Takedown

Bob smiled his most charming smile and replied, “Then bring me two of them. I don’t like the fact that this guy’s got a head start on me.”

The woman rolled her eyes as she went in search of three new glasses.

“I think she likes you,” said Harvath once the woman was out of earshot.

“Hearts and minds. It’s what I’m all about.”

Harvath laughed. It was nice to see Bob in reasonably good spirits. Under the smile and devil-may-care attitude, though, he knew the man was not taking his forced retirement well. That was a big part of why Harvath was spending the Fourth of July weekend in New York City.

The other part was because at present, he didn’t have a solid relationship with anyone worth spending the weekend with. The only woman Harvath could have seen himself with was otherwise engaged, quite literally, and on her way to marrying someone else.

As if he could read minds, Bob wasted no time in asking, “So, how’s Meg?”

Harvath knew the subject was bound to come up. Both he and Bob had been part of a hostage rescue team that had freed Meg Cassidy from a hijacked airliner just a few years prior. Because Meg had been the only one to see the key hijacker’s face, she had been recruited to help track and ID him for termination. A good part of her training for the assignment had taken place behind the fence, as it was known, with Bob and several of his colleagues at the Delta Force compound at Fort Bragg. “This time next year, you and I’ll probably be attending her wedding,” said Harvath.

“You’ve gotta be one of the dumbest people I’ve ever met, you know that?”

“Good to see you too, Robert,” replied Harvath as the bartender returned with their beers and set one in front of Harvath and two in front of Bob.

After she walked away to take care of another customer, Bob said, “Meg Cassidy is hands down the best woman I’ve ever seen you with and you let her slip right through your fingers.”

“It’s complicated.”

“She’s a woman,” said Bob as he took a sip of his stout and let his response hang in the air between them. “They’re always complicated.”

It was a subject Harvath really had no desire to get into. “It’s over, okay?”

“It’s okay with me if it’s okay with you.”

“It’s okay with me,” said Harvath centering his beer on its coaster.

“So who are you dating now?” asked Bob.

“Nobody.”

Herrington smiled, “So then you’re not really okay and its not really over, is it?”

“Give me a break, would you?”

“At least tell me you’re gay. SEAL or no SEAL, you were in the Navy, after all. Being gay comes with the territory for you squids. What do they say? When you’re under way, gay is okay?”

“Fuck you,” replied Harvath, who then added, “You know if at any point you want to pull that excessively large nose of yours out of my personal life, I’d be more than happy to discuss what happened in Afghanistan.”

This time, it was Bob’s turn to be silent. Though he hadn’t meant to, Harvath had dragged a piece of sandpaper over a very raw nerve.

When Herrington finally spoke he said, “How many men did you lose when the president was kidnapped?”

“Too many.”

“Yeah,” said Bob, nodding his head knowingly. “It sucks. But you know what can be worse?”

Harvath shook his head.

“Having men under your command seriously maimed and in constant pain. That’s worse than seeing them die. At least when they’re dead, they’re not in anguish anymore.”

Harvath signaled the bartender to bring him another round and said, “What happened in Afghanistan?”

Bob waited until Harvath had his beer and after a little more prodding responded, “We were tasked with taking down a target near Herat. Somehow, they must have known we were coming, because they hit us first and hit us hard-real hard.”

“We had a guy attached to our unit who’d messed up his ankle and I was helping hump his load. I should have seen that ambush coming, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t on point. I was the third guy in the column, making my way back up to the lead when it happened. The two guys in front got it real bad. I got off easy compared to them, but it doesn’t matter. Because of me, all three of us were handed medical retirements.”

“You think this is all because you weren’t on point?”

“A team leader leads, period.”

“That’s bullshit, Bob, and you know it,” said Harvath. “Nobody can be on point all the time, not even you. That’s why the position gets rotated.”

“But it was my turn to be up front.”

“Yet you were humping the pack of an injured man. You can’t do both.”

“Not anymore, apparently.”

“Shit happens, Bob.”

“Not to me it doesn’t and not to my team. We hadn’t even had so much as a hangnail in almost two years and then bang, three of us are out. One of my guys will never walk again, will never be able to make love to his wife, and the other one’s blind. He’ll never be able to watch his kids grow up. All of this because I wasn’t up front when I should have been.”