by Dale Brown
“These are the best of this group, Sergeant?” the foreman asked when the men were assembled before him. Loshato had to agree that they were a grungy-looking crew—filthy louse-ridden clothes, decrepit shoes, and most with some kind of injury and many with missing ears and bandaged limbs.
“They were all able to get here under their own steam,” Sergeant Loshato said, “and they all appear to be free of felony convictions as far as we can tell after a cursory check. What you see is what you get.”
“And who takes the blame for shoddy work, stolen equipment and tools, or inoperable systems? I do, that’s who! How am I expected to work under conditions like this?”
“You’re under contract to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps to complete rebuilding the base on time and on budget,” Loshato reminded him sternly. “It’s not our fault that you didn’t hire enough skilled laborers for the job. The IRGC is reimbursing the government for the cost of issuing a jihad to help your company—if it’s not done on time and on budget, you might find yourself liable for that cost as well as any penalties in the contract and whatever else the commander-in-chief wants to hit you with. So stop complaining and get busy.”
The foreman muttered a curse word after the NCO departed, then turned to the men assembled before him, suppressing a disgusted sneer. “All right you men, listen up,” he said, speaking slowly and deliberately in case they had trouble understanding him. “Our task is simplicity itself. We are fishing fiber-optic, telephone, audio-visual, electrical, and Category-5 network cable through the new walls. This is not brain surgery, but you must pay attention and do as ordered or else we’ll waste valuable time and even more valuable equipment. The fiber-optic cable is especially delicate—it cannot be bent like ordinary cable, and it has to be placed just so in its conduit. Do you understand?” There was a murmur of assent from the men—it was impossible to tell if they understood a word he had said. “Very well. If you remember nothing else, remember this: do not touch anything unless I tell you, and if you’re unsure of any of our instructions, stop what you’re doing and ask. Let’s get to work.”
It was going to be slow going. After the security guards performed another search of the men and their belongings and issued them ID badges, the men shuffled toward the new headquarters building as if in a fog. The foreman knew he was going to be in big trouble if he didn’t find some way to get these guys organized. He spotted an older man who seemed to be the erstwhile leader of this group. “You. Over here.” The old man came over to him. He had several cuts and bruises on his face, head, and neck as if he had been beat up—probably on the street or in jail. “What is your name?”
“Orum, sir,” the old man said. He straightened painfully, then added, “Orum, Abdul, Volunteer Group Leader, reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Volunt…?” And then the foreman realized who he was: a former Basij volunteer from the Iran-Iraq War in the early 1980s, one of the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children used as “human shields” to waste Iraqi ammunition before sending in the main fighting forces. “You were a Basij…?”
“I was a group leader of the Muhammad Corps, sir, and proud of it,” the man named Orum said, a hint of steel rising in his voice. “I had the best volunteer group in the entire Fish Lake front.”
“Muhamm…you were in the battle of Fish Lake?” The campaign known as Operation Karbala-5, the operation to try to take the Iraqi port city of Basrah which began in January of 1987, was one of the bloodiest in the Iran-Iraq War—over sixty-five thousand Iranians, mostly Basij volunteers, were slaughtered in six weeks of intense fighting and artillery and rocket battles. The worst battle of Karbala-5 was known as Fish Lake, referring to the artificial river over thirty kilometers long and two kilometers wide which the Iraqis had constructed to keep Iranian forces from sweeping into Baghdad. The Iranians outnumbered the Iraqis ten to one. Most of the Iranian fighters were conscripts and Basij volunteers like this old man—ordinary citizens who had received little or no military training. Fish Lake was protected by mine fields, barbed wire, trenches, and interlocking fields of machine gun and artillery fire—some even thought that Saddam had electrified the water itself.
When artillery barrages failed to break down the defenses around Fish Lake, the Pasdaran decided to send in the Basij. Over a quarter-million men, women, and children were marched forward against Fish Lake’s defenses with little more than a rifle and one clip of ammunition, and the Iraqis ruthlessly cut them down. The casualties were so staggeringly high that it was believed that the sheer mass of corpses in Fish Lake would allow the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to simply walk across without getting their feet wet.
The Battle of Fish Lake was still re-enacted every year in Iran and the participants celebrated as heroes, but the foreman could never understand what could drive a man to march against machine guns, artillery, and barbed-wire fences like that. “Yes, sir, and I fought proudly and may I say, sir, like a lion,” the old man said. “I firmly believe that the apostate Saddam was assisted by the Americans and the Zionists to destroy the Islamic republic, and it was completely necessary to send in the citizens of Iran en masse to win a great victory.” In fact, Operation Karbala-5 was a tremendous failure—Iran withdrew from Iraq and sued for peace just a few months later. “So you may place your complete trust in me and call upon me any time for any purpose whatsoever, sir.”
“I see that some of the men follow you,” the foreman said. “Are you their leader?”
“I suppose I am, sir,” the old man said, “since I appear to be the senior officer of this particular group of proud and able veterans, but I assure you, sir, that I had no intention of taking command or control of these men from yourself, sir.”
“Of course not—I assumed you all might be veterans or served together, and it is quite natural for old ties to hold,” the foreman said. He winced at the word “able” to describe them—none of them looked capable of carrying anything heavier than a hammer. “You can be a great help to me by organizing your men into three groups for the three sections of wall where we must install the cables, then further dividing them into threes for each segment of the wall. Do you understand?”
The old man looked as if the foreman had just told him that he was about to meet his seventy virgins promised to him in Heaven. “Why, I…I am honored, sir!” the old man squealed. “I will do as you wish immediately, sir! To whom should the details report when they are formed, sir?” The foreman pointed out the team chiefs, who were supervising as large spools of cable were being unloaded and brought to the site, and the old man hobbled off on battered thin legs, croaking orders in a battle- and cigarette-scarred voice. The others, some in even worse shape than he, at first did not appear to believe that the old man was their new supervisor, but after pointing and gesturing at the foreman and snapping orders, he quickly made the others get in a ragged line and started splitting them up.
To the foreman’s surprise, the three little details of old and battered-looking men were in a rough but presentable formation in short order, and the old man had them marching off to report to their team leaders. They then began hauling the big spools of wiring and cables into the headquarters building. Not bad, the foreman thought. They looked like they might work out well after all. He might even consider hiring the old guy for…
“Excuse me, sir.” The foreman jumped. The old man was beside him, standing almost at attention on unsteady legs.
“What is it?” the foreman asked impatiently. God, he thought, the old man moved like a cat despite his rickety appearance.
“There appears to be a problem with the detail’s security clearance. The guards are not allowing the men to enter the security center of the building without your authorization.”
“They have all been properly cleared,” the foreman groused. “Are you all wearing your new badges? I’ll straighten this out.” The foreman strode into the temporary doorway to the headquarters building. Even though the security center was the most sec
retive room being rebuilt, sometimes the guards got a little too…
…and then the foreman realized that the old man was right beside him, matching his gait step for step. At first he didn’t think anything of it…until he wondered how the old man knew that they were working on the new security center? The guards would not have told him which room they were working in—they just would have prohibited them from going inside. And why was the old man walking right behind him like…?
Suddenly the foreman was pushed inside the room, and his site radio was taken away from him. “What is going on h—?” He was pushed against several men sitting on the floor, gagged, their hands and feet secured—and only then did he realize that they were the building’s Pasdaran security guards. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
“Beefing up your construction jihad,” the old man, Orum, said. His entire demeanor had completely changed—he didn’t appear to be disabled or confused at all, and neither did any of the jihadis in the room. “Believe me, the repairs to the outer wall will go a lot faster now.”
“Who are you?” the foreman asked. Orum ignored the question, but the foreman soon realized who it was: he was all the Pasdaran soldiers could talk about. “General Buzhazi? Here? What in hell do you think you’re doing? This is a Pasdaran assignment! You’ll be beheaded for interfering with…!”
