Hunt the Wolf

Chapter Nine

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or as a curse.

– Carlos Castaneda

Crocker rubbed his tired eyes and looked again. There it sat, still against the white-gray landscape, its top propeller slowly spinning in the wind. A big green insect with “Pakistan Air Force” stenciled on the side.

“Boss. Look!”

Davis’s light blue eyes were weary and red. Little icicles hung from his mustache and eyebrows. The reddish blond beard on his face was covered with snow and ice.

“I see it, but is it real?” Crocker asked.

Somehow they’d managed to make it back to the Concordia, even though he, Davis, and Akil were exhausted and both Germans had bonked-depleted their stores of glycogen in the liver-several times during the descent.

“Looks real to me,” Davis groaned.

“I hope so.”

Crocker had weighed the dangers of stopping and getting hit by another incoming storm, and possibly being stuck for an additional three or four days without food or fuel. Instead, he had pushed himself and his men for almost thirty hours straight.

Akil had hallucinated, off and on, all the way down. They heard him talking to Edyta and laughing at her jokes. Rambling, sometimes incoherently, about favorite movies, interesting places they’d traveled to, pets. Fascinating how the human mind deals with loss.

Crocker had kept himself going by thinking about Holly’s cooking, sexual companionship, and the smell of clean sheets. A piece of a poem by Pablo Neruda recycled in his head.

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.

My thirst, my unbounded desire, my uncertain road!

After he slept for a week, he wanted to lounge in front of the TV and watch something like The Sopranos-his feet up, cold bottle of beer by his side, a bowl of pretzels.

Maybe catch Vanna White in a tight dress turning letters on Wheel of Fortune the way she had for years. Always neat, clean; a smile on her face. Years ago he’d seen her nude in Playboy. Later, he heard that a chick had claimed she had an affair with her.

Like that mattered.

The danger now was that their bodies would completely shut down.

Fifty more yards.

The landscape seemed to shift and wobble with each step, and the pack on Crocker’s back felt like it was loaded with bricks. His shoulders, back, knees, thighs, and feet screamed.

Ahead of them, climbers stood among the variously colored and shaped tents scattered throughout base camp and applauded as they approached.

Or was it a dream?

A Pakistani man in an olive military parka stepped forward and offered his hand. “Chief Warrant Officer Tom Crocker?”

“I think so.”

“Lieutenant Colonel Mushavi. I have orders to take you and your men to Islamabad immediately.”

Crocker looked at him and his bristling black mustache like he was insane. “My men and I need some food and rest first.”

“Jolly good, sir. I’ll be waiting.”

Whatever.

A Japanese climber helped him to a green tent. Seated on a thick sleeping bag, Crocker slowly and painfully removed his boots, thinking I never want to wear climbing boots again.

Then he looked down at his badly blistered feet and saw that the skin hadn’t turned black, which meant he hadn’t suffered frostbite.

Thank God.

He said, “I need to call my wife.”

But before Crocker even saw a phone he was unconscious, dreaming that he was fighting his way through clouds of blinding, whirling snow.

Edyta, walking by his side, said, “We’re on the road less traveled, Crocker.”

“More like the road to nowhere, or something we don’t understand.”

“Yes.” She laughed hard, revealing a broken front tooth. The wind seemed to be laughing, too.

When he awoke the next morning it took Crocker a few minutes to realize where he was. Light snow fell even though the sun was shining.

The light hurt his eyes.

“Are you ready to fly, sir?” It was the Pakistani lieutenant colonel, all polished and eager to go, standing in the entrance of the green tent, reminding him of Luke Skywalker. Like he was offering to fly him to another galaxy.

“Where are my men?”

“This way, sir.”

Crocker was escorted to a larger, rectangular tent where, still groggy and weak, he joined Davis and Akil at a fold-up table to eat bowls of yogurt with honey and drink hot tea.

Then all three of them were in the air. The Pak lieutenant colonel informed him that Mancini’s leg had healed.

“Who?” Crocker shouted over the din of the helicopter engine.

“Your man. Warrant Officer Michael Mancini. Waiting in Islamabad, sir,” the mustached officer answered.

“My man?”

Crocker had forgotten about Mancini. It seemed like months ago that they had left him at a camp above the Baltoro Glacier.

“Oh, yeah. What about Ritchie?” he shouted above the engine.

“I’m not familiar with that gentleman, sir.”

“Chief Petty Officer Richard Maguire. The fifth member of my team.”

“I have no information regarding that individual.”

Crocker looked at Akil and Davis seated on the bench along the opposite side of the Mi-17 and thought they both seemed gaunt and years older. Akil wore the expression of a kid who’d lost his dog.

“Cheer up, Akil!” Crocker shouted. He wanted to go over and tell him again that Edyta had lived a full life and understood the risks. But the helicopter was banking right, pushing him hard against the side of the fuselage, so he shut his eyes and slept.

Two hours later, the lieutenant colonel stood over him, smiling. “Sir? Mr. Crocker?”

Sun spilled in the side door and warmed his feet. The thick air wafting in from outside felt luxurious in his lungs.

