Hunt the Scorpion

Chapter Seven

The guesthouse was roughly six blocks away, a relatively modest three-bedroom behind a concrete wall topped with broken glass and barbed wire. The oval pool in the backyard was covered with a blue tarp.

He found most of his team loading in supplies and cleaning the kitchen. Mancini had his head in the fridge, a plastic bucket at his feet, the floor around him covered with old food containers, muttering to himself. Seeing Crocker, he stopped. “Hey, boss,” he said. “You alright? Heard you had a difficult night.”

“I’m running on fumes. How’s the place?”

“Not half bad,” Mancini answered, “but the people staying here before us left a goddamn mess.”

From the closet Akil said, “You should have called us.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“No time. Everything happened so fast.”

“Davis told us. Heard you kicked some butt.”

Mention of the SEAL’s name jarred Crocker’s memory. “How is he?”

“Davis? Got his bell rung good. Minor concussion. Damage to one of his eardrums. Doctor says he’ll be fine.”

“Where is he?”

“In the back bedroom jerking off.”

Ritchie walked in carrying a box of groceries. “Hey, boss. Welcome back. Cal needs to talk to you when you get a chance.”

“What’s wrong with Cal?”

“Mommy issues.”

“What?”

“I can never quite make out what he’s saying. He mumbled something under his breath about his mother.”

Crocker found Cal sitting in the living room next to a bag filled with weapons. The components of an MP5 lay on loose newspaper on the floor-the carrier, bolt head rollers, blast bore, and chamber. As Crocker watched, Cal spread some Tetra Gun Action Blaster on the chamber and scrubbed it with a wire brush.

Without looking up he said, “Big mash-up last night, huh, boss?”

“Turned out that way, yeah.”

“Sorry I missed the fireworks.”

The SEAL sniper, who was never very communicative, looked lost in his own thoughts as he wiped down the bore, barrel, and trigger pack.

Crocker said, “Ritchie said you want to speak to me. You okay?”

Cal raised his head and looked toward the window, which was covered with dusty yellow curtains. Crocker noticed puffiness around his eyes.

Cal spoke in a whisper. “I think so.”

“That scorpion bite still bothering you? Sometimes the effects of the venom can linger for weeks.”

“It’s not that.”

“What, then?”

“My mom.”

“Your mother?”

“Weird, huh? I dreamt about her the other night. Today I find out she’s in a hospice, dying.”

Crocker was so tired he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “Your mother’s dying, and you just found out?”

“Yeah. Stage three lung cancer.”

Crocker knew there was almost zero chance of recovering from that. “Cal, I’m so sorry.”

“Doctor says she only has a few days left.”

Crocker flashed back to his own mom, suffering from cancer and hooked to a respirator. “You speak to her?” he asked.

“Weird how things change. She’s always been the most energetic woman, running businesses, doing all kinds of things, always in a hurry. Never stopped, until now.”

Crocker had left his mom one afternoon when she wanted him to stay. She died the next day.

“Where’s your mother now?” he asked, feeling the guilt wanting to punish him again.

“San Mateo.”

“You’ve got to visit her, Cal. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Cal looked down at the tile floor and nodded. “I guess I will. Soon as this mission is over.”

“We’re likely to be here a week at least. That might be too late. I don’t think you should risk it.”

“Yeah.”

Cal put a drop of oil on the locking piece, then reassembled the bolt head and carrier. The emotional side of him that was never much in evidence seemed completely shut down.

“Cal?” Crocker asked.

“Yeah.”

“Soon as I get my hands on a laptop that’s working, I’ll e-mail our CO. Tell him you’re taking emergency medical leave effective immediately. You should get ready to leave first thing in the morning. When you’re done in San Mateo, report back to Virginia Beach.”

Cal pointed at the weapons on the floor. “I’ll check and clean the rest of them tonight before I go.”

“We can do that, Cal.”

“Not as good as I can.”

“Okay, Cal. Then pack your gear.”

“Yes, sir.”

