Hunt the Wolf

Chapter One

Don’t raise more demons than you can lay down.

– Old English proverb

Two weeks later, U.S. Navy Chief Warrant Officer Tom Crocker and three of his SEAL Team Six teammates, all dressed as civilians, were flying at 32,000 feet over Mount Erciyes in central Turkey when the Emirates Airlines Boeing 777 they were in hit an air pocket. Akil (full name Akil Okasha El-Daly, aka Akil Daly), who was standing in the aisle, lost his balance and landed in Crocker’s lap.

“Do I look like Santa Claus?” Crocker asked.

“Sorry, boss,” the handsome Egyptian American said, smiling, trying to pull himself up.

Crocker, the assault leader of Blue Team of U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six, aka the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group-the premier antiterrorism arm of the U.S. military-lifted the 220-pound former marine sergeant up and set him back in the aisle like he was a little boy.

Then he pulled off his earphones. Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” seeped into the drone of the engines. The forty-two-year-old team leader had recently discovered that fifties jazz put him in a mellow groove. Something about the 5/4 rhythm and the cool precision of the melody. Gentle, economical, restrained.

“You’re one strong mother,” Akil said, looking down at the manila folder on the middle seat. “Don’t you ever take a break?” Pushing back his bristly black hair, smoothing the sky blue Nike polo over his muscular torso.

Take a break from what? Crocker wanted to ask. Working out? Studying? Preparing for the mission? Listening to music? Trying to relax?

Crocker didn’t answer. Akil held on to Crocker’s headrest and leaned over, flashing his pearly whites like he was performing for the other passengers. “You pumped?”

A fifteen-year veteran of the Navy SEALs and dozens of top-secret ops to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other hot spots around the world, Crocker was too disciplined to talk about a mission with foreigners within earshot. So he said, “You’re referring to the climb, right?”

“That’s right, boss,” Akil answered. “The climb.”

The climb was the team’s cover. Hours after the U.S. embassy bombing in Rabat, CIA officers had picked up the trail of the man who ran away from the pickup before it exploded in front of the gate. They learned that his name was Mohammed Saddiq and he had managed to survive, even though the blast had blown him off his feet and forward, leaving lacerations and cuts from the back of his head to his ankles. Bleeding through his clothes and feverish, Saddiq had managed to board a flight to Rome. CIA operatives found him in the Italian city two days after the bombing, hiding in an airport bathroom.

Crocker looked up at Akil and said, “It’s a training climb to give you guys a feel for what it’s gonna be like when we really do attempt to summit K2.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Piece of cake.”

“We’ll see.” In addition to being the assault leader of Blue Team, Crocker was ST-6’s lead climber. SEAL stands for Sea, Air, and Land, and Crocker was determined to prepare the men on his team for any contingency, including dealing with the most treacherous terrain on the planet.

Previously, he had led his men on ascents of Denali, Mount Whitney, and winter ascents on Grand Teton and Mount Washington (the latter featured unimaginably bad weather, with gusts up to 230 miles an hour). Physical challenges were his bread and butter, his manna. He lived for them.

Leering, Akil said, “I hear Edyta might be there.”

Edyta Potocka. Early forties. Legendary climber. Third woman to summit Mount Everest. “Yeah. What about her?”

She and Crocker had spent a night together eighteen years before in a tent in the Himalayas. This was before he’d married his current wife. Neither had bathed for days. He remembered it as an odd mixture of wrestling and sex, with no words spoken. Seeking warmth and relief in each other’s bodies as frigid winds roared outside.

“Hot, huh?”

“Kind of attractive in a gritty Eastern European way.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

“I bet you are.” Crocker stroked his strong chin. He knew that anything with a pair of tits under the age of sixty was prey to the single Omar Sharif look-alike, who consistently claimed to have bedded over three hundred women.

Akil lowered his voice like he was passing a secret. “You read the file on AZ?”

