Hunt the Falcon

Chapter Eleven

The light from the fluorescent bulbs burned Crocker’s weary, bloodshot eyes. He leaned on the edge of a gurney at a comfortable angle for his aching back while a nurse with thick glasses used cotton swabs dipped in alcohol to clean the blood off his chest. His mind shifted to the golf course, to the meeting with Rappaport, to the fevered drive in the jeep, in no rational order, picking up speed. A voice in the background screamed, Why did you do it?

He didn’t have an answer. The green curtain parted and Mancini stuck in his head, looking like a cartoon criminal with his neck and face covered with a dense stubble of dark whiskers. He said, “Boss, they’re about to wheel Ritchie into surgery. He wants to see you.”

“Where?”

The nurse tried to stop Crocker from pulling on a light blue robe and following Manny out of the room, but she failed. They trotted down a yellow hall to a little room where Ritchie sat in a wheelchair with a white bandage covering half his face.

“Ritchie?” Crocker whispered. “How’s it hanging?”

He opened his left eye, tried to smile, mouthed the words “It’s still hanging,” then pointed to a yellow legal pad and pen on the table to Crocker’s right.

“You’ll be fine,” Crocker said as he gave it to him and noticed Ritchie’s dried blood all over his hand. Hiding it behind his back, he said, “There’s no major structural or neurologic damage. They’ll patch you up, fix that ugly mug of yours, and you’ll end up looking better than before.”

Ritchie’s concentration was focused on the pad and what he was slowly writing. He held it up for Crocker to read. The letters were thin, long, and slanted to the right. They read: “I saw Alizadeh, the Falcon. He was in the house.”

Crocker felt a sudden burst of energy. “Alizadeh? You sure it was him?”

Ritchie nodded and attempted to mouth the word “Yes.” He wrote, “I’d know his ugly face anywhere.”

Crocker wanted to hug him, but only said, “That’s great, Ritchie. Very important. Good job.”

A doctor and orderly in white jackets arrived to wheel Ritchie away. He quickly scribbled one last message, which he handed to Crocker. It read: “Tell Monica we have to postpone the wedding, if she still wants me like this.”

“I’ll tell her, Ritchie. Don’t worry about anything. You’ll be fine.”

Crocker wanted time to sit back, process, heal, and think, but events were moving too quickly. Seconds after Ritchie was wheeled into surgery, he telephoned Neto to tell him the news about Alizadeh. Neto spoke to Melkasian at the station, and a meeting was set for midnight.

Crocker grabbed a few winks in the car. He woke up remembering that he had never had a chance to do his Christmas shopping-an iPad for Jenny, a crystal-and-amethyst necklace he’d picked out for Holly at a Virginia Beach jewelry store. He hated being late with presents but couldn’t help it this time.

As soon as they arrived at the office in the Banco Popular building, Neto ordered pizza with everything and sodas from an all-night fast food joint. They were chowing down when Rappaport and Melkasian walked in clutching briefcases and dressed in rumpled business clothes. It looked as though they’d been working all night.

Rappaport said, “You sure kicked up a shit storm, Crocker.”

“Couldn’t avoid it.”

“Who authorized you to go into the colonel’s house?”

Neto spoke up. “I did, sir.”

Crocker cut in, “That’s bullshit. I did. I take full responsibility. I felt that it was important to try to identify the Iranian, and I ordered my man to scale the wall. Unfortunately, he had an accident and was discovered and shot. I deeply regret that now. But I’m also pleased that we’ve established that it’s Alizadeh himself who is setting up the Unit 5000 operation here.”

“It often works that way, doesn’t it, Crocker?” Rappaport asked. “The good mixed with the bad.”

“Yes it does, sir,” Crocker replied, struck by the sincere tone in his voice.

Rappaport reached across, laid a hand on Crocker’s shoulder, and said, “I’m sorry about your teammate. I pray he recovers quickly.”

“I appreciate that, sir.” Maybe Rappaport wasn’t a total asshole.

“As far as pissing off the Venezuelans, I say: fuck them,” Rappaport growled. “They had it coming. And as far as the Falcon goes, I’m ready to go to war.”

Crocker liked Rappaport’s new attitude and nodded in agreement. “Me, too, sir. Let’s kick his ass.”

Briefcases clicked open, pizza boxes were cleared from the table, and a secure phone line was opened to Langley, where an analyst named Sue from the Crime and Narcotics Center (CNC) reported that the names of three of the individuals mentioned in the Xeroxed documents captured in Petare had been matched to a computer printout of recent arrivals to Mexico from Venezuela.

“What’s that mean?” Rappaport asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have any idea where they are now?” Melkasian asked, using a device to project a map of Mexico on the screen at the front of the room.

