Hunt the Falcon (23 page)

“My name is Anahita,” the girl said in British-accented English, looking annoyed that Ramin hadn't introduced her.

Crocker took her hand. “Nice to meet you, Anahita.”

She lowered her eyes to the ground. “I'll be with Danush.”

“Tomorrow night?” Crocker asked.

“Yes.”

“We'll all fit in the car?”

She nodded.

“The arena is near here?” Crocker asked.

“Thirty kilometers,” Danush said.

“So it's relatively close.”

“Yes, about a twenty-minute drive. Twenty-five at most,” Ramin said. “Danush's brother will meet you there. He manages the sports arena.”

Crocker turned to Danush. “Your brother,” he repeated. “What's his name?”

“Shah.”

He saw the smirk on Ritchie's face and knew what he was thinking.

“Shah what?” Crocker asked.

“Just Shah.”

He looked at Danush and nodded. “Okay. You take us to the arena, then what happens?”

“You'll meet with his brother and he'll show you where to hide.”

“John Smith told me you had a plan. What's the plan?”

“We do have a plan,” Ramin answered defensively.

“That's it? We meet Danush's brother and he shows us where to hide?”

Ramin looked at his watch. “You want me to show you everything now?”

“Yes, please do.”

Ramin said something to Anahita, who turned, reached under her blouse, and removed a piece of white paper. She unfolded it and handed it to Ramin. On it was a bird's-eye-view sketch of the arena, entrances, and parking lot. It matched the satellite photo Crocker had in his backpack.

Pointing to a spot on the paper, Ramin said, “This is the sports arena. The customers enter in the front, but special dignitaries arrive in the back. Here. That is where Alizadeh and Suleimani always enter. They come together in one car with a bodyguard and driver. Another vehicle with more bodyguards will follow them.”

Crocker pointed to the curb in the drawing. “This is where the vehicles stop and the two men get out?” he asked.

“Correct. The bodyguards always get out first. They look around to make sure they haven't been followed, then one of them opens the back door.”

“I see,” Crocker said. “Do the bodyguards wear body armor?”

“I don't know.”

“Will Suleimani and Alizadeh be armed?”

“I don't know that, either.”

“We'll assume they will be.” Pointing at the sketch, Crocker asked, “Are there usually other vehicles parked back here?”

“Yes.”

“And people?”

“Sometimes people, too, yes.”

Danush said something to Ramin in Farsi, then turned to Crocker and said, “You don't need to worry about other people. My brother will clear them. He'll show you where to hide.”

Crocker had dozens more questions, having to do with disguises, uniforms, other guards and policemen at the arena, and their escape. Ramin and Danush answered some of them. When it was time for them to leave, they led the SEALs a hundred yards past a chain-link fence to an old shipping container. This one had a lock on it, which Ramin opened with a key.

It stunk inside, and old mattresses covered the metal floor. “You can sleep here tonight,” Ramin said.

“I give this place half a star,” Ritchie cracked.

Akil: “Don't you have something with a view of the swimming pool?”

Ramin frowned.

“What happens next?” Crocker asked.

“We lock you in for the night,” Ramin answered. “Then we come back tomorrow morning and bring some food and beverages.”

“We brought food and water with us.”

“Then Danush will return about 6 p.m. to drive you to the arena. The game doesn't start until seven.”

Akil turned to Crocker and raised an eyebrow.

“Two things,” Crocker said. “Number one, you're not going to lock us in this shipping container, so forget about that. Number two: What's likely to happen at the steel plant tomorrow? Are we going to wake up and find this area overrun with people?”

“Mr. Mansfield,” Ramin answered, “I must say I find some of your questions insulting. We're intelligent people who are risking our lives to help you. We've thought about all of these matters. The plant is closed for the rest of the week as people get ready to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet.”

The breeze threw sand in Crocker's eyes. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you,” he said. “But I need to know what to expect.”

“You can expect peace and quiet here. Nobody visits the plant when it's closed.”

