Takedown (29 page)

H
arvath hopped the railing from one set of stairs to another and landed hard on his right foot, twisting his ankle. Bursting through the garage door, he could immediately see where Bob lay, ribbons of crimson spreading out from beneath his body and flowing downhill toward a metal floor drain several yards away.

Harvath ran to where they had taken cover alongside several dumpsters. Hastings was covered in blood up to her elbows, her hands pressed hard against Bob’s chest. Seeing Harvath approach, she looked up and the tears began to roll down her face. He didn’t need to ask. He knew. Bob was gone, and at that moment time stood still for Harvath.

It was Tracy pushing at his good shoulder, yelling, “Scot, go!
Go!”
that brought him back to reality.

At the far end of the garage, an engine had roared to life. Pulling an extra magazine as delicately as he could from one of the pockets of Bob’s vest, Harvath ignored the pain throbbing throughout his body and half limped, half ran toward the sound. He felt guilty beyond words, and while part of him wanted to bend over, puke his guts out and mourn the loss of a friend who had been like an older brother to him, another part wanted to bathe in the blood of the people who had just killed Bob Herrington. It was from that part of himself that he summoned the strength to keep moving.

The vehicle was accelerating now and the rev of its engine was quickly joined by another unmistakable sound—the heavy metal garage door rumbling open.

Harvath used his other radio to hail the receptionist and tell him to override the door, but the man said his system wouldn’t do that. Dropping the radio, Harvath ran faster, trying to close the distance with the unseen vehicle. His adrenaline all but spent, the Troy CQB assault rifle he’d taken back from Bob began once again to feel like a hundred-pound barbell. Harvath’s back, his arms, and his shoulders begged for him to drop it, but he refused. Having tapped the last of his reserves, he used his rage to push him forward, but it did little good. He finally closed on the ramp leading out of the garage and up to the street, only to see the taillights of a green Mini Cooper crest the top and pull a hard left, its tires screaming as they bit into the sidewalk, and it disappeared from sight.

Undeterred, Harvath stumbled up the ramp, and as his legs began to fail him, he willed them to keep going. He could not let the terrorists get away.

Out of breath, his chest heaving, Harvath hit the top of the ramp and pivoted to the left, the Cooper halfway down the block. Raising the weapon to his injured right shoulder, Harvath aligned the car in his sights and with no breath to hold, squeezed the trigger.

The rounds flew down 48th Street, and when Harvath saw the vehicle swerve, its brake lights illuminating the night, he knew he’d made contact. The tires squealed as it careened and scraped along several parked cars. Harvath lined up another shot, tried to control the desperate filling and emptying of his lungs, and then pulled the trigger again. He heard the distinct
pop
that indicated that he had fired his last round and without even thinking about it pressed the magazine release, slapped the new mag to make sure the rounds were seated, and slammed it into the weapon.

He ripped back the charging handle and let go of it just as fast. With the car nearing the end of the sidewalk, this was Harvath’s very last chance. Firing in short bursts, he kept the Mini Cooper in his sights as its driver swerved back and forth, trying to avoid being hit.

As Harvath began to squeeze the trigger once more, the vehicle hit First Avenue, pulled another tight left turn, and disappeared from sight.

The white-hot anger swelled up inside him once more. Based on the little he had seen, he knew these people were incredibly professional and would have put just as much effort into Mohammed bin Mohammed’s evacuation as they had his rescue.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Harvath had to accept that they were gone.

I
t was not Hastings or Cates who found Harvath propped up against a parked car and unable to move outside Libya House, but the receptionist.

Without saying a word, the man bent down and helped Harvath to his feet. When Harvath had trouble balancing on his damaged ankle, the man offered his shoulder. He tried to steer him toward the steps leading to the front of the building, but Scot shook his head and motioned toward the garage. At the bottom of the ramp, he thanked the man and told him to return to his post. What Harvath had to do now, he wanted to do without strangers present.

It took him several minutes to limp back to where he had left Hastings and Herrington, but when he got there he saw Rick Cates covering Bob’s body with a tarp. Cates looked up expectantly, and Harvath shook his head. He knew the question, and unfortunately the answer was no. He didn’t get the people who had done this to Bob.

Scot and Tracy and Rick stood there, staring down at the tarp, and said nothing. They had lost not only a teammate, but also an exceptional fellow soldier who was an even better friend.

There was no telling how much time had passed when Harvath finally said, “Let’s go back upstairs. I want some answers.”

