The Siege.
January of 1992.
Opiekun, Bolivia.
Children present during times of war sometimes give confusing interviews, having failed to notice the fires, the carnage, the explosions, and telling the asker instead about a vine that was growing up the wall in their bedroom. Even if they were present and bore witness to the execution of their own parents, their siblings, their teachers and priests, they insisted on giving some arbitrary detail. It got written off a lot before modern medicine, before warfare evolved and tapes of calm, happy children dancing through minefields emerged. Now they call it sensory diversion – a last ditch effort by the mind to preserve the self, to look past the bigger picture, to avoid the whole story in order to survive one chapter.
It happened to me in the hotel hallway.
I was on the ground, fighting for my life with a Russian agent, refusing to give up any ground to him and unable to take any for myself. Gunfire sprayed all around us, grenades went off and shook the building, but for the moment I could only see him, and he could only see me.
His eyes were like burning charcoal.
He had been hit by a grenade. He must have been. Half his face was cinders. He fought on like nothing had happened, like he was not a horror to behold. In his eyes the fire raged on, the fight for survival, the relentless urge to live.
He wants to kill me. He wants to kill me.
We were running out of strength – his charcoal was dying down; my arms were failing. His grip on my shoulder loosened and his knees faltered. I shoved him back a few centimeters. His fiery eyes bulged, and his hand went for my throat – I released him, horrified, as his skeletal hand came toward me. I shoved him harder, but he grabbed me again, and groped at my waist, his bones clinking over the hilt of my gun.
He wants to kill me. He wants to kill me.
He wrapped his hand around the hilt of my gun, and I watched as the charcoal in his eyes spread over his face. He was more dead than alive now. His skull was shriveled, his skin black as pitch. It was all I could do to hold him back, to keep him away. He yanked at my gun. He headbutted me, like a wild animal vying for freedom. Blood dripped into my eye. He loosened the gun. It started to give. His strength was returning.
When he drew the gun, the illusion shattered. I reacted the only way I could. I let him go, grabbing his wrist with one hand and his throat with the other, slamming him down as hard as I could. He was too eager, too sure of himself. Having a weapon made him bold. But I was bold, too.
He lay there, the gun he had worked so hard to take flat on the ground beneath his hand. I squeezed his throat, straining every muscle until the force was so much that he gave up choking me back and used his free hand to try and pry mine away. He released the gun. I swatted it out of reach and put my other hand to his throat – he made the worst sounds, like a stream gurgling under a rock, but I was deaf to it. I was deaf to everything.
He wants to kill me. He wants to kill me.
He was still at last. I lurched backward, looking carefully away from the body, trying to quell the nausea in my belly. My hands ached. Several seconds passed before I was able to grab my gun and grab the belt of grenades I had taken from him as our battle begun. And then my eyes fell on the body. He was not burned. His face was intact, his head full of hair, his eyes a somber brown, and wide open. Who was I seeing, then?
I left him lying in the hall and slung the grenades across the lobby floor, where Donald had crouched down to catch them. He saluted me, freed a grenade, and chucked it toward the massive hole in the front of the lobby, shouting, "Grenade!"
It rolled through the opening and detonated, throwing an enemy into the ceiling and filling the room with smoke. I retreated to the hall, listening.
"Need help in here!" Sam called from the back of the building.
I drew my gun and hit the two doors on either side of the hall, clearing the rooms before I went to the back. Sam Axe was bloody and wild, one hand on the charred vest of Newton, the other pointing a gun at my face. When he saw me there, he gasped his relief, and the gun clunked down out of his hand. His eyes were wet.
"He got hit by one of the secondary blasts," Sam said, holding his injured brother in his lap like a mother would a wounded child. "I tried to… I tried to help him…"
Newton was ruined, but somehow still alive. I looked pointedly at his boots, unwilling or unable to see the rest right now. I wanted nothing more than to leave and rejoin the battle, to throw myself into the fray and forget that I had come here.
But that was war. Everything was sudden and brutal, no time to think, only act.
"You have to pull it together," I said, my voice cracking. I crouched by his side, pulling his hand off of Newton and clasping my own around it. Sam was shaking. "Hey, you have to pull it together for the rest of them. I know what he means to you. I know. I do."