“We’ve arrived at PAF Base Chaklala. I have instructions to take you to the U.S. coordinator’s office. Your military officials will meet you there.”

“Military officials?” Crocker was confused. Did that mean that his CO had flown in from Virginia?

“Military officials. Yes, sir.”

A long hot shower and shave later, Crocker was starting to feel like himself. Wearing a borrowed pair of khakis and a blue U.S. Navy polo, he tried to keep pace with the U.S. Air Force major who was leading him down a dark hall. Nothing he saw helped him identify the place.

He was hoping to see Mancini and Ritchie, or one of the two. Instead he entered a conference room where the shades were half drawn and an air conditioner groaned in the window.

Two tall men stood at the opposite side of the rectangular glass table, both clutching water bottles, conferring. Crocker recognized the taller of the two as their CIA liaison Lou Donaldson. The second man wore a navy uniform festooned with epaulets showing three full gold bars and a star, which meant he held the rank of full commander (O-5).

But when the man turned, Crocker didn’t recognize him.

“What took you so long?” Donaldson asked, setting his plastic bottle on the table and taking a seat. Rude as always.

“I was climbing a mountain. What do you want?”

“What do we want?” Donaldson asked back, raising a pale eyebrow to the man in navy uniform beside him. “When did you become friendly with the king of Norway?”

“I’m not friendly with the king of Norway,” Crocker explained. “I met an associate of his in a camp on the way to the Concordia. He said you gave him my location.”

“That’s correct,” Donaldson said, cutting him off. “Mikael Klausen. The king’s special advisor. Who’s the girl?”

“What girl?”

“Malie Tingvoll.”

Crocker had forgotten her name. He’d been focused on returning to Holly and Jenny and his warm home in Virginia.

“Why is she important?” the commander asked aggressively.

“She’s a Norwegian girl who disappeared. That’s all I know.”

“People disappear every day,” Donaldson growled. “Regrettable, but not our business.”

“I never said-”

“Look, Crocker-”

Crocker didn’t like raising his voice in anger but made an exception this time. “Are you going to let me speak?”

“Go ahead. Explain yourself.”

After his irritation had abated slightly, Crocker said, “Mikael Klausen told me that the Norwegians have experienced a number of cases like hers, of young people disappearing without a trace.”

“Last I heard, we don’t operate a people-finding service.”

“I expressed my sympathy, and told him the only way I could help is if I got authorization.”

Donaldson slapped the table. “Well I’m afraid the king of Norway is going to have to wait.”

“Fine with me.”

Donaldson reached into his briefcase and removed a manila file. “Remember the laptops that were recovered from Zaman’s safe house? Well, we might have found something.”

“What?”

“A lead, Crocker. A reference in a coded e-mail to a known terrorist who calls himself Rafiq.”

“Who’s he?” Crocker asked, relieved that the raid in Karachi had yielded some actionable intel.

“Headquarters believes that his real name is Rifa’a Suyuti. A Saudi national. Midtwenties. Slight, approximately six foot one. Dark eyes, darkish skin, dark hair.”

“What’s his relationship to Zaman?”

“Unclear. But the NSA traced the e-mail to a motorcycle club in Marseille. The message seemed to refer to the delivery of certain products. It seems to indicate that this guy Rafiq has been procuring materials for Zaman.”

“Bomb-making materials, I bet.”

“Maybe. We know that Zaman has been looking for ways to inflict major damage. No doubt the raid in Karachi pissed him off. If you kick a hornet’s nest, you can expect to get stung.”

“What do you want from me?” Crocker asked.

Donaldson handed him the folder. “Look this over quickly and commit it to memory. Then you’re headed for the airport.”

“How come?”

“You and the French-and-Arabic-speaker on your team have been authorized to fly to Marseille. There’s a reservation for you at the Hotel Select by the port. One of my operatives will meet you there.”

Crocker eyeballed the contents of the folder, which featured photos of a tall, good-looking man with shock of thick, wavy hair.

“I’ve wired ten thousand euros to an account at the Banque de France to cover your expenses. Keep all receipts.”

Crocker said, “I assume all this has been cleared with my CO.”

The commander answered, “Yes.”

As Crocker pushed the folder back to Donaldson, he asked, “What about Zaman?”

Donaldson frowned. “You let him get away, remember?”

“I want to find him.”

The commander with the buzz cut sounded as though he was reading directly from an intelligence report. “The Pakistanis have tracked him into the mountains along the Afghan border.”

Crocker asked, “Where’d that come from, the ISI?” Meaning Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.

The commander didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “NSA has been picking up a lot of chatter about an attack against a major target in the area. Possibly on a U.S. facility. Some people think the two might be related.”

Crocker was trying to figure out what two things he was talking about when Donaldson, sneering, got to his feet. “Don’t worry yourself, Crocker. We’ve got other assets working on Zaman. You need to get moving.”

“All right.”

“Please, no collateral casualties this time. Try to locate this Rifa’a Suyuti character and report back.”

“Yes, sir.”