by Don Mann
He was thinking of home and walks along Chincoteague Beach, holding Holly’s hand. During the last session in Dr. Mathews’s office, she had accused him of loving his job and his teammates more than his family.
“Not true,” he had told her then. But now he admitted she might be right. The truth was that while he loved his wife and daughter and enjoyed spending time with them, the satisfaction and excitement he got from being in SEAL teams was hard to beat.
Inside the consulate auditorium, the U.S. ambassador (who had flown in from Ankara) was quoting from Aristotle as he talked about the differences among intellectual, physical, and moral courage. He said that Jared Olafsen had possessed all three, which had made him an exceptional officer. Then he read from Senator John McCain’s book Why Courage Matters: “Physical courage is often needed to overcome our fear of the consequences of failure. Moral courage, more often than not, confronts the fear of the consequences of our success.”
When Janice stood at the lectern, she got more personal. She and Jared had entered the Agency in the same class, and she described him as the most vital person she had ever met. “Wherever he went, he made friends,” she said. “And whatever he did affected people. He certainly had a major impact on my life.”
Finally, an American minister closed with a reading from John 15 that ended, “Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Crocker filed out with the twenty or so others, feeling unmoored and unsettled, wondering what was going to happen next. He found Anders waiting in the hallway. Standing beside him was the station chief, who had also flown in from Ankara—Taylor Grissom, a tall, long-faced man with a mane of silver hair.
Anders introduced them.
“I’ve been to too many of those things lately,” Crocker said, referring to the service.
“They’re tough,” Grissom responded as he studied something on his cell phone. Without looking up, he asked, “Why are you and your men here and not in Ankara?”
“Because this is where we were told to report,” Crocker answered, trying not to let Grissom piss him off.
“Why’s that?”
Anders saw that Crocker was getting annoyed, and cut in. “Because Jared, the person who was coordinating this, asked us to meet here.”
“For what purpose?” Grissom’s eyes were still directed at the little screen on his phone.
“There were people he wanted us to meet.”
“Did he tell you who?”
“We sat with some of them, including Mr. Talab, yesterday,” Anders responded.
Grissom glanced up and grunted, “Talab, yeah.” As he texted something with his thumbs, he added, “I’m headed back to Ankara, and I suggest that you two accompany me.”
“Why?” Anders asked. As Deputy Director of Operations, he was really Grissom’s boss.
“Because that’s where all our targeters and planners are located. I have no problem coordinating this with the Turks, but I don’t think we should depend on them—if we do this at all.”
Crocker was confused. “Given the stakes, my men and I have been treating this as a ‘go’ mission.”
“Nothing is a ‘go,’ ” Grissom answered, “until we’ve worked out the logistics and it’s approved by the White House.”
Annoyed that this trip might become nothing more than a long, nightmarish fishing expedition, he followed the two Agency officers but paused before entering the elevator. “What should I tell the rest of my team?” he asked, glimpsing the Yale University graduation ring on Grissom’s index finger.
“Tell them to wait here for the time being. We’ll have them deploy directly to the border if and when necessary.”
Crocker had been to Ankara only once before, and that had been in the dead of night. What he saw of it now was more modern and a lot less charming than Istanbul. Take away the domes and minarets, and they could be somewhere in Germany.
Anders leaned into Crocker to show him iPhone footage of his fourteen-year-old son striking out the side in a Little League game as the bombproof SUV they rode in entered a heavily fortified compound off one of the major thoroughfares, Atatürk Boulevard.
“His coach has clocked his fastball in the high seventies.”
“Impressive,” Crocker said. What he was thinking was that Anders should really be more concerned about what all that strain was doing to the kid’s developing elbow and shoulder. He tried to be positive. There were two sides to everything. It was good that Anders was proud of his son, and impressive that the kid had developed strong pitching skills at an early age.
He kept his thoughts to himself in the elevator that took them up to the fourth floor of the reinforced concrete vault that housed the CIA station. It smelled of lime disinfectant. The office Grissom led him to was windowless, with a large computer Smart Board filling one wall. Standing beside it stood an Asian woman wearing thick glasses, a plaid skirt, white blouse, and a lopsided grin. A vase of yellow tulips and a picture of her crouched beside a golden retriever rested on her desk. She seemed shy and eager to please her boss.
Grissom, who was reading a message on his phone, asked, “What have you got for us, Katie?” without looking up.
She punched a key on her laptop, which caused a large map of Idlib and the surrounding area to appear on the Smart Board. “I’ve been talking to various people, including assets on the border and inside the country,” she said with a smile. “What they’re seeing the last couple of nights is a great deal of rebel activity to the north, east, and west of the city and in the suburbs. That activity corresponds to the state of the weather. Clear skies mean light rebel activity. Cloudy, and they most likely attack with fervor.”
“Fervor, is that a technical term?”
She grinned. “Sort of, sir. I use it a lot.”
Without looking up from his cell, Grissom asked, “What kind of activity are you talking about?”
“Anti-Assad militia units have engaged the Syrian military defenders with rockets and artillery. The fighting is intense and the militias are making steady progress forward.”