An important part of Crocker’s job was to look out for the emotional welfare of his men. As highly trained and disciplined as they were, they were human beings, not machines. They needed to be able to focus and think clearly.

He had learned from personal experience that family roots run deeper than some people realize. Early in his career Crocker had missed both his sisters’ weddings and his uncle’s funeral because he was working 24/7 with ST-6. He deeply regretted that now.

As Cal checked the reassembled mechanism, Crocker saw him stop to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. He placed a hand on Cal’s shoulder, then left him in peace.

Minutes later Crocker found Davis in the back bedroom, sitting on the edge of a double bed, flipping through the channels with the TV remote. The left side of his head and his left ear were covered with a white bandage.

“Akil said that you were back here beating off.”

Davis said, “Thirty-some channels, and all but one of them is in Arabic. The only one in English is BBC World News.”

“No Criminal Minds or CSI, huh?”

“No, nothing.”

“We’ll survive.”

“I’d rather read anyway.”

“How’s your head?”

“Hurts, but it seems to be working.”

Crocker held up the fingers of his right hand. “How many digits?”

“Seventeen.”

“You’re fine. Any mention of the Sheraton bombing on the news?”

“Some still pictures. Nothing about casualties.”

“That’s because the war is over, so reporters are busy elsewhere. What’d the doc say about your head?”

“I should expect headaches the next couple of days. Probably lost a shitload of brain cells. Otherwise, I’m fine.”

“Maybe you should take some emergency medical leave, spend some time with your family.” Davis and his wife had an infant son and another baby due in six months.

He asked, “What’s going on with Cal?”

“He’s leaving in the morning to spend some time with his mom.”

“Then you need me.”

Sometimes team spirit and loyalty got in the way. “Think about it,” Crocker said.

“As long as I’ve got plenty of eight-hundred-milligram Motrin, I’ll be fine.”

They ate at a long table in the kitchen. Mancini had whipped up a big bowl of pasta with tomatoes, capers, peppers, and canned tuna. Pretty damn good, under the circumstances. They were talking, eating, and listening to Raj Music on the radio when they heard someone banging on the gate.

It was John Lasher, carrying several shopping bags that contained DVDs, paperbacks for Davis, peanut butter, crackers, bars of chocolate, boxes of energy bars, and bottles of Italian wine. The back of his SUV was loaded with hazmat suits, digital Geiger counters, a bolt cutter, a couple of acetylene torches, maps and charts.

As Crocker helped him carry the gear in, Lasher turned to him and asked, “How do you know Farag Shakir?”

Because his mind was clouded with exhaustion, it took him a moment to remember. “Farag? Yeah, Farag. He’s the brave kid who fought beside me at the Sheraton last night.”

“He asked me to thank you for helping save his cousin’s life.”

“I didn’t know the injured boy was his cousin. How is he?”

“Hanging on, apparently.”

“Tough kid, that Farag. What’s his background?”

“He’s from one of the tribes west of here, near the Tunisian border, called Zintani. Ended up in Tripoli during the war for one reason or another. He wants to be helpful, so we’ve used him for a couple of things, mainly for backup security. That’s why he was at the Sheraton last night.”

After they finished eating, Lasher spread out a map of Libya on the table with several locations circled in red. He explained that he was a former marine major and UN weapons inspector in Iraq, then said, “Remington wants us to do this quickly and low profile, so we’ll focus on the three most important sites.”

“I was in Iraq, too,” Crocker said. “March 2003, right after it fell. Minutes after I landed, I ran into the chief of CIA Operations at the airport. He said, ‘Crocker, if you came here looking for WMDs, you’re not gonna find any.’ ”

Lasher: “I worked for Scott Ritter when we did the UN inspections. We knew that months before the invasion.”

Crocker had learned not to try to second-guess the president or his foreign policy team, but he wasn’t afraid to call out a mistake if he saw one. “Fucked up, huh?”

“A major international black eye, yeah. But at least we took down Saddam.”

“Sure did.”

