by Don Mann
“They’re probably notifying their counterparts in the Guatemala police right now.”
Their next challenge was getting past the Guatemalan border guards, who Crocker didn’t feel like wrangling with. He took what he hoped was a detour through back dirt roads that wound up into low hills dotted with little coffee and marijuana farms. As he tooled down a narrow country road, windows open, the engine coughed and the SUV lurched and sputtered to a stop.
“What happened?” groaned Mancini.
“I think we ran out of gas.”
“Fuck.”
Crocker had three hundred dollars in cash in the heel of his boot in case of emergency. This certainly qualified, so he got out and walked ahead toward some dim yellow lights. He made out an old man sitting on the front porch of a dilapidated house smoking a pipe.
“Buenas noches, Señor,” Crocker said.
The old man pointed at the moon and said, “La luna se lloro esta noche.” (“The moon cries tonight.”)
Crocker nodded but didn’t understand. “Tengo…mi auto, ahi,” he said, trying to recall his meager Spanish. “Muy grande problema. No más gasolina.”
“¿Necesita gasolina?” the old man asked, rising slowly and looking deeply into Crocker’s eyes. He didn’t seem to mind the fact that Crocker’s face, neck, and arms were covered with cuts and abrasions. Instead, he nodded and pointed to a twenty-year-old faded-red Datsun 510 sedan parked under some banana trees by the side of the shack next door.
“¿Este tiene gasolina?” Crocker asked.
“Viene aqui.” The man escorted Crocker to the shack next door, talking in Spanish the whole way. He knocked on the door and entered. A chubby young woman sat in a T-shirt and shorts embroidering a blouse as incense burned on a table covered with statues of saints in the corner.
The old man spoke to her in a language Crocker didn’t understand, then pulled Crocker outside. The woman followed on bare feet.
“¿Que pasa?” Crocker asked.
“Ella quiere ver a su auto.” (“She wants to see your car.”)
“¿Mi auto? ¿Porque?”
The woman carefully inspected the dirty, bullet-scarred Explorer inside and out, studied Mancini’s biceps and tattoos, which seemed to interest her, then proposed a trade: the twenty-year-old Datsun for the new but damaged and out-of-gas Explorer.
“¿El Datsun tiene gasolina? ¿Anda bien?” Crocker asked.
“Si, claro.”
Crocker considered for a few moments, then returned to the Datsun to make sure it ran and did have a half tank of gas. It did, so he accepted.
He and the woman shook hands and exchanged keys.
Equally important was the map the old man drew on the side of a shopping bag that showed the route to the Pan-American Highway.
“Gracias, Señor,” said Crocker, squeezing the man’s callused little hand. And to the woman: “Gracias, Señorita.”
“Some lousy deal maker you turned out to be,” Mancini complained as Crocker helped him into the front seat of the Datsun.
“She wanted me to trade you for a box of mangos. I seriously considered it.”
“Very funny.”
After forty minutes of bouncing over rough, dark roads, they reach the paved highway. Then it was easy winding through the dark, verdant hills of the Mayan highlands, the half-moon lighting the thin ribbon of asphalt. The surface was so smooth and the route so back and forth that it rocked Mancini to sleep.
He snored in the passenger seat as Crocker pulled into a gas station outside Quetzaltenango to refuel and buy a prepaid Nokia 1616 for fifty dollars. Outside, standing in the cool night air with marimba music playing from a radio nearby, Crocker dialed the number he had committed to memory.
“ID yourself,” said the female duty officer who answered in Langley.
“I’m BC292. BC295 is with me.”
“Are either of you in need of immediate medical help?”
“My partner has a wounded leg, but it’s not life threatening.”
“Where are you, and how can I help you?”
“We’re on the Pan-American Highway on our way to Guatemala City, escaping from a mission in Mexico.”
“Hold on.”
Three minutes later she returned to the line. “Are you in a vehicle?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Proceed to La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City. Drive directly to the north terminal. In front of the TACA Airlines departure area, you’ll find a silver Toyota Tundra with a dark-haired woman at the wheel. Her name is Danila. Park directly behind her, identify yourself as hikers from Montreal, and get in.”
