Hunt the Wolf (19 page)

All the men who had assembled looked perplexed.

“The suite was thoroughly searched?” Crocker asked.

“Yes. Of course.”

“And nothing was recovered?”

“Some articles of clothing. A pair of women’s shoes. Books, CDs. Mostly belongings of the sheik.”

“Anything else?”

“A suit wrapped in plastic. Some foodstuffs. A pair of sandals.”

“Where are these items now?” Crocker asked.

“They were locked in a room in the basement on orders from the sultan,” Waleed answered.

Crocker was reminded that the Sultan and Sheik Rastani were friends, both prominent members of the Ibadhi sect of Islam.

He suggested that they go up and inspect the suite again.

A scowling Colonel Bahrami gave his approval.

While Waleed went to fetch the electronic key that would let them in, Crocker recalled something else—the black pull suitcase he’d seen one of the men abandon as he was running out the door.

“There was also a large black suitcase,” the SEAL team leader said. “I passed it on my way out. It was to my left, near the door of the sixth-floor suite.”

“What suitcase?”

“A black pull suitcase. About this big,” the American said holding out his arms.

When Waleed returned, he admitted that he hadn’t personally seen the items that had been removed from the suite and locked downstairs.

The two Americans followed the Omanis to the lift. The experience of ascending in the elevator was strange for Crocker. So was retracing his bloody footprints on the carpet. But it wasn’t until they entered the suite and he was hit with the lingering smell that the muscles in Crocker’s neck and stomach tightened and he started to feel sick.

Leaning against the wall, the bitter taste of bile reached his mouth.

“Boss, you all right? You want to sit down?” Akil asked, noticing his leader’s discomfort.

“I’m good.”

Crocker lingered four paces inside, just far enough to scan the foyer/dining/living area and establish that the suitcase wasn’t there.

The other three men inspected the interior rooms of the suite and came out empty-handed.

“It’s completely clean,” Akil reported.

“Let’s go see the room in the basement.”

This required permission from the minister of interior, who was at his country club eating lunch. They waited in the lobby while Bahrami called.

The suitcase. The suitcase…

Pacing and looking at the clock, hoping that the items in the basement would provide some clue, Crocker sensed there was something else he should be remembering, but his mind was too exhausted and agitated to identify it.

Cups of coffee and tea were consumed and stories exchanged in the hour that passed before a black SUV stopped in the driveway and a tall functionary from the ministry jumped out and handed the colonel a set of keys.

“With the approval of the minister, who says we can look but not disturb anything.”

“Gentlemen, this way,” Waleed directed.

They descended in a service elevator to the belly of the hotel, the space thick with the smells of garbage and vinegar.

Four sets of footsteps resounded through hallways lit with buzzing fluorescent lights, Crocker praying that somehow Malie was alive.

They turned left at a locked cage stacked to the ceiling with cases of expensive wines and brandies, into a darker corridor, to a door on the right.

“Here it is,” Waleed announced.

Bahrami opened the door with a yellow-tabbed key and threw the switch.

Crocker’s heart started to leap in his chest.

In the left corner behind the door stood a metal footlocker and the black hard-shelled suitcase, which were chained together and secured with a brass lock. Signs in English, Arabic, and Farsi warned the curious not to touch without signed permission from Oman’s interior minister.

Bahrami opened the lock with a red-tabbed key. Crocker leaned over and pulled the chain free. He was so juiced he was having trouble breathing as he felt along the little holes that been punched in the smooth front of the hard plastic suitcase.

“Wait,” the colonel barked. He produced another key, a little green-tabbed one this time.

Crocker laid the suitcase on its side and opened the lock. He dreaded what he was about to see so much that he turned his eyes away as he swung it open. The smell of sweat and piss met his nostrils.

The men behind him gasped.

“Dear God—”

“It’s the girl!”

“She’s dead.”

He had to will his eyes to focus on the awkwardly folded little body, knees at her chin, silver tape around her wrists and ankles and across her mouth. The skin on her arms a smooth yellowish gray. More mottled near her shoulders.

“Malie?” he whispered, fearing the worst.

Light blond hair like that of an angel.

It had to be her.

“Malie?”

He reached inside, along the cool skin of her neck, and tried to find a pulse.