Lasher pointed to one of the red circles, only a short distance west of Tripoli. “We might as well start with the closest one, Busetta, which was Gaddafi’s former naval base. I’m not sure what’s left of it now.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Mustard gas, stocks of VX gas, missile engines, ingredients for the production of missile fuel, shells, chemical bombs.”

Crocker knew that VX was a very dangerous nerve agent developed by the British, a compound of organic phosphorus and sulfur that can penetrate the skin and disrupt the transmission of nerve impulses, causing paralysis and death.

“And you think these weapons exist?” he asked.

“NATO claims to have inspected the sites.”

“But you don’t trust them?”

“We know that Gaddafi vowed to dismantle his WMD program after the Iraq War. But instead of destroying anything, he spent the next eight years playing cat and mouse with the international community. According to our intel, at the time of his death his regime was in possession of at least 9.5 metric tons of mustard gas and 100 metric tons of VX.”

“Code name Scorpion.”

“Yeah, Scorpion. Designed to strike when no one’s looking.”

“How much of that mustard gas and VX has NATO recovered?”

“Almost none.”

“Then it looks like we’ve got a real job to do.”

“Sure does.”

Crocker spent that night dreaming about his mother. He saw her barefoot in the kitchen, making pancakes. Then he hid from her as she called him to come with her to church.

He woke before dawn, breakfasted on yogurt, cereal, and oranges. Ran ten miles, did some calisthenics, then showered and watched the kids next door pedal their bicycles up and down the street. Two brothers ages six and eight, named Bouba and Mohi. The younger one, Bouba, was having trouble reaching the pedals, so Crocker adjusted the seat as their father smoked a cigarette and watched silently from the front gate.

“Great kids,” Crocker said.

The father smiled and nodded.

Just before eight Lasher arrived with a short older man with thinning gray hair and a tight smile. “This is Dr. Jabril,” Lasher said. “He used to run Colonel Gaddafi’s chemical weapons program, before he was dismissed in 2002 and thrown in jail.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Dr. Jabril has been living in exile in southern France. He agreed to return to Libya and help us.”

That meant that the CIA had probably paid him a shitload of money.

Jabril said, “I hope I can make a small contribution to the future of my country. It looks like it needs all the help it can get.”

After saying good-bye to Cal, they all drove in a black Chevy Suburban to the Corniche and hung a left. The city was slowly coming to life under low-lying gray clouds. Vendors, most of them male, were setting out their goods-bags of fresh oranges, dates, and tangerines, pistachio nuts, spices, tribal rugs, cartons of cigarettes, counterfeit CDs and DVDs. Traffic was light, bikes, motorcycles, a few cars and trucks driving at their customary ninety miles an hour.

What’s the hurry? Crocker wondered as he tried to orient himself to the layout of the city.

After a few miles following the coast, they approached the Sheraton on their right. Crocker’s stomach tightened. The thick burning smell-a combination of electrical wire, other building materials, and death-made him nauseous. It reminded him of the spilled guts and blood, his buddy Al Cowens.

“That’s it. Right, boss?” Akil asked from the backseat.

“Yeah.” Covering his nose.

The streets leading to the hotel were blocked and manned by NATO and NTC soldiers wearing red berets. Two unmarked helicopters swooped overhead.

“Nice of them to secure it now,” Davis remarked.

“You got that right.”

People tended to respond to specific types of threats after the fact, which was a problem if the terrorists stayed a step ahead. Crocker thought they should be pursuing the men who had attacked the hotel. The fact that they weren’t made him angry.

After forty-five minutes of bouncing down the potholed highway, they reached the Busetta naval base. Lasher and Jabril got out and spoke in Arabic to armed men guarding the gate.

When the conversation had gone on for more than five minutes, Crocker turned to Akil and asked, “Can you understand what’s going on?”

“They showed them a letter from Abdurrahim El-Keib, who is the prime minister of the National Transitional Council. But I don’t think the guards can read.”

Crocker: “Get out and tell them that if they don’t let us in, we’ll arrest them.”

“And what happens if they resist? We’re unarmed.”

“We’ll kick their asses anyway.”

Akil: “Chill, boss. It’s hardly worth the risk.”

