12

RUB‘ AL-KHALI, SAUDI ARABIA

On Wednesday, waiting at a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen, Patrick and his team still had doubts about whether the mission would go forward. They were less than forty-eight hours from launch, and there were rumors that the State Department was still trying to negotiate a diplomatic resolution. The prior Sunday, the president had authorized a surgical extraction for the early hours of Friday morning. But Patrick and his men had been to the brink of important missions before and had the rug pulled out from under them at the last minute. He was starting to think it might happen again.

Tonight they were scheduled for a video briefing that would involve JSOC commander Admiral Towers and the president herself. Patrick had never been on a presidential mission before and had found it impossible to sleep the night before the briefing. Admiral Towers, a highly respected former SEAL, already knew the mission by heart. He had told Patrick to keep his briefing short and to the point. Fewer details meant fewer questions and fewer opportunities for the president to get cold feet.

Like his teammates, Patrick spent most of the day packing and repacking his gear. He had ten pockets in his Crye desert digital combat uniform, and each had a specific purpose. He made a handwritten list in his pocket journal and went through the items one by one. His camera. His fixed-blade knife. A tourniquet and rubber gloves. A video camera. Plastic infrared lights that could be seen only through night vision and would be activated in rooms the SEALs had cleared.

He checked and rechecked the rest of his equipment. The body armor. The night vision goggles. His rifle, laser, and helmet. He leafed through his laminated mission booklet with a diagram of the prison’s layout and pictures of both Holloman and Abdulaziz. And lastly, he ran his fingers over the small photograph of Paige he had taped inside the back cover.

He was ready. He was a thousand times ready. The next thirty-six hours, waiting for authorization to proceed, would be the most agonizingly slow and gut-wrenching hours of his young life.

The briefing took place at 2100 Yemen time, 1400 in Washington, D.C. Patrick and his men sat in a tent in front of a secure camera feed with two large monitors, one on each side. At precisely 2100, the faces of Admiral Towers and President Hamilton, flanked by their respective chiefs of staff, flashed on the two screens. Vice President Frazier was also in the room with the president; Patrick couldn’t tell if there were other VIPs off camera.

The president thanked them for taking time for the briefing, as if they had a choice. The whole thing seemed surreal. Admiral Towers was dressed in his battle fatigues, his face thin and angled, his gray eyes unforgiving. Patrick had seen the president a thousand times on television. He had voted against her and griped about her to his buddies. But now here she was, the commander in chief, looking intently into the video feed and waiting for Patrick to describe the mission.

Admiral Towers introduced Patrick and asked him to begin the briefing.

In the last three days, Patrick had gone over it multiple times with Towers’s chief of staff, and he had it down almost word for word. Because it was the military, he’d integrated lots of PowerPoint slides, but the goal was to have the whole thing described in five minutes or less.

He could feel his voice cracking as he described the high-altitude, high-opening parachute entry, the various rendezvous points, the plans for breaching the compound, the extraction of the prisoners, and the contingency plans if things went bad. By the time he was halfway through, he had settled down, and his words came out crisp and confident. He finished in four minutes and asked if the president had any questions.

She did. “Whom did you vote for in the last election?”

Patrick’s heart froze. He had prepared for every question . . . except this. What difference did it make?

“I voted for your opponent,” Patrick said. “But that was before I knew you would authorize a mission to kick the Houthis’ collective butts.”

He saw a brief smirk on Towers’s face and knew he would get props for the answer later.

Hamilton smiled broadly. “I thought that might be the case. Maybe I can earn your vote for the next election.”

“Anything’s possible,” Patrick said because he couldn’t think of anything else.

Hamilton stared into the camera, and the smile left her face. “Actually, I have no questions. I didn’t ask you men to give me a briefing so that I could second-guess your tactics. I don’t call you for advice on the State of the Union, and you don’t need my advice on how to extract prisoners.”

That statement somehow changed the dynamics on the call. She had instantly earned some of Patrick’s respect. He had heard that the president had an aura about her, that once you spent time with her, you wanted to trust her, to follow her lead. It was gravitas, and he was sensing it now.

“I asked you men to brief me because this is one of the hardest decisions I have to make as your commander in chief. I’m not sure how the other presidents approached it, and we all have our own styles, but if I’m going to ask good men to put their lives on the line, I want to look them in the eye and tell them how grateful I am for their service.

“I want you to know that your country is behind you. I want you to know that our prayers are with you. I know that you have families and that many of you are somebody’s dad and most of you are somebody’s husband. You are not just another piece on the global chessboard to me. This mission is about some very important principles like freedom and due process and respect for American citizens. I wouldn’t put your lives on the line for anything less.”

She hesitated for a moment and it seemed to Patrick like she might be choking up a little. He and his teammates liked to joke around about these missions or downplay their significance. It’s all part of the job. This is what we get paid to do. No big deal.

But in moments like this, they knew it was a very big deal.

“I will be monitoring every minute of this mission from the Situation Room at the White House. While Americans go safely about their business, your team will be showing the rest of the world why this is still the land of the brave.”

She leaned back a bit, and Patrick wanted to salute. But he didn’t know the protocol and thought he should wait for her to stand. When she did, he gave her a crisp salute. He sensed his team rising behind him and doing the same.

The president saluted back. “God bless you,” she said, and the feed was terminated.

For a few seconds, nobody said a word, the gravity of the moment engulfing them.

As usual, it was Beef Anderson who broke the reverence. “You suck-up!” he said, pounding Patrick on the back. “‘I’ll be sure to vote for you next time!’” he squealed. “‘You are such an awesome leader!’”

The other men chimed in, mocking Patrick and his interaction with the commander in chief.

But Patrick didn’t care. The mission was on! And a farm boy from a small town in upstate New York had just spoken to the president of the United States of America.