The Ares Decision

by Robert Ludlum

  They put everything they had into it, but it didn’t budge.

  “Again!”

  “Jon,” Sarie said, coming up behind him. “What’s that at the top of the hole you made?”

  He wasn’t sure how he’d missed it, but there was a blackened wiring harness tangled in the top rail, blocking the door’s movement. He reached up and yanked it out as Farrokh and his men curled their fingers through the small gap they’d made.

  It happened a painfully slow quarter-inch at a time, but the door ground its way back. When they’d opened it a little more than a foot, the young man who had brought them the grenade stepped in front of it. “I think it’s large enough!” he said. “I can get through.”

  “Stop!” Smith shouted, but it was too late.

  The man had barely entered the gap when a gunshot sounded and he went limp, his body suspended between the door and the jamb—a victim of the same trap they’d set for the monkeys.

  Farrokh dove for cover, but Smith moved up behind the man. There was no time for regret or respect for the fallen. Omidi was getting farther away with every minute and they couldn’t afford to get pinned down here.

  More shots rang out, thudding dully into the dead man’s flesh as Smith grabbed him by the back of the jacket and lifted him fully upright. It sounded like a single gun, semiautomatic, with rounds designed for impact, not penetration.

  “Peter! You’re with me!”

  The Brit fell in behind as Smith shoved the bleeding corpse through the hole, using it as a shield as he entered a cavernous, intermittently lit parking garage.

  The shots kept coming, absorbed by the dead weight of the body, which was getting increasingly awkward to maneuver. He could feel Howell pressed up against him as they moved right, taking cover behind a concrete pillar that looked to be on the verge of collapse.

  Howell returned fire, getting close enough to the prone man to spray sand and broken rock into his eyes. He leapt to his feet and ran stumbling toward a van twenty yards behind him, but instead of taking cover behind it, he just kept going.

  “I believe he’s had about enough of this day,” Howell said. “Hard to blame him.”

  Smith turned back toward the door. “It’s clear. Come on through.”

  After Sarie, Farrokh, and his surviving men were safely out, Smith ducked back into the facility and worked a table into the cavern so that he could use it to block the gap.

  “You three stay here,” he said, pointing to Farrokh’s men. “Nothing comes out—even if it’s someone you know. Do you understand? If they want out, tell them to go back to the main entrance, where we’ve got people trained to check them for wounds that could indicate infection.”

  They nodded and he ran toward a group of vehicles parked on the other side of the cavern with Farrokh in tow. A quick search didn’t turn up any keys, and Smith jabbed a finger in the Iranian’s direction. “You said you’re an engineer, right? Can you hot-wire a car?”

  “An engineer is different from a thief, Colonel.”

  “Great,” Smith muttered as Howell kept watch in case the guard they’d chased off rediscovered his courage. Sarie, though, had disappeared.

  He was about to call to her when the sound of an engine firing up echoed through the enormous chamber. A few moments later, a pickup full of maintenance equipment skidded to a stop in front of him.

  “Need a ride?” Sarie said, leaning out the open window.

  “Peter! We’re rolling!”

  She slid over and let him take the wheel as Farrokh jumped through the passenger door. They were already pulling away when Howell threw himself into the bed, tossing out toolboxes and shovels to make room as they accelerated toward what Smith prayed was an exit.

  The cavern was much larger and more complex than he expected, but they followed a set of fresh tire tracks until they passed through the mouth of a meticulously camouflaged cave entrance.

  Farrokh immediately got on his phone and Smith squinted into the blinding sunlight, heading toward the road leading north. They were a good half mile outside the facility’s perimeter fence and probably two hundred feet higher in elevation. It looked like all the fighting was inside the building now, and trucks had been used to block the bridge, with supporting gun placements being constructed out of sandbags.

  Farrokh spoke urgently into the phone in Persian and then looked over at him. “My men engaged a vehicle with a mounted machine gun on the road to Avass.”