He was right. Even though Akil sometimes acted like an immature asshole, Crocker appreciated the fact that he wasn’t afraid to tell his boss when he thought he was out of line.

After a few more minutes of arguing, the guards stepped aside and waved them in.

The place was a wreck. Bombed-out hangars and warehouses, scorched pieces of sheet-metal roof flapping in the breeze. They passed burnt-out trucks and jeeps.

Jabril said, “I heard that Belgian and Spanish warplanes attacked this place in early March of last year, after Gaddafi had already moved most of his ships out to sea. He tried to disguise them.”

“What did he have in terms of a navy?”

“Several Koni-class missile frigates he bought from the Soviets, some minesweepers, six Foxtrot-class submarines built in the nineteen sixties.”

“Why? What was the threat?”

“They were mainly defensive weapons. The colonel was deeply paranoid.”

“You knew him well?”

Jabril shook his head. “Not well. I met with him several times and listened to his vision for Africa and our country. He did most of the talking. He was convinced of his own brilliance. Nobody around him was allowed to disagree.”

Mancini came back from inspecting the burned-out vehicles and said, “They’re all Soviet era, Russian made. Mostly T-72 and T-54 tanks, BTR-60 eight-wheeled armored personnel carriers, a couple Strela-2 and Strela-10 surface-to-air missile systems.”

In another warehouselike structure that was mostly destroyed but hadn’t been burned, they found a huge pile of torpedo shells in one corner and barrels in another. While Mancini and Davis were pulling on their hazmat suits, Crocker was hit by a powerful stench.

“What the hell’s that?”

Lasher pointed to a bombed-out four-story concrete structure a hundred yards down the coast.

“It’s probably coming from that camp over there.”

“What kind of camp is it?”

“A refugee camp, I think.”

A couple of mangy-looking dogs wandered past. Mancini reported that the barrels contained acetone and other chemicals used to clean machinery.

“Anything that could be used to make a chemical weapon?”

“Negative, boss.”

Several gunshots went off from the direction of the refugee camp. Crocker turned and watched birds taking flight.

About a hundred feet from where he was standing, near the edge of the concrete driveway, Jabril and Lasher knelt down and were inspecting the ground.

Crocker went over to join them and asked, “What do you see?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what are you looking for?”

“There used to be an underground storage chamber around here,” Jabril answered, pushing back strands of gray hair. “A German company helped us build it back in the nineties.”

Mancini and Akil retrieved an underground locating device, a shovel, and other tools from the back of the SUV. The locating device was a handheld gadget about the size of a toaster. Within minutes it started buzzing.

Akil removed his shirt and started digging. Under three feet of sand he struck a concrete door.

“That’s it,” Jabril said.

Akil cut through the lock with an acetylene torch.

A dozen concrete steps led down to a room that stank of mildew and rotting garlic. Mancini, holding a flashlight and wearing a white plastic hazmat suit and hood, went down first. He scurried back seconds later and removed his hood.

“What’s the matter?” Crocker asked.

“There are snakes down there. Lots of ’em. Give me the shovel. Davis, you hold the light.”

They’d brought only two suits, so Crocker descended nine steps and crouched down to look. It was a long, narrow room, approximately ten feet wide and sixty feet long. The side of the room to Crocker’s left was filled with racks of artillery shells and torpedoes, and the floor was covered with snakes.

The chamber looked as if it hadn’t been touched in years.

After they’d scared away the snakes by waving their arms and stomping on the floor, they managed to remove one of the artillery shells, which tested positive for sulfur chloride-a main ingredient of mustard gas.

Jabril said, “This whole area needs to be sealed off immediately. This material could be terribly dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands.”

“The mustard gas?”

“Even if it has decomposed, the substances it creates can be extremely toxic.”

Lasher used his satellite phone to notify NATO command, which said it was dispatching a team to secure the base.

“Tell them to get here fast.”

They stood in the afternoon sun and waited. Akil, whose mind always seemed fixated on women, asked Jabril if it was true that Gaddafi had surrounded himself with an entourage of sexy female bodyguards.