“I suggest you make that the last comment about my future you say aloud if you like to keep your tongue attached to your throat, friend,” General Hesarak al-Kan Buzhazi said. “I need you to round up as many trucks as possible and have them driven over to the Pasdaran supply warehouses near the flight line. My men will be waiting to load them up.”
“I can’t cooperate with you—I’ll be executed the minute they find out…”
“Cooperate with me and at least you’ll have a chance to live,” Buzhazi said. “If you help us, I promise you won’t be harmed by my men or myself. Otherwise I’ll kill you and find another way to get supplies without starting a firefight.”
“I’m just a simple worker doing my job. I have no argument with you…”
“Your owners picked the wrong time to contract out to the Pasdaran, friend—like it or not, you have an argument with me,” Buzhazi said. “At least now you have a chance to do something for the right side for a change. What do you say?” The foreman had no choice but to comply, and he got on the phone and ordered trucks moved to the warehouses. “Next, I want you to cut power, natural gas, and communications to the entire base when I give you the word. You can tell the Pasdaran battalion duty officers that workers accidentally cut the lines and everything will be restored right away, and no you don’t need any assistance.”
“Their backup generators will automatically kick on…”
“Most of the backup generators run on natural gas, so if you cut off the gas the generators won’t stay on,” Buzhazi said. “For the generators that run on their own diesel supplies, it’ll take several minutes for their surveillance equipment to reboot, and by then we’ll be set up and waiting for their response.
“Finally, you will move every piece of heavy equipment you have to locations General Zhoram will direct—most on the perimeter, but a few in some key intersections and battalion entrances. Once they’re in place, have the drivers cut the battery cables to disable them. After that’s done, you and your men can get out.”
Brigadier-General Kamal Zhoram, the former Pasdaran rocket brigade commander who escaped from prison at the same time as Buzhazi, gave the foreman back his portable radio and directed him on exactly what to say and where to move his heavy equipment, then found Buzhazi watching the deployment of his men on the perimeter wall. The contractors were nowhere to be seen; some of his men were now dressed like the contractors, ordering Buzhazi’s soldiers into key defensive positions on the wall but making them appear as if they were still working. “Fifteen minutes and we should be ready to cut power, sir,” Zhoram reported. “The trucks are in position and ready to assault the warehouses.”
“Very well, Kamal. Get them moving, and make sure they work fast.”
“Yes, sir.” Zhoram issued the orders, and almost five hundred men began opening up Pasdaran supply warehouses and loading up stolen vehicles with ammunition, food, and other supplies. “No opposition yet,” Zhoram said a few minutes later, “but this was a very risky move, sir, assaulting the headquarters of the Pasdaran in broad daylight.”
“I suppose so.”
“You have spoken many times of the fact that every insurgency has their moment of greatest desperation,” Zhoram said. “Is this yours, General?”
Buzhazi took a deep breath, then replied, “I think it was the moment I learned Mansour and every man in his detail was dead at Arān. I knew then that we couldn’t run, and that the fight would take us back to this place.” He looked at the former Rocket Brigade commander. “But I’m not here to have my final pitched battle to the death with the Pasdaran—I’m here to gather supplies so we can fight another day. If this turns out to be our Tet Offensive or our Al-Fallujah, then so be it. Maybe today will be the beginning of the end of the Pasdaran…”
“Even if it’s the end of us?”
“Even so,” Buzhazi said.
Zhoram swallowed hard, then raised his radio when he felt it vibrate, silently alerting him of a call. He listened for a moment, then reported, “Problem, sir. A Pasdaran officer was behind one of the earthmoving vehicles when it stopped in an intersection. When the officer approached, the driver ran off. The Pasdaran brigade headquarters has probably been alerted.”
“Have the power and natural gas cut immediately, redeploy the warehouse teams as planned, and order all units to prepare to repel attackers,” Buzhazi ordered. “Looks like we’ve run out of time already.”
