Hunt the Fox

Chapter Three

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.

– H. L. Mencken

Hours after he got the order to deploy to Istanbul, Crocker took Holly out to her favorite restaurant, Il Giardino. They sat in the atrium under a giant ficus tree wrapped in tiny white lights. A fire danced in the wood-burning pizza oven in the corner. As they sipped fresh Frascati wine and Andrea Bocelli sang “Con te partirò” over the stereo, Crocker gently broached the subject.

“How’s work?” he asked.

“Busy,” she answered quietly. “We’re completing a cybersecurity assessment of the embassy in Kiev.”

Holly’s job title was security threat analyst at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS). DS played a vital role in protecting 275 U.S. diplomatic missions and their personnel overseas, securing critical information systems, investigating passport and visa fraud, and protecting the high-ranking foreign dignitaries and officials visiting the United States.

“The Russians can’t help snooping, right?” Crocker asked.

“With Putin in charge, you know it.” She glanced around to make sure no one was listening and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Everything in and out of there is heavily encrypted. But we’re constantly updating security. It’s a very high-tech game of cat and mouse.”

Because of the analytic nature of her job, Holly was able to work remotely and spend only a few days a month in D.C. When in the capital she stayed with her colleague and occasional rowing partner, Lena. Lena’s husband, a young navy ensign, had died when al-Qaeda hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon on 9/11.

Crocker was proud of Holly and the work she did. He was about to say something to that effect when the waiter arrived to announce the specials. Holly ordered the pollo alla Sorentina; Crocker chose the veal piccata.

She looked radiant in the gentle overhead light, and emotionally fragile.

He winced slightly and said, “Jenny’s back in school and seems to be doing well. You’re back at work handling important assignments. And I’m sitting on my butt feeling useless.”

Holly’s mouth tightened. “You’ve been training nonstop and working out.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same. You know that.”

“Tom…” She bit her bottom lip as if she knew what was coming, and reached for her glass.

He plunged in. “I’ve talked to the guys on my team, and they feel the same. It’s been three long months.”

“Manny, too?” She was referring to his right-hand man, Joseph Mancini, whose brother had died from a cartel assassin’s bullet.

“Yes.”

“And Davis?”

John Davis, the team’s comms expert, had been badly wounded in Mexico. He’d spent the better part of the past three months convalescing at home.

“He says he’s tired of playing daddy and real antsy to get back.”

“Playing daddy, Tom? Really? So, what are you trying to say?”

“It’s time for us to go out again.”

She ran a finger along the rim of her wineglass and sighed deeply. “When?”

“We leave in the morning.”

“How early?”

“0400.”

She nodded solemnly, but he could see that she was steaming inside. “Okay.”

Throughout dinner she’d remained uncharacteristically quiet as he talked about possible vacation spots for the summer and plans to build a new house. Even when they returned to the bedroom of their temporary apartment and made love, her mind seemed elsewhere.

Part of him wanted her to get mad at him and tell him what she was really feeling. But they both knew, and understood, that there was no middle ground. He did what he did, and that wasn’t going to change until he got too old to do it, or dropped dead.

He awoke at three, quickly showered and dressed. He thought Holly was still sleeping when he kissed her goodbye.

When she turned and looked up, he saw that she had been crying.

He leaned over and said, “I’ll call you when I can. The security team will keep a constant eye on you and Jenny. So there’s no reason to worry.”

“I know, Tom.”

“I love you.” He kissed her again.

She nodded sadly and said, “I love you, too. Be safe.”

The four Americans pulled their chairs into a semicircle around the TV to watch the video Mr. Talab and his assistant had left behind. Before slipping it into the VCR, Anders explained that it had been shot outside the city of Idlib by a twenty-two-year-old Syrian engineering student named Hassan.

“When?” Crocker asked.

“When what?”

“When was it shot?”

“About a week ago,” Janice answered.

“Where’s Idlib?”

“Northern Syria, about 120 kilometers from the Turkish border.”

“Any more questions before we start?” Anders asked.

“Yeah,” Akil said as he bit into an apple. “Why are you showing us this?”