“Okay.”

“Any more questions?” Ramin asked.

Crocker shook his head. “Is there any way for us to reach you?”

“No. It's too dangerous, and I don't have a secure phone. We'll be back tomorrow.”

“Until tomorrow morning then.”

“Until tomorrow.”

Ramin turned and walked away with his two associates, leaving Crocker with a bad taste in his mouth.

“There goes the mighty Scimitar,” Ritchie said as he watched them climb into the BMW and drive off.

Akil turned to Crocker. “What do you think?”

“If they do what they say they're gonna do, we'll be fine.”

“What do you think are the odds that's going to happen?” Akil asked.

“Fifty-fifty.”

“I don't know if they can be trusted,” Ritchie said, picking sand out of his teeth.

“We'll find out.”

The men chose to sleep on the flat roof of the container, where they could breathe fresh air and keep an eye on their immediate surroundings. To pass the time, Mancini, who had recently seen the movie
Lincoln,
talked about the strange coincidences between the sixteenth president and the thirty-fifth, John F. Kennedy. Both were shot by a bullet to the head on a Friday. Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846, Kennedy in 1946. Lincoln's successor (named Johnson) was born in 1808. Kennedy's successor, also named Johnson, was born in 1908. Lincoln's assassin had three names and was born in 1838. Kennedy's assassin also went by three names and was born in 1939.

“So?” Ritchie asked. “What's it mean?”

“It's interesting, that's all. Did you know that a week before his death, Lincoln dreamt that he heard crying in a room in the White House? He found the room and saw a coffin and someone crying. When he asked who was in the coffin, the person responded, ‘It's the president.' Then he looked in the coffin and saw himself.”

“Was that in the movie?” Akil asked.

“No. They left out a whole lot of interesting stuff.”

“Do us a favor,” Ritchie said. “Don't tell us what you dream tonight.”

“Why? You don't want to know what's coming?”

“I'd rather be surprised.”

Crocker tried to push away the doubts he had about Ramin and Scimitar, and focus on the positive—they were in Iran and within striking distance of Alizadeh and Suleimani. If they did manage to get as close as Ramin said they could, they'd kill the Quds Force leaders. The more difficult task, and one they hadn't discussed with Ramin, was exiting the arena unharmed, then escaping across the border.

One thing at a time,
he told himself, acknowledging that they were operating in the gray area of guts, instincts, and faith.

In an attempt to give his restless mind a break, he looked up and tried to find the constellation Orion. Through the hazy, cloud-swept sky, he located its brightest stars, blue-white Rigel, and reddish Betelgeuse, then traced the rest. In Greek mythology Orion was a hunter and usually depicted holding a club in one hand and a lion's head in the other.

He considered it a good omen.

In the morning the SEALs ate MREs and took turns washing in water from a spigot at the rear of the plant. Then they huddled and went over responsibilities. What they wanted to do was position themselves at the back of the arena and fire at the officials and their bodyguards from two directions, thus reducing any chance of escape.

Crocker and Akil would fire from Position 1, along the back wall of the arena. Mancini and Ritchie would situate themselves at a forty-five-degree angle from them somewhere in the rear parking lot (Position 2). One shooter from each position—Crocker at 1, Ritchie at 2—would focus on taking out the bodyguards and disabling the vehicles. The other two shooters, Akil and Mancini, would aim at the targets—Alizadeh and Suleimani.

Ramin didn't return in the morning like he said he would, so the SEALs spent the day cleaning and checking their weapons, reviewing positions, fire vectors, and signals, and going over various contingencies. By five everything was locked and loaded. The men were ready.

“Where the hell is he?” Ritchie asked.

“Fuck Ramin,” Akil said. “All we need is the kid to drive us to the arena.”

An hour passed and no one arrived. By 1815 hours Crocker started to worry. Ramin had said the game would start at 1900, and the arena was approximately twenty miles away.

