Hunt the Scorpion (5 page)

There was nothing he could do but shield himself with his right arm and hope he didn’t lose it. He heard four pops in succession and watched the top of the pirate’s head explode.

Cal!

The pirate crumpled midscream and fell on top of Crocker, who remained focused on the blade of the machete. He managed to twist away to avoid it. Blood and brain matter sprayed everywhere.

The other pirate screamed and reached for his pistol. Crocker saw his sneakered foot out of the corner of his right eye. Pushing the other man off him, he grabbed the foot and yanked it with all his might.

As the second pirate tumbled, Cal quickly finished him off with a head shot from his 9-millimeter.

No time to catch their breath. The two SEALs freed the prisoners and carried them down to the main deck. The captain slipped in and out of consciousness. His wife kept sobbing and talking to herself, something about church steps and the smell of orchids.

Twenty minutes later they were helping them and the injured crew members onto a medevac helicopter. And then they were all off into the inky night, the burning vessel getting smaller behind them.

Crocker turned to Akil and asked, “How’s your hand?”

“The bleeding has stopped. I’ll be fine.”

“Glad to hear it.”

He looked at the bite mark on his wrist and sighed.

It hadn’t been pretty, but they had prevailed.

C
rocker dreamt
he was surfing off the west coast of Maui with his teenage daughter. She wore a bright orange bikini and a big smile as she waved to him from the water. He didn’t see the huge wave building up behind her until it was practically right over her head.

He shouted, “Jenny, watch out!” as the wave came crashing down—hundreds of tons of water.

And then he awoke.

His surroundings weren’t immediately recognizable. The bunk he lay in was tight and the air around it stifling hot. To his right he saw a blue wall with a framed photo of a blue whale bursting out of the water.

He sat up, read the name printed on the bed’s top sheet—USS
Carl Vinson
—and relaxed.

As he scanned the contents of the eight-by-ten room—a chair and a counter built into the wall that served as a desk, his gear and clothes stacked neatly on the bunk below—the events of the previous night came rushing back at him, increasing his anxiety. He sensed that he’d left something undone.

What?
He’d never called his wife, who was scheduled to leave for Cairo, Egypt, sometime soon. He had wanted to reach out to her before she left. Their friends jokingly called them Mr. and Mrs. Smith, like the married CIA assassins in the Brad Pitt–Angelina Jolie movie.

He pulled on a freshly laundered shirt and pants, found an office with a satellite connection, and, not knowing his wife’s time of departure or the time difference between the Gulf of Aden and Virginia Beach, Virginia, called home.

No one answered, so he tried his daughter’s cell phone.

“Hey, Daddy, what’s up?” Jenny answered brightly on the third ring, sounding as if she was only a few blocks away.

He loved it when she called him daddy. “Where are you?”

“I’m staying with my friend Francesca.”

“Francesca?”

“Yeah. Remember Francesca?”

He did, vaguely. Another tall girl with long brown hair. “Yeah, sure.”

“I’m watching her dad make paella in a special pot Francesca bought for his birthday. Have you ever had it?”

“Paella, yeah. It’s good.” Memories of one of his favorite cities, Barcelona, flooded back, along with an image of a Spanish girl he’d dated before he was married—dark hair, dark eyes, magnificent body.

“Where’s your stepmother?” he asked.

“She left for the airport early this morning. I guess she’s in the air somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean by now.”

Jenny was the product of his first marriage—a clever girl, charming, pretty, full of energy and mischief like he’d been at her age. No, he’d been far worse.

Still, she had her own mind and never listened to anyone, especially her mother, who couldn’t deal with her. Reminded him too much of himself, which made him worry. She needed direction, goals. Like Crocker had before he joined the navy at nineteen.

He knew there wasn’t much he could do now except tell her he loved her and hoped to see her soon.

“Sure, Dad. When do you think that will be?”

“Probably in two weeks, when the race is over.”

“What race is that?”

ST-6 operators weren’t allowed to tell their families where they were or what they were doing. But in addition to his SEAL commitments, Crocker competed in long-distance endurance events. So he told her, “I’m running in an ultramarathon, the Sahara, that starts in a few days.”

“Isn’t that, like, in the desert?”

“It is a desert.”

“You’re running in a race in the Sahara desert?”

“That’s right.”

“Won’t everyone just, like, burn up and die?”

He laughed. “I hope not.”

“You’re so crazy, Dad.”

