Hunt the Jackal

Chapter Fourteen

Crocker and the three other SEALs made a big show of saying goodbye and wishing good luck to Becker, Max Jenson, and the masked Mexican, who climbed into the dark-blue Suburban, armed and wearing black helmets, then drove off.

They waited five minutes until the Mexican soldiers guarding the building jumped into their jeeps and followed them, then exited out the back door, through thick foliage, to an old Ford Explorer parked by an equipment shed. Gomez flicked on the yellow parking lights, and they climbed inside.

Gomez, who resembled a young Edward James Olmos, said, “The weapons and ammo are in back. Grab what you need.”

Mancini passed an MP7 submachine gun with suppressor and M3X weapons light, a SOG knife, a cylindrical M14 incendiary grenade (which could produce enough heat to melt through an engine block), an MK141 Mod 0 stun grenade, two M68 frag grenades, an HK-45CT handgun, and three extra mags for each of them up to Crocker in the passenger seat.

He stuck the mags into the pouches of the low-profile vest he’d strapped over his black tee and slipped the handgun into the sleeve under his left arm, since he was a right-handed shooter. They had no armor, which meant they didn’t have protective ceramic plates to insert in the vests.

Crocker didn’t mind, because he wanted them to move as fast and as stealthily as possible. Each operator also wore an INVISIO M4 headset with vibration-sensing bone conduction so they could communicate with one another, and NVGs, but no helmets.

“We’re about five minutes away,” Gomez announced as he steered onto a two-lane asphalt road that took them past a movie theater playing Iron Man 3. Among the crowd gathered outside was someone dressed in an Iron Man suit, posing with his arms held triumphantly over his head.

“Fool,” Manicini grumbled.

“Lighten up,” Akil said. “He’s just having fun.”

“Maybe we should recruit him,” Suárez remarked.

“Good idea.”

“How do you want to do this?” Gomez asked Crocker as he glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure they weren’t being followed.

“Get us as close as you can without being detected,” Crocker replied, screwing a six-inch suppressor into the barrel of his MP7. “You brought bolt cutters, right?”

“Two Porter thirty-six-inchers. Top of the line.”

“Good. We’ll cut through the fence along the river and enter from the back. Once we’re in, Manny, you and Akil deploy into the yard around the near side, to your left. Disable the side door, then secure the front door and front gate. Then clear through the front entrance into the bottom floor.”

“What do you mean by disable?” Mancini asked.

“Bar it, block it, deploy an M14 to melt the lock, whatever,” Crocker answered. “We need to prevent people from escaping the house.”

“Got it.”

“Call Suárez or me if you need help securing the front. And try not to shoot us, because we’ll be entering through the back portico and heading for the stairway.”

“How many enemy should we expect?” asked Akil.

“You said ten, right?” Crocker said, turning to Gomez.

“Anywhere from six to fifteen.”

Akil: “Piece of cake.”

“We don’t want anyone escaping,” Crocker continued. “Look for the hostages and clear them out of there.”

“Two blond babes. Not a problem,” cracked Akil.

“We don’t want them getting hurt.”

Mancini: “No.”

“Suárez, once the first deck is secure, you and I are going to climb up to the balcony and attack the second. While we do that, Mancini and Akil will cover the bottom of the main stairway.”

Akil: “Clever, boss.”

“Don’t fuck around.”

“Floor plan?” asked Mancini.

“You saw what they showed us. You want me to go over it again?”

“Not necessary.”

“What about me?” Gomez asked. “What do you want me to do?”

“You’ll bring the Explorer around and block the front gate. Don’t let anyone escape. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“What about creating a diversion?” Mancini asked.

“No time,” Crocker answered, glancing at his watch. “It looks like we’re going to be hitting them within five or ten minutes of the deadline, maybe less. So they’ll be on alert. Which brings me to another point: This all has to be quick and precise. As soon as we’re compromised, we’ve got to get to the hostages within thirty seconds. Otherwise, they’ll be executed.”

They had passed through the commercial part of town and were climbing through thick foliage, past homes and ranches. A half-moon shone ahead. Crocker’s heart raced like crazy. The problems with this mission were almost too numerous to consider. For one thing, they had no exit strategy, and there was no time to try to cobble one together now.

Gomez pulled to the shoulder just before the road curved right.