“Mexican PFM has tracked them to the town of San Miguel de Allende, which is about a hundred and seventy miles north of Mexico City,” Sue said over the speakerphone. PFM was the Mexican version of the FBI.

At the mention of San Miguel de Allende, Crocker smiled inwardly. Before they married he and Holly had spent a romantic week in that village in an inn overlooking the lake.

“What are they doing there?” Rappaport asked.

“We’ve been treating them as potential drug traffickers,” Sue answered. “They claim to be Venezuelan financial advisors looking for business investments. Their behavior is suspicious because they stick together, spend a lot of time in their hotel room, eat at cheap restaurants, don’t drink alcohol, and are constantly looking over their shoulders to see if they’re being watched.”

“Potential drug traffickers?” Melkasian asked skeptically.

“Yes, our intelligent operational probabilities computer program gave that a probability of forty percent, which is high. But it’s possible they could be up to something else.”

“You mean some other sort of illegal activity?” Rappaport asked. “And you say Mexican PFM is keeping an eye on them?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“Can they be trusted?”

“Not really, no. That’s why we’ve dispatched a two-person DEA team from Mexico City. They should be there within the hour.”

“Good,” Rappaport said, checking his watch. “We think these men might be Iranian members of the IRGC, so inform us immediately regarding their movements or anything else you learn.”

“I will, sir.”

“You have anything else?” he asked.

Sue said, “The names of two other individuals on the list you sent us-Jorge Alvarez Nazra and Raul Abaid Lopez-correspond to two men who recently passed the PPL and CPL exams in Venezuela.”

The speed of the new information was dizzying.

“What are the PPL and CPL?” Melkasian asked.

“Those are the exams required by the ICAO, the International Civic Aviation Organization, to qualify for private and commercial pilot licenses,” Sue replied.

The moment he heard “commercial pilot licenses,” Crocker traveled back to 9/11, an event that had profoundly changed his life. Prior to that time, the pace of ST-6 operations had been so slow he’d been thinking about leaving the navy and starting a private security firm. Following 9/11, ST-6 ops increased exponentially. He had been deploying overseas an average of 280 days a year.

Rappaport asked, “What do we know about the real identities of these men?”

“Practically nothing,” Sue answered. “Since we found them on the papers you recovered, we assume they are Iranians who have been granted Venezuelan citizenship and given new identities.”

Melkasian’s cell phone rang. As he listened to the person on the other end, his forehead furrowed. He put his hand over the phone and, turning to Rappaport, said, “It’s Sanchez. He says the Learjet the Iranian flew in on is getting ready to leave from Simón Bolívar Airport.”

“Excuse us for a minute, Sue,” Rappaport grunted into the speakerphone. Then, to Melkasian, “Is Alizadeh aboard?”

“Unclear.”

“Where’s the plane headed?”

“According to the flight manifest, the destination is Ciudad del Este, Paraguay.”

“Why the fuck is he going there?” Rappaport asked, thinking out loud.

Crocker chewed on the same question. What business might Alizadeh or the other Iranians possibly have in that lawless, corrupt city?

Rappaport bid goodbye to Sue for the time being, and the four men spent the next forty minutes discussing possibilities. Then they called Reston, Virginia, and woke up the head of CIA’s Quds Force Working Group, Sy Blanc. Though Sy was suffering from a fever and flu-related symptoms, his mind remained sharp. He pointed out that Ciudad del Este had approximately twenty-five thousand Shiite Muslim residents who had emigrated from Lebanon during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the 1985 Lebanese Civil War. It was known that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia had built an active smuggling network operating out of the remote tri-border region and that it funneled large sums of money to fund operations in the Middle East, also financing training camps, propaganda campaigns, and bomb attacks in South America.

“What kind of smuggling?” Rappaport asked.

“Cigarettes, marijuana, and cocaine. It’s smuggled across the border to Brazil, then shipped to Europe,” Blanc reported. “Profits are huge, anywhere from an estimated two to four billion a year.”

It was the perfect place, Crocker thought, for Alizadeh to find money to support Unit 5000’s activities. If he was looking for an illegal means for funding his new organization, what better place to look than the lawless tri-state border region of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina?

Blanc agreed, concluding that “Ciudad del Este is essentially a free zone for significant criminal activity, including people who are organized to commit acts of terrorism.”

“Great,” Rappaport said with a groan. “What should we do?”

Blanc pointed out that since Hezbollah terrorists operating out of Ciudad del Este had bombed several Jewish synagogues, killing more than a hundred people in nearby Argentina in the 1990s, Mossad had maintained a presence there. The CIA also had assets in Ciudad del Este.

Blanc said, “I’ll make sure they’re alerted to look for the aircraft and monitor Alizadeh’s activities.”

“But we’re not sure he’s on the plane,” Melkasian reminded him.

“No, we’re not.”