“He called them his Amazons and had sex with all of them.”

“How many of them were there?” Akil asked.

“Four or five hundred.”

Akil smiled. “Nice.”

“A group of them traveled with him everywhere, dressed in tight-fitting camouflage uniforms and high heels, nail polish, mascara. He also had a staff of Ukrainian nurses who stayed by his side all the time. His favorite was a girl named Galyna, a beautiful blonde, like a Playboy Playmate.”

Akil said, “I’d love to meet her.”

“She’s an old woman now.”

“What do you mean by old?”

“Fifty.”

Ritchie said, “As long as she’s still breathing, Akil doesn’t care.”

Jabril told them a story of traveling with the Libyan leader to Paris. Since Gaddafi didn’t trust elevators and didn’t like staying in hotels, he had ended up pitching his Bedouin tent on a farm outside the city.

Coincidentally, the soldiers who arrived to secure the base were French. There were a dozen of them, with German shepherds. They were businesslike and unfriendly. As they unloaded sandbags and rolls of razor wire from the back of a truck, Akil said, “I think we interrupted their nap.”

The French captain, who spoke English, got in his face. “I think you should show a little more respect.”

“Sorry, monsieur, I meant no offense.”

“He’s a wiseass,” Crocker offered, aware that NATO soldiers might be especially sensitive after the heat they had taken over the Sheraton attack. “He can’t help himself.”

The French captain grinned and, leaning toward Crocker, asked, “How much longer before this country turns into Iraq?”

It was a question that Crocker had been quietly asking himself for the past two days, and it was underscored by more gunshots and screams from the refugee camp.

“Brutal savages,” the French captain said with a sneer.

On the way back to the SUV, Crocker nodded in the direction of the camp and said to Lasher, “I think we should take a look.”

Sunshine gleamed off his Oakleys as Lasher shook his head. “Bad idea. Besides, we’re not allowed in there without permission.”

Lasher’s skin had turned bright red in the afternoon sun.

“Says who?”

“The NATO commander.”

“It sounds like they’re shooting people. We’d better find out what’s going on before it gets ugly.”

Remembering how NATO had been caught off guard at the start of the genocide in Rwanda, Crocker ordered the driver to proceed a couple of hundred yards farther east to the camp gate. Several dozen women were crowded in the shade of the concrete arches, waiting to get inside. Most were carrying food and clothing; some were accompanied by young children.

When they saw Crocker and his men getting out of the vehicle, they surrounded them and started pleading. Jabril, Lasher, and the driver elected to stay inside.

“What do they want?” Crocker asked Akil.

“They’re hoping for news about husbands and sons they believe are inside the camp.”

“It only houses men?”

“Apparently.”

“And it’s a refugee camp?”

“That’s what they call it.”

“Strange, don’t you think?”

“Very.”

A trio of buzzards circled overhead.

The dozen guards at the gate wore a motley collection of military and civilian clothes and ranged in age from teenagers to men in their forties. Some of the younger ones were cocky and menacing, shouting at the women and waving automatic weapons.

Another gunshot went off inside, and the women screamed together.

Crocker turned to Akil and said, “Tell the guards we’re UN inspectors and we have permission to enter.”

Initially the guards didn’t want to let them in, but Akil threatened to call the prime minister and have them arrested.

“No problem…no problem,” said an eager young man with a big set of brilliant white teeth and a red baseball cap worn backward, stepping forward with what looked like a Russian submachine gun-a PP-91 KEDR. “We want no trouble. We are Thwar.”

“Thwar is the local word for militia,” Akil explained.

“Who left them in charge of this camp?”

Akil asked the young man in Arabic, then translated for Crocker. “He says they’re in charge of policing the whole area.”

“What about the national police?”

“All bad men here,” the young man said in broken English as he led them down a hallway that stank of human waste. Dirty water dripped from the ceiling.

The five unarmed Americans entered a large concrete room. The windows had been shot out, which created a big open space that overlooked the sea. But the breeze blowing in was foul with the smell of excrement and rot.

