by Greig Beck
Traffic increased, and so did the number of checkpoints, but flashing their identification, while wearing both the uniforms and a disinterested expression, usually resulted in a deferential or panicked look on the faces of the officials. It seemed the IRG was a big player up here, and potentially an impatient one.
More hours stretched as they sped up the broad empty highway. It was another three hundred miles to the ancient city of Mary, and then they were turning west toward the Iranian border. Outside of Tejen they left the highway, following Adira’s instructions, and took to small roads, and then dirt tracks that appeared on no map. The car bounced, lighter now that the fuel was near exhausted, and Alex ached to be able to stand and stretch.
They had lost the sunlight hours back, and when they passed the city of Khvosh Hava, they knew they had only ten more miles to go. Tous was a much smaller satellite town in the northern Mashhad District.
Though they were dressed as IRG with perfect cover stories, any newcomer would attract attention, so they had decided to stay outside of Tous, and instead continued on to Shahrak-e Gharb, where they had booked several rooms at the Abtin Apartments. It was full dark when they rolled in, and their identification was barely looked at, each member of the team was treated with deference.
In the elevator, Sam spoke softly. “It’s like the KGB in old Russia – no one wants you here, but once you are, you’re everyone’s best buddy.”
“Old Russia?” Casey raised a brow. “You must have missed the guy currently in charge? It’s the good old days are back in there now.”
Out of the elevator, they split in different directions. Casey’s face had dropped when she found out she would be sharing a room with Adira. The last Alex heard from Casey was her warning to Adira that she snored … and loudly.
In their rooms, they immediately felt the pull of fatigue settling over them, and after securing the door and doing a quick bug sweep, they fell like trees onto their beds.
The next morning, a knock on Alex’s door brought Casey into the room. “She snores worse than I do.” She cast Alex a look. “But I’m thinking you know that.”
Alex grunted, as a second knock brought in Adira. She grinned at Casey. “I needed that. A good night’s sleep; feeling good.”
Casey groaned, but then she grinned. “Yeah, and you talk in your sleep. You must have hot dreams, huh?” She winked at Alex.
“What?” Adira rounded on her but Casey waved her away.
They found seats or stood waiting as both Sam and Eli opened large cases. Adira and Casey had their abaya scarves around their necks.
“Are we okay to be in here together?” Alex asked. “With unmarried women?”
Adira shrugged. “If you were just an Iranian citizen, I would say definitely not, and you could expect a visit from the morality police. But they’ll turn a blind eye as you are IRG.” She sat at a table and flipped open a small computer tablet and switched to satellite feed. She then selected the Mashhad District, and drilled down on Tous, but the angle and height of the satellite didn’t allow enough clarity on the images.
“Ach, not close enough.” Adira threw her hands up.
“We’ll need to go in – hard and fast,” Alex said.
“Belly of the beast,” Sam said.
“Just the way we like it.” Casey had a twisted grin on her face. “Fight or die.”
Adira nodded. “Fight or die? Yes, and if they take you, you will want to die. And it will be death, eventually, after a long and painful few weeks of psychological and surgical torture.”
Alex got to his feet. “Every second we are here increases our chances of being detected. We need to get this over with before the odds shift.”
“Agreed.” Adira stood. “We need better eyes in there first.” She turned to Eli. “Send in Tweety.”
“Onto it.” Eli flipped open his case and was pulling out a small device in pieces which he began snapping together. When he finished, he had what looked like a small bird in his hands, complete with fake feathers.
He laid it on the bed and then went back to the case. He adjusted the lid, which became a view-screen, with a joystick pad and a few other small controls. Adira went to the window and opened it, and stuck her head out momentarily. Then she pulled back and stood aside. “All clear. Let him fly.”
Eli fiddled at the controls, and then three spikes, one on each wing and a third on the tail, started to spin. Blades flicked out, and then like a small helicopter, the bird lifted soundlessly. Eli guided it to the window. On his screen, their room was displayed in high resolution.
Sam clapped his hands. “Now that is cool.”
Alex grinned. “Spy cam, and all wrapped up in a local bird of prey package. We now have our eyes. Nice work.”
“It’s more than just eyes.” Adira nodded. “Shaped like a desert kestrel, and just like them, can hover on thermals for hours. Perfect camouflage for a spy drone.”
Tweety zoomed past Adira, and the group crowded around Eli’s screen as it darted out the window. The drone rose to several hundred feet and zoomed across the several miles of desert to the town of Tous.
It was small, not more than a single square mile, with only a few thousand residents. The structures were a mix of 1950s modern and extremely ancient, dating back thousands of years. Many of the central structures were enormous sandstone monuments; some towering many stories and built from blocks larger than trucks, and all fitted together with barely a seam showing.
“What are we looking for?” Casey asked, putting her hands on Eli’s shoulders and pretending to massage the Mossad agent.
Eli grimaced but kept his eyes on the screen. “Something that doesn’t fit – Northern Arabic script, or something guarded with no clear reason, and of course, traces of high energy particle radiation.” He looked at a small readout on the side of his screen. “So far we have nothing above background normal, but as we have seen from Mosul, even moving the radioactive matter through the area leaves an atomic trace. Tweety can pick these up.”
“Clever bird,” Sam said.
“Israeli tech.” Adira smiled. “Tell Jack Hammerson I’m happy to trade him some.”
There were few people on the street, and Adira started to point out different buildings to the group. “The Mausoleum of Ferdowsi, and that’s the grave of Akhavan-Sales. All just relics now.” She nodded toward a long wall so old it was now crumbling back into the desert from which it had come. “The Darvaze Razan Gate.” She snorted. “It was an ancient barrier and a place of kings and magic. Many wanted to be buried here, simply because it was rumored to be one of the portals to the afterlife,” she went on. “That large structure there is the Harounieh Dome …”
“See that?” Alex pointed. “Wait, back Tweety up.”
“The dome?” Adira asked.
“Yeah, someone’s inside, pulled back into the shadows, but they’re there.” Alex frowned as he stared at the dome. It was a huge foreboding structure, but something seemed to call to him, draw him to it. He blinked and shook his head to clear it.
“Got something.” Adira pointed at the data rolling up the screen. “Tweety sniffed a trace.”
CHAPTER 13
Tweety landed on the bed and Adira lifted it and stroked it like a real bird. “So, we have a marginal high energy particle spike at the dome, but everything else is insignificant.” Adira shook her head. “Should be more, if what we seek is in there.”
“Might be. Hammerson says they’ve detected mole-holes out in the desert off Kashaf-Roud’s river valley. Just like at their Arak facility – hard to see, very well concealed, but they’re there. He thinks it might indicate something interesting below ground. Like a nuclear facility, or something they felt needed to be bomb-proof. They’ll do further deep penetration scans when the satellite is in a better proximity orbit.”
Alex felt the pulse in his comm. pad, and pulled it out – it was more data from Hammerson. He exhaled with his eyebrows raised as he looked at the images.
&nbs
p; “Eli, sending this through to you. Put it up on screen.”
Eli grabbed the data and pulled it into his device and then opened the image file. There were several shots of Tous and the surrounding geography. The first shot was a surface image taken from a few thousand-foot resolution, then what they sought became clear as the layers were pulled back through stratigraphic imaging.
“Ho-leey fuck,” Casey scoffed.
Below the ancient town was a network of tunnels, like a giant many-armed creature with its head directly below the monolithic dome. A single long tunnel extended out to the desert, to the Kashaf-Roud area.
Sam folded huge arms. “Big network. Going to be a lot of bodies in there.”
“That big, that hidden, definitely something worth protecting.” Eli flipped through the images. “Perfect place to assemble tactical nukes.”
“And reanimate freaking corpses,” Casey added, mouth turned down.
“Then let’s shut ’em down,” Alex said, straightening. “Leave nothing behind. We’re not coming back.”
