Hunt the Falcon (10 page)

Another kind of cancer—lung cancer—had afflicted Crocker's mother. But before it had taken her, she had died in a freak accident. Crocker's sister hypothesized that maybe the accident was a blessing, which angered Crocker at the time. But now, as he pushed through the revolving doors of the modern Banco Popular building, he thought maybe his sister had been right.

He and Mancini rode up in the elevator with a group of men in business suits, then walked down the carpeted hall to the door at the end of the corridor. Crocker hit the buzzer on the call box and waited.

“Quién es?”

“It's Tom Mansfield and his associate from Balzac Expeditions.”

A Hispanic woman in a tight black skirt and heels led them to a waiting room with a view of the city bathed in yellow sunlight. A tired-looking Ernesto Navarro shuffled in holding a stack of papers.

“This way, gentlemen,” he said.

They entered a generic conference room. The shades were pulled over the windows. Two men sat at the table, which was crowded with papers and coffee cups.

The thinner of the two looked up and said, “Gentlemen, my name is Chase Rappaport. I'm the chief of station here.” He pointed to a swarthier, thicker-built man seated across from him. “This is my deputy, Hal Melkasian.”

Melkasian looked over his shoulder at the SEALs. “Welcome.”

“Which one of you two is Warrant Officer Crocker?” Rappaport asked. He had a sharp, mean face and piercing blue eyes.

“That's me.”

“Take a seat. Neto here will pour you some coffee. Melky and I, along with a number of analysts back at Langley, have been reviewing the packet of documents you recovered last night.”

“Yeah?” Crocker said, sipping the bitter coffee and running a hand through his thinning, close-cropped hair. “What'd you find?”

Rappaport pushed his chair back, placed his shoes on the edge of the table, then glanced at some papers in his lap. “You hear about the president's condition?”

“Critical, right? My teammate and I were just talking about that,” Crocker said with a nod.

“It might seem unrelated, but I can assure you that it underlies everything we're dealing with here,” Rappaport said ominously.

Crocker shifted his weight in the leather-covered swivel chair and fought off the feeling of fatigue. “I'm not sure what that means.”

Rappaport turned his Doberman pinscher–shaped face toward him. “It means that this program will be accelerated,” he intoned, pointing to the documents on his lap. “When Chávez dies, Maduro will take over. They'll hold a special election, but the vote will be rigged. Maduro isn't Chávez. He has none of his charisma. He's a leftist labor organizer who never finished high school, loves Led Zeppelin, and worships a dead guru named Sai Baba. So nobody knows how long before the opposition rises and kicks his ass out.”

“What program are you referring to?” Crocker asked.

“The Iranian-Venezuelan program. Unit 5000. What did you think? Now that we know—”

Melkasian cut him off. “Chase, I don't believe these gentlemen had a chance to peruse the documents in question.”

Rappaport looked at Crocker, confused. “You recovered them, didn't you?”

“I did, yes,” Crocker answered. “But I immediately handed them over to Mr. Navarro. I expected that we would be leaving our hotel first thing this morning because of the violence that took place in Petare.”

In addition to the man Crocker had killed with his bare hands, another presumed terrorist had been gunned down inside the house—something the Venezuelans wouldn't be too pleased about, especially if they found out that the men had been offed by U.S. operatives.

“Oh,” Rappaport said, cleaning his gold-framed glasses with the tail of his shirt, then placing them back on his nose. “Then Melky, you have some filling in to do.”

“Yes,” his deputy said, arching his spine and rubbing the back of his neck. He pointed to a pile of documents on the table. “From what I've been able to learn so far, it looks like Unit 5000 is in the process of organizing a substantial base here in Venezuela with the help of people in the Chávez-Maduro government.”

“Colonel Torres,” Mancini muttered.

“Yes, Colonel Chavo Torres. He's helping the Iranians build a terrorist base in Venezuela capable of delivering attacks on the U.S. and other targets. The men you killed last night were Iranian Unit 5000 functionaries who had been given new identities and Venezuelan citizenship.”

As he tried to follow Melkasian's train of thought, Crocker's head hurt—a result of the trauma his body had suffered and the pain medication he had taken for his back. Mancini, seated beside him, poured another cup of black coffee and downed it. The skin around his eyes was swollen and gray.

“How big a base are we talking about?” Crocker asked, trying to appear alert.

“Let him finish,” Rappaport snapped.

Crocker wanted to reach across the table and punch him in the face. He used a paper clip to dig the dried blood from under his fingernails.

