Hunt the Wolf

Chapter Twelve

And whosoever shed man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.

– Il Duce, The Boondock Saints

Crocker wanted to get away from the farm before the French authorities arrived. But there were things he had to take care of first.

Continue the search for intel, and question the four female captives.

He and Akil had literally given two of them-the ballsy one from Romania who said her name was Dorina, and a rail-thin brunette who hailed from a small town in the Ukraine-the shirts off their backs. The sweaty, soiled, bloodstained polos hung over the girls’ skeletal torsos to the tops of their thighs. The other two sat in the corner, wrapped in a dirty blanket, their eyes staring blankly at the cracked linoleum floor. One hailed from Georgia. The fourth, who had a mole above the corner of her mouth, couldn’t remember her name.

They’d been beautiful once. Young and happy, with boyfriends, friends, and dreams. Now they were a mess. Drugged, raped, and god knew what else.

As much as Crocker’s heart went out to them, there was little he could do besides tell them their ordeal was over.

The only one who seemed to understand was Dorina, who gulped water from a Styrofoam cup. Anger and terror churned in her gray-blue eyes. Her bottom lip was swollen, the size and color of a plum.

“You really killed them?” she asked bluntly.

“Yes.”

“Dead? You’re sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“Five or six,” he answered. “We captured another. He’s taped to the front seat of the car.”

“Shoot him in the face. First in the mouth; then wait a few minutes and shoot him between the eyes.”

She translated for the girl from Ukraine, who listened, nodded, then started to sob.

Dorina said, “She wants to see their bodies. To spit on them herself.”

“Tell her they’ve been burned to a crisp. There’s nothing to see.”

The Ukrainian girl grabbed Crocker’s hand like a child. “Thank you. Thank you,” she repeated in broken English. “Thank you so much from my heart.”

“You’re welcome.”

She clung to him trembling, and wouldn’t let go. “You American? You take us to America now?” she pleaded through her tears.

Crocker tried to remain reasonable and calm. “The French authorities will arrive soon and take care of all of you. They’ll send you back to your families. Don’t be afraid.”

“French?” she asked. “Why not Americans?”

“Because we’re in France,” Crocker answered.

“But I trust the Americans more.”

“The French will take care of you. I’ll make sure of that.”

As they spoke, Dorina crossed to the desk and started tearing through the drawers.

“What are you looking for?” Akil asked as he kept watch at the door.

“They took everything, those bastards. Our papers, clothing, jewelry, money!”

Dorina removed several DVDs from the top drawer. The rest were empty, except for a wooden ruler and a pair of pliers. She heaved the pliers against the wall and screamed. “Go to hell! Go to hell!”

“We’ve already been to hell,” the girl from the Ukraine remarked. “What could be worse?”

Dorina: “She’s right.”

Crocker wrapped his arms around the tall Romanian girl and sat her on the edge of the desk. He said, “You’re alive, Dorina. That’s the most important. Passports, jewelry, everything else can be replaced.”

Her mouth trembled with rage. “I need to search the house.”

“There’s nothing left. It burned to the ground.”

“They took my rings. One that belonged to my Polish grandmother.”

They’d taken their vanity, too. Dorina scratched at a sore between her breasts. He saw the Ukrainian girl past her shoulder squat over a blue bucket and piss.

“Have you seen other girls come and go from here?” he asked.

Staring ahead, she got to her feet and started to leave, even though she was barefoot and half naked.

Crocker stopped her. “Dorina, listen. This is important. Have you seen other girls here who then left?”

“There were others,” she answered in heavily accented English. “Yes.”

“How many?”

She paused like she was remembering, then held up ten fingers.

“Ten.”

“Around ten, yes.”

“Was one of them named Malie?”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Maybe. I don’t remember all their names.”

“She would have come from Norway. Oslo. Eighteen years old.”

“Same as me.” Dorina looked at least ten years older than that. Crocker tried not to appear shocked.