Buzhazi and several of his men hurried through the security center, heading down two flights of stairs to the stockade. His men had already captured the guards and staff and were surrounding the security center’s most important prisoner, former chief of staff General Hoseyn Yassini. The general was standing, dressed in a simple white and black prisoner’s shirt, trousers, and sandals. Amazingly, the lights were already off, and the corridors lit only with battery emergency lamps. “Well, well, sir, looks like your new office is not quite as luxurious as your old one,” he said.
“Hesarak! I should have known this was your doing!” Yassini remarked when he saw Buzhazi before him. Buzhazi motioned to the guard, who opened the cell door. “What in hell is going on here?”
“Shut up and listen for a moment, will you, Hoseyn?” Buzhazi said. “Any minute now the entire Revolutionary Guards Corps will be swarming in on us. We’re taking as many supplies as we can and getting out, but I came here to release you so…”
“Release me? On whose orders?”
“That’s a funny way to say ‘thank-you,’ Hoseyn,” Buzhazi snorted. He tossed Yassini a radio. “I want only one thing from you in return, General: order the army to deploy into the cities and confront the Pasdaran.”
“You mean, start a war between Iranian armies in the capital?” Yassini asked incredulously. “Why in the hell would I even consider that? The Revolutionary Guards Corps are committed to the defense of the nation just as the regular army. Why would I order the army to do battle with the Pasdaran? We are all Iranians…”
“Damn your eyes, Hoseyn, I’m telling you, the clerics and the Pasdaran will destroy the army—starting with you—because they represent a threat to their regime and to their goal of a regional theocratic Islamist state,” Buzhazi said. “After that, they’ll round up and execute any man, woman, or child who is even suspected of opposing the regime. If they need to launch a full-scale attack with their missiles, bombers, bio-chem weapons, or even nuclear weapons, they’ll do it. And when they’re done with the opposition here in Iran, they’ll go after any opponents anywhere else in the region. They don’t care if that means a world war—they’ll use an Israeli or Western counterattack as proof that the rest of the world ju
st wants to kill Muslims, and they’ll emerge stronger than ever. They won’t care that hundreds of thousands of citizens will die in the process. Can’t you see all that?”
Yassini looked at the radio in his hands as if it was a serpent ready to strike—but he did not give it back. “You want me to start a civil war just to save your own hide,” Yassini said. “You’re desperate, out of supplies, and you’re stuck in a corner facing total annihilation. Your best way to escape is to hope the regular army engages the Pasdaran. Why should I listen to you, Hesarak? You’ve been condemned by the leadership for high crimes and treason against the faith, the state, and the people of Iran. You face death by public hanging. You’ll do or say anything to save yourself.”
At that moment there was a huge explosion somewhere above them, and Buzhazi’s own radio squawked. He shook his head at the chief of staff. “Glad to see you’re alive, Hoseyn,” he said acidly. “Now you can go to hell. I’m sure I’ll see you there soon.” He motioned to his soldiers, and they followed him down the hall and upstairs, leaving a confused and frightened general officer alone in the dark cell behind them.
Buzhazi and his men drove over to the flight line and climbed up to the top of the largest aircraft hangar, which was the spot they chose for their observation position. He found Kamal Zhoram waiting for him. “I was afraid I’d have to take charge of our Tet Offensive here, sir,” he said with a weak smile. “Glad to see you’re still alive. Where’s Yassini?”
“Crawling down a sewer pipe to save himself—or informing Zolqadr of our presence,” Buzhazi said. “Forget him—he’s on his own. Situation?”
“Pasdaran guards came across one warehouse team and set off a booby trap, sir,” Zhoram said. “Survivors are being suppressed by our forces, but we’ve picked up general alerts on the base emergency frequency. The scouts report perhaps one battalion still in their barracks.” He motioned behind them toward the flight line. “Aviation units are still quiet—no patrol or attack helicopters spinning up. Surely they issued the alert already. What are they waiting for?”