SEAL Team 666: A Novel

“The Maersk Alabama?” Fratty asked, his eyes narrowing. “I thought that was Chief Garton from the USS Boxer.”

“It was. Twitchy here wasn’t involved in the Alabama.”

“Please don’t call me Twitchy.”

Laws ignored him. “Remember the CNN reporter the pirates nabbed last year?”

Ruiz and Fratty nodded.

Walker did, as well as he remembered the shot. He’d been on the mast of a submarine with his Barrett 50. There wasn’t a SEAL within a hundred miles and he’d been ordered to take the shot if he had one. On six-foot seas with a twenty-kilometer crosswind, he’d watched through his scope as the pirates ripped off the shirt and pants of the CNN reporter the free world had seen reporting from any number of war zones, her pretty face delivering the tragedy of the human condition in a way that allowed Middle America to keep their evening meal down long enough that they could see commercials about bathroom tissue and cars with five-star safety ratings.

The pirates had popped up sixteen hundred meters off the bow of the cargo ship she’d been reporting from. Then, on an international news feed, they’d stormed the ship, shot her cameraman, and proceeded to tell the world their terms. Three hours later, the USS Tennessee, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, arrived on station. Walker, along with seven others from the Kennedy Irregular Warfare Group, had been aboard ship, on their way back from Iraq. When the submarine commander had asked him if he could take the shot, there was no question that he had to try.

The distance was just over a mile. He could swim it in twenty-three minutes. He could walk it in twenty. He could run it in six and a half. But the .50-caliber round would arrive there 2.2 seconds after he pulled the trigger. Taking into consideration the velocity of the round, the curvature of the earth, the rise and fall of the bow of the target ship as compared to the rise and fall of the submarine that was idling perpendicular to the target, and the crosswind, it was an impossible shot. It was one he never should have tried. He just as easily could have shot the woman as missed the entire boat.

But as he’d watched the rape progress through the Leupold 4.5–14 × 50mm Mark 4 scope, he couldn’t help himself. His fingers automatically adjusted the parallax focus, windage, and elevation knobs on their own, receiving mental calculations of the geometry needed to take out the target. At that distance, he couldn’t hear her scream, but as her back arched and her body went rigid, it was as if he was standing right there beside her.

He fired twice.

Three seconds later, each pirate lost his head in mists of bone and spray.

All caught on international television and replayed by everyone over and over for the next several weeks.

Laws had narrated his memory for the other two. As the wheels bit the tarmac, Walker noticed a newfound respect in their eyes. At least they knew that he could back them up if needed.

When the plane came to a halt, the others stood and gathered their things. He joined them as they waited for the ramp to descend.

Holmes came up behind him. “Want to talk to you when we get to the Pit.”

11

CORONADO ISLAND. NIGHT.

They piled into a white twelve-passenger van with smoked windows and the letters CPC on either side. They ran through the naval complex, finally stopping at a hangar that had a sign out front declaring it to be CORONADO PEST CONTROL.

They ditched their equipment in the front room and entered a conference room, where Holmes went over the mission step by step, laying out lessons learned and establishing their methodology. He stood at the head of the table, a line drawing of the sweatshop basement projected on the wall.

“At this point, we have more questions than we had when we entered. We have a nebulous threat to the U.S. We have a sweatshop that was creating tattoo bodysuits, at least according to the cleanup crew.” He turned to Walker and looked at him for the first time. “Just so you know, we have backup teams when needed. This one was filled with reserve intelligence officers using a hazardous-materials team as cover. They’ve assembled all the items in a warehouse we have near the Salton Sea so that they can be studied. Also recovered was almost ten meters of skin and several finished full bodysuits. The women were also removed and will be debriefed and treated by doctors at the same compound. Hopefully we’ll get more intelligence we can act on. But that’s for another mission.” He turned back to the team. “Anything else?”

When no one said anything, he sat at the head of the table and folded his hands. He looked at them for a moment. They were big hands, tanned by years of outdoor exposure. “Before we go any further,” he said, “let’s talk about that thing that happened on the op.”

Walker watched as the other SEALs all stared at him.

“Do you mean when I shot the beegee?” Fratty asked, trying to ameliorate the moment.

“Fuck that. I meant the other thing.”