“The men you killed were probably lower-level people in charge of distributing money and documents,” Melkasian continued, picking a stack of Xeroxes off the table. “Couriers, basically. Inside the packet you recovered was a coded log and copies of visa applications and travel documents. From them we've been able to ascertain that the group contains at least a dozen individuals of Iranian origin who have been given Venezuelan citizenship and new identities, which allows them to travel throughout the region without raising suspicion.”

Crocker immediately thought of the Falcon, because this sounded like one of the devious plans he had cooked up in the past. The proximity of this new program to the United States alarmed him.

Then Melkasian said, “Obviously, they're planning something, but we don't know what.”

Crocker leaned forward and said aggressively, “We can't sit back and wait.”

“We're cross-checking recent immigration records and flight manifests, hoping to ID some of these cats,” Melkasian continued.

“Alizadeh is dangerous. You have to move fast.”

Rappaport shot back, “When we find out something, we'll tell you what you need to know.”

Crocker felt his anger rise. He wanted to tell Rappaport that he didn't appreciate his snippy attitude, but he was disciplined enough to know this would serve no purpose.

He asked, “What do you want from us?”

“You're to stay in-country and await further orders,” Rappaport responded. “This thing is red hot. Insidious. We plan to give you a chance to do what you do, which is to kick some ass.”

“Excellent,” Crocker said. “I assume you've cleared this with my CO.”

“You can be sure about that. Captain Sutter, Jim Anders, Lou Donaldson—they're all on board.”

“Good.”

“Melky and Neto will be your point men. Be ready to deploy.”

F
irst, he
and his men checked out of the InterContinental Tamanaco Caracas and moved their gear to a safe house in the nearby La Florida section of the city. Then they slept.

Crocker dreamt he was swimming against a strong current with a huge white shark close behind. When the beast opened its mouth, he saw teeth made of serrated steel. The shark closed in on his legs and snapped its jaws, causing Crocker to wake with a start and grab his cramping right foot. Sore from head to toe and running a slight fever, he downed two more Advil with a glass of H2O and then met his men in the kitchen, where they were feasting on takeout from a local Taco Bell.

Through the large patio door he watched two big green parrots sail through a bolt of sunshine and land in the backyard. He thought he might be dreaming but realized he wasn't when Neto walked in, leaned on his shoulder, and whispered, “I need to talk to you alone.”

Crocker took a last bite of the cold beef taco and wiped his mouth. As he walked over cool tiles in his bare feet, he noticed he still had on the same black polo and pants he'd worn on the raid last night.

They sat on a back patio with a view of big flowering hibiscus bushes. The last couple of weeks were becoming a blur.

“Did I tell you about the Iranian official who arrived two days ago?” Neto asked, his dark eyes searching Crocker's face.

Crocker thought back to the conversation they'd had in the bar on Christmas Eve and the waitress with the metal ball in her tongue. “No, I don't think so.”

“Rappaport didn't mention it?”

“He might have, but I don't remember. No.”

“Well, this Iranian big shot has been meeting with Colonel Torres and other Venezuelan officials. In fact, we think he's staying at the colonel's house.”

“Do you know the Iranian's identity?” Crocker asked, standing and lowering his head in an attempt to get blood into his brain.

“All we have is what we assume is a fake name from the flight manifest. Cy Norath.”

“You get a photo of him?” Crocker asked, stretching his arms over his head.

“No, he arrived on a private jet.”

“He's here in Caracas now?” Crocker asked, bending from the waist.

“Yeah, staying at Torres's residence, which borders the Caracas Country Club,” Neto answered. “We've got a surveillance team stationed outside.”

“He could be important. Show me the house.”

“Now?” Neto asked.

“Give me a minute to shower and change.”

Crocker left Akil and Davis behind to coordinate with the station chief and inform him about new developments. He took the four Spanish speakers on his team—Cal, Ritchie, Mancini, and himself. Cal and Mancini were fluent; his and Ritchie's version was rudimentary but good enough.

With Neto at the wheel of the Pilot and the GPS guiding them, they drove east along the
autopista
and entered a very upscale neighborhood of gated mansions, stately cedar trees, and manicured gardens. Colonel Torres's estate stood on a small road off Avenida los Cedros. The red-tiled roof of the two-story house was visible from the street, but they couldn't see the front gate because the access road was blocked by two jeeps and half a dozen uniformed soldiers.

