Imagining the billions of words that had been spoken and churned out in papers when real contingencies required action—all the arguments that had been carefully reasoned to support one theoretical outcome or another—made Crocker want to put his fist through the window.
He kept seeing the withered, bruised bodies of the girls they had found above the garage at the farm near Toulon. In his current state of torment their faces morphed into those of other women he’d known, including Jenny and Holly back home. All of them had come from families that were part of communities, departments, and countries served by armies of officials whose job was to protect them. But somehow the girls had managed to “slip through the cracks.”
Were they so hard to find, in fucking Toulon, France?
The real truth was that most citizens, even in modern Western countries like Norway, felt powerless. And the men and women whose job it was to protect them were too often incompetent and lazy. They just didn’t give a shit about people who in their narrow view weren’t important.
“Any word from the embassy?” Crocker shouted from the balcony into the hotel room where Davis was reading a book about Willie Mays.
“Donaldson has landed. He’s on his way.”
“It’s about time.”
A muezzin in a minaret across the street began to recite the call to noon prayer.
Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.
Ash-hadu an la ilaha ill-Allah.
Ash-hadu an la ilaha ill-Allah.
Loudspeakers amplified his voice so it echoed off the nearby buildings.
Crocker thought that everyone in the U.S. government, from the president on down, should be required to come to Pakistan and experience the country firsthand. The intense devotional pleading. The desperation and crushing poverty, with millions of slum dwellers pressed cheek to jowl. The cruelty and greed of those with any power. The enormous disparity between the rich and poor—and people thought it was bad in the States? The hovels that passed for hospitals, schools, and prisons. The millions of illiterate, ignorant people essentially living in the fifteenth century, who were perfect fodder for religious fanatics and demagogues.
Admitting that he was neither a prognosticator nor an intellectual, Crocker sensed that something important was happening in this far corner of the globe. Pakistan—with 180 million people. Its enemy India, with over a billion poised across the border. Both countries armed with nuclear weapons. As was China, with another 1.3 billion people, which loomed over both.
They were standing at the nexus of something. A moment in history. A cultural and political battlefield.
Crocker and his men weren’t just boots on the ground. They were part of the most highly trained and versatile military unit in history. But as talented as they were, they depended on political leaders to deploy them wisely.
Crocker was thinking about all the missed opportunities to crush al-Qaeda dating back to the late ’90s, when Davis emerged through the curtains, his blue eyes squinting into the hazy glare.
“Donaldson’s here,” he announced.
“Thanks.” Crocker took a deep breath and stepped inside, where the air-conditioned air cleaved to his skin.
Donaldson’s long face and body moved in deep shadow. Two shorter men in gray suits hung by his sides. He’d seen the shorter and stouter of the two before, at the meeting in Islamabad weeks earlier—Jim Anders.
“This is turning out to be one long, crazy fishing expedition,” Donaldson started off in his deep Carolina drawl. He wore a tan cotton suit with a white shirt open at the collar. “Where the hell are we now?”
The SEAL team leader recounted what he had learned so far, starting with his trip to the Club Rosa in Marseille. When he got to the raid at the farm, Donaldson leaned forward on the cream-colored leather sofa.
“I thought I told you I didn’t want any more casualties,” he said, clasping his hands in front of him.
“You said ‘collateral casualties.’ I wouldn’t put the men at the farm in that category.”
A big smile creased the CIA officer’s weathered face. “I wouldn’t either, Crocker. Nicely done.”
Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
“Thanks.”
Donaldson turned to the thick-necked, gray-suited man to his right and asked, “What do you think, Anders?”
Anders pulled at the front of his Brooks Brothers shirt. “Feels thin.”
Crocker: “I assume you’re talking about the trail of evidence.”
“Yes,” Donaldson answered. “Feels thin.”
The suit on his left agreed.
“Which part?” Crocker asked, trying to keep his composure. “The evidence linking Zaman to the Syrena, or the trail of Malie Tingvoll?”