Easy Day for the Dead

by Howard E. Wasdin

  Alex pressed his magazine ejection button and pulled out the magazine. He racked his slide again. Then again. The jammed bullet popped out and the weapon was clear.

  Dr. Khamenei’s voice squealed louder and faster. She looked at the ceiling and cried out. Alex recognized only one word: Allah.

  “Dr. Khamenei says a Russian, a North Korean, and Iranian scientists are at the top-secret lab,” Leila translated. “Dr. Khamenei didn’t want to do this job, but the Iranian government is holding her husband hostage. God save me.”

  Alex reloaded his magazine, tapped the bottom of it with his hand, and racked the slide. He aimed at Dr. Khamenei’s forehead. “Where is the lab?”

  “You must rescue my husband first,” Dr. Khamenei said in English. “Then I will tell you where it is. I will even take you there, if you want.”

  “You’re not in a position to negotiate,” Alex growled.

  “Let Allah’s will be done. I can’t continue living this hell while I know my husband is dying in prison. If it’s my time to die, I will die.”

  “Shit!” Alex exclaimed. He turned to see what happened to Pancho, John, and the odd couple outside the room. Pancho and John had already dispatched the Guards and were putting them in two patient beds. There was a puddle of blood on the floor and blood spatter on the wall. Alex had been so focused on the Guard he shot, his weapon malfunction, and the target that he didn’t even hear Pancho and John fire their pistols. Pancho covered the bodies with bedsheets while John guarded the door. “Guys, we’re taking the doctor alive,” Alex said. “She’s going to lead us to another lab.”

  Pancho took off his bloodstained white jacket, strapped on one of the Guards’ AKMs, and put on his jacket again. Then Pancho relieved John at the door. Alex and John armed themselves with the remaining AKMs and concealed their weapons with their white coats. Now Alex and his team had to get Dr. Khamenei out of the hospital. And out of Iran.

  PART TWO

  We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.

  —DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, U.S. PRESIDENT

  15

  * * *

  Pancho headed out the door of Dr. Khamenei’s room. Leila followed, helping Dr. Khamenei walk. Alex fretted, debating whether to just scoop the doctor up. She wasn’t much faster than a two-legged tortoise. Although there were no Revolutionary Guards, there were people in the hall, and some of them were staring. Alex and his team couldn’t run faster than their slowest person.

  “Faster,” Alex said quietly. “Dr. Khamenei, you’ve got to walk faster so we can get out of this hallway and down the stairs.”

  The doctor sped up a little, wobbling like she’d been heavily sedated—probably on purpose to keep her from escaping. Maybe the Guards had been there to prevent that just as much as to protect her. Damn, she’s slow.

  Alex’s eyes scanned the hall for a wheelchair, but there was none. He realized that walking down the stairs was going to be so slow, it would put them in more danger than taking the elevator. Also, if going down the stairs popped the doctor’s stitches, they’d have even more problems. When Pancho turned back to see how they were proceeding and check for any communications, Alex said, “Take us to the elevator.”

  They entered the elevator and went down to the second floor. “Stairs,” Alex said. When the elevator doors opened on the second floor, Pancho led them out and through the doors to the stairs. The doors closed behind them. On the stairwell, they were protected from eyes in the hallway.

  Alex gestured for Pancho to take a look on the first floor. Pancho went downstairs and peeked through the door window at the first floor. He climbed back up the stairs, looked at Alex, and shook his head. The first floor was too dangerous. Alex turned to John and said, “Take us to the elevator.”

  John took them out of the stairwell, into the hall, and to the elevator. When the elevator door opened, two armed Revolutionary Guards stood inside—with similar heights and appearance, they looked like twins. The Guards noticed Dr. Khamenei, grabbed their AKM rifles, and proceeded to aim. John didn’t hesitate. He lifted his pistol and fired. Alex had seen more than his share of close-up head shots, but two heads exploding in the space of an elevator was a shock even for him. The two soldiers slid down the back wall of the elevator, where their bodies slumped on the floor.

  Alex and his crew stepped onto the elevator. The floor was slick with blood. Alex stood on one of the twins so everyone could fit in the elevator more easily. “Fourth floor,” Alex said.