  “That’s it,” Sarie said. “That’s the truck Omidi was in. Did they stop him?”

  The Iranian shook his head. “We have people in the village, though. They’ve been told what to look for.”

  “Can they stop a vehicle like that?” Smith said.

  “Given a free hand, yes. But Avass is a conservative place, and the government will have many friends there.”

  “What about the lab?”

  “We are gaining control. The two remaining infected men are dead, though there are still some animals loose.”

  “How many of your men have been exposed?”

  “Many more than we anticipated. But that problem is being handled with the procedures you put in place. Everyone understood the risks of volunteering for this. And the consequences.”

  Sarie leaned forward and put her head in her hands. “It’s my fault. I infected them—we were going to lock down the facility and set them loose. If I just hadn’t done anything, you’d have only had a few half-dead animals to deal with. Your men would be okay.”

  “There was no way for you to know,” Farrokh said. “You had to act. It was my own stupidity for not anticipating the possibility that Omidi would release lab animals to cover his escape.”

  “Our stupidity,” Smith corrected. “Any word on the Iranian military?”

  “I’m afraid so. An elite force is in the air.”

  84

  Near Avass, Iran

  December 5—1204 Hours GMT+3:30

  AVASS CAME INTO VIEW as they crested a small rise, and Mehrak Omidi examined the ancient buildings lining a maze of poorly maintained streets. The terrain steepened precipitously at the edges of the village, asphalt giving way to cobblestones worn down by a thousand years of foot traffic.

  “There!” he said, tapping his driver on the shoulder and pointing to four cars idling by the side of the road. A police vehicle and a pickup full of armed men pulled out in front of them, accelerating to match their speed. Omidi looked in the side mirror as they passed the remaining two vehicles, watching them fall in to protect their flank. According to Khamenei, they were to be escorted to the city center and deposited at the police station, a building that had been heavily fortified over the last few hours.

  It was another ten minutes before they penetrated Avass, and Omidi held the briefcase tightly to his chest as his eyes shifted from the buildings hanging over them to the pedestrians rushing to get out of their way. Farrokh’s traitors were everywhere—watching, waiting, plotting. No one was above suspicion. Not anymore.

  They passed a crowded market with vendors lined up in front of a stone building hung with antique rugs. Through the windows he could see booths selling jewelry and spices, as well as the Western conveniences that his people had become so addicted to.

  At the northern edge of the market, two men dressed in slacks and wool sweaters were struggling to get a large wooden crate to the curb while a woman on a cell phone watched disinterestedly.

  As the motorcade closed, the men gave up and started toward an alley, their gait slightly unnatural, as though they were struggling to hold themselves back from running. The woman broke off, too, threading herself through the people on the street and into the market building.

  “Stop!” Omidi shouted, and his driver slammed on the truck’s brakes, locking up the wheels just before they were hit by one of their chase cars. The sound of the impact, though, was completely obscured by the roar of an explosion.

  The device in the crate had been surrounded by nails, and the pickup in
front of them was enveloped in a deadly cloud of fire and shrapnel. The police car swerved right, running down a group of fleeing shoppers before crashing into the stone archways of a pharmacy.

  Gunfire erupted a moment later, seemingly from everywhere—the narrow alleys leading off the main road, the rooftops, the open windows of shops and private homes.

  “Go!” he yelled, sliding to the floorboards. “Get us out of here!”

  When the truck just idled slowly forward, he looked up and saw his driver slumped over the wheel. The machine gun in back started but went silent again when the gunner’s body bounced off the rear window and toppled into the street.

  Bullets hissing overhead kept him pinned down, and steam billowing from the radiator surrounded him in a hot, blinding cloud. He wouldn’t last much longer—one lucky shot or well-placed grenade and he would die along with Iran’s only hope of survival.

  The door was jerked open and he shrank back, trying to push the briefcase behind him for protection.

  Instead of shooting, though, the man held out a hand. “Come! Hurry!”

