by Andrew Watts
Chase watched the screen. The troop transport pulled up and as men started climbing out and opening fire, the screen zoomed in again.
Chase saw a white flash on the display and thought that the first lieutenant had zoomed back out, but that wasn’t it.
One of the Air Force guys said, “Holy shit.”
As the screen became clear again, Chase realized what he had seen. Someone had just set off a bomb.
Chapter 12
Bandar Abbas, Iran
Several Hours Earlier
Lisa Parker lay hidden, nestled in the brush on top of a small ridgeline. From her position, she was able to observe Iran’s largest naval base, the harbor, and the Shahid Rajaie Highway that ran parallel to the shoreline. About a mile to the west, the occasional multiengine turboprop airliner took off from Havadarya Airport.
Her body ached from being in the prone position so long. She had been baking in the desert heat for almost forty-eight hours, and her stomach grumbled from lack of food. She had a small stash of rations, but now was not the time to eat.
The ghillie suit made it all but impossible for someone to spot her, but it didn’t give her good access to her pockets. If she had stood straight up, she would have looked like some type of dreadlocked swamp monster, covered in desert plants and roots.
Her dedicated mind fed off of the arduous conditions. She relished the pain and enjoyed the hunt. The long wait for that one critical moment where she would strike her target. Lisa was only bothered by one thing—the stench of the large black plastic bag that lay next to her, cooking in the sun. The smell had started off bad and become progressively worse over the duration of her stay on this mountain perch. Soon enough she could get rid of the bag’s contents and wash the horrid smell off her body in the salty waters of the Arabian Gulf. The Persian Gulf, she corrected herself. After all, she was in Iran.
Lisa looked through her rifle scope at the people who would soon die. A part of her felt bad about that, but she told herself that the innocent victims who perished today would serve a greater purpose. For this was the start of a tremendous war. A war that would catapult the entire globe into a new era of progress and prosperity. The great rebalancing, as Jinshan called it.
This part of the plan was not supposed to have happened for a few more months. But with the escape of the two Americans from the island in the Pacific, Jinshan had thought it wise to act soon. Moving up the timetable meant that they had to compromise in several areas. Her own participation was not ideal. A woman of her ethnic background would quite possibly attract undue attention. The original plan had been to contract this job out to local personnel—or perhaps employ Chinese special operations commandos.
Because the timeline had been moved up, however, Lisa became the best option. Jinshan had told her that he would make other arrangements to complete this mission. He’d said that it actually might not be such a good idea to send a woman into Iran to do this type of work. He informed her that one of her less-capable male counterparts would go instead.
She’d known Jinshan was manipulating her. This Iranian step—the staged war—was a crucial part of the macro-plan. There could be no mistakes made. It was sheer sexist stupidity to think that a man would be better suited to perform this task. Lisa was better than any man at this type of work. Jinshan knew that. And he knew that she knew it. In the end, she didn’t care if Jinshan was manipulating her. She had worked too long and hard to see someone of lesser ability fuck it up.
To compensate for the risk of being seen, Lisa had approached and would soon exit from the sea, and under the cloak of night. She’d had assistance from Chinese naval commandos, embarked on their Shang-class submarine, while she’d traversed the waters of the Arabian Gulf. Now on land, however, she was by herself.
Well, almost. There were a few hired gunmen that knew nothing of who was really pulling the strings. Still, strings could be traced—and Lisa was here to make sure that didn’t happen.
She checked her watch. It was thirty minutes past sunset. Almost time. She took another look through her binoculars. She was just able to make out the Iranian Kilo-class diesel submarine that was docked in the base’s small harbor. A brass band and several dozen ornately uniformed Iranian servicemen stood in formation next to it. In front of them, just beside the sub, was a small tent. The water in the cove had a rough chop. The winds were just a bit stronger than she would have liked.
Three sleek black cars with tinted windows pulled up to the tent. Each of the cars had two Iranian flags flapping from its hood. The ceremony was wrapping up. Iran’s newest submarine was a source of national pride in a country that was often challenged by the mightiest militaries in the world. This was a good opportunity for national leaders to be seen. Hence, Ahmad Gorji and his beloved wife had attended the ceremony. Killing a prominent Iranian politician would make national news. Killing his wife, a relative of the Iranian Supreme Leader, would start a war.
Lisa looked at the tiny phone that lay in the dirt next to her. She had two spare batteries and a solar charger in case she ran out of power. She typed a text message in Farsi: LEAVING NOW. She squirmed in her position, trying to loosen up her muscles.
The real test would be after she fired her weapon and began her departure. By her estimate, she would have about twelve minutes to make it to the beach. There would be a lot of running. She had been through worse before, but that didn’t make this any easier. She kept calculating the times and distances in her mind, going over the details of each step and evaluating options. She wondered what would go wrong. Something always did.
