Hunt the Scorpion by Don Mann, Ralph Pezzullo Page A

stations—the wheel, radar, sonar, weather. Everything seemingly under control.
    An ensign in navy dress blues took him to see the captain, who sat in an office with his feet up on his desk. He and a half dozen other officers had their heads turned to a flat-screen monitor tuned to CNN.
    The captain said, “Welcome, Warrant Officer Crocker. You still intact?”
    “More or less.”
    “Nice piece of work you and your men pulled off.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Pull up a chair. Take a load off. The commander in chief is making a statement.”
    As Crocker watched, the president of the United States stood behind a lectern in the White House and talked about the rescue of Captain McCullum and his wife by commandos from the Joint Special Operations Command. No mention was made of the fact that they were navy SEALs from Team Six, or of the Middle Eastern men, or that the MSC Contessa had been carrying sensitive nuclear material.
    But that was no surprise to Crocker. He and his men had carried out many daring missions all over the world that never made the news.
    “Did the salvage team find the barrels?” Crocker asked after the president had finished.
    “Yes, they’re bringing them up now,” the captain answered, as if it was no big deal.
    Another officer with commander stripes on his uniform said, “They’ve also recovered the bodies of some of the men on the launch.”
    Crocker sat up. “Any idea who they were and who they were working for?”
    “The Agency is keeping that to themselves.”
       
    The sun was setting red over the desert when the Gulfstream IV carrying Crocker and his team landed at NSA Bahrain, a U.S. Navy base on the island of Bahrain, home of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the Fifth Fleet. The Persian Gulf base occupied over sixty acres in the Juffair suburb of the capital city, Manama. Like other American military bases around the world, it seemed like a little piece of home—complete with fast food joints, a miniature golf course, and a bowling alley—far away from the continental United States.
    After dropping their gear off at the Central Command barracks the six SEALs set out on a slow and easy run that took them along the perimeter of the base, beside the coast. It felt like months since they’d last trained.
    As they ran, Mancini filled them in on local history. He was blessed with a near-photographic memory and could tell you what he’d eaten for dinner on any given night three years ago. “The Kingdom of Bahrain is actually a chain of thirty islands in the Persian Gulf, just west of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The ancient Sumerians considered it an island paradise where wise, brave men could enjoy eternal life.”
    “The Sumerians?” Davis asked.
    “Yeah, the Sumerians.”
    “I read a book about how the Sumerians described having contact with aliens,” Davis offered. “They were the first great culture and spawned the Babylonians, Persians, and Assyrians.”
    Davis, who looked like a California surfer, was the other reader in the group. His tastes included science fiction, New Age, and philosophy—everything from Russian literature to American history, and from Nietzsche to William Gibson and Edgar Cayce.
    Akil changed the subject—sort of. “Let’s talk about Kim Kardashian’s booty.”
    Ritchie: “What about it?”
    Akil: “I read that it’s been invaded by aliens.”
    Ritchie: “Thousands of times!”
    Akil, Crocker, and Cal cracked up.
    Mancini, who didn’t find this funny, continued, “Like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni royal family. But in Bahrain’s case about seventy percent of the native population of seven hundred thousand are from the Shia sect of Islam, which creates political problems. The remaining half million of the country’s 1.2 million population are guest workers from places like India, Pakistan, and Asia. Many of them work in the oil and gas fields and in Manama’s financial center.”
    “Boring,” Akil said.
    Ritchie: