Hunt the Wolf

Chapter Three

Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. If not, leave…

– Rumi

Crocker was usually soft-spoken and relaxed, but at midnight the following night, he sat on the edge of the hotel room bed dressed head to toe in black, stroking his mustache and nervously tapping his foot. He was talking to his daughter Jenny on the phone. She hadn’t made the First Colonial soccer team and was bummed.

“Sweetheart, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve failed at something the first time I tried,” he said gently. “The point is to regroup, work on your weaknesses, focus harder.”

Only a year earlier, Jenny and Crocker had moved in with his new wife, Holly. His first marriage hadn’t worked.

“Yeah.”

“Get mad.”

“Dad-”

“Show those girls what you’re made of.”

“I don’t know if I’m that into soccer anymore,” Jenny said. “I think I’ll-”

“Don’t say it, honey.”

The word he didn’t want to hear was “quit.”

She said it.

“Come on, sweetheart. Come on.”

Soccer he could take or leave. What worried him was her apparent lack of determination. Grit.

He told her how great she was. Reminded her of times she’d been outstanding in a number of other sports. Told her that he’d run specific drills with her when he got back.

He was a man who had had to fight for everything. Built himself up from a skinny kid from the poor side of town into a leader of the toughest unit in the U.S. military. Got there with the help of intense physical and mental discipline. Studied hard, and trained like a beast. Lifted weights incessantly. Ran thirty-six marathons in three years. Competed in over a thousand endurance competitions before turning thirty-five, including Ironman Triathlons, Double Iron Triathlons, the grueling Raid Gauloises (“the world’s most challenging human endurance competition”). He always set his goal high, and often won.

As the assault team leader of ST-6’s Blue Team, he’d led dozens of physically arduous missions in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Yemen. Hostage rescues, assassinations, drug raids, weapons recovery, surveillance. Over forty in the past year. All highly classified. Some for the navy, some for the CIA, some for the White House. In and out.

Throw a challenge in front of him and he’d chew it up, or die trying.

It was all about will. Fire in the gut. The determination to push yourself beyond the barriers of fear.

The way his dad had taught him-a U.S. Marine hero who was shot in the leg by a Japanese sniper on the last day of World War II.

Some people had determination. Some didn’t. Crocker thought of it as the vital ingredient that lifted an individual above others. Made achievers. Created heroes. He rated it ahead of intelligence and physical ability.

And here was his daughter, threatening to quit.

He sat, forehead furrowed, feeling like he’d failed somewhere as he listened to himself talk. Words into a wire that bounced across oceans and deserts to his daughter’s room in suburban Virginia. He pictured her sitting in front of her iMac, surrounded by photos of the actors from Twilight. Vampires with six-packs. Kids who had never faced real physical danger in their lives.

He’d killed people. Witnessed drownings, decapitations, bombings, brutal hand-to-hand combat. The worst. Was that the life he wanted for his daughter? Hell, no!

He stopped. Did a mental one-eighty. “Sweetheart, I just want you to be happy. You decide what you want to do, I’ll support you one hundred percent. I love you more than life itself. You’re a wonderful girl.”

A moment of stunned silence from Jenny on the other end. When she finally spoke, she sounded more like herself. “That means a lot to me, Dad.”

“We’ll talk more about soccer when I get home. Sound good?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He felt something opening in his chest when Ritchie walked in and pointed at the glowing LED numbers on the clock. Dark eyes burning. Jaw clenched.

It was 12:14. Time to hump.

“I gotta go, sweetheart. I love you. Be your best.”

“Get home safe, Dad. We miss you.”

He bit his bottom lip and hung up. Looked at Ritchie standing there like Johnny Blaze from Ghost Rider. Black 5-11 pants. Black shirt with cargo pockets. Black belt. Half expected flames to start shooting out of his head.

“You get the things we talked about? We set to launch?”

“It’s all teed up for you, Tiger.”

“Tiger? Where the hell did that come from? You know I don’t play golf.”

Crocker checked his Suunto GPS watch, which featured separate fields that measured altitude and barometric pressure. It also had a 3-D compass, a bottom timer for diving, and a route planner.

Ritchie led the way to the service stairs, Cherokee cheekbones reflecting the fluorescent light. Black military boots echoing off the cinder block walls, then outside.

No one could mistake them for tourists now.

Beyond his shoulder a low hiss rose from the city, which threw off an eerie orange glow.

Crocker could practically smell the adrenaline pouring out of them as they crowded into the black Suburban. Davis, Ritchie, Mancini, Akil in a cloud of musk, always anticipating a chance to bump into an attractive female, even on an op.

