SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Fox (15 page)

“What does that mean?”

“It means you need to help your girlfriend by calming her down and acting positive, even if you’re scared to death.”

Hassan looked like he was about to cry. “How can I look at her, when she will see the truth in my eyes? The midwife who examined her yesterday said that the baby had not turned. It isn’t in the right position. She said she needs a surgeon or an obstetrician.”

That brought a new wrinkle to the situation.

“Now do you understand? That’s why we have to find one in Turkey.”

“Great idea, but not happening,” Crocker said, trying to remember what he had learned about different birthing methods. “Did the midwife say what position the fetus is in?”

“No, of course not. Why would she tell me that? I’m not a doctor. You’re not, either. That’s why we have to leave now! What’s preventing us? Why are you being so stubborn?”

“Because there’s no time, Hassan. The baby’s in distress, and so is your girlfriend.”

“But the baby’s in the wrong position! Didn’t you just hear me? It won’t come out!”

“It has to,” answered Crocker, “and it will.”

M
ortar rounds
started to fall in the vicinity as Crocker and his men improvised a clean bed out of sheets and an inflatable mattress on a table in what used to be the dining room. One of the two schoolteachers, the shorter woman with a bowl of straight black hair who hadn’t said a word so far—Natalie—volunteered to act as Crocker’s assistant. She and Suarez boiled water and sterilized the rudimentary tools in the emergency medical kit as Amira held Jamila’s hand and Hassan wrung his hands and paced.

“You think you can handle being in the room?” Crocker asked him as a helicopter passed overhead.

He nodded, then whispered, “I want you to know that Jamila’s a very wonderful person and has suffered so much already. Her mother is dead, her father was arrested, she hasn’t heard from her brothers since they joined the resistance.”

“Duly noted.”

Crocker had delivered babies before—once to a feverish young woman in a barn in Honduras, another time twins to an injured woman in Iraq.

Upon examination, he discovered that this was going to be his first breech birth. What that meant was that instead of the normal head-first presentation, this baby was presenting itself bottom first, with his or her legs extended at the knees.

“You seen anything like this before?” whispered Suarez, who had some corpsman training.

“No, but there’s always a first time.”

A shell exploded outside, shaking the remaining tiles on the roof. One of them crashed two feet away from the table where Jamila sat. Amira held up a towel to shield Jamila’s face.

“We’re fine,” Crocker said. “Suarez, find Davis and ask him to check if there are any more loose tiles over this room.”

“Aye aye.”

If Jamila were in a hospital, chances are the baby would be delivered via cesarean section. But not having a properly equipped operating room with ultrasound and heart monitors, Crocker didn’t want to risk excessive bleeding and infection, so he planned to try to perform a vaginal breech birth, which was problematic but the only real option he had.

The contractions were coming closer together and were more intense—every minute now, and a minute in duration. Jamila was in serious discomfort, with especially strong pains in her back. Crocker was reluctant to administer morphine, because he thought it might numb the fetus and affect its heart.

“Okay,” he said, as he exposed her lower back and prepared to inject the sterile water from his kit just below the skin of her lumbosacral region. “This is going to sting for a minute, but it won’t put you out or damage the baby in any way.” The way it worked was simple. The sudden burst of intense pain from the injection closed off transmission of the sensation produced by the contractions.

Jamila let out a scream and did the paced breathing Amira had been teaching her. The pain in her back abated. So far, so good.

Crocker had been concentrating so hard he hadn’t realized that the artillery and rockets were falling with more frequency.

Suarez, who had noticed, now whispered in his ear, “It could be the lead-up to some kind of ground attack on a nearby target.”

“You mean the artillery?”

“Yeah, boss.”

“We’ve got to finish this first.”

“How about we move the canisters to the Ford and do the delivery in the back of the van?”

Crocker examined Jamila’s cervix again. It was open ten centimeters and the mucus plug had released, which meant that cervical dilation was complete. Aware that it would be hard enough to manage a difficult breech birth in a stationary location and almost impossible in a moving van, he whispered back, “The baby’s coming. No time.”