“This it?” Crocker asked.

“On the other end of this curve is a dirt road that runs about fifteen hundred yards to the Coatan River. I’ll let you out at the end of that. From there, you’ve got about sixty yards of brush until you reach the fence.”

“How long do you think we have until the Federales arrive?” Crocker asked.

“Good question,” Akil said from the backseat.

“Say, fifteen minutes,” Gomez answered. “Twenty at the most.”

“Maintaining the element of surprise is critical,” Crocker reminded them. “We don’t know for sure, but we expect the hostages are on the second deck.”

“Keep alert for booby traps.”

“Let’s launch this fucker.”

“This one’s for Ritchie!”

“For Ritchie. Go!”

Senator Jesse Clark sat in his Capitol Hill office, sipping from a glass of iced tea and waiting for the live stream to appear on his computer. Accompanying him were three aides, an FBI hostage crisis expert, and two deputies from the White House National Security Council.

A female aide looked at her watch and said, “Should be any minute now.”

An instant later the feed went live with the camera tightly focused on Lisa’s tense face.

“Lord have mercy,” Clark muttered.

“She looks good,” the aide whispered. “Very poised.”

“Always does.”

On the live stream, Lisa looked up, bit her top lip, and started to speak.

“My captor has asked me to record a brief statement about my experience here. He has given me no guidelines, so I’m speaking freely, choosing my own words. First, I want to say that while this ordeal has been difficult and even frightening at times, I have been treated well. I haven’t been threatened. And although I have had very little contact with my daughter, I have no reason to believe that her treatment has been any different from mine.”

As she spoke, the camera slowly pulled back, revealing the chair she was sitting in, her suit, and the black flag behind her.

“What’s that?” asked a male aide in a whisper.

“A strange variation of the Zapatista flag,” the NSC deputy answered.

“Shhh!” said Clark’s female aide.

Lisa continued: “Early in my captivity, the man who had been holding us explained his reasons for kidnapping us, which have to do with what he believes is a pattern of prejudice and unfair treatment of Mexicans by the United States government that he says continues today in the war against drugs. I admit that my understanding of the situation is limited. After I’m released, I plan to dedicate myself to the study of Mexican-U.S. relations and to righting any injustices perpetrated by the United States. Finally, I love my family and my country, and I’m proud to be part of both of them. God bless us all.”

Lisa managed to hold her composure until the last four words, when her voice cracked and her lips started to tremble.

Suddenly, the screen turned black.

“What dignity,” one of Clark’s Senate aides said. “I think she did an amazing job.”

“I agree,” opined the FBI hostage expert.

“Remarkable.”

The six people in the room turned to Clark, who had a stunned, pained look on his face. It was as though seeing his wife and hearing the anguish in her voice had made the crisis more personal and immediate than it ever had been before.

“She said ‘after I’m released,’” the senator announced as he wiped a tear from his eye. “You hear that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘After I’m released,’” he repeated. “Does that mean she knows something we don’t?”

“Knows what?” asked the FBI expert.

“Knows that he’s letting her free.”

“Unclear, Senator,” the FBI officer answered. “She’s probably unaware of the deadline and her kidnapper’s demands. That’s usually the way these situations work. As a kidnapper, you don’t tell the hostages anything they don’t need to know.”

“Oh…”

“But I thought she sounded and looked good,” the deputy from the White House NSC offered.

“Me, too,” said the FBI hostage expert.

“What happens now?” Senator Clark asked.

The FBI expert glanced at the ticking Tiffany clock on the corner of his desk, which showed twelve minutes before the deadline. “Well, right about now the commandos from the Mexican GAFE have moved into position and are surrounding the site,” he said in a confident voice. “We should hear something in a matter of minutes. These men are highly trained in hostage rescue. There’s no reason to believe they won’t achieve positive results.”

“I hope so,” Senator Clark said, turning and glancing at the framed photos of his wife and daughter on the wooden credenza behind his desk. “The president is confident?”

“Yes, he is, sir,” the NSC deputy answered.

Senator Clark stood, bowed his head, and extended his arm. “Eleven minutes. Please join hands with me in prayer.”

Crocker, Akil, and Suárez knelt behind thick foliage at the corner of the fence, sweat beading on their faces, even though it was almost midnight, as the Coatan River gurgled in the background. Mancini returned to report that he had disabled the security cameras along the top of the chain-link fence.

