anti-piracy—”
“The most boring tim
e of my life.”
“Then back in ’Stan, a stint of close-protection work.”
“The second-most boring. No, maybe it was a tie. At least at sea we could get wet.”
“’Stan once more as an adviser, and then almost as soon as you got there you and the team were pulled out to prep for Abbottabad.”
“Right. And where’d you get all that info?”
“My guy.”
“Your guy the President? Because SEAL files are sealed up tighter than a dolphin’s butt—and that’s watertight.”
Walker smiled, said, “Tell me about the three months, listed as training.”
“It was R&R, put down as training because we deserved it.”
“Deserved it?”
“And then some. It’s listed as overseas training so that we’d get paid overseas-duty pay.”
“But it was R&R?”
Murphy nodded. “We had a good CO at JSOC.”
“What’d you do?” Walker asked.
“I rested. And relaxed.”
“Where?”
“Here and there.”
“Doing?”
“The usual.”
Walker nodded. “I just wonder why it’s listed as training instead of just being regular service as with all your other international training runs. I mean, I’ve been in that world—not as a SEAL, sure, but in 24th Tac—and we’d train more than we’d sleep. I’ve never seen anything listed like this, good CO or not.”
Murphy was silent.
“Did your whole team get this leave?” Walker asked.
“Lemme see.” Murphy took the phone and scrolled up and down, reading. “Hmph. Yep . . . but it was no training. Nor R&R, to be honest.” Murphy looked up to Walker. “At least, we got about ten days at the end. Made my second kid.”
“So, it was an op?”
Murphy nodded.
“It’s listed in your official file as training. So, that means very off the books . . .”
“DEVGRU does stuff that’s often not cited anyplace.”
“It will be recorded somewhere,” Walker said. “This is the Pentagon we’re talking about. Everything gets filed away. So, you might as well tell me, save us all time.”
“Well, maybe your guy has to get that file . . .”
“Murph, this might be relevant.”
“No, it can’t be—this is about Abbottabad, you said so yourself, the guys who were there are those getting hit . . . you said it’s because we saw something there, right?”
Walker paused, watching Murphy, who seemed to be thinking back to either that off-books op or Abbottabad, the guys he’d spent so many days and nights fighting side-by-side with, only to be assassinated.
Walker said, “At least tell me where the op occurred.”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Ballpark.”
“It’s unrelated.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know.”
“What was it?”
“Nothing related.”
Walker looked at the dates. “Iraq was still hot then. Just pre the mission-accomplished appearance by Bush, which was about ten years premature.”
“Yep.”
“’Stan was busy too.”
“You’re getting colder.”
“Persian Gulf?”
“Nope.”
“Iraq.”
Murphy nodded.
Walker said, “Close protection?”
“In a sense.”
“Of who?”
“No one.”
Walker was confused, then he said, “Something. Not someone. Your team were protecting something. An oil field?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“You’re well out of your service now.”
“I signed a lot of papers when I became a SEAL, more when I went to DEVGRU to be part of Team Six. Another stack of them after this op. So, if I tell you what I did, it’s federal prison for me—serious, long time.”
“Then don’t tell me what you did,” Walker said. “Tell me what your teammates did. Theoretically even. Broad brushstrokes. To rule it out.”
Murphy smiled.
“Fine,” Walker said. He looked again at the dates. “You’re sure this has nothing to do with it?”
“It can’t. No reprisals would stem from it.”
“No one was killed?”
“No one important. No one with family or friends with this kind of reach.”
“Yet it was big enough for SOCOM to not have a record of it, big enough for someone at DEVGRU command or higher up to falsify your location and list it as overseas training, technically breaking a law somewhere in the payroll department of the Pentagon.”
“Right.”
“Protection work, but not for a person . . .”
“Right.”
“Okay.” Walker tapped the list. “We need the names, from my guy. If we get the names, it might jar something loose—about this op, Abbottabad, anything.”
“There’s no jarring to be done, Walker,” Murphy said. “You said it yourself, first up. Someone on the inside sold out the Team Six guys from Abbottabad and some AQ towel-heads are roaming the earth to snuff us out. Or paying ex-US Army pukes to do the dirty work for them. And you know what? They’re going to fail, big time. Because I’m going to go hunting.”
