Hunt the Falcon

Chapter Four

Two days later Crocker pulled his pickup into the driveway of his home in Virginia Beach. He parked on the graveled drive and looked at his watch: 0214 Thursday morning, November twenty-second.

Exhausted and happy to be home, he entered through the garage past Holly’s silver Subaru and climbed the concrete steps to his combined rec room/home office, which was crowded with stuff-weights, a desk piled with mail he had to either answer or throw out, an elliptical training machine he had partially assembled. Photos on the wall-one of him in his white uniform the day he received his SEAL trident, various platoon and skydiving photos, others of him crossing the finish line at the Hawaii Ironman competition, and kissing Holly on their wedding day.

He opened the door to the hallway and saw their German shepherd Brando curled up on the floor asleep. The dog looked up at Crocker as if to ask, “Where the hell have you been?”

You don’t want to know.

Seductive smells emanated from the kitchen, but he wasn’t hungry, so he set down his kit bag next to a potted ficus and climbed the steps to the second floor. Moonlight streamed through the skylight. The grandfather clock chimed once, marking the quarter hour.

He wanted to look into Jenny’s room at the end of the hall, but she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was seventeen and hypersensitive to people entering her private space unannounced. So Crocker walked in the opposite direction along the carpeted floor toward the master bedroom, turned the brass knob, and pushed the door inward.

He stopped and inhaled the sweet smells of jasmine and rosewater-two scents his wife favored. She slept on her side on the far side of the bed with her back facing him. Setting his backpack on the floor, he entered the bathroom on his right. Splashed water on his face, which looked like it belonged to someone else, brushed his teeth, and undressed.

Reentering the bedroom, he lifted the soft white duvet and sheet and slipped into the big bed. The warmth of Holly’s body surrounded him.

He lay on the bed taking it all in-the sound of Holly breathing, the shadows on the ceiling, the LED TV screen on the opposite wall-thinking it was hard to believe that he was really here and not in a tent in some far-off land. He realized that he felt even closer to and more protective of Holly since her kidnapping in Libya. Her colleague had been tortured and killed before her eyes. She had been tied up for days and told she was going to die. Yet she still had the strength and grace to pull herself together and continue to be the loving, generous person she had been before.

Silently, he thanked God as the trees outside swayed in the breeze. An owl hooted. Holly sighed, turned, and opened one eye. “Tom?” she asked half asleep. “Tom, is that really you?” as if she was still dreaming.

“It’s me, sweetheart. I’m back, but I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Wake me? Don’t be silly.” She reached out, wrapped her arms around him and held on as if she didn’t want to let go. “Oh, Tom. I missed you so much. Welcome home.”

He said, “I’m sorry about Neal.”

She flinched slightly, then rolled over and kissed him on the lips. “Don’t be sorry,” she whispered. “It’s awful, yes, but it’s the price he knew he might pay.”

“How are Alyssa and the boys?”

“They’re grieving and trying to cope. But let’s not talk about that now.”

He kissed her back, and held her, and they gently made love.

The next thing he knew it was morning, and Holly was walking toward him through the dappled light carrying a glass of orange juice. She caressed his forehead and informed him that the first guests would be arriving in an hour.

“What guests?” Crocker asked, glancing at the clock and seeing that it was almost eleven.

“Your sister and her family. My brother.”

“Why?”

“It’s Thanksgiving, Tom. Jenny and I are making dinner.”

“I didn’t realize.”

He carved the turkey, sat at the head of the table and said grace, ate, talked to Jenny about school, and conversed with everyone about everything, including the approaching end of the Mayan calendar, the recent presidential election, Hurricane Sandy, and the resignation of General Petraeus. He even retired with the men and boys to watch the Redskins-Cowboys game on TV.

He did everything that was expected of him, but he wasn’t completely present. Part of him was still on the mountain in Nuristan Province, fighting the enemy, making split-second decisions, arguing with Captain Battier about the need to reinforce Station C.

The adjustment from combat to civilian life was always difficult. This time it was especially hard because of the four SEAL teammates who had returned in flag-covered coffins. He carried his memories of them like an extra weight on his shoulders.

