Seal Team Six Hunt the Wolf(10)
Mancini: “A hundred and fifty feet.”
Crocker: “That gives you approximately fifteen seconds to duck behind Warehouse One. Here.”
“No problem.”
“We’ll all deploy from Warehouse One.”
Akil nodded. “That works.”
Each man knew his assignment when they hit the target—who would insert where, who would cover left, who would cover right, fire positions, the appropriate hand and arm signals. They’d committed the basic layout of the building and street to memory.
Crocker, as the corpsman, carried specialized medical equipment on his back that enabled him to perform a cricothyrotomy, put in a chest tube, or do a cut-down to clear an airway, if needed. In addition, each man had a blowout patch in his pocket—a four-by-four-inch battle dressing to control major bleeding.
“Any more questions?” he asked.
No one answered.
“Let’s go.”
They’d taken the Shahrah-e-Faisal and had entered central Karachi over the Napier Mole Bridge, gunning by the port and passing sleeping heroin addicts, barking pye-dogs, roaming bands of toughs looking for an unguarded car to jack. The choking stench of kerosene heaters and burning garbage from squatter camps seeped in through the ventilation.
They rode in silence, individual thoughts and emotions filling the vehicle with tension.
To Crocker’s right, billboards hawked Wonder Super Slim cigarettes and a movie called Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year. Whatever that was.
It appeared that nothing had been left untouched by human hands. Even the air was crowded with smoke and the stink of oil and rotting fish and garbage from the nearby port.
Ritchie pointed through the windshield down a potholed street that ran parallel to the train tracks. “She’s parked down there.”
“Who?”
“The van, Manny. Who do you think?”
The glow of the dim yellow streetlight barely reached the back bumper of the battered gray Econoline van. Mancini, who read Arabic, pointed out jidahist graffiti sprayed on one side that translated roughly to “All infidels will be vanquished.”
“Nice touch.”
Crocker checked his watch. At fifteen minutes shy of three the temp felt like it had already pushed past ninety again. Putrid air clung to his skin like a warm wet towel.
They did a final gear and commo check, then loaded and press-checked their weapons. Ritchie found a chunk of concrete to fix to the pedal. Mancini produced a roll of duct tape to hold it in place.
The SUV went in first. Cut the lights three blocks away. Pulled into the dirt parking lot at the back of what they had designated Warehouse One. True to the surveillance photos, it was a raw concrete structure with most of the windows punched out.
They parked next to the carcass of an old yellow bus sitting in one corner with weeds thriving around it.
Warehouse One was directly across the street from AZ Central, the apartment building that, according to the latest intel, housed Zaman and his thugs.
It took Davis twenty seconds to pick the lock to Warehouse One.
The inside was crowded with old refrigerators and parts: stacks of condensers, fan motors, thermostats, water valves, copper tubing. Davis kneeled to read the label on one of the steel drums.
“What is it?” Crocker asked.
“Acetone,” Davis answered.
Mancini spoke up. “A solvent. Auto-ignites at around eight hundred and seventy degrees Fahrenheit. When mixed with oxygen, danger of explosion or flash fire.”
Count on Mancini to know shit like that.
Mancini: “This place is an accident waiting to happen.”
Davis: “Thanks, professor.”
Crocker: “We can’t launch from here. Someone needs to surveil the place down the street.”
That would usually be Akil’s job, but he was in the van. Davis volunteered.
The blond-haired SEAL ran off and soon was back, breathing hard. “Filled with scrap metal, boss,” he reported. “No chemical drums. Nothing flammable. Looks like it hasn’t been used in months.”
“Radio Akil. Tell him we’ll deploy from the back of Warehouse Two. Tell him: Roll left. Make sure he knows his left from his right.”
Davis smiled, readied his radio. “He might need help with that.”
“Move out.”
Back into the SUV. Lights out across the broken-up street.
The SEALs surveyed the scene from the back wall of Warehouse Two. This one was lower and shabbier. A slab concrete roof. No windows in the rear. Crocker concluded there was minimal danger of anything falling on their heads.
“We’re good.”
“Yo.”
“Remember, keep an eye out for civilians. We’re trying to take AZ alive.”
“Roger that.”
Ritchie ran in a crouch to the far corner to recon the target approximately two hundred feet and forty-five degrees to the right.