Tom Clancy's Act of Valor (26 page)

“Let’s do it.”

Ray is on the move quickly, beating them both to the passageway entrance, where he takes off at a run. The first man is almost always at risk. They keep a ten-yard interval and move quickly. The next room, or cavern, presents them with three alternative passageways. Ray quickly studies each with his NOD and sees a faint glimmer coming from one of them, a glimmer that immediately extinguishes itself.

“They went this way,” he says and they’re off again.

The tunnel leads them to a small cinder-block enclosure with doors on both ends, one leading into the room and one leading out. As they regroup in the center of the room, a sprinkling of dust drifts down from the ceiling. Too late, Engel looks up and sees one of the Filipinos. He’s waiting for them crouched atop a steel I-beam. Engel shoots him twice, but he has already dropped the grenade. It’s a standard American-made M67 hand grenade—effective, reliable, and lethal. The cinder-block room was a ready-made killing enclosure. In just a blink of an eye, Roark Engel takes it all in. He sees the grenade that will kill or disable them all. He knows there is no escape for any of them in the small enclosure. And he knows Shabal will then be able to come back and kill those who survive the blast at his leisure. He also knows that Shabal still has several of the vests, and a clear path to continue his journey north into America. All this is clear to Lieutenant Engel—in that moment. There is only one course of action open to him, and he takes it. Had he minutes, even hours, to think about it, there was still only one course of action to take.

Roark Engel dives onto the grenade, cradling it to his chest and the same ceramic plate that had stopped the
other
grenade less than twenty-four hours ago. Only this grenade is much more powerful, and it does not need a distance of travel to arm itself, only time. The explosion lifts Engel eighteen inches into the air and deposits him back onto the hard-packed dirt floor. He absorbs most of the blast and a good portion of the detachable-link, circular shrapnel band that was wrapped around the explosive core. Both Dave Nolan and Ray Diamond absorb some of the shrapnel but little of the blast. They will live, but their lieutenant will not.

Nolan gets to him within seconds of the blast, but he knows it’s too late. Already Engel’s eyes are beginning to dilate. He exhales once and it’s over. In that brief terrifying moment, Roark Engel is gone. He had no other choice. It was how he was raised, trained, and lived: the mission first, next his men, and then himself.

“Stay with him, Ray,” Nolan says as he takes up his M4 and heads out the other door. Ray, who has taken only a few more pieces of shrapnel that Nolan, retrieves his rifle and crawls over to his lieutenant. He sits close and presses Engel’s cheek close against his thigh with one hand. He holds his rifle at the ready with his other.

“Boss . . . Boss. Why did it have to be you?” He begins to cry, but he never takes his eyes off the door that Nolan just went through.

Dave Nolan grimly moves forward through a tunnel that is now all hard-packed dirt—floor, ce {tis greiling, and both walls. Like an old mine shaft, there is knob-and-tube wiring that services an occasional bare lightbulb. Nolan senses danger and advances slowly, the butt of his M4 in his shoulder and looking over the front sight. He comes to the next node in this seemingly endless series of tunnels and rooms, where three forms are pressed up against the walls of a small room, just out of his line of sight. One of the Filipinos comes at him, pistol in hand, and Nolan cuts him down with a short burst. Next, Sanchez steps out to get a better firing angle, and Nolan immediately fires and kills him. He stays with Sanchez a nanosecond too long. He’s shifting aim to the other side of the room when the bullets begin to strike him. They are rounds from Shabal’s AK-47.

The first several rounds tear into his trigger hand and knock his rifle away. The next ones slam into his chest plate, driving him back against the wall. Without conscious thought, Nolan draws his secondary weapon, a Sig Sauer 9mm, with his good hand. A single Filipino, the last one, darts up the tunnel. Nolan puts three rounds into his back, and he goes down. But there are more rounds slamming into him, into his plates and into his bowels below the plates. He sees the muzzle flashes and takes aim, but a round slices through his remaining good gun hand, severing his thumb. The Sig is slick with his blood and hard to hold, but he keeps firing. Finally the slide locks to the rear—empty.