The level of security was fitting, given that Colonel Chavo Torres was Chávez's man in charge of SEBIN's external operations, and the whole country was on alert. As he drove past the estate, Neto explained that Torres and Chávez had graduated from the Venezuelan military academy and served in that army's counterinsurgency unit together.

“Back in the late seventies the enemy was local Marxist insurgents. But when Chávez read the works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao Zedong, he took a sharp turn to the left and founded a revolutionary movement,” Neto explained. “Colonel Torres followed in lockstep behind him. Unlike those of the president, it's hard to determine the colonel's true politics. What we do know is that he's an opportunist who loves power and wealth, likes to inflict pain on people, and like Chávez and Maduro hates the United States.”

“Let's go get him,” Ritchie said.

“We're not here to start a war in Venezuela,” Crocker reminded him. “Our mission is to track and disrupt the activities of Unit 5000.”

“I know.”

A tall sandy-haired woman and a bald man from the station sat in a Toyota Camry parked at the end of the block, approximately four hundred yards from the house. While the man waited in the Camry, the woman got into the Pilot with them. Neto turned right at the corner and parked at the intersection of Avenida Lecuna, next to a man with a bicycle who was sharpening knives and scissors.

“The visitor has been inside since last night,” the female officer reported. “Colonel Torres left about an hour ago, but the visitor didn't accompany him.”

“You sure about that?” Crocker asked.

She nodded. “Not only have we maintained twenty-four/seven visuals on the front entrance, but we also had someone attach a tracking device to his briefcase at the airport.”

“There's no other exit?” Crocker asked.

“No, there isn't.”

“What's the best possible way to clandestinely access the house?”

She had soft green eyes and an easy smile. “If I were trying to get in, I'd approach from the back, the side that borders the golf course.”

“Thanks,” Crocker said.

Neto added, “Stay on the radio. Let us know if you see the visitor exit.”

“Sanchez is relieving us in an hour,” she reported. “He'll be on a motorcycle and get a flat, which he'll take his time to repair. We have another team following after him.”

Crocker liked her immediately. “Good,” he said. “Pass on the message about informing us if the visitor leaves the property.”

“Yes, sir. I will.”

“Let's go,” Crocker ordered.

“Where?” Neto asked.

“Inside the club.”

“How?”

“We'll figure something out.”

It turned out to be not all that difficult. Neto flashed his diplomatic credentials to the guard at the country club gate and said they were meeting the American ambassador for lunch. An outright fabrication—luckily, the guard didn't bother to check.

They entered through luxurious grounds past strolling peacocks, flowering plants, and women in golf carts, and parked near the stately sand-hued clubhouse.

“Classy setup,” Ritchie commented as he got out.

Mancini, who was carrying a black briefcase, said, “It's the opposite side of the social spectrum from what we saw last night.”

“How many of the residents of Petare would you guesstimate have memberships here?” Crocker asked facetiously as they walked past the pool, which overlooked the city.

“Zero,” Neto responded with a grin.

He led them to the edge of the golf course, along a stone path to the fifteenth tee. The fairway was a beautifully cared-for brilliant green carpet bordered by bushy twenty- to thirty-foot trees. A mustached man in a blue blazer stopped them and asked where they were going.

Neto told him that Crocker, Mancini, Cal, and Ritchie were golf course engineers from California who were inspecting the layout of the greens.

“Es esplendido,”
Crocker said in gringo-accented Spanish.

“Gracias,”
the man responded, then sent them on their way.

They waited for a foursome of men to tee off and drive away in their carts before they entered a grove of trees to the right of the fairway. Approximately a hundred feet down where it doglegged left, Neto pointed out a large two-story house past the trees on the right. It was separated from the golf course by an eight-foot stone fence topped with metal spikes.

Mancini snapped some digital photos. Ritchie determined the best place to climb the wall. Crocker took mental note of the deep second-story balcony facing the fairway, the lone soldier with a submachine gun lazily patrolling the yard, the antennas on the roof, and asked, “How sure are you that the visitor is lodging here and not in a hotel?”

“About eighty percent,” Neto answered.

“Let's grab some surveillance equipment and return after dark.”

There was no problem entering the club this time, because Neto got an embassy officer who was a member to invite them to dinner. The four SEALs, Neto, and the officer—a man named Skip Haffner—sat outside on a patio near the pool feasting on carne asada and shrimp.

Not a bad life,
Crocker thought, watching the sun set beyond the mountains.

“Skip here used to be a professional golfer,” Neto said out of nowhere.