The first three funerals took place the following day in Virginia Beach as a cold rain fell from a cement-colored sky. The chapels and funeral homes were interchangeable and the routine was the same-people dressed in black, bouquets of roses, eulogies, and grieving families. One ran into another. By the end of the day he felt numb, hollowed out. If life had a purpose, he’d forgotten what it was.

By the time Saturday arrived and he and Holly drove up to Arlington National Cemetery for Neal Stafford’s burial, Crocker thought he was inured to sadness. But when Alyssa spoke about her husband as a soul mate, lover, and companion, not sparing the intimate details of their life together as a married couple-including the way Neal liked to tease her and call her his bunny when they made love-Crocker broke down and wept.

Holly squeezed his hand. He looked at her and saw that she was thinking it could have been him.

Life was tough and precious. It contained unbelievably beautiful, gentle moments, and hard, ugly, difficult ones. Then it ended. The bodies piled up, and the struggles continued. Love and friendship made life worth living.

Crocker considered himself part of a proud tradition of warriors-including his grandfather, uncle, and father-dedicated to defending people’s freedom, which to his mind was an unalienable right. The enemies might have changed over the years-from fascists, to communists, to Muslim radicals-but their goals were the same: to subject people to a monolithic set of rules and beliefs.

As long as he was alive, he would fight to the death to defend what he believed. To his mind it was almost a spiritual quest.

Crocker didn’t pretend to be a philosopher or an intellectual, and he didn’t belong to a church or political party, but he believed that the principle of self-determination was critical to human progress and survival. People had to make their own decisions and their own mistakes if they were going to learn and evolve-which to Crocker’s way of thinking is what we have been put on this earth to do.

By the time Monday morning rolled around, he still wasn’t himself and was having trouble sleeping at night. Even when he was awake, he found himself drifting back to Afghanistan-the cold, snow, smells, faces, and close scrapes with death.

Running in the woods was the only thing that seemed to clear his head. He ran for over an hour with Brando past still marshes, Broad Bay, and Lake Susan Constant. He then showered, dressed, breakfasted, and climbed into his beat-up Ford pickup and drove to the SEAL Team Six compound. He was seated in front of his cage inventorying his gear when an aide arrived to tell him that the CO, Captain Alan Sutter, wanted to see him in his office.

“Now?” Crocker asked.

“Yes, he’s waiting.”

He put down the six-inch suppressed-air silencer he’d been cleaning and trudged across the concrete assembly area where some SEALs were rehearsing unarmed defensive tactics, thinking that he was probably going to be asked about what had transpired at OPM, and especially his arrest of ANA Major Jawid Shahar Mohammed. If Captain Battier had filed a formal complaint, he knew there was a possibility he could be called before the Naval Special Warfare Incident Determination Committee.

He was preparing answers in his head as he entered the CO’s office. Sutter put his hand over the receiver he was talking into and said, “Welcome back, Warrant. Grab yourself a cup of coffee. Jim Anders from CIA will be here in a minute.”

Anders is here? Why? he asked himself, filling a cup with water, then gulping it down and glancing at the copy of the Washington Post that sat on the corner of Sutter’s secretary’s desk. The Israelis were bombing Hamas bases in Gaza, which brought back memories of his own dealings with the Israelis and Palestinians over the years.

Hearing footsteps approach, he half turned, then felt a hand on his shoulder near where he’d been hit at OPM. It was Jim Anders, looking tanned and well rested. He said, “Good to see you again, Crocker. How was your Thanksgiving?”

Neal Stafford’s funeral flashed in Crocker’s mind-his wife and two tow-headed kids standing beside the coffin. He shook away the anger and grief, and answered, “Good. How was yours?”

“Excellent. My family met me in Hawaii for four days in paradise. You ever been to Maui?”

“Maui, yeah. Fabulous place,” he said automatically. He’d spent two weeks there with a wild Australian chick between his first and second marriages, diving, windsurfing, and making love. Pretty much knew the island by heart. But that felt like another lifetime.

