Hunt the Jackal (3 page)

“What did Davis say?”

“Davis?”

Crocker said, “I asked you to call him, remember?”

“He said the Israelis have dispatched two helicopters. They’re coming, okay? They’re coming! Leave me the fuck alone.”

Crocker grabbed the front of Akil’s uniform. “We’re both upset,” he growled. “But this mission isn’t over, and we need to think clearly!”

Akil partially snapped out of his funk and said, “You’re right, boss. I know.”

Crocker managed to keep his own emotions in check by focusing like a laser on the tasks ahead. First, he knelt down next to Cal and checked his pulse and vital signs again. They were steady, but weak.

Next, he got up and grabbed his weapon. “You’ve got light sticks and flares on you, correct?” he asked.

Akil felt the Flyye pouch on his chest and located them. “Yes. Yes.”

He wouldn’t let his mind wander back to Ritchie and the consequences of his death. Instead, he said, “All right. Wait here and continue to monitor Cal. I’m gonna place the C-4 on the Predator so we can blow it first. When you hear from me, you’re gonna crack the light sticks and activate your strobe so the rescue pilot can locate you. Leave ’em around here, so he lands near the bodies.”

“Leave what here?” Akil asked.

“The flares and strobe. I want the Israeli helo to land on this exact spot. He gets too close to the Black Hawk, a spark flies, and the whole thing blows. You understand me?”

Akil nodded his big head. “Yes.”

“And stay near the radio. Listen and be alert.”

“Got it.”

“Make sure they load the bodies on board, and take care of Cal. Promise me you’ll do that!”

“I will.”

“Then have the pilot fly over the wreck and drop some flares. Make sure it catches on fire. Then get the fuck out of the area!”

“Got it!”

“You understand all that?”

“Yes. I said, I got it.”

“You have a question, or a problem, you call me.”

“Understood.”

Crocker slapped Akil on the shoulder and said, “I’ll see you in a few.”

H
e ran
in the direction of the Predator as fast as his legs could take him, fell, pulled himself up, lost his footing again, and put his arms out fast enough to keep his face from smashing into a boulder. But he let go of his HK416 in the process. So he recovered it, and wiped the dirt off the barrel by squeezing his thighs together and pulling it through.

He took a couple of deep breaths and told himself he had to calm down. The combination of adrenaline coursing through his body and the anger over the deaths filled him with a ragelike, I-don’t-give-a-fuck-anymore kind of energy.

By the time he had counted to four, he became aware of guns discharging on the other side of the hill. Then Davis shouted anxiously over the headset. Crocker was too crazed to distinguish the words. But when he ran and peered past the edge of the hill, he saw what was going on.

There were two pickups between him and the Predator, which was approximately a hundred meters away from where he stood. A fighter in the bed of one of the trucks was firing a nasty fifty-caliber machine gun, which made a loud clanging noise and resulted in Davis and Mancini being pinned behind boulders about twenty meters above and to the north of the downed drone.

In addition to the guy firing the fifty cal, Crocker spotted three others inching toward the Predator with AK-47s, and another two with AKs to the left trying to circle around behind Davis and Mancini.

Crocker took it all in, and thinking
No more dead,
bolted into action, running to within fifteen meters of the trucks. He stopped, breathed hard three times, and grabbed two of the four M67 grenades from the pouch on his chest. With the HK416 clutched in his left, he pulled the pins with his right hand and flung one after the other.

Someone near the pickup shouted in Farsi, and a second later a big explosion lifted the truck in the air. Crocker watched it hit the ground grill first, explode in flames, and turn over. It reminded him of a bucking bronco. He swung left around the truck, firing his HK416.
Phit-phit-phit…
One enemy cut down.
Phit-phit.
Two.
Phit-phit-phit.
Three.

The second truck caught fire and exploded to his right, knocking his feet out from under him. Crocker rolled over, assuming a prone position, reloaded, and continued to fire. When he couldn’t see any more of the enemy through the smoke and flames, he stopped and inhaled fumes and dust.

