Moore spent the next hour on the phone with Slater and O’Hara, and it wasn’t until after he’d vented his anger and frustration to his bosses and took a long moment to stare out the window of his room that his eyes finally burned with tears.
The sons of bitches had killed poor Rana. He was just …just a smart boy who’d done a stupid thing: He’d agreed to work with Moore. And not for the money. The kid’s parents were already rich. He was an adventurer who’d wanted more out of life, and somehow, there was a bit of Moore in him, and now they were carrying his body down from the Bajaur tribal area, wrapped in old blankets. They’d cut and burned him for what little he knew. Wazir said he had probably lasted ten, fifteen hours at the most before he’d died. Rumors of the torturing had reached Wazir’s men, who’d gone up to the caves and had found the body. The Taliban had left Rana as a message to any other Pakistanis who chose the “wrong” path of justice.
Moore sat on the bed and let the tears flow. He cursed and cursed again. Then he rose, whirled, drew his Glock from its shoulder holster and aimed it at the window, imagining the heads of the Taliban who had captured Rana.
Then he holstered the pistol, caught his breath, and returned to the bed. Oh, hell, if it was time to feel sorry for himself, he might as well get through it now, before the guys tailing him came knocking.
He sent Leslie a text message, told her he missed her, told her to send him another picture of herself, that things weren’t going so well and he could use some cheering up. He waited a few minutes, but it was late over there, and she didn’t reply. He lay back on the bed and felt overwhelmed by that same feeling he’d had during BUD/S, that suffocating desire to surrender and accept defeat. He wished that Frank Carmichael were with him now, to convince him that Khodai’s death and the kid’s death meant something and that walking away was far worse than anything else he could do. Yet another voice inside, a voice that seemed far more reasonable, told him that he wasn’t getting any younger, that there were far less dangerous and lucrative ways to make money, as, say, a consultant for a private security firm or as a sales rep for one of the big military and police gear manufacturers, and that if he remained in his current position, he would never have a wife and a family. The job was always fun and exciting until someone you knew, someone you had fostered a deep relationship with, a relationship built on profound respect and trust, was tortured and murdered. Every time Moore let down his guard and allowed himself to truly feel for someone, that relationship would be wrenched away. Was this how he wanted to live the rest of his life?
Back in late 1994, Moore and Carmichael were in a bar in Little Creek, Virginia, celebrating the fact that they were about to become counterterrorism specialists with their new SEAL team. They were talking to another SEAL, nicknamed Captain Nemo, a gunner’s mate second class who was assigned to Task Unit BRAVO as the SEAL delivery vehicle pilot and Ordnance Engineering Department head. During a proof-of-concept full-mission rehearsal in which Nemo was piloting the SDV, one of his fellow operators had accidentally drowned. He’d refused to go into the details of the incident, but both Moore and Carmichael had heard about it before meeting the guy, who they learned was ready to leave the SEALs. He felt responsible for what had happened, even though the investigation had cleared him of any wrongdoing.
There they were, Moore and Carmichael, getting ready to embark on their careers as SEAL operators — and Nemo was putting a real damper on their celebration.
Again, good old Carmichael had stepped in with his words of wisdom: “There’s no way you can quit,” he’d told Nemo.
“Oh, yeah, why?”
“Because who else is going to do it?”
Nemo smirked. “You guys. The new guys, the ones who are too naive to realize that it’s just not worth it.”
“Listen to me, bro. That we’re here is a gift. We answered the call because deep down — and I want you to think about this — deep down we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we weren’t born to live ordinary lives. We knew that when we were kids. And we know it now. You can’t escape that feeling. You’ll have it for the rest of your life, whether you quit now or not. And if you quit, you’ll regret it. You’ll look around and think,
Moore stood up from the bed in his hotel room, whirled around, and muttered aloud, “I belong here, damn it.”
His phone beeped with a text message. He checked it. Leslie. He sighed.
14 A SANGRE FRIA
Gloria Vega hopped into the passenger’s side of an F-150 4x4 with the words
The graying man at the wheel, Alberto Gomez, was dressed similarly to Vega and had warned her that visiting the crime scenes “after the fact” could be as dangerous as the initial incidents themselves. Bodies were all too often used as bait to lure in police so the
And so the days of operating in plainclothes were over for the inspectors, Gomez had told her with a shrug. He’d scrutinized her with eyes so weary that she wondered why he hadn’t retired already.
Well, then again, she knew why. She hadn’t been paired with him by accident. While the Federal Police had no definitive proof, Gomez was at the top of their list of inspectors with ties to the cartels. Sadly, he’d had so many years on the job and so many “successful” busts that no one wanted to implicate the old man. There was an implicit understanding that he would finish out his few years and retire, and that no one should interfere with that. He was a real family man, with four kids and eleven grandchildren, and he volunteered at the local schools to teach the kids about crime and safety. He was an usher at his local Catholic church and a well-known member of the Knights of Columbus who had risen up to the role of district deputy. He volunteered at the local hospital, and if he could, he would spend weekends helping old ladies cross the street.
All of which Vega suspected was an elaborate cover, a false life that made him feel better about being on the cartel’s payroll.
Senior-ranking members of the Federal Police, particularly the newer administrators and hires, had a much more aggressive and zero-tolerance policy for corruption, while the local districts too often looked the other way — out of respect, seniority, and, most of all, fear. And so it was that Vega was seated beside a man who could be one of the dirtiest in all of Juarez.
“We have three bodies. When we get there, say nothing,” Gomez told her.
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t need to know anything from you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I don’t care how many years you spent in Mexico City. I don’t care about your long and impressive record. I don’t care about your promotion or about all the kind words your colleagues have said about you in your file. All I care about now is helping you to stay alive. Do you understand me, young lady?”
“I understand you. But I don’t understand why I’m not permitted to talk. I’m not sure if you realize this, but women in Mexico are allowed to vote and run for public office. Maybe you haven’t picked up a newspaper in a while.”
“You see?