Adrenaline began pumping through her veins as the time for action drew near. Lisa reached for the large, narrow bag that lay next to her. Inside was an Israeli-made Galatz SR-99 sniper rifle. It was over forty-three inches long and weighed a moderate thirteen pounds. There was one 7.62mm round already in the chamber and a box of extra ammunition in the pack. Lisa unfastened the cover of the very large scope mounted on top of the rifle and looked through it, making sure that her earlier adjustments were still appropriate. She typed in a few buttons on her phone and got wind estimates. She then made a few adjustments on the scope to ensure her shots would be accurate.
It had been a long time since she had been to sniper school. Her instructors there had immediately noticed her natural talent. She was able to relax her body and control her breathing better than ninety-nine percent of the other sniper school students. Her body was limber and her eyes sharp. She also had an innate predictive ability. When faced with a human target, she seemed to know exactly how they would move and could adjust her aim appropriately. And more important than all of those qualities, she was patient.
She was an expert shot at the farthest of distances. At this range of only four hundred meters from her intended target, Lisa was lethal. She repositioned the stand that propped up the barrel and gave her stability, then looked through the scope towards the highway. The dusty black cars with flags streaming from their front had about a mile to drive before they reached the contact zone.
A large cargo truck was pulled over along the side of the road in between the base entrance and the airport entrance. Right where it should be. The driver was looking at the engine under the shade of its raised hood. Lisa observed him slam down the hood and get back into the rig. If all went according to plan, he would remove the truck to block the highway just as the black cars arrived.
The men hiding inside the back of that truck had all been chosen because they had two things in common: One, they knew how to fire a weapon. Two, they each had a loved one who had been killed by the Iranian regime. Before yesterday, many of them had never met. It didn’t matter. They didn’t have to perform well as a team. They didn’t even need to win the firefight that would soon erupt. This was revenge, they were told. Revenge for what had been done to their wives, their brothers, and in some cases, their children.
When the black cars stopped, the would-be assassins were supposed to get out and fire their Israeli-made
submachine guns into them until they ran out of ammunition. Several of the men carried armor-piercing rounds. They were told to fire at the drivers first, and then proceed to walk their fire through the rest of the targets. They were all to stand on the north side of the highway so they would not chance firing at each other.
In one of the cars, the men were told, was a prominent Iranian politician. The men in the truck knew what the future held after they pulled the trigger. Most of them probably suspected that they would not live through the night. But to them, a chance to take aim at the Iranian regime, to fire on the symbol of everything that they hated in their nation’s corrupt government—and a chance for revenge—was well worth it.
The black cars turned out of the base security gate and headed west on the highway, moving fast. Their tinted windows made it impossible for the men to see the faces of those that they would be firing upon. They would likely never know that the politician’s wife was also in one of the cars.
Lisa sucked water from a straw connected to a Camelbak pouch while looking through the scope. She moved her hands into firing position on the weapon. She took one glance into her pack, rechecking the location of the extra rounds. She could easily grab them if she needed to reload. But if all went as planned, she shouldn’t need more than the six rounds that were already loaded in the magazine.
The cars were about one minute away from the target zone when Lisa sent another text: START MOVING.
Through the scope, Lisa observed the truck shake to life and begin to roll forward from the road shoulder and onto the highway. The cab swerved to the left and blocked the entire road with its large frame. One hundred yards away, the black cars began to rapidly slow down. The caravan of vehicles crept up to a point about fifty feet behind the truck and came to a halt.
The first car’s doors flung open and two men in Iranian Republican National Guard uniforms hustled out, one holding an AK-47. The other man was waving his arms, clearly agitated.
Sweat dripped from her forehead and stung her eye. She wiped it away and looked back through the scope. Any second now the truck’s back door should open. The men should jump out and open fire on the cars.
But it wasn’t happening.
Lisa watched as one of the military men walked all the way up to the driver’s side of the truck, looking like he was trying to get the attention of the driver.
What was going on? Why hadn’t they begun their attack?
The rear door to the truck remained closed. The three cars were at idle, waiting behind the truck, which was sprawled across the highway. Lisa’s hand muscles were getting tense, her finger digging into the metal ring that formed the trigger guard.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement at the base entrance. She looked up in time to see a military troop transport, loaded with men, leave the front gate of the naval base and turn onto the highway, taking the same route as the cars. A whistle. It was very faint, but she could make it out in the background. Someone at the entrance to the base was blowing a whistle over and over, alerting members of their security team.
Then it began.
From her distance, the gunfire sounded like the far-off snapping of firecrackers. A few pops rang out, spaced a second or two apart. Then more cracks spaced closer together as the firing became more rapid. Looking through the scope, Lisa saw bright red blood splatter on the front windscreen of the truck as the guard with the AK-47 gunned down the driver.
The back doors of the truck finally slammed open and several of the men ran out. They fired wildly in front of them. The first one off the truck was accidentally shot in the back by someone from his own group. He dropped to the pavement, blood spewing onto the dusty black surface. The other men fired into the cars, walking their rounds throughout the first car, just like they’d been told.
The rear car’s doors popped open and two Iranian security men stumbled out, taking cover behind their doors and firing their weapons at the men coming out of the truck. Sprays of bullets from AK-47s and Israeli submachine guns tore through metal, glass, and flesh.