His mouth and nostrils were clogged and his ears were numb. That didn’t stop him from loading another cartridge into the HK416 and watching the light dance on the side of the Predator, which was strangely beautiful and reminded him of a Navajo rite he’d witnessed in the Arizona desert.

Hot air churned around him. He half-wished it would pick him up and pull him into the sky. Looking up, he saw a bright light approach and readied his weapon.

Through the sight, he saw a grinning Mancini hurry toward him, cradling an M4. “You okay, boss?” he shouted.

Crocker didn’t hear him at first, but saw the tribal tattoo on his neck and his smile. “Stop grinning,” he snarled.

Mancini said, “I like the way you took care of business.”

“There’s nothing to fucking smile about,” Crocker said. “Ritchie, the pilot, and the copilot are dead.”

He watched the expression change on Mancini’s face.

“Cal’s badly injured.”

“No…”

Next thing he remembered was sitting in the rear door of the Israeli helicopter watching the Predator burn in the distance. A warm wind slapped his face and tore at the little hair he still had on the top of his head. He’d let God take all of it and his right arm, if he promised to bring Ritchie back.

He was trying to remember where they had come from and where they were going when he heard Akil’s voice over the headset radio.

“Help! Taking fire from two directions! Need backup a-sap!”

“Hold on, Akil. We’re on our way!”

The Israeli Yas’ur 2000 helicopter (a variant of a Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion) was banking right, away from Akil and the downed Black Hawk, which was on the other side of the hill. Crocker looked back into the helo, spotted Davis by the door, and shouted urgently, “What the fuck is going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re going in the wrong direction.”

“The medevac helo had to pull back. They were taking fire. The Israelis have called in another assault team to clear the area around the Black Hawk first.”

“Where is it?”

“Don’t know.”

Crocker was already on his feet, climbing over the gear in the cargo bay. He squeezed between the fold-up seats, one of which was occupied by Mancini, then held on to the bar in front of the center console with his right and grabbed the pilot with his left. The pilot, who wore a green helmet, matching green flight suit with an Israeli patch on the shoulder, and goggles, vigorously signaled to Crocker to move back.

The helo was about 150 meters off the ground, flying blacked out.

Crocker didn’t move. This time he slapped the pilot on the helmet. “Where’s the assault team?” he asked.

“It’s deploying now. Move back!”

“We left some men back there!” Crocker shouted, pointing behind him. “We’ve got to go back and get them!”

The pilot turned to his right, shouted something to the copilot in Hebrew, then placed a hand on Crocker’s chest and shoved him. “Sit down!”

Crocker stumbled, caught himself on the back of Mancini’s chair, then pushed forward aggressively. All the while, Akil screamed through the headset in his helmet, “I’ve got five minutes max! Soon I’ll either run out of ammo or be overrun!”

“Listen—”

“Get back. That’s an order!” the pilot shouted.

When Crocker didn’t move, the copilot got out of his seat and met him in a half-crouch. “You heard him,” he shouted in accented English, his face splashed with red instrument light. “The flying here is dangerous. We can’t talk now! Sit down!”

Crocker grabbed him by the front of his flight suit and shouted into his blue eyes, “You don’t understand. I’ve got a man trapped down there. We’ve got to turn this goddamn thing around.”

“We don’t take orders from you.”

“Fuck that!”

He was about to lean past the copilot and grab the pilot when he felt something hit him in the throat and lost consciousness for several seconds. When he came to, he felt big bodies grappling around him.

Davis had the copilot pinned against the seat while Mancini pounded him in the stomach as the helo rocked from side to side.

Crocker heard the pilot scream something in Hebrew, then saw him raise a pistol and point it at Mancini’s head. Not waiting to see if he was going to pull the trigger or not, Crocker grabbed the pilot’s wrist and slammed it against the forward console. The pistol sprang loose, flipped in the air, crashed against the reinforced-glass forward window, and hit the floor.

The bird banked sharply right, throwing Mancini, Davis, and the copilot into a jumble of bodies against the cockpit side panel.