He’d considered the possibility sometimes. Yes, the choices he made were extreme. Even abnormal. But he blamed that on his thirst for adventure and the wild energy he’d possessed since he was a little boy. During different phases in his life that energy had been both a blessing and a curse.

“Everything okay with you?” he asked.

“Fine, Dad.”

“When did Holly say she’s getting back?”

“A week from Friday.”

He remembered Francesca’s last name. “Say hi to the Novaks and thank them again for me. Be good.”

“You, too, Dad. And one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I hope you win!”

He hung up and asked for directions to the ship’s mess. Noticing photos of famous visitors, including his favorite NFL quarterback, Joe Montana, as he entered, Crocker found Ritchie and Mancini sitting at a corner table chowing down on eggs, ham, and hash browns.

He filled a plate, grabbed a cup of coffee, and sat. Mancini—the combination weight lifter and tech geek—was talking about a whole new generation of drones the air force was developing, some of which were the size of insects and birds.

“Insects and birds? You’re exaggerating like a motherfucker,” Ritchie said.

Bull-necked, crew-cut Mancini held his ground. “In another five to ten years max, war is gonna be fought by geeks at video screens.”

“No way.”

“Yeah.” Mancini sniffed at a slice of bacon on his plate and pushed it aside. His wife, Carmen, had him on a strict diet to keep his cholesterol down.

“I’ve seen photos of one they’re testing now that looks like a hummingbird. Flapping wings and all. Flies at about twelve miles per hour and can perch on a windowsill.”

“You hear this, boss?”

Crocker listened as he filled his stomach.

“In the future, the government wants to take out some terrorist leader, they dispatch one of these little suckers equipped with a camera and a weapon. Flies in the window, IDs the bad guy, then puts a bullet in his head. Maybe even tickles him first.”

Ritchie, part Cherokee, ex-rodeo rider, shook his head. “That’s when I’m retiring to Montana to raise horses.”

“You ever see a Raven?” Mancini asked.

Crocker had, near the western border of Pakistan. He nodded.

Mancini continued. “It’s about three feet long. Right, boss? You want to see something on the other side of a hill, you toss this thing like a model airplane that’s equipped with an electric engine and an infrared camera. It beams images back.”

Crocker was thinking that change was a law of the universe. Even the planet was shifting as they spoke. He cleared his throat. “Where’s Akil?”

“In the infirmary getting his hand attended to. Davis is getting his hair cut.”

“Soon as I’m done here, I’ll call the CO.”

“Oh, and the captain wants to see you. He’s in his office on the bridge.”

Crocker finished his breakfast and hurried up the seven flights of steps. Whereas the bridge of the MSC
Contessa
had been cramped, blood-splattered, and chaotic, this one was vast, orderly, and serene. Alert clean-cut officers manned various stations—the wheel, radar, sonar, weather. Everything seemingly under control.

An ensign in navy dress blues took him to see the captain, who sat in an office with his feet up on his desk. He and a half dozen other officers had their heads turned to a flat-screen monitor tuned to CNN.

The captain said, “Welcome, Warrant Officer Crocker. You still intact?”

“More or less.”

“Nice piece of work you and your men pulled off.”

“Thanks.”

“Pull up a chair. Take a load off. The commander in chief is making a statement.”

As Crocker watched, the president of the United States stood behind a lectern in the White House and talked about the rescue of Captain McCullum and his wife by commandos from the Joint Special Operations Command. No mention was made of the fact that they were navy SEALs from Team Six, or of the Middle Eastern men, or that the MSC
Contessa
had been carrying sensitive nuclear material.

But that was no surprise to Crocker. He and his men had carried out many daring missions all over the world that never made the news.

“Did the salvage team find the barrels?” Crocker asked after the president had finished.

“Yes, they’re bringing them up now,” the captain answered, as if it was no big deal.

Another officer with commander stripes on his uniform said, “They’ve also recovered the bodies of some of the men on the launch.”

Crocker sat up. “Any idea who they were and who they were working for?”

“The Agency is keeping that to themselves.”

The sun was setting red over the desert when the Gulfstream IV carrying Crocker and his team landed at NSA Bahrain, a U.S. Navy base on the island of Bahrain, home of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the Fifth Fleet. The Persian Gulf base occupied over sixty acres in the Juffair suburb of the capital city, Manama. Like other American military bases around the world, it seemed like a little piece of home—complete with fast food joints, a miniature golf course, and a bowling alley—far away from the continental United States.