Security around the city of Ahvaz was tight, and the Iranians were known to use electronic surveillance. With no way to communicate with Ramin, they waited.

At 1830, as the sun started to set, Crocker considered calling John Smith on the sat phone and telling him to pull them out. Ten minutes later a vehicle entered the back lot of the steel plant and flashed its headlights twice.

He and Akil approached through a mist of yellow-orange dust. The vehicle wasn't a BMW, but a white Toyota sedan. Danush sat behind the wheel with Anahita in the seat beside him.

“What happened?” Crocker asked through the driver's-side window, trying not to lose his cool. “Ramin said he'd be back this morning. He never came.”

Anahita leaned over and said, “There's been a problem.”

“What does that mean?”

“The problem is that the arena is closed and the game was canceled.”

“Why?” Crocker asked, checking their eyes for signs of betrayal, and alert to the sound of approaching people or vehicles.

“A pipe broke,” she answered.

“A sewer pipe,” Danush added.

“A sewer pipe broke inside the arena?” Crocker asked. “When is it likely to be fixed?”

Danush shrugged and looked at Anahita for help. “We don't know,” she answered. “It's a big mess, as you can imagine.”

“Where's Ramin?” Crocker asked, still superalert to the emotions that played on their faces and in their eyes.

“He asked us to come. He thinks he's being followed.”

“Is he?”

The two Iranians looked at each other. Danush shrugged and answered, “We don't know. He gets nervous when things go wrong.”

Crocker leaned his hand on the roof of the car. Everything they had told him sounded reasonable so far. Anahita got out, lit a cigarette, and gazed at him intently with her dark eyes. She looked disappointed.

She blew smoke over her shoulder. A small plane passed overhead.

He took note of it, then turned to her and asked, “Do you have another idea?”

She leaned her head back, exhaled smoke into the sky, then shook her head. “I don't know.”

“Then you and Danush should go.”

She looked at her colleague still sitting in the car and said, “We're both very angry about this, because you're here. It's a big opportunity.”

“Maybe we will never have another chance,” Danush added.

“I feel the same,” Crocker said. “Do you know where Alizadeh and Suleimani live?”

“We do,” Anahita answered, “but the streets are heavily guarded.”

“What about their office?”

“The headquarters?” Danush asked. “No, that's impossible.”

“Lots of things were impossible before someone did them,” Crocker said, gazing up at the sky, very aware that the window of time in which they had to launch an op was closing.

As she smoked her cigarette Anahita explained that John Smith had asked the same question about attacking Quds Force headquarters a week ago, and as a result, Ramin had done a study of the security of the building and its accessibility from adjoining structures. There was a bank to the right of it if you looked at the building from the front, and a movie theater on the left. The walls between them had been bombproofed with steel plates. The prospect of drilling or blasting through the walls in Quds Force HQ undetected were almost zero.

She explained that they had developed a source inside the movie theater, and the person had confirmed this.

“What about the roof?” Crocker asked.

“What roof?”

“The roof of Quds Force headquarters.”

Danush: “You would need a helicopter to get there, and the guards would see and hear it.”

“There's a guard station up there, too,” Anahita added. “It's manned day and night. But there's an old passageway between the buildings that was blocked up when the theater was renovated three years ago.”

“What kind of passageway?” Crocker asked.

“A doorway, I think. Some kind of emergency exit on the third floor that's blocked.”

“Blocked, in what way?”

Danush shrugged. “With steel plates, I think.”

Crocker was in no mood to accept defeat. “You said you knew someone who worked in the movie theater. Can he get us inside?”

“When?” Anahita asked.

“Tonight.”

She grinned, covered her mouth with her hand, then conferred with Danush in Farsi.

Akil, who stood behind Crocker, followed their discussion.

“What do you think?” Crocker asked.

“We have to arrange some things first,” Anahita said, “but we can try.”

A
pproximately two
hours later, the two Iranians returned in the same car. The engine continued running as Anahita stepped out and red dust swirled in front of the headlights.

