Thursday morning, after Alex’s watch, the guys woke and ate breakfast together with Leila. Following breakfast, John showed his Bible to Leila and asked, “Do you mind if I read this?”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Yes. Do you?”
“I did. Before my son and husband were murdered.”
“I know someone like that.”
“Would that be Alex?” she asked.
John looked at Alex.
“If you all don’t mind, I’m going to take a nap,” Alex said. He retreated to the bedroom and lay down on the floor next to his kit. The walls were thin because he could still hear Leila.
“How about you?” Leila said.
“Me?” Pancho asked. “I’ll believe Him when I see Him. Or, if that’s too much, He could make me a believer by rescuing the poor.”
“You lose someone, too?” Leila asked.
“No,” Pancho said.
“If you do not do this for someone you lost and you don’t do this for God, who do you do this job for?”
“John and Alex,” Pancho said. “They’re my brothers.”
“They’re not real brothers, are they?”
Pancho chuckled, causing the wall to vibrate. “No, not hardly. I grew up with six brothers, but not these guys.”
“Seven boys. It must have been hard for your parents.”
“I never knew my father. Rarely saw my mother. Grandma raised us boys in a shack that leaked. She fed us just enough to keep us hungry—did the best she could, and we loved her for it.”
“That is why you do this job—to escape poverty?”
“I guess you could say that’s part of it. My high school biology class took a trip to Corpus Christi, where I saw a sailor driving a red sports car with a pretty senorita sitting next to him. Later, I found out the Navy fed its sailors as much as they could eat and their ships didn’t leak—I immediately signed on the dotted line. I loved being in the Navy, but I missed my brothers. When some SEALs deployed on my ship, I noticed the close bond between them, and I wanted the brotherhood they had.”
“I wish I had a brother,” she said.
“You do now,” Pancho said. “You’re part of our family now.”
Alex drifted to sleep. He lost track of time until John’s voice whispered, “Lunchtime.”
Alex sat up, soaked in sweat. Somebody had turned on a fan, but it didn’t seem to help. The house had heated up like an oven. It was hard to imagine, but the outside was probably hotter. Alex rose to his feet and walked over to the table, where he sat with the others to eat a thick stew served over rice.
After lunch, the guys helped Leila clear the table and do dishes. Then they sat down in the living room and Alex gave a final brief. Although JSOC hailed Leila as an excellent agent, Alex told her only what she needed to know: tonight she would drive them to a group of dunes southeast of the lab and wait there to extract the SEALs. Alex didn’t tell her that they planned to take out the lab tonight, and he didn’t tell her they’d be using a nuclear backpack.