“Both, Crocker. Both.”
“I don’t disagree. But what does it cost us to go after the Syrena?”
“Potentially a great deal.”
Anders popped open a briefcase and handed his boss a sheet of paper. The senior officer propped a pair of gold-framed reading glasses on his long nose. “First of all, what do you know about this ship?”
“Nothing, really. The port facility security officer told us it was some kind of freighter. Medium capacity.”
Donaldson glanced at the printout. “Turns out that it’s registered in Yemen.”
Crocker knew that was bad.
“The Yemenis don’t like us much,” Donaldson continued. “We touch a ship of theirs and they’re going to scream bloody murder.”
The guy on Donaldson’s left agreed. “They’ll use it as an opportunity to create an incident. Get the White House involved, the UN. We don’t want that.”
Donaldson clasped his hands together. “So we can expect zero cooperation from the Yemenis.”
“Understood.”
“Number two, the Syrena’s next scheduled port of call is Salalah, in Oman,” the CIA officer continued. “Arrives there tomorrow morning.”
Crocker sat forward on the edge of his chair. “Which means that if we’re going to board it in Salalah, we have to move quickly.”
Donaldson took a long swig of the Coca-Cola Davis had brought from the minibar under the desk on the opposite wall, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“The Omanis are reasonable people,” he explained, “who happen to be our friends. But they’re also extremely proud. Which means whatever kind of operation is launched on their soil they’re going to want to do themselves.”
Crocker spent a moment considering how to negotiate the obstacles that had just been put in his way.
“Can we ask the Omanis to monitor the ship when it docks, to see who gets off?” he asked.
Donaldson looked at Anders, who frowned.
“I don’t know how seriously they’ll take our request, but we can try.”
“How about a couple of us go there ourselves to watch what comes off the ship?” Crocker inquired.
“I expected you to ask that.”
“Nothing official. We act like tourists. Witnesses. If we see anything, we alert the Omanis.”
“Unwise.”
“Completely undercover.”
“And what happens if no one debarks in Salalah?”
“We proceed to the next port of call and do the same thing,” Crocker answered.
“That seems unnecessary.”
“Why?”
“We’ve got local assets who can do that.”
“You know as well as I do that we can’t rely on people who aren’t ours.”
“I said no.”
“Some of them sympathize with the fundamentalists. They don’t have as much at stake.”
“Dammit, Crocker. You think this is the only operation we’re running here? Let it fucking go!”
Crocker bit his bottom lip and started to tremble with an anger he had to use all his self-control to contain. Shifting his gaze from the glass table between them to Donaldson’s knotted-up face, he said, “All of us on the team feel badly that Zaman got away. We don’t want to give up on him or this girl from Norway. We all have families. It was sickening to see what they did to those kidnapped girls. There must be something we can do.” Crocker immediately scolded himself for pleading. For sounding weak.
Donaldson looked at Davis and Mancini, who were leaning on the wall behind their leader, and smiled. “It’s my job to look at the bigger picture. To look at the totality of all the things we have going on. You might think this is important, but I’m telling you that in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t. You and your men have done enough.”
“We don’t feel that way,” Crocker snapped.
“I appreciate your commitment and understand your frustration,” Donaldson said as Anders shut his briefcase. “We have experts back at Langley working on the laptop you fished out of the pond. They’re not convinced that the e-mails Rafiq received even originated with Zaman.”
“I disagree.” Crocker sensed what was coming next.
“We brought your team in for a specific mission, which unfortunately went wrong. It’s time to send you and your men home.”
No!
Donaldson rose; his bookends followed. “I’m sure you gentlemen miss your families. I’m sure they miss you, too,” he said with all the sincerity of a Hallmark greeting card.
Crocker resisted the impulse to reach out and grab Donaldson by the throat. Struggling to keep his cool, he watched the tall man in the tan suit turn and saunter out, with the two suits following. One of them cracked a joke he couldn’t hear. Their laughter was muffled by the closing door.