Hunt the Jackal (19 page)

Crocker was too tired and preoccupied to give a shit about the peeling green brocade wallpaper, the stained pewter carpet, or the smell of mildew. It had beds and running water, which was all he wanted. In the shower, he remembered Mrs. Clark and her distress, which made him think of Holly. So he wrapped himself in a towel, closed the door to the bedroom, and called home.

“Holly. It’s me.”

“Tom?” she asked brightly.

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“You here in the States?”

“No. But I’ve been thinking of you.”

“Really? That’s nice. You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just mad at myself for missing your birthday.”

“At least you remember that you missed it. That’s something.”

“You deserve better. I’m sorry. I was tied up.”

She sighed. “I’m forty-two, Tom. I feel old.”

“You’re more beautiful than ever. I’ll make it up to you.”

“That’s so sweet, Tom. How?”

“I’ll surprise you.”

“I’d like that.”

“When I’m finished here, I’m taking two weeks’ leave. And once Jenny is out of school, which won’t be long, I’m gonna take the two of you to a beach somewhere where we can decompress and relax.”

“Sounds great. She still wants to talk to you about colleges.”

“Colleges, yes. I didn’t forget,” he lied.

“What about that place in the Yucatán, near Tulum?” Holly asked.

“Not Mexico this time. Someplace else.”

Holly said, “I love the idea, Tom, but your timing stinks.”

“Why?”

“I started back at work on Monday.”

Crocker had forgotten that the six-month leave of absence she had taken from her job with State Department security after her ordeal in Libya had ended.

“So you decided to return?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And how did that go?”

“It’s really good to be back among old friends who know me and appreciate what I went through. And it’s nice to feel useful, too.”

He had a lot of things he wanted to tell her but for the time being said, “I’m proud of you, sweetheart. I really am.”

“Thanks. Tomorrow after work, I’m driving Jenny to a soccer tournament in Charlottesville. Her team made the state finals.”

“That’s fantastic. Is she there?” Crocker asked. Between recent missions in Venezuela, Israel, Syria, and Mexico, he’d missed every single game of the spring season.

“No, she’s at her friend Leslie’s working on a biology project, and sleeping over,” Holly answered.

“Say hi to Leslie for me and tell Jenny I’m proud of her. I wish them both good luck.”

“I will. You hear about the rescue of the senator’s wife in Mexico?”

“Not really. No.”

“I know you can’t tell me where you are, but if you’re near a TV, you should turn on CNN.”

“I will.”

They talked for ten more minutes about the new
Great Gatsby
movie, which she’d liked, and replacing some worn-out screens on the doors to the rear patio, which Crocker promised to take care of as soon as he got back. Feeling as though they were living in different dimensions of the same reality, he told her he loved her and Jenny and hoped to see them soon.

Then he turned on the flat-screen opposite the bed and found CNN International. The banner across the top of the screen read
THE RESCUE OF LISA CLARK.
As various correspondents spoke excitedly, the TV broadcast helicopter footage of the charred wreckage of the house. Then they interviewed local authorities and various drug cartel experts.

Most of it wasn’t useful, but Crocker paid attention when one of the commentators pointed to a chart of the house that showed where Mexican authorities claimed they had found Olivia Clark’s remains—near the front door. The theory forwarded by a former FBI cartel expert speaking by video feed from Memphis was that Olivia had attempted to escape when the fire broke out and was overwhelmed by smoke.

“Bullshit,” Crocker muttered out loud. “Total crap.”

When the expert conjectured that the rescue team had screwed up, because the first step in any rescue operation was to secure the hostages, Crocker shut the TV off.

He pulled on a shirt and a pair of running shorts he had borrowed from Akil and returned to the main room, where Akil was on the phone ordering a late dinner. “You want a chicken sandwich, a burger, or a chef’s salad?”

“What time is it?” Crocker asked.

“It’s almost ten p.m.”

“I’ll take a chicken sandwich and a Diet Coke.”

“Mayo pesto or BBQ sauce?”

“Just a slice of tomato and some fresh lettuce if they have it.”

“At your service.”