“You’re about to find out.”

Filmed at night using an infrared filter, the video showed a half-dozen uniformed men carefully offloading five-foot-long stainless-steel canisters from a truck and carrying them down concrete steps into a tunnel. The video was grainy and jerky, and lasted about two and a half minutes.

When it ended Crocker asked, “What did we just watch?”

“Those were members of the Syrian National Defense Force, the Quwat al-Difa al-Watani,” answered Anders. “It was formed in 2012, following massive defections from the army and air force, and is made up of Assad loyalists. It’s a special militia filled with members of the country’s minorities-Alawites, Druzes, Armenians, and Christians-and modeled after the Basij militia in Iran.”

“What were they carrying?”

“We believe the canisters contain sarin gas.”

As the former WMD officer on ST-6, Crocker knew more about sarin than he cared to. He’d searched for it in Libya after the fall of Gaddafi and in Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. He knew that it remained in an odorless, tasteless liquid state below temperatures of 150ºC. In order to maximize its potential as a weapon, it was usually dispersed from a canister attached to a rocket or missile into droplets fine enough to be inhaled into the lungs. The sarin that reached the ground would eventually evaporate into vapor. Once it entered the body through the eyes or skin, it shut off the nervous system, causing involuntary muscles like the diaphragm to stop functioning. It had been discovered by Nazi scientists, who dubbed it Substance 146 and found it to be hundreds of times more deadly than cyanide. A variation of insecticides using organophosphate compounds, sarin could be made relatively easily using more than a dozen recipes. One recipe used isopropanol, known as rubbing alcohol. Another involved mixing methylphosphonyl dichloride with hydrogen or sodium fluoride.

In 2012 the United States and other countries had tried to block sales to Syria of the chemicals used in the manufacture of sarin. By that time, however, the Assad regime had already stockpiled large amounts of them.

A lethal dose could cause death in a minute. Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein discovered this in 1988, when he directed a sarin attack against the Kurdish village of Halabja that killed five thousand people. More recently, UN inspectors discovered that the Assad regime had used sarin against rebels occupying the Ghouta suburb of Damascus.

Janice said, “Assad’s military has been stockpiling the stuff for years. As military bases are overrun, there’s a very good chance of it falling into the hands of rebels, particularly ISIS and those groups allied with al-Qaeda.”

“For a number of real obvious reasons, we don’t want that to happen,” added Anders.

“No, we don’t,” echoed Janice.

“What are the odds?” Akil asked, finishing the apple and tossing the core in the trash.

“Odds of what?”

“Odds of AQ or ISIS getting their hands on the sarin.”

“Better than even,” Anders answered. “We know they’ve tried as recently as a month ago, when Turkish antiterror forces raided an ISIS safe house in the province of Adana. They arrested twelve terrorists and captured a cache of weapons and documents. Among the weapons they found a canister of sarin that had been seized from a base outside Damascus.”

Akil asked, “Any idea what they are planning to do with it?”

Janice looked at Anders, who nodded. She said, “NSA has picked up coded chatter on some ISIS al-Qaeda websites from someone who calls himself the Fox. His goal he says is to give ISIS an international profile by attacking the West.”

“That’s messed up,” Akil said.

“Especially when the WMDs they need are within reach,” Anders added.

Crocker leaned forward. “What do you need us to do?” he asked, already anticipating the answer.

“First, I need you to assess whether or not you can insert into Syria and recover the sarin canisters in the tunnel outside of Idlib before the city falls to ISIS, which could happen any day,” answered Anders.

“There’s nothing to assess,” Crocker said.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning, it needs to be done, so let’s get to it.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Anders countered. “I want you to explore the possibility. Evaluate contingencies and capabilities, and assess options.”

“You already said that there’s no time.”

Anders frowned. “The problem is, Crocker, that without reliable partners or assets inside, we’re not sure how to get you inside Syria, or where it’s safe to operate.”

“We’ll figure that out.”

“How?”

“We need to talk to people who know what’s going on, on the ground.”

“I’ll call our liaison in Turkish MiT,” replied Anders.