“She was blond. She would have arrived about two weeks ago.”

The skeletally thin Ukrainian girl spoke up. “Malie, yes.”

“You saw her? Malie from Oslo, Norway?”

“Yes. She was here when I arrived.”

“Malie Tingvoll. You’re sure of that?”

She pointed a bony finger to the first cage along the opposite wall. “The first day I arrived, I watched them take pictures of her, first in a pretty white dress, then stripped her naked with her legs spread open.”

He glanced at the cage, which contained another stained mattress; there were scratches on the wall. “When was that?”

“When I arrived? Eighteen days and approximately seven hours ago.” Even though she’d been drugged and abused, she’d been keeping track of time in her head.

“Do you know what happened to Malie?” Crocker asked.

“She left two days ago with a man named Cyrus.”

The name meant nothing to Crocker.

“Who is Cyrus? Can you describe him?”

“Arabic-looking but dresses European. Around thirty years old. He acted like the nicest one. But he was sick, too. Ask her,” the Ukrainian said, pointing to the girl with the mole, who was wrapped in a blanket and still staring at the floor.

Crocker knelt beside her and asked gently, “What’s your name?”

She didn’t shift her gaze and didn’t answer.

Dorina answered for her. “Justine.”

“Justine looks so young.”

“She’s fourteen. Cyrus raped her, then bathed her. Raped her, then bathed her. Over and over and over.”

“I’m sorry.”

The girl finally looked up and asked, “Why?”

“Because I feel for you and what you’ve been forced to endure.”

She said something in a language Crocker didn’t understand. Dorina translated. “She asks, Why did he degrade me, then bathe me so gently?”

“I don’t know.”

Dorina said, “We were forced to watch everything.”

Crocker looked at Akil, who shook his head in disgust, then asked, “Do you have any idea where Cyrus took Malie?”

“They treated us like animals. Worse than animals.”

“I’m sorry. But that’s over now.”

“What did we do to them?”

“Nothing, Dorina.”

“Nothing.” She twisted up her mouth like she was trying to comprehend the injustice of what had happened.

“Dorina, please. I need you to focus.”

“What do you want?”

“Did Cyrus say where he was taking her? Taking Malie?”

She shrugged. “I think somewhere east.”

They were interrupted by the sound of sirens approaching. EE-OO…EE-OO…Akil hurried outside to look.

The thin Ukrainian girl mumbled something in Russian and pointed to her breasts.

“What’d she say?”

“She said that Cyrus bragged to her,” Dorina answered. “He told her that he’d sold the Norwegian girl for a million dollars, to a sheik, because she had a big chest.”

“A sheik?”

The Ukrainian girl nodded.

“Did this sheik have a name?”

Not that either one of them remembered hearing.

Akil gestured from the doorway and said, “They’re here, boss. Two fire trucks. Half a dozen men.”

Crocker tried to sound gentle and reassuring as he addressed the young women. “The French authorities are here. They’ll look after you. They’ll send you back to your families. Don’t be afraid.”

Dorina smiled ironically, as if to say: What could be worse than what we’ve been through?

The Ukrainian girl muttered one last “Thank you very much.”

He stuffed the DVDs in his pocket and took off in the direction of the lake with Akil at his heels whispering, “Boss, you’re going in the wrong direction. Boss, what are you doing?”

“I’ll explain later.”

Arriving at the approximate spot where he’d seen Rafiq, Crocker removed his shoes, placed the DVDs, AK, and Makarov on the ground, and jumped in.

“Boss…”

The water was cool and thick with algae, no more than six feet deep. It was impossible to see anything, so he felt along the bottom. Mostly silt and rocks. He swam in a circle until his lungs started to burn, then came up for air, which was pungent with the smell of burnt wood.

Flashing blue lights swept the lake and surrounding hills.

Akil looked anxious. “Boss, they’re coming!” he exclaimed in a whisper. “They’re close.”

“I need a minute.”

“Why? What are you looking for?”