Bull-necked Mancini, already starting to sweat, rechecked that every man was fully equipped-.45 Glocks in carbon holsters fitted with attached pistol lights and loaded with hollow-points, three mags, AK-47s with collapsible stocks with twenty-eight 7.62 x 39 rounds in each of the eight mags, knives, emergency medical gear, comms with earphones and throat mikes, GPS units, nylon black belts with heavy-duty belt rigs for rappelling.

He’d cleaned and inspected everything himself. Probably half a dozen times. No wonder he drove his wife crazy.

Crocker went over the plan again as Ritchie started the engine. “Target: Abu Rasul Zaman, aka AZ, forty-nine. Expect him to be accompanied by Islamic guards from Yemen. These guys will be ferocious. There’s a high probability that we’ll run into women and children, too. If the women aren’t armed, we don’t shoot. If they engage in aggressive action, do what you’ve gotta do. Our orders are to take AZ alive.”

Akil, as they pulled out of the parking lot: “I know his background. The guy’s a sadist, boss.”

“The Agency wants him alive, if possible.” They were on assignment to the CIA, which they had been doing often, especially since 9/11.

“Fuck the Agency.”

“Orders, Akil. No stepping out of line.”

“All right.”

Tires squealing, Crocker asked Ritchie, “You know where we’re going?”

“Is the pope Catholic?”

Davis shook his blond surfer hair and laughed. Ritchie amused him. Davis, like Ritchie, seemed like the most easygoing guy in the world, until he got into a fight.

Crocker handed out maps and the latest surveillance photos. He said: “AZ Central is a three-story concrete structure. First floor houses some kind of store. We think the second floor is being used for meeting rooms, offices. AZ and his men live on three.”

“Any intel on the interior?” Mancini asked.

“I’m expecting an interior stairway.”

“Maybe an elevator?”

“Three floors. Cheaply constructed. No visible motor on the roof.”

Mancini: “The motor might be housed in the basement.”

“The building doesn’t have a basement,” Akil countered.

Crocker continued. “Keep an eye out for booby traps. We might have to breach through security doors between floors.”

Each man had a specialty. Mancini handled equipment and weapons; Davis ran the comms; Akil, maps and logistics; Crocker had been trained as a corpsman (the navy’s version of a medic); Ritchie was the explosives expert and breacher. They were all the best in the world at what they did.

Ritchie asked, “Who’s driving the van with the explosives?”

Akil raised his hand. “I got that.”

Ritchie continued: “All right. Then drive her right up on the curb. I’ll set it off. Give you sixty seconds to seek cover.”

Akil frowned. “Don’t you think they’re gonna hear us? I mean, we’re pulling up right under their noses.”

“No, but-”

Crocker cut Ritchie off. “Akil’s right. Let’s do this one the old-fashioned way.” He pointed to the map. “Come up this perpendicular street. Tie a brick to the pedal. Keep that sucker in gear. You jump out here. What’s that, approximately?”

Mancini: “A hundred and fifty feet.”

Crocker: “That gives you approximately fifteen seconds to duck behind Warehouse One. Here.”

“No problem.”

“We’ll all deploy from Warehouse One.”

Akil nodded. “That works.”

Each man knew his assignment when they hit the target-who would insert where, who would cover left, who would cover right, fire positions, the appropriate hand and arm signals. They’d committed the basic layout of the building and street to memory.

Crocker, as the corpsman, carried specialized medical equipment on his back that enabled him to perform a cricothyrotomy, put in a chest tube, or do a cut-down to clear an airway, if needed. In addition, each man had a blowout patch in his pocket-a four-by-four-inch battle dressing to control major bleeding.

“Any more questions?” he asked.

No one answered.

“Let’s go.”

They’d taken the Shahrah-e-Faisal and had entered central Karachi over the Napier Mole Bridge, gunning by the port and passing sleeping heroin addicts, barking pye-dogs, roaming bands of toughs looking for an unguarded car to jack. The choking stench of kerosene heaters and burning garbage from squatter camps seeped in through the ventilation.

They rode in silence, individual thoughts and emotions filling the vehicle with tension.

To Crocker’s right, billboards hawked Wonder Super Slim cigarettes and a movie called Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year. Whatever that was.

It appeared that nothing had been left untouched by human hands. Even the air was crowded with smoke and the stink of oil and rotting fish and garbage from the nearby port.

Ritchie pointed through the windshield down a potholed street that ran parallel to the train tracks. “She’s parked down there.”

“Who?”

“The van, Manny. Who do you think?”

The glow of the dim yellow streetlight barely reached the back bumper of the battered gray Econoline van. Mancini, who read Arabic, pointed out jidahist graffiti sprayed on one side that translated roughly to “All infidels will be vanquished.”