“Thank you.”
Three and a half hours later, they arrived at La Aurora International Airport and found Danila, a tall, no-nonsense Hispanic woman with a high forehead, wearing large hoop earrings. Without saying a word, she drove them past the main terminal to an Interjet hangar and stopped alongside a white BE20 Super King turboprop plane.
“There’s your ride,” she said.
“Thanks. Where’s it taking us?”
“Panama City.”
“Florida?” Mancini asked.
“No, Panama City, Panama. Enjoy.”
Fifteen hours later Crocker stood looking out a fifth-floor window at the sky turning orange, amber, and gold as the sun set over the Bay of Panama. Eighteen years earlier, before he became a SEAL, he’d served as a young navy corpsman assigned to Rodman Naval Station half a mile away from where he was standing now.
In March 1999, the six-hundred-acre base, which once housed the naval component of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), was turned over to the Panamanian government. So were a number of other U.S. military bases, including Forts Gulick, Davis, and Sherman on the Caribbean side of the isthmus, and Howard Air Force Base, Fort Amador, and Fort Kobbe on the Pacific or southern side. All of them had once formed a powerful air, land, and sea defense perimeter around the strategically important Panama Canal.
When U.S. control of the Panama Canal formally transferred to the Panamanian government on December 31, 1999, the bases were closed and most U.S. military personnel left. Rodman Naval Station was now a tank farm run by Mobil Oil. Howard Air Force Base was being developed into an international business park called Panama Pacifico.
It was strange being back in what was once called the Gorgas Army Hospital. Eighteen years ago when part of the facility housed a U.S. Navy clinic, Crocker had been operated on here for a ruptured appendix. It happened a day after he competed in a cross-isthmus marathon that originated at the Vasco Núñez de Balboa Park, which was only a couple of blocks away.
The light-green walls and the antiseptic smell were the same, reminding him of sickness and his own mortality, which he didn’t feel ready to deal with yet. He thought back to the ranch in Tapachula and the old man he had meet in the Mayan hills.
Life followed a mysterious path and offered unexpected challenges, disappointments, and pleasures. They hadn’t found the Clarks’ daughter, which meant there was still more to accomplish, and more enemies to defeat.
Ambition burned white-hot at the base of his spine, goading him forward, compelling him to work harder and perform at an even higher level than he had before.
Somewhere he had once read: If you only do what you think you can, you never do much.
A young Hispanic woman in a light-blue uniform walked in and asked him in heavily accented English why he wasn’t in bed. Her short hair had been bleached blond, but the dark roots showed.
“I feel like looking out the window,” Crocker answered.
“You not ready,” she said, taking him by the forearm and leading him back to bed. She tucked the sheets around him and recorded his temperature and blood pressure on a chart that she then replaced in a plastic sleeve and tucked under her arm.
“What’s wrong with me?” Crocker asked.
“Many things.”
“Like what?”
“I call the doctor.”
“How l
ong have I been here?”
She left without answering, the backs of her too-big yellow Crocs slapping against the blue linoleum floor.
He remembered the Super King turboprop landing in Panama City, red-and-blue flashing lights, Lisa Clark waving as she was wheeled to the back of an ambulance, and Max Jenson introducing him to the CIA station chief in Panama—a friendly dark-haired man who said he had met Crocker briefly when he was stationed in Afghanistan.
The nurse reentered , accompanied by a tall doctor with a large watermelon-shaped head. His name tag read DR. DANNY RAMOS.
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Ramos asked in a Texas accent as he pressed a stethoscope to Crocker’s chest.
“Better than I did last night.”
“Breath deeper.”
Waves of pain rose from his abdomen and ribs.
“Turn over.”
Dr. Ramos pulled up the back of the light-green hospital gown and pressed the middle of Crocker’s back. “Any pain?”
“Nothing I can’t deal with.”