“What happens now?” Crocker asked, shielding his eyes with his hand.

Her figure cast a huge black shadow over the plant. “Danush is going to take you to a place five minutes from here. When you get there, our friend will transport you in a truck.”

“Let me make sure I understand. You're saying your friend is going to drive us to the movie theater?” Crocker asked.

The veins on her forehead shone in the car's lights. “It's extremely dangerous,” she replied, “but he's going to try.”

“Good. Thanks. What's this man's name?”

“You can call him Rahman.”

“You know him and think you can trust him?”

She nodded and retied the scarf around her head. “Yes.”

“Are you coming?” Crocker asked her.

“No, I'll wait here and worry. Maybe I should pray.”

“Pray, but don't worry,” Crocker replied. “This is what we do.”

Akil sat in the passenger seat next to Danush. Crocker, Ritchie, and Mancini tried to look inconspicuous in back. The car rumbled past the steel plant and turned onto a paved four-lane road with little traffic. The gas flares from oil wells danced against the night sky ahead.

In an attempt to break the tension, Ritchie asked Danush if he'd ever been to the United States.

“No, but I would like to some day.” His English seemed to improve the more he spoke.

“If you go, what's the first place you want to visit?”

“Miami,” Akil suggested. “I'd recommend Miami. South Beach, hot chicks, great clubs.”

“No, the Big Apple. New York City.”

“Why?” Ritchie asked.

“To see all the millions of people from all over the world living together in tall, tall buildings, riding in subways underground. And I want to go to Madison Square Garden to see the Knicks. They're my favorite basketball team. I watch them on live streaming on my computer.”

Danush turned the Toyota onto a dirt road and wound past a hill to a place that smelled like rotten eggs. Crocker saw three trucks parked at odd angles fifty feet ahead. Danush stopped, shut off the engine, and got out.

“Where are we now?” Crocker asked.

“This is a garbage dump. I have to talk to Rahman.”

“Is it okay if Akil goes with you?”

Danush considered for a moment and nodded. Akil left his submachine gun on the floor in front.

Crocker watched them disappear behind the trucks. Fifteen long minutes stretched by, according to his watch.

“Wasn't Rahman the name of that blind cleric who helped plan the first World Trade Center attack?” Ritchie asked.

“Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman,” Mancini answered. “He was an Egyptian cleric who ended up preaching at some mosque in Brooklyn. In his sermons he told fellow Muslims it was okay to rob banks and kill Jews. He said Americans were descendants of apes and pigs who had been feeding off the scraps from the tables of Zionists.”

“I had a feeling you'd know that,” Ritchie said. “Where's that blind camel-fucker now?”

“Living in Ahvaz, Iran,” Mancini answered.

“Very funny.”

Mancini: “Last I heard he was serving a life sentence for conspiracy at some federal pen in the U.S.”

“Nice.”

Crocker saw the dark outline of a man climb into one of the trucks. The engine started. Then he noticed Akil waving from the back. When the headlights came on he saw that it was a Scania garbage truck for industrial bins, with a front loader arm and hydraulic lift that rested on top of the cab.

Crocker turned to Ritchie and said, “Go see what Akil wants.”

Ritchie ran back two minutes later. The pupils of his dark eyes were drawn tight. “The truck is going to take us. Bring the gear!” he shouted through the window.

Rahman was a short, squat, thick-armed man with thick black hair, a mustache and goatee. He looked like a wrestler, and wiped sweat and dust off his face with a blue bandana as he conversed with Akil.

Akil: “He wants us to ride in the back, and he wants to cover us with garbage.”

“Garbage?”

“To hide us,” Akil explained.

“Tell him to make sure it's dry,” Ritchie commented. “I don't want any liquids or toxic chemicals dripping on me and burning into my skin.”