Crocker held on to the pilot bar, pulled his SIG Sauer P226 from its holster, and pressed it against the side of the pilot’s face. “You either turn this fucking thing around and land it, or I’ll put a bullet in your head!”

“Go to hell!”

“I’ll take you with me.”

When the copilot lunged for his arm, he clocked him with his elbow and then smashed him in the nose. Blood flew throughout the tight space.

Crocker pushed the pistol up to the pilot’s cheekbone again. “I’m not fucking around!” he shouted. “Turn this thing around, now!”

The pilot swore up and down in Hebrew as he glanced at his wounded colleague, then up at Crocker. “You’re out of control!”

With his free hand, Crocker grabbed hold of the flight director. “I’ll do it myself if I have to.”

The pilot tried to push his hand away. “No.”

“Then turn this fucking thing around!”

“Okay.”

Crocker kept the pistol pointed at the pilot’s head as he slowed the helo and made a sweeping left turn. Within seconds, he spotted the burning flares on the hill ahead and tracers like little angry fireflies buzzing around the downed U.S. Black Hawk, reminding him of a bonfire on a beach.

“There it is!” he shouted.

“I see it.”

“Akil, you still there?” he shouted into his headset.

“Yeah, boss! But I’m surrounded!”

“Hold on! We’re coming!”

“Quick!”

Turning to Davis, Crocker shouted, “Strap the copilot in one of the fold-up chairs and zip-tie his wrists and ankles together! Then keep an eye on the pilot and give him directions. Mancini, come with me.”

Together they readied the twin 7.62 machine guns mounted on the side windows and started directing fire at the enemy, kneeling around the downed U.S. Black Hawk. Through his NVGs Crocker saw Akil pinned down behind some boulders about twenty meters above where they had placed the flares.

Ducking inside the cabin and shouting at Davis, Crocker said, “Tell the pilot to circle around once, so we can lay down fire. Then I want him to land this baby on the patch of land near where the flares are burning.”

“Got it!”

Yellow-and-white tracers flew up at them, and several bullets slammed into the reinforced metal fuselage. One glanced off the barrel of the machine gun Crocker was holding, making a screeching sound and sending up long white sparks, one of which burned his lip.

He kept shooting, picking out targets around the downed Black Hawk until the barrel of the weapon was red hot. From the cockpit, Davis launched the Hellfire missiles mounted on the sides of the Yas’ur. They slammed into the Black Hawk and exploded. Within seconds the wreckage was engulfed in orange flames.

“Excellent!” Crocker shouted.

“Fuck ’em.”

“Now let’s hit the enemy position near the top of the hill.”

Relentless fire from the twin 7.62s and more Hellfire missiles silenced the enemy there. The helo circled once more; then Crocker instructed the pilot to set it down.

The heavy rotors turning and stirring up an enormous cloud of dust, Crocker and Davis jumped out. First, they found Cal, then loaded the bodies. Finally, they helped Akil aboard; he had been wounded in the arm by a piece of shrapnel from an enemy frag grenade.

They didn’t pause to recon the scene, ID the enemy, or count enemy dead. Instead, Crocker checked Cal’s vitals while the Israeli helicopter lifted off and a last enemy round zinged off his Kevlar helmet and crashed into the ceiling.

“Good thing you keep your bonnet on,” commented Mancini.

The bleeding from Cal’s wounded stomach seemed to have stopped, but his pulse was even weaker than before.

“Tell the pilot to radio ahead and have a medical team and ambulance ready,” Crocker said.

“Roger,” Davis responded.

Akil, seated with his back against the fuselage, his face covered with dirt and soot, his hands caked with dried blood, muttered, “Thanks.”

Crocker sat beside him and started to roll up his sleeve to see where he’d been nicked. “Good work,” he whispered.

But the big SEAL’s eyes were already shut, and he started snoring.

Crocker’s arms were weary and shaking from firing the big machine gun. He took a swig of Gatorade as the pilot announced that they had entered Israeli airspace.

No one responded.

To his right, Crocker saw Mancini looking down at Ritchie’s tarp-covered body on the floor. The recovered Hellfires were strapped to the floor beside him. Mancini’s lips moved as though he was saying a prayer, or a goodbye.