His first goal was to turn the fetus by manipulating its body through the mother’s abdomen. He had Jamila lie down on her back on the mattress with her feet on the table and her knees apart. Then he and Suarez pressed and applied pressure. They weren’t successful. The baby was so big there was very little room inside the vaginal canal for it to be maneuvered. And Crocker didn’t want to keep trying because of the stress they were putting on the baby’s heart.

“Now what?” Suarez asked.

The baby’s butt was showing through the cervical opening. Crocker said, “I’ll hold on to the butt while you try to twist the fetus to the right.”

“How do I do that?”

“Grab it near the chest. Firmly, and turn gently.”

Slowly they applied pressure and managed to turn the fetus slightly, so that its right side faced Jamila’s back. Then they watched as her pelvic floor muscles helped complete the process.

“Nice.”

“What happened?” Jamila asked through gritted teeth.

“It’s all good. We’ll have the baby out soon.”

Crocker saw that the new position of the fetus would allow the baby to come out one hip at a time. Since its bottom was the same size as its head and the mother’s pelvis was relatively large, labor could begin.

The big danger they faced now was injury to the baby’s brain or skull due to a rapid passage of the head through the birth canal. With the fetus positioned the way it was, it was impossible to determine the angle of its head. All Crocker could do was hope that the head wasn’t in the “star-gazing” position, looking straight up, with the back of the head resting against the back of the neck.

The other serious danger was that the umbilical cord would prolapse, diminishing or cutting off the flow of blood to the baby’s brain.

Amira and Hassan whispered encouragement into Jamila’s ears while Suarez mopped the sweat from Crocker’s brow.

He glanced at his watch: 1855 hours. The sun was starting to set outside as artillery continued to shake the house.

What Crocker hoped to accomplish was a smooth, quick delivery so the baby wasn’t hung up in any way that might put undue pressure on its heart.

He took a deep breath. As he did, an explosion shook the farmhouse, causing Hassan and Natalie to gasp and Jamila to tighten up.

Crocker reached for his head mic and whispered, “Breaker, how close was that?”

“A hundred and fifty feet,” Davis reported. “Maybe less.”

“Do you have any idea what they’re shooting at? You see fighters or bunkers?”

“Negative to all three.”

They waited. When no more mortars fell in the next two minutes, Jamila relaxed.

Crocker said, “All right. Let’s get this kid out.”

She nodded bravely as he pulled on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves. Years ago, during his corpsman training in Yokohama, he had watched a video on something called the Mauriceau-Smellie-Veit maneuver. He tried to recall it now, rehearsing the steps in his head. When he felt confident that he could pull it off, he turned to Suarez and said, “When I give the signal to Jamila to push, I want you to apply subrapubic pressure to the uterus.”

“How do I do that?”

“Press down on the pubic bone here, thus opening the vagina.”

He showed him where to position his hands, then took a deep breath, waited for her cervix to spasm, then asked her calmly, “Jamile, you ready to push?”

She nodded.

He turned to Suarez and asked, “You clear about what to do?”

He nodded, too.

“All right. On three.”

He counted out loud.

Suarez pressed, Jamila screamed, and Hassan, Amira, and Natalie furiously massaged her back and whispered encouragement. Crocker inserted his gloved left hand, reached his index finger upward, and inserted it into the baby’s mouth. Gently pressing on the kid’s maxilla to bring the neck to moderate flexion, he rested his left palm on the baby’s chest, reached his right hand around until he held the shoulders in his right palm, and pulled down and out.

The baby’s hips and shoulders slipped out easily, but the head became stuck, causing Jamila to start to panic.

“Relax, Jamila,” Crocker whispered reassuringly, “We’re almost there.”

He took a deep breath and felt with his left hand to make sure the umbilical cord wasn’t interfering with the baby’s neck. Then he turned to Suarez and whispered, “Push again, with conviction.”

With his left index finger in the baby’s mouth, he slowly maneuvered the chin through the cervix opening and guided the head out. It emerged with a pop, followed by a full-throated cry from the baby boy.

“Oh my God!” Hassan shouted. “Is it okay?”