“Since when did you grow a pussy and become a Kardashian?” Akil asked.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Guys. Guys,” Crocker said, cutting them off and aware that they were all getting revved up. “Okay, Rahman's driving us to the theater. Does he think he can get past the guards on the street?”

Akil nodded. “He believes so. Yeah.”

“Then he's the man. Load in!”

One after the other, the SEALs climbed up the tall sides into the hopper and hid between the hydraulically powered moving metal wall and the rear panel of the truck. Rahman and another man covered them with stacks of cardboard boxes.

When Rahman said something in Farsi, Akil laughed.

“What's funny?” Crocker asked.

“He told me a joke. He asked me, What do you call a Persian woman who knows where her husband is all the time?”

“What?”

“A widow.”

“Fuck, that's bad.”

“Iranians aren't known for their sense of humor.”

“Let's hope this isn't his idea of a sick joke,” Ritchie said.

There was nothing in the hopper to hold on to, so each time the truck hit a bump, they flew into the air, and each time it turned, they rolled into one another. The experience reminded Crocker of a ride at an amusement park, minus the sodas and cotton candy. Half an hour of jostling and bouncing later, the truck stopped and Ritchie threw up.

“Hold your breath,” Crocker whispered when he heard someone climb the metal steps, then poke into the boxes overhead. Tense seconds passed with fingers on triggers and safeties open. Any moment Crocker was expecting something sharp to slice into him.

The four SEALs exhaled together as the footsteps descended. Ritchie stunk to high heaven.

The truck lurched forward, turned right twice, then started backing up. It stopped abruptly. Ten minutes passed before someone slapped the side of the hopper twice. Akil climbed out to look. He slapped the side three more times, and Crocker and the other two SEALs pushed off the boxes and got out.

Each man took some welcome breaths of fresh air as they squeezed past green dumpsters and entered the dark rear of the theater. Crocker, Mancini, and Ritchie climbed up to the third-floor landing where they waited for Akil and Rahman.

When Rahman arrived, he opened a metal door with a key on his belt and led them through a dark lobby that smelled of butter and popcorn. They followed him into a dark movie theater. Using a flashlight he borrowed from Akil, Rahman found the place on the wall where the connecting door to the neighboring building had once been.

Akil turned to Ritchie and whispered, “That's it.”

Ritchie felt along the wall, tapped on it, and put his ear up to it. He whispered, “No way I can blast through that without causing a big commotion.”

“How big?” Crocker whispered back.

“Real big,” Ritchie answered. “Anahita told us the whole wall had been reinforced with metal. I think there's metal plates behind here, too.”

Akil carried a rough sketch of Quds Force HQ that Danush had given him, and he now unfolded it. He said, “Our main targets are on the fourth floor,” referring to Alizadeh and Suleimani.

“This isn't going to work,” Crocker said.

Ritchie: “What do you mean, boss?”

“Not this way, it isn't.”

“But—”

“Quiet,” Crocker said, as anxious looks were exchanged. Turning to Akil, he said, “Ask Rahman to show us to the roof.”

Akil translated. A game-looking Rahman nodded. They climbed quickly behind him, holding their weapons and seventy-five-pound packs on their backs.

Breathing hard in the tight space, Akil said, “Rahman is going to turn off the building's alarm system, so if we want to hide on the roof, we should do it now.”

“Why?”

“Because he's got about thirty seconds to re-engage it.”

Crocker asked, “How long will it take him to get to it?”

“A few seconds.”

“Tell him to go now.”

Rahman waved his arm and muttered something. Akil translated: “First, he wants to know how we're going to get out.”

“Tell him we'll manage. And thanks.”

Rahman grunted a sound of disapproval.

“What'd he say?”

“He says he'll drive one of his trucks to the back of the theater in the morning.”

Crocker: “Tell him that's not necessary.”

Rahman grabbed Crocker's wrist and pointed to his watch.

Akil: “He wants to know what time.”

“Tell him ten fifteen.”

Mancini whispered to Crocker. “Chief, I need Akil to record something for me first.”

