She said, “Meet me downstairs in ten minutes. I’m driving you to the airport. The flights for you and your companion are confirmed.”
That meant Donaldson had given his approval. But Crocker wanted to double-check.
“Our destination is Karachi, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. You’re very efficient.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Crocker,” the North African said. “But I’m afraid I just heard some unfortunate news.”
“What’s that?”
“French authorities have discovered the bodies of several young women buried near the lake at the house in Toulon.”
Crocker was struck more by the sadness in her usually emotionless voice than the significance of what she was saying.
“Bodies?”
“Yes, other girls were buried near the lake.”
He hadn’t considered that possibility.
“I regret to report that one of them was a blonde,” she continued. “Approximately eighteen. Same approximate height as the Norwegian girl you’re looking for.”
Crocker felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. “Oh.”
For an instant he imagined Malie’s parents, whom he’d never met, clutching each other and sobbing.
Through the mottled light of the narrow room, he saw Akil exit the bathroom and point toward the door. Crocker nodded as if to say “Yes, we’re going.”
The woman on the phone continued, “I’ve just finished contacting the Norwegian police security service. They’ll be e-mailing her photos, fingerprints, and dental records presently to expedite the identification.”
Crocker felt his pulse quickening. “How many girls did they find?”
“Three so far. But they expect to unearth more.”
The implications of what he’d just heard spooled out in his mind.
“Fanatics and psychopaths,” she remarked. “Different shades of evil.”
His mind was occupied with another line of reasoning. If the body that had been recovered was that of Malie Tingvoll, why was Cyrus on his way to Karachi?
Crocker explained the dilemma to Akil as they waited outside for the SUV.
Akil scratched his freshly shaved jaw and suggested that they wait in Marseille until Norwegian PST was able to confirm the identity of the body. “In the meantime,” he said, “let’s return to Albert Hayes’s place and see what else we can find on the computer.”
“I hate wasting time.”
“Why’s that wasting time, if the guy we’re looking for isn’t even there?”
Crocker’s gut still pulled him to Karachi. He couldn’t explain why.
Akil said, “You’ve always got to push ahead, don’t you, chief?”
“It’s not about me doing what I want. It’s about stopping these fucking savages.”
Crocker didn’t like pushing people. But it was his job to lead.
Akil wasn’t letting go. “How long is it going to take to get the results from Oslo? An hour at most?”
“We’re going to Karachi. End of story.”
“Boss, you’re not thinking straight.”
“Maybe not. But we’re going anyway.”
As they put their bags in the SUV, Akil shot him a look of pride mixed with hurt and a bit of defiance. Crocker took note. Part of being a successful SEAL assault team leader meant tracking the psychology of your men, especially on long and serpentine ops like this. Instead of breaking down physically, operators were more likely to experience nervous or mental exhaustion. The constant pressure of working undercover, the changing scenery, the emotional ups and downs-all took a toll.
Crocker stopped Akil as he started to climb into the vehicle.
“I can count on you, can’t I?”
Akil looked him in the eye. “Yes, you can, boss.”
“You still mad at me about Edyta?”
“I don’t want to talk about her anymore.”
Crocker said, “I know something about losing people you care for. The pain won’t go away, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Fuck you.”
The North African woman dropped them off at the international terminal, where they checked in and ran to their flight-Emirates to Doha, Qatar, then Doha to Karachi.
The Airbus was crammed with businessmen and wives. Mostly Arabs-some in robes, others in business suits. A sprinkling of South Asians. Women in chadors working at laptops. One of them glanced at Crocker from across the aisle, then quickly looked away, her big eyes glistening with curiosity.
Even a fleeting look like that could be dangerous in the potent mix of cultural influences and interests. Money battled with religion, obedience clashed with personal ambition-creating an undercurrent of danger and anxiety.
Nine and a half hours later, when they changed planes in Doha, Crocker read a text message from Mancini. “Preliminary tests DO NOT link Malie. More results pending. Headed to KP.”
He leaned over and showed it to Akil, who had just come back from the men’s room. “Take a look at this.”
Beads of water still clung to his chin. “You’re right this time. Good for you.”
In the air again, the SEAL assault team leader closed his eyes and dreamt that he was being chased by a pack of wolves through dark, unnamed streets. Sweating through his pale blue polo shirt, he opened his eyes and, blinking, realized he was somewhere over the Indian Sea in an aluminum cylinder with two hundred or so people he didn’t know. The air tasted sour.
He was keenly aware of the space between himself and his fellow passengers. Each of them lived in the bubble of their own experiences, beliefs, circumstances, wants, and needs.
Akil, with his big head leaning on the headrest and his eyes closed, stood out. He was the only one of many Middle Eastern men on the flight dressed casually, in jeans and a black T-shirt. And he was fit. Crocker had noticed other travelers looking at Akil askance.
“No man is an island,” a poet had written. Still, people acted as if they were islands and defended them like wild dogs. To extend oneself and try to cross over from one island to the next was to invite hostility and conflict. Which explained why the Western ideal of personal freedom challenged those who clung to the strict boundaries of dogma. In the state of Virginia, which Crocker called home, you could believe anything you wanted to, dress according to your personal tastes, say whatever you felt like saying, worship the deity of your choice.
He considered personal freedom to be a key ingredient to human progress. And it was a desire that he believed all human beings harbored somewhere in their hearts. To those who wanted to impose a uniform set of beliefs, Western-style freedom-with its invitation to individualism and experimentation-was a loaded gun. A threat.
Crocker liked to compare his team to the Greek three hundred-the free Spartans who chose to fight to the death to resist hundreds of thousands of invading Persians in 480 BC. It was a story that had inspired Crocker his entire adult life. A small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects at Thermopylae who advanced under the lash. The Western idea of freedom was proved stronger than the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy.
Things hadn’t changed that much. Maybe weapons and methods were more sophisticated today, but the war still raged.
Like the day before, at the farm.
Crocker counted his bodies, then added them to the tally. Another two or three in Panama, a half dozen in Iraq, one in Paraguay, six or seven, maybe eight, outside Kandahar in eastern Afghanistan, another two on the Guatemalan border. All men who made the world more dangerous, who threatened the right of free people to live the way they wanted.
The twenty or so lives he’d taken had never caused him to lose a minute of sleep. But, looking out the Airbus window, Crocker wondered if maybe he’d paid a karmic price. Because sometimes he sensed a dark place in his soul.
Maybe one day I’ll face a reckoning and will be punished, he said to himself.
He couldn’t worry about that now. He’d chosen to be one of America’s elite warriors. And as such, he’d proudly and steadfastly fend off and defeat the wolves.