Hunt the Viper

by Don Mann

  “Crocker, did you hear the question?”

  “Yes, I’m trying to recall.…I wasn’t there when they were captured, but I believe they were found in one of the one-story structures at the back of the compound. The one on the left.”

  He wanted to move on, to get some sleep, to check in with Jenny, Séverine, and maybe Cyndi. To reconnect with his ex-wife, Holly, and see what she wanted. To summon the team together and plan for the next mission.

  What’s the value of going over this again?

  “As far as we’re able to determine at this time, neither of these men are Abu Omar,” Smithson said.

  His head pounded. His back hurt like hell. The Advil still hadn’t taken effect. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Excuse me.”

  “We did the best we could based on the intel provided. If Abu Omar was there, we would have grabbed him. Apparently he wasn’t.”

  “Can you state that with a hundred percent certainty?” Smithson asked.

  That struck him as a ridiculous question. “We went through the entire house and property, and we didn’t see him. Nor did we see anyone leave the compound. A number of militants were killed. I think it was fourteen in all. All we had on Abu Omar was a single photo, so maybe we shot him in the heat of battle, or maybe he wasn’t there.”

  “Our local informant claimed he was.”

  “Maybe your informant was incorrect. In my experience, they often are. Are we done here? Because I got other shit to take care of.”

  “Crocker, there are other things I’d rather be doing, too!”

  “Understood.”

  “We’re not assigning blame. We’re just looking at what we did and didn’t accomplish, so we can plan steps going forward.”

  “Okay.” She was right. He was tired and upset about Rip.

  “You sent us a dozen photos of dead militants.”

  “Yes…”

  “You just told me you killed fourteen in all. So where are the photos of the other two?”

  He wanted to tell her to go fuck herself, or get up and drive his fist through the screen. But reminded himself that she was doing her job.

  “We photographed all the dead militants. If I sent photos of a dozen, that’s the true number and I misspoke before.”

  “Benji One and Benji Two are on their way to Bagram?” asked Smithson, referring to the prisoners.

  “Correct.”

  “Hopefully we’ll be able to get some intel out of them.”

  “Yes.”

  “The tall one, Benji One, we believe is al-Ghazi’s chief aide, Hassan. Benji Two, we haven’t been able to identify as of yet, but he’s too young to be Abu Omar.”

  The rocking of the boat combined with his lack of sleep and the Advil were making him nauseous. “What about the guy on the stairs…the one I took the picture of? Short, kind of heavy, close-cropped white hair?”

  “We’re not sure, but we suspect he could be al-Ghazi.”

  The picture of al-Ghazi they’d been shown before the mission was of a much younger man.

  “Al-Ghazi, the leader of the militia group and owner of the compound?” Crocker asked.

  “Correct. You weren’t able to capture him alive?”

  “No. He died in a gunfight.” Not exactly true, but he didn’t feel like explaining and being second-guessed.

  “His death could create possible complications in Libya.”

  “Why?”

  “He was an influential man in that part of the country. His death could compromise some of the things we’re trying to do there.”

  “Your local informant told you al-Ghazi wouldn’t be there, correct?” asked Crocker.

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Like I said before, your source is shit. Now excuse me, because I’ve got to throw up.”

  Halfway through the silent prayers for her mother, relatives, and friends, Séverine fell asleep. She dreamt she was floating above the clouds. She saw a field below. Next thing she knew, she was tossing an inflatable ball to the Syrian boy with the red sweater. His neck had healed, leaving a crescent-shaped scar. His father, who leaned into the picture, said in broken English, “Look.…It’s…good…luck.”

  She smiled. The boy smiled back, and the ball sailed over his outstretched hands and struck him in the face. He let out a delayed scream that echoed.

  Séverine awoke, surrounded by thick darkness. The wool blanket chafed her arm. Another bloodcurdling scream filled her ears. She sat up, disoriented.