Crocker nodded, picked the folder off the middle seat, and pushed it into the backpack on the floor in front of him. He’d practically committed all twenty-some pages to memory. Crimes ranging from bombings, to torture, to kidnapping and murder.

“What’d you think?”

“It’s light on visuals.”

A couple of blurry security-camera stills of a man with a black beard. A profile from a meeting with Pashtun warlords in eastern Afghanistan.

“How’s your stomach?” Akil asked.

“My stomach?” In the Ankara airport, Crocker had consumed a chicken kebab smothered in dill-accented yogurt. Pushed the pita and rice aside. Leading up to a climb, he watched what he ate. Leaned heavily on the protein and fresh vegetables. Eased up on the carbs, especially those that quickly converted into sugar.

“It’s in a good mood. Why?”

“Move over.”

Crocker slid into the middle seat. A third member of the team-indefatigable, smart Davis-was snoring lightly by the window, the shade down, his blond surfer hair smushed into a little blue pillow. The fourth, Mancini-a former college football star with an encyclopedic knowledge of practically everything relating to science, history, and technology-​was two rows back, reading a technical treatise on cell-phone hacking. The fifth-Crocker’s next-door neighbor and workout buddy, and a former navy firefighter, Ritchie-was waiting for them in Karachi, Pakistan.

No sooner had Akil settled beside Crocker than he reached into his pocket and stuck a thumbnail drive into the port on the side of Crocker’s laptop.

“Don’t mess up my iTunes.”

“I’m not touching anything, you pussy. Watch.”

Akil slapped some keys and a video appeared on the screen. Murky at first. Then dark shadows moving against a gray background. Someone screaming in Arabic.

Akil quickly toggled down the sound, then turned the thirteen-inch screen so it wasn’t visible to passengers in the aisle.

Crocker put on his reading glasses and leaned forward. “What am I watching?”

A bright light illuminated a face in the foreground. White, sandy haired, blindfolded, tied to a metal chair.

Crocker knew immediately what this was. Felt a ball of rage gathering in his stomach.

“Steve Vogelman, right?”

“The Washington Post reporter.”

Tom Crocker had shared a transatlantic flight with Steve and a wiseass journalist from CNN, drinking single malt scotch and playing blackjack. The two of them prodding him to reveal things that they knew he couldn’t, like a couple of naughty kids.

Before passing out, a drunken Steve had shown him pictures of his wife and two little girls, sighing, love in his eyes, so that Crocker would understand what he really valued.

But he hadn’t appreciated the danger he’d flirted with, that had caught him in its teeth. On the screen, Crocker counted four armed men on either side of Steve Vogelman, shouting in his ears, spitting, slapping, punching. All with black masks covering their faces.

Fucking cowards…

Crocker’s strong dislike of bullies and sadists dated back to when he was a kid growing up just north of Boston. Racing motorcycles, riding wheelies, with a group of hell-raising teenagers-most with one foot in the grave. Proudly became the only non-Italian member of the Mongrels. Black leather jackets; Levi’s with leather belts with big buckles-good for fighting; black T-shirts; bandanas worn on their heads. Beating up drug dealers, stealing their money. Taking no shit from anyone.

“Where’d you get this?”

“A friend of mine downloaded it from a jihadist website.”

During that flight a year and a half ago, two hours short of Dulles, Vogelman had started lecturing him about what he called Crocker’s narrow-minded, military conception of Sunni radicalism. Explaining that it was espoused by men with strong beliefs, who needed to be understood in the context of a religious-historical struggle over hegemony of the Middle East and Europe.

“They’re the products of a unique cultural experience,” Vogelman had said. “They feel threatened by the West. With good reason.”

“So what?”

“They want what we want. Power. That commonality is important and misunderstood. Political leaders on both sides play up the fear.”

“What’s your point?”

“Guys like you, Crocker, who see things in black and white, are a big part of the problem.”