“I heard that.” Casey clapped once, eager to get going.
The group went out fast, piling into the vehicle with Eli in behind the wheel. They sped along the highway, pulling over on a rise above the small town. Alex stepped out with Sam and Adira.
Sam put a scope to his eye. “All quiet.”
“Above ground.” Alex looked over at the tight cluster of dwellings with the huge dome structure toward its center. “We go in fast. If we encounter aggressive resistance, we remove it.” He turned to nod at Casey, who was leaning out of the car window. She gave him a thumbs up.
“Okay people, let’s suit up.”
The HAWCs removed their clothing, once again pulling on the HAWC armored suits. They checked and then holstered, pocketed, and strapped on their weaponry. Adira and Eli pulled on fatigues and gloves, and also armed themselves, Adira slotting her twin Baraks into her favored v-shape holster at her groin. Throwing spikes and numerous other knives, bombs, and instruments went into various slots and scabbards at her waist.
Sam checked his M203 with the single shot 40mm under-barrel grenade. Sam’s, however, had a modified drum clip attached that held a dozen rounds. He held it up, grinning.
“My All-Areas-Pass.”
Adira frowned. “That dome is over a thousand years old.”
Casey sneered. “Then they better open up when we knock, lady.”
“Communications check.” Alex pushed a small pellet into his ear. The others did the same, and immediately their voices, even whispered, were carried directly onto the occipital bone behind the ear.
“Good.” Alex inhaled the hot, dry air and smiled. “Then let’s go meet the locals.”
The car slid to a stop outside of the Harounieh Dome, its colossal, sandstone structure casting deep shadows and looking more like a fortress than a place of worship.
“Where is everyone?” Sam asked.
“They’re here. Keep your eyes open and stay cool,” Alex said, feeling the presence of multiple bodies crowded close by.
The heavy wooden front doors were thirty feet across with ornate metal hinge brackets. Above were teardrop lintels all carved with magnificent Persian stonework.
Sam went to them and tried the ring handle, and then pushed hard with a shoulder. The doors were locked and didn’t budge.
“That was option one.” He stepped back and lifted one huge boot, the MECH suit’s hydraulic assisted leg levering back and then flicking forward in a blur.
The lock exploded inwards, the wood and ancient metal no match for the punch of the titanium-alloyed steel. Alex went in quick, Casey followed next, then Adira, Eli, and lastly, Sam. They had guns up, and moved like hounds on a scent. The dome inside was a huge shell with numerous doors and arches – a labyrinth, and impossible to explore quickly. Alex knew there were people concealed, waiting for the ambush.
He spun, sensing the danger, just as the stun grenades exploded among them, their throwers lobbing the small cylinders from their places of hiding. The detonations were an explosion of light and sound, and then came the thick fog-like smoke to shroud everything.
“Go to thermal,” Alex yelled, not sure if his words were heard following the near deafening grenade explosions. Cutting through the fog came a patter of gunfire, then a grunt of pain.
Alex sprinted now, darting from side to side. He found Casey, who waved him on. Then he located Adira and Sam, standing back to back in the swirling smoke of the bombs that finally started to clear.
Alex could feel the emptiness of the huge sandstone structure – whoever had been here was gone … and so was Eli.
“Eli!” Adira turned about. “Operative Eli Livnat, report.”
Alex closed his eyes, reaching out, trying to locate the Mossad agent’s presence. After a moment he opened his eyes and walked over to Adira. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” She continued to search, her teeth momentarily bared. “Gone? Then we find him, before they start their work.”
Alex reached out to grab her arm. “We’ll search, but we have a mission priority, and our clock is ticking. We’ll do what we can, okay?”
She grimaced, and Alex could feel the tension and frustration boiling away inside the woman.
“We’ll do what we can,” he repeated, and then turned away. “Sam, Casey, find me a path.”
Adira and Alex joined Casey and Sam, spreading out, searching alcoves and opening doors, until Casey stood back.
