Hunt the Jackal (21 page)

Blood spilling from the wound to his face, he confronted five shocked people in surgical masks—two doctors (a man and a woman) and three nurses (one of whom was a man). Seeing that he was armed, several of them raised their hands over their heads, and all of them backed away to the wall.

Breathing hard, he evaluated the situation in an instant: the two patients on separate operating tables—Olivia Clark on the one in front of him and the darker-skinned older man to his left. Both were connected to monitors, breathing through tubes, and had incisions in their abdomens, though the man’s was much bigger and wider.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the male nurse duck behind a monitor and dash toward a fire alarm switch on the wall.

“¡Pare!”
he shouted, training the MP7A1 on the nurse.

The nurse continued, so Crocker squeezed the trigger and cut him down, splattering blood against the wall and over the dark-skinned man on the operating table. One of the women screamed.

“Quiet!” Crocker growled. “Another sound or sudden movement and you’ll all be dead!
¡Muerto!
”

The male doctor nodded vigorously; others started to cry and pray out loud.

Crocker removed the handheld from his pants pocket and spoke into it urgently: “I need help at the east end of the hall. I found her.”

His mind moved fast, trying to ascertain how to get Olivia out safely and deal with the people in the room.

“Is that Ivan Jouma?” he asked, pointing to the man on the operating table with a clamp holding his abdomen open. “Is that the man known as the Jackal?”

The male doctor shrugged.

“You speak English?”

“A little, yes,” the doctor said through the white surgical mask.

Crocker ripped off the mask. “Is it Ivan Jouma, or isn’t it?”

“It is,” the bearded doctor said. “We had orders to do this. It wasn’t a choice.”

Crocker crossed to where Jouma was lying, removed the forced-air blanket, and ripped the tubes out of his mouth, stomach, groin, and arm. The female doctor gasped.

“He’ll asphyxiate,” she said in accented English, shooting him a hateful look. “Because of the anesthetics, he can’t breathe on his own.”

“Good.”

“It’s not good. No.”

She lunged forward and retrieved the breathing tube.

Crocker stopped her. “You want to die for this criminal?” he asked her.

The woman stared at him through black-rimmed glasses and shook her head vigorously. “No. I have a family.”

“Then sew the girl up. Quickly!”

She turned to the male doctor and started to stammer. “He…Dr. Ramos…He only started to make the initial…t-transverse sub-subcostal…incision, but because of the location I don’t know if the sutures will hold.”

“How deep is it?” Crocker asked.

“How deep is what?”

“The incision, goddammit. How deep?”

“Only as far as the skin and rectus sheath.”

“Then staple her together,” Crocker ordered. “She’s coming with me.”

The two doctors moved toward the operating table, mumbling to the nurses in Spanish. Crocker, who didn’t trust them, watched carefully as they prepared to close the incision.

Suárez entered, crossed to him, and whispered in his ear, “We’ve got to go, boss. Two guards are down. Manny and Akil are holding six people in a room at the other end of the hall.”

Crocker pointed his elbow at the table where the doctors were working on Olivia. “They’re closing her up now.”

“Is that the Clark girl?”

“Yeah. And that’s the Jackal.”

Jouma made a painful choking sound and stopping breathing. His face froze in an awful grimace. Crocker checked his pulse.

“Dead.”

“Excellent,” Suárez said. “I hope he burns in hell.”

“What have you given her in terms of anesthetics?” Crocker asked the female doctor.

“Fentanyl and naropine,” she answered.

“I’m gonna need a thick robe to keep her warm, slippers, a cap of some kind, morphine for pain, and antibiotics to guard against infection. I’m also going to need a laryngeal mask so we can remove her breathing tube. Do you have one?”

“I think so.” The woman bit her lip nervously. “But they’re in another room.”

“Close by?” Crocker asked.

“On this floor.”

“Okay.” Turning to Suárez, he said, “You go with her.”

They left together. Crocker watched the male doctor staple the three-inch-long incision shut, spread local tissue glue over it, and cover it with white gauze and tape.

The doctor warned, “You have to keep her dry and avoid sudden movements. Get her to a hospital as soon as possible.”

Crocker continued to scan the room with a straight finger over the trigger, measuring each second in his head, expecting Cuban soldiers to burst in any minute. The male doctor smeared antibacterial cream on the cut across his chin and covered it with a gauze bandage. Then Suárez and the female doctor returned with the supplies.

“You found the LMA, good,” Crocker said. “Now hand over your cell phones.”