Feeling tears gather in his eyes, Crocker turned to the window and stared deep into the night sky. He was looking for a place to put his grief, which clung to him like a second skin. It wasn’t ready to be shed and wouldn’t be for a long time.

S
he felt
like she was moving and imagined her body spinning across a dance floor. Strong, sure hands guided her. And in her mind’s eye she saw men’s faces with dark hair slicked back and the color orange.

Lisa realized that she was sitting. But her head kept spinning, reminding her of all the things she had to do to prepare for her husband’s forty-fifth birthday, which was only six weeks away. Besides hiring the caterer and planning the meal, she had to order flowers and put together a guest list, which was always the hardest part of organizing any political gathering. Family and friends were easy. It was determining the people Clark couldn’t afford to offend that made the guest list difficult and required study and input from Clark’s legislative and administrative assistants.

Clark himself might spend more time considering who to invite or not to invite to his birthday party than how to vote on an upcoming military appropriation bill.

Politics were personal. And the longer Lisa lived in Washington, the more she appreciated that. Who got along with whom, which senators played poker together, or golf, or had an interest in antique cars. She reminded herself that friendships, feuds, rivalries, slights, prejudices, and dislikes defined everything from what bills could pass through the Senate, to which individuals were likely to be appointed to fill certain seats in the president’s cabinet.

It wasn’t ideal, or the way politics were described in textbooks. But it was the way they worked.

Realities were realities, she said to herself. One had to make tough compromises in order to lead a successful life. In the case of planning a successful birthday party for her husband, that meant drafting a guest list and e-mailing it to Clark’s legislative assistant. But when she tried to reach for her iPhone, she couldn’t move her arms. And when she tried to look at what was binding them, she couldn’t see, even though her eyes were open.

That was when the cold reality of her situation hit her and she remembered Sedona and the armed young men in her room. Instinctively, the muscles in her neck and her sphincter tightened, and she realized that she wasn’t coming out of a normal sleep, or even a dream. She’d been drugged and was being transported somewhere. Ripped away from her complex life.

She’d read a story recently about the hundreds of thousands of women who were captured every year and sold into sexual slavery. Was it possible that they had mistaken her for a much younger woman?

Struggling not to panic, she willed her mind to focus and slowly became aware that she was bound to a seat, and that a blindfold of some sort covered her eyes. When she turned her head to the right, an orange light filtered through.

The vehicle she was in was moving very fast, a seeming reflection of the rate at which Lisa felt herself losing control of her life.

Minutes later she was jolted by the wheels of the plane hitting a tarmac and the jets engines slamming into reverse. Her mind snapped back to the interrupted bath, the young woman pointing the pistol. And in that instant, she remembered the dark eyes and warm-colored skin and started to panic, because she realized that this was her reality and there was no escaping it.

Remembering her daughter and wondering what had happened to her, she attempted to rip herself out of the seat. She tried to open her mouth to scream and get someone’s attention, but her mouth was taped shut.

Crocker lay on the mattress on the cement floor of the six-by-eight cell looking up at the Israeli guard’s bald head and thinking back on how he had been arrested the night before, led away by armed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers while Mancini, Davis, and Akil were held back by more armed soldiers. With his wrists and ankles chained together, he had watched from the back of a truck as Cal was moved from the desert-camouflage-painted Yas’ur helicopter to a white-and-blue ambulance, and the bodies of Ritchie and the SOAR Black Hawk pilot and copilot were carried to a coroner’s black van. Even though he was angry and the muscles in his arms and legs were sore, it was a heavy sadness that dominated and wore him down.

Part of him seemed lifeless, switched off, even as he performed multiple sets of push-ups and sit-ups and picked through the gray, tasteless meat and couscous that were delivered on a tray through a slot at the bottom of the gray door. He drank the metallic-tasting water, stretched, and remembered the charges that had been read to him by the IDF officer the night before—disobeying orders, aggravated assault, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly weapon.