“You’ve got a beautiful baby boy!”

Jamila started to bounce her butt up and down on the mattress with joy. “Oh my God! I can’t believe it! Praise God!”

“Hold on a minute. Stay still.”

Crocker handed the baby to Suarez, then calmly tied and cut the umbilical cord and removed the placenta. The baby wailed.

“Strong lungs.”

As Crocker cleaned Jamila up, Suarez wiped down the baby and handed it to its mother. Shouts of exultation followed and ricocheted off the walls. For a few moments the war was completely forgotten. Even for Crocker, who dealt with the minor bleeding, which was normal, and went outside to get some fresh air.

As he stood in the doorway watching the sun start to drop toward the horizon, he sighed deeply and his hands started to shake. Seventeen years ago he had sat in a delivery room in Alexandria, Virginia, and watched the birth of his daughter, Jenny. It seemed like another lifetime now. In a day or two—he couldn’t remember the specific day—she’d receive her diploma and graduate from high school.

He wanted to be there but wouldn’t. Instead, he’d probably be facing another unknown challenge. Protecting and aiding the innocent was his disease, his compulsion, and through the grace of God the only thing that satisfied the hunger in his soul.

“I don’t understand how the world can just watch this,” the suddenly talkative Natalie declared, emerging to stand beside him. “Syrians are good people. No one is with us. No one! Why is that?”

Crocker nodded. “It’s terrible, I know. We’re doing what we can.”

“No. Not enough.”

She was right. Despite Natalie’s distress and the mortars thudding in the distance, he looked out at the sun descending over broken chicken coops filled with putrefying chickens and felt a rare moment of peace. All he wanted now was a beer or a shot of scotch, a comfortable chair, and a place to put his feet up. But those small pleasures would have to wait.

Turning to Natalie, he said, “Do me a favor and find Suarez. Tell him I want him to fix a place for the mother and baby in the pickup.”

“I can do that.”

“By the way, what did they name the baby?”

“Tariq Yusef Mohammed Sadir, after his maternal grandfather.”

“Tariq Yusef Mohammed Sadir. Let’s hope he has a better future.”

He didn’t have time to speculate on what that might be. Seeing Davis on the porch keeping watch, he asked, “Anything new from Ankara?”

Davis wore the coiled, expectant look of a soldier waiting for the next battle to start. “Negative, boss. Nothing’s changed. They’re still waiting for approval of the LZ site.”

He checked his watch: 1938. A helicopter buzzed high in the purplish-black sky. Looked like a little Polish-made Mi-2 with rockets mounted along the sides. As it headed south he heard firing in the distance, then saw a cloud of black smoke, indicating that the helo had been hit by antiaircraft fire. It was unreal, like watching a movie. The resulting explosion reverberated through the house.

Crocker turned to Davis and said, “Tell the guys to prepare to move out.”

“Just prepare, or really go?”

“We’re leaving.”

“Without approval?”

“With it or without it. The situation here isn’t good.”

“Even without it, I have to tell Ankara something.”

“Tell ’em a helicopter was just shot down in the area and we’re hearing an uptick in fighting. So we’re moving north through what we hope is FSA-controlled territory. We’ll apprise them of our new position when we arrive.”

“Sounds good but kind of vague.”

“That’s on purpose.”

As Crocker paused to take one last look at the ragged landscape, one of Al Swearengen’s best lines came to mind. “Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand like a man, and give some back.”

For a brief moment he was tired of fighting. All he had to do now was deliver the people and cargo in his charge to safety.

A
t 2023
they set out, headlights extinguished, on Highway 60 with their cargo of sarin and refugees. Miles Davis’s
Sketches of Spain
played on Crocker’s iPod as they rolled down a long straightaway past fields of new wheat. It was a warm, still night with dramatic clouds that reminded him of the J. M. W. Turner paintings he had once seen in the National Gallery in London. He wanted to chill to the dark lyricism of the music and Davis’s haunting flugelhorn solo, but his brain wouldn’t let him.