“All of them?” Crocker whispered.

“The three that run along this side.”

“Good.”

But they had other problems, which Crocker pointed to past the aluminum fence ahead. Up a graded embankment and approximately fifty yards away stood three armed men near the back of the house. One of them held two pit bulls on a leash.

The SEALs had no sniper rifle in their possession. So taking the men and dogs out without alerting the guards inside the house was nearly impossible. Suppressed weapons aren’t completely silent, and even though some of the MP7s featured high-end scopes, none of them had been calibrated, and there was no time to do that now.

“You guys wait here, and I’ll go around from the side and surprise them,” Akil offered.

“No time,” Crocker answered, glancing at his watch. They had eight minutes until the deadline.

“What, then?”

“Hand me the shotgun, some breaching rounds, a couple gas masks, and three CS gas grenades,” Crocker whispered. The shotgun was an M870 single-fire twelve-gauge with a ten-inch barrel.

“We have no gas masks,” said Mancini.

“Then nix the masks.”

“What you gonna do?” Akil asked.

“Secure the hostages.”

“How?”

“Rush the side door, blow the fucker open if I have to, enter the house.”

“Boss-”

“The second you hear me, take out the three guards and the dogs and clear your way to the front gate. Then enter the house. I’ll be on the second deck.”

Mancini nodded. “We’ve got your back.”

Crocker checked his watch again. “Six minutes.” Then to Suárez: “Bring a bolt cutter and come with me.”

Thirty seconds later, they reached a point along the fence parallel to the side door. It took another thirty seconds for Suárez to snip through the aluminum threads and pull them back enough for Crocker to crawl through. The pit bulls started to bark.

Crocker gave Suárez a thumbs-up, then gestured for him to wait at the fence.

Suárez nodded and mouthed the words Good luck.

Crocker dashed in a crouch to the portico and climbed three wooden steps to the side door, only to find it bolted shut. He slammed an M1030 breaching cartridge into the M870, aimed it at the lock, turned his head away, and fired.

Under ideal circumstances he would have been wearing eye protection. But he did the best he could, squinting through the smoke and falling debris and seeing that the wooden door had sprung open. He entered, quickly scanned the large rooms from the hallway, then headed for the stairway.

The three remaining members of Black Cell waited behind the fence with their weapons at ready. As soon as the shotgun blast went off, the three heavily armed Mexican guards came running toward them, just as they had anticipated. One was shouting into a radio; another held the two pit bulls on a chain.

When the Mexicans approached within twenty yards of the fence, the SEALs opened fire with MP7s and cut them down in a mangle of screams, blood, falling limbs, and smoke. Akil was on his belly halfway through the fence when he saw that one of the pit bulls had pulled free and was charging at him full speed. He reached for his weapon but couldn’t maneuver it through the fence because the right shoulder strap of his LBT low-profile vest had gotten stuck on the end of one of the aluminum threads. “I need help here!” he exclaimed, grabbing the handle of his SOG knife with his left.

Neither of the other two SEALs was in a position to assist him-Mancini was in the process of crawling under the fence on the other side of a rosemary bush and therefore had no clear line of fire. Still, he squeezed off a couple of rounds that skittered along the ground and missed the charging dog. Suárez was already in the yard and out of sight, as he had entered at the same spot as Crocker.

So all Akil could do was focus intently on the massive mouth of the dog, which charged within six feet of him and lunged, eyes fierce and full of fury, sharp incisors bared.

At the last second Akil pulled his head back through the hole in the fence, so that the dog slammed into it with a horrific growl. Akil felt teeth graze the flesh near his shoulder. The beast was trying to bite through the aluminum and get at his neck.

Akil pushed his left hand through the opening and sank the blade of the SOG knife into the dog’s neck. Hot blood spilled over his hand and down his arm as the dog’s eyes shifted from surprise, to anger, to recognition that he was dying in a matter of seconds.

“Sorry, mutt,” Akil moaned.

The dog exhaled its last breath, trembled, and went still.

Counting the seconds until the deadline in his head, Crocker hurried toward the stairway, weapons at ready. He glimpsed an olive-green pickup and armed men through the tall windows and white smoke, pulled the pins on two of the CS gas grenades, threw them toward the front door, then started to climb. Boom…boom! The house shook.