Crocker, who hadn’t graduated from college and didn’t like being talked down to, had heard enough. “You’re right, Vogelman, I do evaluate people more in terms of black and white than you do. And I can tell you right now, you’re talking like a fucking sheep.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Sheep and wolves, buddy. The wolves are the threat-the evil motherfuckers who live among us. Whatever they call themselves, jihadists, Nazis, murderers…they’re basically aggressive sociopaths. They prey on people who are too trusting, or buy their bullshit. Sheep like you. Like the woman walking through a dimly lit parking lot alone at two a.m. and not hesitating when a strange man approaches.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m a sheepdog whose job is to protect sheep like you, which means I’m a ruthless motherfucker who spends a good deal of time in the heart of darkness.”

On the laptop screen perched on the fold-down tray, the Washington Post reporter was facing a steady stream of insults in Arabic. Accusations of being a Zionist, a Mossad secret agent, an infidel crusader. White-faced Vogelman denied it all in rudimentary Arabic, sobbing, pleading to return to his wife, his young children, promising that he had, and always would, fairly represent Islam’s point of view.

That’s when a fifth man entered from the direction of the camera and grabbed Vogelman by the hair. Pulled his head up.

The armed men shouted a prayer of some kind. Crocker’s Arabic wasn’t good.

“What are they saying?”

“They’re explaining to Allah that this man is an infidel who has to be killed,” Akil muttered.

Crocker, his blue-hazel eyes burning, focused on the screen, where a sixth man stepped forward. Dressed all in black like an executioner. Thick black whiskers obscured his face.

He held a knife, which he raised and brought down violently along the side of Vogelman’s head. The journalist’s ear came off in a spurt of blood.

“Fucking savages!” Crocker exclaimed, bile rising like he’d been kicked in the stomach.

The man in black hacked off Vogelman’s other ear, then sliced off his tongue.

Crocker wanted to punch something. Anything. The bastards!

“Look,” Akil said.

The bearded man was holding Vogelman’s severed tongue and shaking it at the camera, his eyes red with hatred, rage.

“That’s AZ.”

“Zaman?”

“Abu Rasul Zaman, yes. Number three man in al-Qaeda. The so-called Protector of Islam.”

As Zaman started gouging Vogelman’s left eye out, Crocker groaned, “Turn it off.”

Akil hit a key and the screen went dark.

Soon after Mohammed Saddiq was captured in Italy, he confessed to his role in the U.S. embassy bombing. He said the attack had been planned and ordered by Abu Rasul Zaman.

Crocker growled. “I want that motherfucker…bad!”

“Ssh…”

A passing flight attendant shot Crocker a wary look. He seemed like a friendly, fit man. Had a long, narrow face with prominent cheekbones and chin, big teeth, a salt-and-​pepper mustache, short graying hair, a warm smile. He was an outdoorsman of some sort, or maybe a businessman. Now he looked like he wanted to kill someone.

He did.

Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport was insane, as usual. Bag handlers, businessmen, hustlers, Pakistani soldiers cradling AK-47s, women sobbing, ticket agents screaming in Urdu and English, flight announcements smooth and seductive over the PA.

The four men walked down the sleek beige stone corridor, each carrying several bags packed with gear-double plastic climbing boots with liners, insulated overboots, gaiters, synthetic socks, liner socks, polypro underwear, down parkas, down pants, balaclavas, bandanas, nose guards, ski goggles, gloves, expedition mitts.

Crocker led the group. Dressed in sports clothes, they looked more like members of a rugby team than scrawny climbers. Pakistani officials picked through their gear thoroughly.

Two days earlier, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, Crocker had been driving his teenage daughter to a local movie complex when he’d received a text message from the commander of ST-6. He dropped his daughter off at the theater, then gunned the engine of his SUV to ST-6 headquarters in Little Creek, Virginia.

His CO, Captain Alan Sutter, sat waiting for him with two senior officials from the CIA. His orders: Put a small team together. You’re going into Pakistan completely black, under the cover of sports enthusiasts, climbers. The agency has a location on Zaman in Karachi. This is coming straight from the White House. The president wants us to hit him, fast.

