SEAL Team Six Hunt the Falcon(82)
Crocker had been to Tehran but had never set foot in Ahvaz, which he now learned is a city of approximately 1.5 million on the banks of the Karun River. Located in the Khuzestan desert and surrounded by sandstone hills, Ahvaz, according to the Weather Channel website, is one of the hottest cities on the planet, with the average high temperature in July a toasty 115.2 degrees and peaks regularly hitting 120. The city also had the distinction of being the world’s most polluted, according to the World Health Organization, with an annual average of 372 micrograms of airborne particles per cubic meter of air. Washington, D.C., by contrast, had a level of 18 micrograms, and Tokyo 23. The WHO study cited sulfur dioxide and nitrogen exhaust from nearby power plants, burn-off from oil wells, and vehicle exhaust as the main pollutants.
Not a great place to live, Crocker thought. Neighboring Iraq had attempted to annex the city in 1980 during the Iran-Iraq War. Reading further, he learned that a minority of the area’s residents are Arabs rather than Persians, which might have explained Saddam Hussein’s ambitions—either that, or it was further evidence that the man had been insane.
They landed just before midnight. Driving home with Elvis crooning “Something” over the radio, his brain jumped ahead, calculating where his team would insert, what they’d need in terms of equipment and support, and how they’d move within Ahvaz. He couldn’t help himself, even though he was tired and a final decision regarding the scope and target of the mission hadn’t been reached. Outside it was cold and windy. As a kid in Massachusetts, he liked to sleep in front of the fireplace on nights like this.
The grandfather clock on the second floor chimed the quarter hour as he entered, patted Brando on the head, and started upstairs. He was looking forward to the warm bed he shared with Holly, but the door to the master bedroom was locked. Wondering why, and realizing this had never happened before, he tried the door again. He considered opening the couch in his office and sleeping there so as not to wake her, but he was worried, and decided to knock instead. “Holly?” he called. “Holly, are you okay?”
Half a minute later she opened the door. Wearing a long cotton nightgown, she looked disheveled and tired, with a bandage on her chin. “You’re home,” she said, half asleep and heading back to the bed.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked. “How come you locked the door?”
“I thought I heard something downstairs.”
“It’s windy outside. Could’ve been a tree branch.” He saw her 9mm automatic on the nightstand next to her side of the bed. “What happened to your chin?”
“I went downstairs to check on the noise. I wasn’t completely awake. I slipped on the stairs and tripped. Silly me.”
He took her by the hand, sat her on the edge of the bed, and cleaned and rebandaged the cut on her chin. Then he checked her teeth and found no damage. “You hurt anything else?” he asked.
“Not really, except for my pride,” she answered, looking embarrassed. Staring at the carpet, she shook her head and asked, “What’s wrong with me, Tom?” with sad resignation in her voice.
He put his arms around her and said, “Nothing that a little time, rest, and tender loving care won’t fix.”
“Oh, Tom.” They kissed. She felt delicate and tender in his arms. He wanted to make her better, and protect her, and wash away all the guilt and anguish that clouded her soul.
Gently, he pushed her back onto the bed, lay down beside her, and held her hand. Another hungry part of him wanted to make love to her, but he knew the time wasn’t right.
In the morning when Crocker got out of the shower, Holly was gone. Lying on a chair by the bed he saw a book called Healing after Loss. The subtitle read: Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief.
Twenty minutes later he arrived at ST-6 headquarters and found Sutter sitting in the same uniform he’d worn the day before, his stockinged feet on the desk, reading a document as he sipped from a mug of coffee with a trident on it.
“Captain?”
He looked up and set the mug down on his desk. “Sit down, Crocker. How many times have you seen the movie Lawrence of Arabia?” he asked in his backcountry drawl.
“I don’t know. Half a dozen. Why?”
“Fascinating story, on so many levels. I couldn’t fall asleep last night, so I streamed it twice on my computer. The different tribes, the desert, a hero wrestling with his own internal demons. Kind of reminded me of you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Inspired me, too. One highly motivated man can make a difference, especially if he understands the culture of the people he’s dealing with,” Sutter said as he tossed the document he was holding at him. “Read this.”