“Good.”

“When are the rest of your men arriving?”

“They’re scheduled to land at 1700.”

“Then let’s arrange a meet tonight.”

The room at the Hotel Nena Istanbul, only a block and a half away from the Sultanhan, was lavish by SEAL standards. From the rooftop restaurant where Crocker and Akil snacked on hummus, black olives, and Efes Pilsen, they took in a panoramic view of the city, from the port located on the Asian side, to Bosphorus Bridge, Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque with the Golden Horn in the background, and the Prince Islands in the Sea of Marmara.

“Pretty damn impressive, right?” Crocker asked.

After six years of working together in places like Pakistan, Yemen, Paraguay, and Afghanistan, he thought of Akil as a younger brother, even though their backgrounds were wildly different. Crocker came from a hardscrabble town in Massachusetts; Akil was born Muslim in a town outside of Cairo, emigrated to the States with his family, and joined the U.S. Marines. SEAL teams had bound the two men together in ways most people couldn’t understand.

“Yeah,” Akil offered, holding up his hand to shield the late afternoon sun. “There’s a whole shitload of history out there.”

“More than we can comprehend.”

“You notice how the Ottomans stuck the minarets on the Hagia Sophia?” Akil asked, pointing to the glistening multidomed monument.

“I did.”

“Randi told me about it. Started as the seat of the Greek Orthodox church in the fifth century, was converted into a Roman Catholic cathedral at the end of the Roman Empire, became a Muslim mosque when the Ottomans ran the city, and after World War I it was turned into a museum.”

“Randi, the blonde I saw you with earlier?” Crocker asked, thinking about how the mission to recover the sarin was going to work.

“Yeah. Puts everything in perspective, right?”

They’d need a reliable escort, weapons, a good cover, comms, vehicles. He saw Akil looking at him, waiting for an answer. “Who, Randi?” he asked.

“No, the Hagia Sophia,” Akil answered. “I mean all the blood that was shed over the place by the different religious groups. And now it’s a museum.”

“Yeah.”

After World War I, Turkish nationalist and president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk started to transform Turkey into a modern, secular state. Now, it seemed to Crocker that the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was an Islamist, was trying to take it backward, arresting journalists, banning YouTube and Twitter, and dissolving the long-standing separation between religion and the state.

Akil, seeing the faraway look in Crocker’s eyes, asked, “You okay with the shit that went down this morning?”

“Not really,” Crocker answered, “but what am I gonna do, cry?”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“I hear he was a good guy.”

“Jared? Yeah. Good sense of humor and a big fire in his belly. You would have liked him.”

“He tell you much?”

“About what?”

“The sarin. The hottie in the suit. The op.”

“Nah. Never got around to that.”

Akil raised his bottle of Turkish beer. “Here’s to the kid.”

“Jared.”

“Here’s hoping he’s in a better place.”

“Yeah.”

Back in their room, Crocker had a message from the desk clerk informing him that his friends had arrived and were staying in 321. He called and invited them up, then dialed Holly, who didn’t answer.

He left a message on her cell phone. “I’m safe. Will call again soon. Love to you and Jenny.”

As he looked out the window at the minarets in the distance and listened to the muezzin call evening prayer, he wondered if Dr. Mathews would consider him selfish for taking the mission.

A voice in his head said, How can I be selfish when I’m doing this to protect people?

That didn’t change the problems they were having in their marriage, or the faraway look in Holly’s eyes when he’d kissed her goodbye.

The awkward doubts disappeared the moment Mancini walked in, sporting a foot-long beard and hair that curled over his ears. The energy he brought with him was palpable.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Crocker asked.

“Life,” the linebacker-sized SEAL responded through a gap-toothed smile. “I grew some hair. How’s your leg?”

The cartel assassins who had bombed Crocker’s house had shot him in the thigh before he took them out.

“Still barks some, but it works.”

The two men embraced for the first time in three months. Crocker noticed that Mancini had a new tattoo on his forearm. It was a heart with his brother’s face in it and the words “In Memoriam Amantem” (in loving memory).

He felt something tighten in his chest.