Crocker took a big breath and went down again, this time pushing out farther from the shore. He swam as fast as he could with one arm, found something that felt like metal, and came up.

“Boss!”

It had once been the top of a small chest. He tossed it aside.

“Last time.”

Kicking hard, he swept the bottom with both hands this time, over smooth rocks covered with slime. Then he reached something hard and slick. Grabbed it under his arm and pushed to the surface.

It was an Apple laptop. White and a little banged up.

“Let’s go!”

Akil helped him out and pointed to a spot on his shoulder. “What’s that?”

A sliver of wood or metal had created a long gash, he couldn’t remember when. Blood mixed with the water from the lake smeared across his chest.

“It’s nothing,” Crocker said, removing the sliver and finding his shoes, the DVDs, the weapons.

He ran barefoot, making a long arc around the house, through the woods.

All the time he was thinking: The French firefighters won’t call the police until they find the bodies.

Not that he felt in any real danger. But he didn’t want to be detained and have to answer questions. The local CIA station and U.S. diplomats would go ballistic. Bureaucrats were always highly sensitive to anything that upset the local authorities-like American operatives doing violence on their turf.

They reached the road about fifty meters in front of the car, with scratches on their chests and arms.

Crocker ran to the BMW and checked the Arab driver still taped to the passenger seat. He’d pissed his pants.

“Where’s your fucking manners?” Crocker asked as he started the engine. He spun the car around.

“He doesn’t have any,” Akil growled from the rear seat, backhanding the driver across the side of his head. The driver groaned.

Later, Crocker would have to decide whether shoot him in the head and dump him somewhere or hand him over to the French police.

Now he pushed down on the gas as Akil reached around the prisoner and checked the glove compartment.

Akil reported that the car had been purchased two months ago from a dealer in Nice. The driver’s name was Marcel Saloud, with an address in Cap d’Antibes.

“Easy come, easy go, right, Marcel?” Crocker said to the driver, who squirmed in the leather bucket seat. The heavy tape gave him little room to move.

At the junction with the D-455, the road was empty except for emergency vehicles coming from both directions. Crocker pointed the car west and picked up speed.

“They found the bodies,” Akil said from the back, with the wind in his face.

“Donaldson is gonna be pissed.”

Crocker’s heart burned with outrage as he thought about the four girls. But when his attention shifted to the dead men, his anger morphed into satisfaction.

He was thrilled that they’d killed them. Almost ecstatic.

Entering the outskirts of Marseille, he pulled over into an empty parking lot and checked the trunk. He was looking for something to throw over his bare chest-a T-shirt, windbreaker, anything-but found instead a box of large plastic garbage bags, a pick, and two shovels.

“You know what those were for, don’t you?” he asked, looking at Akil.

“Looks like you saved my life.”

Crocker caught sight of the Arab driver through the back window.

Akil asked, “What do you want to do with him?”

“Let’s pull the tape off his mouth and find out what he knows about the sheik,” he instructed.

Crocker kept an eye on the passing traffic as Akil questioned the driver in French. The Arab swore up and down that he didn’t know anything about the activities at the farm. He’d simply been doing Rafiq a favor, and offered to drive some of his friends.

When Akil responded, Crocker recognized the French word for liar, menteur.

Crocker said, “Tell him that if he tells us what he knows about Cyrus and the sheik, we’ll let him live.”

The driver started blubbering and talking a mile a minute. Crocker slapped the side of his head. “Shut the fuck up!”

The driver composed himself, then turned to Akil and said in French, “I know nothing about the girls. I didn’t know what these men were doing. I swear.”

“What did he say?”

“He claims he doesn’t know anything.”

Crocker leaned into the car and punched the driver in the face, breaking his nose.

“Fuck you.”

Then they retaped his mouth, wrists, and ankles, and threw him in the trunk.

Returning to their hotel past midnight, Crocker dialed the number he’d committed to memory. The woman with the British accent answered on the third ring. “Yes.”

