Threat Zero

by Nicholas Irving

  Valerie Hinojosa. A text message appeared just the way it would on an Apple Watch.

  ACTIVITY AT THE COMPOUND. MOVE FAST.

  As they climbed the sheer granite walls over the next hour, Harwood wondered if the Russians had made conclusions from the weapon he had tossed. American sniper rifle. Family of terrorist dead. Other families might be in jeopardy? He hadn’t followed up with a question about the type of activity partly because he didn’t trust the device. If she could communicate with him, so then perhaps could others. He was geolocated at least by this device and whatever satellite Hinojosa and the president were connected to.

  They were fifty meters from the first hide site Harwood had selected. Weathers and Stone were grunting behind him. Harwood’s rehab from Afghanistan injuries had led to him being in the best physical condition of his life. That he could outpace a Navy SEAL and a Marine Force Recon team member was testament to his conditioning. His body ached though. The last cliff was nearly vertical.

  He placed his fingertips in a small crevice and pulled himself up, his hand muscles the only thing keeping him from sliding fifty meters down onto his teammates. His face scraped against the rock, which felt like one-hundred-grit sandpaper. Blowing out carbon dioxide, Harwood lifted himself onto the ledge, sliding his right leg over the lip. He rolled, balanced, and immediately scoped his surroundings. He was on a flat rock with a high wall to his west and east, like a small tunnel. He low crawled to the north, flanked on either side by granite, and fifteen meters later found a sheer drop. The map had been accurate, but also deceiving. While it was a good firing position, the route of egress would be exactly the way they came in, which was not necessarily the preferred course of action.

  Harwood opened his rucksack, retrieved sixty feet of coiled nylon rope, tied a bowline around his waist, and then low crawled back to the lip of the cliff. He secured his heels against a minor rise in the rock, fed the rope over the lip, and leaned back. He felt a tug, like a fish striking an artificial lure, and then braced against the heavy weight of either Weathers or Stone. After a minute of climbing, Stone flipped over the edge, saying, “Fuck me to tears, Ranger.”

  “Shut up and establish security,” Harwood said. He had no patience for Stone’s bullshit.

  He fed the rope back over the cliff, felt Weathers tug on it and leaned back as the marine climbed the rope.

  “Good job, Reaper,” Weathers said as he rolled onto the lip.

  It was nearing five in the morning. The sun would be up by six thirty. The first hint of gray was edging toward the northeast.

  “Target’s there, almost exactly a half mile,” Harwood said.

  “Vehicles moving,” Stone reported. He was looking through his Leupold Mark 4 spotter’s scope. “Count three coming in the compound.”

  Harwood set up his SR-25 with PAS-15 Thermal Scope FLIR sight. Pressing his eye against the rubberized boot, he switched on the sight. After a second, his reticle filled with the high-definition images of vehicles moving with haste into the facility. The door to the main building of the compound, which he had been told was the primary residence, was open. A woman stood in the doorway and while he couldn’t be sure, she looked very much like target P-one, Laleh Perza.

  “A little early for everyone to be up and about, don’t you think?” Weathers asked.

  “Agree. The Russians probably figured out the Crimea hit and are giving a heads-up to the Perzas.”

  Three Suburban SUVs idled in the open courtyard of the compound. They had made U-turns and were aimed toward the exit.

  “Okay, I’ve got the bitch,” Stone said.

  “Don’t kill her yet,” Harwood said. “She’s getting everyone outside.”

  Stone pulled the trigger. Laleh’s head exploded, a green and black splatter array splashing in all directions.

  Two figures stopped at the doorway. Harwood fired on the bearded man, who he assumed was Farokh, the father. Weathers apparently added an insurance bullet. Farokh’s body spun, hit the door, and slid down atop his daughter. Harwood shifted to the woman who had been following Farokh, but Stone fired and she fell to her knees and then across her husband.

  Stacking them like cordwood.

  A man darted into the picture from inside the house, knelt next to the woman—maybe his mother?—looked up as Harwood placed the reticle on his forehead, firing.

  Four down. Father, son, daughter, wife. If all were kill shots, and they certainly looked to be so, they had accomplished the mission.