She seemed like a typical analyst—smart, articulate, but removed from the fray. She also remained perky in spite of her boss’s gruff demeanor, which Crocker admired.
“What about the air force?” Grissom asked as a rail-thin young African American man entered and stood against the wall.
“That’s the interesting part. In the past, in a situation like this, we’d see Syrian fighter jets, attack helicopters, and tanks counterattacking. But they’re staying away this time. Why? Because the rebels are armed with Croatian-made antitank weapons and Chinese-made MANPADS.”
Anders turned to Crocker as if to say, This is a friggin’ mess.
Katie pressed a key on her laptop and a video played on the Smart Board of a bearded rebel firing a shoulder-held antiaircraft missile and downing an Mi 8/17 helicopter.
“You recognize that weapon, Crocker?” Grissom asked.
“Yes, sir. That’s a Chinese-made FN-6.”
“You ever fire one?”
“Yes, I have.”
“How would you describe it?”
“Powerful, deadly, reliable, and user-friendly.”
Grissom turned to Katie and growled, “Who’d you say is providing them?”
“The Saudis, sir.”
“Let’s just hope to God those damn things don’t fall into the wrong hands, and we don’t see them taking down commercial airliners,” offered Grissom.
“The FN-6 is only accurate to about five thousand feet,” Crocker added. “So jetliners would only be vulnerable if they were taking off or landing.”
“So?”
Crocker wanted to reach past Anders and slap him.
Katie cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses. Before she had a chance to speak, Grissom cut in. “With regard to the sarin canisters, which is our concern now, based on what you’ve told us, what’s likely to happen is that the Syrian Army forces will withdraw eas
t or south, taking the sarin with them and making the mission unnecessary. Isn’t that a correct assessment?”
“Well…not really, sir,” Katie answered.
“Think about it,” Grissom barked back.
“I have.”
“Think hard.”
The thin African American man leaning against the wall behind them spoke for the first time. “What Katie hasn’t told you yet is that ISIS units under command of Mohammad al-Kazaz have taken advantage of the FSA–Syrian Army engagement to make a sudden push for the air base.”
Crocker later learned he was dealing with the Station’s liaison with NSA. That organization was using high-tech cell-phone scanners to track the movements of the various rebel commanders and try to fix the position of their forces—a tricky practice that Katie and others didn’t think they should depend on. The problem remained, as always, no reliable sources on the ground.
“So? Doesn’t that make my argument even stronger, that the army will withdraw and take the sarin with them?” asked Grissom.
“I believe that’s unlikely, sir,” Katie responded.
“Why is it unlikely?”
“Because Assad’s forces are surrounded.”
Crocker looked at Anders, who shook his head as if to say The situation is even more dangerous than I thought.
“What air base are you talking about?” Grissom asked, as he scratched his scalp.
The male NSA officer stepped forward, pointed to the map on the Smart Board, and said, “That red marker is just outside Abu al-Duhur military air base, and shows the approximate location of the sarin storage tunnel. There are FSA and ISIS units positioned here, here, here, and here.”
The places he pointed to formed a virtual circle around the airport.
“Shit,” Grissom blurted. “How close are they?”
“According to the latest intel, approximately a half mile east. The fighting is heavy along these roads.” Katie pointed to several arteries on the map. “We’re hearing reports of rockets, mortars, house-to-house fighting. And as always, more civilian casualties.”
“Are there still civilians in Idlib?”
“It’s hard to imagine,” Katie answered. “But civilians continue to live in Idlib and the little town of Abu al-Duhur, which is closer to the airport. We believe that both towns are controlled partly by the FSA.”
Grissom stood with his hands on his hips and thrust his chin out to study the Smart Board.
“You think Assad would rather see their troops get captured or slaughtered than risk a few helicopters to pull them out?”
“That’s my opinion, yes,” said Katie.
Grissom’s face was turning red. “I don’t want to rely on your opinion. I need facts.”
“According to intel we got through FSA sources, the majority of the aircraft at the base, including all helicopters, have already been moved. So it appears that unless Assad orders the helicopters back, the troops there are trapped in a situation where they’re either going to have to defend the base or surrender.”
Grissom pivoted back to Anders and Crocker, who were now standing to his right.
“What do you make of this?” he asked gruffly.
“Katie and Logan are the experts,” Anders answered. “If the intel they have is accurate, we face a very serious dilemma.”
“What about you?” Grissom asked, thrusting his chin toward Crocker. “What do you think?”
“I think we’d better move quickly, before those chemicals fall into the hands of the terrorists, whether they’re al-Qaeda–affiliated or ISIS.”
Minutes before midnight the same day, Crocker sat in the passenger seat of a Toyota Land Cruiser rolling through the hills and valleys of Turkey’s easternmost Hatay province. What he saw passing in the dark were fields of olive trees, tobacco, and new wheat dotted with hamlets and towns.
Closing his eyes, he dreamt he was in Syria, not far from the Golan Heights. He and Akil were walking toward the Israeli helicopter that had crashed during their mission to recover a downed Predator drone. He saw Ritchie’s severed body lying alongside the Black Hawk. This time when he turned it over, Ritchie coughed, blinked, and said, “Boss, come closer.”