  Omidi followed, running crouched toward the pharmacy building as others loyal to the republic closed around him, firing wildly in every direction.

  The man in front of him and the one to his right fell in rapid succession, causing the cohesiveness of his human shield to fail. Omidi abandoned them, sprinting toward the arches protecting the front of the pharmacy. He was only a few meters away when something impacted his back and threw him toward a table stacked with oil lamps. He toppled over it, hitting the ground before a powerful hand lifted him and dragged him through the pharmacy’s doors.

  He managed to keep hold of the case, but it was becoming slick with his own blood. The man released him and went to one of the broken windows, pressing his back against the wall as bullets streamed through, pulverizing the items neatly lining the store’s shelves.

  Omidi managed to get to his knees, crawling unsteadily toward the shoppers huddled beneath a row of tables. When he got within a few meters, two men came out and pulled him to safety.

  “Are you all right?” one said. “I think you’re shot!”

  He tried to examine the wound, but Omidi slapped his hand away. The sensation in his legs was already beginning to fade, as was the sharpness of his mind. Farrokh’s force was too large and well prepared for the men Khamenei had recruited. They would gain access to the pharmacy before the military could arrive.

  “Do you work here?” he said to the woman next to him, trying to give his weakening voice authority.

  She shook her head and pointed to a white-haired man cowering in the corner. Omidi struggled over to him, dragging the briefcase with numb fingers.

  “You! Are you the pharmacist?”

  “Yes,” he said, eyes wide as he watched splinters fly off a wooden display case that two policemen were pushing against a shattered window. “I am Muhammad Vahdat.”

  “I am Mehrak Omidi, the director of the Ministry of Intelligence.”

  The man’s face went blank for a moment, but then registered recognition. “Yes…Yes, of course. I have seen you—”

  “Listen to me now,” Omidi said, but then lost his train of thought as blood loss starved his mind. What needed to be done? The parasite! He had to concentrate. To think clearly for just a little longer.

  “The men outside are Farrokh’s soldiers. They’ve developed a biological weapon and we received reports that they were going to test it on your city.”

  The man went from looking terrified to looking as though he was going to pass out. “Here? But we’re just a—”

  “You’re perfect. Small, isolated, and devout,” Omidi said, patting his case with a hand dripping blood. “I have the antidote here—I brought it personally the moment we learned of his target. I need syringes. Enough for everyone. Do you have them?”

  “Yes. Of course. Behind the counter.”

  “You have to get them so I can begin inoculations.”

  “But they’re all the way—”

  “You would rather die slowly of a disease that eats you from the inside?”

  The pharmacist considered the question for a moment and then dropped to his stomach, slithering across the floor toward the back of the building.

  Omidi watched him go, falling against the wall and fighting to remain conscious.

  They had experimented extensively with the dose-response relationship and found it to be extremely strong. He had enough in his case to give everyone in the building a parasitic load many times greater than they would get from the normal mode of transmission. Based on the tables his scientists had developed, full symptoms would occur in less than two hours.

  It was the only way. The fate of the parasite and the fate of Iran were now one and the same. He could not allow them to be destroyed or to fall into the hands of traitors. They had to survive.

  85

  Avass, Iran

  December 5—1410 Hours GMT+3:30

  ANOTHER STALEMATE,” PETER HOWELL said, easing around a building constructed of indigenous rock.

  He was right. They’d come into Avass on foot and were now about five blocks from the city center, wandering along a narrow, twisting alleyway. The sound of gunfire had slowed to a shot every thirty seconds or so, and in this kind of closed-in urban terrain, that generally meant the two forces had dug in.

  Farrokh was bringing up the rear, talking urgently on his phone as he navigated a patch of snow protected from the sun by a broad awning.

  “Omidi is trapped in a pharmacy with what we believe to be four armed men and as many as twenty hostages,” he reported. “He has the briefcase and my people say he’s badly injured.”

