Hunt the Wolf

Chapter Thirteen

You’re not a star until they can spell your name in Karachi.

– Humphrey Bogart

An hour later Tom Crocker was still in Marseille, stuffing clothes into his bag and waiting for authorization to fly to Karachi. Minutes earlier he had spoken to Mikael Klausen in Oslo, who told him that Cyrus was the name of the man who was last seen with Malie Tingvoll at the café there.

His mind was working feverishly. There seemed to be a million things he needed to do.

Why was Donaldson taking so long?

He started pacing the little room and stopped. The texture of the yellowish morning haze through the dirty hotel window reminded him of summer days on the beach in Nantucket. Suddenly he felt a strong desire to be with Holly, to tell her how much he missed her.

He thought how good it would feel to hold her hand and walk barefoot across the wet sand. Blueberry pancakes with fresh maple syrup. Broiled lobster with red wine for dinner. The smell of her hair. Making love.

As he started counting the days he’d been away from home, the phone rang. It was the North African CIA officer.

She said, “Meet me downstairs in ten minutes. I’m driving you to the airport. The flights for you and your companion are confirmed.”

That meant Donaldson had given his approval. But Crocker wanted to double-check.

“Our destination is Karachi, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. You’re very efficient.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Crocker,” the North African said. “But I’m afraid I just heard some unfortunate news.”

“What’s that?”

“French authorities have discovered the bodies of several young women buried near the lake at the house in Toulon.”

Crocker was struck more by the sadness in her usually emotionless voice than the significance of what she was saying.

“Bodies?”

“Yes, other girls were buried near the lake.”

He hadn’t considered that possibility.

“I regret to report that one of them was a blonde,” she continued. “Approximately eighteen. Same approximate height as the Norwegian girl you’re looking for.”

Crocker felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. “Oh.”

For an instant he imagined Malie’s parents, whom he’d never met, clutching each other and sobbing.

Through the mottled light of the narrow room, he saw Akil exit the bathroom and point toward the door. Crocker nodded as if to say “Yes, we’re going.”

The woman on the phone continued, “I’ve just finished contacting the Norwegian police security service. They’ll be e-mailing her photos, fingerprints, and dental records presently to expedite the identification.”

Crocker felt his pulse quickening. “How many girls did they find?”

“Three so far. But they expect to unearth more.”

The implications of what he’d just heard spooled out in his mind.

“Fanatics and psychopaths,” she remarked. “Different shades of evil.”

His mind was occupied with another line of reasoning. If the body that had been recovered was that of Malie Tingvoll, why was Cyrus on his way to Karachi?

Crocker explained the dilemma to Akil as they waited outside for the SUV.

Akil scratched his freshly shaved jaw and suggested that they wait in Marseille until Norwegian PST was able to confirm the identity of the body. “In the meantime,” he said, “let’s return to Albert Hayes’s place and see what else we can find on the computer.”

“I hate wasting time.”

“Why’s that wasting time, if the guy we’re looking for isn’t even there?”

Crocker’s gut still pulled him to Karachi. He couldn’t explain why.

Akil said, “You’ve always got to push ahead, don’t you, chief?”

“It’s not about me doing what I want. It’s about stopping these fucking savages.”

Crocker didn’t like pushing people. But it was his job to lead.

Akil wasn’t letting go. “How long is it going to take to get the results from Oslo? An hour at most?”

“We’re going to Karachi. End of story.”

“Boss, you’re not thinking straight.”

“Maybe not. But we’re going anyway.”

As they put their bags in the SUV, Akil shot him a look of pride mixed with hurt and a bit of defiance. Crocker took note. Part of being a successful SEAL assault team leader meant tracking the psychology of your men, especially on long and serpentine ops like this. Instead of breaking down physically, operators were more likely to experience nervous or mental exhaustion. The constant pressure of working undercover, the changing scenery, the emotional ups and downs-all took a toll.

Crocker stopped Akil as he started to climb into the vehicle.

“I can count on you, can’t I?”

Akil looked him in the eye. “Yes, you can, boss.”

“You still mad at me about Edyta?”

“I don’t want to talk about her anymore.”

Crocker said, “I know something about losing people you care for. The pain won’t go away, but you’ll get used to it.”

“Fuck you.”

The North African woman dropped them off at the international terminal, where they checked in and ran to their flight-Emirates to Doha, Qatar, then Doha to Karachi.

The Airbus was crammed with businessmen and wives. Mostly Arabs-some in robes, others in business suits. A sprinkling of South Asians. Women in chadors working at laptops. One of them glanced at Crocker from across the aisle, then quickly looked away, her big eyes glistening with curiosity.

Even a fleeting look like that could be dangerous in the potent mix of cultural influences and interests. Money battled with religion, obedience clashed with personal ambition-creating an undercurrent of danger and anxiety.

Nine and a half hours later, when they changed planes in Doha, Crocker read a text message from Mancini. “Preliminary tests DO NOT link Malie. More results pending. Headed to KP.”

He leaned over and showed it to Akil, who had just come back from the men’s room. “Take a look at this.”

Beads of water still clung to his chin. “You’re right this time. Good for you.”