Ninety seconds.

He took the wooden steps two at a time, his heart thumping like a piston, the odorless smoke already finding its way into his eyes. Someone was moving above, and he heard shooting outside along the side of the house where the SEALs had entered.

Sixty.

All his senses on high alert and both the shotgun and MP7 off-safety, straight finger, he reached the landing and was confronted with a choice. A horseshoe balcony ran along the stairway opening on the second deck with two doors on either side and three more doors behind him, facing the front of the house.

Hearing something in the room to his left, he crossed and kicked the door open. Someone was leaning out the window. In a split second he ID’d that person as a male and released a salvo from the MP7 that ripped a T in him-eyes, to nose, to sternum. The man crumpled and turned, trying to hold in the white-and-purple putrid-smelling organs that were spilling out of his stomach. The room contained a desk covered with medical equipment (stethoscope, sutures, syringes, scissors, glass vials), a scale, an unmade bed, and a can of Coke.

No hostages!

Crocker took a deep breath and backed out, crossed to the other back bedroom, and stopped. The door was locked. Ten seconds! exclaimed a voice in his head. From the front of the house, he heard men shouting in Spanish, a vehicle starting, and weapons discharging.

Crocker reared his right foot to kick the door open, but something told him not to. So he loaded another M1030 cartridge into the 870 and fired at the lock. A second after the door sprang, the entire wall in front of him exploded, lifting him off his feet and throwing him against the wooden rail. He held on to keep from falling over. Shards of wood and metal embedded themselves in his face, neck, arms, and chest. His head wobbling, he struggled not to lose consciousness.

Zero, the voice announced as he breathed deeply to clear his head. All that accomplished was to fill his lungs with smoke.

Tears muddled his vision. Through the dust, smoke, and flames, he heard a door creaking open behind him and footsteps running along the second-deck landing. The MP7 lay out of reach, so he grabbed the M870 that lay alongside him. Feeling along the pouch near his waist, he inserted another cartridge. Turning from a seated position, he spotted the blurry form of a man emerging from the bedroom to his left, holding an M4.

Crocker fired first. The M1030 breaching round hit the man smack in the middle of the chest and exploded. Crocker pulled himself up, ran, and stepped over the man as smoke rose from the ghastly hole in his chest. The man’s hair stood straight up.

Suárez and Mancini crouched behind an avocado tree along the front side of the house as white smoke spilled out of the barrels of their MP7s. The bodies of two Mexicans they had just taken down lay bleeding out on the concrete driveway next to a military-green Toyota pickup. Beyond the pickup rose a big black metal gate and a fence covered in red bougainvillea.

Mancini raised two fingers and pointed to the front of the house to indicate that two other Mexican guards had retreated through the front door.

Suárez nodded.

Using hand signals, Mancini instructed Suárez to enter through the side door, which was to their right and about ten yards behind them, while he circled around and bum-rushed the front.

The idea was to trap the two retreating Mexicans in a crossfire before they reached the stairs.

Mancini tapped the top of his head and nodded. Suárez tore across the lawn to the shattered side door. He entered and was immediately hit by a wave of heat and smoke. A fire had broken out on the other side of the front hall and was spreading quickly through the wooden structure.

Through the smoke, Suárez spotted two men kneeling along a wall near the stairway, and he circled to his right through a breakfast room, kitchen, back porch, and media room, to try to surprise them from the other side. The dark-wood-paneled media room was filled with white smoke. Still, he made out boxes of Cuban cigars and glass cases filled with DVDs.

Using his left foot, he slowly pulled open the door and stepped into the hallway. The combination of tear gas, smoke, and heat blinded him for a second and squeezed his throat. Still, he kept his head enough to see something move to his left along the floor.

As he turned, shots rang out. One of them slammed into the door near his chin. Another cut through the web of skin between his right thumb and forefinger and clattered along the stock of his weapon, causing him to let it go.

The MP7 hit the floor. So Suárez reached for his handgun, and in that second he knew he was fucked. He heard a weapon discharge and clenched the muscles in his chest and stomach to try to repel the bullets. But mysteriously, they didn’t come. Instead, they tore into the men along the wall, who screamed and grunted.

Looking up, he saw Mancini step through the white mist, gray smoke still wafting out of the end of his weapon.

