When Loeb planted his feet on the floor and got up, walking toward the bedroom door, O’Neil joined him.
“Not much for sleep,” O’Neil said as they descended the stairs to the living room.
“Jetlag,” Loeb said.
O’Neil knew he was lying. They had flown back and forth between the States, Europe, Middle East, and Central Asia so many times, O’Neil had grown accustomed to having a sleep schedule that was about as well-structured as a barn constructed in the middle of the night by a group of drunks who had never touched a hammer before.
But he didn’t bother telling Loeb.
“I’m sure the girls are doing well,” O’Neil said.
“Oh, I know they are,” Loeb said, grabbing a pair of mugs.
Since most of the town relied on generator power, they didn’t have the luxury of making a fresh batch of coffee, so they relegated themselves to instant coffee swirled into room temperature water. Loeb gave one of the mugs to O’Neil.
O’Neil sipped. The stuff was bitter and clumpy. But caffeine and coffee, no matter how stale or unpleasant to the tongue, were still luxuries he knew not to take for granted, especially when on deployment.
“I want to know your secret,” O’Neil said to Loeb.
“For what?”
“For hanging onto your wife and girls,” he said. “Every woman I’ve ever tried to have a relationship with had the same complaint. ‘You’re always gone.’”
Loeb sat at the kitchen table, the chair creaking when he did. “I don’t have a secret.”
O’Neil joined him at the table. “Give it up.”
“Okay, fine,” Loeb said. “My secret. Well, unlike you, brother, I don’t look like a donkey’s bleached asshole.”
O’Neil couldn’t quite muster a laugh, as much as he wanted to, but he grinned. “Screw you, Loeb.”
Loeb looked down at his mug. Used his finger to swirl a few of the stubborn clumps into the coffee. “You want the truth?”
He looked up at O’Neil. The expression on his face made it seem like he had been punched in the gut. O’Neil wasn’t used to seeing one of his brothers in a moment of weakness. He realized he didn’t know how the hell to respond, so he just sat there, quiet.
“Sofie was ready to leave,” he said. “She had divorce papers all written up and served me as soon as I got back from our last real spin before the outbreak. She wanted to take the girls and get the hell out of Virginia. Her parents had even helped pick out a spot for her to rent near them in Spokane.”
Loeb brushed a hand through his messy hair.
“Her flight was scheduled for Spokane from Dulles just three days after they started cancelling all commercial flights,” he continued. “She’s not sticking around with me because she wants to. She’s sticking around because she has to.”
“Damn. Man. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything, brother,” Loeb said. “Shit just is the way it is, and we deal with it. At least, I get to see my girls. If they had made it out… if they had flown to Spokane…”
“Yeah…” O’Neil said. He knew the story.
Loeb had singlehandedly held off a pack of four Skulls that had tried to rip into his house when his family was still hunkered down inside it. If it weren’t for him, none of them would be alive right now.
O’Neil had little doubt what their fate would have been if they had made the move to Spokane and had only Sofie’s retired parents to try and protect them.
“They’re lucky to have you as a father,” O’Neil said. “You’re a good man, Loeb.”
“Thanks, bro.”
They wiled away the time, talking and drinking their instant coffee until the rain finally settled, leaving the gray sky with a few beams of sunlight poking through. The rest of the operators staying in the house started to filter down, catching up with O’Neil and Loeb.
Once all the SEALs had gathered in the kitchen, Reynolds made himself an instant coffee with the others and held his mug up, drawing the others into silence. “Before we start talking about where we’re going next, I want to talk about who we’re leaving behind.”
The chief looked around the room.
“McLean was a surly bastard, and I can’t remember one time we went to a bar when he didn’t piss someone off,” Reynolds said, starting off the toast.
That got a few laughs.
“But he was our bastard,” Stuart said.
Reynolds nodded. “We all signed up knowing that one day our number might be called, and that’s it for us. That doesn’t make it any easier when we lose a brother, and all we can do is carry on. Carry on for McLean. Carry on because if we don’t make it back, if we don’t wipe all those Skulls from this Earth, then who the hell is going to tell stories about that time Mclean cleared a house full of fighters by himself or about the guy who closed out that cowboy bar in Richmond, holding the record for time spent on a mechanical bull, all after he’d already drank damn near a fifth of Fireball on his own?”
“Nasty drink,” Henderson added.
“Only fitting that it was McLean’s favorite,” Reynolds said. “So here’s to our brother and here’s to the Russians and the Skulls we’re going to face. Because God knows, they’re going to need all the help they can get when we come knocking at their door, telling them each exactly what McLean thinks of them.”
“Here, here!”
“To McLean!”
O’Neil joined in the toast as the operators clinked their mug on the table or counter before they drank.
“When we get back from wherever the brass is sending us next,” Reynolds said, “we’ll make sure the commander sets up a proper service for McLean. I expect every one of you to be there, so don’t for a second think it’s your turn to eat a bullet on this next op, got it?”
Reynolds led the troop outside and to the two-car detached garage that had been set up as an impromptu briefing room. Lawn chairs, metal folding chairs, and even a couple of recliners had been lined up in the garage in front of a generator-powered projector and screen.
Smith was already standing at the front of the space.
“All right, boys,” Smith said. “First off, you did a good thing pulling off that mission in Lithuania, despite those Skulls. If that teaches us anything, it’s that we need to remain flexible and adaptive. I know of no human beings more adaptable and flexible than my teams on DEVGRU.”
He clicked on the computer, and a map of the Strait of Gibraltar appeared, showing the northern coast of Morocco and the southern tip of Spain.
“The situation regarding that shipment you intercepted has evolved. Analysts pinpointed where they think it came from before Kaliningrad and Lithuania. In just a couple hours, you all are headed to Tangier to go ensure that no shipments will ever come from that city again.”
-15-
O’Neil felt the familiar electricity of a pre-mission briefing. He tried to memorize every detail of every image Smith showed, along with every word Smith uttered.
In the field, he never knew when seemingly innocuous information turned out to be useful. Like the knowledge of a drainage ditch position might be useful when he needed to move and find somewhere with cover from incoming fire. Or the windows of a building half a block away from the compound they were infiltrating might be the perfect vantage point for a sniper watching the front door.
Complete situational awareness was the key to dominating the battlefield. And if they were going to face both Russians and Skulls and God only knew what else, he needed to know everything he could about the landscape they’d be dropped into.