He had no argument with any of them. What had happened, had happened. Looking back, he wouldn’t have changed any of it. But if he could, he would alter the order he had given Ritchie and Cal to stay on the Black Hawk. He’d had his reasons then, which he repeated to himself now. But they seemed hollow and stupid in light of what had transpired. And he knew the decision would haunt him the rest of his life.

He pictured his teammate’s wide, smiling face with the wise-ass look he got just before he made some smart remark. It seemed impossible that Ritchie was dead, because the memory of him seemed so real.

Crocker sensed Ritchie’s presence in the cell with him and heard him comment on the shitty accommodations and tell Crocker that one of these days he had to learn how to treat himself better.

He thought he felt a hand on his shoulder, which caused the little hairs on his neck to stand at attention.

A key rattled in the door; then the door swung open. In the stark fluorescent light stood three men—an IDF officer in uniform, an American navy commander, and an American civilian in a beige suit.

“You okay, warrant?” the navy commander asked.

“Sir?”

Crocker blinked. Realizing he was standing naked, he covered his privates with his hands.

“You acted recklessly last night.”

“I wouldn’t characterize it that way, sir.”

The pale U.S. commander stepped forward, handed him a khaki uniform, and said, “We’re going to ask you to listen to the charges and sign a statement. After that you’ll be released.”

The civilian moved out of the stark light so his face became visible. “Sometime within the next six weeks you’ll have to return to face charges,” he said. “We don’t know exactly when that will be.”

Crocker nodded. “Understood.”

He showered, dressed, and stood at attention in a hot little room as the charges were read. Then he made a statement into a digital tape recorder in which he recounted the incident with the Israeli pilot and copilot moment by moment. He sensed Ritchie’s presence with him the whole time.

An hour later, he was escorted onto a military jet bound for Andrews Air Force Base just outside D.C. Another short flight, and nineteen hours after he’d departed from Tel Aviv, he walked into his house in Virginia Beach. Holly was sitting with her legs curled under her watching
Late Night
when he entered and set down his gear.

“Tom, you okay?” she asked as she hugged him.

“I’m back,” he answered, noticing the red around her eyes. “How about you?”

“I spent the last two hours on the phone with Monica.”

“Bad?” he asked, leaning over and kissing her.

“She just can’t accept it.”

“Neither can I,” Crocker said.

They sat on the sofa and held hands as he talked about the irony of Cal’s death—the apparent result of a simple mechanical problem, even though they had been operating in dangerous enemy territory. In a low voice, he confessed that he had ordered Cal and Ritchie to stay on the doomed helo.

“But you had good reasons for doing that, didn’t you, Tom?”

“They feel real stupid now.”

“Don’t blame yourself.”

He couldn’t help it, because part of him demanded an explanation. Which was why he needed two Ambiens and a couple of glasses of bourbon to fall asleep.

The next morning, feeling tired and numb, he put on his navy dress blues, which he had grown to hate, drove to a local funeral parlor, and entered with Holly by his side. He moved among mourners like a ghost. They were talking in hushed tones and crying.

“Glad you could make it,” Mancini whispered as they took seats next to him and his wife, Teresa.

“Me, too.”

“I’m still pissed at those fucking Israelis.”

Crocker nodded. He looked at the SEALs and their wives sitting around them, all thinking that one day this could happen to them. It was something they lived with and that bound them together into a tight community. Death, injury, mental breakdown, and divorce were always present, even as they raised their kids and tried to plan for the future.

Friends and family took turns getting to their feet and walking to the front of the room, where a dark wooden coffin sat against a backdrop of thousands of white and red roses. To the right, resting on an easel, sat a large framed picture of Ritchie smiling in his navy dress uniform, looking full of mischief like he always did.

The whole scene felt sad and unreal, like a strange pantomime or a bad dream.

Crocker knew Ritchie wouldn’t approve. He hated ceremonies, particularly funerals. He’d always been a casual, fun-loving guy with an unquenchable appetite for action and danger who understood the risks he was taking.

His death’s coming two weeks before he was to be married seemed wrong.

Crocker shifted his weight on the cushioned seat and said to himself:
If only I had let Cal and Ritchie fast-rope with us, all of this could have been avoided.