“Make it quick.”

The two SEALs went off into a corner while Crocker removed his pack, knelt, then gave Rahman the signal to go. The second he left, Crocker started to count the seconds in his head. At sixteen he pushed through the door and did a quick recon of the roof, which was flat and covered with thick black tar. To the right of the door sat a seven-foot-high metal cooling unit painted white.

Crocker got on his belly and crawled ten feet from the back of the unit to the edge of the building. He guesstimated a four-foot gap and a six-foot fall-off between the roof of the movie theater and that of Quds Force headquarters. Sticking out from the HQ roof near the front of that building was a rectangular cement structure that looked as if it housed a stairway, cooling unit, and guardhouse. Two soldiers with automatic weapons stood outside it.

His recon completed, Crocker turned, crawled back quickly, and waved the men through the door. They made it just in time.

The SEALs sat with their backs against the cooling unit and waited. As the sun started to light up the sky, Crocker heard a man from a nearby mosque call out the morning prayer known as Fajr over a microphone. His high, pleading voice echoed through the streets.

“What's he saying?” Ritchie asked in a low voice.

“God hears those who call upon him. Our Lord, praise be to You,” Akil answered. “Glory be to my Lord, the Most High.”

Richie nodded. “I'm cool with that. It's only when Allah starts telling them they've got to kill other people that I have a problem.”

Akil: “Allah never tells us that.”

“Why?” Ritchie asked. “Because he doesn't exist, or people deliberately misinterpret what he's saying?”

“Quiet!” Crocker whispered.

A warm breeze blew in a cover of low gray clouds. A cool light rain started to fall.

“How much longer are we gonna wait?” Ritchie asked, wiping the precipitation off his forehead.

“Yeah, boss, what's the plan?” Akil echoed.

Crocker looked at his watch: 0732. “I figure by 1000 hours whoever is coming to work today will be in the building,” he whispered. “That's when we're going to launch. Akil, you and I will go first. We'll take out the guards. Mancini, you and Ritchie take the stairway and head down one flight to four. Look for Alizadeh and Suleimani. They're our primary targets.”

“Then what?”

“We grab whatever hard drives, thumb drives, or CDs we can find and fight our way back to the stairway.”

“Then?”

“Then…we get the fuck out of Dodge.”

“Everybody's gonna need to wear earplugs and a gas mask when we get inside,” Mancini said.

“Why?”

“I got something planned.”

The whole scenario seemed damn unlikely as Crocker articulated it and played it back in his head.

Maybe it would have been better to wait for another opportunity to hit them at the arena.

It was too late to second-guess himself, so he stopped, looked up at the sky, and let the little drops of water pelt his face, which felt like some sort of cleansing.

He'd been challenging himself since he was a teenager, doing crazy stunts on motorcycles and trying to outrun the police. He'd broken practically every bone in his body during one scrap or another but had always managed to escape.

Crocker said a silent prayer asking God to look after Holly, Jenny, his father, sister, and other relatives and friends and keep them safe. “If you find it in your heart to deliver me from this, too,” he added, “I promise to always be your faithful servant, never back away from danger, and do what I believe is right.”

At 0955, he screwed the silencers on the ends of both of his weapons, then saw a flash of light illuminate the sky. Thirteen seconds later thunder rumbled overhead, and he slapped Akil on the shoulder and pointed to Quds Force headquarters.

Crocker went first, on his belly, until he got within four feet of the edge. From that angle he could see three Iranian soldiers with their backs toward them and automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. They stood under the front lip of the guardhouse, smoking cigarettes and looking down at the street.

Lightning flashed again, and just as his uncle had taught him to do when he was six years old, he counted the seconds on his watch until the thunder came. Ten seconds. It was moving closer.

“Next time there's lightning, I'm gonna jump,” Crocker whispered into Akil's ear. “If the soldiers don't notice me, give me a couple of seconds to start around the other side of that structure, then start taking them out.”