SEAL Team Six Hunt the Scorpion(40)
“What’s going on here?” Crocker asked.
“These men…mostly criminals. Killers. Gaddafi soldiers.”
“I thought this was a refugee camp.”
The young man shrugged.
“Who gave you authority to run this camp?”
No answer.
About twenty gaunt prisoners sat on the floor in front of the table with their hands and ankles bound by TUFF-TIES. All had pieces of bright green cloth clenched in their teeth. Some had soiled themselves. Some were bleeding, others had festering wounds.
“Some of these men need medical attention,” Crocker said. “Has the Red Cross been in here?”
Their escort shrugged.
“Do the men get a hearing? Is there a judicial process?”
The young escort frowned as if to say I don’t understand.
A guard jabbed one of the prisoners in the chest with the barrel of his AK-47 and shouted.
Earlier in his life, before he’d gone to BUD/S and become a SEAL, Crocker had served briefly as a prison guard at the Adult Correctional Institute in Rhode Island. He had witnessed degradation, but nothing on this scale.
“What’s he saying?” Crocker asked.
Akil: “He said this man is a former soldier who was captured in Misrata.”
The prisoners watching from behind the fence moaned and shifted anxiously. When the prisoner who was being accused got a chance to speak, his voice was barely audible.
Akil whispered, “He says he’s a cigarette vendor who was forced to join the army at the end of the war.”
Their escort said, “Don’t believe him. They all liars.”
“How can you be sure?”
He pointed to his nose. “We know.”
As Crocker and his team watched, the three men behind the table whispered to one another. The fat one in the middle extended his arm and pointed his thumb to the floor.
The guard raised the AK-47 and clubbed the prisoner in the head. Blood and teeth shot out of his mouth.
“Hey!” Crocker shouted. “Stop that immediately!”
Another guard pulled the prisoner up by the back of his collar and dragged him to the right side of the room, where a stripped metal frame had been attached to the wall. The concrete floor around the frame was spotted with blood.
Crocker turned to the militiaman and said, “Tell them to stop! You know what stop means?”
“Yes.” The young militiaman shouted, “Doapiful!”
Everyone in the room turned toward the Americans. The big man at the table stood and starting screaming.
Crocker said, “Tell these men that this isn’t the correct way to treat prisoners!”
“What?” the young militiaman asked, surprised.
“Tell them to stop, immediately. And drop their weapons, before I put them all under arrest!”
The young militiaman relayed this. The men behind the table laughed as if it were a big joke. One of them said something to the guard with the AK-47, who started to chain the prisoner to the frame. Another guard stepped forward with a five-foot length of metal pipe.
As the soldier drew back the pipe, Crocker grabbed the PP-91 KEDR from their escort and pointed it at the men sitting behind the table.
“Stop!” he shouted. “I mean it. I’m not fucking around!”
He shot a volley of bullets over their heads, into the ceiling. Guards and prisoners ducked and covered their heads.
“Tell your men to drop their weapons!”
Several of the guards complied. Others dropped to the floor. One of the men behind the table raised his weapon. Crocker turned and shot him in the hand, causing the rifle to fall to the floor.
The SEALs quickly retrieved the discarded weapons and established a fire circle. Within seconds they had gained the upper hand.
Guards and prisoners looked at one another, nervous and confused.
Davis shouted, “Boss! Now what?”
“Anyone who points a gun at you or makes an aggressive move, shoot.”
“Check.”
“Follow my lead.”
Crocker was making it up as he went along. He took aim at the men behind the table. The fat man smiled and held up his arms.
“You think this is funny, you big piece of shit?”
Crocker was about to pull the trigger when the big man shouted something and the last two guards lowered their AKs, which Ritchie and Mancini quickly wrestled away. A murmur of excitement rose from the prisoners behind the fence.
Akil whispered, “Careful, boss, or we’ll incite a riot.”
Crocker grabbed their escort by the shoulder and said, “You tell these men that what they’re doing is illegal. There’s something called the Geneva Conventions.”
“Geneva…what?”
“It states that all captured soldiers have to be treated with respect. If any of them are accused of crimes, they have the right to stand trial. But not like this!”