Seal Team Six Hunt the Wolf(42)

“Roger that.”

Akil took off one way, Crocker went the other.

Over the barking, he heard a door slamming and men’s angry voices shouting in Arabic and French. Then he heard the first shot from Akil’s nine-millimeter.

His adrenaline spiked further.

Entry was easy. An open window on the left side of the house (the opposite side from where the porch was located). All he had to do was punch in the screen, then yank it out.

In less than a minute he was standing in a bedroom, looking down at a king-sized mattress with rumpled sheets. Saw a stack of porn videos, a VCR, a TV, a soccer ball, an AK-47 propped in the corner.

No computers or other potential sources of intel, but the AK was his now. Loaded and ready, thank you very much.

The place was smaller than it appeared from outside. Two more little bedrooms off a hallway. One bathroom with a running toilet. All dark, unoccupied. Then another narrow hallway that led to a kitchen and a living room.

The living room lights blazed.

The racket from outside the front of the house was loud. Dogs barking furiously, men shouting, weapons discharging.

Pressed against the wall, he hoped Akil could hold them off long enough.

Crocker watched a little man in shorts run into the kitchen with an AK slung over his shoulder and quickly turn off something that was burning on the stove.

He stepped through the doorway and downed the man with two shots to the chest and one to the head.

Mozambique! It was the name of the shooting drill he’d practiced thousands of times. Every time he used it on a human target, he was pleased at how quickly and effectively it worked.

He checked for doors that might lead to a basement or other rooms but found none.

Then he crossed to the stove, picked up the pan of liver, bacon, and whatever else had been frying in it and dumped everything on the living room carpet. He emptied the rest of the plastic liter jug of cooking oil over that and the wooden floor, and using a towel lit from the stove, set the whole mess on fire.

The carpet and floor ignited quickly. As Crocker crouched in the hallway and waited, flames spread from the rug to the curtains to the walls.

Pay attention, guys. Your house is on fire!

It didn’t take long. A minute or two at most.

As the SEAL team leader was starting to roast from the heat, three men entered and ran to the kitchen, where one of them grabbed a small fire extinguisher from the wall while the other two starting filling pots with water.

He rose from his crouch and didn’t stop firing until all three men stopped twitching on the floor.

So much for the plan to take Rafiq alive.

Since he still heard shooting from the direction of the porch, he doubled back, climbed out the window he’d come in, and snuck around the rear of the house past the Kawasaki Ninja he’d first seen only hours before. Seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Above him the roof started cracking and giving way. He peered around the corner. A man in boxer shorts was firing an AK in the direction of Akil. Another was reloading his weapon and backing away from the house.

He took them both down with three-round bursts from their own AK-47, then waited as their screams echoed through the little valley. Their agonies were overtaken by the sound of the house cracking and burning. The dogs grew quiet. The downed men were silent. The two vehicles still waited in the driveway.

He checked behind him. Nothing. No one. Then turned to the barnlike structure he’d seen off to the right and behind the house. A small lake stood behind it.

The barn was actually a large garage with a room on top. No lights illuminated either floor.

He was about to call Akil when he heard something moving, and turned and saw a tall, dark figure run from the garage toward the lake.

Crocker stuck the Makarov in the waistband of his pants and, holding the AK ready, took off past the garage, down a gravelly path that led to the lake.

The tall figure stopped at the water and looked back at Crocker. He was holding something across his bare chest, a pistol clutched in his free hand.

“Rafiq!” the American shouted. It was a hunch.

“Go to hell,” the man snarled back in English.

“Rafiq, it’s over. Drop your weapon. Hit the ground!”

“Never!”

The tall man lifted whatever he was holding over his head, tossed it into the lake, then started to run into the bushes like a rat.

Crocker thought he might have a chance to take him alive but wasn’t about to let him get away.

“Rafiq, stop!”

The rat kept running. It took three shots from Crocker to take him down—one to the back of the thigh, two into his butt. One of the bullets had severed a major artery. He was bleeding profusely when the American reached him.

“Rafiq, where’s Zaman?”

“I’m a businessman. I don’t know anyone named Zaman.”