“We had some problems with the vehicle.”

“Meet me at the same location. Fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks.”

He summoned Akil from the bathroom, where he was taking a shower, and the two men returned to the corner of Rue Lafayette and Rue Marcel Sembat. The same attractive North African woman sat behind the wheel of the Acura SUV, as composed as before.

“How can I help you?” she asked.

“We’ve got someone for you. He tried to kidnap us when we went to the Club Rosa.”

“What’s his name?”

“His car is registered to a Marcel Saloud, who resides in Cap d’Antibes.”

Akil handed her the car registration papers. She scanned them with fierce, dark eyes.

“What’s his relationship to Rifa’a Suyuti, aka Rafiq?”

“He admits to nothing, but they were working together.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the trunk of his car.”

She thought for ten seconds, then asked, “And Rafiq?”

“Dead.”

She raised a dark eyebrow. “You killed him?”

“It couldn’t be helped. Akil and I got in a firefight with some suspicious individuals in a farmhouse off the road to Toulon.”

“That was you?”

“That was us.”

“French television is reporting six bodies recovered from a house burned to the ground. They also recovered four young women who claim they were being held prisoner.”

“That’s the place.”

“Charming.”

“Not really. We need to get out of the country as soon as possible.”

“That can be arranged. Where’s the Renault?”

Crocker had forgotten about the car. “As far as I know, it’s still parked near the club in Noailles.”

“All right. Put the individual you captured in the back of my vehicle. Cover him with a blanket.”

“There’s one last thing.”

She looked at Crocker’s outfit. “I don’t do laundry.”

“We need someone who can help us recover data from a laptop that’s been underwater.”

She checked her watch. “It’s two in the morning.”

“This is important. It has to be done now.”

“Fine. Throw the guy in the boot and get in.”

“What about his car?”

“I’ll deal with that later.”

She picked up a cell phone from the seat next to her and dialed while the two SEALs returned to the BMW to get the driver.

Crocker liked her style.

She drove them to a modern apartment building located on a bluff overlooking the port and waited in the SUV. Crocker and Akil hurried through the white lobby decorated with mirrors and fake flowers.

Up on the sixth floor a pale man with glasses and thinning, disheveled reddish blond hair answered the door. Wearing sweatpants and a dirty white tee, he introduced himself as Albert Hayes.

“You guys want coffee?” he asked, listing to his right. “It’s in the kitchen.”

Hayes took the laptop from Crocker and hurried inside.

The apartment was dark, disorderly. Magazines, newspapers, half-empty containers of food strewn over sofas, tables, counters. A framed poster from Chinatown on the wall.

Crocker poured himself a cup of black coffee and walked back into a narrow bedroom where Albert Hayes sat at a long desk covered with computers. The shades were drawn, the bed unmade.

“What’d you do to it?” Hayes asked, waiting for the laptop to boot.

“Someone threw it into a lake.”

He shook his head and hooked up the laptop to another computer, started punching keys. “They generally don’t like water. What are you looking for?” Hayes asked.

“Information.”

“What kind?”

There was movement on the laptop screen. Code scrolling slowly.

Hayes looked disappointed. “Well, I can tell you one thing: the hard drive is fucked.”

“Then thanks for the coffee.”

“Not so fast.”

Hayes worked the keyboard, disconnected cables, reconnected them again. Then slipped a disk in the drive and waited.

Something happened. A message came up on the screen. The tall man leaned forward and slapped more keys.

“I found some e-mails,” Hayes reported. “Recent, it looks like. Check ’em out.”

Crocker and Akil leaned in over his shoulder. Some were in French, others in Arabic. Akil started translating.

Most of them didn’t make sense. “The furniture has been moved to Naples.” “JS has a new carpet. Returning home.” “Give the girl three candy bars after lunch.”

“It’s in some kind of rudimentary code,” Hayes offered.

“Looks like.”

“Not my department.”