Crocker argued that he should travel there immediately to help support local CIA assets. Sy Blanc agreed.

Emergency visas were issued for Crocker and Akil (who spoke fluent Farsi) and tickets booked on a 6:37 p.m. flight to São Paulo. Crocker hurried back to the safe house, packed, instructed Mancini to coordinate with Melkasian and Neto regarding what they needed to do until he returned, then called a taxi to drive them to the airport.

Traveling as Tom Mansfield and Jerid Salam, they flew to Bogotá via Avianca Airlines, and after a six-hour layover, which they spent mostly surfing the Internet and drinking beer, the flight continued another six hours to Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo. They arrived just before seven the following morning, then transferred to a small TAM Airlines jet to Ciudad del Este.

By the time they reached Aeropuerto Internacional Guaraní, they were half asleep. A young Paraguayan customs official stopped them and asked where they had gotten their visas.

“Caracas, Venezuela,” Crocker answered.

“What were you doing there?” the official asked in accented English.

“We were there on business, organizing an expedition.”

The official explained that their visas hadn’t been entered into the Paraguayan system, which meant that they couldn’t enter the country without each man paying a hundred-dollar expediting fee. What system he was talking about wasn’t clear. Akil pointed out that the computer screen he appeared to be looking at was blank.

They were traveling in alias, so Crocker didn’t want to attract attention, but he didn’t feel like being ripped off, either. A Brazilian man who stood behind them in line sweating profusely whispered, “I recommend that you pay it. Otherwise he will keep you here all day.”

Crocker handed the official twenty dollars, which he said should cover both men. The official shook his head no, he wouldn’t accept it.

Akil reached into his wallet and produced three more twenties, whereupon the official stamped their passports and waved them through.

“Nice place,” Akil whispered.

“Yeah. Be alert.”

The baggage claim was packed with travelers from Europe and Asia who were going to visit the famous Iguazu Falls. Akil’s suitcase, which he had had to check in São Paulo because of its size, was a no-show, so he filled out a form at the information desk.

“Good luck with that,” Crocker commented.

“Yeah, right.”

The woman working the desk had a message for Mr. Mansfield, which read, “This is DZ from the agency. Because of circumstances, I’m not able to meet you at the airport. Hire a taxi to take you to Hotel Casablanca. I’ll see you there. Don’t let the driver charge you more than $30.”

The only two taxi drivers stationed outside the terminal both demanded a fifty-dollar fare. Crocker and Akil chose the newer and cleaner-looking of the two cars-a fairly comfortable Toyota Corolla sedan. The overweight driver drove it as if it was stolen, tearing down the freeway at eighty miles an hour.

The air outside the window was hot and sticky, the ground dotted with mud-colored puddles. Storm clouds formed impressive towers of gray, white, and black, while the landscape was festooned with exuberant tropical foliage. Man’s footprint could best be described as tacky-broken-down cars and buses, mud-encrusted shacks, large lurid signs advertising sex shows, casinos, electronics stores, and “five-star” Italian, Japanese, and Chinese restaurants.

Out of the corner of his eye, Crocker saw a motorcycle tear out of a side street toward their car and screamed, “Watch out!”

The driver, who was speaking nonstop Spanish into a cell phone and didn’t see the motorcycle until the last second, swerved to avoid a head-on collision. From the backseat, Crocker watched the young rider’s face smash into the passenger-side window. Then the bike and rider flew into the air.

The driver slammed on the brakes, got out, examined the scratches on the side panel of his car, and started cursing. Crocker ran over to the motorcycle rider, who wasn’t wearing a helmet and was lying facedown in the dirt. He assumed he was dead, but as Crocker knelt to examine him, the long-haired kid got up, rubbed his dislocated kneecap, which appeared to be his only injury, then limped over to the bike, picked it up, and wheeled it to a footpath. Crocker tried to stop him, but the kid was intent on confronting the driver. The two men stood nose to nose, shouting at each other.

A crowd of onlookers gathered and stared. Crocker wandered back to the taxi, where Akil asked, “What do we do now?”

“Let’s find alternate transportation,” Crocker answered as flies started to form a moving halo around his head.

When he asked the driver to pop open the trunk so he could retrieve his suitcase, he threw his arms up in disgust, walked back to the car, and started the engine. Neither man had insurance, he explained.

“What a shock,” Akil whispered.

Once again they were flying down the highway at eighty. Approaching the city, traffic slowed to a crawl. The streets narrowed and became clogged with people carrying boxes containing TVs, stereos, and DVD players, and huge sacks of what looked to be newly purchased goods on their backs. The driver said that smugglers made a very good living by purchasing goods made in China and Japan on the Paraguayan side of the border, then crossing the Ciudad del Este Friendship Bridge into Brazil and selling them for a two hundred percent profit.