  Shifting to the three SUVs, Harwood said, “Watch the exits. Kill the drivers. Then we’re out of here.”

  The three vehicle drivers began to scramble in the backs of the Suburbans, each withdrawing weapons. They huddled for a moment, unsure of the direction of the attack. They looked toward the house, the Caspian Sea, and then the mountains, where they pointed. Harwood fired two shots, felling two of the drivers. Weathers followed suit, killing the third.

  “Okay, pack up,” Harwood ordered.

  Another man ran from the house into the courtyard. Harwood was pushing himself up but stopped. He placed the scope onto the man, who looked like a male version of Laleh Perza, her twin, Basir.

  But Basir was alleged to be a shooter. No way could he be back in Iran in such a short period of time. The dragnet placed at all U.S. airports and seaports would have snared him. Basir Perza stared up into the mountains, as if he knew Team Valid’s position.

  Harwood shot him in the neck and followed up with another shot to the torso.

  “A squirter?” Stone called out over his shoulder.

  “Something like that,” Harwood said.

  They collapsed bipods, each man low crawling in reverse through the tunnel of rock to the far side of the ledge. Harwood had kept the rope tied around his waist and he resumed his position as base man. Stone was first to scale down the rock face onto the more navigable ledge. Next was Weathers, who paused and said, “Easier coming up than going down. You okay getting down, Reaper?”

  “I’ll be fine. Let’s go,” Harwood urged. They had just killed eight people before the sun rose. He wanted to get back to the van before the Iranian military figured out what had happened. Their egress plan was sketchy enough, the last thing they needed was to spend a full day on the ground in Iran with the entire world piecing together that two of the Camp David attackers had their families slaughtered.

  Harwood felt the rope go slack. Weathers was on the platform. He glanced over his shoulder. An orange hue was nudging up over the horizon, ready to start a new day and erase all of the protections of a night infiltration. Somewhere in the valley below the wildlife was already sensing the feast that awaited in the courtyard. Keeping the rope tied around his waist, he slung his rifle over his back and lowered his legs, spun, and clasped the beveled edge of the cliff he had been using as a brace to maneuver his team up and down the cliff.

  His face scraped the rough rock. Fingers felt the pressure of his entire body and all of his gear—about three hundred pounds altogether—pulling downward. Every tricep and bicep exercise he had ever done in his life paid off at this moment. His right boot found a firm node to ease some of the pressure. From memory, he searched with his left boot and found the stairstep he had used to climb up.

  “Twenty feet,” Weathers said from below.

  He could jump, but the landing area was small and occupied by Stone and Weathers. The incline was about seventy degrees, nearly vertical. Harwood slid his hands along the rock face until he found two minor ledges where he could use his fingers to lower himself another five feet.

  “Bogey,” Stone said. A vehicle engine rumbled, coughing diesel as it bounced along the road two hundred meters below them.

  “More than one,” Weathers said.

  Harwood was vulnerable with his back to the approaching convoy. Farza and his truck were a mile to the north in a cave. The driver was most likely sleeping. This wasn’t Farza, especially if two trucks were approaching. After another five feet of lowering himsel
f, he felt hands on the underside of his boots.

  “I’ve got you, Reaper,” Weathers said. Harwood let Weathers absorb his weight, while managing his descent onto the small flat area from which they had begun the ascent a few hours ago.

  “Two trucks moving slow at nine o’clock,” Weathers said.

  “Tough angle, but we can get the driver,” Stone said.

  “No, there’s most likely infantry in those trucks,” Harwood said.

  Helicopters chopped in the distance as the brakes squealed on the trucks. Men began to dismount. The morning darkness would evaporate in less than an hour. Harwood looked up and saw the outline of a Chinook personnel helicopter followed by its more lethal escort, a sleek attack helicopter of Iranian design, the Shahed 285. Lethality was relevant, though. While the attack aircraft carried missiles, rockets, and machine guns, the Chinook carried personnel who could dismount and close with them. The presence of a Chinook initially confused Harwood. It was a distinctly American powerful twin-engine personnel aircraft that Boeing sold to the Iranians. Harwood had both parachuted and fast roped from the back of a Chinook.