The Garmin GPS said they were only fifty-eight miles from the border. At home, fifty-eight miles was a trip to Costco and back, but now they were in northwest Syria, where new horrors seemed to lurk around every corner.

He shut his eyes as the minutes and miles slid past. He was half conscious, lying on his back in a swimming pool, when Hassan grabbed his shoulder.

“Look, Mr. Wallace. Look!” He was pointing toward multiple lights maybe a quarter of a mile ahead.

What now?

“Trouble. Look! There!”

“I see.”

It was unclear who was ahead and what the lights belonged to—more vehicles, probably. Crocker grabbed the 416 off the floor, re-bombed a mag, slammed it in, killed the music, and leaned forward.

“It appears to be another roadblock,” Hassan said anxiously. “Maybe FSA, maybe Islamists.”

Even if they were FSA, Crocker wasn’t sure they could be trusted—not with his cargo of sarin and young women. He needed time to think. Donning a pair of NVGs, he spotted a path in the field to his right and said to Akil, “Turn off here and kill the engine.”

They sat on a dirt path with green wheat swaying on both sides, crickets chirping, and the crescent moon playing hide and seek behind the clouds. Percussive bursts of rocket or artillery fire thundered behind them. Altogether, a strange, ominous symphony of sorts.

“I think it’s ISIS with its rockets again,” Hassan said nervously, biting his nails and looking behind them. “It could be them both ahead and behind.”

“Or could be Assad’s forces counterattacking,” responded Akil. “Impossible to tell.”

Crocker wasn’t as concerned about who was behind them as about what lay ahead. “Deadwood, Breaker here,” he heard through the earbuds. “What’s the plan?”

“Headlights!” Hassan shouted, pointing at the side mirror. “More headlights coming in back!”

Sure enough, yellow headlights shone on the road far behind them, creeping closer. The lights in front hadn’t moved and only seemed brighter.

Crocker felt the tension in the cab inflate like a balloon.

“Deadwood? You read me?”

“I’m thinking. Manny, look through the Steiners and see if you can make out the number of vehicles behind us,” he said through the head mic.

Half a minute later Mancini reported, “Looks like a lone wolf.”

“What kind?”

“Maybe a pickup. Hard to tell from this distance.”

What they sat on now was more a path than a road, so he had no confidence that it led anywhere. He was also worried that the taller Sprinter’s roof was visible from the road.

Leaning over the front seat toward Akil, he said, “Let’s move forward, headlights off, and find a better place to turn off.”

“What happens if we don’t find one?”

“We initiate Plan B.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t know yet.”

Crocker communicated the only plan he had so far to Mancini at the Sprinter’s wheel behind them. As soon as it moved out of the way, Akil backed the truck up, swung onto the highway, and gunned the engine.

These weren’t ideal fighting conditions—three women, a baby, eight canisters of sarin, five SEALs with limited armaments. But Crocker had decided that they weren’t stopping anymore, for anyone.

The roadblock loomed two hundred yards ahead. Even though they were driving with their lights doused, chances are they’d been spotted already. Akil and Hassan kept craning their necks left and right, but saw no turnoff.

“We’re trapped!” Hassan exclaimed.

“Quiet!”

“Where are the American helicopters? Why haven’t they come to get us?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“What do we do now?” Akil asked.

“Slow down, but don’t stop.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m getting out.”

“Why?”

“I’m gonna run ahead. When you get close, flash the headlights and slow down. Whatever happens, don’t let those bastards in the trucks.”

“That’s a stupid idea,” commented Hassan.

“Nobody asked you, Hassan.”

Hassan muttered something under his breath. They were close enough now to see one of the trucks ahead flying a black-and-white ISIS flag.

“Nasty-ass jihadists,” announced Akil.

“This is bad. A very terrible situation,” Hassan warned. “We should get out here and run!”

“Keep your head down.”

“Maybe it’s your buddy al-Kazaz,” said Akil. “You still got that letter?”

“Forget the letter.”

Sarin and young attractive women would be too much temptation to desperate men. Crocker looked through the NVGs but couldn’t find any parked motorcycles. Just SUVs and trucks—one a flatbed with a weapons system mounted on it.