The second car’s driver put it in reverse and slammed on the gas. It went crashing into the rear car, which was parked behind it. Two of the men hiding behind the rear car’s doors were knocked to the ground, dropping their weapons as they fell.
Lisa placed her crosshairs over the driver’s-side window of the second car. She moved her sweaty finger over the metal trigger, relaxed her breathing, and pulled. The recoil reverberated through her, the stock of the weapon slamming back into her shoulder, but she had been ready for it. She had braced herself and immediately reloaded without taking her eyes away from the scene. The front windshield of the middle car exploded into a spiderweb of white and pink lines. The car’s wheels stopped turning.
The primary targets were in the second car. Now that it was immobilized, the men in the truck would have a better chance of succeeding. She looked at the troop transport that had driven out of Bandar Abbas Naval Base and was now screaming down the highway toward the firefight. The assassins needed to hurry, or they would be outnumbered.
Lisa heard a near-constant stream of gunfire from her mountain perch. She watched as the three remaining assassins hobbled out of the rear of the cargo truck. These were the cautious ones. They had waited and watched. Now they approached the second car and fired into the shattered windshield.
The military transport skidded to a halt behind the rear car. A dozen uniformed men funneled out and began cutting down the remaining assassins. There were too many for Lisa to shoot with a sniper rifle.
She waited until all but one of her attackers was down. This lone survivor was crouched behind the first car. He had been hit in the leg by the look of it. She moved her scope view back over to the second car. It was riddled with bullet holes. There was a good chance that all of its occupants were dead. Still, the truck full of soldiers that had just arrived would try to take any survivors to get immediate medical attention.
That would not do.
Lisa reached for her phone and scrolled down to a contact marked XEXECUTE-FIREX. She typed in the five-digit code and sent it as a text message to that contact. She watched through her scope.
The US-manufactured directional fragmentation mines exploded in rapid succession, like a series of sideways-pointing cluster bombs going off one after another.
The carnage was instant. At that close range, the dozen or so men that remained standing were decimated. Lisa had never seen so many die so quickly. It was exhilarating.
The pressure-blast from the explosion had shattered all of the windows of the vehicles. Fragments of molten-hot metal shot through and ripped apart the limbs of everyone in the kill zone. The interior of the second car was now visible, and that was all Lisa needed.
She moved the crosshairs of her rifle over to the backseat of the second car and found her target: the wife. While she looked dead, Lisa needed to be sure. She pulled the trigger, reloaded, and fired again.
She then jumped up from her prone position and lifted up the Zero MMX electric dirt bike. Designed for use by American Special Forces, the bike gave her fifty-eight horsepower of near-silent propulsion, and enough stability to race down the mountainous desert terrain. She made sure that the body bag was attached to the rear and wouldn’t drag on the ground, then flipped the on switch, twisted the handle, and accelerated downward, toward the bloody street below.
She rode standing, careful to keep her balance as the bike raced and bounced over sand and stone. She hoped that she had tied the body bag on tight enough the night before so that the corpse wouldn’t fall off.
Fifteen seconds later, Lisa sped up to the second car and looked inside, confirming that all of the passengers were indeed dead. Satisfied, she looked down the darkening road, towards the gate. A second Iranian troop transport van, followed by a police vehicle with flashing lights, was now racing her way. She retrieved the H&K MP-5 from the side holster mounted to the bike and flipped the safety switch to the symbol with thr
ee red bullets. She took careful aim at the front windshield of the incoming vehicle.
It was a far shot for such a weapon. It was unlikely that she would be able to hit anyone from this distance. But her goal wasn’t to kill, it was to ensure that they followed her. It was getting darker out. They would see the muzzle flash. With any luck, a round or two would hit the truck. She didn’t want to get to the water without being noticed.
Lisa pulled the trigger. On full auto mode, the MP-5 emptied thirty rounds in the direction of the truck in three bursts. The weapon rattled, but had little recoil. Lisa could just make out the windshield cracking as one of her rounds hit its target. She dropped the weapon onto the sweltering pavement and rolled the accelerator of the bike. She sped down a sandy road, heading to the beach.
Almost there. Multiple sirens in the distance.
She glanced back. The truck turned off the main highway and onto the dirt road to follow her, but Lisa had already built up a sizeable lead. She was several hundred yards ahead when she skidded the dirt bike to a stop, careful not to fall off with the weight of the dead American body behind her. She pulled the pin on the incendiary device that was attached to the underside of her seat and hopped off, letting the bike fall on its side. She unzipped her ghillie suit and let it drop to the ground, her metamorphosis almost complete.
The bike began smoldering. Then thick black smoke erupted from intense blue flames as the incendiary charge went off. As the security truck raced up to the scene, the dead body became engulfed in flame, artificially intensified by chemical accelerants. The fire was supposed to confuse the Iranians into thinking that he had died trying to escape, and not several days ago as he actually had. Whether it worked or not wasn’t important. It was enough to implicate the United States.
The dead man was named Tom Connolly. Once a CIA agent, then a private contractor, and then a traitor to his country. He had been working for Jinshan for a little over a year now. This was his final assignment. He would receive no payment.