SEAL Team Six Hunt the Scorpion(17)
“Do you know what was in the barrels?”
“I do, but you didn’t hear it from me.”
Crocker nodded.
“High-strength aluminum alloy. Component parts for L-2 centrifuges manufactured by Scomi Precision Engineering in Malaysia. High-speed triggers made in China.”
“So Iran really is trying to build nuclear weapons.”
Wolfson folded his hands on the table and said, “Correct. And they’ve been playing a double game. Holding talks to stall the international community and playing up to China, which is secretly supplying them with parts, while working pedal-to-the-floor to build a bomb.”
“How close are they?”
“That depends on who you talk to.”
“What do you think?” Crocker asked.
“Most experts agree that they lack two things: some of the high-tech parts needed to build one, and enough enriched uranium.”
“Hence the high-speed triggers and parts in the barrels on the Contessa.”
“Exactly.”
Chapter Four
It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.
—Robert W. Service
It took approximately two days for Seal Team Six to reach southern Morocco. First they flew ten hours to Gatwick Airport in London, then after a three-hour layover caught a charter to Ouarzazate, Morocco, known as the door of the desert—a quiet, dusty Berber town of fifty thousand built around a central street. Back in the early ’60s it had served as the location for the desert scenes in Lawrence of Arabia.
African traders had been using it as a crossroads for centuries. For many modern Europeans, it was a holiday destination and a launching point for excursions into the Sahara. Features included palm groves and kasbahs, earthen structures with high walls and tiny windows.
They chose an old man with a white wisp of beard to escort them to the hotel. As they drove through the dusty, sleepy streets, Akil, the handsome, single Egyptian American on the team, regaled them with stories of his sexual adventures with a beautiful blond runner from Norway whom he had met on a trip to Patagonia.
“She kept me up all night. Couldn’t get enough.”
“Of what?” Ritchie asked. “The bullshit stories you were feeding her?”
“Don’t expect that to happen here,” Crocker said. “The few female entrants registered for this event will be too exhausted to do anything but ask you to massage their feet. So will you.”
Akil: “Envy is a green-eyed monster.”
Mancini: “Maybe one day when you drop the BS you’ll find a woman you love who loves you back.”
Ritchie: “Unlikely.”
Cal sat in the back, plugged into his iPod.
“What are you listening to?” Davis asked.
“Gotye.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t know ‘Somebody That I Used to Know?’ ”
“Never heard of it.”
Cal passed his earbuds to Davis.
Crocker said, “Instead of dicking around and playing music, you guys might want to start thinking about the race.”
Akil: “After what we went through last time in the Himalayas, this will be a piece of cake.”
“You think so? We’re looking at running the equivalent of five and a half marathons in hundred-and-twenty-degree heat. And we have to carry everything we need, except water, in rucksacks on our backs.”
“That’s why it’s considered the toughest footrace on the planet,” Mancini added.
“I’ll take the heat over the freezing cold anytime,” Akil said.
Ritchie: “And you’ll probably be the first one to pussy out.”
“I never backed out of fucking anything.”
“We’ll see how long you last.”
They stayed at a hotel inside the medina with a view of the valley and nearby reservoir. After a dinner of Berber spiced chicken and goat-cheese fritters, they sat in the lounge on the roof, sipped local bottled beer, and went over the plans for the race.
Crocker had put Mancini in charge of procuring and shipping all equipment and supplies. Besides running shoes big enough to comfortably accommodate swollen feet, shorts, tees, Adidas Explorer sunglasses, Cobbers, Skins compression vests, RailRiders Adventure shirts with front pockets, CW-X three-quarter-length compression tights, Injinji bamboo liners and SmartWool cushioned socks, Inov-8 390 boots, Sandbaggers gaiters, Buff headbands, RaidLight trekking poles, PHD Minimus sleeping bags, Platypus hot water bag with lid, ProLite 3 sleeping mat, titanium Esbit Wing Stove combination 900-milliliter cooking pot, titanium spork, disposable lighters with disco lights, toilet paper, alcohol hand gel, iPod, Suunto watches with heart-rate monitors, scarves, and hats, each man had to carry a rucksack packed with 14,000 calories of food—M&Ms, instant noodles, expedition meals, muesli, Honey Stinger Gel—extra clothing, gaffer’s tape, antivenom pump, compass, sunscreen, head torch with spare battery, disinfectant, Endurolytes, electrolytes, knives, safety pins, signaling mirror, space blanket, rehydration sachets, and whistle.