Hunt the Falcon

Chapter Twenty-Three

He was sitting with his back against a metal shipping container, listening to Mancini explain how he had paid Rahman a thousand dollars for the old van they had driven from the garbage dump to the scrap metal yard where they were now, and how it was the sweetest thousand he had ever spent.

Someone had applied a blowout patch to Crocker’s forearm, bandaged the wound near his shoulder, wrapped his ankle, and given him some painkillers. His body felt numb. The sky above his head was deep black. A steady, cool rain fell.

He watched Akil fifty feet away using gasoline and a lighter to set a pile of wooden loading pallets on fire. He was about to scream at him to stop when he heard a roar in the sky.

Thunder? No. A Blackhawk helicopter with its lights out.

Ritchie and another man helped him in the door. And as the bird lifted off, he felt his heart ease in his chest.

“We’re going home,” Akil said.

Ritchie: “We did it, man. We did it.”

Mancini: “Fuck, yeah. Now what’s for dinner?”

By the time the SEALs landed at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach twenty-three hours later, Crocker was running a 102-degree fever. He was transported to the Portsmouth Naval Hospital, where doctors cleaned the infected wound near his shoulder and shot him up with painkillers and antibiotics.

When he woke the next morning, the first things he saw, like a beautiful dream, were the faces of Holly and Jenny. He blinked and looked again to make sure he wasn’t imagining them, then realized the constriction he felt from the tubes in his arms and the machines he was hooked up to was real. So were the shouts of surprise from Jenny, the kisses, the joy on their faces, and the relief in Holly’s eyes.

Crocker hugged and kissed them back, and quietly thanked God. Then he wiped the tears from his eyes and said, “I want both of you to know that everything I’ve been through, every injury I’ve sustained at Alizadeh’s expense, every worry I’ve experienced, every doubt, pain, sacrifice, and sleepless night feels worth it right now, being here with you and seeing your faces.”

Nine days later, a more somber, healthier Crocker sat in the backseat of the silver sedan, watching the sights along Wisconsin Avenue pass by. At Chevy Chase Circle, they left the District of Columbia and entered Maryland. He remembered that he had once dated a Swiss au pair who worked near here and lived in a room over a garage. She had frizzy hair and a beautiful mouth, and had dumped him for a law school student from Georgetown U.

The driver eased the car up in front of a redbrick house and stopped.

“Here we are, sir.”

Crocker climbed out, adjusted the jacket of his blue dress uniform around the bandages on his forearm, shoulder, and chest, and walked slowly to the front door, trying not to limp. An older woman with a handsome face and curly white hair answered the bell.

“Chief Crocker?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Welcome,” she said. “Please come in.”

She and a tall older man thanked Crocker profusely, then she showed him to the basement and knocked on a brown door. Half a minute later a tall boy with a mop of thick brown hair and sad brown eyes opened it.

The boy’s grandmother said, “Alex, this is Chief Crocker. He’s the Navy SEAL who hunted down the man who killed your parents.”

Alex nodded slightly, then lowered his eyes.

As Crocker reached into his pocket, Alex’s grandmother whispered in his ear, “That’s the biggest response I’ve seen from him in weeks. He hasn’t spoken a word since the incident.”

Crocker held out the silver Swiss military watch and said, “Alex, this watch belonged to the man who took your mother’s and father’s lives. I brought it back from Iran with me, and I want you to have it.”

As he slipped it on the boy’s wrist, the boy looked up.

“Did you get him?” Alex asked in a voice that was barely audible.

His grandmother gasped and squeezed Crocker’s bad arm, reminding him once again of the raid in Ahvaz.

“What did you say?” Crocker asked, leaning closer to Alex.

“Did you get him?” Alex asked, louder this time.

“Yes. He’s dead.”

Alex’s lips trembled as he looked up at Crocker and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” responded Crocker.

“Did you know them?” Alex asked, looking at the watch, then at his grandmother who had a hand over her mouth and was sobbing.

“You mean your parents?”

Alex nodded.

“I met your father in Afghanistan. We went running together one night. I liked him a lot.”

Alex smiled as tears spilled from his eyes.

“Alex, both your mom and your dad were brave Americans. They weren’t soldiers like me, but in a way they were braver, because they were unarmed civilians who served their country overseas even though they understood the dangers.”

The boy swallowed hard and nodded. “I know.”

“Be proud of them always.”

The boy wrapped his arms around Crocker and said, “I will.”