“Nice touch.”

Crocker checked his watch. At fifteen minutes shy of three the temp felt like it had already pushed past ninety again. Putrid air clung to his skin like a warm wet towel.

They did a final gear and commo check, then loaded and press-checked their weapons. Ritchie found a chunk of concrete to fix to the pedal. Mancini produced a roll of duct tape to hold it in place.

The SUV went in first. Cut the lights three blocks away. Pulled into the dirt parking lot at the back of what they had designated Warehouse One. True to the surveillance photos, it was a raw concrete structure with most of the windows punched out.

They parked next to the carcass of an old yellow bus sitting in one corner with weeds thriving around it.

Warehouse One was directly across the street from AZ Central, the apartment building that, according to the latest intel, housed Zaman and his thugs.

It took Davis twenty seconds to pick the lock to Warehouse One.

The inside was crowded with old refrigerators and parts: stacks of condensers, fan motors, thermostats, water valves, copper tubing. Davis kneeled to read the label on one of the steel drums.

“What is it?” Crocker asked.

“Acetone,” Davis answered.

Mancini spoke up. “A solvent. Auto-ignites at around eight hundred and seventy degrees Fahrenheit. When mixed with oxygen, danger of explosion or flash fire.”

Count on Mancini to know shit like that.

Mancini: “This place is an accident waiting to happen.”

Davis: “Thanks, professor.”

Crocker: “We can’t launch from here. Someone needs to surveil the place down the street.”

That would usually be Akil’s job, but he was in the van. Davis volunteered.

The blond-haired SEAL ran off and soon was back, breathing hard. “Filled with scrap metal, boss,” he reported. “No chemical drums. Nothing flammable. Looks like it hasn’t been used in months.”

“Radio Akil. Tell him we’ll deploy from the back of Warehouse Two. Tell him: Roll left. Make sure he knows his left from his right.”

Davis smiled, readied his radio. “He might need help with that.”

“Move out.”

Back into the SUV. Lights out across the broken-up street.

The SEALs surveyed the scene from the back wall of Warehouse Two. This one was lower and shabbier. A slab concrete roof. No windows in the rear. Crocker concluded there was minimal danger of anything falling on their heads.

“We’re good.”

“Yo.”

“Remember, keep an eye out for civilians. We’re trying to take AZ alive.”

“Roger that.”

Ritchie ran in a crouch to the far corner to recon the target approximately two hundred feet and forty-five degrees to the right.

“Light on the third floor. Some movement,” he reported back.

“Give Akil the signal.”

“Romeo, this is Def Jam One…”

Half a minute later, the van sailed past, groaning slightly. They watched Akil roll out. One somersault and he was on his feet and running, his smile catching the half-moon light. Like an actor winking at his audience. Smooth.

Crocker couldn’t help but laugh inside.

“You see that, boss?”

“Fucking show-off. Cover your ears! Hit the ground!”

Fourteen seconds. Fifteen. The van’s tires hit the curb and the back fishtailed right. For a second it looked like the Econoline was going to flip over on its side, but the rear panel smacked the corner of the building with a crash.

Ritchie pushed the digital signal that activated the detonator. A fraction of a second later a huge explosion split the air and propelled out like an angry god spreading his arms. The force lifted all five men half a foot off the ground. A hot, churning wind blew past their faces. Chunks of concrete and shards of metal pelted everything around them.

Then a moment of silence, punctuated by a woman’s scream from the apartment house.

Crocker whispered urgently into his headset: “Now!”

They rose up as one and deployed as planned. Davis and Mancini approached the front. Ritchie ran left along the side street. Crocker and Akil crossed to cover the right of the building and the back.

The three-story apartment looked like a layer cake that had collapsed on one side-the left front. The charred wreckage of the van was barely visible past what had been the roof. The right side, particularly the rear of the structure, was more or less intact. Which meant survivors. Stunned, no doubt.

Crocker heard someone screaming in Arabic as he crossed the street. Dust and smoke rolling out in thick waves.

He motioned to Akil to circle around back, while he stopped at a side door that had shifted so that the top leaned forward. One kick from his boot smashed it in.

Angry flames shot out. He jumped back.

That’s when he heard a peal of automatic-weapon fire from his right, reverberating off the wall.

Akil’s voice in his earbud: “Shooter back of Z Central. Second floor.”

The firing immediately picked up. Lead splattered and ricocheted off the concrete walls.

“Manny, Def, what have you got?”

“Rubble, dust, and smoke. Can’t see shit.”

“Manny, you cover. Def, help Romeo in back.”

“Roger,” Ritchie replied.