The men breathed heavily behind him.

On his knees, his hand shaking, he prayed to his mother, God, and all that he held dear. He thought he felt a flicker of life under her skin.

Is it my imagination?

He waited and felt it again.

And a third time, before he looked up and said firmly, “Call an ambulance and an EMS team. Tell them to hurry!”

M
iracles do
happen, Crocker said to himself. He’d witnessed one. At least he thought he’d heard the hospital’s doctor say that Malie’s breathing, blood pressure, and heartbeat had stabilized and were returning to normal.

“The doctor said she’s going to pull through, right?” he asked Akil, who stood to his right.

“It was touch and go for awhile, but she’s improving, yes.”

He pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t in a dream.

Then he felt strong arms around him and saw Mikael Klausen’s beaming face. “Like Lazarus. It’s like Lazarus, the way she’s come back to life!”

“Yes. Yes.” Trying to remember how long Klausen had been there with him.

“The doctor said another hour, maybe less, and her heart would have stopped.”

He saw tears in hard men’s eyes. Felt the joy in their faces. American, Norwegian, Omani, French. There were over twenty people crowded into the little waiting area. Only three green chairs. The Filipino nurse who had helped him before was passing a bottle of Australian white wine.

The clock behind her head was approaching twelve. Midnight, he thought. It had to be midnight. In the worry and exhaustion he’d lost track of time.

Klausen looked up from one of the green chairs, where he was dialing a satellite phone. “Don’t go too far, Crocker,” he said, pushing strands of blond hair off his forehead. “The king will want to thank you personally.”

The American said, “I’ve got to do something. I’ll be right back.”

He felt the sudden urge to call someone, too. Hurrying down the pale green hallway he almost crashed into an African nurse cradling a dozen cans of Coke.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I need to place an international call.”

She had kind eyes and parallel tribal scars carved into her cheeks. “The second door on the right. There’s a telephone on the desk. The code is 352. Then enter the country code and number.”

The small, unexpected kindnesses of strangers. He wanted to kiss her.

“Thanks.”

Jenny answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hi, sweetheart. It’s your father.”

“You remembered.”

Remembered what?

A song played in the background as she said, “I was hoping you could be here, but I wasn’t really counting on it.”

That’s right. Her seventeenth birthday was the twenty-second. Was today the twenty-second? He’d promised to be home by then.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. With all that’s been going on here, I lost track of time.”

He flashed back to Malie’s half-dead face, and the stench thickened around him. Irony and guilt squeezed his head and throat. He’d risked his life to save a young Norwegian woman but forgotten his own daughter’s birthday.

What kind of father am I?

“No, Dad, it’s okay. I know you’re busy. I’m glad you called.”

“I should be there.”

Remembering all the birthdays and holidays he’d missed, he felt himself being pulled into a disorienting maelstrom of pain, flashbacks, moral ambiguities, questions about why he was doing what he was doing, and the realization that he was more than seven thousand miles from home.

“Jenny, I just want you to know that when it comes to the important things, like the fact that I love you unconditionally, I’ll always, always be there for you. No matter what happens.”

“I know that, Dad.”

“You do?”

He wanted to confess to her that he was a flawed man and knew it. Sometimes, maybe, he went too far to protect her. Sometimes he didn’t understand why he did the things he did.

But he stopped himself. Wouldn’t his honesty just confuse the seventeen-year-old, who was already flirting with cynicism as she struggled to find her way in her new life in Virginia?

“Dad, you sound tired. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, sweetheart. How are you?”

School was okay, she said. She’d met a couple of girls her age that she liked.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” he said, drifting back to the image of Malie’s yellow-gray face, her angelic expression. Thinking: So many times we forget the most important things in life.

One day he would tell his daughter about the Norwegian girl and her rescue, but not now. Akil appeared in the doorway.

“The king wants to speak to you,” he whispered.

Crocker took a deep breath and said, “I have to go, sweetheart. I wish you a very happy birthday. I love you. I’ll be home soon.”

He walked back to the waiting area, scolding himself for not speaking to his wife, too, and hoping she’d understand.

I’m going to be a better father and husband. I’m going to treat myself better, too.