Nolan slides to the floor and to a sitting position with his back to the dirt wall. Without looking down, he begins to fumble at his ammo pouches for a fresh 9
mm mag. Shabal hears the slide go back and knows he has this man. He checks his AK quickly to ensure he has at least one more round and moves forward. Nolan’s eyes lock on Shabal’s as he desperately tries to fit a new magazine into his weapon with his crippled hands. Shabal himself has been hit twice, but he is now focused only on Nolan. This American now represents all his frustrations and his hatreds and his thwarted attempts at retribution. He is now but five feet from the prostrate Nolan; he wants to stand over him when he kills him. Then something like a fist punches into his chest. Then another blow, and another.

Shabal tears his eyes from Nolan and looks down the dimly lit tunnel. The form of yet another Navy SEAL coalesces around the muzzle flashes. By the time Ray steps into the dimly lit room, Shabal has gone to his knees, his weapon has fallen away. His hatred holds him upright—the hatred and the overwhelming disappointment of what might have been. How did it come to this? Then Ray sends a bullet through his brain, and all is blackness.

Dave Nolan, now a bystander, watches this drama unfold in detached fascination. He’s aware of the firing behind him; he sees Shabal drop to his knees and the AK-47 fall from his hands. Yet all is taking place in slow motion. Then it all fades away.

EPILOGUE

It was the final day.

The last week was a blur for Jackie Engel. It began with the SEAL officer in his dress uniform, accompanied by a Navy chaplain, knocking at her door. Then there was the shock and disbelief that Roark had been killed in action. There was the ongoing and continuous support of the entire SEAL family. Julia Nolan was t ~tisy chaplhere for her, just as she herself had been there for other SEAL wives who suddenly found themselves widowed. Her parents, then Roark’s, flew in from the Midwest. The Navy CACO, or Casualty Assistance Calls Officer, had called on her. He gently and compassionately walked her through the myriad of details involved when a service member dies. It seemed so surreal, yet it
was
happening—and happening to her. But any dreamy denial that this
did
happen ended when the Navy C-130 Hercules aircraft landed at NAS North Island with Roark’s body. There followed the wake at Pinkham-Mitchell Mortuary in Imperial Beach, California, just a short drive from Coronado. And there were the condolence calls from senior SEAL flag officers she had never met. It was a conveyor belt of grief that seemed to never stop. The days seemed to drag by, as did the sleepless nights.

As much as anyone can be prepared for the sudden death of a spouse, Jackie Engel was prepared. More than fifty Navy SEALs had died in action since September 11, 2001, and Jackie had been to many wakes, funerals, and burial services. Several of the men whose wives and families she had consoled had served with Roark in his previous tours. One young wife was only nineteen years old when she became a Team widow. She had been completely inconsolable, and Jackie had taken it upon herself to help the woman deal with her grief. To this day, she considered Jackie to be the big sister she’d never had. Only now did Jackie have some insight into what that young woman had endured, and she understood now how the pain had made her numb.

But as prepared as she was, nothing had readied her for this day. Today she would bury her husband—her Roark. She had steeled herself for this day, or thought she had. She had watched other SEAL widows perform this ritual, but could she? She would have to, she told herself; if nothing else, it was her duty—to her husband and what he had died for. The SEAL family was with her every step of the way. At one point during Roark’s wake at Pinkham-Mitchell, she had to console Julia and Dave Nolan’s second youngest, three-year-old Maggie, who presented her with a picture she had drawn of Jackie and Roark surfing. As she presented it to her, Maggie had completely broken down, and Jackie had hugged and rocked her for what seemed like an eternity until the girl had fallen asleep in her arms. A wise Julia Nolan did not intervene and let Jackie comfort her daughter for as long as it took.

Now she walked out of the door of their local church in Coronado, Christ Episcopal Church, flanked by her mother and father, and moved toward the car waiting at the curb on the Ninth Street side of Christ Church. Father Geisen’s words had been uplifting, and the overflowing crowd of friends, neighbors, and SEAL families listened in respectful silence. Jackie, too, had listened but had heard little.

Just outside the door, the Naval Special Warfare Command commander, Rear Admiral Frank O’Connor, approached her.

“Mrs. Engel, I’ll accompany you and your parents in my staff car if that’s all right.”

“Yes, Admiral, that will be fine. Thank you. You’ve met my mom and dad earlier this week.”

“Sir, ma’am. Your son was one of our finest.”

Jackie’s parents were onare to ly able to utter a quiet, “Thank you.”

Admiral O’Connor helped Jackie and her parents into the backseat of the car. The six SEAL pallbearers had already placed Roark’s casket in the hearse that would lead the procession. Their destination was Rosecrans National Cemetery, but instead of driving straight to the Coronado Bridge that would take them to San Diego, the hearse turned onto Orange Avenue, Coronado’s main boulevard.

