“Fuck you,” replied Harvath, who then added, “You know if at any point you want to pull that excessively large nose of yours out of my personal life, I’d be more than happy to discuss what happened in Afghanistan.”

This time, it was Bob’s turn to be silent. Though he hadn’t meant to, Harvath had dragged a piece of sandpaper over a very raw nerve.

When Herrington finally spoke he said, “How many men did you lose when the president was kidnapped?”

“Too many.”

“Yeah,” said Bob, nodding his head knowingly. “It sucks. But you know what can be worse?”

Harvath shook his head.

“Having men under your command seriously maimed and in constant pain. That’s worse than seeing them die. At least when they’re dead, they’re not in anguish anymore.”

Harvath signaled the bartender to bring him another round and said, “What happened in Afghanistan?”

Bob waited until Harvath had his beer and after a little more prodding responded, “We were tasked with taking down a target near Herat. Somehow, they must have known we were coming, because they hit us first and hit us hard-real hard.”

“We had a guy attached to our unit who’d messed up his ankle and I was helping hump his load. I should have seen that ambush coming, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t on point. I was the third guy in the column, making my way back up to the lead when it happened. The two guys in front got it real bad. I got off easy compared to them, but it doesn’t matter. Because of me, all three of us were handed medical retirements.”

“You think this is all because you weren’t on point?”

“A team leader leads, period.”

“That’s bullshit, Bob, and you know it,” said Harvath. “Nobody can be on point all the time, not even you. That’s why the position gets rotated.”

“But it was my turn to be up front.”

“Yet you were humping the pack of an injured man. You can’t do both.”

“Not anymore, apparently.”

“Shit happens, Bob.”

“Not to me it doesn’t and not to my team. We hadn’t even had so much as a hangnail in almost two years and then bang, three of us are out. One of my guys will never walk again, will never be able to make love to his wife, and the other one’s blind. He’ll never be able to watch his kids grow up. All of this because I wasn’t up front when I should have been.”

Harvath knew Bob pretty well and he knew his reputation firsthand. In fact, most people in the Special Operations community knew it. Bob could carry an entire battalion on his back. He was an incredible athlete, and that athleticism made one of the best soldiers the United States had ever created. Since the day he’d joined the Army right out of high school, through his time as a Ranger and into 7th Group and then Delta, Bob had always led the way. It wasn’t an ego thing, it was just Bob-you couldn’t hold him back.

The fact that he was taking the injuries of his teammates so personally was not surprising to Harvath. That was also the kind of guy Bob was. It was the way most American soldiers were. Truth, freedom, and the American way played well for the cameras, but the fact of the matter was that in the frenzied heat of combat, you weren’t fighting for your country, you were fighting for the guy right next to you.

Looking his friend in the eyes, Harvath tried to assuage some of the man’s guilt by repeating, “Bob, shit happens.”

“Yeah, maybe. But, it’s not the way I wanted to go out,” replied Herrington as he paused and took a long swallow of beer. “I wanted to go out on top. I would’ve liked just one more chance to prove not only to my team, but to myself that I could still do it-that what happened had nothing to do with me getting old, too slow.”

Harvath was not going to let this become the tone for the entire weekend. Bob needed to snap the hell out of it. “You and your team competed in how many triathlons when you were home last year?”

“Two.”

“And the worst showing you had?”

“Fifth place.”

Harvath pretended to think about it for a moment and then responded, “You know, I think it probably was a good idea for the Army to cut you loose after all. I mean, only two top-ten international finishes? You’re obviously on a downhill slide.”

Bob wasn’t looking at him, but Harvath could see the faint traces of a smile form on his face and he decided to push the humor a little further. “Jesus Christ, Bob, you’re forty years old. Someone oughtta be fitting you for false teeth and a new hip, not giving you a gun and sending you out on this nation’s most dangerous assignments. That’s what us young guys are for.”

Herrington’s smile now spread from ear to ear. “First of all, you’re only four years younger than I am, and second, SEAL or no SEAL, I could whip your ass in a New York minute, so don’t get cocky. You’d have a hell of a time meeting women this weekend if I end up dotting both of your eyes for you.”

Harvath was about to suggest Bob abandon the commando motto of silent, swift, and deadly in favor of senile, slow, and deaf, when Herrington looked up at the television and said, “That’s not good.”

Harvath looked up and noticed that several NYPD Emergency Services Unit trucks had gathered at the site of the Bronx school standoff.

“The ESU normally turns out in smaller trucks. Two per squad,” continued Herrington. “Those big rigs are their rolling armories. They don’t move those in unless the situation is really bad. I count at least four up there. That means four squads responding. This is no run-of-the-mill hostage situation.”

Harvath knew that outside the military, the NYPD’s ESU was not only the largest full-time SWAT response group in the country, but also one of its absolute best. And while they were all brothers in arms, each squad preferred to work alone and only called in backup when it was absolutely necessary. Scenes of the Beslan school massacre in Russia began to race through Harvath’s mind. A school was a perfect terrorist target and an attack on one would have an unbelievable impact here in the States. Harvath often wondered why a terrorist group hadn’t tried it yet. The media coverage, as well as the communal American heartache would be off the charts.

He was about to mention this to Bob, when one of the TV anchors cut in with two additional breaking news stories-a fire at New York City mayor David Brown’s Emergency Operations Command Center in Brooklyn and a sniper targeting aircraft out at LaGuardia in Queens.

After listening to the reports, Herrington shook his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that somebody was skimming the cream. That school standoff in the Bronx has got to be one hell of an assault to get that many ESU squads there.”

“Just like Beslan,” said Harvath.

“For all we know,” Bob continued, “more squads are already en route. Then there’s the airport. They’ve got that place so gridded out they know every rooftop, draw, and grassy knoll within a two-mile radius that could accommodate a shooter. Anyone able to get inside that perimeter and stir up this kind of trouble has got to be a pro.”

“Or this all might be just one really shitty day in New York.”

“I don’t know.”

“C’mon, Bob. Why would somebody want to tie up all those tactical teams?”

At that moment, the TV station cut back to footage of the raging fire at the mayor’s Emergency Operations Command Center beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and Herrington replied, “Maybe for the same reason somebody would want to take out the city’s backup command-and-control facility.”

“You don’t seriously think this is part of some larger attack, do you?” asked Harvath.

“Who knows? But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not be sitting in a bar in the middle of Times Square if it happens.”