He was remembering a drive through the mist and fog up to Haleakala volcano as they took their seats in Sutter’s office. The captain explained that he had just gotten off the phone with Jim Anders’s boss at CIA, Chief of Operations Lou Donaldson.

Crocker winced at the mention of Donaldson’s name. Although he’d been told many times by third parties how much Donaldson admired Crocker’s team’s work, the two men had never gotten along. Crocker thought of him as a headstrong, rude SOB.

Sutter cleared his throat and spoke with a smooth, deep Kentucky accent, which had the effect of putting people at ease. “Crocker, you get a chance to read the post-op report about the fighting at OPM in Nuristan?”

“No, I haven’t, sir,” he answered, bracing himself for what he thought was coming next and folding his hands in his lap. The office was large and outfitted with handsome nautical-style furniture.

“Apparently some of the RPGs and heavier artillery rounds fired were provided by a covert Iranian group called Unit 5000.”

Crocker was intrigued. “Unit 5000. What’s that?” he asked, running through a mental Rolodex of names and acronyms. “I thought the Iranians were working exclusively with the Shiite groups in western Afghanistan.”

“Not when they have a chance to kill Americans.”

“I’ve never heard of them before,” Crocker said, leaning forward in the brown leather chair.

“We’ll get back to them in a minute,” Anders answered. “First, I want to talk to you about the car bombings in Bangkok and Athens last week. You hear about them?”

“I read something in the newspaper, that’s all,” Crocker answered, wondering why Anders had changed the subject.

“Take a look at this,” Sutter said, handing Crocker a green folder. Inside were a series of photographs of the twisted, burned carcasses of eight cars and SUVs. His stomach started to turn. Beneath the photos was a list of the Americans killed and wounded. Glancing at it, he recognized one of the names-John Rinehart. He and Rinehart had met ten months ago in Kabul, while Rinehart was attending an economic conference there and Crocker was training the security detail assigned to protect President Karzai. Rinehart had struck him as a gentle, intelligent, academic type.

“These bomb attacks resulted in more than a dozen deaths of U.S., Israeli, and Saudi diplomats, and those unfortunate individuals who were riding in the vehicles with them,” Sutter said.

“Tragic,” Crocker muttered, remembering the night run he and Rinehart had completed together around Bagram Airfield.

“And scores of locals who happened to be in the vicinity either killed or wounded,” Anders added.

“Where did you say these bombings took place?” Crocker asked, looking from Sutter to Anders.

“Bangkok, Athens, Rome, Mumbai, and Cairo.”

Bangkok is where Rinehart had told him he was stationed.

“Who was the perpetrator?” Crocker asked, thinking that most people didn’t appreciate the risk diplomats took when they served overseas.

Anders said, “Unit 5000.”

“Oh,” Crocker groaned. “Again?”

“Unit 5000 is a special, ultrasecret branch of the Iranian Quds Force, and the brainchild of your old nemesis Farhed Alizadeh,” Anders continued. “Code name the Falcon.”

The mention of Alizadeh’s name caused Crocker’s whole body to heat up. Alizadeh was the evil fuck he’d first encountered trying to steal nuclear material from an Australian cargo ship off the coast of Somalia. Alizadeh later attempted another theft of nuclear material in Libya, which Crocker and his team thwarted, and hired a group of local militiamen to kidnap Crocker’s wife. Now he was supplying heavy arms to the Taliban and killing American diplomats all over the world.

“The Falcon,” Crocker repeated, picturing Alizadeh’s sinister, dark, deep-set eyes, short stature, and acne-scarred face covered with a short black beard. “Where’s that little bastard now?”

“I wish I knew,” Anders answered, reaching into an aluminum briefcase.

“So do I. Tenfold.”

“You ever see one of these?” Anders asked. He handed Crocker a black metal object that looked like a miniature hockey puck. The underside of it was covered with tiny silver-colored balls.

“No. What is it?” Crocker asked, running his finger over the little spheres.

