* * *
A few minutes later Kolt saw Clay “Stitch” Vickery in the Grimes Library off the chow hall. The library, named after Delta’s first command sergeant major, William “Country” Grimes, was stocked with every possible book on unconventional warfare, terrorism, and the like.
Stitch was hard to miss. He was six-foot-three, with a barrel chest. He drew his code name from his early Operator Training Course teammates. During a hot wash after a live-fire night helo raid training exercise, he was asked to explain his actions when he entered the room where the hostages were held. He simply said, “I stitched the bad guys and saved the good guys.” Everyone burst out in laughter and he was knighted with the code name.
Kolt knew men like Stitch were hard to come by in Delta, where the average operator was five feet eleven inches and one hundred eighty pounds. His thick build easily filled a doorway, with his cantaloupe-shaped shoulders practically touching either side of the doorjamb. His tall frame had him looking down on most others and bumping his head on the overhead compartment when experiencing the cramped surroundings of international air travel or an up-armored Humvee.
Stitch was a good assaulter, but an even better sniper. He was entirely comfortable operating alone, had been blessed with an eagle eye, and he truly embraced the balance of art and science required of the best snipers in the world. He had decided not to stay in an assault troop, but instead to stick with the recce troop track and become an “advanced assaulter,” a term snipers liked to call themselves once they graduated from an assault troop to a recce troop. The obvious dig being that anyone could be an assaulter, but it took a lot more skill, dedication, and training to become a Unit sniper.
As with all Delta men, his brawn was only a part of the equation. His brain was fine-tuned to his lethal craft. He had been instrumental in designing a custom 7.62mm round that could penetrate level IV ballistic cockpit glass and retain its trajectory, ensuring the pilot remained safe but the hijacker next to him went down hard.
But Stitch’s devotion to the Unit came with a heavy price. His first wife had run off with a major in the 82nd Airborne, and his second wife had simply realized her husband was more married to the Unit than to her, and she packed her bags when he was in Afghanistan in 2006.
Since then Clay Vickery had pretty much sworn off women, so it was no surprise when Kolt found him sitting alone in the Grimes Library when he should have been at home having someone kiss his boo-boo.
While Stitch used his bandaged left hand to flip the page of a thick hardback, Racer walked up to him and asked, “Did you find a book about operating with only nine digits?”
The big man looked up at Kolt and smiled. “Welcome back, boss. Heard you and the guys made a wrong turn on the way home, ended up in Tripoli.”
“We did, indeed. Sorry you couldn’t join us, but it worked out pretty good without you. Your big ass wouldn’t have fit in the extraction aircraft.”
“I’d have legged it out of the AO for the chance to tag along. I heard it got a little hairy.”
Kolt changed the subject. “How does it feel?” he asked, nodding to the man’s hand.
“Burns like a mother, but it’s getting better.” He opened and closed his index finger. “Trigger finger’s workin’ fine, boss.”
“Good.” Kolt slapped him on the back. “You’ll be needing it soon enough, I expect.”
Stitch smiled. “I doubt that. Haven’t you heard the news? ST6 is getting all the hits. We don’t even exist.”
Kolt laughed. “They can have the limelight, as long as we get the action.”
Just then a female voice came over the intercom. Raynor recognized Joyce, Colonel Webber’s secretary. “Major Raynor, call 4005. Major Raynor, 4005.”
It was Webber’s office extension. Kolt grabbed the phone off the wall next to him and dialed while Stitch looked on.
“It’s Raynor, sir.”
“In my office, ASAP.”
“On the way.” Raynor exchanged a look with Stitch and then turned to head toward Webber’s office.
“If you’re not out in an hour can I have your locker, boss?” Stitch teased from behind, but Kolt was too concerned to respond.
* * *
When Kolt stepped into Webber’s office he saw that Monk, a master sergeant from the other squadron, was already sitting in front of Webber’s desk. Monk nodded and said, “How’s the ass, Race?”
Kolt smiled, more concerned with whatever Webber wanted to talk to them about, but he indulged Monk. “Upper thigh. Let’s not start the ass rumor.”
“That ship sailed long ago, Major.”
