“Where are we now?” Crocker asked.
“This is a garbage dump. I have to talk to Rahman.”
“Is it okay if Akil goes with you?”
Danush considered for a moment and nodded. Akil left his submachine gun on the floor in front.
Crocker watched them disappear behind the trucks. Fifteen long minutes stretched by, according to his watch.
“Wasn’t Rahman the name of that blind cleric who helped plan the first World Trade Center attack?” Ritchie asked.
“Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman,” Mancini answered. “He was an Egyptian cleric who ended up preaching at some mosque in Brooklyn. In his sermons he told fellow Muslims it was okay to rob banks and kill Jews. He said Americans were descendants of apes and pigs who had been feeding off the scraps from the tables of Zionists.”
“I had a feeling you’d know that,” Ritchie said. “Where’s that blind camel-fucker now?”
“Living in Ahvaz, Iran,” Mancini answered.
“Very funny.”
Mancini: “Last I heard he was serving a life sentence for conspiracy at some federal pen in the U.S.”
“Nice.”
Crocker saw the dark outline of a man climb into one of the trucks. The engine started. Then he noticed Akil waving from the back. When the headlights came on he saw that it was a Scania garbage truck for industrial bins, with a front loader arm and hydraulic lift that rested on top of the cab.
Crocker turned to Ritchie and said, “Go see what Akil wants.”
Ritchie ran back two minutes later. The pupils of his dark eyes were drawn tight. “The truck is going to take us. Bring the gear!” he shouted through the window.
Rahman was a short, squat, thick-armed man with thick black hair, a mustache and goatee. He looked like a wrestler, and wiped sweat and dust off his face with a blue bandana as he conversed with Akil.
Akil: “He wants us to ride in the back, and he wants to cover us with garbage.”
“Garbage?”
“To hide us,” Akil explained.
“Tell him to make sure it’s dry,” Ritchie commented. “I don’t want any liquids or toxic chemicals dripping on me and burning into my skin.”
“Since when did you grow a pussy and become a Kardashian?” Akil asked.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Guys. Guys,” Crocker said, cutting them off and aware that they were all getting revved up. “Okay, Rahman’s driving us to the theater. Does he think he can get past the guards on the street?”
Akil nodded. “He believes so. Yeah.”
“Then he’s the man. Load in!”
One after the other, the SEALs climbed up the tall sides into the hopper and hid between the hydraulically powered moving metal wall and the rear panel of the truck. Rahman and another man covered them with stacks of cardboard boxes.
When Rahman said something in Farsi, Akil laughed.
“What’s funny?” Crocker asked.
“He told me a joke. He asked me, What do you call a Persian woman who knows where her husband is all the time?”
“What?”
“A widow.”
“Fuck, that’s bad.”
“Iranians aren’t known for their sense of humor.”
“Let’s hope this isn’t his idea of a sick joke,” Ritchie said.
There was nothing in the hopper to hold on to, so each time the truck hit a bump, they flew into the air, and each time it turned, they rolled into one another. The experience reminded Crocker of a ride at an amusement park, minus the sodas and cotton candy. Half an hour of jostling and bouncing later, the truck stopped and Ritchie threw up.
“Hold your breath,” Crocker whispered when he heard someone climb the metal steps, then poke into the boxes overhead. Tense seconds passed with fingers on triggers and safeties open. Any moment Crocker was expecting something sharp to slice into him.
The four SEALs exhaled together as the footsteps descended. Ritchie stunk to high heaven.
The truck lurched forward, turned right twice, then started backing up. It stopped abruptly. Ten minutes passed before someone slapped the side of the hopper twice. Akil climbed out to look. He slapped the side three more times, and Crocker and the other two SEALs pushed off the boxes and got out.
Each man took some welcome breaths of fresh air as they squeezed past green dumpsters and entered the dark rear of the theater. Crocker, Mancini, and Ritchie climbed up to the third-floor landing where they waited for Akil and Rahman.
When Rahman arrived, he opened a metal door with a key on his belt and led them through a dark lobby that smelled of butter and popcorn. They followed him into a dark movie theater. Using a flashlight he borrowed from Akil, Rahman found the place on the wall where the connecting door to the neighboring building had once been.