Sam had everything in his eyes – rage, sorrow, confusion – and he was not as good as I was at shutting it down. But he did. He laid Newton gently on the ground and stood up, his uniform crimson from the chest down. "Hell of a lot more than five guys," he said.
"Honeywell lied," I responded, though we were both well aware of that by now. "We need a plan."
We were in the kitchen, shaken by the blasts, with supplies lying everywhere. It was a cornucopia to me. Larry had taught me to cook up all kinds of nasty things from common household chemicals, and I had never wanted to play dirty more than now. I barely knew Newton – and, hell, I barely knew Sam – but seeing their connection shattered was enough for me. I let the rage run wild.
"I need… uh…" I scrambled, grabbing plastic spray bottles and doing chemistry in my head. "Give me that drain cleaner, and the dish soap. No, the bleach. Grab the bleach first."
Sam brought me what I asked for. I started emptying spray bottles and filling the bottoms of each with soap, and then pouring bleach on top. I capped them before the swirling white gas could escape and set each bottle in a line.
"What is that?" Sam asked.
"Dish soap contains ammonia, and when you add bleach you basically have mustard gas. It does a lot of damage in small spaces, but right now I'm using the gas as an explosive catalyst."
"You know that stuff kills," Sam said.
"So do guns and grenades," I looked up, finding Sam staring at me with his jaw locked. I had thought he would be ready to do anything to get back at these people for Newton, but I was wrong. He looked uncertain. "We need more firepower," I said, "I gave Donald some grenades, but if we want to keep these guys back, we need more."
"We have people out there, too."
"I know. I know that."
"Do you? Because you're over here making chemical weapons!"
I searched the room for a heat source, settling on a tiny gas can that had been hidden under the sink. It was just enough to fill the bottom of a small tub, just enough to dip the bottles in.
"I have-" Sam began.
"You have people out there," I snapped. "I know. I know that." I took one of the bottles and rolled it in the gasoline. "I have a plan."
"To blow us all to the next life?"
"Just trust me. You can trust me."
"Why? I know what spooks are like. You go all in for the mission, no matter who dies in the process. But I don't play that way, pal!"
His accusation hit me hard. It was pretty accurate.
"I'm not like that," I argued.
"Oh yeah? Prove it!"
"I will, if you let me do this."
I waited.
He waited.
"People matter," Sam said.
I realized I was wrong about Sam, or that I had applied something of myself to him. He was different than me, and the polar opposite of Larry. He was arguing with me, but there was not a cold, hateful light in his eyes – he was speaking from the heart, from a place of compassion. And while my training told me to go straight for Honeywell and secure him until reinforcements arrived, something in me hesitated. Larry would do that. Larry would have let those SEALs die without a second thought. And for the first time, Larry was not here.
For the first time, I could choose to be different.
Sam could never have known what I had been through, what was going on in my head. He could never understand the life I lived, the life I had chosen – could he? Larry told me that no one knew the burden spies bore, that no one could empathize, that we were doomed to spend our lives alone, save for the company of each other. It was not in our nature to trust, to bond, to love.
But he was wrong. People matter.
Sam was groping for understanding, trying to put his faith in me with nothing to go on. So, I made sure I meant it this time. "You can trust me."
And he did. "What can I do?"
"I need you to cover me from the hall. I'm going to the front desk."
"I'm on it."
We stepped up to the edge of the hall together, finding that things had gone suspiciously quiet. Someone was murmuring in Russian outside, coming up with a plan for the final assault. Someone was creeping along the ruined front wall, their shoes crunching on the fresh rubble.
Before it all began, I thought of my mother, and the people who would visit her house and tell her that her son was never coming home.
"We surrender!" I shouted in Russian.
Sam jumped, but stayed by my side.
Everything went silent. Even the footsteps stopped.
"Show yourself, hands on your heads!" came the response. I recognized the accent. It came from a northern province, the same area that Honeywell was raised.
I crouched and put my hands on either side of the tub of gasoline, glancing up at Sam, measuring his resolve. His eyes were hooded. He had the spray bottles in his hands, dangling by their tops.
When the time seemed right, I slung the tub across the room.
Someone shouted.
Guns went off and the sparks ignited the gasoline.