  “We’re fucked,” Stone said.

  The three men knelt on the outcropping as they assessed their predicament. There were a few parallel trails running to the north, but they would be treacherous in the dark and visible in the day.

  “We were good up there,” Weathers said. “How do they know where we are?”

  Harwood had thought the same thing. Their execution was flawless, almost. For a team that had operated together exactly once, they had pulled together and accomplished the kill portion of the mission. Now, they needed to exfiltrate. No mission was complete until every soldier was safely inside the wire, and they were about as far away from the wire as they could possibly be.

  Harwood looked at the piece of plastic on his arm as it vibrated. A message from Hinojosa read: POTENTIAL COMPROMISE. ZERO TACSLEEVES.

  He responded in the affirmative and said to his team, “Zero out the TacSleeves now. They’ve been hacked. That’s how they know where we are.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Stone said.

  Harwood pressed the “Zero” function on his sleeve, removed it, and crushed it under his boot. Stone and Weathers did the same, grumbling as they did so.

  “Plan?” Stone asked.

  The Chinook helicopter landed on the ridge above them, not far from where they had conducted the ambush. The Shahed 285 was an angry hornet looking for someone to sting. It hovered, dipped, and turned, doubtlessly scanning for the intruders.

  “No way to fight and climb at the same time,” Harwood said. “Let’s focus on the truck first, then the helo.”

  The three snipers scratched out positions from which to fight. “Stone, you watch those aircraft. Once we light up this truck, it will be on us.”

  “I can do both,” Stone objected.

  “Cover the flank. Helicopter is a big target. You can hit it,” Harwood growled.

  “What the fuck does that mean? I nailed that little bitch at the last target.”

  Harwood had no time for Stone’s aggressive bullshit. Soldiers were dismounting from the truck, eyeing the steep climb. The engine continued to idle, spitting exhaust. Strange Farsi words floated upward with the diesel fumes. One man was giving directions as others helped uniformed men with weapons and gear disembark from the truck.

  “Okay, have it your way. Max firepower on the truck, then you shift to the helicopters, Stone. Wait until it looks like everyone is off,” Harwood said.

  After another minute, there were about fifteen soldiers huddled, talking in hushed tones.

  “Okay, Stone you take the left side. Weathers, you take the right side and I’ll hit the middle. Fire at will. Look for squirters and kill them first.”

  Stone immediately fired. The silenced weapons were anything but quiet in the still air, but the continued thrum of the truck engine and the whine of the helicopters overhead masked the ratcheting of the weapons and the ping of expended brass on the rocks.

  Harwood aimed through his thermal scope and shot the man in the middle of the circle who was issuing the orders. If you kill the alpha, the followers will be confused. The man dropped from a shot to the temple. Harwood had three more targets down before he heard the Chinook flying slowly overhead.

  The chopper hovered, and commandos were sliding down thick fast ropes.

  “Fast ropes!” Harwood shouted. He spun to his back and fired up at the men descending on their position. Stray rounds were sparking off the helicopter fuselage while door gunners were spitting machine-gun fire generally in their direction. “Two on the helicopter. Weathers, you keep the truck.”

  Harwood counted ten men sliding down the fast rope. He believed he had hit four and maybe Stone had hit a couple, he wasn’t sure. They were taking fire from the ridge and from the Chinook. The Shahed 285 appeared over the ridge. Harwood and Team Valid were the center of a triangle with the truck, Chinook, and Shahed all representing encircling points.

  He took a deep breath and steeled himself for what he was about to do. He took his sight off the fast rope and aimed into the cockpit of the nosed-over Shahed 285, what he considered to be the biggest threat with its advanced avionics and lethal firepower. The aircraft yawed in his direction, exposing the glass bubble of the pilot on the port side.

  Harwood fired. The pilot’s head kicked back. The windscreen splintered and he lost visibility. The helicopter rocked in the air but stabilized quickly. The copilot must have taken the controls. The Shahed buzzed past them and banked hard before passing the Chinook. Shouts above their position gave no doubt that Iranian infantry were on the ground. They were surrounded. Stone had silenced the starboard door gunner with a good shot. For the moment there was minimal fire exchanged in either direction.

