SEAL Team Six Hunt the Falcon(14)

He did everything that was expected of him, but he wasn’t completely present. Part of him was still on the mountain in Nuristan Province, fighting the enemy, making split-second decisions, arguing with Captain Battier about the need to reinforce Station C.

The adjustment from combat to civilian life was always difficult. This time it was especially hard because of the four SEAL teammates who had returned in flag-covered coffins. He carried his memories of them like an extra weight on his shoulders.

The first three funerals took place the following day in Virginia Beach as a cold rain fell from a cement-colored sky. The chapels and funeral homes were interchangeable and the routine was the same—people dressed in black, bouquets of roses, eulogies, and grieving families. One ran into another. By the end of the day he felt numb, hollowed out. If life had a purpose, he’d forgotten what it was.

By the time Saturday arrived and he and Holly drove up to Arlington National Cemetery for Neal Stafford’s burial, Crocker thought he was inured to sadness. But when Alyssa spoke about her husband as a soul mate, lover, and companion, not sparing the intimate details of their life together as a married couple—including the way Neal liked to tease her and call her his bunny when they made love—Crocker broke down and wept.

Holly squeezed his hand. He looked at her and saw that she was thinking it could have been him.

Life was tough and precious. It contained unbelievably beautiful, gentle moments, and hard, ugly, difficult ones. Then it ended. The bodies piled up, and the struggles continued. Love and friendship made life worth living.

Crocker considered himself part of a proud tradition of warriors—including his grandfather, uncle, and father—dedicated to defending people’s freedom, which to his mind was an unalienable right. The enemies might have changed over the years—from fascists, to communists, to Muslim radicals—but their goals were the same: to subject people to a monolithic set of rules and beliefs.

As long as he was alive, he would fight to the death to defend what he believed. To his mind it was almost a spiritual quest.

Crocker didn’t pretend to be a philosopher or an intellectual, and he didn’t belong to a church or political party, but he believed that the principle of self-determination was critical to human progress and survival. People had to make their own decisions and their own mistakes if they were going to learn and evolve—which to Crocker’s way of thinking is what we have been put on this earth to do.



By the time Monday morning rolled around, he still wasn’t himself and was having trouble sleeping at night. Even when he was awake, he found himself drifting back to Afghanistan—the cold, snow, smells, faces, and close scrapes with death.

Running in the woods was the only thing that seemed to clear his head. He ran for over an hour with Brando past still marshes, Broad Bay, and Lake Susan Constant. He then showered, dressed, breakfasted, and climbed into his beat-up Ford pickup and drove to the SEAL Team Six compound. He was seated in front of his cage inventorying his gear when an aide arrived to tell him that the CO, Captain Alan Sutter, wanted to see him in his office.

“Now?” Crocker asked.

“Yes, he’s waiting.”

He put down the six-inch suppressed-air silencer he’d been cleaning and trudged across the concrete assembly area where some SEALs were rehearsing unarmed defensive tactics, thinking that he was probably going to be asked about what had transpired at OPM, and especially his arrest of ANA Major Jawid Shahar Mohammed. If Captain Battier had filed a formal complaint, he knew there was a possibility he could be called before the Naval Special Warfare Incident Determination Committee.

He was preparing answers in his head as he entered the CO’s office. Sutter put his hand over the receiver he was talking into and said, “Welcome back, Warrant. Grab yourself a cup of coffee. Jim Anders from CIA will be here in a minute.”

Anders is here? Why? he asked himself, filling a cup with water, then gulping it down and glancing at the copy of the Washington Post that sat on the corner of Sutter’s secretary’s desk. The Israelis were bombing Hamas bases in Gaza, which brought back memories of his own dealings with the Israelis and Palestinians over the years.

Hearing footsteps approach, he half turned, then felt a hand on his shoulder near where he’d been hit at OPM. It was Jim Anders, looking tanned and well rested. He said, “Good to see you again, Crocker. How was your Thanksgiving?”

Neal Stafford’s funeral flashed in Crocker’s mind—his wife and two tow-headed kids standing beside the coffin. He shook away the anger and grief, and answered, “Good. How was yours?”