  “Can they get to him?” Smith said.

  “The street in front of the pharmacy is impassable, and there are no rear or side entrances.”

  “Do you have an ETA on the Iranian forces?”

  “About an hour,” Farrokh said. “Two C-130s carrying Takavar paratroopers. Seven more to follow, but my people haven’t been able to determine when.”

  “Do you know how many are targeting Avass and how many are going to the lab?”

  “No. But my men have sealed the facility and are in a good defensive position. They’ll hold until the parasite there dies out.”

  Smith wasn’t so sure—nine planes could transport upward of six hundred men, and Takavar troops were the best the Iranian military had to offer.

  The gunshots were close now, and he followed Howell onto a muddy slope that terminated in a low wall. From their elevated position, it was clear that the situation was an absolute worst-case scenario. There were men everywhere—behind cars, on rooftops, peering around the edges of alleyways—but it was impossible to sort out who was who. The remains of a pickup were still burning in front of what looked like a market building, causing smoke to further obscure the situation. The pharmacy that Farrokh’s people were talking about had stone arches across the front that looked like they could stop a tank, and there was at least one man stationed at each partially barricaded window.

  “Maybe if we could get to the truck in the middle of the—,” Howell started but then fell silent when a man darted from cover and ran for an overturned cart that would give him a better angle on the pharmacy windows. The silence was immediately broken by a barrage of gunfire, and he was cut down before he made it five feet.

  “Never mind,” Howell said.

  Smith slid down with his back against the wall, swearing under his breath. The Takavar were going to be raining down on them like the wrath of God in less than an hour. It wouldn’t take them long to wipe out Farrokh’s forces and put Omidi on a plane to Tehran.

  “Do your people have anything heavier than assault rifles?”

  “One rocket-propelled grenade.” Farrokh pointed at a rooftop to the north. “It’s up there.”

  Smith dared a quick look, spotting a launcher hanging over the shoulder of a man holding a camera phone around the edge of a chimney. The angle w
asn’t great, but with a little luck it might be possible to thread the archways and get the charge through a window.

  “We have to use it,” Howell said. “No choice.”

  “What?” the Iranian said. “No. There are hostages. Women and children.”

  Smith peered over the wall again. “If Omidi’s injured and it’s bad enough, maybe we can offer him a deal. He gives us the case and we let him walk.”

  “No way,” Sarie said. “I know him better than anyone here. If you want that case, you’re going to have to pry it out of his dead fingers.”

  “I tend to agree,” Farrokh said. “Omidi is not a man of compromises.”

  Smith sat silently for a moment, trying to focus on the tactical situation and not imagine the faces of the frightened people inside that building.

  “Then Peter’s right. Ask your man if he can make the shot.”

  Farrokh stared angrily back at him. “I can’t help wondering if you would be so perfunctory if those were American hostages and the weapon was a threat to Iran.”

  Smith raised his head over the wall a few inches again and examined the pharmacy, trying to determine the strength of the barricades and catch a glimpse of the men behind them. When he got to the last one, his eye picked up movement. The shelving pushed up against the window began to rock violently, causing the few products remaining on it to cascade to the floor.

  “No…,” he muttered when the cop who had been manning the position came partially through the window, breaking free the last shards of glass. He twisted around, throwing wild punches at something just out of sight as gunfire hammered the walls around him. He was hit in the shoulder, but kept fighting until two more rounds penetrated his back and left him hanging unnaturally on the sill. A moment later, the blood-streaked face of a woman appeared. She fell on the lifeless man, tearing at him, her mouth working in silent rage as bullet after bullet impacted her thin body.

  “He’s infected them!” Smith shouted. “Blow it! Blow it now!”

  Farrokh still had his phone line open and began screaming into it. A moment later a contrail appeared from the rooftop and the grenade glanced off one of the pharmacy’s archways, exploding in front of the heavy doors with a lot of smoke and noise, but little damage.