Coronado, California, is where every Navy SEAL begins his training and where many Navy SEALs are stationed. While the San Diego metropolitan area has a large Navy presence of aviation, surface, and subsurface commands, for the small city of Coronado, the bond with the SEALs is an especially close one. This became clear as the procession made its way down Orange Avenue.

Flanked by her mother and father in the back of the staff car, Jackie Engel saw hundreds of Coronado’s citizens lining both sides of the avenue. They stood in quiet reverence as a tribute to her fallen husband. Every hundred feet there was a large American flag. At the first intersection, at Orange and Eighth Street, Coronado Police Department cars blocked the intersections on both sides. Jackie quickly realized that they were there to ensure that no other traffic was allowed on Orange Avenue. The city had shut down this morning to honor Lieutenant Roark Engel.

Admiral O’Connor turned around to Jackie and simply said, “They’re here to honor Roark and to share in your grief.”

When the long line of cars finally did cross the bridge and into San Diego, the admiral again directed the procession onto a local route. The details of the operation Roark had led were still classified. But that didn’t prevent the Naval Special Warfare Command and the City of Coronado from telling their neighboring communities of the death of a hero. The funeral procession passed through Barrio Logan, National City, Downtown San Diego, Liberty Station, and Point Loma on its way to Rosecrans National Cemetery. It was said, unofficially, that this SEAL officer had helped to foil a terrorist plot that would have killed thousands of Americans.

The flanking American flags continued all the way down Harbor Drive, past the San Diego International Airport, and into Point Loma. There were American flags along Rosecrans Street, up Canon Street, all along Catalina Boulevard, and all the way to the cemetery. Jackie and her parents were stunned by how this large metropolitan city had turned out to honor a fallen hero—their fallen hero.

The procession of cars, more than eighty of them, arrived at Rosecrans to a scene all-too-familiar to Jackie and to everyone in the SEAL community. The rolling hilltops of Rosecrans National Cemetery were covered with the white sentinels of the dead—wars past and wars ongoing. The gravesite was prepared. The seven SEALs in the honor guard were standing by with their rifles, ready to salute their fallen comrade. A senior Navy chaplain was standing by, ready to render more consoling words. Jackie had seen this so many times before. Yet none of that could make her immune to the crushing and all-but-overwhelming grief she felt at this very moment.

Admiral O’Connor took her arm as he escorted her to her seat while the six SEAL pallbearers carried Rrerp height="oark’s coffin from the hearse to the gravesite. The admiral did not flinch as, halfway to her seat, Jackie’s knees buckled and she almost lost her footing. He held her up in such a way that no one, not even her parents walking a few steps behind, noticed her unsteadiness. But then, Jackie Engel was not the first SEAL widow this admiral had helped to a graveside service. Inside her, their baby stirred uneasily, as if he somehow knew the father he would never meet was to be lowered into the earth. James Roark Engel—Roark had requested that if it was a boy, he be named James for his grandfather, whom Roark so admired. And Roark had never known that he was to have a son. Or did he?

Jackie took her seat and sat stoically in the front row of chairs. Her parents, and Roark’s, were there to lend support as well as deal with their own deeply personal grief.

“Friends,” the chaplain began, “John 15:13 tells us, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend’ . . .” He spoke loudly, to be heard by the hundreds assembled on the hillside on this bright, crystal-clear, San Diego day. Christ Episcopal Church in Coronado was small, and the many mourners were unable to attend that service. They were all here now.

While the chaplain droned on, Jackie let her eyes survey the scene. There were the military men and women standing ramrod straight. There was Roark’s casket, draped with the forty-eight-star American flag that Roark and his grandfather had carried into battle. There were his men from the Bandito Platoon—Weimy, Sonny, Ray, A.J., and, of course, Mikey, with a black patch covering one eye. Standing with them was Senior Chief Otto Miller. And there was Dave Nolan, wheelchair-bound from his injuries but sitting tall. She knew he was there against his doctor’s orders, and yet she knew he could not stay away. Nolan, like the other Banditos, was in dress blue uniform.

She heard the chaplain’s words, but they were lost on her. She was already planning—planning how to do what she knew Roark wanted and needed her to do. She knew that for the rest of her life, no matter what direction it took, she would somehow bear the full responsibility of ensuring that James grew into a man both she and Roark would be proud of. That was
her
SEAL mission.