Crocker pried the side door open and, using a plastic garbage can lid to shield himself from the flames, entered. Immediately felt the heat.

The first-floor store appeared to sell cleaning supplies-mops, brooms, floor polishers, wax. A brilliant orange-blue against the opposite wall was spreading, consuming god knows what. More flames to his immediate left.

He hung a sharp right and was crossing to the stairway in the corner when something exploded and knocked him off his feet.

Fuck.

As he got his boots under him, thick black smoke twisted around his head, crawled down his throat. Smelled like burning rubber. Worse.

Hearing footsteps, he got into a crouch and readied his weapon.

A shadow fell across the second-floor landing, then disappeared. Crocker was about to squeeze the trigger when he spotted a pair of skinny bare legs emerging from the gray smoke and saw that they belonged to a boy in underpants carrying a red plastic truck.

Seeing the American soldier, the little boy froze halfway down and looked back at two women in dark brown burkas. Faces obscured in shadows and cloth. Was one of them the boy’s mother? The taller of the two cradled something wrapped in a blanket.

Crocker, assuming it was a baby, held a finger to his lips and waved them down. Whispered: “Come on. Come on.”

All three descended quickly and passed Crocker without uttering a word.

Then the whoosh of a rocket and an explosion out back.

Crocker, into his microphone: “What the fuck was that?”

“RPG fired from the back window. A panic shot. Landed near the tracks.”

He turned back to catch a glimpse of the taller woman in the doorway. Caught the corner of her left eye in the shadows. Onyx black, defiant. Crocker didn’t have time to consider what it meant. AK-47 ready, he hurried up the concrete steps two at a time.

The second floor was completely dark. Desk and chairs overturned. A blackboard swaying from one hook. Papers scattered everywhere.

Sweat rolled down his legs into his boots. Footsteps moved frantically overhead.

They know they’re trapped.

He had a choice. Retreat outside and wait for the smoke and flames to force the terrorists out, or push forward.

But how long would it be before Pakistani security forces showed up? Fifteen minutes? Twenty at the most? This op was considered so sensitive that the Pakistanis hadn’t been informed ahead of time. Which meant that he and his men had to vanish before they arrived.

As Crocker considered, the third-floor door opened and a man quickly descended three steps holding an AK-47 like his. Heavyset, hairy legs. A big stomach that protruded from the bottom of a white T-shirt.

Crocker didn’t stick around to glimpse his face. Instead, he crouched behind the stairs and waited. Remembering to breathe deeply; heart bouncing in his chest.

When he saw two sets of bare legs near the bottom, he sprung out and, squeezing off a long salvo, cut down both men just below their knees.

Screams of agony. Both of them firing wildly as their femurs gave way and they stumbled down the last five steps. One with a long beard landed on his face. Orange-red blood sprayed out and splattered the wall.

As per team SOP, Crocker finished them both off with bullets directed at their heads.

Akil radioed to say he was ready to toss a couple of fragmentation grenades through the back window. Two explosions lifted Crocker off his feet, like riding a bucking bronco.

What remained was mainly mop-up after that. Crocker called Mancini and Ritchie.

“Get in here fast! Help me search the place and ID the victims.”

“Did we get AZ?”

“I think so.”

Six Arabic-looking men lay dead. Five had heavy beards.

One had tried to jump out the back window. Another two appeared to have taken their own lives. The last lay in a pool of blood by the third-floor window, bleeding from the neck.

Crocker instructed Mancini to photograph the men’s faces. He and the other three grabbed what looked important-a couple of laptops, identification papers, wallets, a cell phone, some ledgers-and out they all went.

Back in the SUV. Cranking their way over the Napier Mole Bridge just as the Pak Capital City Police were starting to close it down.

From the driver’s seat Akil said, “That was close.”

“Which one of them was Zaman?”

Crocker: “My money says it was one of those ugly dudes at the bottom of the stairs.”

Akil: “Who’s taking bets?”

Crocker craned his neck to study the digital images on Mancini’s camera. They all agreed that with the black beards, it was hard to tell.

But Crocker had a nagging feeling.

In the backseat, Davis was slicing open Ritchie’s pants to expose his wounded leg.

“What happened?”

“Ripped a nasty gash on a piece of metal.”

“You up-to-date on your tetanus?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

Nothing life-threatening. But it had to be attended to soon.

Crocker said to Akil, “Pull over for a second so I can get back there and clean it.”

He and Davis traded positions, then Crocker extracted gauze and Bacitracin from his emergency medical kit.

They were already halfway to the safe house in Karsaz, near the golf course. There they would find a surgeon waiting. Warm showers, beer, sandwiches, fresh clothes.

Crocker, from the backseat, said, “Brothers…well done.”