Drone Strike: A Dreamland Thriller (Dale Brown's Dreamland)

by Dale Brown

  “Get the captain some lunch,” said the general.

  “Sir, for you?” asked one of the sergeants.

  “I am not hungry.”

  The general placed his hands on his thighs and leaned forward. Energy flooded into his face, and determination.

  “Tell me, in your own words, everything that happened,” said the general. “Hold nothing back. Begin with the alert.”

  “I was with my plane . . .” started Vahid.

  He spent the next thirty minutes relaying every detail he could, ignoring the food that arrived. The general listened without interrupting; when Vahid paused too long, he gestured with his index finger that he should go on. Finally, Vahid was back on the ground, taxiing to the hangar area. He recounted the debriefings quickly, adding that he had not had a good look at the damage to the plane himself.

  “Do you have the identification of the ground unit that fired at you and struck your plane?” asked the general.

  “No, sir. I—I’m not even sure if it was a ground unit.”

  “What else would it be?”

  “I wondered if an airplane had been far above and fired down from a great distance, random shots, or a missile that went undetected—”

  Vahid stopped. The theory was too ridiculous to be credible. The way he remembered the incident, he had been struck from above. But it was impossible. His mind surely had been playing games.

  “We’ve looked at the damage,” said the general. “Multiple shots from larger caliber antiaircraft weapons. There is a Sa’ir battery south of Natanz. The weapon was fired; undoubtedly that was your assassin. Fortunately,” he added dryly, “the battery is a Sepa¯h unit.”

  Sepa¯h was the shortened term for the Sepa¯h-e Pa¯sda¯ra¯n-e Enqela¯b-e Esla¯mi, the Revolutionary Guard. The general’s implied slur would have been daring in a lesser man; Shirazi was obviously sure of his position—or planning to have the pilot executed shortly.

  Vahid was not sure which.

  “You will leave us, and close the doors,” the general told the servers. They quickly ducked back into the kitchen. He glanced at the guards and his aides; they stepped out, too.

  “There was an accident at their facility,” the general told Vahid. “It is clear from the seismic data. But they are trying to cover it up. That is impossible. Scientists are already explaining about their information. There are some near the president—”

  The general stopped abruptly, considering his next words very carefully.

  “Some members of the project are claiming that the Americans blew up the facility,” said the general. “They have no evidence for this, of course. On the contrary, we know that was impossible—there were no bombers in the air, or missiles. They would have been on our radar. And you would have seen them.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “The reports of B-2s—you saw none.”

  “None. Yes.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “Yes.” Vahid nodded. And then he thought: This is odd. It’s the truth, and yet saying it feels like a lie.

  “Clearly, it was an accident,” continued the general, “but those jackals will do anything to keep themselves alive. They take no responsibility. Nothing. None.”

  The general’s face reddened, blood flowing with his anger. It happened in a flash, as if he were a computer image changed by the flick of a button. Vahid lowered his gaze to the table. He was helpless, really, trapped by powers that regarded him as little more than an ant.

  With the grace of the one true God, thought Vahid, they will shoot me and I will die quickly.

  “I am going to make use of this incident, son, as others will. I tell you this because I want you to have confidence—others will pressure you to change your story. But you will stick to the truth. Because if you do stick to the truth, you will have a powerful protector. Do you understand?”

  “I think I do.”

  “Just stick to the truth. To what you saw.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “Once an announcement is made, then that will be the government’s position,” continued the general, his tone now heavy with sarcasm. “There will be questions for you. Simply trust that I will watch out for you. And that your career will proceed accordingly.”

  Vahid faced a truly Faustian bargain. If he did what the general said, he could well be targeted by the backers of the nuclear program, including the Guards. Shirazi, so confident in an air force base, might not be nearly as powerful out in the wide world. Hitching his career, and more likely his life, to the general could prove disastrous.

  On the other hand, what was the alternative? Going against Shirazi was simply impossible.

  I just want to fly, thought Vahid. I don’t want to be in the middle of this at all.

  “Are you OK, son?” asked the general.

  “Yes, General.”

  “We’re agreed?”

  “Of course. I can only tell the truth.”

  Shirazi leaned back from the table. “You’re feeling well, now that you’ve eaten?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So, why are you not back in the air, then?” asked the general.

  “I . . . was waiting to speak to you, sir.”

  “Good, very good.”

  The general started to rise. Vahid shot to his feet. “Sir—the plane?”

  “Which plane?” asked the general.

  “The light plane that I encountered.”

  “Ah. A spy for the Israelis—delicious—a member of Sepa¯h. The plane was stolen from Isafahan. It flew south, then to the Esfahan region, southeast of the Natanz complexes. A body has been recovered. You don’t think he was trying to bomb the plant, do you, Captain?”

  It would make a great propaganda story, thought Vahid, and he would be the hero, as he had shot down the aircraft. But anyone with any knowledge of aircraft and their capabilities would scoff and point to a thousand inconsistencies.

