Free Hunt the Wolf by Don Mann, Ralph Pezzullo

Klausen,” the Norwegian said, extending his hand and clearing a place beside him. “I work in my country’s foreign office.”
    “Nice to meet you, Mikael.”
    He probably was the foreign national Donaldson had told him about. But Crocker wanted to make sure.
    “Who told you I was here?” he asked.
    “A man from your embassy named Mr. Lou Donaldson.”
    “How do you know Donaldson?”
    “I was introduced to him through Ambassador Connelly. Your ambassador and my ambassador to Pakistan play poker together.”
    “And you trekked all the way up to look for me?”
    “I have a proposition for you from my king.”

Chapter Six
      
    There’s no school like old school, and I’m the fucking headmaster.
    — RocknRolla
      
    W ind smacked the side of the oval tent, sounding like a machine gun, as Mikael refilled Crocker’s mug with Teerenpeli single malt whisky poured from a tin flask. Then the Norwegian slipped the flask into his sleeping bag next to his iPod, water bottles, and other items he wanted to keep from freezing.
    The Teerenpeli went down smoothly. Rich and old, its distilled essence of earth warmed Crocker’s body.
    Several other Norwegian climbers slept in sleeping bags behind them, snoring and occasionally passing gas—which became more of a problem the higher one climbed, according to Boyle’s law (pV = K) . Mancini had explained earlier that for a fixed amount of a gas kept at a fixed temperature, pressure and volume are inversely proportional. In other words, once you lower the atmospheric pressure the gas will escape.
    One of the sleeping Norwegians called out the name Berit. Whoever she was.
    The rest of Crocker’s team had returned to their tent, where their team leader hoped they were resting for the climb ahead.
    He and the Norwegian spent hours comparing backgrounds and sharing stories about their children, tastes in food, music, and women, the economic states of their respective countries. All prelude.
    “Last one for me,” Crocker announced.
    They agreed on lots of things—including love, loyalty, and the need to protect their citizenry from the savagery of certain people.
    Mikael frowned and cleared his throat. “For the better part of a year I’ve been on a fact-finding mission regarding a problem that plagues our country.”
    “What problem is that?”
    “Normal crimes of passion, drugs, prostitution, these aren’t things that I like, but as a realist I understand that they’re acceptable to a certain extent,” Mikael continued. “They don’t involve so many innocent victims.”
    Crocker thought he knew what the Norwegian meant. He said, “That’s another way of saying that people get caught up in nasty shit because they’re weak for one reason or another. They do, or maybe they don’t, see what’s coming as a result.”
    Mikael lowered his voice to a whisper. “What I’m going to discuss with you now is just between the two of us.”
    “Understood.”
    “My leader and dear friend the king of Norway, Harald V, has asked me to take this up as his personal mission. It’s something that offends him deeply as the leader of our country, and as a husband, father, and grandfather to five young children.”
    Mention of the king got the SEAL’s attention. He wanted to meet him. His fellow Frogs, training buddies, and even his gnarly biker friends would get a kick out of that.
    “You see, Mr. Crocker, in the last four or five years an increasing and alarming number of young men and, especially, young women have been disappearing from my country. Snatched off the streets. They’re never heard from again. Their bodies are never found.”
    “How many are you talking about?”
    “Dozens. Last year over fifty.”
    Crocker remembered that Norway had a population of about five million. He said: “That’s a hell of a lot.”
    “You might ask, What do they have in common? They include boys and girls but are predominantly female, all between the ages of twelve and eighteen.