“Those balls are magnetic,” Anders said. “And that device is empty, which is a real good thing, because the operative ones are packed with a plastic form of CL-20, a small detonator, and a digital timer. Very powerful and extremely deadly.”

CL-20 was the highest-energy solid explosive produced in the United States, 20 percent more powerful than HMX and extremely expensive to make. It had been called the most significant energetic discovery since the hydrogen bomb. Crocker knew it was used in high-rate detonating cord and high-performance gun propellants. But this was the first time he’d heard of it packed into a stand-alone explosive device.

Even more alarming to him was the news that it had fallen into the Falcon’s hands.

“I didn’t know that anyone besides us had access to CL-20 or other nitramine explosives,” Crocker said.

“Apparently they do now,” Sutter responded.

Anders said, “As far as we know, the only place that made it was the Thiokol Corporation in Ogden, Utah.”

Crocker’s head shook as he considered the implications. But investigating breaches of domestic security was not part of his job description. They fell under the purview of the FBI.

“Similar devices were used to kill Sunni leaders in Iraq. But those were packed with RDX and C-4,” Anders added. “In each of the car bombings we’re talking about now, someone on the back of a motorcycle attached one of these bad boys to a car’s rear fender, near the vehicle’s gas tank. The people inside didn’t stand a chance.”

A well of anger rose inside Crocker as he thought of the assassination of John Rinehart and the recent death of Neal Stafford and the other SEALs in Nuristan Province. He growled, “That evil, fucking bastard.” Then, thinking of Rinehart, he asked, “Do you know why those particular people were targeted?”

“Most of them were diplomats. There seemed to be no reason they were selected, except to instill terror, fear, uncertainty,” Anders answered.

Sutter added, “The Iranians are too clever to take us on directly. So they try to undermine us and rattle our cage with acts of terrorism or working through proxies. It’s a coward’s game, in my opinion.”

Crocker growled, “I won’t rest until I have Alizadeh’s head on a stick.”

“We feel the same,” Anders added, meaning the CIA. “Which is why I’m here.”

Anders reached into the metal briefcase and retrieved an envelope. Crocker was hoping it contained information regarding Alizadeh’s current location. Inside were several stills of a modest-size hotel surrounded by tropical foliage, a name (Lieutenant Colonel Sarit Petsut), and an address in Bangkok.

“What’s this?” he asked, feeling somewhat disappointed.

“The Special Operations Unit of the Royal Thai Police believe they have a lead on the terrorists who struck twice in Bangkok. We want Black Cell to go there and pursue whatever Thai officials can provide.”

Black Cell was the name recently given to Crocker’s six-man team-consisting of himself, Mancini, Ritchie, Akil, Davis, and Cal. They were a subgroup of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known as DEVGRU, specifically tasked with top-secret antiterrorist operations assigned by CIA and the White House.

“You want us to gather intel?” Crocker asked. He’d much rather go after Alizadeh directly.

“You don’t understand,” Anders answered. “We’re taking the gloves off. So we expect intel, suspects, dead terrorists. We want to know what Unit 5000 is planning, and we want to punish the people who ordered the attacks, built the bombs, and carried out those attacks.”

All of this was sweet music to Crocker’s ears. He said, “Sir, you have my assurance that we’ll go after these Unit 5000 characters as hard as possible.”

“That’s what we expect.”

Sutter rubbed his chin with the back of his hand and added, “I suspect you’ll find an intricate chain of connections that lead directly back to Iran.”

Anders pointed at the contents of the envelope he had handed him and continued, “We’ve made reservations for the six of you at the Viengtai Hotel under assumed names. Those are your passports and travel documents. Your contact in Bangkok is an American businessman named Emile Anderson. Among other things, he runs a local tourist agency and is one of our assets. Anderson will help you get around and connect you with Lieutenant Colonel Petsut.”

Crocker frowned.

“Is there a problem?” Anders asked.

“I was hoping you were sending us to get the Falcon,” he answered.

“It’s our hope, our suspicion in fact, that the trail you uncover will lead to him.”

“I sincerely hope so. He and I have a score to settle.”

