Seal Team Six Hunt the Wolf(71)

“Boss?”

“What?”

“Wake up, boss.”

The SEAL team leader pushed himself up and rubbed his eyes, aware that he was still in the hospital and thinking he had to be somewhere else.

“Boss.”

“What is it?” Grasping for details in the half-conscious fog.

The face looming over him was unidentifiable because of the angle, but he recognized the voice—deep and resonant, with a hint of foreign accent. Akil.

“Akil, what’s going on? Did you find the girl?”

The Egyptian American looked thinner and paler than before.

“Not yet, boss. You feeling better?”

Funny, coming from him.

“Fine. Yeah. How about you? And how’d you get in here?” The reality of his circumstances was coming back, along with familiar aches and pains.

“I was running a fever,” the Egyptian American explained, “so they transferred me to the hospital, where I met Colonel Bahrami. You remember Colonel Bahrami, don’t you?”

“Who?”

A stiff-backed, uniformed man stepped out of the long shadow across the door, and Crocker recognized the intelligent, mustached face from the afternoon before.

“Oh, yes. Hello, Colonel.”

“Sorry to interrupt your sleep, sir, but your colleague told me you wouldn’t mind,” he said in his clipped British accent.

“Did I hear correctly? You still haven’t found the Norwegian girl?”

“Not yet, sir.”

Akil explained that the colonel had visited his room the night before and the two had started talking about their experiences growing up, their respective intelligence services, and what they perceived to be the primary threats to their countries.

Colonel Bahrami’s interest had been piqued when Akil mentioned Abu Rasul Zaman. He said that Omani intelligence was very concerned about al-Qaeda activity in the area, and particularly in Yemen. The colonel had explained that Oman, which continued to make an effort to get along with all countries, had a complicated relationship with its neighbor to the southwest that dated back to the 1970s, when Yemen had supported the pro-communist Dhohar rebels who were trying to overthrow the sultan of Oman. After the rebels were defeated, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said had launched a diplomatic campaign to improve relations between the two neighbors, which had been successful in fostering trade and commerce.

But now Yemen was embroiled in political turmoil. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) controlled important territory in the south of the country, near the borders of Oman and Saudi Arabia, and seemed to be growing in strength. Meanwhile, Houthi Shiite rebels in the north were fighting a civil war that threatened to overthrow the government.

“What does this have to do with me and my men?” Crocker asked, shifting to the edge of the bed and flexing his knees.

Colonel Bahrami stood before him in his clean khaki uniform. His white teeth, dark eyes, and black mustache all gleamed, set off by his caramel-colored skin.

“The fact that this ship, the Syrena, is registered in Yemen and was used to smuggle these kidnapped girls into my country intrigues me,” he said with great seriousness.

“It intrigues me, too,” Crocker said.

“Your colleague Akil explained how a document found in Zaman’s safe house seems to connect him to this ship. Do you agree?”

“Yes. I do.”

“According to our people stationed in Khasab, the Syrena has already passed through the Strait of Hormuz and has entered the Persian Gulf,” Colonel Bahrami added.

Crocker looked up. “Bound for where?”

“Bushehr, Iran, apparently.”

The SEAL leader remembered, and as he did, the noxious smell seemed to rise again from the floor.

“I was under the impression that security at the strait was relatively tight,” Crocker remarked, squeezing shut his nostrils.

“All we know is that the ship had the necessary papers and clearances to get through. Where they came from, and whether or not they were fraudulent, is unclear.”

“And your people are a hundred percent sure that it has entered the Gulf?”

The Omani colonel grinned sheepishly. “The question I have, sir, the one that continues to trouble me, is this: Why would a Yemeni ship be bound for Iran? These two countries are barely on speaking terms. I think this is highly unusual.”

“I agree.”

Crocker ran a hand gently over his mouth and right eye. The swelling seemed to have subsided considerably, and most of the soreness was gone.

“I might know a way to find out more about the ship,” the American offered. The more he focused on the unfinished aspects of his mission, the more the smell seemed to subside.

“How?”