SEAL Team Six Hunt the Falcon(83)
Crocker caught it and quickly scanned the two-page report on Scimitar, which had nothing to do with tribes or the desert, but briefly described a group of twelve young Iranians who had been working clandestinely with the CIA to help sabotage the Iranian government. The report didn’t mention what they had managed to accomplish so far or their capabilities. Their leader was a man named Ramin.
Sutter asked, “What do you think?”
“Interesting. But what did you mean about me wrestling with my personal demons?”
“Oh, that.” Sutter smiled, scratched his jaw, took a long drink of coffee, and picked up another document from his desk. “Remember the psych evaluation I told Doc Petrovian to administer to you? Well, he concluded that you’re a combination of an aggressive PT and an introverted intuitive.”
“What do you mean by PT?” Crocker asked.
“It stands for personality type,” Sutter answered. “Don’t get all worked up. What he’s saying is that you display the characteristics of an ideal leader, but you’re also conflicted.”
“Conflicted how?” Crocker asked, starting to feel defensive.
“It means you like being able to dominate and command others and exercise power, but you also like to stay in the background until you feel the need to take over. So you like being part of a traditional power structure, but you’re also someone who primarily trusts his intuition, which makes you a loner and a rebel. You’re active and adventurous, but you also need time alone to sit back and observe the world and make associations.”
“Petrovian said that?” Crocker asked.
“Sound like you?” Sutter asked back.
“Kind of.”
Sutter got up and refilled his mug from a stainless-steel urn behind his desk. “Forget about the psychological profile for the time being.”
“Sir—”
“I need you to do two things. One, select three men to go with you into Iran.”
“Only three, sir?” Crocker asked.
“Yes, three. Don’t fight me on this. I want you to consider carefully what you’re going to need in terms of operational specialties, personal characteristics, and language skills.”
“I still don’t know the specific mission.”
Sutter leaned back and yawned. “I won’t be able to tell you that until it’s approved by the president.”
“When’s that likely to happen?”
“Today. Tomorrow. Figure another four hours after that, we’ll want you to deploy.”
Crocker stood at attention. “That soon, sir?”
“Yes, that soon.” Sutter rose and handed him a blue notecard with a name written on it. “Here’s the second thing I need you to do.”
Crocker read the name and asked, “Who’s John Smith?”
“Some deep, deep black-ops guy Donaldson says you need to coordinate with.”
“When and where, sir?’
“Turn over the card.”
On the other side Crocker read “Williamsburg Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia,” and “Twelve thirty p.m.” He’d attended a wedding reception there once.
“Today, sir?”
Sutter nodded. “By the way, Doc Petrovian told me some of the other people with your combination of personality traits include Al Capone, Fidel Castro, and Jeffrey Dahmer.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m thinking of sending someone over to your house to see what you store in your freezer.”
“I hope that’s a joke, sir.”
Sutter laughed.
He entered the spacious white lobby of the Williamsburg Lodge—a sprawling two-story colonial-style inn a block or so from the historic center. At the front desk he asked for Mr. Smith.
“Is Mr. Smith a guest here?” the thin male clerk with stiff brown hair asked.
“I don’t know. But he asked me to meet him here.”
“Your name, sir?”
“Mansfield.”
The clerk turned, consulted a computer screen, whispered to an older clerk, then returned and said, “Mr. Smith is waiting for you in the Golden Horseshoe Grill.”
“Where’s that?”
“Take that hallway straight back, past the big fireplace. You’ll see the entrance on the left.”
“Thanks.”
Entering the room, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the low light. The walls were paneled with walnut. Old wagon wheel fixtures hung from the ceiling. A man with a white apron stretched across his big belly polished glasses with a white towel behind the bar.
“John Smith?” Crocker asked.
The bartender shrugged and nodded toward a big man in the darkness at the end of the bar as if to say, try him. The man he indicated had gray hair to his shoulders and was speaking on a cell phone.