Karachi airport was a confusing, smelly, noisy mess of anxious bodies trying to get from one place to the next. The two Americans hired an expediter-in this case a short Pakistani man named Ahmed-who helped them navigate immigration and customs.
On the way out they passed two strutting Pak security guards with bristling, shining mustaches. Behind them followed lower-ranked guards pulling along a young man with long blond hair and his wrists chained together who was shouting curses in German. A smuggler or drug courier, probably. Crocker imagined that he’d be screaming even louder when the Pakistanis got him behind doors.
The scene outside was equally chaotic. Even though it was late at night, almost 11 p.m. local time, the conjoining streets presented an incredible tangle of cars, people, bicycles, and honking horns. Crocker was reminded that Karachi was a city of over eighteen million, and the primary banking, trade, and business center of Pakistan. A large proportion of its inhabitants were refugees-Muhajirs and Punjabis from India, Biharis and Bengalis from Bangladesh, Pashtuns from Afghanistan, and Rohingya from Burma.
“This way, boss!”
Akil pointed to a blue Mercedes taxi. Inside, he instructed the Sikh driver to deliver them to the port as quickly as possible. They took off at breakneck speed, retracing the path they’d taken the night they went after Abu Rasul Zaman-the Shahrah-e-Faisal Boulevard to Napier Mole Bridge. Judging from the number and prominence of billboards advertising Bollywood movies, that form of popular entertainment had managed to bridge the venomous rivalry between India and Pakistan.
Interesting, Crocker thought as they entered the port area, this time with a chance to look around a little more. He hadn’t expected to be mesmerized but was, by a deep purplish gray sky festooned with lights from ships, booms, loading elevators, and Panamax cranes of all sizes. The effect was otherworldly. Significant in a way he couldn’t grasp.
During the day this was one of the busiest harbors in the world-a long natural channel protected by a thin finger of land with elaborate wharves east and west. At this hour, half past eleven, the port was eerily calm. Gently lapping water with Sufi music playing somewhere in the background. The fire from some sort of refinery burned in the distance, projecting a golden glow along the horizon, which made the water appear even lighter than the sky.
He’d heard that neighboring Afghanistan was the country with the highest percentage of fecal matter in the air. Judging from the quality of what he was breathing, Pakistan couldn’t be far behind.
After an exchange of cell-phone calls, Crocker learned that Davis, Ritchie, and Mancini had arrived ahead of them and were haggling with officials at the Karachi Port Trust.
They ran. Five minutes later, out of breath, he and Akil entered a regal colonial-style building that reminded the SEAL leader a little of the U.S. Capitol. They were directed to an office on the second floor where they found Davis nose to nose with a Pakistani official.
“What’s going on?”
The two men were approximately the same height, but otherwise were very different.
Davis was broad-shouldered and blond, with blue eyes; the Pakistani, dark-skinned and frail, with a brush of black-silver hair and turned-up mustache. He introduced himself as Ayud Nasiri, the assistant port safety manager.
“He’s stonewalling us, boss.”
Ayud Nasiri to Davis: “You’re a very rude man.”
Crocker summoned all his diplomatic charm. “We’re American officials,” he explained, “on a mission for the king of Norway.”
Nasiri responded in a high-pitched voice. “I keep telling your man here that I’m not allowed to release any passenger lists without the approval of the port facility security officer, and that individual won’t be available until later in the morning. It’s nothing personal, of course.”
“But, you see, Mr. Nasiri, this is an emergency. A girl’s life is in imminent danger.”
“It seems that everything is an emergency these days, my good sir.”
A good-natured fellow with a ready smile, Nasiri was also stubborn. He clearly did things by the book and wasn’t about to make an exception, even after Crocker called Mikael Klausen in Oslo, who managed to get the Norwegian deputy foreign minister to talk to him.
“The PFSO will arrive in several hours,” the assistant port safety manager said with a sly grin. “He’s usually prompt, at nine o’clock. I’m sure you’ll find him to be a very good fellow.”
It was a polite go-fuck-yourself.
“Now what?” Davis asked.
That’s when Mancini and Ritchie returned from the port’s passenger terminal, looking fit and rested. They told Crocker they’d shown everyone they could find a photo of Malie Tingvoll.
“Any luck?”
“Negative, boss.”
Crocker and Akil were irritable and tired, having traveled all day to get to Karachi. Crocker’s lower back ached from the long flight. He’d broken it in two places during a HAHO jump (high altitude-high opening) a year before.
The crackers and tea in glasses Nasiri ordered an aide to serve didn’t help.
Mancini, who liked to focus on details, drew a quick sketch of the port-seventeen vessel berths on the east wharf, thirteen on the west. Each wharf held a large container terminal. The west pier also accommodated three oil berths, two ship repair jetties, a shipyard, and an engineering facility. In addition there was a large harbor adjacent to the western wharf that contained thousands of smaller fishing vessels.
“What do we do now?” Ritchie asked, his longish, straight black hair setting off his Cherokee cheekbones.
“We wait.”
They sat on a rough wooden bench and watched the clock on the opposite wall tick slowly past one-fifty-five to two.
Crocker asked Akil to go inside and ask Nasiri if they could see a list of vessels that had recently left the port. He referred him to the traffic manager’s office on the first floor. The lone official on duty there, a tall, thin man with large hooded eyes and thick lips, announced that the office was closed to visitors until 8 a.m. When Akil tried to reason with him, he waved him away and tried to close the door. Akil managed to wedge his foot inside and claimed he was from the U.S. consulate. When that didn’t work, he offered the night traffic manager forty dollars for the names of all vessels that had left the port in the past several days.
Five minutes later, a one-page printout was passed through the crack.
“You understand, of course, you cannot tell anyone that you got this from me.”
“I won’t.”
On the sheet about a dozen names were printed in type so faint it was hard to read. Akil ran up the stairs and handed it to Crocker, who had been considering checking into a nearby hotel.
“What’s this?”
“It’s the list of vessels that left the port over the past six days, including yesterday, the twenty-fifth.”
The team leader’s eyes burned. The names meant nothing to him as he read them out loud: “Lucky Arrow, Northern Valour, Ginga Panther, Eastern Highway, Bunga Raya Tujuh, Rolldock Sun, Syrena, Aristea M-”
“Wait a minute,” Ritchie said. “What’s the next-to-last one you mentioned?”
“The Rolldock Sun?”
“No, the one after that.”
“Syrena?”
“Yes, Syrena. Didn’t we see that name on an invoice we found at the house?”
“What house?”
“AZ’s safe house, the one we raided a couple of clicks from here.”
Crocker looked at the printout again and read the name-Syrena. “You’re right,” he said, trying to fight through the dull fog of exhaustion and recall what else he knew about the Syrena.
“It might mean something, boss.”