“Even if it’s al-Kazaz, we can’t let him inside the trucks.”

“Copy.”

“Breaker, Romeo, Manny, Rojas, ready weapons,” Crocker said into the mic. “No one gets in the vehicles. No inspection; no bartering. We’re going to slow down, tell them we’re ferrying injured civilians, and blast by. We’re not letting them in. Repeat. Keep them away from the trucks.”

“Copy, Deadwood.”

“Roger.”

“Here we go. Over.”

Crocker readied the 416 in his lap, securing the AAC M4-2000 suppressor and slipping an M576 buckshot grenade into the M320 grenade launcher attached to the rails. He grabbed two more M576s and three high-explosive M441 grenades and stuffed them in the pouches of his combat vest; chambered a round in the SIG Sauer 226 and stuck it in the waistband of his pants; made sure the NVGs were snug around his head and his Dragon Skin armor was strapped on tight. No time even for a quick prayer.

“Ready?” Akil asked.

“Ready. Pull close to the shoulder at that bend up there and slow down.”

Akil braked and Crocker opened the back door, jumped out, rolled into the high grass, and sprung to his feet like the athlete he was. Immediately he broke into a sprint through the grass, pulling ahead of the Sprinter and pickup. Building up speed, he was within one hundred feet of what he made out to be two white Broncos and a Mercedes flatbed truck with what looked like a Russian-made ZU-23-2 antiaircraft gun on it blocking the road ahead. He hadn’t seen a ZU-23-2 since Somalia, back in the nineties, when they were chasing drug-crazed warlords through the streets of Mogadishu.

Noisy fucking weapon, and nasty.

One of the Broncos had its headlights illuminated and engine running. Six bearded men stood in front of the vehicles, holding weapons and wearing assorted camouflage and traditional garb, all with armored vests. They were gesturing at the oncoming vehicles to stop.

Crocker, breathing hard, barked into the head mic: “The two guys on the right are mine. Breaker and Rojas, you take the dudes on the left.”

“Happily.”

“Deadwood, check out the twin 23mms on the truck,” Mancini said.

“Should be in a museum, huh?”

“If they work, they can rip shit up.”

“Copy,” responded Akil. “Don’t want that piece of shit pointed at me.”

“Ain’t happening,” Crocker said. “I’ve got it covered.”

“Okay, Warrant Manslaughter.”

“I have a real bad feeling about this,” Hassan moaned to Akil at the wheel of the pickup.

“Keep your head under the dash before they blow it off.”

“What happens if they hit one of the canisters?”

“We die,” Akil responded.

Davis through the earbuds: “Deadwood?”

“Soon as the bastards level their weapons, open fire.”

As Crocker ran, the tall grass sliced his arms and face. He glanced over his shoulder to check if the jeep was still following them. It was. Another complication. One he couldn’t deal with now.

“Romeo, ease down on the brakes, but don’t stop under any conditions,” he said through the mic to Akil.

“Even if Angelina Jolie jumps in front of us naked?”

“Even if she does a booty dance in your face.”

The jihadists ahead stood in the path of the lead pickup, waving wildly and shouting warnings. One fired volleys from an AK into the sky. Crocker was bearing down on them in the grass on the right, running in a half crouch, the muscles in his calves and legs burning, breathing hard.

Fifty feet, forty, thirty, twenty, ten. His right foot reached ahead, hit the side of a slight depression, slipped, and turned. He lost his balance and fell hard onto the right side of his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. He saw stars, felt pain near his ribs, and struggled to stay conscious, feeling for his weapon, willing himself up.

Meanwhile, Akil was reaching out the F-250 window, pointing to the blue cross on the hood and shouting in Arabic, “Medical emergency! Doctors Without Borders! We have wounded civilians. We’re Canadians. Brakes don’t work! We can’t stop!”

Crocker pulled himself to his knees, his head still throbbing. Through the grass he saw one of the jihadists jump onto the pickup’s running board and heard him scream through the window, “You stop, infidel! Stop or I shoot!”

“I can’t, brother. The brakes don’t work!”