  “No,” said Vahid.

  “Good. Because there were no bombs or evidence of any aboard. There may have been a passenger. We’re searching. As are the Pasdaran.” The general gave him a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “Get back in the air, son. The sooner you fly, the better you will feel.”

  16

  Iran

  THE BUS’S BODY WAS BATTERED, BUT ITS DRIVE TRAIN was in top condition; Turk had trouble keeping up as they drove back to the site where the rest of the team was holed up. The troopers accepted the appearance of the bus without comment, as if they’d been expecting one all along. Turk told Granderson all that had happened as they carried Green into the back of bus. It started in disconnected bits, punctuated by gasps of air. Even to Turk it sounded unreal.

  “Was it just a cock-up?” asked Granderson. “Or were they looking for us?”

  “It might have been—I don’t know.”

  “Doesn’t matter now.”

  They got the wounded inside the bus, then took off, Granderson in the lead at the wheel of the school bus, followed by the Israeli alone in the pickup, and Gorud, Grease, and Turk together in the car. They let the bus get a little ahead, figuring it would be what the Iranian authorities would be looking for; the others would close the gap if there were trouble.

  Gorud had plotted a route east of the city over mining and desert roads that would keep them away from most towns. But the roads were nearly as treacherous as driving through the town would have been. Soon after they started, they hit a long stretch of hard-packed pavement completely covered with sand. Even though the bus and truck passed over it without a problem, Gorud lost traction for about twenty yards until the front wheels found the hard surface again.

  “Maybe one of us should drive,” suggested Turk, noticing that Gorud’s injured arm had given him problems.

  “Yeah,” said Grease.

  “Let me,” added Tu
rk. “You can watch with the gun.”

  “I’m OK to drive,” protested the CIA officer.

  “It’s better this way,” said Turk, tapping him on the shoulder. “Come on.”

  They changed places. Turk, too, had trouble with the loose sand. Once on the highway, the car steadied and he settled down a bit. He didn’t relax—his heart still pounded like a racehorse nearing the finish line. But his view expanded, the cloud of fear lifting slightly. It was as if the horizon had pushed back—he could see farther out and plan before reacting.

  Then, almost imperceptibly, either seeking relief from the present or simply lulled into a relaxed moment, his mind began to wander. He thought of Li and their last moments in the hotel room. He ached to see her. He felt her weight against his shoulder. He wanted to brush his fingers across her breasts.

  Grease’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “You getting tired of driving?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Careful where you are on the road.”

  Turk steered back to the lane gently, trying to stay in control. He glanced over his shoulder; Gorud was dozing in the back. He was tempted to ask Grease if he thought they’d get out of this, but the question seemed too defeatist, as if it implied he’d already decided they wouldn’t.

  “They’re looking for a place to change the bus,” Grease said after talking to the others by radio. “I don’t know if we’re going to reach your target area by tonight.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking that myself.”

  “You have to talk to them, don’t you? You haven’t checked in.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Keep driving. They’ll wait.”

  Turk hunched forward, leaning toward the wheel as if that would help him focus. He needed to use his pilot’s head—he needed to be clear and precise, not dreamy, not distracted. Being on the ground unhinged his concentration.

  No more thinking of Li. No more thinking, period. Except for the job.

  “Road,” said Grease.

  This time Turk jerked back. His fingers gripped the wheel so tightly they started to cramp.

  “I’m thinking maybe we just abort,” said Grease, his voice almost a whisper. “Go straight north while we still can.”

  Shocked, Turk jerked his head. “No fuckin’ way.”

  Grease stared at him for half a moment, face blank. Then, though the rest of his face hinted at sadness, the ends of his lips peaked upward ever so slightly. “You’ve been hanging around with us too long.”

  THE FIRST PLANE PASSED NEARBY ABOUT AN HOUR LATER.

  They were south of Sar-e-Kavir, a small town in the shadow of the desert hill where Highway 81 connected with the east-west highway they needed to take. Turk couldn’t see the aircraft, but from the sound he knew it was propeller-driven, something small, very likely similar to the aircraft they had crashed the night before. It didn’t linger, but that was small consolation; for safety’s sake they had to conclude they had been spotted.

  Not that they had many options.

  Granderson turned up a mountain path about two miles from the town. The steep and rocky path turned out to be a driveway to a pair of small farms dug into the rock outcroppings. Both had been abandoned some years before, though when they first drove up they didn’t know that, and they spent ten minutes checking and clearing the dilapidated far buildings on the larger of the two properties. Sure they were secure, they took the bus into the barn, where there was just barely enough room amid the clutter of old crates and a dilapidated trailer to hide it.

  They parked the pickup under a lean-to roof shed at the side; the rear poked out a little, but it would be hard to see even directly overhead. Turk drove the car fifty yards down the hill to what had once been a grove of pomegranate trees but was now mostly a collection of dried stumps. Here and there green shoots and a leaf struggled from the twisted gray trunks, nature refusing to give up even though the underground spring that once supplied the crisscross of irrigation ditches had dried to bone.