“You know if this joint has a pool or a fitness room?”

Akil turned to Mancini, who looked up from the magazine he was reading and said, “Boss, you can’t go into the pool looking like that.”

Crocker had forgotten the bandages that still dotted his torso, arms, and shoulders. “You’re right. I think I’ll go for a run.”

“Now?” Akil asked. “What about your sandwich?”

“Keep your dirty mitts off it. I’ll be back.”

It took great effort, but Ivan Jouma found the energy to squirm out of the wheelchair, grab on to the windowsill, and, using both arms, pull himself to his knees.

As the muscles in his legs shook, he clasped his hands together and prayed:

“La Santísima Muerte, formed by the powers of the Almighty to be the protector of souls born to this earth. Mistress of the Darkness, I kneel before thee, placing my whole being into your hands, seeking your charity and your aid in the dungeon where I am chained.

“I place my faith and trust in you, Holy Mother of the Heavens, to be my protector always, restore me and give me the strength to continue to fulfill my mission, which is to spread your magic on this earth, and to liberate my people from the yoke of oppression.

“I kneel before you, as they did in ancient times, seeking your aid and protection. Lift my spirit up, my mother, and lift it to the heavens. Heal my ravaged body with your magic. While I am weak, never let my enemies see me. Never let them hurt me in any way.

“Fill me with your dark, miraculous energy and make me more powerful and feared than ever, most powerful queen, and I pledge to give you everything that is mine in return. I am your child, your servant in darkness. Amen.”

He took a moment to listen to the wind swirling outside and birds calling from one of the nearby trees. As he started to pull himself up, he heard a knock at the door.

“¿Jefe?”
asked the voice on the other side.

“Yes. What do you want?”

“I have good news,
Jefe
,” his aide said through the door.

“What?”

“Your nephew Luis called from California. He said that your horse Mr. Piloto won the handicap race at Hollywood Park.”

“Señor Piloto?” the Jackal asked, trying to remember if he’d ever heard his nephew talk about that specific horse, or if he’d ever seen it. He’d purchased dozens of quarter horses over the past ten years and housed them in stables in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico.

“He called it Mr. Piloto,” the aide continued. “I wanted to tell you the news,
Jefe,
because I think it’s a good sign.”

“Yes, this is a good omen. Thank you.”

“Goodnight,
Jefe
. Sleep well.”

As Crocker ran along the bay, he focused on the red-and-yellow lights of boats moored in the water. Disparate images flashed in his head—his distraught father leaning over his kitchen table; Ritchie’s bisected body lying on the ground; Holly sitting up in bed in a frilly white nightgown reading, her auburn hair framing her face; Mrs. Clark kneeling in the corner of the shower shivering; the Mayan woman who sold him the Datsun; the Ferris wheel spinning in the amusement park.

The seeming randomness of the images disturbed him, but he couldn’t get them to end, even as he pushed himself harder and faster until his lungs burned and his whole body begged him to stop. Eight miles wasn’t enough.

By the time he had logged ten miles and the images kept repeating and overlapping, he concluded that his brain had been affected by the chlorine poisoning. But that felt like an excuse, and what he wanted was a direction, or a sense of closure. So he kept pushing himself through the sweet night air.

At the fourteen-mile mark, he arrived at the uneasy feeling that some kind of danger waited somewhere in the dark and was about to strike. But as hard as he ran and concentrated, the why, where, who, and when eluded him.

At eighteen miles, he started to feel light-headed. And at twenty-one, he lost consciousness, stumbled, and fell in some long grass.

When he awoke twenty minutes later, he didn’t know where he was, or how he had gotten there. He felt a sharp burning sensation his just below his right knee where the flesh had been ripped away. And slowly the unease returned, and the dilemmas involving Captain Sutter and his job, and the situation with Olivia Clark, all came into focus.

As he groped in the dark and pulled himself up, he knew he had to do something to solve them. But he didn’t know where to start.

A
t six-fifteen
Friday morning, thirty-eight-year-old Gloria Maldonado stood before the closet in her small two-bedroom Guadalajara apartment, studying her figure in the mirror and trying to decide what to wear to work. She asked herself whether or not she should wake up her thirteen-year-old son, Ernesto, before she jumped in the shower, when she heard the doorbell ring.