“I was on the team at Duke,” Skip offered with a smile. “Right after I graduated, I joined the amateur tour, then turned pro.”

“You must have been good,” Crocker said.

“Good wasn't good enough, but I had fun.”

Ritchie asked, “You ever party with Tiger Woods?”

“Closest I got to him was in 2002, when he entered the clubhouse at Congressional as I was being escorted out.”

“What's the highest you ever placed in a tournament?” Cal asked.

“I won some amateur and college tournaments, but the highest I got in a PGA event was twenty-fourth.”

They waited until the city lights glittered in the distance and stars shone above. Crocker checked his watch, which read 9 p.m.

He said, “Thanks, Skip. It's been fun.”

“If any of you guys want to play tomorrow, I've got a tee time at eight fifteen.”

“Thanks, but we're busy.”

“Another time, then.”

While Skip settled the bill, Neto moved the Pilot to an empty lot near the golf course, and the SEALs stripped off their shirts to the tees underneath. Dressed all in black, they geared up and deployed, seeking cover in the trees along the fifteenth fairway and behind the high wall separating the course from Colonel Torres's house.

Neto used a handheld radio to check with CIA surveillance out front, which reported that the colonel had returned and the visitor was still inside.

Light glowed from both floors, but the brightest space was the room behind the second-story balcony. The door was open, and strains of music drifted out.

Cal snapped together the twenty-inch parabolic dish of a KB-DETEAR listening device, aimed it at the open balcony door, and listened through headphones. Even though the room was approximately 150 feet away and well within the device's 300-yard range, he wasn't able to hear past the water splashing in the balcony fountain and the easy-listening jazz playing inside.

Meanwhile, Mancini launched the two experimental nano quadrotor drones that DARPA had given him to test. They ran on tiny lithium batteries, were the size of human fingernails, and looked like little metal insects. Manny succeeded in maneuvering them through the balcony door via a handheld wireless joystick but was unable to get the video they beamed back to appear on the eight-channel portable DVR monitor he had set up on the ground.

“What's the problem?” Crocker whispered over his shoulder.

“The software's not working,” Mancini answered, adjusting the knobs on the DVR. “It's always the software.”

Mancini had also brought an RQ-11 Raven, a bird-shaped unmanned aerial vehicle used by the U.S. military, but because its wingspan exceeded four feet he didn't think the Raven could hover in front of the window without being seen.

Crocker was willing to try anyway.

Monitoring the dials on the gadget in his briefcase, Manny replied, “Probably won't work anyway. The house is protected by a spectrum analyzer and signal process block.”

“What's that mean in plain English?” Crocker asked.

“Any type of digital or analog-based surveillance we launch will be interfered with and risks being detected.”

They were too close for Crocker to even think of giving up. Noticing a low-hanging tree branch that was reachable from the top of the wall, he decided to access the house the old-fashioned way—by climbing into the yard.

Neto, however, had reservations. “I don't know about this, Crocker,” he said. “There's too high a risk you'll be discovered.”

“Don't worry. We do this shit all the time.”

“What happens if you're discovered?”

“Blame it on me.”

Although Crocker was the team's lead climber, he was moving awkwardly because of his injured back, so Ritchie volunteered. They armed him with a silenced subcompact SIG Sauer P239, smeared black nonglare cammo on his face, handed him a small digital camera, and wished him luck.

As he was ready to launch, Neto whispered, “Establish a quick ID and pull out.”

“Yes, sir,” Ritchie said.

Crocker watched Ritchie scale the wall and from the top of it jump and grab the branch. He shimmied along it and dropped into the yard.

The wall prevented them from observing Ritchie roll on the lawn, hide behind a bush, and spot the lone guard standing with his back to him sixty feet away. He appeared again in their line of vision using a trellis and a drainpipe to climb to the balcony. He vaulted over the balcony railing, entered the house, and disappeared from view.

Crocker counted the minutes on his watch. Three…five…ten…his anxiety growing. He was starting to think that this might have been a bad idea when he saw a black shape scurry over the balcony rail and reach with his foot for the trellis. Ritchie paused to flash them a thumbs-up, then slipped and fell.

Crocker heard a sickening thud when Ritchie hit the ground, then footsteps running across the yard. He was already halfway up the wall, ignoring Neto's anxious whispering at his back. Within three seconds he had jumped up and grabbed the cedar branch, pulling himself toward the yard.

Hearing a gunshot and then a man shouting in Spanish, he looked down and saw a Venezuelan soldier standing over Ritchie, pointing an AK-47 at his head.