Fire roared across the entire hotel, dividing it in half, creating an overwhelming lightshow. It caught on the wood that lay scattered around, ignited the floor, crept up the wall and swung across the curtains – fire, the great consumer, the great equalizer.
And then before anyone could react, or run, or pray, Sam threw the first bottles into the flames.
It went off like a grenade, a deafening crash that sent everyone diving for cover. Sam ducked into the safety of the hall behind me, but I started running, throwing my shirt up over my face. I was behind the front desk before the first shots went off in the chaos.
Donald was there, dragging me behind a metal plate dented with bullets.
"Got any grenades left?" I asked. "Bullets? Have you seen Thompson?"
It was a no on the bullets, and a yes on the grenades.
"Thompson?" I asked again.
"Back there. He got hit."
"How bad?"
"In the leg. Not sure." Donald coughed, his eyes watering. He seemed uninjured, but his skin was black with smoke. "Jesus, what did you throw?"
I pointed back the way I had come, "Sam is in the hall there, and Newton is in the back room. I need you to get there and help Sam with cover. I'll go after Thompson."
It was a mess in the conference room. The Russians had made their initial strike here, trying to demolish the wall, but it held. Part of the ceiling had come down on the table, collapsing it. Thompson was sitting in the corner, a rag tied around his leg, barely awake.
I went straight to him, appalled by his condition. He had a rag tied around his leg, but he was hemorrhaging blood. He seemed too weak to stop it himself. He was sitting in a pool of it, streaked all over from where he had tried to move, to stand. His dusky skin was pale. When I was close enough, he grasped my arm, like he was afraid I was going to leave him.
"I have to hurt you to make you better. Squeeze me as hard as you need to." I told him, drawing my knife and cutting off the bottom of his pants leg. I spun it into a strip and wrapped it around his thigh. I took the flashlight from his belt, tied both ends of the cloth to it, and then twisted. Thompson cried out as the tourniquet tightened. His hand was a vice around my arm.
I hauled him upright, bearing most of his weight, shaking him to try and wake him up. Thompson limped along beside me. I let him lean in the doorway, staring across the burning lobby.
Sam was there. He had his eyes on us.
It seemed the enemy was pushing, trying to get inside the hotel.
If they managed to claim a foothold inside, it was over.
"Sam! Now!"
Thompson and I took cover in the doorframe as another bomb was slung from the shadows toward the combatants. But they were smarter this time. One of them saw it coming and shot it before it rolled close enough to them. It went off with an ear-ringing bang and produced a white cloud that quickly dispersed, fueling the flames and doing little else.
"Another!" I shouted.
"Fire in the hole!" came the response.
His aim was better this time. He threw it low, so it skittered across the ground and rolled through the flames that the attackers were trying to cross. It exploded when it touched the heat, creating a fireball that sent them running for cover. I grabbed Thompson and crossed the lobby, pulling my shirt up over my mouth, but taking big breaths of the stuff as we passed.
Donald met us and grabbed Thompson, dragging him into the back room. Sam was already there, tending to Newton. He spoke to Donald, "Just got confirmation – Black Hawk 15 incoming."
Thompson groaned as he was let down. He was more aware than ever, gradually regaining some of his color. "Is that Marcy? God, I could use a pretty face right now. You know, she could have been a movie star, if she wasn't such a damn good pilot."
I stayed at the door, looking out into the hall. Something was wrong. I could see the edge of a door – a door that had not been open before. It was the closet, where we had stashed Honeywell and his bodyguard. It really was over, then.
"They got him," I said.
Sam joined me, blood smeared on his forehead, "Slippery son of a bitch."
But as we stood there, there was movement behind the counter. Honeywell. He was crawling behind the flaming desk, trying to get closer to his allies.
I ran. Sam ran behind me.
Gunfire erupted.
Sam and I hit the ground as the walls were shredded. I started dragging myself across the rubble, determine to get my hands on Honeywell no matter the cost. Sam grabbed me by the leg and jerked me backward, shouting, "Hey! It's not worth it!"
But it was worth it. The SEALs were safe and there was nothing standing between me and completing my mission – or strangling Honeywell to death like I had that agent in the hall. I would drag his body back home one way or the other.
I kicked, trying to hit Sam in the face and force him to let me go, but he caught my foot and continued dragging me toward him.