“This isn’t personal,” Sutter added.

“In this case I respectfully disagree, sir.” The more anti- and counterterrorism ops Crocker ran, the more he realized how personal it was-a clash of fundamental beliefs and will.

“We need you to launch within twenty-four hours,” Anders said. “Can you do that?”

“Of course we can,” Crocker answered.

“Then good luck.”

There were always complications-usually minor, sometimes major-having to do with getting his men ready to leave on a few hours’ notice. In this case, they were being asked to deploy a few days after a difficult mission in Afghanistan. Davis’s wife was expecting their second child in four weeks. Mancini had recently buried his younger brother, who died of pancreatic cancer, and was dealing with paying off his medical bills. Cal’s mother had died two months ago, and he was still settling her estate. Ritchie’s girlfriend, Monica, a real estate developer, wanted to get married. Akil was helping his Egyptian father refurbish his Alexandria, Virginia, jewelry store.

Crocker returned to find Holly sitting on the edge of their bed changing into gym clothes and sneakers.

She said, “I’ll pick up some salmon after my spin class. Do you mind grilling it with that lemon-mustard sauce you like?”

“Don’t bother, sweetheart. I’m leaving tonight on a nine o’clock flight out of Dulles.”

“Oh,” she said sadly. “So soon?”

“Yeah.” Crocker couldn’t tell her what the mission was about or where he was going.

“Do you know how long you’ll be gone?” Holly asked.

He couldn’t tell her that, either. So he shook his head as he retrieved a black suitcase from the closet and zipped it open. It was prepacked with “business” clothes. He always kept his kit bags filled and ready for military deployments, and a suitcase for when he was traveling as a civilian. He checked to see if it contained garments appropriate for Bangkok. According to Yahoo! Weather, late November to early December was the beginning of the most temperate season, with lighter rainfall, average highs in the mid-eighties and the temperature dropping at night into the sixties.

When he turned to tell Holly that he hoped to be home before Christmas, her face was buried in her hands. He set the heavier-weight clothes he’d pulled from the suitcase on the bed and sat down beside her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“Nothing, Tom,” she answered, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said, gently. “What’s bothering you-Neal’s death, or Brian Shaw’s, or the kidnapping?”

“All three,” she sighed, squeezing his hand. In a low, even voice she told him that she was considering quitting her job at State Department Security and had recently discussed it with her boss. He’d suggested that she take a leave of absence and seek psychological counseling instead.

Crocker continued to switch out heavier clothes for lighter-weight wear-T-shirts, polo shirts, khaki pants-while staying mindful of the schedule he had to keep. “Maybe you should,” he said.

“You mean, do the counseling?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I’m being…selfish?”

“Absolutely not,” Crocker said, stuffing his shaving kit in the suitcase and zipping up the outside pocket.

“I want to do the right thing, Tom,” Holly said through tears. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to discuss this with you.”

He didn’t want to tell her she had waited too long as he rechecked his watch and realized that he had to be at the base airport in thirty-five minutes to catch a flight to Andrews Air Force Base, outside D.C. From there he and the other five members of Black Cell would be ferried to Dulles by helicopter.

Taking her hand in his, he said, “Maybe the best thing to do is take a couple of months off, do the counseling thing, and see how that works.”

“What happens if a couple months isn’t enough?”

“Try the counseling,” he said. “Hopefully it works. If not, you can always ask for more time. Right?”

“I’m kind of scared to talk about it,” Holly admitted. “You know, the incident. They tortured Brian and made me watch. It wasn’t like what you see in a James Bond movie. You’re there, and you see the cruelty and the pain on his face, and you want to disappear and die.”

He put his arm around her, felt her trembling, and pulled her close. “Take all the time you need to heal yourself. Don’t worry about what happens next.”

“I’m afraid, Tom, and embarrassed.”

He kissed her on the lips and she responded. But he had to pull free. “Whatever happens,” he said, “I love you.”

“You have to leave now?”

He stood, grabbed his bag, and nodded. “I’ll call as soon as I can.”

“Be careful, okay? And come back.”