How they were able to do that, he didn’t say. Instead, he pulled over to the curb and started asking for directions to the hotel. Nobody seemed to recognize the name of the establishment or know how to get there. Vendors approached the taxi windows and offered to sell the two Americans see-through panties, porno videos, Viagra, and tool sets.

“Unbelievable,” Crocker said.

“Maybe we should tell the driver to turn this thing around and beat it out of here,” Akil suggested.

“That’s not gonna happen,” Crocker said, examining the map he had picked up at the airport. On it he found a small ad for the Hotel Casablanca, which was part of something called the Parana Country Club.

They continued ten more minutes to a gate, where a guard wrote down their names and passport numbers, and gave them directions to the hotel, which was past another golf course.

“We should have brought our clubs,” Crocker joked.

Neither of the big men played golf.

They walked through the open front door and found no one at the desk. A man with short dreadlocks and a Real Madrid soccer jersey sauntered over sipping a can of coconut water, offered his hand, and said, “My name’s David. Call me DZ.”

“Tom Mansfield and Jerid Salam.”

“Cool, man. Follow me.”

The room was clean and large, with a magnificent view of the Guaraní River. Crocker and Akil were more or less the same size, six feet two and 210 pounds, so Crocker lent him some underwear, a pair of black chinos, and a black T-shirt, which Akil said looked a hell of a lot better on him.

A half hour later the three men were in town, sitting at an outdoor café across from something called the Jebai Shopping Center. It could have been lifted out of Beirut, Cairo, or any other Middle Eastern city. Stands sold hummus, shawarma, and roasted lamb; Lebanese flags hung everywhere. Pasted over walls and windows were slogans from the Koran: “The curse of God on the infidels!” “Take not Christians or Jews as friends.” “Fight for the cause of God!”

They drank coffee, then Crocker and Akil followed DZ into a store with high aluminum shelves packed with bottles of J &B, Johnnie Walker, Marlboros, portable CD players, and cell phones. Watching them through a cracked glass partition was a guard cradling a pump-action Mitchell Escalade 12-gauge shotgun.

Two Middle Eastern-looking men sat behind a high counter. One read a newspaper and puffed on a hookah. The other measured bags of pistachios on a scale.

“I’m looking for Hamid,” DZ said in Spanish.

The man operating the scale pushed a buzzer that unlocked a door to a stairway and held up three fingers. At the third-floor landing they entered a door covered with Arabic script. An old man with a jeweler’s loupe on his eyeglasses looked up.

DZ pointed to Crocker and said, “My friend here wants to buy a bracelet for his wife. I was hoping that Hamid could help us.”

The jeweler pushed a button, spoke into an intercom on the wall beside his desk, and nodded at four dirty black leather chairs, indicating that they should take a seat. Two minutes later a short, skinny young man bounced out of the back room in a ball of energy. He looked liked a grown-up kid, with yellow streaks in black hair worn in a pompadour, tight black jeans, and a tight blue shirt with skull and crossbones printed on it.

“Hamid, this is my friend Tom Mansfield,” DZ said. “He’s looking for a bracelet for his wife. I told him you could hook him up at a reasonable price.”

Hamid pointed to the room behind him. “Step inside, Mr. Mansfield. I think I can help you.”

It was small, with a high ceiling and a large frosted window along one wall. At the back sat an old wooden desk. On either side of it were tall cabinets with rows of little drawers.

“What did you have in mind?” Hamid asked, meeting Crocker’s eyes.

“I’m not sure.”

“They’re the ones who are looking for a Learjet that landed yesterday from Caracas,” DZ explained.

“Which side of the border?” Hamid asked, rubbing his sharp chin.

Crocker: “We don’t know.”

“Walk around and meet me at the Pietro Santo for lunch at one o’clock,” Hamid said. “DZ knows where it is.”

“Thanks.”

Once they were outside, DZ whispered in Crocker’s ear, “Hamid works for Israeli intelligence.” Crocker had worked with Mossad in the past, and had found it overrated.

The restaurant was appropriately dark and foreboding. Glass-covered red-checked tablecloths, an old map of the boot of Italy on one wall, faded frescoes of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Michelangelo’s David, and Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples decorating the others. They sat eating breadsticks and kalamata olives, and talking sports. Crocker thought finding the Iranians in a place like this would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But when Hamid arrived twenty minutes late, he said he had a lead. Two men who had arrived last night from Venezuela had met up with two other men. The four of them were staying in a guesthouse behind a Shiite mosque and religious center called Ali Hassam. The Learjet they had arrived in had left early in the morning and returned to Venezuela. He didn’t know whether it was carrying cargo or passengers.

“Do you know if any of the men is named Farhad Alizadeh?” Crocker asked.

“I didn’t get names, but I believe the men are Iranian,” Hamid answered.

“Let’s go visit the mosque.”