Neto said, “This is El Centro. We’ll distribute the toys here.”
Sanchez got out of the lead vehicle, and he and Neto walked into one of the bodegas. A few minutes later a half dozen boys and girls in shorts and dresses ran out into the rain. Seeing Santa Claus, they pounded aggressively on the Toyota’s doors and hood. Mancini got out “Ho-ho-hoing” and started handing out toys, one per kid.
The number of children grew exponentially-like the raindrops. They seemed to come from all directions, shouting with excitement. The SEALs couldn’t hand out the toys fast enough. When they ran out of gifts, they gave the kids dollar bills until they had no more.
It all happened in a fifteen-minute frenzy of hands, pleas, and squeals of delight. Then, shouting “Feliz Navidad!” the men piled back into the trucks and raced up one of the trails into the dark.
“What about the gangs?” Crocker asked, checking the SIG Sauer P226R 9mm pistol Neto had given him and concealing it in the inside-the-waist holster under his black shirt.
“Seems like they’re taking the night off.”
As they climbed, the shacks seemed to be packed closer together and the trail became so narrow they could barely squeeze through. Sanchez, who was driving the lead vehicle, braked at a steep turn that veered to the left and cut the lights.
Neto stopped behind him. With the wipers flapping frantically, he said, “It’s just ahead, at the top of this hill. We should get out here.”
“Okay.”
Mancini slipped out of the beard and Santa suit, and they armed themselves with handguns, a few MP7 submachine guns, and night-vision goggles.
“Do you think they’ve been warned that we’re coming?” Crocker asked.
“It’s possible,” Neto answered.
“Let’s move fast.”
Davis and Cal stayed behind to guard the vehicles. Sanchez led the way, with Crocker and Mancini behind him. Neto took Ritchie and Akil down another trail to cover the rear of the shack, which hung precariously on a ledge to the right of the trail at the top of the hill. The shack was little more than a patched-together wood-and-tin-siding structure with a big blue plastic tarp covering most of the right side. The whole thing was perhaps thirty feet wide in front, accessed by a door on the right side next to a narrow debris-filled dirt alley that separated it from the shack beside it. The left side of the building bordered the edge of a cliff, and though it was difficult to see, there appeared to be a whole slew of shacks behind it.
A pale yellow light shone through the soiled and cracked window. Crocker and Mancini took up preassigned firing positions as Sanchez rapped on the door.
A woman appeared, wide and dark-skinned, midtwenties, her dark hair pulled back, wearing what looked like panties and a blue sports bra. A very young boy and girl stood behind her. She held the screen door open and was waving her hands and explaining something in Spanish when Crocker heard the sound of scraping wood in the narrow alley, then footsteps. Turning to Mancini, he whispered, “You and Sanchez inspect the house. I’m going into the alley.”
He took off, pushing past Sanchez, and tried to find the object moving in the narrow space. Everything he saw was either black or shades of green through the night-vision goggles.
Hearing something being dragged across the roof, he looked up and saw a dark object the size and shape of a length of sewer pipe falling toward his head. There was no room to jump back and no time to lunge forward, so he tried to push it away with his hands.
The cement pipe grazed his left forearm, tearing away skin. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Crocker jumped back against the opposite wall so the pipe wouldn’t hit his feet. He wanted to scream, but focused on scooting around the big pipe and following the sound of feet scurrying across the tin roof, then jumping and landing farther down the alley.
He quickly reached the back of the house and, seeing a moving shadow to his left, turned and squeezed into a little passageway, past a latrine overrun with rats. As he stepped around them, he heard three quick gunshots from the house, followed by a woman’s screams.
Crocker had no radio. For a second he considered entering the shack from the rear, but decided to continue pursuing the person running away. He wondered what had happened to Neto and the others, then saw the back of his assailant’s head sliding down a ledge and disappearing from sight.
He ran fast, and when he tried to stop on the muddy ground, his feet slid out from under him and he fell off the cliff. He saw the tops of skyscrapers and clouds in the distance, and had enough presence of mind to twist his body and get his arms under him to break his fall. Still, he hit the wet grassy turf with a thud that jarred his neck and caused him to tumble sideways into the back of his assailant’s legs.
He realized it was a male when he saw a densely bearded face. Then he felt the man’s hot breath and fingernails digging into his neck. Crocker couldn’t reach his pistol, which had dislodged from his holster during the fall and landed somewhere in the high grass. Nor could he think clearly, because the abrupt landing had winded him.
His instincts took over, and his body carried out the unarmed defensive tactics drilled into his head fifteen years ago by an overweight, badass instructor named Al Morrel, who had been Elvis Presley’s personal bodyguard.
“At any point or any situation, there will be some vulnerable point of your enemy’s body open to attack,” Morrel had said. “Attack this point with all your strength-while screaming, if the situation allows. Screaming serves two purposes. One, it frightens and confuses your enemy. And two, screaming allows you to take a deep breath, which will put more oxygen in your bloodstream.”
It was hard to scream with the savage’s dirty hands around his neck, but still Crocker drew air through his nasal passages and tried. At the same time he drove the heel of his right hand into his enemy’s nose with a tremendous upward motion, shoving the nasal bone into the man’s brain. Crocker’s attacker groaned his final breath and loosened his grip, which allowed Crocker to bellow.
His roar echoed as the man’s body twitched. Crocker took a deep breath, shoved him off, then tried to move his own body to assess the damage he’d sustained.
Luckily, he hadn’t suffered an injury to his spinal column or broken any bones-just scratches, abrasions, a severely bruised left forearm, and a sore ass and lower back. Searching the dead man’s body, in the inside pocket of his gray plastic rain poncho he found a plastic pouch containing a Venezuelan passport and other documents. According to the passport, the man’s name was Octavo Alvarez.
Something about his thick black eyebrows and the shade of his skin caused Crocker to doubt he was an Alvarez, or even Venezuelan. The little gold pendant the man wore around his neck confirmed Crocker’s suspicions when Crocker ripped it off and examined it closely with the night-vision goggles he found nearby in the grass. It was stamped with the image of a hand raising an AK-47 with a globe in the background-the logo of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Known as Sepah or IRGC, members of this militant Shiite Muslim group took their orders from the Iranian mullahs, whose authority they believed superseded those of the elected government. Contained under the umbrella of the IRGC was the Quds Force, a special forces element tasked with unconventional warfare (i.e., terrorism). Unit 5000 was the aggressive new Quds Force element run by Colonel Farhed Alizadeh-the Falcon.
“Makes sense…” Crocker said, looking down at the grimace on the dead man’s face, which was being pelted with rain. He stuck the plastic sleeve with the man’s passport and other documents in the front waistband of his pants and felt in the wet grass for his weapon.