  Pancho pressed the number four.

  “We can follow the fourth floor to another wing and find an exit there,” Alex explained.

  The elevator stopped at the third floor and opened. A young couple started to enter the elevator when they noticed all the blood. Pancho put up his hands, gesturing for them to stop. Leila told them something in Farsi, and the couple backed off. The elevator door closed. Up it went.

  The elevator stopped on the fourth floor, and Alex’s team stepped off. A group of women waiting to ride the elevator stared at Alex and his crew in shock. With blood all over the SEALs’ white coats and their surgical masks, the SEALs looked like they had just finished performing surgery. They passed the group of women. After a moment, one of them screamed—she’d seen the twin Guards.

  “Come on, Dr. Khamenei, you’ve got to move it,” Alex pleaded.

  Dr. Khamenei tried to hurry, but she stumbled, almost falling—Leila held her arm, steadying her. Alex, using a fireman’s carry, hoisted the scientist on his back and carried her. Although now they could move faster, if they came under attack, Alex wouldn’t be able to return fire quickly.

  The fourth floor was almost as crowded with people as the first floor, but fortunately there were no Revolutionary Guards in sight.

  Enemy AK fire sounded.

  “Contact rear!” John shouted.

  Alex wanted to turn, drop to the deck, and open fire, but he couldn’t drop Dr. Khamenei without busting her stitches and spilling her guts all over the floor, so he hid around a nearby corner in an alcove. Pancho and John fired their sound-suppressed pistols while the enemy made a terrible racket with their AKMs. In the alcove next to him were two beds. He noticed the beds had wheels. Hot damn! Alex put Dr. Khamenei on a bed. There was a wet spot on the side of her stomach—blood. There was no gunshot wound; she was bleeding through her stitches. Alex looked around for gauze, but there was none. He folded the bedsheet into a giant bandage, placed it on Dr. Khamenei’s bleeding spot, and told her to hold the sheet there with her hand. “Keep pressure on it,” Alex said. He grabbed the sheet off another bed and covered Dr. Khamenei, including her face, to hide her identity.

  The firing stopped. Alex poked his head out into the hall. Bodies lay on the ground in the distance, a number of them civilians. Alex, Pancho, and John played dirty, but they didn’t kill innocent bystanders. The civilians were mowed down by the Guards, who were now dead. Alex wheeled Dr. Khamenei out. “I need you to push this,” he told Leila.

  She did.

  Alex’s team resumed their escape, but now they were moving at least ten times faster. We just might make it out of here. They passed a tall woman lying facedown on the floor—her blood formed a small puddle around her head. An elderly man walked in a daze with a bloody shoulder.

  “Contact rear!” John shouted.

  Damn! Alex and Pancho quickly turned about-face.

  “Pancho, take Leila and Dr. Khamenei, go to the first floor, and wait,” Alex said.

  “Aye,” Pancho said.

  “Be careful,” Leila said to Alex. Then she hurried off with Pancho.

  A shot popped the air next to Alex’s head. Either it was a lucky shot, or these guys weren’t the average Guards—Alex suspected the latter. About thirty-five yards in front of Alex, three combatants in plainclothes used walls for cover while firing at the SEALs—the bad guys were firing in a rhythm, so that when one reloaded, the others fired. There were no lulls in the heat they delivered. John had already taken sh
elter behind a wall, and Alex followed his example. Just as Alex took cover, a chip of wall hopped out near his face.

  Alex popped out and fired back, trying to shoot the bad guys in the upper torso, shoot them through the wall, and skip rounds off the wall to take them down. Alex thought he recognized one of the three—an adversary he’d fought years ago in Iraq: Gholam Khan. John fired a staccato of bullets at Khan and his men.

  Alex took cover in an alcove and removed his jacket. He unslung his AKM and brought it up to his shoulder. The desire to kill Khan pumped adrenaline through Alex’s arteries.

  “Reloading!” John called out. Alex knew John would be taking cover while he was reloading.

