“Excellent. My family met me in Hawaii for four days in paradise. You ever been to Maui?”
“Maui, yeah. Fabulous place,” he said automatically. He’d spent two weeks there with a wild Australian chick between his first and second marriages, diving, windsurfing, and making love. Pretty much knew the island by heart. But that felt like another lifetime.
He was remembering a drive through the mist and fog up to Haleakala volcano as they took their seats in Sutter’s office. The captain explained that he had just gotten off the phone with Jim Anders’s boss at CIA, Chief of Operations Lou Donaldson.
Crocker winced at the mention of Donaldson’s name. Although he’d been told many times by third parties how much Donaldson admired Crocker’s team’s work, the two men had never gotten along. Crocker thought of him as a headstrong, rude SOB.
Sutter cleared his throat and spoke with a smooth, deep Kentucky accent, which had the effect of putting people at ease. “Crocker, you get a chance to read the post-op report about the fighting at OPM in Nuristan?”
“No, I haven’t, sir,” he answered, bracing himself for what he thought was coming next and folding his hands in his lap. The office was large and outfitted with handsome nautical-style furniture.
“Apparently some of the RPGs and heavier artillery rounds fired were provided by a covert Iranian group called Unit 5000.”
Crocker was intrigued. “Unit 5000. What’s that?” he asked, running through a mental Rolodex of names and acronyms. “I thought the Iranians were working exclusively with the Shiite groups in western Afghanistan.”
“Not when they have a chance to kill Americans.”
“I’ve never heard of them before,” Crocker said, leaning forward in the brown leather chair.
“We’ll get back to them in a minute,” Anders answered. “First, I want to talk to you about the car bombings in Bangkok and Athens last week. You hear about them?”
“I read something in the newspaper, that’s all,” Crocker answered, wondering why Anders had changed the subject.
“Take a look at this,” Sutter said, handing Crocker a green folder. Inside were a series of photographs of the twisted, burned carcasses of eight cars and SUVs. His stomach started to turn. Beneath the photos was a list of the Americans killed and wounded. Glancing at it, he recognized one of the names—John Rinehart. He and Rinehart had met ten months ago in Kabul, while Rinehart was attending an economic conference there and Crocker was training the security detail assigned to protect President Karzai. Rinehart had struck him as a gentle, intelligent, academic type.
“These bomb attacks resulted in more than a dozen deaths of U.S., Israeli, and Saudi diplomats, and those unfortunate individuals who were riding in the vehicles with them,” Sutter said.
“Tragic,” Crocker muttered, remembering the night run he and Rinehart had completed together around Bagram Airfield.
“And scores of locals who happened to be in the vicinity either killed or wounded,” Anders added.
“Where did you say these bombings took place?” Crocker asked, looking from Sutter to Anders.
“Bangkok, Athens, Rome, Mumbai, and Cairo.”
Bangkok is where Rinehart had told him he was stationed.
“Who was the perpetrator?” Crocker asked, thinking that most people didn’t appreciate the risk diplomats took when they served overseas.
Anders said, “Unit 5000.”
“Oh,” Crocker groaned. “Again?”
“Unit 5000 is a special, ultrasecret branch of the Iranian Quds Force, and the brainchild of your old nemesis Farhed Alizadeh,” Anders continued. “Code name the Falcon.”
The mention of Alizadeh’s name caused Crocker’s whole body to heat up. Alizadeh was the evil fuck he’d first encountered trying to steal nuclear material from an Australian cargo ship off the coast of Somalia. Alizadeh later attempted another theft of nuclear material in Libya, which Crocker and his team thwarted, and hired a group of local militiamen to kidnap Crocker’s wife. Now he was supplying heavy arms to the Taliban and killing American diplomats all over the world.
“The Falcon,” Crocker repeated, picturing Alizadeh’s sinister, dark, deep-set eyes, short stature, and acne-scarred face covered with a short black beard. “Where’s that little bastard now?”
“I wish I knew,” Anders answered, reaching into an aluminum briefcase.
“So do I. Tenfold.”
“You ever see one of these?” Anders asked. He handed Crocker a black metal object that looked like a miniature hockey puck. The underside of it was covered with tiny silver-colored balls.