I shook my head again, this time to dislodge the images Brock’s name always put there. Images that filled my whole being with hope and despair simultaneously.
I licked my lips. Sandpaper rubbing against sandpaper was a better description. I’d been given water. I scoffed humorously. A lot of fucking water, but it only came in the form of waterboarding. I’d lost count of the number of times they’d beaten, waterboarded, or electrocuted me.
They were only giving me enough food and water to keep me alive. Weak, but alive.
Sounds came to me slowly, coming and going, fading in and out. People talking and moving around filtered in through the bars of the door to the stone prison cell they’d locked me in.
Is that Urdu?
I wasn’t fluent by any means, but I knew enough to tell they were coming for me again.
How long have I been in this room?
At least when I was in the box, I could clock the days and nights, but there was no crack or crevice here that allowed sunlight to filter in. All there was here was agony and despair.
As my senses returned fully, the pain hit me like a freight train. My shoulders would be a mess when this was all over. I’d been chained to the wall behind me in a stress position for God only knew how long.
I’m glad I had my next of kin switched to Rocket. Granny and Gramps don’t need this worry. It will be bad enough when they get the visit from Rocket, but they know and love him. It will be easier.
When we’d been filling out our paperwork for BUD/S, I’d noticed Brock slow to a stop.
FALL 2001
“What’s up?” I asked, glancing at him.
Rocket shrugged. “Nothing.”
He threw the pen down on top of the papers and walked to the bathroom.
I knew he was lying. I sneaked a peak at his paperwork, and it was filled out completely, with the exception of the next of kin shit.
I sighed. I didn’t know the details, but I knew Rocket never received calls or mail like the rest of us in Basic did. I hadn’t questioned it or him. Let’s be honest, I was so fucking tired then, I barely knew my own name, but now it was making sense. I quickly filled in my information on his form as next of kin and medical proxy.
I looked up as the bathroom door opened.
I stood and handed him my paperwork. “Put your info down for NOK and Proxy. If something happens to me, you can make the decisions and go see my grandparents. I don’t want a CACO showing up at their house, giving them the bad news. I’d rather you do it.”
Brock started at me, then glanced at where he’d left his paperwork and the folder it came in. He’d left the folder open and the pen tossed on it. The paperwork was tucked back in thefolder, and the pen lying on top of it. I walked to the kitchen to give him a minute.
“Wanna beer?” I asked from the fridge, glancing at him over my shoulder.
Rocket was still standing where I handed him my papers. I watched him swallow…hard. Then he went over to the couch, sat down, and opened my folder.
I never did get an answer about the beer, but I’d brought him one anyway. We’d both been injured several times. SEALs were regular patients in Germany. Command and the team had never batted an eye that we were each other’s proxy. This surprised me until I learned several of the single guys were each other’s proxy.
With this situation, I was really glad it was Rocket. My grandparents were in their seventies. They didn’t need the worry of me being captured and held prisoner. I knew Rocket would wait until he had a definitive answer before he made the trip to see Letty and Easton DuBois.
Even in the midst of this mess, on the verge of being tortured yet again, I couldn’t help but remember the look on Brock’s face the day we’d graduated boot camp and my grandparents had welcomed him into our small family of three.
Granny had hugged him just as hard as she had me. Gramps had shaken his hand and clapped him on the back, then insisted he join us for dinner that night. Since we were staying in Great Lakes, we’d had the weekend off, so we’d gotten a room in the same hotel with my grandparents. After boot camp, we’d feltlike kings because it was just the two of us and the beds were like sleeping on a cloud.
Dear God, don’t put them through me dying this way. Don’t make Rocket have to make that trip.
I really didn’t want to die. As a SEAL, we all knew it was a likely event, even when we were home during training rotations. Getting shot and killed was expected when we were outside the wire. I just didn’t want them to have to question whether I was alive or dead. Or have to see a mutilated corpse.
Footsteps, muffled, distant ones, came toward me. Something about them sent a chill through my body. A body I’d only just noticed wasn’t the least bit chilly even though I was naked as a jaybird.
A man’s voice accompanied the footsteps. He spoke Urdu at first, but switched to Arabic as he approached.
