Pandora's Grave (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  A nod served as his reply.

  “Iraq?” Hossein asked, glancing sideways at Harry.

  “I don’t know where you think you’ll get with a game of ‘Twenty Questions’,” Harry sighed.

  “Truth, perhaps.”

  Harry snorted in disbelief. “You beheaded a friend of mine in Iraq. Sergeant Major Juan Delgado, United States Army.”

  “I remember him,” the Iranian replied simply. “A brave man. We didn’t get anything from him. His death gave me no pleasure, if that’s what you were wanting to know.”

  A moment passed, then Harry turned to look at him. “Is that all you can say?” he asked, his voice little more than a hiss. His hands trembled with barely-contained anger.

  Hossein shrugged. “It is as you say. I, too, have killed many men whom I did not hate. We are warriors, you and I, and killing is our birthright.”

  “Warriors?” Harry asked, unable to escape the irony of the comment. “You and I? Where is the heroism in beheading a man whose hands are tied?”

  The Iranian shook his head. “Should I tell you I regret his death and stay your hand of execution? You’ve made up your mind already. And I see no reason to lie now…”

  12:57 A.M.

  The C-130 “Hercules”

  It was time. Hamid checked the fastenings holding the Zodiac against its plywood backing for the last time and knelt down beside it, his arm braced.

  Davood knelt opposite to him, ready to help push it out the back. The young agent’s face was pale in the eerie red lights of the cabin.

  Gears meshed and ground, the back ramp of the C-130 folding down before their eyes. Cold air swept into the cabin, biting at Hamid’s face.

  The light went green.

  “Go, go, go!” he screamed, throwing his weight against the palleted raft. With all three men pushing, it gathered speed, heading for oblivion at the end of the ramp. Nine thousand feet down.

  And then they were in free-fall—descending at an average speed of one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour. A thousand feet every five seconds.

  Hamid kicked away from the raft and threw out his hands, body slicing through the air as he fell into the pitch-black night.

  The raft’s parachute would automatically open when its onboard altimeter hit two thousand feet above sea level. In theory.

  A GPS locator would enable them to find it. Once again, in theory. Theories had a way of clashing with reality.

  A parachute opened somewhere off to his left, the sound jarring him to his senses. Thomas sucked in a breath of ice-cold air, checking his altimeter. Twenty-three hundred. Pull at two thousand. His fingers closed around the rip cord. Pull!

  His SF-10 parachute billowed above him, the shock of the canopy opening transmitting itself through his body. He gritted his teeth against the pain—the wound in his side was far from healed.

  There was no time to think about that now. His hands reached up, grabbing hold of the guidelines, his body swinging gently beneath the canopy of nylon as he descended toward the sea.

  Hamid heard, rather than saw, the splash of the Zodiac hitting the water. The parachute was designed to disconnect from the Rigid Inflatable Boat or RIB platform on impact, to prevent the boat from being dragged through the water or capsized.

  Altimeter: Two hundred feet. Time to brace for landing. Landing in water bore no resemblance to its ground counterpart, as the swim flippers replacing jump boots on his feet bore witness. And along with the difference came dangers.

  Water engulfing his body. Cold water. Thomas came down hard, the force of the landing driving him beneath the surface. His gloved fingers seemed to burn with the cold as he clawed his way to the surface, spewing out salt water as he came up.

  His left hand tangled in the parachute rigging as he struck out, hindering his efforts to find the release button.

  Don’t panic. It would kill him if he did. He knew that with the certainty of death. He had trained for this.

  The facility at Souda Bay had only been able to provide wetsuits for the team, not the dry suits they would have preferred for cold water operations. He had only minutes before his fingers would become too numb to operate the release. His right hand groped blindly toward his side, drawing the dive knife from its sheath. Slashing at the chute entangling him.

  There was no way to build momentum in the water, and his knife brushed against the cord in a sluggish, impotent motion.

