Read Online Hunt the Falcon by Don Mann, Ralph Pezzullo - Free Book Online

complain, but no one would listen. Sure sucks, getting old. But I made a new friend. A young gal named Carla, who works as a waitress at the local diner. She’s a single mom raising a son. Dale’s his name. Nine years old and already teaching me how to play video games. Can you imagine, an old fart like me?”
    Crocker heard his flight being called and saw Akil waving at him from near the gate.
    â€œDad, I’ve got to go.”
    â€œWhere you calling from?”
    â€œDulles. I’m about to board a flight.”
    â€œI’d tell you to stay out of trouble, but I know you can’t do that. Call me when you get back. Give my love to Hol and Jenny.”
    â€œWill do.”
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    Approximately eight miles east of where Crocker’s dad lived in Virginia, thirteen-year-old Alex Rinehart sat in front of a TV in his grandparents’ basement, using a remote to flip through the channels. He was dressed in a black-and-white-striped shirt and jeans, and had a full face with a tangled mop of dark hair and sad, slightly Asian eyes. He looked like a normal, healthy, well-cared-for teenager. Hours earlier he had returned from his new school, the Bethesda–Chevy Chase Middle School.
    Alex had been a student at the school for only two weeks and was already excelling in algebra, computer studies, and pre-calculus. But he was woefully behind in English, social science, and American history. A good deal of that had to do with his refusal to speak or write since the death of his parents in Bangkok.
    A school-appointed developmental psychologist named Cathy Struthers sat in an armchair to his right observing him as he watched TV. She noticed that he quickly flipped past shows that dealt with personal relationships and, especially, family— Friends, Seinfeld, 1600 Penn, Modern Family . He paused at an old episode of Law & Order , but as soon as a distressed father appeared on the screen, Alex switched channels. He finally settled on a rebroadcast of Jeopardy!
    His condition, which Dr. Struthers had diagnosed earlier, had a clinical name—reactive mutism—and was usually caused by trauma or abuse. RM was more prevalent among young people like Alex with an existing autism spectrum disorder. Treatment was problematic, especially for those in their teenage years.
    Since Alex was already taking the serotonin reuptake inhibitor Paxil to help deal with his social anxiety, Struthers thought of recommending a medication designed to affect a broader range of neurotransmitters, such as Effexor or Serzone. But she suspected that they wouldn’t work either. The more she observed Alex and realized how intelligent he was, the more strongly she believed that his mutism was a conscious choice—a silent angry protest against the cruel injustice of the world, for which there was no cure.
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    The six members of Black Cell flew United from Dulles seven hours and twenty minutes to Heathrow. They then boarded British Airways Flight 9, which covered another 5,928 miles in a little over eleven hours to Suvarnabhumi Airport.
    Crocker passed the time playing chess with Mancini and Akil, watching Mel Brooks’s High Anxiety for about the fifteenth time, discussing the pluses and minuses of some new handguns and sniper rifles with Cal, eating, drinking beer, snoozing. He was dying to do a workout by the time he felt the plane descend and saw the giant double hoops of the terminal rising from a vast expanse of vivid green marshland.
    He loved the lushness of the tropics.
    The high-tech, futuristic airport stood in striking contrast to the wild marshland. It contained huge halls with soaring metal arches lit with blue neon and white lights. As they waited in line for immigration, a young woman on a video screen on the wall explained that the terminal had been opened in 2006 and boasted the world’s tallest freestanding control tower (434 feet), the world’s fourth-largest single building terminal