She recovered quickly. But the emotional impact seemed to linger. She spent more time in her room alone and didn’t want to talk. Sometimes he caught her crying. Crocker cheered her on, telling her that they’d build a new house and live even better than before. He kept waiting for her to snap out of her funk.
Dr. Mathews had told him to be patient. She also warned him that it might take years. She said, “Each one of us has an emotional limit.”
Maybe Holly had reached hers. Maybe she’d never be the same optimistic, confident woman she had been before.
“I can live with that,” he told Dr. Mathews. “As long as she doesn’t expect me to change.”
But she did.
He faced a choice: continuing as the leader of Black Cell, or staying married to Holly. He feared that he couldn’t have both.
Chapter Four
In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.
– Miguel de Cervantes
Forty minutes later, the five members of Black Cell were on their way to the Amedros Café on the other side of Divan Yolu, a touristy street that ran down the center of Sultanahmet, the old section of the city. Crocker, Mancini, and Suarez, dressed in casual attire, walked on one side of the street, Davis and Akil following on the opposite side, with both groups keeping an eye out for surveillance. They had progressed a block and a half, checking out the shops and the people strolling, and Crocker was thinking that it would be fun to explore the city sometime with Holly when his burner cell phone pinged.
He reached into his black 5.11 Tactical cargo pants and discovered that it was Akil, who had texted “*87!”
Suddenly the environment turned hostile. “Again? Fuck.”
“What’s the matter?” Mancini asked.
“We’re being followed.”
“Who? Where?”
“Don’t know.”
Again the opportunities for countersurveillance weren’t ideal because of the large number of tourists walking the narrow streets. And the SEALs weren’t armed, which was a big disadvantage. Nor did they know the city.
“Follow me,” Mancini said, nodding left and entering a hotel lobby. He was quick on his feet for a man built like a linebacker, which he had been at Boston College. As they stood near the front desk eyeballing the people who entered, Crocker’s cell pinged again.
“Akil again?” Mancini asked.
“No, it’s Anders.”
The text from Anders read “Meet at the gym in 30?” According to their prearranged code, the thirty minutes had to be halved, and “the gym” meant Anders’s room at the Sultanhan Hotel.
He pecked back “OK,” and decided not to tell him about the surveillance. He and his men were totally capable of dealing with that.
“What’s up?” Mancini asked, continuing to watch the people coming and going.
“Anders wants to see me. I’m taking Akil. You’re gonna have to eat without us.”
“I think I lost my appetite. Two guys in jumpsuits, eleven o’clock.”
Crocker quickly checked them out. The jumpsuits were too stylish and colorful. Seemed like two dudes going out for an evening run.
“Doubt that,” he countered as the men exited through the revolving door.
Mancini grinned. “You’re right. My appetite for food is hard to kill. You want me to order you some kabobs and bring ’em back to the room?”
“Unnecessary. But first you’ve got to shake whoever is following.”
“Of course. You, too.”
Crocker nodded and consulted his Suunto watch. “Be alert. If they’re the same guys I tangled with this morning, they’re deadly fuckers.”
“Got it. Suarez and I will go first. We’re gonna exit out the back.”
“Cool.”
Crocker consulted the tourist map he carried in his back pocket, then called Akil and told him to meet him on the corner of Divan Yolu and Bab-I Ali. He took an elevator up to the roof, lingered there for five minutes listening to two British women discuss who they considered sexier, Jon Hamm or Daniel Craig, then descended the stairs and exited out the back.
It was a beautiful, warm night with a sweet breeze. He found Akil standing in a tourist shop called Hookah John that sold rugs and knickknacks.
“What’d you see?” Crocker asked.
“Two guys riding in a dark-green Renault 19.”
“What’s that?”
“A boxy looking hatchback similar to a VW Passat.”
“What did they look like?”
“Young, clean-cut. One wore a black leather jacket. They both had short black hair. No facial hair.”
“You see them now?”
Akil shook his head.
“Follow me.”
They entered the heavy foot traffic on Divan Yolu, then hurried to catch the tram at Çemberlitaş, near the Grand Bazaar. They rode it in the direction they’d come from and got off at the Sultanahmet, checking around them. No dark-green Renault in the vicinity. No one who looked suspicious.
“I’ll go first,” Crocker said. “You follow on the other side of the street.”
“Roger.”
Ten minutes later they entered the Sultanhan Hotel lobby. Janice stood near the elevator wearing a black jacket and black pants, with her hair pinned back.
“We were followed,” Crocker said.
“I know. Those are Colonel Oz’s men. They were sent to provide security.”
“Two clean-cut guys in a Renault 19 wearing civilian clothes, black jackets?”
“Sounds right.”
“Who is Colonel Oz?”
“He’s a section leader with MiT. You’re about to meet him. I’ve got a vehicle waiting.”
She led the way through a narrow hallway that exited into an alley. Akil elbowed Crocker, thrust his chin toward the rear of her tight pants, and smiled.
Crocker leaned into him and whispered, “Grow up.”
Two beefy guys in black suits waited by the black Suburban. They had buds in their ears and looked like Scorpions-CIA private security personnel. Probably ex-military. Both of them appeared to have been bench-pressing serious weight and doing ’roids. Veins stood out on their necks.
Janice climbed into the front with the driver-bull-necked, shaved head, with a tattoo of an inverted cross behind his ear. Crocker and Akil slid into the back with the second Scorpion. Crocker sat wondering whether the inverted cross stood for atheism, humanism, the occult, or devotion to Satan as expressed by one of his favorite bands, Black Sabbath. Depended on the context, he supposed.
As they left the alley, Janice turned to face them. “Anders set up a meet with a couple of guys from MiT. They’ll brief you.”
“When are we gonna see the guy who shot the video we watched earlier?” Crocker asked.
“The engineering student? We’re arranging that now.”
“I want to talk to him.”
They left the historical/tourist area and turned onto a well-lit freeway that cut through the northern hills and suburbs. Akil’s eyes closed, and he seemed to be taking a power nap.
Crocker glanced out the darkened windows and followed the full moon in the cloudy sky. “Nobody told us about the security,” he said. “We thought we were being followed.”
“Our oversight,” Janice answered. “After what happened this morning, we’re not taking any chances.”
He phoned Mancini to update him. He and the rest of the team were already at the Amedros Café. Crocker heard singing and rhythmic slapping in the background. His teammates hadn’t forgotten how to have a good time.
As he put the cell away, Janice asked, “You been doing this long?”
“Three years in the navy; sixteen on the teams.”
“I admire you guys a lot.”
“Thanks.”
He knew her type-dedicated, serious, probably a screwed-up personal life. Sometimes young women like her overdid the tough act as they tried to fit into a field dominated by men.