SEAL Team Six Hunt the Scorpion(37)
“Sure does.”
Crocker spent that night dreaming about his mother. He saw her barefoot in the kitchen, making pancakes. Then he hid from her as she called him to come with her to church.
He woke before dawn, breakfasted on yogurt, cereal, and oranges. Ran ten miles, did some calisthenics, then showered and watched the kids next door pedal their bicycles up and down the street. Two brothers ages six and eight, named Bouba and Mohi. The younger one, Bouba, was having trouble reaching the pedals, so Crocker adjusted the seat as their father smoked a cigarette and watched silently from the front gate.
“Great kids,” Crocker said.
The father smiled and nodded.
Just before eight Lasher arrived with a short older man with thinning gray hair and a tight smile. “This is Dr. Jabril,” Lasher said. “He used to run Colonel Gaddafi’s chemical weapons program, before he was dismissed in 2002 and thrown in jail.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Dr. Jabril has been living in exile in southern France. He agreed to return to Libya and help us.”
That meant that the CIA had probably paid him a shitload of money.
Jabril said, “I hope I can make a small contribution to the future of my country. It looks like it needs all the help it can get.”
After saying good-bye to Cal, they all drove in a black Chevy Suburban to the Corniche and hung a left. The city was slowly coming to life under low-lying gray clouds. Vendors, most of them male, were setting out their goods—bags of fresh oranges, dates, and tangerines, pistachio nuts, spices, tribal rugs, cartons of cigarettes, counterfeit CDs and DVDs. Traffic was light, bikes, motorcycles, a few cars and trucks driving at their customary ninety miles an hour.
What’s the hurry? Crocker wondered as he tried to orient himself to the layout of the city.
After a few miles following the coast, they approached the Sheraton on their right. Crocker’s stomach tightened. The thick burning smell—a combination of electrical wire, other building materials, and death—made him nauseous. It reminded him of the spilled guts and blood, his buddy Al Cowens.
“That’s it. Right, boss?” Akil asked from the backseat.
“Yeah.” Covering his nose.
The streets leading to the hotel were blocked and manned by NATO and NTC soldiers wearing red berets. Two unmarked helicopters swooped overhead.
“Nice of them to secure it now,” Davis remarked.
“You got that right.”
People tended to respond to specific types of threats after the fact, which was a problem if the terrorists stayed a step ahead. Crocker thought they should be pursuing the men who had attacked the hotel. The fact that they weren’t made him angry.
After forty-five minutes of bouncing down the potholed highway, they reached the Busetta naval base. Lasher and Jabril got out and spoke in Arabic to armed men guarding the gate.
When the conversation had gone on for more than five minutes, Crocker turned to Akil and asked, “Can you understand what’s going on?”
“They showed them a letter from Abdurrahim El-Keib, who is the prime minister of the National Transitional Council. But I don’t think the guards can read.”
Crocker: “Get out and tell them that if they don’t let us in, we’ll arrest them.”
“And what happens if they resist? We’re unarmed.”
“We’ll kick their asses anyway.”
Akil: “Chill, boss. It’s hardly worth the risk.”
He was right. Even though Akil sometimes acted like an immature asshole, Crocker appreciated the fact that he wasn’t afraid to tell his boss when he thought he was out of line.
After a few more minutes of arguing, the guards stepped aside and waved them in.
The place was a wreck. Bombed-out hangars and warehouses, scorched pieces of sheet-metal roof flapping in the breeze. They passed burnt-out trucks and jeeps.
Jabril said, “I heard that Belgian and Spanish warplanes attacked this place in early March of last year, after Gaddafi had already moved most of his ships out to sea. He tried to disguise them.”
“What did he have in terms of a navy?”
“Several Koni-class missile frigates he bought from the Soviets, some minesweepers, six Foxtrot-class submarines built in the nineteen sixties.”
“Why? What was the threat?”
“They were mainly defensive weapons. The colonel was deeply paranoid.”
“You knew him well?”
Jabril shook his head. “Not well. I met with him several times and listened to his vision for Africa and our country. He did most of the talking. He was convinced of his own brilliance. Nobody around him was allowed to disagree.”
Mancini came back from inspecting the burned-out vehicles and said, “They’re all Soviet era, Russian made. Mostly T-72 and T-54 tanks, BTR-60 eight-wheeled armored personnel carriers, a couple Strela-2 and Strela-10 surface-to-air missile systems.”