Pandora's Grave (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  A helicopter. “EAGLE SIX to all, keep your heads down. This ain’t the cavalry.”

  He lowered his binoculars from the slit of the hide, reverting to the naked eye. Nothing that could be picked up, no glint to be detected from the air. The young woman rose up from the bottom of the hide and came to stand beside him. “What is it?”

  She hadn’t heard the chopper. No matter. He wouldn’t have either save for the fact that he was listening for it.

  “Lie down in the hide,” he ordered crisply. “Stay as low as possible. We have an enemy helicopter coming in for a look-see.”

  Harry glanced at his watch. Just past eleven hundred hours. They had another nine hours before it would be dark enough for the Pave Low to cross the border and pick them up. By that time, the hills would be swarming with soldiers. But there was no other option—no clever way to throw them off trail, to distract their attention elsewhere. This wasn’t the movies.

  And in it came, an Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship sweeping low over the ridge, the chin turret swiveling menacingly. Its pair of 23mm cannon could rip the hides to shreds if they were detected. They possessed nothing capable of taking it down. Which meant one thing.

  They would not survive detection…

  3:29 A.M. Eastern Time

  A residence

  The suburbs of Washington, D.C.

  Vibration jarred Michael Shapiro awake. He slipped his hand carefully to his pillow and retrieved his cellphone from under it. Flipping it open, the screen lit up with a number he knew all too well.

  The CIA’s deputy director(intelligence) slipped from the bed, casting a glance back at his sleeping wife. A good woman. If only he had been as good a man.

  “Here.”

  “What news?”

  “Are we secure?”

  “You’re at home, aren’t you?”

  “I was in bed with my wife till you called,” Shapiro retorted curtly.

  “That’s nice,” the voice replied. “We’re secure. What do you have?”

  “Nothing. I haven’t heard status on the team since several hours before I left work. They may be out by now.”

  “They’re not. I need their position.”

  “How do I get that?”

  “You’re the head of the intelligence directorate, aren’t you? Everything crosses your desk.”

  “I don’t know—” Shapiro hesitated, casting a glance backward at the partially-open bedroom door. “There’s something going on—I’m out of the loop, I don’t understand why.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lay’s running this one straight through Kranemeyer and the NCS. They’re working their own intelligence through several of their own analysts—they’re not talking to me.”

  “Well, find a way to get it out of them. Get to work and find out,” the voice ordered, its tone brooking no argument.

  “Right,” Shapiro acknowledged after a long silence. “Let me just get dressed here and I’ll get right in.”

  “This has turned into a mess, and you understand the terms of our agreement. Get in there and make it spotless.”

  The other end of the line went dead with an ominous click.

  “What’s going on, dear?” The DD(I) turned to find his wife standing in the doorway of their bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “I need to go in to work,” he replied, pushing past her and grabbing his pants off the closet door. He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the face.

  “But it’s three o’clock in the morning!”

  “I know what time it is…”

  12:28 P.M. Local Time

  An undisclosed location near Tel Aviv

  Israel

  “What did they want? Why did they attack your team? Why?” Gideon turned back to the archaeologist, his frustration slipping through the veneer of calm he had endeavored to compose.

  Tal’s face was expressionless, a mask that revealed nothing and everything at the same time. “You left them to die,” he repeated, his voice no more than a whisper, his words the same ones he had repeated over and over again since the rescue.

  “That doesn’t matter now, blast it!” Gideon exclaimed. “What matters is what the Iranians are planning to do now, not to your friends, but to your country. Your country! The reason you took your team into danger in the first place.”

  Moshe’s gaze wavered and he looked down at his hands. “I never should have. Never…”

  Gideon nodded, sensing a crack. A chink in the armor. He leaned forward in his chair, only two feet away from the archaeologist as they sat within the confines of a small holding cell, their surroundings illuminated by a single lightbulb hanging the ceiling by its cord.

  “Perhaps not, but you did,” he reasoned. “And their sacrifice will be in vain unless you give us some idea what the Iranians are planning.”

  It was the wrong thing to say, Gideon realized a second later. The gap closed, the armor sealing over again. And the man’s face was just as impassive as before. “I will tell you nothing. You left them to die…”

  1:45 P.M. Tehran Time

  The base camp

  “Any progress?” Hossein asked as he strode back into the trailer he and the colonel were using as a makeshift tactical operations center. About the only good thing of the colonel’s arrival was the fact that he had brought more sophisticated comm equipment with him. The only good thing.

  Harun shook his head. “Patrols reporting in as we speak.”

  “How often do you have them checking back in?”

  “Every thirty minutes.”

  The major shook his head. “Not good enough. After this, every ten minutes. If one of them is taken out, we need to know as soon as possible. You’re giving them twenty-nine minutes to take out a patrol and make good their escape over the hills.”

  Harun glanced up from his work. “Who did Tehran entrust with the command here, major? Report-back will stay as is.”

  Hossein smiled, leaning back in his chair, his eyes on the mountains outside. The young man knew nothing of this terrain. Knew not that it was as merciless an enemy as the American commandos. And did not care to learn. But that was the colonel’s responsibility now, not his.