Suárez collected them in a plastic bag. Simultaneously, the female doctor removed the breathing tube from Olivia’s throat and inserted the laryngeal mask, or LMA, which would allow her to breathe on her own until the anesthetic wore off.

Satisfied that it was working, Crocker spoke into the radio: “Manny, we’re moving. Lock the people in, take their phones, warn them not to try to leave for thirty minutes, and meet us at the stairway.”

The male nurse helped Suárez transfer the still-unconscious Olivia to a gurney.

Crocker faced the Cuban doctors and nurses and warned, “I have men guarding the building, so stay here and don’t move for thirty minutes. If you do, they’ll shoot you dead. After thirty minutes, you’re free to leave.”

He and Suárez wheeled Olivia out, then inserted a metal pole through the door handles to bar it from the outside and met Manny and Akil at the stairway. Because of the gurney, they elected to take the elevator. The ground floor of the clinic was completely quiet and the front door locked.

Crocker grabbed Suárez and pointed to a small park across the street. “Go locate the driver. His name is Flores and he should be driving a blue-and-white van with ‘
Vizul
’ painted on it. Tell him to pull into the driveway so we can load the girl.”

“Will do.”

C
rocker was
standing beside Olivia, monitoring her breathing, when he saw Mancini in his periphery, pointing to the clock on the wall: 0628. He nodded. Precious time was slipping past. He knew that if they didn’t get out of there soon, they’d be screwed. Looking through the glass front door, he saw Suárez running back.

“What happened?” he asked.

“The van’s not there,” Suárez reported, out of breath.

“You sure?”

“I checked all sides of the park. There’s nothing there. No vehicles.”

Crocker slapped Akil’s shoulder and pointed to Olivia. “Watch her.”

He dashed out the door into the clinic parking lot and found a faded silver 1992 Toyota Previa van in the corner under a tree. The driver’s-side window was broken, so he reached through and let himself in. Using the expertise he’d gained as a wayward teenager, he quickly hot-wired the engine, which clicked in a steady rhythm, indicating that the timing belt needed replacing or the transmission was screwed up.

Crocker put the van in first, spun it around into the circular drive, got out, and helped load Olivia in. Her temperature and pulse felt normal. They carefully laid her across the rear seat. Akil knelt beside her.

“Keep monitoring her vital signs,” Crocker instructed. “If anything changes, let me know.”

“Roger, boss.”

“We going to the airport?” Mancini asked from the middle seat.

Crocker steered the van onto a sleepy residential street green with lawns and palm trees as he considered. “Probably not a good idea, since the local contact didn’t show,” he said. “The Cuban authorities might be waiting for us. Let’s get out of Dodge and head toward the coast.”

“East or west?” asked Suárez from the passenger seat. “East will take us over the bridge into old Havana.”

“West is closer to Florida, correct?” Crocker asked.

“Yeah. And it’s the direction we’re headed now.”

“West is good.”

“Then what?” asked Akil.

“Who the fuck knows? Keep your weapons out of sight and try to look inconspicuous.”

“Now that we’re here, let’s find out where the Castro brothers live and kick their asses,” Akil suggested.

Suárez said: “Great idea.”

Crocker found Akil’s face in the rearview mirror and grunted, “Keep watching the girl and keep your big head down.”

The Toyota puttered down a stately avenue with a divider in the center featuring elaborate curved street lamps. Behind walls and gates on either side stood large old houses. Most of them looked like they could use a coat of paint.

“This area is called Miramar,” Suárez explained from the passenger seat. “Back in the day, it’s where wealthy people lived. Most of these houses were taken over by embassies and Cuban government agencies.”

“Won’t this shitbox go any faster?” Mancini asked.

“Forty seems to be its max,” Crocker groaned back.

Traffic was sparse and most of the cars were old—Chevys, Fords, and Buicks from the 1940s and ’50s and several Soviet-era Lada sedans, jeeps, and wagons. When they passed a red-and-white car with elaborate fins, Akil asked, “What’s that?”

“That’s a fifty-eight Edsel Corsair,” Mancini answered. “The first car to come with a rolling dome speedometer, push-button transmission, and warning lights.”

Crocker heard a siren approaching and pulled over as two red fire trucks sped by going in the opposite direction.

“Someone at the clinic pulled an alarm,” Mancini conjectured.

Crocker: “You’re probably right.”

When they reached a traffic circle, he took a road that brought them within a block of the coast. The houses and businesses were more spread out and dilapidated and the few people on the sidewalks looked indigent and spaced out on either booze or drugs.

