SEAL Team Six Hunt the Falcon(84)

“John?” Crocker asked.

The big man nodded and pointed a finger at the lounge, which was empty except for three elderly couples, two of whom were seated together. Crocker selected a table in the far corner by a window that overlooked the golf course. It was overcast outside. Two men passed in a golf cart, one wearing a pink sweater and green pants.

“What are we doing here?” Crocker heard a deep voice ask.

He looked up and saw the big man standing behind a chair on the other side of the table.

“John Smith?” No way that was his real name.

The man sat. He had huge shoulders, no neck, and a very strong and unusual face—large hooked nose, high cheekbones, a prominent forehead with thick black eyebrows. He looked like a Bedouin chieftain, despite the straight gray hair, which Crocker realized was a wig, and the mustard-tinted glasses that hid his eyes.

“You play?” Smith asked, setting his BlackBerry on the table and nodding toward the course.

“Never.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“You?”

Smith smiled without showing any teeth. “I do a little of everything. You want me to play golf, I play golf. You want to play tennis, I play tennis. You like to dance the mambo, I learn to do that, too.”

Crocker said, “Lou Donaldson asked me to meet you.”

“Louie the doughnut, yeah. I let him think he’s my boss.” Smith twisted his mouth and lifted his eyebrows, a set of facial contortions that seemed to express the complex feelings he had about him. “You want to hear about Scimitar?”

“Yeah.”

The young waitress arrived. Crocker ordered a steak sandwich with fries. Smith told the waitress he was fasting and only wanted a glass of water with a twist of lemon. Then he leaned over the table and said in a low voice, “Whatever you’ve heard about Scimitar, I’m afraid to say, is probably an exaggeration. I’m the only one who has actually met and worked with these people. They’re real, and they have provided us with some good intel. But they’re not much.”

The cold water left a metallic taste in Crocker’s mouth. “Not much in what sense?”

“Operationally, I’d say, they’re useless. They can help you get around, show you places, hide you, feed you, et cetera. But with the exception of maybe two individuals, I’m not sure they can even fire a gun.”

“Tell me about the composition of the group,” Crocker said.

“There are about ten core members. Four of them are women. All of them are college educated, modern people. They hate the religious repression and long for a more open, tolerant, European-style representative government. The leader is a man called Ramin Kian, who was a former engineer in the army. He’s the oldest; I’d say late thirties, maybe forty. Ramin’s an emotional guy, passionate, but something of a flake.”

“A flake in what sense?”

“What I mean is, when he gets excited about something, he can be highly engaged and effective. But he loses interest quickly. He’s also a coward.”

“Does he know anything about this operation?” Crocker asked.

“I communicated with him last night—I can’t reveal how. But I can tell you, he’s very pumped about it, which is a positive.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him the U.S. was interested in launching an attack against Quds Force headquarters or possibly some of its leaders. He said an attack on Quds Force HQ is impossible.”

“Did he explain why?”

“Why? Because the building is heavily fortified and the streets around it are barricaded and monitored twenty-four/seven.”

“There’s always a way,” Crocker said.

“I’m repeating what he told me. In his opinion, any assault on their HQ would require helicopters and at least two dozen heavily armed troops, so it’s out of the question.”

“In his opinion.”

“We’re relying on the intel he provides, so his opinion counts a ton, especially in the minds of Donaldson and other decision makers,” Smith said.

Crocker nodded. “I get it.”

Smith’s eyes followed a female golfer who was passing by the window. “Ramin had another suggestion,” he said.

The waitress arrived with Crocker’s food. As he bit into the sandwich, Smith asked, “You ever hear of Futsal?”

“Futsal. No.”

“It’s a variation of soccer that’s played indoors on a hard surface. Two teams of five players each, one of whom is the goalkeeper.”

“Yeah?”

“Apparently it’s a big sport in Iran, with professional leagues. It happens to be very popular in Ahvaz. Ramin has a close friend who owns a team and an arena. He says Farhed Alizadeh and General Suleimani are big fans of a team called Farsh Sari, in division two of the super league. They regularly attend games at this guy’s arena and sit together in specially reserved seats.”