“Yo, boss! Got steps here – and recently used.”
They gathered, peering down. The steps were new, barely a decade old, the smooth, gray concrete incongruous just inside the old stone-lintelled doorway.
From deep down below, Alex could feel the sensation of probing rising up at him in waves. There it was again, the attempt at an intrusion into his mind. “Something, it’s like we’re being … scanned.”
“What by? Motion sensor, thermal read?” Adira asked.
“No, something else, something trying to read us – I think we’re expected.” Alex stared down into the depths of the stairwell.
“Bet it’s booby-trapped. You’d have to be crazy to go down there.” Sam grinned at Casey. “Ladies fir …”
Casey started down, at speed.
Alex groaned and followed, down, and down. The stairs were dimly lit, but solid. There was a smell of fresh concrete, and underlying it, the stink of a charnel house. There were no doors or windows on their way down, and after descending about half a dozen stories, Alex called a halt. He leaned out over the railing. It got darker the lower it dropped.
Sam leaned out with him. “Anything?”
Alex could see down further than the rest, but it seemed to drop for hundreds of feet, and still continued into the void.
“Got to be a level where we can exit soon.”
“Something stinks,” Sam said. “Like a corpse.”
“We’ve been here too long already. I don’t like it,” Adira said, looking over the railing.
Alex also continued to stare down into the darkness. “I can detect a living presence, strong, and an intellect that is watching us carefully, as if there were cameras on every floor.” Alex pulled back. “Let’s go meet them. Franks, back in line.” Alex took the lead. “Eyes out – I think we’re getting close.”
They slowed as they descended, and after another twenty minutes came to the first gleaming white door on a small landing. Alex laid his hand on the handle, and then shook his head.
“Nothing in there.”
When they passed another three, Adira stopped them. She held up the small Geiger counter. “Here – off the scale.” She stepped back. “In there.”
Alex held up a hand to the team, and then spun back to the door, grasping the handle and turning it. It was locked. He gritted his teeth and gripped harder, turning more, until the steel started to groan and bend. After another few seconds, there was the popping sound of spring steel as it reached its tensile barrier. Something clatt
ered inside, and the door opened slowly. Behind the white paint, it was solid and heavy – lead lined.
“Stay here. We don’t have rad-suits.” Alex pushed the door open a little further, and then eased in. Lights came on, but the large space was empty save for half a dozen drum-sized cases. Alex could feel the radiation tickling his body and turned, just as Casey was leaning around the frame, the door wedged open with her boot.
“It’s hot. Stay back.” He should have worn a suit as well, but they needed to see what was inside and he’d just have to rely on his own metabolism repairing any damage to his system … at least for a while.
Alex crossed to the sealed canisters, and then moved to the only one that was open. The ball top was visible, and he recognized it immediately – it was the casing holding a nuclear bomb’s initiator. He sighed, these days nukes were so easy to assemble that a high school kid could put one together if he had the right material, and access to the Internet.
He looked down at the assembly, assessing the design. It was an old model but with new technology. Most likely it’d be a fission blast, as they were the most basic. All that was required was to bring two subcritical masses together to form a supercritical mass. This needed to be done at speed to generate a high-energy collision. Basically, you just needed to make a giant gun, and fire one mass into the other. Alex placed a hand on the sphere, and his fingers tingled. In his mind, he saw how it would work – Uranium-235, fashioned into a bullet, placed at the one end of a long tube with explosives behind it. At the other, another mass of 235, as a target. The casing holds the particle collision together until criticality is reached, and then boom; simple as that.
He removed his hand when he saw the large button. Big and uncomplicated, so something like the giant, drone-like Travelers would only need to punch down on it to initiate the nuclear event.
He straightened, feeling dizzy; he needed to leave. There were a half dozen of the huge packs. He stopped at another, tilting it slightly. The weight was immense. The things that carried these, in some case for hundreds of miles, were unnaturally powerful. He hoped Hammerson was able to find the last of them.