“You okay?” Mancini whispered.

“Flesh wound,” Suárez whispered back, pointing to his hand, then bending to recover his weapon from the floor. His arms shook. What he really wanted to say was: Thank you for saving my life.

Choking on cordite, smoke, and tear gas rising from the second deck, his eyes raw and teary, Crocker entered the front bedroom, his mind operating at warp speed, picking up impressions-two windows in front of him, a white wrought iron king-sized bed in the middle, and stretched over the bed, a blue plastic sheet, which had ballooned a foot and a half on the top and sides. A clear plastic tube traveled from the bed to a tank of gas near the wall to his right.

Otherwise, the room was empty. A terrific firing erupted outside, shattering glass and ripping through the clapboard walls.

He knelt, dropped the M870 on the floor, located the SOG knife in his vest, and slit the plastic open in one long, careful motion. A pungent gas leaked out.

A chlorine compound, Crocker said to himself, reaching into his admin pouch, feeling for a blue bandana, and tying it over his nose and mouth. Spinning to his right, he rose and kicked out the window, then tightened the knob on the tank, which had an elaborate timer attached.

Under the sheet, he spotted one woman, not two. It looked like Mrs. Clark, and she appeared unconscious. Six leather straps bound her tightly to the bed. Kneeling on its edge, he sawed through the restraints, carefully lifted her into his arms, carried her like a baby to the bathroom, and shut the door. Patches of livid red covered the skin on her face and neck, and her lips had turned purple. He set her down on the green tile floor, pulled open the bathroom window, then felt for a pulse along her neck.

It was weak, but she was still breathing, so he held her airway open.

Akil’s voice filled his ears. “Boss, boss…”

Crocker thought he was hearing him through the headset, but when he looked up through tear-filled eyes, he saw Akil standing in the other doorway-the one that opened to the landing. The left side of his head and his left arm were covered with blood.

“Boss.”

“You intact?”

“Hell, yeah. You locate the other one?”

Crocker shook his head vigorously and pointed to the other front bedroom. His throat, ears, and eyes burned, and he was sweating excessively because of exposure to the chlorine gas.

“The downstairs is on fire,” Akil announced.

“Then go, quick! Find her.”

Akil nodded, turned, and ran, and Crocker heard Mrs. Clark moan. He watched her gasp for breath and cough and a second later throw up greenish-yellow bile all over his arms.

He was pleased to see it, and the surprised look on her face, as he held her mouth open with his left hand and cleared her throat with his right.

“You’re okay,” he whispered. “Bear with me. Try not to make a sound.”

He walked to the stall shower, turned on the water, then picked up Lisa and carried her inside. Feeling the cool water on her skin, she tried to pull away.

“No. Don’t!”

“Quiet,” whispered Crocker, holding her firmly. “You’ve been exposed to chlorine gas, so I have to wash it off your skin and out of your hair and eyes immediately.”

“Take me home, please,” she groaned.

“I will.”

“Don’t hurt me.”

“I won’t.”

He propped her against the wall of the shower and pulled off her skirt and blouse. She stared at him in shock as he peeled off her underwear to the pale skin underneath, covered with patches of red. She shivered against him.

He let go of her and whispered, “Wash your whole body. Nose, ears, throat, eyes, everything. I’ll be right back.”

She nodded, covered herself with her arms, and sank to her knees.

On the landing, he ran into Akil emerging from the other front bedroom. Smoke and flames rose from the ground floor.

“Where’s the girl?” he asked urgently.

Akil shook his head.

“You check all the rooms up here?”

“Affirmative.”

Crocker pointed downstairs. “Find her.”

He entered the bedroom Akil had just exited, pulled a white cotton coverlet from the bed, and returned to the bathroom. There he helped Mrs. Clark out of the shower, and seeing that the patches of red were less livid, draped the coverlet around her.

“Wait here, but don’t rub your skin.”

Then he removed his vest and T-shirt and stood under the water himself. After quickly cleaning his hair, face, and chest, he stepped out of the shower and picked her up in his arms.

“Try to hold on to me,” he said.

“Who are you?” she asked, looking up at his face, which was dripping with water, grime, and blood from the dozen or so wood and metal shards embedded in it.

“An American soldier.”

“Where are we?”

“Cover your mouth and nose with the sheet and close your eyes. This might get hot.”