"I can't leave him! Let go!"
Bullets whistled over our heads. Donald threw a grenade and the building trembled.
Honeywell was peeking out at me from behind the front desk, that smug look on his face again. He had lied. It was not unexpected, but it still pissed me off.
Sam locked his arms around my legs. "Oh, no you don't!"
But there was no way for Sam to understand.
I was not in the hotel, not dragging myself across a ruined floor. I was in Mshauri, walking through a line of people who reached out to touch my uniform. I was looking at their eyes, their wasting bodies. I was picking through the remains of their homes, their bones, their lives. I was in Somalia, listening to Ford talk about dust. I was hearing him laugh in basic training. I was seeing him die. I was on the phone with my mother trying to come up with something nice to say when all I felt inside was rage and pain.
I was the person Larry had made me, and more. I was his anger, his ruthlessness, but with the capacity to feel what I had done. I was the conscious villain.
If he had let me go in that moment, I would have gotten my hands on Honeywell and killed him.
But he held on, stubbornly, and another explosion went off.
It fueled the fire and sent debris flying, striking the advancing attackers, sending Honeywell back into hiding, and whacking Sam with a heavy piece of concrete. He rolled sideways, his arm flopping around, nearly lying in the flames.
I was there on the ground between Honeywell and Sam.
I could have scrambled up and gotten behind the desk while everyone was distracted. I could have taken that split second to break his neck or drag him back into the hall as a hostage and hold him there until rescue came. But then I would have to leave Sam. I would have to leave him behind.
It was not even a choice.
It was my moment.
People matter.
I forced myself upright and grabbed Sam, hauling him to his feet. He was dazed, but once he was up, he was running. I was right behind him. The bullets started up again as our enemies recovered. I sped up, shielding his back with mine – and a bullet hit me right in the ribs.
The pain was so sudden and overwhelming that my body locked up. I hit the ground. Sam grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me to safety.
We sat there, the five of us.
Sam dug the bullet out of my vest with his special knife – the one he had won in a poker game. I rolled onto my back and let my vest lay open, so my chest could expand without searing pain. Thompson redid the bandage on his leg and fashioned a makeshift sling for Sam – his left shoulder was dislocated, and he had a gash on his shoulder blade. Donald stood watch in the doorway, occasionally firing into the lobby, rolling the last grenade around in his hand.
We sat there, the five of us, trying to come to terms with the sudden violence we had just been involved in. It was a lot for the mind to process, a lot for the body to forgive.
"I guess I owe you one," Sam said.
I dragged myself up against the wall beside him. "No, we're even now."
"You're alright, Mike. Mind if I call you Mike?"
I shrugged, and winced again.
"Ouch. Gotta watch those gestures, friend."
We all waited there, the five of us, until it became four.
Donald dragged Newton to the corner and placed a jacket over him. It got quiet in the hotel. Honeywell had to be gone by now, and the army that had come to extract him was gone with him. I wondered how he could be so important to them, after so long in the US – but that got me wondering what he had been doing with his time here.
Marcy MacDonald showed up with half a dozen guys on a Black Hawk helicopter. Our team sat around while they sorted the bodies and took photos of their faces – so that the boys back home could figure out who they were, and who had sent them. More soldiers arrived by caravan and Newton was loaded into a camouflage jeep, wrapped up in an American flag.
Soon, we were headed to the nearest US army base for medical treatment and debriefing. I fielded a call from Tom Card and had to tell him my mission had failed. He sounded disappointed.
Sam sat beside me on the plane and put two mini bottles of vodka in front of me.
"In honor of our enemy."
I reached out and fingered one of the bottles.
"Listen, having you on wasn't so bad."
"Is this the part where we have a heart-to-heart?" I wondered dryly. I was tired, everything ached, and I had failed my mission. I wasn't in the mood for chit chat.
Sam smiled despite my tone. He opened one of the bottles and drank it down. "No, this is the part where I say it was a pleasure working with you, brother." He clinked his bottle to mine, and then sat back in his chair, sighing. "May we never do anything like that again."
I toyed with the vodka, and then finally opened the cap and took a sip. It burned in my mouth. "I think if we meet again, it should be paperwork related. Pencil-pushing stuff."
"Right, right," Sam said, and then smiled.