  The canopy billowed once more in the breeze and then collapsed over his head, trapping him between wet fabric and the water. He went under once more.

  A loud humming filled his ears as he resurfaced, gulping air into his starved lungs. Something, close by. A motor, perhaps. Or was he hallucinating?

  It was impossible to say. The knife was gone, slipped from his fingers at some point. He didn’t remember letting go. Letting go.

  He couldn’t remember how long he’d been in the water. Not long. His fingers were numb, wooden stumps as they brushed against the release. No strength.

  A hand grasped his shoulder, holding him up in the water, and he fought against it. “Easy there, Thomas.”

  Davood’s voice. He looked up and saw the Iranian’s face against the blackness of the night. Warning bells sounded through his mind, a deafening clangor. He felt the canopy being pulled from around his head, the harness slipping from his body.

  Another moment and he was being hauled up, his hands scraping against the cold rubber of the Zodiac as he was pulled aboard like a landed fish. He coughed, water trickling from his mouth as he lay in the bottom of the raft. Once again, he heard the humming and realized it was the Zodiac’s outboard. His vision cleared and he saw Hamid sitting in the stern of the craft, manning the tiller. Safety…

  1:18 A.M.

  The cruiser

  “Roger that, Sergeant White,” Harry nodded, holding the TACSAT close to his ear. “Popping white, red, green.”

  The binoculars in his other hand, he scanned the night, looking for the telltale glow of the chemlights. There! White, red—and green.

  Harry grinned. “Looks like a spec-ops Christmas, bro. We’ve got you at our eleven o’clock, maybe two klicks out.”

  “Good to hear it,” Hamid’s voice came back. “We’ll be waiting on you.”

  “Everything copacetic?”

  “Yeah. Sergeant Brown had a little bit of trouble with the landing. We fished him out before his chute could take him under.”

  “He doing okay?”

  There was a moment’s silence, then a voice in the background, indistinct. When he came back on, Hamid was laughing. “He says if you’ve got any brandy, he could use it.”

  Harry chuckled. “Take five and we’ll be alongside.”

  2:31 A.M. Tehran Time

  The Ayatollah’s Residence

  His name was Samir, but he was referred to by his American handlers as XENOPHON. Had he known the origins of the name, he might have been amused by the irony of the choice, but the madrassa at which he had received his formalized education had failed to cover the march of the Ten Thousand.

  The Americans had turned him five years before, after a business trip to Paris. In a Parisian gentlemen’s club, as he remembered the scene, all flashing lights and beautiful women. Agreeing had seemed to be the thing to do at the time.

  Whether he had agreed out of disillusionment with the theocratic regime of Qom, or out of interest in the money, was a question he still could not answer. At one time, he might have thought it was for the excitement, but there had been precious little of that through the years. Unless one called living a double life exciting.

  Tonight was the first time he had carried a gun. He and his partner, a former Iranian intelligence agent, guarding the most powerful man in the country. His fingers trembled at the thought of it.

  The Ayatollah Isfahani sat a few feet away, working at a laptop.

  “What are you doing now?” XENOPHON asked, moving closer so he could look at the screen.

  “There a
re ties of devotion that cannot be erased by the fiat of a dictator,” Isfahani replied, blithely ignoring the fact that he had served as virtual dictator of Iran for a full year before the rise of Shirazi. “I have my contacts within the VEVAK yet.”

  “And that tells me what, exactly?” XENOPHON asked again.

  “I should have the present location of the Hezbollah cell soon. Very soon, in fact.”

  A knock came at the door and the two CIA men traded looks, then XENOPHON motioned for his partner to answer it, drawing his own pistol and holding it out of sight. Behind them, the Ayatollah closed his laptop to hide the screen.

  The door swung open and XENOPHON heard a muffled pop, pop as his partner went down. Two men in the door, the foremost holding a silenced pistol. His gun came up, reacting instinctively as he threw himself toward the desk for cover.