  Footsteps. Thomas pressed himself flat against the rocks as they came closer to his hiding place. The Kalishnikov was slung over his shoulder, his Beretta clutched tightly in both hands. The long grey cylinder of a suppressor extended from the pistol’s barrel.

  Words, spoken in Farsi. He couldn’t understand what was said, but heard the familiar squawk of radio static. They were reporting in.

  He glanced anxiously toward the heavens. The day was wearing on, and he had little to show for it. Was his team even still in the country? He had no idea. Back-up communications gear was cached at LZ RUMRUNNER–if he could reach it.

  For the moment, that was a question. More footsteps, soldiers rounding the bend of the canyon wall, picking their way over the tortuous landscape.

  Two of them. Both looked tired and dusty, young men in their twenties. The point man had his rifle in the crook of his arm, his bearing languid.

  Another moment passed as Thomas waited, his body tensed. Waiting for the right moment. The right time.

  The point man passed his position. The second soldier started to, then stopped short, spotting scuffed dirt where Thomas had run. His lips opened, starting to say something in Farsi. An inquiry, a cry of warning, an alarm, whatever it had been, he never had a chance to finish it.

  Thomas moved from the shadows, the suppressed Beretta in his outstretched hands…

  4:59 A.M. Eastern Time

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  “A busy morning, sir,” the guard said cheerfully, handing Lay’s identification back through the car window.

  “How so?”

  “The DD(I) arrived here almost an hour and a half ago.”

  Lay’s brow furrowed in astonishment. “Shapiro?”

  The guard grinned, his expression
one of, He was DD(I) last time I checked. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, we all must keep unusual hours from time to time,” Lay replied, forcing a smile in return. “Drive on, Pete.” But the Banker?

  Two bodyguards met the car as it arrived at the DCIA’s space in the parking garage. It was the only routine thing of Lay’s day. A different time every morning, a different time home every night, several different routes home. A decoy car. The experts said it was as fool-proof as it could get, that his route would be impossible to figure out, that he was safe from any would-be assassin.

  Lay hadn’t lived to be as old as he was by trusting the experts. His bodyguard held the door for him as he exited the SUV. The man, a former Navy SEAL, lived with Lay, sleeping one door down the hallway from the DCIA’s bedroom.

  Ron Carter met him at the elevator, a thick folder clutched beneath the analyst’s right arm.

  “I hear the Banker’s already to work,” Lay stated as the elevator doors closed on the two men, his tones clipped. Shapiro had earned the derisive nickname for his habit of keeping minimal hours. He was a political appointment, like Lay, but from the Hancock administration, and they had crossed swords more than once.

  Carter glanced at him across the top of his glasses. “Does it mean something?”

  “Does it?”

  “Perhaps,” the analyst shrugged, handing Lay the folder. “Here’s the update on Operation TALON.”

  “Break it down for me.”

  “Status quo. No comm with Parker, regular burst contact with Nichols and the team. General Benet’s got a Pave Low saddled up and ready to fly at twenty hundred hours.”

  “Has Nichols been informed?”

  “Yes. He’s holding tight, but the Iranians have launched a massive air and ground search. According to his last report, they’ve had a Hind fly over more than once. He believes it’s only a matter of time.”

  “Will they break off the search at nightfall?”

  “Impossible to say, sir,” Carter said, pressing a button to keep the elevator doors closed a moment longer. “China’s been funneling the Iranians increasing supplies of high-quality NVGs for years. It appears that the detachment at the base camp was not supplied with them last night. I’m sure that’s changed.”

  Lay nodded, his mind elsewhere. “Keep me posted, Ron,” he stated, walking out of the elevator. He turned to face the analyst just before the doors closed again. “And keep your eyes open.”

  2:25 P.M. Tehran Time

  The base camp

  “Anything?” Hossein asked, coming back into the operations center. The young colonel shot him a dark look and shook his head in the negative.

  “Patrol Five reports hearing something that sounded like a burst of gunfire coming from the west about thirty-five minutes ago.”

  The major didn’t need to look at the map to know what Larijani was implying. Patrol Two had been west of Patrol Five. “They were taken out. Just after their transmission. I warned you to reduce report-back times!”

  “We don’t know that,” the young man replied defensively, ignoring Hossein’s bitter indictment. “I’m converging patrols on that area as we speak. If the Americans are there, we will find them.”

  “Have the patrols double-up outside the contact zone,” Hossein instructed, drawing a circle on the map with a dull, stubby pencil. “That way they will be less vulnerable. Two men are too easily taken out.”

  Just then, the radio crackled with static. Harun bent down, his brow furrowing as he listened intently to the transmission. He straightened up.

  “They’ve located the bodies. Both men were shot dead.”

  3:07 P.M.

  LZ Rumrunner

  Thomas laid the assault rifle on the ground beside him, digging away at the rock with his bare hands. The cache was here, he knew it. It was the only place surrounding LZ RUMRUNNER that matched the tells he had memorized before leaving Q-West.