Behind Mancini (who was the weapons, logistics, and tech expert on the team) followed Suarez (explosives) and Davis (comms). The last time Crocker saw Davis he’d been lying in a hospital in Guadalajara recovering from a bullet wound that had shattered his collarbone. He looked fit, tan, and healthy now.

“Glad to see you’re back,” Crocker said, squeezing his hand. “Been working out?”

“Yeah, boss, I’ve become a CrossFit fanatic. I missed you guys…”

It meant a lot coming from a man of few words.

“How’s the family?”

Light-haired Davis had a matching blond wife and two young sons. Looked like a family out of a J. Crew catalog, except that the dad was an adrenaline junkie, conspiracy theorist, and secret New Age follower who believed in aliens and communicating with the dead. He was convinced, for example, that Hitler and the Nazis had made contact with aliens.

“Good. All good.”

“Anybody hear from Cal?” Cal was the sniper and sixth member of Black Cell.

Mancini, who had clicked on the TV and was surfing through the channels with the sound muted, nodded.

“He wanted to come, but Doc wouldn’t clear him. Even though he bitched to Sutter, he wouldn’t sign off.” Captain Sutter was the commander of SEAL Team Six and their boss.

Suarez, who was the newest member of the team, handed Crocker a white envelope. “Your wife asked Sutter to give you this.”

“Thanks and welcome. Your family good?”

“Healthy and relatively happy, boss. Praise be to our savior Jesus Christ.”

“You still believe in the virgin birth?” Akil asked.

“You still a Muslim who chases anything with a pair of tits?” Suarez asked back.

“Hoo-ah.”

They banged knuckles and bumped chests.

Inside the envelope was a wallet-sized photo of his daughter, Jenny, and an invitation to her graduation. A reminder that, one, his daughter (from his first marriage) was graduating from high school, and, two, that the ceremony was being held in a week. Crocker didn’t want to miss it. He noticed that there was no accompanying message from Holly.

“You guys staying in one room or two?” Akil asked, referring to Mancini, Suarez, and Davis.

Suarez glanced at Mancini and answered, “Two. He snores and farts so much we gave him his own gas chamber.”

Akil laughed. “Talks to himself, too. Weird shit about making love to computers and robots.”

“You fucking sissies are lucky to associate with me,” Mancini shot back. “Maybe if you listen, some of my knowledge and erudition will wear off on you.”

“What the hell is erudition?”

“Maybe not.” Then, to Crocker, “What’s up, boss?”

“Looks like we might be going into Syria to recover some WMDs.”

“I figured Syria might be on the agenda. You got details?”

“Hopefully we’ll get them later tonight.”

Mancini slapped his hands together. “I’m ready to get it on!” Then, nodding toward the others, “Not sure about these jerk-offs.”

“Bring everything you’ve got, I’ll bring it ten times stronger,” said Akil.

“Really, Akil? Really? What are you bench-pressing these days? You up to a buck-fifty?”

“You know what they call muscle-bound guys in tight shorts who like to hang in the gym together?”

Mancini got in his face. “What? You really think you’re ready?”

Suarez: “Get a room, guys. Work it out.”

Akil tossed a pillow at Suarez that missed his head and knocked over a lamp on the desk where Crocker was sitting, studying some of the reports Janice had given him.

Crocker barked, “Come on, Akil. What are you, five years old?”

“It’s Manny’s fault.” To Mancini: “Don’t you know that all the self-improvement shit isn’t good for you? You need some primal rage.”

“Believe me, brother, I got plenty of that.” Then, to Davis: “You might want to buy some Clairol and die your hair black. They eat blonds like you for dinner in this part of the world. Which reminds me…This is a great restaurant city, and I’m famished. Anybody up for dinner?”

“First intelligent thing you’ve said,” Akil responded.

The first time he’d seen Holly, almost fifteen years ago, he was struck by her poise and physical beauty. He remembered thinking she seemed like a perfect partner-smart, friendly, attractive, and fit. It had happened at an ST-6 picnic at a teammate’s house. She stood next to a teammate’s wife, holding a glass of wine. The sun glanced off her cheekbones and highlighted the waves in her long, auburn hair. Though he later heard that her marriage to her first husband (also a member of ST-6) was on the rocks, she looked completely in control of herself and happy.