  “Séverine! Séverine!” a girl screamed in English. “Rats! Oh, my god! We have rats! Big rats!”

  She switched on the flashlight on the floor beside her. Saw her new roommate Dayna standing in shorts and a Texas Longhorns t-shirt near a mattress on the floor of the metal pod. It was really a shipping container with a window cut into it, containing two mattresses, two blankets, a desk, a space heater, and a plastic bucket. No sheets, no rug, no chairs. The bathroom was somewhere outside.

  Dayna jumped up and down with her arms clutched over her chest. “Séverine. Oh, Séverine.…I’m afraid to move. One of them crawled over me. What should we do?”

  She remembered that Dayna was a twenty-one-year-old nurse from Savannah, Georgia, who had discovered Jesus while attending the University of Texas in Austin. She also recalled that rats usually didn’t bite humans.

  Séverine said, “Dayna.…Dayna, calm down. It’s okay. The rats won’t hurt us.”

  Dayna had straight shoulder-length reddish-blond hair, high cheekbones, and a slight overbite. She reminded Séverine of the actress Erika Christensen in one of her favorite movies, Traffic, and spoke with a Southern drawl.

  “How can you say that?” Dayna shouted back. “They’re rats, Séverine! They’re disgusting!”

  She heard a rustling sound and saw two rats with long gray fur trying to hide in the corner. A chill ran up her spine. She knew she had to be the strong one.

  “Calm down, Dayna,” she said. “They’ll go away. They’re looking for food. We don’t have any food here, do we?”

  “No!”

  “I’ll talk to the camp administrator in the morning.”

  “You can’t talk to him now? I mean what happens if they…attack us?”

  “They won’t attack us. I don’t know where the administrator sleeps. I don’t even know his name. Come here.”

  Kneeling on the mattress, she held out her arms. Dayna crossed the metal floor and the two women embraced.

  Séverine felt the young American trembling in her arms like a delicate bird, even though she was broad-shouldered and tall.

  “I hate rats, Séverine. They disgust me.”

  “They disgust me, too.”

  “Séverine.…I came here to spread God’s love. I asked him to send me to the hardest place. To send me where others do not want to go.”

  “You got your wish.”

  They laughed together. “You know the words of Luke from the Bible, ‘From everyone who had been given much, shall much be required’?”

  “I’ve heard them, yes.”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  We only have what we give.

  —Isabel Allende

  Crocker had just gotten off the phone with an aide at Landstuhl Medical Center who told him that Rip was in emergency surgery to repair damage to his intestines and spleen caused by bone and bullet fragments when the AK round ripped into his pelvis.

  He said a silent prayer for his teammate as he climbed up to the flight deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, his fully rigged HK416 slung over his shoulder, Mancini, Akil, and CT following, Tiny Chavez by his side. They called him “Tiny” because of his massive shoulders and chest, made stronger through endless reps of presses and lifts.

  He was showing Crocker a picture on his cell phone, taken at his son’s first birthday. Showed a round-faced kid licking a plate of chocolate ice cream that was smeared all over his face.

  “Look, boss,
he likes to eat like me.”

  “He just turned one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Big kid.”

  Tiny grinned with pride.

  They reached the massive flight deck and were hit by a blast of ocean air, laden with the smell of salt and slight decay. Over his left shoulder, he saw an F-18 Super Hornet coming in for a landing, engines screaming, tailhook deployed.

  He shouted to Tiny, “Cover your ears!”

  The F-18 hit the deck, sending up a huge shower of sparks, hit one of the ship’s arrest wires, and skidded to a stop.

  “Fucking epic!” Tiny remarked. “Can’t be easy…”

  “Not at a hundred and seventy-five miles an hour.”

  A landing signal officer escorted them past a row of A-63s to a spot beneath the ship’s superstructure, known as the island. Waiting for them were two MH-60 Knighthawks and four SOAR pilots and copilots.