“I see the beach,” Akil said, pointing to the right.

“How do you feel about swimming back to Florida?” Mancini cracked.

A white police car with blue-and-red lights flashing turned on the avenue and took off east.

“What do we do if we hit a roadblock?” Suárez asked.

Crocker spotted a sign for the Havana Yacht Club ahead—an elegant building surrounded by lush green grounds. “Check it out.”

“My uncle told me about this place,” Suárez said. “Back in the fifties, it was the scene of fabulous parties with movie stars like Rita Hayworth and Marlon Brando.”

“Looks like a sleepy-ass retirement home now.”

Crocker saw three armed guards at the entrance, which caused him to change his mind about entering.

“How’s she doing?” he asked Akil in back.

“She’s moaning and moving. I think she’s about to wake up.”

They had left the city and were passing a large mural with Fidel’s grinning face on it and a revolutionary slogan painted in red. Traffic was even more sporadic. A glance at Crocker’s watch revealed that it was 0713. A white-and-blue helicopter flew past in the opposite direction.

Beyond palm trees on the right, he saw a series of canals with pleasure boats and an entrance.

“What’s that?” he asked.

Suárez shrugged.

The sign read
MARINA HEMINGWAY.

Crocker drove past the entrance and stopped along the beach. He put the van in neutral, stuck the silenced .45 under the back of his black T-shirt, stuffed the radio in his pocket, and said, “If you don’t hear from me in five minutes, keep driving along the coast until you find a boat you can hijack. Key West is about a hundred miles north.”

“Where the hell are you going?” Mancini asked.

Crocker was already out and climbing a rusted fence at the edge of the marina. He hurried along the closest parallel canal, which was lined with cruisers and sailboats, looking for an opportunity. As he approached a twenty-seven-foot Carver Santego named
Seas the Day
, he heard a woman’s voice speaking English. He jumped aboard, ran down three steps, and entered the door to the galley.

A middle-aged man and woman sat at a table eating scrambled eggs. He said, “Excuse me for barging in. Are you Americans?”

The man looked up warily. He had sharp features and thinning blond hair. “Maybe. Who are you?”

“Me and my associates just rescued a kidnapped girl. We’re working with the U.S. government and need assistance.”

The man groaned, stuck a forkful of eggs in his mouth, and swallowed. “Look,” he said, “my wife and I arrived yesterday to do some marlin fishing. We’re on vacation.”

His rail-thin wife said, “We’re neutral when it comes to governmental matters. You should try someone else.”

Crocker wasn’t sure what she meant. “I can shoot you both here and take your boat, or you can help me.”

The man rose to his feet like he was about to start something. Crocker grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt and pointed the .45 at his chest.

“This isn’t up for debate,” Crocker said. “A young woman’s life is at stake.”

“They’ve got our passports,” the man said, pointing outside. “They monitor everything.”

“Who?”

“The
guardias
and dockmaster. They’re nice guys, but all business.”

“Don’t worry about your passports. I’ll get you new ones,” said Crocker. “What’s your name?”

“Darrell,” the man answered.

“Okay, Darrell,” Crocker offered. “You’re gonna start the engine and act like you and your wife are taking a little excursion down the coast.”

The red light on Crocker’s radio flashed. He answered it. “What?”

It was Mancini asking him if he was okay.

Crocker said, “I’ve got a boat. We’re gonna pull out of the marina in a couple minutes and head west. It’s a white cabin cruiser named
Seas the Day
.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“Follow us along the coast while we look for a place to load you.”

Crocker put the radio down and turned to Darrell, whom he was still holding by the shirt. “If we cruise up the coast, will that raise suspicion?”

Darrell looked at his wife, who shook her head. “We’ve got a fishing permit. Probably not.”

“Good,” Crocker said. “Let’s go.”

As he let go of Darrell, his wife said, “I don’t like this.”

“You’ll be doing a good thing.”

“Darrell,” she started, stepping into the doorway to block him. “Don’t.”

Her husband pushed by her and climbed the steps to the cockpit, where he started the engine and flicked on the transmitter.

“Tell me what you’re doing,” Crocker said as he knelt on the steps out of sight.

“I’m going to inform the dockmaster we’re leaving. You can listen if you want. He’s on channel sixteen.”

Turning back to the cabin, Crocker saw the wife reach for something in a drawer by the sink. “You want to die?” he asked, aiming the .45 at her. He pointed to a red-leather-covered bench on the wall opposite him. “Sit over there with your hands on your lap and keep quiet.”