  “Die, you slick bastard!” Alex cried as he swung around the corner. In the absence of John’s shooting, Khan and his men advanced confidently—three against two, and submachine guns versus pistols. Khan and his men moved like they had superior firepower on their side. But Khan and his men had no idea who they were up against, and they had no idea that Alex and John were armed with AKM assault rifles. In contrast to Alex’s quiet sound-suppressed Zoaf pistol, his AKM assault rifle roared—and in contrast to the Zoaf, the AKM delivered a wicked bite. Alex fired three rounds in rapid succession. The first round struck low and to the left of Khan. The second caught Khan in the chest, knocking him back a step. The third went high and right. Khan stumbled backward over his men trying to find cover from Alex’s onslaught.

  John appeared with his AKM firing in rapid succession. Khan staggered into a side room, and his two buddies must have realized how exposed they were, because they followed him. John skipped a round off the wall that nailed one in the right ass cheek—he howled in pain.

  Alex wanted to stay and fight Khan, but even if Alex killed him, reinforcements were surely on their way. Alex’s ammunition wouldn’t last long, and dying in Tehran was not a mission objective. “John, drop smoke,” Alex said.

  “Dropping smoke,” John repeated. He stopped firing and popped a smoke grenade directly in front of their position. Soon the hallway filled with white smoke and Alex could no longer see Khan and his men.

  16

  * * *

  Pistachio pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. “I can’t believe they shot me in the ass.” He looked at his wallet: the hole went completely through. He grunted. “And the bullet is still in my ass!”

  Major Khan looked down at his chest—a metal piece of GPS electronics stuck out of it. When he lifted his arm, electronics shifted in his chest pocket like loose change. The major pulled the bloody piece of metal out. He remembered the face of the man who just shot him. He knew the shooter from Kahar, Iraq, when the major had the green-faced devil in his sniper sight. Green-Face moved just before he took the shot. He was the same green-face who slaughtered his Shiite militia, the same man who had killed his beloved Abubakar. Major Khan’s militia reported that this green-face’s name was Alex Brandenburg.

  Major Khan looked at the smoke ahead of him in the hall—he couldn’t see anything beyond it. The major could charge through and hope he didn’t run into an ambush or booby trap, or he could be cautious and wait until the smoke receded before proceeding—not that he was afraid of death. On the contrary, part of him welcomed death. Major Khan simply wanted to die under his own terms.

  “That bastard shot you,” Lieutenant Saeedi said. “Nobody shoots my friend and lives to tell about it—nobody!” He rushed down the hallway toward the smoke.

  Major Khan appreciated Lieutenant Saeedi taking the lead. The major followed, staying just far enough back in case the shit hit the fan. Major Khan glanced back to see Pistachio limping behind him.

  “You hear that, you bastards?!” Lieutenant Saeedi called into the smoke. “I’m coming for you!” He ran into the smoke. “Come on,” Lieutenant Saeedi shouted, “they’re getting away!”

  Major Khan entered the smoke, and when he exited the other side, he saw Lieutenant Saeedi but no Alex. He caught up with Lieutenant Saeedi, and they picked up speed.

  17

  * * *

  Alex and John, with their weapons concealed in their white coats, frantically searched the first floor for Pancho, Leila, and Dr. Khamenei. In the lounge corner of the lobby, Alex and John found them. The first floor in the wing was crowded, but there were no Revolutionary Guards, and, for the most part, Alex and his crew were able to blend in. “We’re going to have a hard time returning to our vehicle,” John said quietly.

  “Follow me,” Alex whispered while continuing forward. He had no idea where he was going, but he knew he didn’t want to be in that lobby—especially when Major Khan and his gang came looking for them. At the first corridor, Alex turned left. He looked back to make sure his team was with him—they were. Up ahead, people flowed into the hospital from what looked like an emergency entrance—it gave him an idea. He dodged people like a race car as he hurried forward. Then he exited the emergency entrance. In the parking lot, he saw what he’d hoped for: ambulances. The ambulances had the word for “ambulance” written in reverse on their fronts. They had orange stripes along the side and Farsi writing.

  “Contact rear!” John shouted.

  Alex turned. Two more Guards came running out of the hospital. Shots whistled past his head and drilled into the nearest ambulance.

  John fired off two short bursts and the Guards tumbled to the pavement, where they lay still. The clatter of their AKs hitting the ground made a terrible noise.