The king of Norway sounded like a soccer coach exhorting his team after a late-season victory. “We shouldn’t forget that Malie is just one of thousands of young women who are victimized like this every year. But this is an important accomplishment, a message to people all over the world that the good will prevail and…”

“Yes, Your Highness. I agree.”

The king’s words sounded hollow. For all Crocker knew he could have been some preacher or motivational speaker from down the street.

“Thank you, Your Highness. I’m glad we were successful. Yes, I’d be honored to visit your country. But I have to spend time with my family first.”

The joy on the people’s faces in the waiting room was real. Jakob, Mancini, the red-haired man from the embassy, the ambassadors of Norway and France, Klausen, Bahrami, Waleed, Davis, the nurse and doctor, even Jim Anders and Claude Mathieu were all celebrating, congratulating one another, happy and open, in a way that said We’re all in this together.

A moment of truth. Yes,
we are all in this together
.

Then something dark intruded. What?

Amid the bright chatter, the ship drifted across the horizon of his conscious again.

Oh, yeah. The
Syrena.

Figuring that this was as good a time as any to tie up the last loose end, he found Bahrami discussing the qualities of horse breeds with Waleed and pulled him aside.

“You think you can get me in to see the captured kidnappers?”

“Do you know anything about horses, Mr. Crocker?” the colonel asked back.

“Beautiful animals. But I need to talk to the kidnappers.”

“You want to do this now?”

“That’s correct.”

“But why?”

“I continue to be concerned about the ship.”

The colonel’s eye glistened as he lifted a thick eyebrow. “You’re an interesting fellow, Mr. Crocker. Are you always this focused and driven?”

“Most of the time, yes.”

“And you’re convinced that the ship is still relevant?”

“Haven’t my instincts been accurate so far?”

The colonel’s laughter sounded like hiccups. “I can’t argue with that. Follow me.”

Up they went to the dimly lit fourth-floor hallway, where they stopped at a door guarded by two sleepy Omani soldiers holding AK-47s. The colonel from the Internal Security Service spoke to them in Arabic, and the two soldiers saluted and stepped aside.

At the door Bahrami whispered, “I’m sticking my neck out for you, Mr. Crocker. And in return, I expect you to act within the bounds of reasonable behavior.”

“I appreciate that, Colonel,” the SEAL leader answered, wondering what he meant by “reasonable behavior.” “I’ll make it brief.”

The hospital room was dark and smelled sharply of ammonia. A man’s snores echoed off the walls. As soon as Crocker saw the kidnapper’s profile in the moonlight through the window, his anger started to rise.

He leaned over and slapped the prisoner on the cheek. “Cyrus? Hey, asshole. Wake up.”

Crocker switched on the light over the bed.

The young man stopped midsnore and opened his eyes. They were black and defiant, immediately expecting trouble.

“Cyrus, remember me? You tried to shoot me in the hotel suite.”

Fear froze the skin around the man’s eyes.

“Here’s the situation,” Crocker explained firmly. “Your days of kidnapping girls—of doing much of anything—are over. But if you cooperate with me, I can help your family.”

The prisoner’s hoarse breathing quickened as he turned his head toward the wall.

“Cyrus. Look at me. Listen…”

When the wounded kidnapper slowly turned his head back, Crocker noticed that his right cheekbone had been broken and his nostrils were stuffed with cotton.

“I’m not going to lie to you. You’re either going to hang, or spend the rest of your life in jail. That you can count on.”

The corners of the young man’s mouth curled into a kind of grim recognition.

Crocker continued, “As a man, a son, maybe even a father, your responsibility now is to your family.”

“I have no family,” the prisoner mumbled.

“What’d you say?”

“I have no family.”

Crocker realized that he was at a certain disadvantage. Though Oman was an Islamic country, it maintained a deep respect for the rights of all of its citizens, even prisoners. In Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or Iran, Cyrus would have had the truth beaten out of him. But not here. As long as he was in Omani custody, he couldn’t be forced to talk.

“We all have families, Cyrus,” Crocker said authoritatively. “We come from somewhere. People I know will find them. That’s what happens in cases like this.”

“Go to hell.”

“Why should your relatives suffer for the things you’ve done? Like kidnapping innocent girls and torturing them.”

Cyrus gritted his teeth.

Crocker’s anger broke to the surface; he pushed it down again.