Crocker instructed Hayes to stop at one, subject “Carpets,” which read: “We have stored the carpets here. The one you ordered for the sheik will be delivered to the port in K-P on the 25th. I hope he appreciates its exceptional quality.”

Crocker asked Akil to read it again.

“Could be something.”

“The sheik.”

“Yeah, the sheik.”

“What’s K-P?

“Karachi, Pakistan?”

Crocker remembered that Dorina had said that Cyrus was taking the girl east.

Hayes found references to S. Rastani in two other recent e-mails.

“Any mention of a leader, someone named Zaman?” Akil asked.

“No,” Hayes answered. “Even though the e-mails come from different addresses, I believe they’re from the same source.”

“Why?”

“They’re all directives. They sound like they’re coming from someone who is moving pieces on a big chessboard.”

Crocker turned to Hayes and said, “I need to use your phone.”

He pointed to a console on the nightstand. “Use that one. It’s secure.”

Crocker handed Hayes the DVDs he’d been carrying. “Check these out.”

He reached Mancini at the hotel in Islamabad as he was finishing breakfast. “How’s your knee?” he asked.

“A hell of a lot better. Thanks.”

“Good. I need you to jump on two things. First, call Donaldson in Islamabad and tell him to contact Mikael Klausen. They both need to meet us in Karachi as soon as possible.”

“Wait a minute. Where are you?”

“I’m still in Marseille, but I’m on my way to Karachi as soon as I get authorization. So are you.”

“Me?”

“All three of you.”

“When?”

“As soon as we get a nod from Donaldson, drop what you’re doing, fly to Karachi, and go directly to the port.”

“That’ll take several hours.”

“You’ll be looking for a Norwegian girl named Malie Tingvoll: eighteen, blond, beautiful. She’ll be with a Middle Eastern-looking guy named Cyrus. He’ll either be hustling her onto a ship or handing her off to representatives of a sheik possibly named Rastani.”

“All right. Let me write this down.”

“The important thing is to get there fast.”

“Understood.”

“Akil and I are leaving as soon as we get an okay.”

“You want me to wait for you?”

“Don’t leave the port until we get there.”

“I understand.”

“Maybe Donaldson has someone in Karachi who can help. Tell him we’ve got to recover the Norwegian girl and stop this sheik character and this guy named Cyrus from leaving the country.”

“You got a description?”

“Cyrus is in his late twenties, early thirties. Middle Eastern looking. Medium height. Big smile.”

“The sheik?”

“No idea.”

“Roger.”

Crocker hung up and turned to Akil, who pointed at a large computer monitor on the desk and said, “Boss, look.”

It was Justine-the young girl with the mole over her mouth-the one they’d last seen in the barn, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the floor.

On the screen she wore a pink dress and had her blond hair pulled back. She looked beautiful and innocent, walking through a garden in bare feet. As she bent to pick a yellow flower, the camera zoomed in on her face, which was glowing from within and unmarked.

Next she stood inside the farmhouse, in what Crocker thought was the living room, looking away from the camera. Someone out of the frame said something that couldn’t be heard, and she turned and crossed her arms over her chest.

The girl looked frightened. She hesitated. A man stepped into the picture and with his back to the camera slapped her across the face.

“Fuck.”

Casting her eyes to the floor, she started to slowly remove her dress until she stood naked, trembling, hands at her sides, tears splattering her upturned breasts.

Crocker wanted to punch something.

“What the hell is this?” Hayes asked.

A man out of view of the camera shouted something, and the girl turned abruptly and bent over until her hands touched the floor. The camera zoomed in on her ass as she reached back and spread her cheeks.

“Turn it off!” Crocker shouted, holding out his palm to Hayes, who ejected the DVD and handed it over.

If Crocker had even a smidgeon of regret for blowing the men away, it disappeared now.

“They used the DVDs to sell the girls,” Akil muttered, breaking the silence.

“We’ve got to stop Cyrus. Let’s go.”