“Ernesto, my love,” she called, glancing at the clock and wondering who it could be at that early hour. Holding the bodice of her nightgown shut, she had turned and started out when she heard the front door open and her son call, “Mom, it’s for you.”

“Who?”

“Some colleagues from work.”

She didn’t know what that meant. Alarmed, she grabbed a robe from the closet and put it on as she hurried to the front door to see who it was and what they wanted.

The three well-dressed
sicarios
told her that they had been sent by Nacho Gutierrez and needed her help with something immediately. She noticed dried blood on the sleeve of the good-looking one’s shirt. Understanding that if Nacho wanted something, you didn’t mess around, she threw on a blouse and skirt, combed her hair back, handed her son fifty pesos, and told him how much she loved him and that she wanted him to buy his lunch at school and take the bus.

The
sicarios
walked her to the Escalade, which was parked outside the entrance, and drove her to her office at Inicio, which was a division of Mexican Immigration. As they waited in the lobby, she hurried to her cubicle, turned on her computer, logged in to the system, and pulled up the immigration card that had been filled out by Thomas Mansfield, a Canadian who had arrived in Guadalajara a week ago with three other business associates. She printed out their passport photos and records and gave them to the
sicarios
, who discussed them in hushed tones as they escorted her back to the Escalade.

They didn’t seem pleased or angry, so Gloria kept quiet. She didn’t know if they were going to shoot her in the head and desecrate her body or shake her hand. After they drove her back to her apartment, they handed her seven thousand Mexican pesos (approximately $544.44) for her time.

She thanked them profusely and got out.

The
sicarios
turned the Esplanade around and took off in the direction of a Zetas safe house near the University of Guadalajara campus. There they watched in wonder as a young one-armed computer hacker named Miguel X used various programs to search databases to try to locate someone named Thomas Mansfield who was or had been a Navy SEAL. When Miguel’s efforts failed to produce a match, he tried the name of one of the men who had arrived with Mansfield, Manny DaSilva. That didn’t work, either.

Miguel X, who tended to get hyper when he got stressed, offered the
sicarios
coffee and told them not to worry. He explained that he was going to load Mansfield’s photo into a very advanced facial recognition software program called PicTriev and try to match it with visual images from various large databases on the Web.

The process took time, during which the
sicarios
fidgeted, bit their nails, checked their phones, riffled through Miguel X’s collection of comic books and pornography, and smoked.

Twenty minutes later, Miguel X jumped up from his desk, boasting that he had found an 89 percent match with the photo of a U.S. Navy SEAL named Thomas Crocker, whose picture was published four years ago when he placed eighth in an Ironman competition in Lake Placid.

According to PeopleFinders.com, a man named Thomas Crocker, in his early forties, currently resided on Cherry Oak Lane in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Manny DaSilva, whose photo matched that of another Navy SEAL named Joseph Mancini, lived a quarter of a mile away on Palmetto Drive.

The
sicarios
rewarded him with ten thousand pesos and ten grams of high-grade cocaine.

Armed with the information about Crocker and Mancini, Guapo, Osito, and Stallone drove to Don Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla International Airport, where they texted Nacho Gutierrez, then caught a flight to Dallas–Fort Worth. Once they arrived in Dallas, they purchased tickets for a connecting flight to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., then called a Zetas contact in northern Virginia and told him to meet them with an SUV when they arrived at 5:15 p.m. local time.

At eight the same morning, Crocker, Mancini, Akil, and Suárez arrived at Tocumen International Airport, after a short, sleepy ride from Panama City. They had just passed through Security and were buying coffee and sweet rolls from a vendor when they heard a message in Spanish and English over the PA telling a Thomas Mansfield to report to the airport information desk immediately.

“That’s you, boss,” Akil said.

“I remember my alias. Thanks.”

Crocker found a Copa Airlines attendant, who pointed him in the direction of the info desk. There a dark-skinned woman wearing thick glasses examined his passport, then pointed to a green phone at the end of the counter.