This wasn’t the first time Crocker and his men had been sent on a special mission for the CIA. Twelve hours later, they were on a flight to London. Slam bang.

Now Pakistani officials were picking through the team’s gear.

“You gentlemen headed north?” one of the Pakistanis asked in accented English.

“Yes, sir. A day and a half here, then we’re flying to Islamabad.”

“For what purpose?”

“We’re climbing.”

“Karakoram?”

“Past there into the Baltoro Glacier.”

“Very difficult terrain, sir. Good luck.”

Their translator and driver, Wasir, stood waiting on the other side of customs. Short, skinny, early thirties. A wannabe businessman, Crocker thought.

“Mr. C. It’s good to see you again.”

“Good to see you again, too. How’s your family?”

“Very good. Thank you.”

“I’m glad.” Crocker wasn’t much for small talk.

“Mr. Maguire is waiting at the hotel.” That would be Ritchie, the fifth member of Crocker’s team.

“Good.”

The Ramada Plaza Karachi was a long punt from the airport, nestled in an industrial zone. A standard semimodern structure inside concrete barriers manned by police.

The sky was turning dark by the time they arrived. The city of twenty million glowed in the distance like a murky orange dream, a polyglot of glass-and-steel business towers, colonial monuments, mosques, neo-Gothic cathedrals, Sikh and Hindu temples.

While the other guys checked in, Crocker went directly to the room he was sharing with Ritchie. He found him watching BBC World News and sipping from a can of Coke. The air conditioner groaned under the burden of the humid ninety-degree-plus August heat.

“What’s going on?”

Ritchie was a cool customer. Six feet tall, fit, straight dark hair, fierce black eyes, high cheekbones from the Cherokee blood on his mother’s side. He was a meticulous explosives expert and breacher who had a wild side that he kept well concealed. Mostly.

A couple of years ago he’d been arrested for murdering a biker who pulled a knife on him in a bar, a big dude with a beard and a skull and crossbones tattooed on his bald head. Ritchie had stopped there after work, to have a beer and flirt with the blond bartender, when this big biker and a couple of his buddies started giving Ritchie shit about a turquoise amulet he wore around his neck. Some kind of tribal thing that had been passed down from his grandfather.

The biker called it “faggot’s necklace” and tried to rip it off. Ritchie slapped the biker’s hand away and said he’d heard he liked to suck cock.

Whereupon the biker pulled a knife and lunged at Ritchie’s throat. Ritchie, who was fast and a lot stronger than he looked, redirected the force behind the blade back into the biker’s chest, under his ribs, into his heart. The biker died on the spot.

He was thrown in jail, but was later exonerated and promoted to master chief. His SEAL teammates thought it was funny in a can-you-believe-it kind of way. Ritchie? Easygoing Ritchie?

But Crocker knew. He ran with Ritchie three mornings a week through the forested lowlands near where they lived. Ritchie seemed like a laid-back guy until you challenged him. Then watch out.

Now he smiled at Crocker and shut off the TV.

“I’ve got all our climbing gear waiting in Islamabad,” Ritchie said. “Ice axes, climbing helmets, harnesses, ascenders, carabiners, trekking poles.”

“You get the carabiners I asked you for?” Crocker started rearranging the furniture. Desk by the window. Bed turned so that it faced the door.

“Locking and nonlocking.”

“Good.”

Unpacking, he laid out a black T-shirt and pants on the chair. He had multiples of each, exactly the same.

“The weather might be more difficult than we-”

The soft-spoken team leader stopped him. “I thought we’d get a clear window through September.”

“Just got a weather update from the German team that’s there. There’s a chance of high winds and freezing temperatures at base camp.”

“The weather hopefully won’t stop us.”

Ritchie got up and threw the bolt on the door. Then he punched on the TV again and cranked up the sound.

Crocker, who had stripped down to his underwear, noted the all-business look in the explosive expert’s dark eyes. “What you got?”