  He got out of the car and walked a short distance away before using the satellite radio to check in.

  Breanna Stockard herself answered. “Turk, are you OK? Where have you been? Why haven’t you checked in?”

  “We had a setback in Jandagh,” he told her. “The police—there was an incident in town. A lot of our guys are hurt. We escaped with a bus.”

  “The mission tonight, can you—”

  “We won’t make it in time.”

  Breanna went silent.

  “I’ll be in place tomorrow,” said Turk. “Tonight’s going to be too tough. We’re still pretty far away. And we’re pretty banged up.”

  “All right. All right. Listen, I know where you are. We have intercepts from the Iranian police and the interior ministry about a stolen bus in one of the towns where you spent time. Is that you?”

  “Must be.”

  “All right. Stand by.”

  Turk heard another aircraft in the distance. This was another propeller plane, but larger; two engines, he thought.

  “The report concerning the bus stolen in Jandagh talks about terrorists,” said Breanna. “They’re looking for Russians.”

  “That fits with our cover. Do they mention the other vehicles?”

  “Negative. The descriptions are vague: three Russian males. Some of these communiqués claim it’s a robbery.” Breanna paused, obviously skimming through screens of data. “They haven’t made a connection with the attack.”

  “OK.”

  “Turk, what kind of condition are you in?”

  “I’m fine. Not a scratch.”

  “Your team?”

  “Very shot up,” he said. “Only Grease, me, and Granderson are really at full strength. We have two guys—no, three now—who are just immobile. Coming in and out of consciousness. Everybody else is hurt to some degree, though they can still fight.”

  “Have you considered aborting?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve already completed the mission you were sent on.”

  “We . . .” Part of him wanted to say yes, they were through; it was time to go home, time to bail.

  But the larger part wanted desperately to complete the mission—the next phase. Because the object was to stop the Iranian weapons program. If there was another site, they had to hit it.

  So much of a sacrifice, though. For all of them. Was it worth it? Couldn’t they just send in bombers and be done with it?

  There was no guarantee they’d make it out alive in that case either. Better to go ahead. Better to do his duty.

  At such a cost.

  “I can do this, Bree,” Turk insisted. “We just have to get to the other side of the desert. And if they don’t really know what we’re up to—”

  “I can’t guarantee that they won’t,” Breanna told him. “The reaction force can’t reach you that far deep in Iran.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve done harder things.”

  In the air, perhaps, but not on the ground. Definitely not on the ground. But Breanna didn’t call him on it.

  “I want you to contact me at the top of the next hour,” she told him. “Do you understand?”

  “I will if I can. Sometimes—”

  “No. You are to check in every hour. I need to know you’re still alive.”

  “I will call you if I can,” he said, hitting the end call button before she could respond.

  17

  CIA campus, Virginia

  BREANNA TURNED TO REID AS SOON AS THE TRANSMISSION from Turk ended. “They’ve taken heavy casualties. I think we should pull them out.”

  “It’s not our decision, Breanna.”

  “They’re all shot up.”

  “He’s not.”

  “Let the bombers go in. If they stay, it’s suicide.”

  “It alre
ady is suicide.” Reid picked up the phone and told the computerized operator to get him the President.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER BREANNA AND REID WERE ON Lee Highway, speeding toward the White House. As a security precaution, the driver had always to follow a different route; at four in the morning traffic was not a particular concern, and for once they were going on a relatively direct route.

  Reid stared out the darkened window at the cars passing in the distance. The lights in the parking lots of the buildings and on the signs and streets melted together in a blur.

  He would tell the President that they should continue. It would inevitably mean the death of his officer, Gorud, of the Whiplash pilot, and whoever remained from the rest of the team. The Israeli operative, a deep, valuable plant with an impeccable cover. And a family.

  But Reid knew absolutely that this was the right thing to do. The nano-UAVs had done a perfect job on the first strike; they would succeed here as well. The result would be far more desirable than a missile strike. No matter what the Iranians did, the scientists who rebuilt the program would never be sure whether there had been an attack or a critical flaw.

  Delaying the strike twenty-four hours would increase the odds of success. Even if the analysts didn’t identify which of the two sites was the one with the bomb—or if they decided both had enough material to be a threat—the delay would give Rubeo and his people more time to work on the programming for the mission.

  The scientist had demurred when asked for a prediction about the outcome of a split attack. The first strike had been heavily modeled. This one was still being calculated.

  “Lovely night,” said Breanna. It was first time she’d spoken since they got in the car.

  “It is.” Reid forced a smile. He had grown to like the younger woman, though he felt at times she was too easily influenced by her Pentagon superiors. “Though it’s almost morning now.”

  “Technically, it is morning.”

  “How’s the senator?”

  “Still stubborn as ever,” said Breanna. “And still swooning over the Nationals. Their losing streak has him in the dumps.”

  “I hear there’s talk he might run for President.”