The receptionist provided them with a keycard, but it got them only as high as the twenty-third floor. From there they walked up one more floor and realized why the freight elevator wasn’t working. Its charred doors stood wide open, and it didn’t take much of an imagination to realize what had happened. A severed hand and a lone Quantico boot with part of a leg sticking out of it, suggested at least one person, or probably more had been standing near the elevator when it exploded. What was left of the car was probably in the basement, and Harvath didn’t envy the forensic team that would have to go through it later.

As they continued on, each of the rooms they cleared was empty, until they reached the one that must have been used for bin Mohammed’s dialysis treatments. There they found another man—a marine, by the looks of him, who had taken a couple of severe blows to the head, but who was still alive. With no choice for the moment, they quickly made him as comfortable as possible and then continued with their sweep.

At the end of the hall, they found one last survivor—Sayed Jamal. He was Flexicuffed to a chair and had been beaten almost beyond recognition. Because this was Jaffe’s operation, Harvath didn’t need to recognize the prisoner to know who he was. He felt for a pulse and found one. It was weak, and even with immediate medical attention the man was probably not going to make it.

Leaving him alone, they went to clear their last and final room—the interrogation’s nerve center. After deeming it to be safe, they stared at the sophisticated electronic equipment as well as the dry-erase boards, the relationship diagrams, and the multiple photographs that had been taped up along the wall. Seeing one that bore a resemblance to the prisoner across the hall, Cates asked, “Is this what the guy in the other room used to look like?”

Harvath looked at the photo and nodded.

“They really did a number on him. Who the hell is he?”

“His name is Sayed Jamal. He’s an al-Qaeda bombmaker who—”

Suddenly, Cates spun around and seeing that Hastings was no longer in the room said, “Oh, shit!”

“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Harvath as Cates ran for the door.

“Sayed Jamal was the man behind Tracy’s last bomb in Iraq.”

Harvath was about to echo Cates’s
Oh, shit,
when the crack of a single round being discharged in the interrogation room stopped him dead in his tracks. Without even seeing it, he knew that Tracy had killed him.

S
earch-and-rescue efforts throughout New York City had turned to search and recovery. Because of the overwhelming number of dead needing to be buried, churches were conducting group funeral masses. But in the case of one of their distinguished parishioners, Grace Church had made an exception.

At a special request from the family of Master Sergeant Robert Herrington, traffic around the church had been blocked off by McGahan and several officers from various NYPD Emergency Service Units. The media respectfully kept their distance.

As a dark blue hearse rolled forward and came to a quiet stop in front of the church, a lone bagpiper played. Supported by his teammates, who had all been granted leave from Afghanistan to attend the service, Bob’s family watched as his flag-draped casket was removed from the vehicle and carried up the stairs by pallbearers in full military dress.

There were a significant number of soldiers in attendance, many from some of the world’s most elite fighting units—men Bob had had the pleasure of either training or fighting with. More than a few of them owed their lives to the brave man who had so tragically lost his life just a week before.

Some of the soldiers Harvath had known previously and some of them he didn’t, but he had gotten to know almost everyone the night before at Bob’s wake where, despite the sad circumstances and aided by lots of cocktails, everyone seemed to be able to come up with several funny stories about Bob. As a result, most of the tears that were shed were not tears of sadness, but actually bittersweet tears of joy remembering what a wonderful and inspiring person Bob Herrington had been.

For Harvath it was cathartic and something he desperately needed. His entire assignment in New York had been a catastrophic failure. Mohammed bin Mohammed had gotten away, as had the man who had been leading the Chechens, whom Harvath suspected was also the man who had helped spring Mohammed from Libya House, killing Bob Herrington in the process.

The SEALs have a saying that the only easy day was yesterday, but nothing about yesterday was easy, nor were any of the six days before that. For the last week, Harvath had remained alone, convalescing in his hotel room after having been patched up at the VA. He ran the operation through his mind again and again and again, each time trying to figure out a way he could have done things differently. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t think of anything he could have said or done that might have saved Bob’s life. This realization, though, did little to assuage his guilt.

Harvath let that guilt simmer, and it invariably turned to anger, which he focused directly on the bureaucracy back in Washington. Like most people, he wanted answers, but not even Gary Lawlor had them for him. He urged Harvath to be patient, but Harvath had no patience left. He called his pal at Valhalla and began negotiating the terms of his new job.

Inside the church, the guilt, the anger, and the sheer exhaustion with the system still weighed heavily on Harvath as he sat alongside Tracy Hastings, Rick Cates, and Paul Morgan, who had told the VA doctors to go to hell when they refused to discharge him for Bob’s funeral. In the end, it was Sam Hardy who finally stepped in and made it happen.