92
“What you said before . . .” Walker said, turning from the hotel window.
“What?” Murphy asked.
Walker motioned with his head to the door of the hotel suite, through which the others had recently departed.
“About the NCIS,” Walker said. “Before, you said that they, if anyone, could get SEAL IDs.”
“So?”
“So, how could these ex-Army guys or Menzil get your IDs?” Walker said. “How could they know who was in DEVGRU at the time?”
Murphy thought about the question awhile before answering. “You think they have someone inside? In NCIS or JSOC?”
“Could be,” Walker said. “We can’t discount that.”
“I just don’t get the why,” Murphy said. “Why hit the team like this?”
“Because of what you saw in bin Laden’s compound . . .”
“I’ve been thinking about it all morning. There was nothing there, nothing. All the intel was on hard drives. We saw nothing.”
“You think that’s the case,” Walker said, looking back out the window to the Mississippi, as though clarity would be offered up from the muddy old girl in the form of some kind of solution. “Hell, maybe you’re right, Murph—maybe you didn’t see it, but maybe the others did.”
“Maybe just one did . . .”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe one of the guys got all bent up over something, and he sold out.”
“You think that?”
“No. Never.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious. No matter what, they’d never talk. They’d never jeopardize a teammate, let alone the teammate’s family. They’d die first, however which way it was coming.”
Walker didn’t press it. He just nodded, because he understood Murphy’s sentiment. These guys were brothers and they covered each other’s backs in such a way that it became an innate feeling. But he also knew that there were ways to make men talk, no matter how good and tough they were, no matter what kind of oath they’d forged in blood and sweat and tears. He let it slide, because it seemed the least likely of all, but he couldn’t discount it fully. “Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way.”
“How do you figure?”
“I’m not sure. But we’re missing something.”
“We really need that list.”
“Damn straight,” Walker said, and picked up his cell phone.
•
McCorkell arrived at the White House and was ushered through security. The place smelled like home, as though the weight of the air was comforting. He made his way toward the administration area of the west wing, heading for hi
s old office in the northwest corner, where he paused and knocked at the door.
“Hey, Ann,” McCorkell said after being summoned in. “I like what you’ve done with the place.” He shook the National Security Adviser’s hand, looking around his old office.
“If you say it has a feminine touch, I’ll call the Secret Service,” Ann said with a grin.
“Me? Never,” McCorkell said. He took a seat opposite, the leather chair a modern design compared with those he’d had in here. It made him sit more upright, and feel uncomfortable because the seat was short and the armrests too low. A good ploy, probably, to leave the CIA or NSA or FBI briefers under no illusion as to who was the boss in here. “So, you know about the SEAL hits?”
“You’re cutting to it, as usual,” Ann said. “Yes, I know about it. They’re all safe now, bar one, who the Navy are having a hell of a time hunting down.”
“They found him.”
“Oh? When?”
“Early this morning, with the help of one of my investigators,” McCorkell said. “Ann, this leads back to Zodiac.”
Ann raised her hand. “Bill, I’ve looked at that every which way and been in all kinds of meetings with the Agencies and Cabinet about it. I have to tell you, there’s nothing there but what you’ve brought me.”
“But?”
“But, you’ve got the Vice President in your pocket and you’ve convinced him otherwise, hence you’re sitting here right now chewing up my time.”
“I just told you something you didn’t yet know,” McCorkell said.
“About Murphy being found? That’ll be in my inbox; I’ve been in meetings. Have you seen what’s happening in Ukraine today? And in Pakistan? And Egypt? The Mid-East? The South China Sea? Hell, I’ve got a third of the world all lit up right now, flashing red on threat boards.”
“I just need a list,” McCorkell said. “Names. The SEAL team on the UBL kill op.”
“Bill, I can’t—”
“Ann, I need the list—not of all the operators. I understand that and will respect that,” McCorkell said. “But give me the list of the dead. The hit list so far. That you can do—there’s no more harm to be done to those men. Give me that list, eight names, and maybe I can drop by tomorrow and help out on the phone, put out some of these fires for you.”