After dropping their gear off at the Central Command barracks the six SEALs set out on a slow and easy run that took them along the perimeter of the base, beside the coast. It felt like months since they’d last trained.

As they ran, Mancini filled them in on local history. He was blessed with a near-photographic memory and could tell you what he’d eaten for dinner on any given night three years ago. “The Kingdom of Bahrain is actually a chain of thirty islands in the Persian Gulf, just west of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The ancient Sumerians considered it an island paradise where wise, brave men could enjoy eternal life.”

“The Sumerians?” Davis asked.

“Yeah, the Sumerians.”

“I read a book about how the Sumerians described having contact with aliens,” Davis offered. “They were the first great culture and spawned the Babylonians, Persians, and Assyrians.”

Davis, who looked like a California surfer, was the other reader in the group. His tastes included science fiction, New Age, and philosophy—everything from Russian literature to American history, and from Nietzsche to William Gibson and Edgar Cayce.

Akil changed the subject—sort of. “Let’s talk about Kim Kardashian’s booty.”

Ritchie: “What about it?”

Akil: “I read that it’s been invaded by aliens.”

Ritchie: “Thousands of times!”

Akil, Crocker, and Cal cracked up.

Mancini, who didn’t find this funny, continued, “Like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni royal family. But in Bahrain’s case about seventy percent of the native population of seven hundred thousand are from the Shia sect of Islam, which creates political problems. The remaining half million of the country’s 1.2 million population are guest workers from places like India, Pakistan, and Asia. Many of them work in the oil and gas fields and in Manama’s financial center.”

“Boring,” Akil said.

Ritchie: “Let’s talk about what we’re doing tonight.”

They were passing the harbor, with the Marina Club (filled with luxurious yachts) and the Bahrain National Museum on their right. The lights of modern office towers sparkled in the clear night. Even though the city was relatively small, with a population of less than two hundred thousand, the skyline was impressive and featured two of the tallest buildings in the world—the Bahrain Financial Harbour at 853 feet and the Bahrain World Trade Center at 787.

“We might want to explore the city,” Mancini said. “It’s active and lively. All kinds of restaurants and nightclubs. Last time I was here I went to a place called BJs that had a killer DJ and loads of beautiful young women.”

Akil: “Now you’re speaking my language.”

“Foreign workers mostly, looking for a good time.”

“You hook up?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“You tell Carmen about that?” Davis asked.

“Do I look stupid?”

“Now that I think about it…” but Akil stopped. Nobody really wanted to piss Mancini off. He was a teddy-bear-type guy with a keen sense of justice who didn’t react well when certain boundaries were crossed.

Crocker had read that during demonstrations in February 2011 in support of the Arab Spring, five people had been killed by Manama police. This sparked further protests by the Shia majority, which were eventually quelled with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

There were no signs of unrest now as they crossed the island and jogged down Al Shabab Avenue in the suburb of Juffair, which featured local franchises of McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, and Chili’s.

“I know a great Indian restaurant we can go to,” Mancini said. “Best chicken masala and spinach
bindi
I’ve ever tasted.”

Crocker was less interested in which restaurant they ate at than in getting his team ready for the grueling Marathon des Sables next week. As the team’s lead trainer, it was his job to keep them in shape and prepare them to deal with any contingency—arctic mountains, rough seas, jungles. He was concerned because, compared to their competition, he figured they were behind in training, mileage, and long-distance desert runs.

He had led his team on climbs in the Rockies, on Mount Washington, the Devil’s Tower, Grand Teton, the Himalayas, K2. They had done parachute drops from thirty thousand feet in Germany, winter training outside Juneau, jungle training in the Philippines and Borneo.

Now it was time to beat them to shit in the desert. His motto was “Blood from any orifice,” and he lived it over and over.

When they returned to the barracks, a civilian aide stood waiting beside a black SUV.

“Chief Warrant Officer Crocker?”

“Who wants to know?”

“The embassy political counselor. He wants to see you.”

That likely meant CIA.

Ten minutes later, showered and dressed in black cotton pants and a black polo, he entered an air-conditioned room in a utilitarian four-story building. The local CIA chief, Ed Wolfson, a medium-height, sandy-haired man with gray eyes, rose to greet him. Judging by his paunch and stooped shoulders, Crocker pegged him as an analyst type.

Sitting at the table behind him was Crocker’s old nemesis, Lou Donaldson.