“Look,” Ritchie said, pointing down to a multitude of red, blue, green, and yellow plastic tarps. They had been used to create makeshift tents on the land below that led to the beach.

The rectangular space was surrounded by a high fence topped with barbed wire.

It was a dramatic juxtaposition-the calm turquoise water of the Mediterranean and the human degradation.

“What’s that saying, hell in a very small place?” Akil asked. “I think we’ve found it.”

“Revolting.”

Mancini: “Reminds me of a scene from the movie Saw.”

Crocker said, “Follow me.”

There seemed to be a stark contrast in skin color between the lighter men running the camp and the darker ones living there.

Crocker turned to the smiling young militiaman who strode next to him and asked, “Approximately how many people are housed here?”

He held up two fingers.

“Two hundred?”

“Two thousand.”

“All men?”

“Bad men.”

A table with one leg missing stood on a wooden platform on the left side of the room. Three men sat behind it wearing sunglasses, one of whom was enormously fat, with a brown shirt and dark goatee. They seemed to be presiding.

Beyond the table rose an aluminum fence, and behind it stood several dozen refugees watching with grim faces.

“What’s going on here?” Crocker asked.

“These men…mostly criminals. Killers. Gaddafi soldiers.”

“I thought this was a refugee camp.”

The young man shrugged.

“Who gave you authority to run this camp?”

No answer.

About twenty gaunt prisoners sat on the floor in front of the table with their hands and ankles bound by TUFF-TIES. All had pieces of bright green cloth clenched in their teeth. Some had soiled themselves. Some were bleeding, others had festering wounds.

“Some of these men need medical attention,” Crocker said. “Has the Red Cross been in here?”

Their escort shrugged.

“Do the men get a hearing? Is there a judicial process?”

The young escort frowned as if to say I don’t understand.

A guard jabbed one of the prisoners in the chest with the barrel of his AK-47 and shouted.

Earlier in his life, before he’d gone to BUD/S and become a SEAL, Crocker had served briefly as a prison guard at the Adult Correctional Institute in Rhode Island. He had witnessed degradation, but nothing on this scale.

“What’s he saying?” Crocker asked.

Akil: “He said this man is a former soldier who was captured in Misrata.”

The prisoners watching from behind the fence moaned and shifted anxiously. When the prisoner who was being accused got a chance to speak, his voice was barely audible.

Akil whispered, “He says he’s a cigarette vendor who was forced to join the army at the end of the war.”

Their escort said, “Don’t believe him. They all liars.”

“How can you be sure?”

He pointed to his nose. “We know.”

As Crocker and his team watched, the three men behind the table whispered to one another. The fat one in the middle extended his arm and pointed his thumb to the floor.

The guard raised the AK-47 and clubbed the prisoner in the head. Blood and teeth shot out of his mouth.

“Hey!” Crocker shouted. “Stop that immediately!”

Another guard pulled the prisoner up by the back of his collar and dragged him to the right side of the room, where a stripped metal frame had been attached to the wall. The concrete floor around the frame was spotted with blood.

Crocker turned to the militiaman and said, “Tell them to stop! You know what stop means?”

“Yes.” The young militiaman shouted, “Doapiful!”

Everyone in the room turned toward the Americans. The big man at the table stood and starting screaming.

Crocker said, “Tell these men that this isn’t the correct way to treat prisoners!”

“What?” the young militiaman asked, surprised.

“Tell them to stop, immediately. And drop their weapons, before I put them all under arrest!”

The young militiaman relayed this. The men behind the table laughed as if it were a big joke. One of them said something to the guard with the AK-47, who started to chain the prisoner to the frame. Another guard stepped forward with a five-foot length of metal pipe.

As the soldier drew back the pipe, Crocker grabbed the PP-91 KEDR from their escort and pointed it at the men sitting behind the table.

“Stop!” he shouted. “I mean it. I’m not fucking around!”

He shot a volley of bullets over their heads, into the ceiling. Guards and prisoners ducked and covered their heads.