In his head, for the umpteenth time, he repeated the reasons he’d told them to stay on the helo. The packs Ritchie and Cal were carrying were too heavy. It was safer to land the helo first.

Safer.
Yeah, right.
The guilt and irony hit hard.

“How’s Cal?” he whispered to Mancini, trying to change the subject in his own head.

“He was moved out of the ICU in Tel Aviv last night.”

“Good,” Crocker said, nodding.

He spotted Monica across the aisle, looking like someone had kicked her repeatedly in the head. Her eyes were swollen and her mouth twisted into a painful grimace.

Holly leaned into him and whispered, “They’re going to close the casket now. We should pay our last respects.”

“Last respects?”

“Yes.”

That phrase didn’t make sense. First of all, Ritchie wasn’t there, either physically or spiritually. Secondly, Crocker had always respected him, and forever would. Thirdly, the bond between them transcended respect or even friendship, which was something most people couldn’t understand. They had picked up girls together, gotten drunk and into bar fights, hazed each other mercilessly on birthdays, fought, bled, cried, and laughed together. They had even spent two full days together in a little water-filled hole on a beach in Somalia.

Your experience of someone was your experience. There was no way to sum it up in a few words, explain it, or fit it into a pretty little Hallmark homily. It was what it was—the laughs, misunderstandings, highs, lows, annoyances, pleasures, and all.

Crocker felt Holly pulling him up. “Come with me,” she whispered.

They walked stiffly arm in arm to the front of the room. He saw people turn to them and nod solemnly—including Ritchie’s half brother, Mitch, his ex-girlfriend Tiffany, his mother.

When they passed Monica sitting on the aisle, Crocker leaned over to her and whispered, “Ritchie loved you very much.”

She squeezed his hand and whispered back, “Thank you.”

They knelt before the open coffin, and a strange chemical-masked-with-perfume smell oozed out, tickling Crocker’s nostrils and making him want to sneeze. Holly squeezed his forearm. The thing lying in the coffin looked like a ceramic doll dressed in a black suit.

Holly whispered, “They did a good job, didn’t they?”

Crocker almost said, “No, not at all!” But bit his tongue instead.

She was trying. They all were. And the discomfort they felt only seemed to make it worse.

He wanted badly to get out of there, take off the uncomfortable uniform, and go for a run in the woods. Maybe he’d stop at Stumpy Lake, where he and Ritchie sometimes went kayaking together. He’d sit and remember his friend, whom he now saw in his mind’s eye riding his Indian Chief, wearing sunglasses and with the sun highlighting his proud Cherokee cheekbones and the wind blowing his shiny black hair back.

If he sensed him there, amid the buttonbush and cordgrass, Crocker would tell him that he admired him and missed him, and that would never change.

Lisa Clark sat on a veranda overlooking a garden and pool feeling like she was trapped in a strange dream and didn’t know how to make it end. There wasn’t much to see—a high ocher-colored wall, semitropical flowers and foliage like hibiscus, orchids, and bougainvillea, an Olympic-sized pool with a dolphin statue spitting water into it at the far end, the yellow-and-white-striped awning she sat under, high cumulus clouds and a light-blue sky in the distance.

Everything seemed oddly still and ordinary, except for the young man with the automatic weapon who watched her and the other armed men in khaki who patrolled the grounds.

She stared at a salad of grilled tuna, tomatoes, and avocado, and the glass of iced tea, but didn’t want to eat or drink because she suspected her captors were drugging her.

What she wanted most from herself was to think clearly so she could ascertain where she was, who was holding her, and what she could do. But she was finding that hard because of the fear, drugs, and sense of dislocation. In her sleep she was haunted by dreams of being chased by animals and strangers. And when awake, her mind seemed to fixate on strange things like her husband’s schedule, or household budgets, or unpleasant experiences from her past.

Despite her hunger, she pushed the salad away. Then, glancing up at the good-looking young man with the nasty-looking submachine gun and a silver crucifix around his neck, she said politely, “Excuse me, but I need to use the bathroom.”