  He never made it. Two hollowpoint slugs tore through his chest, catching him off-balance. The pistol clattered from his nerveless fingers as he crumpled sideways. He heard another pair of shots, muffled and far away, then everything went black.

  It wasn’t the end he had imagined for himself, yet he could not find himself able to question the will of Allah. Isfahani sat there in the chair, watching as the gunmen approached, blood leaking from a hole in his neck.

  The man stood in front of the desk and raised the pistol one final time. The Ayatollah closed his eyes, his lips whispering the creed of his life, preparing to face the angels.

  La ilaha illa Allah. Muhammad rasul Allah. Allah Akbar. There is no God but God; and Muhammad is His Prophet. God is great.

  The pistol spat fire…

  5:49 P.M. Eastern Time

  NCS Operations Center

  Langley, Virginia

  “What’s the latest?” Danny Lasker asked, tucking his access swipe-card back in his shirt pocket as he came through the door of the operations center.

  “Nichols has effected the rendevous with Zakiri and the rest of the team,” Carter replied, looking up from his workstation. He took a sip from the cup of coffee on his desk and made a face. “I don’t know where Ames finds this stuff. I could make a better brew out of a metro toilet. Anyway, they’re on their way back to the coast. WHIPPOORWILL will have transport waiting for them.”

  “Acquired through the usual channels?”

  “Yes.”

  Seemingly satisfied with the response, Lasker draped his jacket over a nearby chair and went to work, sorting through the hourlies. The next moment, Carol Chambers came jogging up from the sub-level of the op-center.

  “Ron,” she said, before noticing the watch officer’s presence. “We have a problem.”

  “Shoot,” Danny replied, ignoring her momentary surprise.

  “We’ve lost all contact with XENOPHON. He’s not answering his phone and the TACSAT’s locator beacon has fallen off our grids.”

  Lasker frowned. “Not good. Anything from Isfahani himself?”

  She shook her head. The watch officer sighed and reached for the phone on his desk. “This one goes straight to the director…”

  2:05 A.M. Local Time

  The cruiser

  Water churned in the express cruiser’s wake, white flecks of foam against a wine-dark sea. Hossein stood there at the stern of the boat, looking far off into the night. His mind racing. BEHDIN. Faithful and true. The sleeper…

  He had recognized the man from the moment he had come onboard, seen how the Americans had welcomed their brother-in-arms. A serpent into the bosom.

  And now what to do with the information…

  “Here’s your weapon, sir.” Harry looked up into Davood’s eyes, then his gaze fell to the equipment bag the young agent was holding.

  Harry nodded curtly and took the bag without another word, removing the Heckler & Koch UMP-45 from its waterproof casing as Davood turned to leave.

  It seemed so hard to believe. He didn’t want to believe it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. And there was the key, the weakness. He didn’t want to believe…

  Harry swallowed hard, forcing down the anger that grew inside him. There was no time for this, not now, he thought, pulling the charging bolt back to chamber a round. His mind had to be clear. Too much was at stake. There would be time to deal with Davood after this mission was over.

  Deal with the traitor…

  Twenty minutes later, Hamid tapped him on the shoulder. “Langley wants to video-conference with us before we reach territorial waters. I have Tex’s laptop set up with the satellite uplink.”

  Harry slung the gun around his shoulder and rose. “Shield the screen to minimize escaping light. We can’t risk being discovered by an Israeli destroyer.”

  “Carol got in through the firewall of their HQ at Hakirya and hacked into their patrol grid. The nearest unit’s an Eilat-class Sa’ar 5 corvette, the INS Lahav. It’s forty klicks away, moving southeast toward us at a speed of ten knots.”

  “Good. Fire it up.” Harry followed Hamid down onto the lower deck where the laptop was set up. Davood was standing there between Thomas and Tex, his eyes fixed on the screen.

  “Get topside and keep an eye on our friend,” Harry ordered. “We’ll pass along the info dump later.”