“Great,” Kolt said with a sigh.
Webber sat down behind his desk. “I wanted to let you guys know first. The CIA and FBI finally have an ID on Daoud al-Amriki.”
This was big news. The year before, al-Amriki had held several Delta operators hostage, including TJ, Racer’s best friend. He had also led a team of al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan to take over a CIA-run black site in order to turn the tide of the Afghan War.
For the past seven months little was known around Delta about the man other than what TJ had been able to ferret out in his twenty or so debriefings with U.S. military and intelligence investigators.
“Who is he?” asked Racer.
Webber had a printed page on his desk in front of him, but he didn’t look at it. “His name is David Wade Doyle. He is thirty years old, originally from Kelseyville, California.”
Monk asked, “What the hell was he doing with AQ in Pakistan?”
“Unknown. But it is thought he is now an operational commander for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”
“Shit. Not the first time an American has made it into AQ, but I’ve never heard of any of them as hands-on as this guy was in Pakistan. Do we have intel about where he is now?”
“Not really. FBI had learned he moved to Yemen when he was a teenager to convert to Islam. They don’t think he’s been back to the States since. Still … they are making the rounds, interviewing anyone he knows in the U.S. CIA’s got people working all his known contacts in other countries, as well.”
Raynor shook his head. “He wouldn’t retrace his steps. Wherever he is right now, he’s far from anyone who will finger him to the FBI.”
“I agree.”
“Does TJ know about this?”
“TJ was the one who confirmed the ID.”
“How?”
“From a photograph, an old photograph. The British army picked a guy up in Basra, Iraq, back in 2003. He spoke perfect English and managed to convince the Brits he was a freelance reporter, so they let him go. Wasn’t long before other prisoners talked about an American AQ fighter they had met. As you can imagine, the Tommys were pissed they’d let this guy slip through their fingers, but he must have left the theater, and the story was forgotten. MI6 didn’t know anything about him. But with all the hunting around for Daoud al-Amriki in the past few months, an ex–British army sergeant who was in Basra in ’03 and now works in their foreign ministry remembered the story, made some calls, and a picture appeared. TJ confirmed it immediately, so then the FBI started digging around domestically, trying like hell to find out who the guy was.”
“Needle in a haystack,” said Monk.
“Pretty much. But finally State found a passport photo of a guy about the same age who went to Yemen back in 1998, and the two faces matched. David Doyle became Daoud al-Amriki.”
“Nice,” muttered Kolt. He didn’t think that should have taken seven months.
Webber continued, “TJ thinks we haven’t heard the last of this Doyle/Amriki, and I’m inclined to agree with that assessment. The kid left a good life to go over there and live like a scorpion in the desert all those years. He is a true believer.”
“He’s a son of a bitch,” Kolt said through gritted teeth.
“He is that, too,” agreed Webber.
“Any chance we’re going to be sent after him?” Monk asked.
Webber stood up from his desk. His two operators followed suit. “In a perfect world, hell, yes. But you guys know the deal, it could go to the SEALs. It’s up to the CG. Now that they’ve ID’d him, maybe they will be able to flush him out of wherever he is before his next play gets off the ground. That is, unless we are too late.”
Kolt knew he and his men would turn into pumpkins in two weeks and if the hit went to Delta after that, he’d likely be listening to Monk, Benji, Tackle, and Gangster over a satellite radio from the squadron classroom.
Kolt left Webber’s office a few minutes later. He decided he’d call TJ on his way home, maybe invite his old friend over for pizza. Kolt knew TJ would want someone to talk to right now, and Kolt could provide that for his friend, if nothing else.
TEN
That evening Lieutenant Colonel Josh Timble turned his red F-350 Super Duty pickup onto a farm road a few miles north of Fort Bragg. With his wipers beating warm rainwater off his windshield, he drove past row after row of chicken coops covered with corrugated roofing, and then pulled to a stop next to a beat-up black Chevy Silverado outside of a dilapidated trailer that sat in a copse of mature pecan trees.
Kolt’s truck.
Josh and Kolt had moved into this little trailer together after Kolt joined the Unit as a newly minted operator nearly a decade earlier. They’d shared many good times here over the years, and Josh reminisced back to those days as he turned off his engine and his headlights and just sat there looking around at the place.