“Hi,” he said into it. “It’s Tom Mansfield.”

“Tom, this is Anders,” the CIA officer answered. “I need you and your friends to meet me out in front of Terminal Muelle Norte a-sap.”

“Some of us checked our bags.”

“Forget about your bags. I’ll have someone recover them for you.”

“Okay. We’ll be there in five mikes.”

He found Akil chatting up two blondes near the departure gate. Leaning close to him, he whispered, “We’re leaving.”

Akil put his arm around Crocker’s shoulder and winked at the girls. “This is my buddy Tom.”

“Hi, Tom.”

“Lisa and Tammy are surfers. They just got back from an island on the Caribbean side.”

“Isla Bocas del Toro,” the taller and blonder of the two girls said. “A real chill spot.”

“Why is surfing like sex?” Akil asked.

“Don’t know.”

“When it’s good, it’s really, really good. And when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.”

“Yeah,” Crocker said, smiling at the girls. “But you gotta excuse me, because I’ve got to borrow my friend for a minute.”

“No problem.”

Crocker pulled Akil ten feet closer to the departure desk and said, “Forget the chicks and the surfing and grab your gear.”

“Now?”

“Anders wants us to meet him out front. Something important has come up.”

Akil looked back at the two blondes and said, “This better be good.”

Outside the most modern of the three terminals, Crocker and his men found Anders standing beside a new black Chevy Suburban. They squeezed in. Before the female driver even pulled away from the curb, Anders started to speak.

“There’s been a change of plans,” he said. “Based on some of the medical data you seized from the house in Tapachula and phone intercepts from the NSA, we believe that Olivia Clark is with the Jackal in a nearby country, and about to become an unwitting organ donor.”

The information hit Crocker like a slap to the head.

“An organ donor?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Fuck,” Akil grunted. “Is that why he kidnapped her in the first place?”

“We believe so. Yes.”

“So all that other people’s liberation stuff is bullshit?”

“That’s our current thinking. Seems like someone hacked into her doctor’s medical files two weeks ago, so we believe the whole thing was planned,” Anders explained.

“Sick.”

“Which organ?” asked Mancini.

“The liver.”

Akil: “Makes sense.”

“Why?”

“He’s a fucking drug dealer. Isn’t he?”

“Where’s Olivia?” Crocker asked as the vehicle accelerated.

“NSA traced the plane’s flight path, then zeroed in on the cell phone of one of his doctors,” Anders explained from the passenger seat. “It seems the transplant is scheduled to start tomorrow morning, so we’ve got to move fast.”

“Okay. But where?”

“Havana, Cuba.”

Suárez let out a hoot of joy from the backseat.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, holy shit,” Mancini echoed. “This is an interesting turn of events. I thought we were about to get court-martialed.”

“You guys are going to have to go in scrubbed clean,” Ander continued. “Completely black. No IDs, no phones, no documents or pictures or wallets, no jewelry, no names, nothing.”

“I always wanted to go to Havana. How are we gonna get in?” Akil asked.

Anders directed the female driver to cross the Bridge of the Americas to the west side of the Panama Canal and the former U.S. Army base Fort Kobbe, which was now under Panamanian control.

Turning back to Crocker in the middle seat, he said, “We’re going to use some assets we have here to drop you off the coast.”

“When?”

“As soon as we get you geared up and prepped.”

“How will we get out?” Crocker asked, thinking ahead.

“That’s more problematic. We’re working with some local assets we have in Cuba. It won’t be easy. We figure there’s about a twenty percent chance of success. Your call.”

Crocker took a moment to consider the grisly alternative. When he turned to check with them, all three men nodded.

“We’re in,” he said.

“Good.”

“Has this op been cleared by the White House?”

Anders grinned. “Officially, they know nothing about it. Nobody in the U.S. government knows anything about it. Unofficially, the president finds the organ-harvesting scheme reprehensible and wants us to do anything we can to save the girl.”

“Good.”

“But if anything goes wrong, he’s going to deny he’s ever heard of you or the mission.”

“Understood.”