  The young agent shot him a surprised look, but didn’t challenge the order. After he disappeared, Thomas looked over at Harry. “Sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Having him sit in on the final pre-op does not jive with his current need-to-know. Where’d they pick you up, outside the local cigar store?”

  Thomas chuckled, adjusting the beach blanket he wore Indian-style over his shoulders. “Tex found this for me in an equipment locker. Good for keeping warm and dry.”

  “That’s what they all say, Pocahontas.”

  “Langley with us in five,” Hamid announced, his fingers dancing over the keyboard. “Huddle time.”

  A few minutes later, the face of David Lay appeared full-screen. “Good morning, gentlemen. We’ve had a complication.”

  Harry and Hamid exchanged glances.

  “Satellite coverage indicates that Iranian security forces stormed the compound of the Ayatollah Isfahani half an hour ago. All contact with him and the Agency assets assigned to guard him has been lost. We believe the Ayatollah to either be under interrogation or possibly dead. To be blunt, you are to proceed under the assumption that the mission has been compromised.”

  Hamid took a deep breath. “They know we’re coming for them.”

  “Most likely, yes.”

  “Then what do you advise, director?” Harry asked, taking a step closer to the laptop. “Are you ordering mission abort?”

  The figure on screen shook its head in reply. “That’s not on the table, Nichols. Stopping the release of this bacteria remains your top priority.”

  “Do I have permission to share this intel with my colleagues in Israeli Mossad? They’re far better positioned for a covert takedown within the Haram al-Sharif.”

  “Negative.” Another shake of the head. “The administration has made itself clear. Israeli involvement is undesirable at best. We’ll handle this unilaterally.”

  “Undesirable? We’re risking WWIII because involving them is undesirable?” Harry asked, incredulous.

  “You have your orders,” Lay replied sternly. “I can’t make clear enough how important it is that none, I repeat none of the toxin escapes into the atmosphere. Due to the covert nature of your mission, providing you with bio-suits is out of the question. I want to make the risks perfectly clear to you gentlemen.”

  “The risks were perfectly clear to me when I signed up, sir,” Hamid retorted, his voice calm and even. “Let’s do it.”

  “Dr. Schuyler’s team at Bethesda is testing current antibiotics against the bacteria, but the odds are slim. If you are exposed, you will likely die. So, don’t let them release it. Good luck, and God bless.”

  The screen went black, leaving the team members looking at each other in silence. Finally, Thomas cleared his throat.

  “T
hat,” he intoned dryly, “is what passes at Langley for work incentive.”

  2:35 A.M.

  Mossad Headquarters

  Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

  The knock on the door seemed to come only moments after his head had touched the pillow. General Shoham grabbed the alarm clock off the night stand in the sparsely appointed room and glanced at the time.

  “Come in!” was his gruff demand as he swung his legs out of bed. “What’s going on?”

  “You wanted to know the moment we found anything,” a woman’s voice replied and he turned to see an embarrassed female adjutant standing in the doorway. Shoham sighed, reaching for his pants and pulling them on over his boxers. “Yes, I did. What is it?”

  “Our systems just red-flagged a security fence report from near Ramallah earlier tonight. This man crossed from the West Bank, along with two others, shortly after twenty hundred hours.”

  A glance at the photograph was enough to confirm Shoham’s suspicions. Lt. Laner’s report had placed Nichols in Ramallah as well. “What identity was he using?”

  She placed a xeroxed copy of a driver’s license on the bed. “Hans de Vries, a Belgian journalist for National Geographic. He was accompanied by this man, Piter Muller, identified as his photographer. And this man, his translator, a Palestinian named Muhammad Rahman.”

  “Do we have anything on Rahman?”

  “His identification was out-of-date, but after placing a call to National Geographic to confirm de Vries’ identity, the guards waved them through.”

  Shoham cursed under his breath. The man in the third photograph looked familiar, strangely so. And Nichols’ last “translator” had ended up with a .45 slug in each lung. “Have Gabriel run this one through our facial-recognition software. See if we can come up with any matches.”