Seal Team Six Hunt the Wolf(14)

“Hell, I can still outclimb you guys.”

“Not on one leg, you can’t.”

“You want to bet?”

“I’ll bring back a yeti if we find one.”

“Or one of those cute German climbers.”

“Stay out of trouble.”

“I’ll do the best I can.” Then, glancing at the doctor’s light-haired assistant, “But no guarantees.”

“If he gives you any shit, Doc, you’ve got my permission to cut his balls off.”

The shoulders under the doctor’s white coat shook hard. He covered his mouth with a little pink palm and laughed. “I’ll remember that,” he said. “Oh, my. I don’t think it will be necessary. But I’ll remember it for sure.”

That’s when Akil burst through the door looking worried. “Boss, you’d better come see this.”

Crocker stopped him in the hall and whispered, “What?”

“They recovered a little girl’s body from the apartment. She was crushed to death.”



Each of the four men wrestled with the news during the two-hour Pakistan International Airlines flight to Islamabad. It was easy to say, as Crocker had, that the girl was an unfortunate and probably unavoidable casualty of war, and one they had tried very hard to prevent.

But that didn’t stop each man from feeling regret. Mancini and Crocker both had wives and children. Davis’s wife was almost eight months pregnant with their first.

Crocker had a daughter. Plus, he was the one who had made the decision to deploy the VBIED that partially destroyed the building and probably killed the girl.

How old was she?

It didn’t matter. Nor did it help that there were a dozen or so Pakistani and Arabic-looking girls on the flight. Seeing them, he couldn’t help trying to imagine her.

What did she look like? What was her name? Was she related to Zaman? Who was her mother? Would she have made a good wife and mother?

Stop it! This is useless. Stop!

Tom Crocker sat up in his seat and reminded himself that he was fighting a war to preserve the freedom of people to choose the kind of life they wanted to live. It was a simple equation.

Yes, there were degrees of freedom and innumerable other factors and influences. But he held tight to a basic proposition. Namely, that Islamic terrorists like Zaman wanted to impose a highly restrictive and repressive set of religious laws on people all over the world, and they were hell-bent on making it come true. He, as an agent of the United States, was fighting to preserve and extend personal freedom at home and abroad.

Crocker said a silent prayer for the girl and vowed to be even more careful in the future.



Entering the baggage claim area, the SEAL team leader spotted a tall man in a light-colored suit and recognized him immediately.

What’s he want?

It was Lou Donaldson from the CIA station—their main contact in Pakistan.

Shit…

Crocker had worked with Donaldson numerous times before, and didn’t like his superior manner and the way he talked down to people, like a disappointed father or a scolding schoolteacher.

The CIA officer sidled up to him at the first baggage turnstile.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“No Hello? Or How have you been?”

“Follow me.”

Crocker left Davis, Mancini, and Akil to deal with the gear and followed the man out of the terminal to a light-colored SUV with blacked-out windows idling beside the curb.

Despite the fact that the sun was fading and the sky had turned a vivid shade of salmon, the air was still surprisingly hot. Gods with halitosis, or something like that.

Crocker had perspired through his shirt by the time he climbed into the air-conditioned backseat. Two thick-chested men waited inside. One behind the wheel. One in back, Jim Anders, Donaldson’s chief aide and yes-man, whom Crocker had also met before. Lou slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

He said, “We’ve got a major fuckup on our hands, thanks to you.”

Crocker chose to remain silent, biting on his anger.

Donaldson craned his long neck past the headrest.

“You hear about the girl?”

“Yes, I did.” Trying to hold it back.

“Six years old. Regrettable. But there’s more.” Donaldson looked quickly at the other two, to add their displeasure to his.

“Zaman. You didn’t get him!”

“What do you mean?”

Donaldson wasn’t finished. “The guys you killed mean nothing. We’ve checked their backgrounds. Minor players. Bodyguards. But the guy we sent you in to get…according to our intel, he was there, and you let him walk.”

“You know that as a fact?”

“Yes, goddammit. AZ was in the fucking apartment!”