Ritchie pulled a large envelope out of one of the dresser drawers and threw it on the bed. Then pointed to a series of surveillance photos of a three-story apartment building.

Crocker stopped. “Where are we?” he asked.

“Kemari. The port area of Karachi. Near the railroad tracks.”

He knew the general vicinity. “Good.”

Crocker noted that the primitive concrete structure stood on a corner next to what looked like a car repair lot. Behind it stood an abandoned field littered with junk.

“What’s here?” Crocker asked, pointing to the opposite side of the street.

“A warehouse. It’s mainly a pretty rundown commercial area.”

Crocker nodded. “Okay. Call Akil. Tell him to meet us by the pool.”

The three men sat at a round metal table and drank from bottles of local Murree Classic beer, which was available only to non-Muslims after the ban by President Ali Bhutto in ’77. Broad-shouldered, tattooed Mancini swam laps in the pool. A couple of kids were trying to do cannonballs off the diving board. Davis-the most talented athlete on the team-was showing them how.

Crocker thought back to his wife and daughter in Virginia Beach. Both complained that he was away too much. Jenny, sixteen, had been having trouble adjusting to her new high school.

Akil cleared his throat and started. “You hear the one about the guy who took his blond girlfriend to her first football game? They’re sitting right behind their team’s bench. After the game he asks her how she liked it. ‘It was great,’ she says. ‘Especially the tight pants and big muscles. But I couldn’t understand why they were killing one another over a quarter.’ ‘What?’ the guy asks. ‘What are you talking about?’ She says, ‘Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it, and then for the rest of the game, they all kept screaming Get the quarter back! Get the quarter back! I’m like…Hellooo? It’s only twenty-five cents!’ ”

They laughed. Then Crocker got up. “Let’s walk…”

They strolled past a row of jasmine trees to the patio. Crocker waited for two men to drift away-one British, one Pakistani, discussing cars and heroin. Nearing the rectangular aqua pool, he watched the two light cigarettes. Smoke wafted into the yellow artificial light.

Then he turned to Ritchie, who had stuck his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts. “You think you can get your hands on ten fifty-gallon barrels of diesel fuel and enough ammonium nitrate to mix a good batch of ANFO?”

“The diesel fuel is easy. I can buy that at the port.”

“What about the ammonium nitrate?”

“I know a local contractor who can get anything for a price.”

“You got cash?”

Ritchie patted his pocket. “Many rupees, yes.”

“Akil, Ritchie’s going to give you a map. I want you to eyeball the site. Make sure we can drive a car bomb into the place without causing too much collateral damage.”

“A car bomb?”

“Yeah, a car bomb,” Crocker answered. Then he looked at Ritchie. “You think you can put one together in less than a day?”

“No problem.”

Akil asked: “When do you want me to surveil the site?”

“Tonight.”

“All right.”

“Before you go I want you to talk to Wasir. Tell him to rent a van first thing in the morning. Park it in back, then give the keys to Ritchie. Ritchie will take it from there.”

Ritchie grinned so that his eyes were almost hidden. “Boss, I like the way you think.”

“We’ll meet out here tomorrow 0700 hours to go over the plan.” In the morning, he’d get input from his men, then incorporate that into a PLO (patrol leader’s order). They’d discuss insertion, fire positions, concealment, what to do with prisoners, what to do in case of an emergency, and other contingencies.

He said: “Akil, check with Mancini now. Make sure he gets his hands on everything we need from our contact at the Agency. Glocks, AKs, comms, NVGs, maps, GPS units.”

“Got it.”

“Go.”

Akil crossed to the pool, which left Crocker and Ritchie standing together.

The explosives expert lowered his voice. “So we’re going in with one van packed with a VBIED and one SUV?”

By VBIED he meant vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.

“That’s correct.”

“Sweet.”

Crocker put a hand on Ritchie’s shoulder. “How many fucking truck bombs has Zaman sent our way?”

“One too many.”

“I want that baby packed tight. As much as you can fit. Let’s give that bastard a taste of his own medicine.”