He had lost sight of her for a few minutes in the smoke from the barbecue, then she was miraculously by his side, smiling at two-year-old Jenny. Almost too close for comfort. In proximity, her effect on him was even more powerful. Big blue eyes that were both intelligent and kind, a fit, womanly body stylishly adorned in a tight light-blue T-shirt and matching checkered shorts.

“Sweet girl,” she said, referring to Jenny. “How old?”

“I’ll let her tell you.”

Jenny held up two fingers. “Two and a half.”

“Really? What’s your name?”

“Jen-ny.”

“Pretty name.”

Later he’d seen Holly around the neighborhood and at other ST-6 functions. Heard she was a good mother and a decent athlete, including serving as captain on a women’s championship rowing team.

Six years after that, after Crocker’s first wife moved out, he dated for two years-an Australian skin diver, a Hispanic FBI agent, an anesthesiologist who was into rock climbing. He was starting to think about settling down again when one of the ST-6 wives informed him that Holly and her husband had split up. She suggested that the two of them might like to keep each other company.

They met at the Starbucks in the Red Mill Commons. He felt awkward at first, discussing his training for an upcoming Ironman competition and thinking that he was boring her, but she quickly put him at ease. She knew the SEAL life and the kind of people who were attracted to it. She explained that she had left her husband because of his drinking problem, which had led to abusive behavior and infidelity.

She said, “He refuses to deal with his personal problems, and I couldn’t put up with them anymore. It’s as simple as that. I wish him well. It’s time to move on.”

Crocker, who still felt bad about his first marriage, appreciated her no-nonsense practicality. His ex-wife was someone who could never decide what she wanted and was therefore impossible to please. She’d hated it when they were assigned to a base overseas, then didn’t want to leave. She wanted a child, but didn’t enjoy being a mother. It had driven him crazy. Holly seemed more solid emotionally and mature. They got together for coffee a few more times, then started dating.

It was so natural, because they liked the same things-being outdoors, working out, movies, and quiet restaurant dinners. After three months of dating, he moved in with her and her teenage son, Brian. When they discovered that Brian was taking and selling drugs, Crocker sat the kid down and tried talking sense into him. Brian started to take school seriously and seemed to be getting his life together when, one night, he was shot by a drug dealer friend, and slipped into a coma.

As horrible as the situation was, Holly dealt with it with incredible strength and dignity. When Brian’s brain and body started to swell because of damage to his spine and internal organs, the doctors told her that they had to unplug the respirator that was keeping him alive. She sat with Brian and held his hand when the doctors pulled the plug. He couldn’t imagine the pain she was in, but she handled it amazingly well. Her values were solid: God, country, family.

Crocker’s love and admiration grew. She became his rock-the partner who made his life fuller and more fun, and made everything work.

The first crack in her confidence came two years ago when she and a DS colleague were kidnapped while doing an embassy security survey in Libya. She was held for three days and forced to watch her male colleague being tortured and killed. She was still recovering from that trauma, a year and three months later, when cartel gunmen planted a bomb at their house. Holly had just driven Leslie Ames and Jenny back from a soccer tournament in Richmond. Leslie died in the explosion, which also lodged shards of glass and wood in Holly’s liver.

She recovered quickly. But the emotional impact seemed to linger. She spent more time in her room alone and didn’t want to talk. Sometimes he caught her crying. Crocker cheered her on, telling her that they’d build a new house and live even better than before. He kept waiting for her to snap out of her funk.

Dr. Mathews had told him to be patient. She also warned him that it might take years. She said, “Each one of us has an emotional limit.”

Maybe Holly had reached hers. Maybe she’d never be the same optimistic, confident woman she had been before.

“I can live with that,” he told Dr. Mathews. “As long as she doesn’t expect me to change.”

But she did.

He faced a choice: continuing as the leader of Black Cell, or staying married to Holly. He feared that he couldn’t have both.