Seal Team Six Hunt the Wolf(2)
“It’s light on visuals.”
A couple of blurry security-camera stills of a man with a black beard. A profile from a meeting with Pashtun warlords in eastern Afghanistan.
“How’s your stomach?” Akil asked.
“My stomach?” In the Ankara airport, Crocker had consumed a chicken kebab smothered in dill-accented yogurt. Pushed the pita and rice aside. Leading up to a climb, he watched what he ate. Leaned heavily on the protein and fresh vegetables. Eased up on the carbs, especially those that quickly converted into sugar.
“It’s in a good mood. Why?”
“Move over.”
Crocker slid into the middle seat. A third member of the team—indefatigable, smart Davis—was snoring lightly by the window, the shade down, his blond surfer hair smushed into a little blue pillow. The fourth, Mancini—a former college football star with an encyclopedic knowledge of practically everything relating to science, history, and technology—was two rows back, reading a technical treatise on cell-phone hacking. The fifth—Crocker’s next-door neighbor and workout buddy, and a former navy firefighter, Ritchie—was waiting for them in Karachi, Pakistan.
No sooner had Akil settled beside Crocker than he reached into his pocket and stuck a thumbnail drive into the port on the side of Crocker’s laptop.
“Don’t mess up my iTunes.”
“I’m not touching anything, you pussy. Watch.”
Akil slapped some keys and a video appeared on the screen. Murky at first. Then dark shadows moving against a gray background. Someone screaming in Arabic.
Akil quickly toggled down the sound, then turned the thirteen-inch screen so it wasn’t visible to passengers in the aisle.
Crocker put on his reading glasses and leaned forward. “What am I watching?”
A bright light illuminated a face in the foreground. White, sandy haired, blindfolded, tied to a metal chair.
Crocker knew immediately what this was. Felt a ball of rage gathering in his stomach.
“Steve Vogelman, right?”
“The Washington Post reporter.”
Tom Crocker had shared a transatlantic flight with Steve and a wiseass journalist from CNN, drinking single malt scotch and playing blackjack. The two of them prodding him to reveal things that they knew he couldn’t, like a couple of naughty kids.
Before passing out, a drunken Steve had shown him pictures of his wife and two little girls, sighing, love in his eyes, so that Crocker would understand what he really valued.
But he hadn’t appreciated the danger he’d flirted with, that had caught him in its teeth. On the screen, Crocker counted four armed men on either side of Steve Vogelman, shouting in his ears, spitting, slapping, punching. All with black masks covering their faces.
Fucking cowards…
Crocker’s strong dislike of bullies and sadists dated back to when he was a kid growing up just north of Boston. Racing motorcycles, riding wheelies, with a group of hell-raising teenagers—most with one foot in the grave. Proudly became the only non-Italian member of the Mongrels. Black leather jackets; Levi’s with leather belts with big buckles—good for fighting; black T-shirts; bandanas worn on their heads. Beating up drug dealers, stealing their money. Taking no shit from anyone.
“Where’d you get this?”
“A friend of mine downloaded it from a jihadist website.”
During that flight a year and a half ago, two hours short of Dulles, Vogelman had started lecturing him about what he called Crocker’s narrow-minded, military conception of Sunni radicalism. Explaining that it was espoused by men with strong beliefs, who needed to be understood in the context of a religious-historical struggle over hegemony of the Middle East and Europe.
“They’re the products of a unique cultural experience,” Vogelman had said. “They feel threatened by the West. With good reason.”
“So what?”
“They want what we want. Power. That commonality is important and misunderstood. Political leaders on both sides play up the fear.”
“What’s your point?”
“Guys like you, Crocker, who see things in black and white, are a big part of the problem.”
Crocker, who hadn’t graduated from college and didn’t like being talked down to, had heard enough. “You’re right, Vogelman, I do evaluate people more in terms of black and white than you do. And I can tell you right now, you’re talking like a fucking sheep.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Sheep and wolves, buddy. The wolves are the threat—the evil motherfuckers who live among us. Whatever they call themselves, jihadists, Nazis, murderers…they’re basically aggressive sociopaths. They prey on people who are too trusting, or buy their bullshit. Sheep like you. Like the woman walking through a dimly lit parking lot alone at two a.m. and not hesitating when a strange man approaches.”