  Rick “Scarface” Jameson, the lead pilot—olive flight suit, short hair, big mean-looking scar over his left eye, the result of a crash in Afghanistan—offered Crocker a fist to bump.

  “You ready, Crocker?”

  “Always.…”

  “We got some weather blowing in from southwest, so this might be a little rough.”

  “That’s the way we like it, Scarface.”

  “Good.”

  This was going to be a bitch any way you sliced it, because they had no Zodiacs, no cigarette boats, no dive equipment. Instead they were planning to fast rope onto the deck of the HS Star Helena in bad weather.

  Crocker revved himself up for the challenge.

  Saw enthusiasm in the eyes of Akil on the bench across from him as the lead Knighthawk, “Shaggy One,” pitched from side to side as it tried to push through the oncoming wind.

  The big Egyptian American inspired him, though Crocker tried to hide that. Now he grinned from ear to ear and wagged a thumb at Crocker. Akil was super pleased with himself for hooking up with a pretty young aerographer from Phoenix that afternoon. They’d met while working out in one of the Roosevelt’s gyms. And of course he’d regaled them with all the details of how they made out in one of the ship’s restrooms after dinner.

  Crocker leaned into him and said, “You’re sick in the head, you know that?”

  “Thanks, boss. I learned everything I know from you.”

  He wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Didn’t matter. Glanced at his watch, which read 1949. They were in the Mediterranean, somewhere between the west end of the Libyan coast and the island of Crete. Naval ships had fought battles in these waters during the Trojan War in the twelfth century BC.

  He remembered reading about the Turkish pirate Barbarossa, who spread terror throughout the Mediterranean in the early 1500s. In the space of three years, he and his brothers captured as many as fifty-six ships. Later he ousted the leader of what became Tunisia, and used it as a base for his raids on coastal towns in Spain, Sicily, Malta, and mainland Italy. He later became the inspiration for the pirate actor Geoffrey Rush plays in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

  Crocker wanted to read more history—not the long-winded diplomatic kind, but featuring real-life action heroes, like his favorite Revolutionary War general, Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox.

  “Scarface, you got a ETA for us, or are you keeping that a secret?” Crocker asked via radio.

  “We’re looking at about twenty-eight minutes, give or take. I’ll give you an update when we draw closer.”

  “Copy.”

  “Enjoy the ride.”

  He knew it was going to be hard to keep the helo steady enough for them to land on the Star Helena’s deck. According to the intel Smithson had given them, it wasn’t a big ship, but apparently carried a cargo of MANPADs, Stinger missiles, and other arms bound for ISIS. Also on board, according to electronic surveillance, was notorious Islamic State arms procurer Abu Omar—the dude they hadn’t found in al-Marj.

  Smithson said that the NSA had picked up some cell phone chatter related to the upcoming arrival of the Star Helena at the Turkish port of Mersin, less than a hundred miles from the Syrian border. In these communications reference was made to sending a delegation to receive “Emir Omar.”

  Crocker couldn’t wait to meet the bastard. If he got a chance, he’d give him a couple kicks in the ass for Rip. Having a teammate disabled or killed was the worst feeling in the world.

  Hopefully, the young man was out of surgery now and resting. Crocker didn’t want to jinx him.

  Instead, he focused on the mission ahead. Speed and surprise would be key. Any resistance from armed militants on the Star Helena could present a problem, especially as they were fast-roping down. That’s what the second Knighthawk, “Shaggy Two,” was for—specifically its M240 machine guns and Hellfire rockets—to provide cover.

  Soon as the five SEALs hit the deck, Akil and CT would clear it, while Crocker, Mancini, and Tiny went for the bridge. The object was to overwhelm the crew, take charge of the ship, stop it, inspect the cargo, and get out fast.

  Crocker had led dozens of similar missions, but felt anxious about this one. Maybe it had to do with the rough weather, or the sketchy intel. He wasn’t sure.

  The helo pitched sharply left, then suddenly lost altitude, sending the contents of his supper into his throat.

