He entered the CO’s office with a feeling of pride in being a member of ST-6 but also a sense of resignation. He didn’t care what came next. Even if he was going to be forced to retire for insubordination or taking too many risks, Holly and his men were alive. That’s all he really cared about. He wished Farag was alive, too. Planned to track down his family and help them somehow.
Captain Sutter rose from behind his desk and shook his hand vigorously. “Congratulations, Crocker. Welcome back.”
“Thanks, sir. It’s real good to be home.”
“We’re all damn proud of you.”
Crocker started to choke up. “That means a lot to me, sir.”
He didn’t notice Jim Anders from the CIA until he stepped forward and greeted him, too. “You look rested and in remarkable shape, considering what you went through.”
“I’m lucky to be alive.”
“Sit down.”
Sutter shut the door, then sat behind his desk. Anders popped open his briefcase and removed a yellow legal pad and a file filled with documents. “First,” he said reading from his notes, “let’s talk about the shipping containers.”
“The shipping containers?” Crocker asked back.
“Yes.”
He had participated in post-op meetings dozens of times, but today he found it took real effort to retrieve the image of the white 727 and the six rust-colored containers.
“What about them?”
“The team from IAEA just finished their inspection. They found that those six containers held enough enriched uranium to make at least four five-megaton bombs.”
Sutter: “What do you have to say about that, Crocker?”
“Holy shit, sir.”
“Holy shit is right.”
Crocker recalled that a five-megaton bomb had hundreds of times the destructive power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. “That’s a lot of enriched uranium,” he said.
“A whole hell of a lot.”
“That son of a bitch Iranian,” Crocker snapped, his anger stirring. “Did he escape?”
“You mean the one you saw meeting with Salehi?” Anders asked, leafing through the stack of documents and locating the one he wanted.
“That’s the one.”
“You were right about him, too. We’ve identified that individual as Farhed Alizadeh of the Iranian Qods Force.”
“I knew it. I wanted to grab him, but I was more concerned about whatever was in those shipping containers leaving the country.”
“Understandable,” Sutter acknowledged.
Anders: “According to confidential reports we’ve received from reliable sources, he escaped south and crossed the border into Niger.”
“That’s the same place he was operating from before. Not far from the Libyan town of Toummo.”
“Correct.”
“I’m real sorry we didn’t get him.”
Anders: “We are, too. And you’re going to regret it even more when you hear this.”
“What?”
“Remember the thumb drives you recovered from the tunnel? The ones belonging to the kidnappers?”
Crocker winced at the memory of following Farag into the concrete room, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Based on information we found on them, we believe that Alizadeh was working with Anaruz Mohammed the whole time. We think it’s possible he even had a hand in planning, directing, and financing Holly’s kidnapping.”
Crocker pictured the Iranian’s intense, falconlike eyes. “That evil bastard.”
“We also suspect he might have been behind the attack in Sebha.”
Crocker was fully alert now and ready to fight. “Son of a bitch!”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Sutter: “In a diabolical kind of way, yes.”
Anders: “He knew you and your men were in Libya looking for the Scorpion program WMDs, and he needed to either kill you or distract you.”
“Where is he now?”
“Somewhere, planning more attacks against the West, probably; looking for more ways to help his country build nuclear weapons. Where that is, specifically, I can’t say right now.”
“What about Anaruz Mohammed?”
“We expect the Iranians are still going to use him to forward their agenda in Libya and Niger. But he doesn’t have enough of a following to pose a political threat on his own.”
“That evil fucking Alizadeh has got to be stopped,” Crocker concluded.
Anders: “I wholeheartedly agree.”
Sutter: “What would you say if I said you could get another shot at him?”
Crocker leaned forward and said, “I’d love that, sir! I’d thoroughly welcome the opportunity.”
Anders: “Good. Very good.”
Sutter: “Pull your team together and come see me when you’re ready.”
Crocker: “How about first thing tomorrow morning, sir, right after PT?”
In his head he was already explaining to Holly that he had to leave to track down the man who had planned her kidnapping and had helped kill Brian. She was telling him that she’d miss him, but she wanted the bastard punished.
Sutter: “Eight a.m., Crocker. I’ll see you back here.”
“Very good, sir. See you then.”
Acknowledgments
We couldn’t have done this without the hard work, expertise, and intelligence of a whole team of people, starting with our agent, Heather Mitchell, at Gelfman Schneider and a very talented group at Little, Brown led by our editor, John Parsley, and including William Boggess, Theresa Giacopasi, Nicole Dewey, Peggy Freudenthal, and Chris Jerome. Thank you very much.
We also want to express our appreciation to our families for their love and support-Don’s wife, Dawn, and his daughter, Dawn; and Ralph’s wife, Jessica, and his children, John, Michael, Francesca, and Alessandra.
About the Authors
Don Mann (CWO3, USN) has for the past thirty years been associated with the U.S. Navy SEALs as a platoon member, assault team member, boat crew leader, and advanced training officer, and more recently as program director preparing civilians to go to BUD/S (SEAL Training). Until 1998 he was on active duty with SEAL Team Six. Since then, he has deployed to the Middle East on numerous occasions in support of the war against terrorism. Many of today’s active-duty SEALs on Team Six are the same guys he taught how to shoot, conduct ship and aircraft takedowns, and operate in urban, arctic, desert, river, and jungle warfare, as well as Close Quarters Battle and Military Operations in Urban Terrain. He has suffered two cases of high-altitude pulmonary edema, frostbite, a broken back, and multiple other broken bones in training or service. He has been captured twice during operations and lived to talk about it.
Ralph Pezzullo is a New York Times best-selling author and an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His books include Jawbreaker and The Walk-In (with CIA operative Gary Berntsen), At the Fall of Somoza, Plunging into Haiti (winner of the Douglas Dillon Award for Distinguished Writing on American Diplomacy), Most Evil (with Steve Hodel), Eve Missing, and Blood of My Blood. His film adaptation of Recoil by Jim Thompson, directed by James Foley, is scheduled to reach theaters in 2013.