She knew she would be up to the task, but she also knew it wouldn’t be easy. Yet Roark’s teammates would be there to help her. Their wives and their children would be there for her as well. She could also count on Roark’s strength and their too-few years together to give her the determination she needed to complete her mission.

Her reverie was broken by the first of three volleys fired by the seven-man honor guard. Then the next, and the next. Jackie, along with many of Roark’s brother SEALs, flinched slightly at each of the three volleys. It was impossible not to; it was an emotional reaction, not an auditory one. She was still holding it together, though just barely. And she knew it was almost over.

But as the bugler played taps, slow and sad, Jackie felt a week’s worth of emotions welling up inside, almost choking her. She began to tremble involuntarily, no longer sure that she could maintain her composure through the end of the ceremony.

The honor guard approached the casket. In one of the most well-rehearsed and solemn of all military rituals, they folded Roark’s flag with care and precision. The senior man in the honor guard took the flag, executed a perfect ninety-degree facing movement, handed the flag to Admiral O’Connor, and saluted. Prior to accepting the flag, the Naval Special Warfare Command commander also saluted. Then with the flag, he walked slowly toward Jackie and dropped to one knee. One hand atop the folded flag, the other on the bottom, he held it out to her.

“On behalf of the president of the United States and the chief of naval operations, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s service to this country and a grateful Navy.”

Jackie took the flag and cradled it next to her stomach—forcing it as close to their baby as she could. Tears now streamed down her face. No response was necessary, yet as the admiral stood and again saluted, she met his eyes for a moment before lowering her head. Now, her shaking was becoming visible. Her father on one side and her mother on the other put their arms around her. Roark’s parents, sitting behind her, rested their hands on her shoulders.

Jackie Engel somehow reached deep within herself and found a reserve of strength. She sat up straight, looking directly at the casket. She had been to enough of these burial services to know that the next moments were not about her, or her unborn son, or Roark’s parents, relatives, and friends, or anyone else. The next several minutes were for the brotherhood. She had been to many SEAL graveside services and knew that what was about to take place didn’t happen every time SEALs buried one of their own. Yet, somehow, she knew it would happen today.

Ray wheeled Dave Nolan to the casket of their fallen leader, followed by Sonny, A.J., Weimy, and Mikey. Each in turn, with a swift blow of their hand, hammered their Trident pin into the top of the polished wood of the casket. Then the honor guard of pallbearers did the same. Then more and more SEALs walked up to the casket and, each in turn, tendered his Trident. Finally, Otto Miller returned to the casket and delivered nine more Tridents—his own and eight others for the Bandito SEALs still on deployment. When the last SEAL pin was rammed into the casket lid, the SEALs all turned, faced the casket a final time, and saluted.

The funeral party began to break up. Some passed close to the casket, others didn’t. Those in uniform who did came to attention and saluted. Finally, Jackie stepped to the head of the casket for one last moment with her husband. She touched the wood. Julia Nolan had handed her a single rose, which she laid atop the sea of gold Trident pins. Another quiet moment, then she allowed Admiral O’Connor to escort her back to the staff car. It was over—the service, but not the grieving.

As the crowd began to thin, Chief Dave Nolan asked his wife to wheel him closer to the casket so he could be alone with his officer. She knew her husband well enough to understand that he needed time alone with the man he so greatly admired. She took their two oldest children, the two old enough to attend the service, off to another section of the hillside.

After several moments of silence, he began in a quiet voice. “Boss, you know I wanted to take that grenade instead of you.nst width=" How did you get there so quickly? You always did run my ass because I was so damn slow, and now it played out in the worst possible way. But then again, you always were a step ahead of all of us; that’s what made you the best officer, the best man, I’ve ever known. As long as I live, I’ll never be able to get over feeling that I let you down. All I can do now is to try and make up for it. I’ll do what I can for Jackie and James. I’ll take care of our men—our brothers by different mothers. You have my word on it. And I’ll think of you every day of my life.”

He wiped away a tear with his one good hand. Dave Nolan, the doctors at Balboa Naval Hospital all agreed, was something of a living medical miracle. In addition to a load of shrapnel from the grenade, he had taken twenty-seven bullets. Luckily, none to the head, and those to his torso, the ones that would have been kill shots, had been absorbed by his body armor. But he had still taken a lot of bullets.