She complied. Meanwhile, Darrell had steered the boat into the main channel. As they passed the dockmaster’s station, a man emerged waving a red flag.

Crocker asked, “What’s he want?”

“He wants me to pull over.”

At that same approximate moment, Crocker’s handheld flashed. “What?” he asked in a low voice.

“The girl threw up!” Akil exclaimed. “She’s choking.”

“Reach in her mouth and remove the breathing device. Then sit her up and clear her throat.”

Darrell steered the boat alongside the dockmaster’s station and idled the engine. A burly mustached man in a white shirt and blue shorts pointed to the ocean and shouted something in Spanish as seagulls circled over his head.

“Okay, boss. She’s better,” Akil said over the radio. “But she seems disoriented and is asking for her mother.”

“Calm her down,” Crocker whispered. “Tell her she’ll see her mother soon.”

Crocker watched from the steps as Darrell shouted back to the dockmaster, waved, and shifted out of idle. The boat puttered out of the channel.

Seeing the bay in front of them, Crocker asked, “What was that all about?”

“He was telling me that fish are biting farther west near Mariel,” Darrell answered, donning a pair of sunglasses and a white captain’s hat.

“West is good, but hug the coast.”

A mile or so later, he spotted a pier at the end of a stretch of beach and instructed Darrell to pull over. The SEALs loaded Olivia Clark aboard as some local fishermen watched. Then Darrell set a course north toward Key West.

Shortly after midnight Sunday morning, the C-12 Huron that Crocker flew on landed in Virginia Beach. Relieved, exhausted, and sunburned, he drove himself home and pulled into the garage. The light in the kitchen, which Holly usually left on at night, was off. He figured that she and Jenny were still in Charlottesville attending the high school state finals soccer tournament and the bulb had burned out.

So he hit the button that activated the device that automatically closed the garage door and climbed the wooden steps to his office. As he entered, he was confronted by a familiar thick, sweet smell, which reminded him of death and caused the little hairs on the back of his neck to stand up.

He had returned the .47 and MP7A1 to the CIA officials who had greeted them in Miami, so he was unarmed except for the Leatherman knife he carried in his bug-out bag. In the dark, he set the bag on the office floor, then crossed to his desk and opened the bottom right-hand drawer, where he kept a 9mm automatic and six-inch suppressor.

Something told him not to open the door to the kitchen. So he quickly screwed on the suppressor and retraced his steps down to the garage and out the side door. The three-quarters moon had turned the sky a dull shade of blue, and frogs croaked from the marsh behind his house.

At the rear left corner, he checked to see if the small backyard was clear, then peered through the glass patio door. The moon that shone over his shoulder illuminated the gray-tiled kitchen floor. On the right, between the island and the stove, he saw something dark, which he made out to be the head of his dog, Brando.

He tapped the glass, but Brando didn’t move, causing Crocker’s sense of urgency to rocket from zero to a thousand. He’d been trained and selected for his ability to remain calm in the face of danger, but this was different. It was his dog, his house, and his fucking family!

He couldn’t remember when Holly had told him she and Jenny were scheduled to return, or even if she had related that information.

Trying to contain his rage and figure out what was going on, he circled to the other end of the house, then crossed the eight feet of lawn into the woods. He crouched behind a tall oak tree and looked over his shoulder to the other side of the house and the driveway to see if Holly’s Subaru was parked there and he had missed it when he drove in. That was when the cell phone in his back pocket sounded, playing the opening of “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Stones.

He quickly pushed the silence button. The call was from Mancini, so he let it go to voice mail.

Instead of wondering why Mancini had called, he was relieved that the Subaru wasn’t there, which meant that Holly and Jenny weren’t home yet.

He waited a minute and listened, in case someone in the vicinity had heard the phone. But nothing moved or sounded, except for the leaves of the trees gently rattling overhead.

He moved stealthily from tree to tree until he neared Cherry Oak Lane. A silver Toyota SUV sat parked to his left in front of one of the houses being built on the cul-de-sac. He studied it from twenty meters away. Through the windshield he made out the dark shadow of someone in the front seat.

Remembering what Sheriff Higgins had told him in Guadalajara about the viciousness and reach of the Mexican cartel leaders, he thought he knew who it might be. It could also be a cop from Fairfax, or another foreign enemy. That didn’t matter now.

Calmly, he circled left through the woods, over an old fence, around the bare wood skeleton of the half-finished house, to a Porta Potti standing near the curb. From that vantage, he was three meters from the back of the SUV.