Seal Team Six Hunt the Wolf(12)
As Crocker considered, the third-floor door opened and a man quickly descended three steps holding an AK-47 like his. Heavyset, hairy legs. A big stomach that protruded from the bottom of a white T-shirt.
Crocker didn’t stick around to glimpse his face. Instead, he crouched behind the stairs and waited. Remembering to breathe deeply; heart bouncing in his chest.
When he saw two sets of bare legs near the bottom, he sprung out and, squeezing off a long salvo, cut down both men just below their knees.
Screams of agony. Both of them firing wildly as their femurs gave way and they stumbled down the last five steps. One with a long beard landed on his face. Orange-red blood sprayed out and splattered the wall.
As per team SOP, Crocker finished them both off with bullets directed at their heads.
Akil radioed to say he was ready to toss a couple of fragmentation grenades through the back window. Two explosions lifted Crocker off his feet, like riding a bucking bronco.
What remained was mainly mop-up after that. Crocker called Mancini and Ritchie.
“Get in here fast! Help me search the place and ID the victims.”
“Did we get AZ?”
“I think so.”
Six Arabic-looking men lay dead. Five had heavy beards.
One had tried to jump out the back window. Another two appeared to have taken their own lives. The last lay in a pool of blood by the third-floor window, bleeding from the neck.
Crocker instructed Mancini to photograph the men’s faces. He and the other three grabbed what looked important—a couple of laptops, identification papers, wallets, a cell phone, some ledgers—and out they all went.
Back in the SUV. Cranking their way over the Napier Mole Bridge just as the Pak Capital City Police were starting to close it down.
From the driver’s seat Akil said, “That was close.”
“Which one of them was Zaman?”
Crocker: “My money says it was one of those ugly dudes at the bottom of the stairs.”
Akil: “Who’s taking bets?”
Crocker craned his neck to study the digital images on Mancini’s camera. They all agreed that with the black beards, it was hard to tell.
But Crocker had a nagging feeling.
In the backseat, Davis was slicing open Ritchie’s pants to expose his wounded leg.
“What happened?”
“Ripped a nasty gash on a piece of metal.”
“You up-to-date on your tetanus?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
Nothing life-threatening. But it had to be attended to soon.
Crocker said to Akil, “Pull over for a second so I can get back there and clean it.”
He and Davis traded positions, then Crocker extracted gauze and Bacitracin from his emergency medical kit.
They were already halfway to the safe house in Karsaz, near the golf course. There they would find a surgeon waiting. Warm showers, beer, sandwiches, fresh clothes.
Crocker, from the backseat, said, “Brothers…well done.”
Chapter Four
Success builds character, failure reveals it.
—Dave Checketts
THE MUSCLES in Crocker’s arms and legs shook as he sat on the back patio nursing a cold Corona. Nothing unusual about that. It always took his body several hours to wind down from the adrenaline rush of an op.
His friends joked that the SEAL team leader’s favorite leisure-time activity was kicking back in his rec room with a glass of red wine or a beer and watching reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond on TV. I’d kind of like to do that now, he thought. Never mind the ribbing he’d have to take from his men.
Besides, something nagged at him. Through the sliding glass door he saw a well-scrubbed officer from the U.S. embassy sorting through stuff they had recovered from the terrorist safe house.
In front of him, the morning sun had burned through much of the haze. Past a row of eucalyptus trees he saw well-dressed golfers walking together down a yellow-green fairway. Like watching a dream. Or a video feed from some faraway place.
What struck him was the deliberation with which the golfers went about lining up and measuring their shots. Kneeling, frowning, studying their scorecards, consulting with their caddies.
Crocker pegged the men as business executives. Successful enough to belong to the exclusive club. Probably with fat bank accounts, diversified stock portfolios, vacation homes.
As they walked together, he wondered what they were talking about. Interest rates? The size of their stock portfolios? The trading price of oil?
Whatever it was probably wouldn’t interest him. Crocker preferred to keep his needs to a minimum and direct his energy toward bigger challenges.
Wiping the perspiration off the neck of the Corona, he imagined his father limping up to the kitchen table of their house in Methuen, Massachusetts.
His dad had admired men who played “in the big arena,” made personal sacrifices for their country or beliefs, and didn’t give in to fear. He’d consumed biographies of George Washington, Thurgood Marshall, Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Jackson, Simón Bolívar, Francis Marion, Teddy Roosevelt, Alexander the Great, and men like them.