  Alex ran to the ambulances and frantically looked inside. On the third try he found one with keys in the ignition.

  Alex opened the driver’s side and looked at Leila. She nodded and stepped into the driver’s seat. Pancho rode shotgun. “Get us out of here now!” Alex told Leila and Pancho. Alex, John, and Dr. Khamenei loaded into the back. Alex covered Dr. Khamenei’s eyes with a black hood—she didn’t need to see their safe house. Alex found some bandages in the ambulance and used them to dress Dr. Khamenei’s stitches. John kept a lookout to their rear.

  Leila stomped on the gas and drove them out of the hospital area. Pancho turned on the lights and siren, and Leila picked up speed. The downside of the lights and siren was that they drew attention. On the upside, Alex’s crew could quickly put more distance between them and the bad guys. Also, if the bad guys ran surveillance on the SEALs, they could spot the surveillance team driving faster than the vehicles around them.

  Leila drove out onto the expressway. Minutes later, John said, “We got company.”

  A black sedan followed behind, speeding faster than the vehicles around it but staying behind the ambulance. Alex and John prepared their AKMs without showing them through the back window. The two SEALs waited for the man in the black sedan to make his move. Maybe he was just using the ambulance to drive through traffic faster.

  Without using her turn signal, Leila made a quick exit off the expressway. The sedan didn’t follow. Pancho cut off the lights and siren. Without the noise of their own siren, Alex heard sirens screeching throughout Tehran.

  Pancho told Leila to take three consecutive right turns, to make sure they weren’t being followed. No one came. They were clean.

  Leila pulled into the condo parking lot, stopped, and turned off the ignition. Alex pulled the condo key off his key ring and handed it to Pancho. Pancho took the key, pulled down his surgeon’s mask, and left behind his AKM as he hurried with Leila into the condo lobby.

  Alex laid his AKM on the ambulance bed, grabbed Pancho’s AKM from the front, and laid it down next to his AKM. Then he motioned for John to hand over his.

  “You’re not getting rid of these, are you?” John asked.

  “Just need to conceal them so we can move them to the van,” Alex replied.

  John looked longingly at his AKM and then handed it over.

  Alex wrapped it with the other two AKMs in the bedsheet. “You bring the doctor.”

  John nodded. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Where?”

  “Your ear is bleeding.”<
br />
  Alex touched his ear, then looked at his finger—it was bloody.

  “Looks like a round sliced your earlobe.”

  “Is it still attached?”

  “Yeah, but it’s going to need a few stitches. Let me put something on it.” John grabbed rubbing alcohol, poured it on some gauze, and cleaned Alex’s earlobe. Then he taped it with some gauze.

  Alex had been so focused on fighting and jacked up on adrenaline that he didn’t realize a shot had grazed him. “Thanks.” Alex looked through the window to see if anyone was watching. He didn’t see anyone, so he pushed open the back doors and hopped out with the AKMs wrapped in a bedsheet. Alex opened the rear door of the van and loaded the weapons inside. He held the door open for John and shuttled her into the back of the van. Alex and John entered the van and sat.

  Alex looked anxiously out the van window for Pancho and Leila. It seemed like it was taking them too long. Maybe they were in trouble, but Alex didn’t hear any shots. When he saw Pancho and Leila exit the building with their bags, he felt relieved.

  After loading their bags in the back, Leila got behind the wheel of the van. Pancho drove the ambulance and Leila followed. Several blocks away from the condo, Pancho parked the ambulance on the side of the road and left the keys in the ignition with the door unlocked. Hopefully no one would connect the ambulance to the condo. If someone stole the ambulance and broke it down in a chop shop to sell the parts, that would be even better.

  Pancho sat up front in the van next to Leila. She drove west and entered Expressway Two, then exited on Chalus Road, which took them north through the Alborz mountain range and all the way to the resort town of Chalus on the Caspian Sea. East of Chalus was a Revolutionary Guard base.

  Alex took off Dr. Khamenei’s black hood. She looked relieved. John checked the AKM magazines—one had less ammo than the others, so he redistributed the ammo in the magazines so each weapon had twenty rounds.