  “What the fuck!” Akil complained over the radio.

  “Wind shear,” Mancini countered.

  “Ten minutes to target,” Scarface announced.

  “Copy, Scarface. Ten minutes!”

  Adrenaline started to surge in Crocker’s bloodstream and he did a last check of his weapons and gear.

  “Tom?”

  It was a few minutes past 0100. He’d been checking Harley parts for sale on eBay, because he couldn’t sleep.

  “Séverine, is that you?”

  Though her voice came through clearly, her face didn’t appear on the laptop screen. He wanted to see her face.

  “Tom, the wifi in the camp isn’t good. How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “You sure? You don’t sound so good.”

  “I’m a little pissed.…A mission we were on tonight was aborted at the last minute.”

  “Aborted? What do you mean?” she asked in her charming French accent.

  “I mean…canceled. The mission was canceled.” Actually it had been called off just as they were getting ready to fast rope onto the deck, because someone in the White House was worried about Russian and Chinese naval ships in the vicinity.

  “Where are you now, Tom?”

  “I can’t tell you. Sorry. But I’m not far from where you are.” What Russian and Chinese ships had to do with them intercepting the Star Helena was a mystery to Crocker. When he had spoken to Anders and Smithson upon their return to the Roosevelt neither of them offered an explanation.

  “You mean…Aleppo?” Séverine asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You can’t sleep?”

  “No.” It angered him, because tonight was their last chance to stop the Greek freighter before it docked in Turkey and unloaded its cargo. Given the Turkish government’s cozy relationship with the Islamic State, the weapons on board would soon be on their way to Iraq or Syria, and Abu Omar would fade out of sight.

  “Me, either, Tom. I’m in something that they call a pod, which I share with this girl from Georgia. Maybe you can hear her snoring in the background. Last night we had rats.”

  “We call them pets.”

  She laughed.

  “No, seriously. Smart little critters. Much maligned in reputation. They don’t carry diseases and spread rabies, and can actually be trained.”

  “I’ll tell that to Dayna. She hates them. She prays a lot, too. Says Jesus is her one true love and savior.”

  “Sounds like a lot of fun.”

  “No, really…I like her. She’s a sweet person, a nurse who is planning to go back to school to study epidemiology. That’s why they paired her with me.”

  “You’re in
Aleppo now?”

  “Yes. We’re living in a UNSMIS camp on the outskirts. It’s considered safe. The food isn’t bad. Today we made our first trip into the city, or what’s left of the city, to visit one of the hospitals and treat patients suffering from the parasite I told you about.”

  “That Aleppo evil thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s UNSMIS?”

  “The United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria. The camp is guarded by soldiers from Norway, France, and the Netherlands. Today’s visit was cut short because some hospitals and clinics came under air attack.”

  “By who?”

  “The Assad air force and the Russians. That’s what we were told.”

  “They’re bombing hospitals?”

  “Yes!”

  “What about the cease-fire? I thought there was some kind of cease-fire in place?”

  “That’s what we heard, too. But the bombing continues.”

  “So you’re leaving? I hope you’re leaving.”

  “The UN has told Assad that we’re returning to Erbil unless the bombing ends immediately. The government insists they’re only targeting ISIS. But there are no ISIS or other rebels in the city anymore. There is no city. I saw it today.…Everything is in ruins.”

  “Then you should split.”

  “Before I go to sleep I wanted to talk to you. You’re the only person I know who can understand.”

  “Understand what, Séverine?”

  “Evil, Tom.…You can feel it here. It’s like something dark and suffocating that hangs in the air.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “There’s so much to do. There’s sewage everywhere, garbage, disease, but here’s the crazy part: people still live here. It’s hard to believe. The people we meet tell us that they want to stay, because this is their home. Meanwhile, their president and his Russian and Iranian friends kill more of them every day. It’s genocide. It’s impossible. Where do we start when even those who come to try to help are driven away?”