“Where’d you get this?”
“A friend of mine downloaded it from a jihadist website.”
During that flight a year and a half ago, two hours short of Dulles, Vogelman had started lecturing him about what he called Crocker’s narrow-minded, military conception of Sunni radicalism. Explaining that it was espoused by men with strong beliefs, who needed to be understood in the context of a religious-historical struggle over hegemony of the Middle East and Europe.
“They’re the products of a unique cultural experience,” Vogelman had said. “They feel threatened by the West. With good reason.”
“So what?”
“They want what we want. Power. That commonality is important and misunderstood. Political leaders on both sides play up the fear.”
“What’s your point?”
“Guys like you, Crocker, who see things in black and white, are a big part of the problem.”
Crocker, who hadn’t graduated from college and didn’t like being talked down to, had heard enough. “You’re right, Vogelman, I do evaluate people more in terms of black and white than you do. And I can tell you right now, you’re talking like a fucking sheep.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Sheep and wolves, buddy. The wolves are the threat-the evil motherfuckers who live among us. Whatever they call themselves, jihadists, Nazis, murderers…they’re basically aggressive sociopaths. They prey on people who are too trusting, or buy their bullshit. Sheep like you. Like the woman walking through a dimly lit parking lot alone at two a.m. and not hesitating when a strange man approaches.”
“Then what are you?”
“I’m a sheepdog whose job is to protect sheep like you, which means I’m a ruthless motherfucker who spends a good deal of time in the heart of darkness.”
On the laptop screen perched on the fold-down tray, the Washington Post reporter was facing a steady stream of insults in Arabic. Accusations of being a Zionist, a Mossad secret agent, an infidel crusader. White-faced Vogelman denied it all in rudimentary Arabic, sobbing, pleading to return to his wife, his young children, promising that he had, and always would, fairly represent Islam’s point of view.
That’s when a fifth man entered from the direction of the camera and grabbed Vogelman by the hair. Pulled his head up.
The armed men shouted a prayer of some kind. Crocker’s Arabic wasn’t good.
“What are they saying?”
“They’re explaining to Allah that this man is an infidel who has to be killed,” Akil muttered.
Crocker, his blue-hazel eyes burning, focused on the screen, where a sixth man stepped forward. Dressed all in black like an executioner. Thick black whiskers obscured his face.
He held a knife, which he raised and brought down violently along the side of Vogelman’s head. The journalist’s ear came off in a spurt of blood.
“Fucking savages!” Crocker exclaimed, bile rising like he’d been kicked in the stomach.
The man in black hacked off Vogelman’s other ear, then sliced off his tongue.
Crocker wanted to punch something. Anything. The bastards!
“Look,” Akil said.
The bearded man was holding Vogelman’s severed tongue and shaking it at the camera, his eyes red with hatred, rage.
“That’s AZ.”
“Zaman?”
“Abu Rasul Zaman, yes. Number three man in al-Qaeda. The so-called Protector of Islam.”
As Zaman started gouging Vogelman’s left eye out, Crocker groaned, “Turn it off.”
Akil hit a key and the screen went dark.
Soon after Mohammed Saddiq was captured in Italy, he confessed to his role in the U.S. embassy bombing. He said the attack had been planned and ordered by Abu Rasul Zaman.
Crocker growled. “I want that motherfucker…bad!”
“Ssh…”
A passing flight attendant shot Crocker a wary look. He seemed like a friendly, fit man. Had a long, narrow face with prominent cheekbones and chin, big teeth, a salt-and-pepper mustache, short graying hair, a warm smile. He was an outdoorsman of some sort, or maybe a businessman. Now he looked like he wanted to kill someone.
He did.
Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport was insane, as usual. Bag handlers, businessmen, hustlers, Pakistani soldiers cradling AK-47s, women sobbing, ticket agents screaming in Urdu and English, flight announcements smooth and seductive over the PA.
The four men walked down the sleek beige stone corridor, each carrying several bags packed with gear-double plastic climbing boots with liners, insulated overboots, gaiters, synthetic socks, liner socks, polypro underwear, down parkas, down pants, balaclavas, bandanas, nose guards, ski goggles, gloves, expedition mitts.
Crocker led the group. Dressed in sports clothes, they looked more like members of a rugby team than scrawny climbers. Pakistani officials picked through their gear thoroughly.
Two days earlier, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, Crocker had been driving his teenage daughter to a local movie complex when he’d received a text message from the commander of ST-6. He dropped his daughter off at the theater, then gunned the engine of his SUV to ST-6 headquarters in Little Creek, Virginia.
His CO, Captain Alan Sutter, sat waiting for him with two senior officials from the CIA. His orders: Put a small team together. You’re going into Pakistan completely black, under the cover of sports enthusiasts, climbers. The agency has a location on Zaman in Karachi. This is coming straight from the White House. The president wants us to hit him, fast.
This wasn’t the first time Crocker and his men had been sent on a special mission for the CIA. Twelve hours later, they were on a flight to London. Slam bang.
Now Pakistani officials were picking through the team’s gear.
“You gentlemen headed north?” one of the Pakistanis asked in accented English.
“Yes, sir. A day and a half here, then we’re flying to Islamabad.”
“For what purpose?”
“We’re climbing.”
“Karakoram?”
“Past there into the Baltoro Glacier.”
“Very difficult terrain, sir. Good luck.”
Their translator and driver, Wasir, stood waiting on the other side of customs. Short, skinny, early thirties. A wannabe businessman, Crocker thought.
“Mr. C. It’s good to see you again.”
“Good to see you again, too. How’s your family?”
“Very good. Thank you.”
“I’m glad.” Crocker wasn’t much for small talk.
“Mr. Maguire is waiting at the hotel.” That would be Ritchie, the fifth member of Crocker’s team.
“Good.”
The Ramada Plaza Karachi was a long punt from the airport, nestled in an industrial zone. A standard semimodern structure inside concrete barriers manned by police.
The sky was turning dark by the time they arrived. The city of twenty million glowed in the distance like a murky orange dream, a polyglot of glass-and-steel business towers, colonial monuments, mosques, neo-Gothic cathedrals, Sikh and Hindu temples.
While the other guys checked in, Crocker went directly to the room he was sharing with Ritchie. He found him watching BBC World News and sipping from a can of Coke. The air conditioner groaned under the burden of the humid ninety-degree-plus August heat.
“What’s going on?”
Ritchie was a cool customer. Six feet tall, fit, straight dark hair, fierce black eyes, high cheekbones from the Cherokee blood on his mother’s side. He was a meticulous explosives expert and breacher who had a wild side that he kept well concealed. Mostly.
A couple of years ago he’d been arrested for murdering a biker who pulled a knife on him in a bar, a big dude with a beard and a skull and crossbones tattooed on his bald head. Ritchie had stopped there after work, to have a beer and flirt with the blond bartender, when this big biker and a couple of his buddies started giving Ritchie shit about a turquoise amulet he wore around his neck. Some kind of tribal thing that had been passed down from his grandfather.