It was a dump, no doubt about it, but it had always been a dump, and with rent only two hundred bucks a month, the two friends never complained.
TJ found it surreal to be here again, looking through the rain-swept windshield at his old home. For three years he had been a prisoner of war in Pakistan, and he’d spent many nights chained to a wall or a cot or locked behind an iron door, and he’d thought of this place, and of his friend Kolt Raynor.
Not all of TJ’s thoughts about Kolt had been good. It was Kolt’s mistake that had gotten TJ captured in Pakistan, after all. But any animosity TJ had felt in those first months of captivity had faded away with time, and he knew Kolt had done everything in his power to make amends for his mistake.
Josh did not blame Kolt for what had happened.
Not anymore.
The months since coming home from Pakistan had been difficult. Timble had only returned to Delta a month prior, and he was not back in his former position. He was no longer operational, his three tough years as a POW had taken a heavy toll, and although his body had recovered to a large extent in the months since coming home, he was in no way ready for operational status with Delta. Instead, he now worked in RDI, Research and Development Integration. It was Lieutenant Colonel Timble’s job, along with many others, to find the next top sniper rifle, or GPS device, or armored vehicle, or lightweight body armor; any piece of kit that would help frontline Delta operators perform their difficult duties.
The work was vital to the success of Delta, but it wasn’t on the sharp edge, and for a man like TJ, it was a hell of a letdown from the excitement and importance of his former job—leading America’s Tier One operators into battle.
Now he spent his days working with approved vendors, all of whom had signed a nondisclosure agreement to get access to the Unit. His fellow RDI colleagues were other broken and busted Delta assaulters and snipers. It was a grim place for men who had spent their adult lives as fine-tuned physical and mental specimens. The men of RDI felt as if they were a million miles away from their old jobs, even though the Unit’s operators were just across the hall.
Josh missed his old life, and he longed to return to operational status.
* * *
Kolt Raynor opened his door to find TJ standing in the rain with a large pizza and a six-pack of beer. The two men had seen each other around the compound and had eaten lunch together in the chow hall a few times, but both had been too busy to spend much time together in the short time since TJ had returned to work.
“Good to see you,” Kolt said.
TJ came in, shook off the rain, and tossed a cold beer to Kolt. “Nice to see
you
back home in one piece, Kolt. I hear you have been a busy boy.”
“It’s been an interesting few days, to say the least.”
Josh sat down on the old lumpy couch and Kolt sank into a cracked burgundy leatherette chair as he broke open the lid of the can.
TJ smiled while looking around. “Love what you’ve done with the place, brother.”
Kolt shrugged. “We did such a fine job with the interior decoration all those years ago, I’ve seen no reason to update it.”
TJ laughed as he watched Kolt power-chug the beer, squeeze the can, and toss it into the kitchen sink, just a few feet away from where he sat in the living room. Then both men dug into the pizza. Between bites Timble said, “You got banged up in New Delhi?”
“It was nothing. Stitch got the worst of it, but he couldn’t be happier with how things turned out.”
“You guys are rock stars at the compound.”
Raynor just smiled. Then he changed the subject. “You heard about the hostage killed in the takedown?”
“Yeah,” said TJ. “That was unfortunate.”
Kolt just shook his head. “Should have seen the setup. I should have fucking
known
there would be a trap.”
“You did your best. Your best is better than ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of the rest of the world. Your best is better than most any guy in the troop. But your best wasn’t good enough to help that woman.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I still have it,” Kolt said.
TJ kept eating while he talked. “Look, Racer, I don’t know the details, but word in the building is that you had about three seconds to process what you were seeing with that plane about to take off. Nobody else would have risked landing on the roof and taking down a moving aircraft.”
Kolt cut him off. “Was it worth it?”
“Stop whining. You are a leader. Leadership is your job. You had to drive the risk. You went off your instincts, an old lady bought it, but you saved hundreds. You did your job.”
Kolt nodded. One thing Kolt appreciated about Josh during their years serving together was that Josh always told Kolt what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear.