Roark Engel was the picture of relaxation as he waited for the jump. He savored moments like this, much as an experienced wine connoisseur would savor a delicate pinot noir. The roar and turbulence of the aircraft, the prospect of jumping into a 130-knot slipstream, the falling to Earth as a human projectile — he enjoyed all of it. Yet what he savored the most was the Team. These were his SEALs, his Team. This jump had little training value, but as a team-building evolution, it would be a great jump. This one wasn’t for proficiency; it was for each other, and that made it special. Engel was not naive. He was a combat leader, and he knew that, as such, he would always be balancing the importance of the mission against the safety of his SEALs. Get the job done, get everyone home alive; that’s what combat leadership was all about. But not today. Today, they would defy gravity, if not death, for the pure enjoyment of doing so in the company of their own.
Roark Engel was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was an all-state running back in high school. He was the ideal picture of a high school hero — tall, sandy-haired, handsome in a boyish kind of way, and a student-athlete. He was heavily recruited by a number of Division I schools but elected an NROTC scholarship at Notre Dame and the opportunity to not play football. He could not articulate it at the time, but football simply did not seem like a team game to him. It bothered him that he got the attention while those who blocked for him received little or none. It violated his sense of fairness. He’d never played soccer but tried out for the varsity team as a walk-on. He was good, but he never became a starter. Yet the brutal practice sessions hardened him and refined his sense of team play. And on occasion, when an opposing midfielder became a little too physical with one of their side’s forwards, Roark was sent in to even things up a bit.
But it was in Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, with its cold water, punishing physical regime, and Hell Week, that he came to know what it was to be a member of an elite team and a leader among equals. Combat only served to put a premium on team play and the bonds that can form only when you routinely risk your life with others. He knew he was doubly blessed — to be a SEAL and to lead a SEAL platoon. Lieutenant Roark Engel often felt this was what he was born to do. His brief reverie was broken by a hand on his shoulder.
“You wanna jump, Boss, or do you want to ride this crate back to North Island?” It was Nolan. “I mean, if you don’t wanna jump, I can have the duty driver pick you up and take you back to the Team area.”
“In your dreams, Chief.”
The two sticks of SEALs filed to the rear of the aircraft in preparation for the jump.
“Check equipment!” yelled the jumpmaster. Behind him, the ramp and top door of the 130 yawned open. “CHECK EQUIPMENT!” the platoon echoed as each man checked the equipment of the man in front of him. Engel checked Nolan’s and Nolan checked Engel’s. The SEALs then crowded on the ramp butt to belly. The unspoken game was to see just how fast the sixteen jumpers could cross the ramp and exit the aircraft.
“Get ready!”
“GET READY!”
“Green light. Go! Go! Go!”
The drop zone crew on the floor of the Otay Desert watched as what seemed to be a dense black mass of insects mushroomed from the rear of the aircraft and dispersed. Most were lost from view as the sixteen SEALs plummeted to the earth. Each stick or squad had a designated lead jumper, identified by a square of iridescent tape on his helmet. The others in his squad formed up on him in a loose V-formation, like a ragged gaggle of geese. It was not a long flight, just under sixty seconds. The lead jumpers pulled first. The other jumpers turned outward from their leader and quickly followed. Parachutes blossomed above the DZ.
On the way down, Lieutenant Engel and Chief Nolan flew as the tail-end charlies in their respective squad Vs. Nolan carefully watched his jumpers, noting with sat”ing witisfaction that they held good formation. Engel watched his SEALs as well, a contented smile wind-pasted to his face.
The next day, and half a world away, in Jakarta, Indonesia, an ice cream truck rumbled through a crowded section of town. Small cars and scooters zipped past it in the narrow, dusty street, a street squeezed between dilapidated two-story buildings. Shoppers looked over the wares merchants hawked in their ground-floor stores and stalls, while those living in the second-story apartments above leaned out of their windows, trying to get some relief from the torpid heat on that oppressively hot afternoon. The collective mood was hurried and busy.
The ice cream truck pulled up to the security gate of the Jakarta International School. Established in 1951 for expatriate students living in Jakarta, it was the largest international primary and secondary school in Indonesia. The school had students from sixty nationalities and was where the international elite were educated. The ice cream truck was a routine fixture at the school in the mid-afternoon. Even elite children loved ice cream, and the vehicle was allowed on school grounds as a reward to those who had to sit for a full day in the air-conditioned classrooms with the very high instructor-to-student ratios.
The woman driving the truck — the same one who drove it every day — gave a casual wave to the guard at the gate as another guard opened the gate. The ice cream truck pulled into the school’s large asphalt courtyard right on schedule. With bells tinkling, she guided the truck to the three-story low-slung building with enormous tiled overhangs on every story, a colonial design intended to shield the school’s 2,500 students from the blistering equatorial heat. It was the school’s main building, with the name displayed in letters a foot high on its second story. Primary school had just let out, and a cluster of first- through fifth-graders began to scamper toward the ice cream truck.
A large limousine, a Mercedes 600 flying the American flag on a stanchion attached to the right front of its hood, approached the gate and was waved through. The car came to a stop just inside the courtyard, and American ambassador Antonio Marguilles stepped out, donning his straw hat in deference to the mid-afternoon sun.
Abu Shabal stepped from the ice cream truck. At six feet two and 220 pounds he towered over the children, and his bulk gave him a presence that caused the children to immediately look at him.
“Come, children, line up, line up,” Shabal called jovially as he waved the children toward the truck’s open side door. “Graciela will take your orders.”
“Come, come,” Shabal continued as he herded the children toward the truck. He moved among the youngsters, yet his head was on a swivel. The welcoming smile was there, but his eyes were those of a predator. The children did what Shabal asked them to do because he was an adult and because he spoke in a commanding but disarmingly friendly tone. They also obeyed because of the horrible, disfiguring, crescent-shaped scar that covered the left side of his face. Instinctively, the children knew he was not to be trifled with.
“Now, children, liacechildrene up, please,” Graciela enjoined them. “No pushing, no shoving, be patient,” she continued. “There is plenty of ice cream for everyone.”
The scores of milling children pushed and shoved their way forward holding out their coins for Graciela as she began to dispense ice cream. The crowd swelled as more primary schoolers converged on the truck. It was joyful chaos. One of the students who was off to the side of the swelling queue was fourth-grader Nicolas Marguilles, the ambassador’s only son. He saw his father approaching and bolted toward him.