“Tell your men to drop their weapons!”

Several of the guards complied. Others dropped to the floor. One of the men behind the table raised his weapon. Crocker turned and shot him in the hand, causing the rifle to fall to the floor.

The SEALs quickly retrieved the discarded weapons and established a fire circle. Within seconds they had gained the upper hand.

Guards and prisoners looked at one another, nervous and confused.

Davis shouted, “Boss! Now what?”

“Anyone who points a gun at you or makes an aggressive move, shoot.”

“Check.”

“Follow my lead.”

Crocker was making it up as he went along. He took aim at the men behind the table. The fat man smiled and held up his arms.

“You think this is funny, you big piece of shit?”

Crocker was about to pull the trigger when the big man shouted something and the last two guards lowered their AKs, which Ritchie and Mancini quickly wrestled away. A murmur of excitement rose from the prisoners behind the fence.

Akil whispered, “Careful, boss, or we’ll incite a riot.”

Crocker grabbed their escort by the shoulder and said, “You tell these men that what they’re doing is illegal. There’s something called the Geneva Conventions.”

“Geneva…what?”

“It states that all captured soldiers have to be treated with respect. If any of them are accused of crimes, they have the right to stand trial. But not like this!”

The militiaman translated. The men behind the table spoke all at once.

Crocker cut them off. “STOP! Tell them to listen. If they don’t do as I say, if they harm another prisoner, I’ll call in NATO troops. There’s a battalion of them right next door. All I have to do is give the signal and they’ll come in here weapons blazing, arrest all of you, and throw you in the same compound with the prisoners. You understand me?”

The leaders behind the table seemed to comprehend this time.

“No more beatings. No more abuse!”

“Yes. Yes.”

Akil whispered, “Maybe we should get out now, while we still have the upper hand.”

Crocker: “Alright. Slowly move toward the exit.”

As they did, the prisoners behind the fence started to shout.

Crocker said, “What the fuck are they screaming about now?”

Akil: “They say that there are more rooms downstairs where they torture the prisoners.”

“I want to see them.”

“Bad idea, boss.”

“Then tell these assholes that all this shit has to stop immediately. There are NATO troops next door. More inspectors will be here tomorrow. They need to clean this place up, now, before they’re all arrested!”

After Akil delivered the message, the fat man started shouting at the top of his lungs.

“He says that this is their country and they’ll do what they want.”

“Tell him I’m placing him and his two colleagues under arrest!”

“He wants you to leave.”

“Tell them to keep their hands on their heads and their mouths shut!”

When the young man who escorted them tried to grab his PP-91 back from Crocker, Crocker clocked him in the face. The man went down, blood spurting from his lip. Another guard made a quick move for a pistol in his belt. Mancini fired the AK he was holding and hit the guard in the leg.

Crocker released a long salvo from the PP-91 that flew over the guards’ heads. All the soldiers and prisoners dropped to the floor, except for the three men behind the table, who stood with their hands on their heads.

Davis: “Boss, this is getting ugly.”

Akil: “Real fucking nasty.”

Ritchie: “Just the way I like it.”

Crocker fired again. As the smoke cleared, he said, “Grab those three bastards. We’re taking them with us. They’re under arrest.”

Ritchie and Davis moved quickly and seized the three men roughly.

Akil: “Now what?”

“Back out slowly. Shoot anyone who raises their head.”

They exited in formation, with the three prisoners in the middle, past the startled guards at the gate, who lowered their weapons. As they scrambled into the SUV, Mancini shouted, “Start the engine, fast!”

The driver complied, spun the Suburban in a half circle, and flew down the road.

Jabril: “We heard shooting.”

Akil: “That was fucking insane.”

Lasher pointed to the three prisoners Davis and Mancini were tying up. “Who are they?”

Crocker: “The men handing out the punishment. I arrested them for war crimes.”

Lasher: “On what authority?”

Crocker: “My authority.”

Ritchie: “Is anyone really in charge of this shithole country?”

Akil: “Boss, you did the right thing.”