  “Status?” Harwood demanded.

  “Truck has at least two still alive,” Weathers said.

  “Avoid the gas tank. Might be our only option out of here,” Harwood said.

  “Roger,” Weathers replied.

  “Stone?”

  “We’ve got about three bogies above us. Hard to spot.”

  “Okay, you keep on them. Weathers, you stay on the truck. I’ll stick with the helicopters.”

  Begin morning nautical twilight was upon them, replacing the black of night with a gray hue. Still the west slope of the mountain was dark, the light just seeping over the edges. Harwood wanted this wrapped up in five minutes. They needed to move. No doubt the Iranians would be sending a larger force now that they knew they had a fight on their hands.

  Stone fired twice and reloaded, dropping his magazine on the ground and slapping a new one into the well. Harwood tracked the Chinook as the loadmaster appeared to be pulling in the ropes. Harwood put a bullet through the man’s crew helmet. He tumbled, slid down the ramp, and fell a hundred feet into the rocks. If he wasn’t dead before, he was now. The pilot yanked the aircraft in response to the crew chief’s fall, placing the starboard pilot, typically the copilot, in Harwood’s sight. He leveled the SR-25 and squeezed off two rounds. The Chinook flared upward, as if it was doing a wheelie.

  The starboard pilot must have been controlling the aircraft, because it nearly did a backflip, lost altitude, and slammed into the rocks just fifty meters to their south. The explosive shock wave licked at their faces and pieces of rotor blades whizzed past them like a million ninja stars.

  Fire erupted from the crash location and fuel sprayed everywhere, running downhill into their location.

  “Fire!” Harwood shouted. “Weathers, are we clear to head down?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Team Valid picked up and began racing along the goat trail they had taken up the mountain. Random shots pinged off the rocks as they scampered down the steep incline. Reaching the bottom of the hill, they found the truck still idling. Weapons up, Stone turned to cover any enemy from the hill. Harwood focused on the cab of the truck. Weathers worked his way to the rear, firing twice
.

  “Two down. Don’t see anything alive!” Weathers shouted.

  “Watch for the attack helicopter. Gun run any time now,” Harwood said.

  On cue, the Shahed 285 zipped along the ridge, spitting fire at the Iranians still up in the mountain.

  “They don’t know who they’re shooting. Let’s get in the truck and roll,” Harwood said.

  “Big-ass target,” Stone countered.

  “It has seventy-millimeter rockets that typically can’t hit a barn and some machine guns,” Harwood said. “Let’s go as far as we can before we dismount and link up with Farza.”

  “If he’s still alive,” Stone said.

  “Weathers, lay in the back and plink at the helicopter if it figures us out,” Harwood said.

  “Roger that.”

  “Stone, you drive. I’ll shoot.”

  Stone stared at him in the diminishing darkness, grinned, and said, “Roger that, Reaper.”

  The truck moved along the dirt road in the direction Farza had departed. After a minute of driving, Harwood heard the buzz of helicopter blades.

  “Lining up on our ass!” Weathers shouted.

  Rockets smoked overhead, predictably high, and burst into the side of the narrow passage they were traversing. Rocks tumbled down and shrapnel sprayed the windshield. The machine-gun rounds were more accurate, stitching the side of the truck.

  “Emptied a mag on it, but no luck. They know we are the target!” Weathers shouted.

  Through his night-vision goggle, Harwood saw the road made a sharp turn to the west about a hundred yards ahead.

  “Get us to that turn,” Harwood said.

  He untied the rope from his waist and slid into the well of the cab near Stone’s foot. His boot was on the pedal as the truck bounced along the washboard cut in the road. With his teeth rattling, Harwood tied the rope to the top of the gas pedal and then looped it through a U-bolt cargo tie down against the engine well. He ran the rope around the gearshift a couple of times and said, “Okay, when we make this turn, jump out. Tell Weathers to jump, also.”

  “Helo coming in for a second rocket run!” Weathers shouted.