Hunt the Wolf by Don Mann, Ralph Pezzullo

heat of battle I wasn’t able to stop and question them.”
    “It didn’t occur to you that one of them could have been Zaman?”
    “Like I said, this happened in the heat of battle.”
    “So?”
    “I couldn’t see their faces clearly, but neither of them appeared to have a beard.”
    “Maybe he shaved the fucking thing off!”
    “Your intel described him as bearded.”
    “This is a goddamn disaster!”
    “He’s on the run. We’ll get him. I’ll make sure of that.”
    “No, Crocker. You missed your chance.”
    The SEAL team leader was determined to extract something positive. “What about the laptops we captured?”
    “What about them?”
    “You find anything on the laptops that might be useful in tracking Zaman down?”
    “Nothing so far.”
    “Nothing?”
    Jim Anders spoke up for the first time. “Seems he liked to download images of half-naked blondes in cages.”
    “Blondes?”
    “Yeah, blondes.”
    “Does the name Syrena mean anything to you?” Crocker asked.
    “Why?”
    “I saw it on something that was burned in half that looked like an official invoice.”
    “How was it spelled?”
    “S-y-r-e-n-a.”
    Donaldson looked at Jim Anders, who said, “Syrena, spelled s-y-r-e-n-a, was the name of a Polish sedan that went out of production in 1983.”
    “It might be important,” Crocker said.
    “Thanks, Crocker,” Donaldson countered snidely. “We’ll keep our eyes out for old Polish cars.”
    “What about Zaman? Any idea where he is now?”
    “Wherever he is, he’s probably planning more attacks against Americans.”
    “I want another shot at him,” Crocker said, looking Donaldson in the eye.
    “Go climb your mountain. Expect to make contact with a foreign national, six foot one, longish blond hair, early forties. His name is Mikael Klausen.”
    “What’s he want?”
    “He has something he wants to discuss with you. We’ll talk when you get back.”

Chapter Five
      
    Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
    —Samuel Beckett
      
    L eaves me feeling like a fool, Crocker thought, referring to the pencil-pushing, risk-averse Agency asshole Donaldson. Calls the mission a fuckup…
    Unfair.
    Anger and anxiety had been eating at him throughout the one-hour flight from Islamabad to Skardu. When he returned to ST-6 headquarters in Virginia, he’d have to prepare a postoperations report. In it, he’d have to explain what went wrong with the mission and how Zaman had escaped.
    Following that, he’d be subjected to a briefing called a hot wash, during which every detail of the mission would be picked over and second-guessed by dozens of officers from the CIA, Joint Special Operations Command, and ST-6.
    Now he wanted to get up and kick something or do some physical training, but there was nowhere to go in the DC-9 fuselage crammed with passengers, suitcases, plastic bags filled with clothes. A serious—some might say fanatical—athlete, Crocker hadn’t missed a day of PT in twenty years.
    With no outlet, his indignation metamorphosed into rigorous self-examination. Soon he was questioning the decisions he’d made, his leadership, his intelligence.
    Then, he got pissed off for criticizing himself.
    What the hell am I doing?
    Crocker’s father—the most straightforward, hardworking man he’d ever known—had taught his son to be ruthlessly honest.
    But what he was doing was something else—a weird form of beating other people to the punch, or keeping himself in line. Maybe it was guilt left over from some of the wild things he’d done as a kid.
    Anger begat anxiety, which turned into self-questioning, and then became no-holds-barred self-criticism.
    He knew the vicious circle, because he’d traveled it many times. The outcome was always the same. Dizzying mental exhaustion. Emptiness at the pit of his stomach. A feeling of being unworthy and incomplete.
    Some wise man had said: You can accomplish amazing feats of bravery and travel to the