“Why should they suffer for you, Cyrus? Think about that.”

The kidnapper responded in a grim, unsteady voice. “Our fates are, and always will be, in the hands of Allah.”

“Doesn’t Allah condemn torture and kidnapping? Doesn’t he show mercy to those who show compassion to others?”

“You’re an infidel. What do you know about Allah?” Cyrus spat back.

“I suspect that you have a wife somewhere. Maybe a young child.”

“I have nothing!”

“Think about them.”

“We are at war, you and me! That’s all we need to know about one another.”

“But now you’re of more use to me than you are to your own side.”

“We will win in the end. You’ll see!” The kidnapper’s eyes threatened to pop out of his head.

“You failed, Cyrus. Didn’t you?”

This struck like a bullet.

“No.”

“You were caught. Now Zaman would prefer that you were dead.”

Sadness crept into the corners of the kidnapper’s eyes. “What do you know, infidel?”

“Any promises he made to you before, to protect your family, don’t mean anything now.”

“Go away.”

“Think of them. Think of the burden they’ll have to bear. Their son, their father, their brother has put them in danger. He failed his cause.”

The skin around Cyrus’s mouth started to tremble.
“Imshi!”
(Leave me alone.)

Sensing a tiny opening, a moment of vulnerability, Crocker pressed on. “Tell me about the ship you arrived on and I’ll make sure your family is given money and moved to a safe location.”

Cyrus’s dark eyes grew darker as he considered.

“The ship, Cyrus. Be smart.”

His head shook slightly.

“I know it’s being used for some sinister purpose. If you don’t talk, my air force will blow it out of the water.”

“No.”

“Help your family.”

“Kill me!” the prisoner snarled, turning toward the window. “Make me a martyr.
Mush mushim.”
(I don’t care.)

Crocker couldn’t see the kidnapper’s face past his shoulder but sensed that the conversation was over.

“Cyrus, the next group of people you see won’t be so reasonable. They’ll start by breaking your toes and fingers, and pulling out your teeth.”

“Allah will show mercy
.
”

“The pain will be real. And your family will suffer. All you need to do is tell me about the ship.”

As the American leaned closer, Cyrus turned with great energy and Crocker saw that his right hand held a pointed object aimed at his neck.

“Allahu Akbar!”

The SEAL countered fast, throwing his right elbow and forehead into the bridge of the kidnapper’s nose and using his left to block his hand.

Cyrus’s nose snapped, and another punch to the neck loosened his grip on the weapon, which Crocker pulled free. A ballpoint pen that a careless doctor or nurse had left behind or dropped.

Crocker smashed the bloody terrorist powerfully in the mouth. “That’s for trying to fuck with me, Cyrus!” Then he unloaded on his face again. “And that’s for the girls you kidnapped and abused!”

Back in the hallway, Bahrami saw the blood on Crocker’s hand and threw his arms up in disgust. “I asked you to be reasonable! This is an outrage, sir. Totally unacceptable!”

“He tried to stab me,” Crocker explained, handing him the bloodied pen.

Fortunately, Cyrus’s colleague down the hall wasn’t as well informed about the protections of Omani law. This young man, who was recovering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the right foot, a shattered collarbone, and a dislocated shoulder, claimed he was a poor former Pakistani policeman who had been hired by Cyrus in Karachi to provide security for Sheik Rastani.

He gave up the following to Bahrami with very little persuasion: One, Sheik Rastani had not been a passenger on the ship; he had met them when they docked in Muscat. Two, Cyrus deferred to an older, serious man with a thick black beard who rarely left his cabin and seemed to be the leader. He didn’t know the man’s name or nationality. Nor was he able to understand what the man was saying, because he didn’t speak Arabic, only his native Urdu.

Three, the ship was run by a small crew of Middle Eastern men and Filipinos. Also on board were a half-dozen men who exercised on deck and prayed often, kept to themselves, and could be some sort of commandos. Four, he had been hired to accompany Sheik Rastani from Muscat to Kuwait. From there, he was supposed to fly back to Karachi.

Five, he said he wasn’t aware that Brigitte and Malie were on board until they disembarked in Muscat. Six, he claimed that he had taken the job to help his wife, who was suffering from cancer of the bladder.