“What does that mean?”
“Pain is just weakness leaving the body.”
The doctor chuckled. “That’s an interesting concept that’s not backed up by science.”
Dr. Ramos marked something on the chart and replaced it in the plastic sleeve at the end of the bed. “The skin around your eyes and eyelids is still swollen. But that will go down. I’ll have the nurse re-dress the bandages in the morning, then I’ll examine you again to see if you’re okay to go,” he said, waving his big hand at the thirty or so little white bandages on Crocker’s forehead, cheeks, neck, arms, shoulders, and chest.
“What was I admitted for?”
“Chlorine poisoning, smoke inhalation, and multiple bruises, cuts, and abrasions.”
“What about the woman I was admitted with? Mrs. Clark?”
“Her poisoning was more serious. But she’s stabilized now.”
“Where is she?”
“Down the hall.”
“Can I visit her?”
“You stay here. I’ll inquire.”
Fifteen minutes later, Crocker was sitting up in bed watching an NBA playoff game on the TV bolted to the ceiling when Akil and Mancini walked in carrying a Burger King bag and a big plastic cup that featured a likeness of the Starship Enterprise.
“You owe me ten balboas,” Akil said, setting the cup and greasy bag on the table beside Crocker’s bed.
“What for?”
“Two Whoppers with queso, papas fritas, and a grande Coca-Cola in a collector’s cup.”
“You look like Jabba the Hutt,” Mancini said, remarking on Crocker’s swollen cheeks. “What happened to your face?”
“The aftereffects of chlorine poisoning,” Crocker answered. “How’s your knee?”
“Some minor damage to the superficial fibular nerve. But aside from that, all good.”
“Where’s Suárez?”
“He’s at church praying that he gets assigned to another team,” Akil cracked.
“He did good work,” Crocker said as he bit into the burger, which tasted good but overcooked. “How was your flight?”
“I slept through it, so I guess it was fine,” Akil answered as Mancini checked Crocker’s medical chart.
“What’s it say?” Crocker asked.
“Severely diminished brain activity due to repeated and prolonged blows to the head,” Mancini answered, pretending to read from the chart. “Delusions, slight dementia, an asymmetrical mustache. Other than that, you’re fine.”
“Nice.”
“He never used that organ anyway,” joked Akil.
“Where are you gorillas staying?” Crocker asked, stuffing fries into his mouth and chewing.
“Something called the Balboa Palace, otherwise known as the Roach Motel. About a half-mile south along the bay,” Akil answered, sitting with his feet up on the frame of the bed.
“Why don’t you make yourself comfortable.”
“The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best, but they make the most of things,” Akil replied.
“Where did you come up with that?”
“It’s my life philosophy.”
“Any news about the younger hostage?” Crocker asked.
Akil looked at Mancini by the window, who shrugged back and answered, “Only that the senator is arriving soon and will be meeting with Jenson and Arno.”
“Who’s Arno?”
“John Arno’s the local station chief—we met him last night.”
Crocker looked confused.
“See, his brain was damaged,” Akil said. “By the way, the senator wants to know why you were showering with his wife.”
“That’s not funny.”
“You’re right. Sorry.”
The same nurse bustled in, saw Crocker sitting up in bed finishing off the burger, and snapped, “You no can eat.”
“Why not?”
“No food without doctor permission.”
Mancini grinned. “I don’t know if that qualifies as food.”
“Bery bad,” the nurse scolded.
“Turn him over and spank him,” Akil suggested.
“Maybe I do,” the nurse said, wagging her finger. “Maybe I spank you, too.”
Akil grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her onto his lap. “Only if I get to spank you first.”
She giggled and tried to slap him. Akil spun her over. Just as he raised his hand to spank her, Captain Sutter walked in.
“What the hell is going on here?”
“Sir.”
Akil pushed the nurse off his lap and stood at attention as their CO turned to Crocker and said, “Seems like I’ve walked in on an episode of The Three Stooges.”
“These men are trying to amuse me, sir.”
“Are they succeeding?”
