Think like a man of action.—Thomas Mann The sky was pitch black by the time the NATO helicopter landed at the airport in Sirte, which was some 280 miles southeast of Tripoli. The town of seventy-five thousand was the birthplace of Muammar Gaddafi and the place where he had been captured and killed on October 20 of the preceding year. The airport and terminal still showed signs of the recent fighting: damaged and pockmarked buildings, the rusting carcass of a tank with slogans painted on it in white, pickup trucks with mounted antiaircraft guns and .50-caliber guns in back, their barrels pointed at the sky but covered with tarps. Leo Debray had called ahead and arranged for a NATO rep to meet Crocker in the terminal. Since it was a personal matter, he had decided not to bring any members of his team.Crocker found the rep standing in the entrance under a flickering fluorescent light in his olive-green uniform, a Canadian major with a gleaming shaved head. Behind him local men were sweeping the floor and collecting trash.