“What, Ritchie?”
With his last breath he whispered, “Life is tenuous.”
Then he turned his head away and sighed.
Crocker had told Ritchie and Cal to remain on the helo while he and the other three SEALs jumped. His order had resulted in Ritchie’s death and Cal’s very serious injury. Cal was healing now. But as for Ritchie, there was no way to make what had happened right, or to turn back the clock.
The sharp braking of the vehicle jolted Crocker awake. He looked over at the strange thin face behind the wheel and wondered for a moment if he’d been captured.
“I’m stopping here to check the tires,” Logan said casually. “Yayladaği’s about fifteen minutes away.”
“Yayladaği?” Crocker asked, temporarily confused about their destination.
“Yayladaği. The Turkish town on the Syrian border.”
He looked out the window and saw a red-white-and-blue NigGaz petrol station lit by flicking fluorescent light. Then he turned back to the light-skinned African American man named Logan he’d met at the Ankara CIA Station. “What’s wrong with the tires?” he asked, as he got his bearings.
“Low pressure, according to the indicator,” Logan answered, climbing out.
Crocker stood on the concrete, stretched, and watched the boy with the tattered Valencia CF T-shirt fill the tires. Air scented with rosemary refreshed his lungs.
If Akil were here, he thought, he’d say something clever about the T-shirt. Akil was an international football fanatic. His favorite squad: FC Barcelona. Favorite players: Andrés Iniesta and Leo Messi.
Crocker had little interest in team sports, and what with Black Cell, working out, and family had practically no time to follow them.
Logan emerged from the white station clutching two bottles of honey and handed them to Crocker as they reentered the vehicle.
“What’s this for?” Crocker asked.
“It’s a present from you to Colonel Oz. He’s our host and a connoisseur of fine honey, not the processed junk they sell in most markets that has none of the good bacteria and enzymes.”
Crocker had never heard of processed honey. “How do you tell the difference between the good stuff and the processed?”
“Well, labels are deceptive. So usually smell or taste, unless you know where it comes from.”
Logan explained that starting about ten years before, the Chinese had flooded the market with cheap processed honey. In order to avoid importation taxes in various countries they deliberately cooked out the pollen, which was the element that could prove the country of origin in lab tests.
“That’s messed up.”
“It’s commerce. Chinese merchants dilute it with water and high-fructose corn syrup. They couldn’t give a shit about human health.”
“A lot of people don’t,” said Crocker, looking out the window at a sign warning that the Syrian border was twenty-five kilometers ahead. He was a physical fitness fanatic who stayed away from excessive carbs, sugar, and processed foods. The older he got, the more he appreciated the need for feeding his body with high-value nutrients.
They topped a promontory covered with groves of olive trees. As they descended into a long valley Logan pulled to the shoulder and stopped. He pointed past Crocker to their right. Filling the oblong field were rows of hundreds of white tents with the Turkish red crescent and star insignia on their roofs.
“That’s Yayladaği Refugee Camp Number One,” Logan announced. “It holds about twelve thousand refugees and is currently being expanded.”
“It’s as large as a village.”
“It is one, in a sense, because the Syrians come here and don’t leave. They want to return home but can’t, because there’s nothing to go back to. Back in Syria, they’d die from attacks or hunger.”
Crocker had seen dozens of other refugee camps in places like Ethiopia, Jordan, and Somalia. They always struck him as sad, filled with people who had been torn from their lives and were facing an uncertain future.
“Looks well tended-to from here,” commented Crocker, noting that the camp resembled the rows of tobacco they’d passed before—except that these neat lines were formed by tents with families in them.
“This one’s state of the art,” Logan said. “Every tent is equipped with its own satellite dish and electric hookup to power, lights, heaters, refrigerators, stoves. The camp is run by its own internal government, with an elected governor and citizens’ council. Pretty orderly, by all reports, and well administered.”
“Nice.”
“The Syrians living there are tremendously grateful.”
Logan pointed to a group of low stucco buildings at the bottom of the opposite hill. “That’s the old tobacco warehouse. It’s now used for classrooms, a medical clinic, and laundry.”
“So it’s completely tricked out.”
“These refugees are the lucky ones,” Logan continued. “They arrived here more than a year ago. Now it’s a hell of a lot harder to get in.”
“I can imagine.” Crocker had heard that the huge exodus of people from Syria had severely taxed governments and NGOs in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. And it continued.
Logan pressed down on the accelerator and steered the SUV back onto the highway. “Last fall, the Turks were receiving as many as fifty thousand refugees a month,” he said. “They’ve been generous but have reached what the government has called the ‘psychological limit.’ Now border guards stop anyone who doesn’t have a valid passport, which eliminates most poor Syrians.”
“So what do they do?”
“Some of them sneak across the border at night. Others camp out in villages where there’s no fighting.”
The poor always seem to get the short end of the stick whenever things turn ugly, Crocker said to himself.
With that grim reality in mind, they rolled into Yayladaği, a town of six thousand nestled in a sweet green valley surrounded by pine-tree-covered hills. Many of the houses and buildings featured red-tiled roofs that reminded Crocker of Tuscany. In the center of town rested a domed mosque.