“You can’t be captured. That can’t happen. If any or all of you are killed by the Cubans and they’re able to ID your bodies, we’ll say you went rogue. Won’t be too far from the truth, with the way you’ve been handling ops recently.”

Crocker nodded to indicate that he understood. “Where’s Captain Sutter? Does he know about this?”

“He just landed in Miami. I spoke to him a few minutes before I contacted you and filled him in. He’s okay with it, if you are.”

“You said Olivia Clark’s in Havana. Do you have a fixed location?”

“Yeah. The Cira García Clinic, which is a private hospital that caters to rich foreigners. It’s located on the west side of the city, not far from the coast, a couple blocks from the Almendares River. There’s a big park there where you can land. I’ll show you a map.”

They were passing over the canal now. Crocker had never been to Cuba, but he’d heard a lot about it over the years and had always been intrigued. The prospect of sneaking into Havana and rescuing a hostage right under Fidel and Raúl Castro’s noses appealed to the daredevil in him.

“How’s this gonna work?” he asked.

“We’re planning to drop you in the Straits of Florida and having you swim in, up the Almendares River,” answered Anders as the female driver turned off a road on the other side of the bridge and stopped at a gate guarded by Panamanian soldiers.

“According to the latest phone intercept, the transplant’s scheduled to start at 0600,” Anders continued. “So we’re thinking of launching at around 0200.”

A soldier checked the driver’s credentials, recorded the number of passengers and the license plate number, then waved to another soldier, who opened the security barrier.

“We’re gonna need a jump platform, fixed wing or rotor, parachutes, a Zodiac, Drägers, black skin suits, masks, fins, watertight bags, compasses, and weapons,” said Mancini.

“We’ll take care of all that now.”

Guapo descended the escalator to the baggage claim area at Reagan National Airport with his two compatriots and spotted a stout, no-necked man on the left holding up a sign with his name scrawled on it. He stopped in front of the man and said in English, “I’m Guapo. Who are you?”

“Lionel Mendoza,” the man said. “Nacho sent me.”

“A pleasure to meet you. You have a vehicle for us?”

“Yes, it’s parked outside. You need to pick up your luggage?”

“We don’t have luggage,” Guapo answered.

“Then I’ll show you where it is.”

They followed the man’s short legs into a parking structure and rode the elevator to Level 4. There he led them to a silver Toyota RAV4, reached into the pocket of his shirt, and handed Guapo the keys.

“Here.”

“Equipment?” Guapo asked.

“Three hush puppies”—Smith and Wesson M39s with detachable suppressors—“with ammo, incendiary grenades, gaffer’s tape, rope, ski masks, three prepaid cell phones. Programmed into each cell phone is a number. You need anything, or when you’re finished with the vehicle, call and we’ll pick it up. The SUV has a full tank of gas and is equipped with a Garmin GPS. Those were my instructions. Anything else?”

Guapo thought for a moment and said, “I think we’re okay.”

“Good.”

“You want us to drop you off somewhere?” Guapo asked.

“No thanks. I have a ride. Good luck.”

Twenty minutes later, they exited the Washington Beltway onto I-95 South. The female voice on the Garmin instructed them to take Exit 84A and merge onto I-295 South.

Approximately three and a half hours after they left D.C., the three
sicarios
arrived in Virginia Beach. It was almost 9 p.m., so Osito used his iPhone to consult Yelp.com and find a place to eat. He chose the Abbey Road Pub on Twenty-Second Street, because his older brother was a Beatles fan and
Abbey Road
was one of the CDs that played over and over in the bedroom they shared growing up. The three men ordered shrimp cocktails to start, followed by the prime rib
au jus.

A quartet of middle-aged
gringos
played Beatles songs on a little stage at the end of the room. Osito thought their rendition of “Blackbird” with mandolin accompaniment was particularly good. He sang along on the final verse, and when they left, tipped the quartet twenty dollars.

An hour later, their bellies full, the Garmin directed them to Tom Crocker’s residence on Cherry Oak Lane. They found a dark street with two-story gray clapboard houses spaced at least fifty feet apart, surrounded by tall trees and backed with marshland.