  The team was nowhere to be seen, no trace that they had ever been there. Again, Thomas cursed the loss of his team radio, the severing of that link with Harry and the rest. Perhaps plans had changed.

  The rock came away suddenly, nearly rolling back on him. A satchel lay behind it, a small desert camouflage rucksack. US Army issue, appropriated by the Company through one of the myriad back-channel procurements used to equip the NCS.

  Inside was a silenced Beretta, three magazines of 9mm ammo, a small pair of night-vision binoculars, a GPS unit, and last but not least, a TACSAT.

  Thomas resisted the temptation to place the call from where he was. He was too exposed, and the Iranians were still in full search mode.

  He put the rock back where it was, smoothing the dirt around it once again and darted up the hill to find better cover.

  A large rock seemed to offer it and he hunkered down, the AK-47 at his side, his service Beretta on his hip. The new automatic he left in the bag, for emergencies.

  He opened the TACSAT and tapped in the encryption sequence. “Phone home,” he murmured, hitting speed-dial…

  6:07 A.M. Eastern Time

  NCS Operations Center

  Langley, Virginia

  “Boss, I think you’d better have a look at this.”

  Barney Kranemeyer’s eyebrows went up, a facial expression thought characteristic by those who knew him well. He tended to affect an air of being completely surprised, when that was seldom the case. As Director of the National Clandestine Service, it was his job to make sure that it was seldom the case.

  “What is it, Michelle?”

  “A call just hit our servers. It’s coming in on an Agency TACSAT, from GMT +4.”

  “Take it here,” Kranemeyer ordered crisply, his voice brooking no argument.

  He reached down, past the half-eaten bagel on her workstation, taking the second headset and adjusting the microphone to his lips.

  “Hello.”

  “This is Parker,” a voice announced on the other end of the line.

  “We’ve been waiting. Where in the devil are you?”

  “RUMRUNNER. Has the rest of the team been extracted?”

  “Negative, Parker. How are things going?”

  “They’ve been better, boss,” came the reply, avoiding the duress code. Kranemeyer nodded. They were clear. If Parker had used the word good in any context, they would have known that he had been compromised.

  “The team is waiting at OSCAR. They’ll be picked up at twenty-one hundred hours, your time.”

  There was a muffled curse from the other end of the line. “Apologies, sir,” Thomas said finally.

  “Can you make it to OSCAR by twenty-one hundred hours?” the DCS asked. There was a pause, and for a moment he thought the line had gone dead. “Parker, do you copy? I repeat, can you rendevous at OSCAR by twenty-one hundred?”

  “Negative. The Iranians are conducting an extensive land-air search, it took me all day just to get here.”

  “I see. Do you foresee difficulties extracting the rest of the team?”

  “Well, for goodness’ sake, director,” Thomas continued conversationally, “the whole day has been one big difficulty. Why should extraction be any better?”

  “What is your status?”

  “A little gouge in my thigh from a ricochet, bandaged it up with the med kit here at RUMRUNNER. It’s just a scratch, I’m still fully mobile.”

  Kranemeyer turned, covering the receiver with one hand. “Anya, I need a run-down of our available assets in the area. ASAP.”

  “Right on it,” the woman replied, tapping a command into her terminal.

  “Hold one, Parker,” Kranemeyer ordered, returning to the phone. “We’re investigating our options.”

  “Gee, thanks, boss,” Thomas replied, sarcasm in his tones. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Sending to your terminal, sir.” Kranemeyer looked down at his computer to see the list. “Listening, Parker?”

  “Copy.”

  “There’s a PJAK controlled camp approximately twenty-five kil
ometers northwest of your present position…”

  3:37 P.M. Tehran Time

  The camp

  Northwestern Iran

  It had been a dry fall, the old shepherd thought as he kicked absently at a clump of grass. Dust flew up, blowing in the wind. Very dry.

  Clucking in Kurdish to his sheep, he turned away toward the camp that was, for this day, his home.

  It was at that moment that a sharp buzzing stabbed at his ribs, startling him from his reverie.

  Sweeping aside his robes with one hand, he reached for his belt with the other, disclosing a semiautomatic Glock and a small pouch containing a satellite phone.

  The screen was bright with the caller’s number and he tapped in the encryption sequence. “Azad,” he answered briefly, his lips suddenly dry.

  The voice on the other end was familiar to him, though he had only heard it once before in his life.

  He listened in silence for a few moments before responding, “What you are asking is difficult. My young men encountered a Guard patrol not ten kilometers west of here within the last fortnight.”

  6:39 A.M. Eastern Time

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  “I’m not asking you to shelter him, only to ensure his safe passage to the Iran-Iraq border,” Kranemeyer retorted, flipping the shepherd’s dossier open on his desk. The black-and-white photo was a few years old, but revealed the face of a man old before his time. Intelligence reports indicated that Azad Badir had only just passed his sixtieth year, but he looked far older.

  “I understand your request,” the shepherd replied in perfect, educated English. No wonder, thought the DCS, scanning down the first page of the dossier. Educated at Princeton, Badir had returned to his people only months before the 1979 Revolution. He had never completed college, but it had clearly left its imprint upon him.