“Not really. No.”
“This episode is called ‘The Three Stooges Meet the Nurse from Hell,’” Akil announced. Whereupon the nurse slapped him in the face and stormed out.
Chapter Seventeen
We will either find a way or make one.
—Hannibal
Ivan Jouma sat in a wheelchair in a third-floor suite of the Clínica Central Cira García in the Miramar sector of Havana, Cuba, studying a photograph of himself when he was two years old, sitting on his mother’s lap, wearing new boots and a straw cowboy hat that matched his father’s. Of the three, he was the only one who seemed happy, lost in his boyhood world of dreams and imaginary friends. His father scowled at the camera from behind a thick black Pancho Villa mustache, his eyes burning with anger and defiance. His mother smiled wanly as though she was trying to put a good face on a life of struggle, disappointment, and little hope.
He’d hated his abusive father since he kicked him out of the house at age thirteen but remembered his mother fondly, even though she’d stood by passively when his father drank and burst into wild rages, destroying the little furniture they had and beating his son with a leather belt.
He would never forget how she helped him with little gifts of tortillas, oranges, and money when he was living on the streets and stealing. Both of them were dead now, memories of a past that he hoped to erase.
“La Santísima Muerte,” he said. “Look over my mother and tell her that her son is about to redeem himself with the help of a gringa.”
He’d been a hopeful, joyful kid. The more he learned about the world and its inequalities and crushing poverty, the more furious he became. And the more he thought of the beatings and humiliations he’d endured, the dirt he’d eaten when his stomach ached with hunger, the shit-filled animal pens he’d slept in when there was no place else to escape the cold, the more he wanted to scream out loud and blame the oppressors who had stolen the bounty that God had provided to everyone and claimed it as their own.
His musings were interrupted by three knocks on the door.
“Come in,” he barked in Spanish, stuffing the black-and-white photo back into his wallet.
/> Instead of a nurse or doctor, it was one of the young men who made up his inner circle of aides—Los Lobos, he called them—who entered and stood with his hands behind his back.
“Señor Jefe.”
“I can see from your face that you have bad news,” the Jackal said. “So tell me.”
“Jefe, the doctor said that maybe this isn’t the best time.”
“Then why the hell are you here?”
“To see if you need anything.”
Jouma gritted his teeth and looked out the window to the park across the street. “I don’t give a shit what the doctors say. Tell me what happened.”
The young man took a deep breath and started, “Jefe, there was a raid on Las Lagrimas last night.”
Jouma quickly cut him off. “When?”
“Around midnight. The house was burned down, eight guards were killed, and the American woman was taken.”
“Dead or alive?” Jouma asked, clenching his fists.
“The gringa? Dead, we think, but we don’t know for sure.”
“I want to know!”
“Yes, Jefe. The gas was timed to go off automatically.”
Jouma gazed down at his hands, which were small and delicate and had always been a source of embarrassment. The skin over them appeared mottled and gray. He didn’t care so much that the house had been destroyed or the woman taken.
“Names?” he asked grimly.
“Which names, Jefe?”
“The names of the men who died.”
“Alvarez, Tamayo, Elvis, Flaco, Ramirez, Molina, Danny, Sapo.”
It pained him, because he thought of the people who worked for him as part of his family. “Sapo, too?”
“Yes, Jefe.”
Sapo had always been one of his favorites. A short, barrel-chested man from Juárez with no neck and stubby legs, who worked tirelessly, never complained, and played the guitar and sang with the voice of an angel.
“Make sure all the funerals are paid for. First class. Flowers, good caskets, food. And take care of the families in the usual way.”
“Yes, Jefe.”
He’d learned the importance of building loyalty as a young recruit in the army and had always been generous to friends, family, the men and women who worked for him, supporters, and even communities of people in areas under his control. He called it “spreading the wealth.” He’d paid for college tuitions, weddings, houses, medical procedures, clinics, schools, homes, farms, cars, motorcycles, horses, birthday parties, and even local beauty pageants.