Ritchie led the way to the service stairs, Cherokee cheekbones reflecting the fluorescent light. Black military boots echoing off the cinder block walls, then outside.
No one could mistake them for tourists now.
Beyond his shoulder a low hiss rose from the city, which threw off an eerie orange glow.
Crocker could practically smell the adrenaline pouring out of them as they crowded into the black Suburban. Davis, Ritchie, Mancini, Akil in a cloud of musk, always anticipating a chance to bump into an attractive female, even on an op.
Bull-necked Mancini, already starting to sweat, rechecked that every man was fully equipped-.45 Glocks in carbon holsters fitted with attached pistol lights and loaded with hollow-points, three mags, AK-47s with collapsible stocks with twenty-eight 7.62 x 39 rounds in each of the eight mags, knives, emergency medical gear, comms with earphones and throat mikes, GPS units, nylon black belts with heavy-duty belt rigs for rappelling.
He’d cleaned and inspected everything himself. Probably half a dozen times. No wonder he drove his wife crazy.
Crocker went over the plan again as Ritchie started the engine. “Target: Abu Rasul Zaman, aka AZ, forty-nine. Expect him to be accompanied by Islamic guards from Yemen. These guys will be ferocious. There’s a high probability that we’ll run into women and children, too. If the women aren’t armed, we don’t shoot. If they engage in aggressive action, do what you’ve gotta do. Our orders are to take AZ alive.”
Akil, as they pulled out of the parking lot: “I know his background. The guy’s a sadist, boss.”
“The Agency wants him alive, if possible.” They were on assignment to the CIA, which they had been doing often, especially since 9/11.
“Fuck the Agency.”
“Orders, Akil. No stepping out of line.”
“All right.”
Tires squealing, Crocker asked Ritchie, “You know where we’re going?”
“Is the pope Catholic?”
Davis shook his blond surfer hair and laughed. Ritchie amused him. Davis, like Ritchie, seemed like the most easygoing guy in the world, until he got into a fight.
Crocker handed out maps and the latest surveillance photos. He said: “AZ Central is a three-story concrete structure. First floor houses some kind of store. We think the second floor is being used for meeting rooms, offices. AZ and his men live on three.”
“Any intel on the interior?” Mancini asked.
“I’m expecting an interior stairway.”
“Maybe an elevator?”
“Three floors. Cheaply constructed. No visible motor on the roof.”
Mancini: “The motor might be housed in the basement.”
“The building doesn’t have a basement,” Akil countered.
Crocker continued. “Keep an eye out for booby traps. We might have to breach through security doors between floors.”
Each man had a specialty. Mancini handled equipment and weapons; Davis ran the comms; Akil, maps and logistics; Crocker had been trained as a corpsman (the navy’s version of a medic); Ritchie was the explosives expert and breacher. They were all the best in the world at what they did.
Ritchie asked, “Who’s driving the van with the explosives?”
Akil raised his hand. “I got that.”
Ritchie continued: “All right. Then drive her right up on the curb. I’ll set it off. Give you sixty seconds to seek cover.”
Akil frowned. “Don’t you think they’re gonna hear us? I mean, we’re pulling up right under their noses.”
“No, but-”
Crocker cut Ritchie off. “Akil’s right. Let’s do this one the old-fashioned way.” He pointed to the map. “Come up this perpendicular street. Tie a brick to the pedal. Keep that sucker in gear. You jump out here. What’s that, approximately?”
Mancini: “A hundred and fifty feet.”
Crocker: “That gives you approximately fifteen seconds to duck behind Warehouse One. Here.”
“No problem.”
“We’ll all deploy from Warehouse One.”
Akil nodded. “That works.”
Each man knew his assignment when they hit the target-who would insert where, who would cover left, who would cover right, fire positions, the appropriate hand and arm signals. They’d committed the basic layout of the building and street to memory.
Crocker, as the corpsman, carried specialized medical equipment on his back that enabled him to perform a cricothyrotomy, put in a chest tube, or do a cut-down to clear an airway, if needed. In addition, each man had a blowout patch in his pocket-a four-by-four-inch battle dressing to control major bleeding.
“Any more questions?” he asked.
No one answered.
“Let’s go.”
They’d taken the Shahrah-e-Faisal and had entered central Karachi over the Napier Mole Bridge, gunning by the port and passing sleeping heroin addicts, barking pye-dogs, roaming bands of toughs looking for an unguarded car to jack. The choking stench of kerosene heaters and burning garbage from squatter camps seeped in through the ventilation.
They rode in silence, individual thoughts and emotions filling the vehicle with tension.
To Crocker’s right, billboards hawked Wonder Super Slim cigarettes and a movie called Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year. Whatever that was.
It appeared that nothing had been left untouched by human hands. Even the air was crowded with smoke and the stink of oil and rotting fish and garbage from the nearby port.
Ritchie pointed through the windshield down a potholed street that ran parallel to the train tracks. “She’s parked down there.”
“Who?”
“The van, Manny. Who do you think?”
The glow of the dim yellow streetlight barely reached the back bumper of the battered gray Econoline van. Mancini, who read Arabic, pointed out jidahist graffiti sprayed on one side that translated roughly to “All infidels will be vanquished.”
“Nice touch.”
Crocker checked his watch. At fifteen minutes shy of three the temp felt like it had already pushed past ninety again. Putrid air clung to his skin like a warm wet towel.
They did a final gear and commo check, then loaded and press-checked their weapons. Ritchie found a chunk of concrete to fix to the pedal. Mancini produced a roll of duct tape to hold it in place.
The SUV went in first. Cut the lights three blocks away. Pulled into the dirt parking lot at the back of what they had designated Warehouse One. True to the surveillance photos, it was a raw concrete structure with most of the windows punched out.
They parked next to the carcass of an old yellow bus sitting in one corner with weeds thriving around it.
Warehouse One was directly across the street from AZ Central, the apartment building that, according to the latest intel, housed Zaman and his thugs.
It took Davis twenty seconds to pick the lock to Warehouse One.
The inside was crowded with old refrigerators and parts: stacks of condensers, fan motors, thermostats, water valves, copper tubing. Davis kneeled to read the label on one of the steel drums.
“What is it?” Crocker asked.
“Acetone,” Davis answered.
Mancini spoke up. “A solvent. Auto-ignites at around eight hundred and seventy degrees Fahrenheit. When mixed with oxygen, danger of explosion or flash fire.”
Count on Mancini to know shit like that.
Mancini: “This place is an accident waiting to happen.”
Davis: “Thanks, professor.”
Crocker: “We can’t launch from here. Someone needs to surveil the place down the street.”
That would usually be Akil’s job, but he was in the van. Davis volunteered.
The blond-haired SEAL ran off and soon was back, breathing hard. “Filled with scrap metal, boss,” he reported. “No chemical drums. Nothing flammable. Looks like it hasn’t been used in months.”
“Radio Akil. Tell him we’ll deploy from the back of Warehouse Two. Tell him: Roll left. Make sure he knows his left from his right.”
Davis smiled, readied his radio. “He might need help with that.”