In the air again, the SEAL assault team leader closed his eyes and dreamt that he was being chased by a pack of wolves through dark, unnamed streets. Sweating through his pale blue polo shirt, he opened his eyes and, blinking, realized he was somewhere over the Indian Sea in an aluminum cylinder with two hundred or so people he didn’t know. The air tasted sour.

He was keenly aware of the space between himself and his fellow passengers. Each of them lived in the bubble of their own experiences, beliefs, circumstances, wants, and needs.

Akil, with his big head leaning on the headrest and his eyes closed, stood out. He was the only one of many Middle Eastern men on the flight dressed casually, in jeans and a black T-shirt. And he was fit. Crocker had noticed other travelers looking at Akil askance.

“No man is an island,” a poet had written. Still, people acted as if they were islands and defended them like wild dogs. To extend oneself and try to cross over from one island to the next was to invite hostility and conflict. Which explained why the Western ideal of personal freedom challenged those who clung to the strict boundaries of dogma. In the state of Virginia, which Crocker called home, you could believe anything you wanted to, dress according to your personal tastes, say whatever you felt like saying, worship the deity of your choice.

He considered personal freedom to be a key ingredient to human progress. And it was a desire that he believed all human beings harbored somewhere in their hearts. To those who wanted to impose a uniform set of beliefs, Western-style freedom-with its invitation to individualism and experimentation-was a loaded gun. A threat.

Crocker liked to compare his team to the Greek three hundred-the free Spartans who chose to fight to the death to resist hundreds of thousands of invading Persians in 480 BC. It was a story that had inspired Crocker his entire adult life. A small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects at Thermopylae who advanced under the lash. The Western idea of freedom was proved stronger than the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy.

Things hadn’t changed that much. Maybe weapons and methods were more sophisticated today, but the war still raged.

Like the day before, at the farm.

Crocker counted his bodies, then added them to the tally. Another two or three in Panama, a half dozen in Iraq, one in Paraguay, six or seven, maybe eight, outside Kandahar in eastern Afghanistan, another two on the Guatemalan border. All men who made the world more dangerous, who threatened the right of free people to live the way they wanted.

The twenty or so lives he’d taken had never caused him to lose a minute of sleep. But, looking out the Airbus window, Crocker wondered if maybe he’d paid a karmic price. Because sometimes he sensed a dark place in his soul.

Maybe one day I’ll face a reckoning and will be punished, he said to himself.

He couldn’t worry about that now. He’d chosen to be one of America’s elite warriors. And as such, he’d proudly and steadfastly fend off and defeat the wolves.

Karachi airport was a confusing, smelly, noisy mess of anxious bodies trying to get from one place to the next. The two Americans hired an expediter-in this case a short Pakistani man named Ahmed-who helped them navigate immigration and customs.

On the way out they passed two strutting Pak security guards with bristling, shining mustaches. Behind them followed lower-ranked guards pulling along a young man with long blond hair and his wrists chained together who was shouting curses in German. A smuggler or drug courier, probably. Crocker imagined that he’d be screaming even louder when the Pakistanis got him behind doors.

The scene outside was equally chaotic. Even though it was late at night, almost 11 p.m. local time, the conjoining streets presented an incredible tangle of cars, people, bicycles, and honking horns. Crocker was reminded that Karachi was a city of over eighteen million, and the primary banking, trade, and business center of Pakistan. A large proportion of its inhabitants were refugees-Muhajirs and Punjabis from India, Biharis and Bengalis from Bangladesh, Pashtuns from Afghanistan, and Rohingya from Burma.

“This way, boss!”

Akil pointed to a blue Mercedes taxi. Inside, he instructed the Sikh driver to deliver them to the port as quickly as possible. They took off at breakneck speed, retracing the path they’d taken the night they went after Abu Rasul Zaman-the Shahrah-e-Faisal Boulevard to Napier Mole Bridge. Judging from the number and prominence of billboards advertising Bollywood movies, that form of popular entertainment had managed to bridge the venomous rivalry between India and Pakistan.

Interesting, Crocker thought as they entered the port area, this time with a chance to look around a little more. He hadn’t expected to be mesmerized but was, by a deep purplish gray sky festooned with lights from ships, booms, loading elevators, and Panamax cranes of all sizes. The effect was otherworldly. Significant in a way he couldn’t grasp.

During the day this was one of the busiest harbors in the world-a long natural channel protected by a thin finger of land with elaborate wharves east and west. At this hour, half past eleven, the port was eerily calm. Gently lapping water with Sufi music playing somewhere in the background. The fire from some sort of refinery burned in the distance, projecting a golden glow along the horizon, which made the water appear even lighter than the sky.

He’d heard that neighboring Afghanistan was the country with the highest percentage of fecal matter in the air. Judging from the quality of what he was breathing, Pakistan couldn’t be far behind.

After an exchange of cell-phone calls, Crocker learned that Davis, Ritchie, and Mancini had arrived ahead of them and were haggling with officials at the Karachi Port Trust.

They ran. Five minutes later, out of breath, he and Akil entered a regal colonial-style building that reminded the SEAL leader a little of the U.S. Capitol. They were directed to an office on the second floor where they found Davis nose to nose with a Pakistani official.