It was good to be there with them, and Harvath tried to let go of everything he was stewing over so he could say a proper good-bye to his friend.

As the reverend introduced both himself and the military chaplain who had come from Fort Bragg to assist in the service, he informed the mourners that the program was going to be short and simple—marked not by saying good-bye, but by saying hello as Bob was welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. With a smile on his face, the man then apologized for not having enough holy “water” or wine on hand to make his service as enjoyable as the Irish wake from the night before. The crowd, many of who were still hung over, chuckled good-naturedly.

The invocation was given and then came the readings, most of which were given by Bob’s teammates. The final reading was one Harvath had heard umpteen times, but which had never really hit him as hard as it did today:
There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

As Harvath turned to look at Tracy, Rick, and Paul, he could see they were each fighting a losing battle to hold back their tears.

When the priest finished his sermon, one of Bob’s teammates, a man named Jack Kohlmeyer, was invited to share some of his reflections. Kohlmeyer was the perfect speaker and spoke eloquently and with the right degree of humor to help ease the sadness everyone was feeling.

“I only knew Bob for a short time. He and I met about three years ago in a valley beneath the mountains of Afghanistan. There I was at eight thousand feet, packing an eighty-pound rucksack, about to head up into the mountains, and Bob just sat on his cot laughing at me—in front of everyone, ‘Nope, you don’t need that,’ he’d say. ‘Or that. Or that. Nope, you don’t need that either.’ ”

Harvath had had the same experience with Bob just days earlier and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“But Bob could get away with it,” continued Kohlmeyer. “He could get away with laughing at us for looking silly. Bob’s trick was that he laughed not at us, but with us. He didn’t laugh to make us look foolish, he laughed to win us over and to make us his friends. And in that he was successful.

“It’s a testament to his success with people that so many of us have traveled so far to be with him today, for the sum of the miles traveled by all of us reach into the tens of thousands.

“Bob loved people and we loved him back. We sustained him and he sustained us. Especially, when we were down.

“Bob reminded me on more than one occasion that life isn’t fair so get over it and keep doing the best that you can do.

“A few weeks before Bob left to come home, the team that I had been assigned to suffered several casualties. The job of packing their bags was given to me. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Bob, though, sat with me and talked—and he talked, and he talked, and he talked. He knew what he was doing. He was keeping my mind off the job at hand. He was a natural with people and he knew it.

“So, Bob kept my mind occupied and when I was done, he put his arm around my shoulder and reminded me once more,
Life isn’t fair. Keep doing what you’re doing and make sure you’re doing the very best you can.”

As Harvath sat there, it was almost as if Bob was speaking to him. Hearing those words, Harvath knew he wasn’t going to quit his job—he couldn’t. As much of a pain in the ass as it often was, Harvath knew why he was doing it. It wasn’t for the politicians he had grown progressively more disenchanted with, it was for the people of this country, brave and good people like Bob who along with their honorable way of life were worth fighting for.

Harvath was going to keep doing what he was doing and he was going to continue doing it the very best he could—for himself and also for the memory of Bob Herrington.

When the service had ended, the reverend asked if everyone would follow the procession outside onto the steps of the church.

The street was still devoid of traffic, the ESU officers dutifully at their posts. Chairs had been set up on the sidewalk for family members and those who needed to sit. It was hot and humid, but a faint breeze blew in from across the river. And though the air had gotten much better, it still wasn’t one hundred percent. The scent of death and destruction still hung over everything. It was a smell Harvath would never be able to forget. Like everyone else in New York, it had become a part of him.

Bob Herrington was given a twenty-one-gun salute by seven Special Forces soldiers from across the street, and as taps was played, the flag covering his coffin was folded and handed to his parents.

The coffin was then placed inside the hearse and the rear door closed. Everyone stood or sat in silence. A minute, maybe two passed, the birds of Brooklyn Heights the only accompaniment to people’s private thoughts and remembrances of Bob Herrington.

There was a faint noise from somewhere off in the distance, and Harvath wrote it off to the ongoing S&R efforts on Manhattan, until it began to grow much louder. Looking up from the hearse, Harvath watched as a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter came in and hovered directly overhead. A heavy black rope was lowered, and it was then that Harvath realized what he was seeing. Someone, probably one of Bob’s teammates, had arranged for a symbolic final extraction.

The helicopter then flared and flew off toward the river as the mourners watched. When it was gone from view, Harvath and everyone else looked down to see that Robert Herrington’s hearse had already driven away.