Crocker turned to Lasher and said, “Tell Remington that they’re torturing and executing people over there.”

Lasher: “I warned you not to go in.”

Crocker: “Call Remington!”

Lasher: “You’re a madman.”

Ritchie: “Fuck you, Lasher.”

Crocker: “Alright, everyone calm down.”

They rode back in silence, grumbling to themselves, a dozen thoughts swirling in Crocker’s head. He decided he wanted to complete their mission and get out of Libya as soon as possible. The place was starting to remind him of Somalia in the early nineties, when lawlessness prevailed as warlords running teenage gangs vied for power. He’d been in Mogadishu back in October 1993 when nineteen U.S. Special Forces soldiers lost their lives. The bloody rescue was re-created in the movie Black Hawk Down.

He’d also served in Iraq after the fall of Saddam and seen American soldiers and civilians caught in the middle of the Sunni-Shiite violence there. A good friend of his had been overwhelmed by a gang of Iraqis, stripped naked, hung from a bridge, tortured, and killed.

Peacekeeping missions could be ugly and difficult. He much preferred missions that targeted a specific enemy.

But who was the enemy here? Nobody seemed to know.

After dropping off the prisoners at NATO headquarters and his men at the guesthouse, Crocker continued with Lasher to the embassy. Both men were upset.

There, Crocker met with Jaime Remington and the U.S. ambassador in the ambassador’s office and described what he and his men had found at both the naval base and the refugee camp next door.

Ambassador Andrew Saltzman was an older man with a headful of thick white hair. He looked like a Wall Street banker-soft around the middle, self-confident, meticulously groomed and dressed. The office was cool and dark, with dark blue curtains covering the windows. Crocker stared down at the Great Seal of the United States-an eagle clutching a scroll in its mouth-and waited for the ambassador’s response.

He took his time, grunting and pulling at his bottom lip. When he answered, he seemed equally upset by what the SEALs had seen at the refugee camp and by the discovery of the aging chemical weapons. Then he asked, “What provoked you to enter the camp in the first place?”

“We were at the naval base, sir. We heard gunfire and people screaming. I decided we should take a look.”

“Understandable. Commendable, too.”

“After receiving some resistance, we ended up arresting the three men who were ordering the torture and executions.”

“Where are they now?”

“They’re behind bars at NATO headquarters.”

“Good work. I’m going to call the NATO commanders tonight. First I want to make sure those prisoners are turned over to the NTC and made an example of. Then I’m going to demand that NATO inspect every single one of these so-called refugee camps. If Amnesty International ever gets wind of what’s going on, we’re in serious hot water.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks again.”

Crocker started to get up. But since the ambassador sounded sympathetic, he decided to ask him a question. “Sir, I mean no disrespect to anyone, but I’m unclear about who the enemy is here.”

“The enemy is anyone who is trying to destabilize the NTC.”

“Thank you, sir.” He got up.

Hardly a satisfactory answer. Weren’t the militiamen running the so-called refugee camp members of the NTC? But he didn’t say anything. He figured it would take him and his men another six days max to inspect the remaining weapons sites before they could return to Virginia. Until then they’d move carefully and keep a low profile.

Despite the fact that his stomach was growling, he stopped in to see Leo Debray before he left. Debray was sitting in his office with his assistant, Kat. As soon as they saw Crocker, their expressions grew graver.

“What’s wrong?” Crocker asked. “You don’t look glad to see me.”

Debray rose from his chair and draped an arm across Crocker’s shoulder. At six feet five he towered over him.

“Not at all. I spoke to your wife about an hour ago. Seems like the plane they were flying on experienced some mechanical problems. So they’re spending the night in Sirte.”

“Where’s that?”

“About three hundred miles east of here. Site of big oil fields, great beaches. They’re planning to catch another flight in the morning.”

“She’ll be in Tripoli tomorrow, then.”

“That’s correct.”

A doubt popped into Crocker’s head. He asked, “Is that normal? I mean, are local flights routinely canceled?”

“Since the war, airplane service has been extremely erratic.”

“Thanks.”