“What’s going on?”

The two men were approximately the same height, but otherwise were very different.

Davis was broad-shouldered and blond, with blue eyes; the Pakistani, dark-skinned and frail, with a brush of black-silver hair and turned-up mustache. He introduced himself as Ayud Nasiri, the assistant port safety manager.

“He’s stonewalling us, boss.”

Ayud Nasiri to Davis: “You’re a very rude man.”

Crocker summoned all his diplomatic charm. “We’re American officials,” he explained, “on a mission for the king of Norway.”

Nasiri responded in a high-pitched voice. “I keep telling your man here that I’m not allowed to release any passenger lists without the approval of the port facility security officer, and that individual won’t be available until later in the morning. It’s nothing personal, of course.”

“But, you see, Mr. Nasiri, this is an emergency. A girl’s life is in imminent danger.”

“It seems that everything is an emergency these days, my good sir.”

A good-natured fellow with a ready smile, Nasiri was also stubborn. He clearly did things by the book and wasn’t about to make an exception, even after Crocker called Mikael Klausen in Oslo, who managed to get the Norwegian deputy foreign minister to talk to him.

“The PFSO will arrive in several hours,” the assistant port safety manager said with a sly grin. “He’s usually prompt, at nine o’clock. I’m sure you’ll find him to be a very good fellow.”

It was a polite go-fuck-yourself.

“Now what?” Davis asked.

That’s when Mancini and Ritchie returned from the port’s passenger terminal, looking fit and rested. They told Crocker they’d shown everyone they could find a photo of Malie Tingvoll.

“Any luck?”

“Negative, boss.”

Crocker and Akil were irritable and tired, having traveled all day to get to Karachi. Crocker’s lower back ached from the long flight. He’d broken it in two places during a HAHO jump (high altitude-high opening) a year before.

The crackers and tea in glasses Nasiri ordered an aide to serve didn’t help.

Mancini, who liked to focus on details, drew a quick sketch of the port-seventeen vessel berths on the east wharf, thirteen on the west. Each wharf held a large container terminal. The west pier also accommodated three oil berths, two ship repair jetties, a shipyard, and an engineering facility. In addition there was a large harbor adjacent to the western wharf that contained thousands of smaller fishing vessels.

“What do we do now?” Ritchie asked, his longish, straight black hair setting off his Cherokee cheekbones.

“We wait.”

They sat on a rough wooden bench and watched the clock on the opposite wall tick slowly past one-fifty-five to two.

Crocker asked Akil to go inside and ask Nasiri if they could see a list of vessels that had recently left the port. He referred him to the traffic manager’s office on the first floor. The lone official on duty there, a tall, thin man with large hooded eyes and thick lips, announced that the office was closed to visitors until 8 a.m. When Akil tried to reason with him, he waved him away and tried to close the door. Akil managed to wedge his foot inside and claimed he was from the U.S. consulate. When that didn’t work, he offered the night traffic manager forty dollars for the names of all vessels that had left the port in the past several days.

Five minutes later, a one-page printout was passed through the crack.

“You understand, of course, you cannot tell anyone that you got this from me.”

“I won’t.”

On the sheet about a dozen names were printed in type so faint it was hard to read. Akil ran up the stairs and handed it to Crocker, who had been considering checking into a nearby hotel.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the list of vessels that left the port over the past six days, including yesterday, the twenty-fifth.”

The team leader’s eyes burned. The names meant nothing to him as he read them out loud: “Lucky Arrow, Northern Valour, Ginga Panther, Eastern Highway, Bunga Raya Tujuh, Rolldock Sun, Syrena, Aristea M-”

“Wait a minute,” Ritchie said. “What’s the next-to-last one you mentioned?”

“The Rolldock Sun?”

“No, the one after that.”

“Syrena?”

“Yes, Syrena. Didn’t we see that name on an invoice we found at the house?”

“What house?”

“AZ’s safe house, the one we raided a couple of clicks from here.”

Crocker looked at the printout again and read the name-​Syrena. “You’re right,” he said, trying to fight through the dull fog of exhaustion and recall what else he knew about the Syrena.

“It might mean something, boss.”

“An interesting coincidence, at least.”

Crocker straightened his back and turned to Akil, who was biting his nails. “Take the finger out of your mouth and go see the night traffic manager again. Ask him to tell you where the Syrena is headed. What time, exactly, did it leave? When is it scheduled to dock again, and where?”

Akil said, “It’s gonna require cash.”

Crocker reached into his wallet and handed him three twenties. “Bargain with the bastard. If that doesn’t work, beat it out of him.”

“Yes, sir.”

His mind picked up speed. Carpets, S. Rastani, the port in KP, the Syrena…the shards of info were starting to fit together. Now they had something that linked Zaman to the kidnapping operation and Cyrus.

“We’re gonna need a helicopter and equipment,” he said to Ritchie. “Get Donaldson on the phone.”

“Aye-aye.”

“Davis, call Klausen in Norway.”

“What time’s it there?”

“Doesn’t matter. This is important. Tell him we’ve gotta stop that ship!”