Akil and the jihadist struggled through the window. Two shots went off in succession. The pickup veered left and crashed into the side of one of the Broncos. Immediately the confused jihadists leveled their weapons. Crocker knelt in the grass beside the front wheel of the pickup and opened fire.

He launched the M576 first, then raked right with the 416. Keeping in mind that the targets were wearing armored vests, he aimed for their legs, then finished them off with head shots, a tight burst at each. As soon as they went down, he looked for his next target. One-two-left-right. Through his EOTech sight he saw a jihadist in the back of the flatbed start to swing the ZU-23-2 into position, and caught him with a salvo that practically took off his head.

The flashes through the NVGs blurring his vision, he shoved an M441 round into the M320 launcher, aimed at the flatbed, and fired at the hood.
BLAM!
The front of the vehicle exploded into flames.

Davis and Suarez directed their fire left. Screams, smoke, confusion, cascading bodies. The encounter was pretty much over before it started, except for one jihadist who tried to launch himself through the Ford’s passenger-side window. He managed to reach in and grab Hassan by the hair.

Crocker ran up and shouted, “I got him. Back away from the Bronco, then accelerate!”

He smacked the jihadist in the back of the head with the butt of his 416 so that the side of his head smashed into the front post near the window. Then jumped, held on with his right hand, and thrust his SOG knife into his throat with his left. He pulled open the door, grabbed the jihadist by his beard, and threw him off.

“Watch out, boss!”

The jihadist’s body smacked the side of the Bronco as they swerved around it. The F-250’s door swung open and hit it, too, sending up a stream of sparks, blowing out the window, and almost taking Crocker’s right leg off. He pulled it back just in time. Hassan screamed. The baby started wailing.

Total chaos. Akil fishtailed the truck left and right, trying to control it, and throwing Crocker all over the backseat.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Having fun! Hoo-yah!”

Akil gunned the F-250 down a straightaway, smoke spilling from beneath the hood, then skidded around the next turn.

“Easy!” Crocker shouted, holding on and looking back. He could see that the Sprinter couldn’t keep up. “Ease the fuck up.”

Hassan was screaming and holding his hands over his eyes. “I’m injured! I’m bleeding!”

Crocker learned over, pulled away his hands, and saw a long scratch across his left cheek, maybe a few millimeters deep. There was just a trickle of blood. He slapped a hand over Hassan’s mouth and said, “Pull yourself together! You’re fine.”

The young man was practically hyperventilating, and his eyes were popping out of his head.

Crocker spoke into the head mic, “Everyone okay? What’s everyone’s status? Rojas, Breaker, Manny? Report.”

“Rocking and rolling, but intact,” Mancini responded.

“Shit my pants,” joked Davis.

“Praise my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” responded Suarez.

“Nicked in the shoulder,” said Akil from the front seat.

“What now, Deadwood?” Mancini asked.

“Keep burning out.”

He leaned over the seat and saw lots of blood around Akil’s shoulder. Looked like a bullet had passed through the fleshy part up top. He reached into his med kit, found a black tactical tourniquet, wrapped it as high around the shoulder as he could, and pulled it tight.

“Damage assessment to the vehicles?” he asked into the mic.

“We took a couple rounds in the hood and one through the windshield. Lucky shot.”

“Sarin intact?”

“Seems to be, yeah.”

“The women?”

“A little shaken but all good.”

The front right bumper of the Ford F-250 was a crumpled mess, and smoke continued to pour from beneath the hood.

“Engine’s heating up,” Akil reported.

Through the cacophony Crocker made out little Tariq crying and his mother quieting him, which brought him a moment of joy—quickly interrupted by Davis’s voice through the earbuds.

“That asshole is still behind us and bearing down.”

“How the fuck did he get through the roadblock?”

“Maybe he’s one of them,” Davis answered.

“It’s only one man. You sure?”

“Only one head up.”

Crocker had forgotten all about the vehicle tailing them. He craned his neck out the shattered side window to take a look and made out a Mitsubishi J21C jeep with a single driver behind the wheel closing, flashing its headlights and honking.