Blaze

by Andrew Thorp King

  “You got the C4 planted? You inspect the vehicle? Double-check the disguise? Take inventory of your weapons?” Gallagher rapidly rattled off this series of checklist questions with no real intention of allowing Blaze to actually answer.

  “Everything but the weapons. I’m about to hand-pick my tools here shortly.”

  “Okay. Godspeed on this one Blaze. This is crucial to the larger goals of Operation Persian Trinity. And we’re counting on you.”

  “I know that. I’m all in and I’m strong and on.” Blaze assuaged Gallagher’s fears with the confidence of his voice.

  “Roger that. Be careful Blaze.”

  Blaze spent the next hour or so meticulously planning his approach in his head and doing his best to think outside of the box. He imagined any and all potential contingencies. He knew that op plans often morphed, changed, and recreated themselves minutes into their execution. This being the case, it was vitally crucial to have an adaptable mindset, and even more necessary to have a grab bag of contingency plans to pull from at any given moment.

  He traced, in his mind, the locations of the strategically placed contingency vehicles that awaited him along the southwest path out of Esfahan, towards the safe house arranged for him. He thought about various combat circumstances that could arise and what weapons would be both effective and practical. Of course, Blaze also had his sentimental favorites. These particular weapons, which acted as roadmaps to his warrior life, had an easy path into most of his arsenals. He narrowed it down to just a few.

  First, he decided on one of his favorite pieces of fine German steel— the Walther P99 Limited MI-6 edition. He knew its origins stemmed from a shameless, cheesy tie-in to the James Bond film franchise, but he cared not. He grew up with an addiction to Bond films, and this particular gun had somewhat of a history of being a good luck charm for him. Many a tight spot in the heat of battle had been opened thanks to the Walther P99 MI-6. Blaze, although full of traditional Christian Protestant faith, still harbored an irrational sense of superstitious Irish luck that he admittedly applied to his attachment to this weapon. Therefore, the piece was unquestionably included as part of his arsenal for this mission.

  The second piece was, in his mind, slightly under-developed, but badass nonetheless. The G.R.A.D. was a genius invention that burrowed a .22-caliber gun under a knife. It was full of practical application in times of heat, and it was fun as hell to train with. His only misgiving was that he hadn’t yet gotten his hands on the prototype that combined this with a cell phone gun. Now that would be the trinity to use in Operation Persian Trinity. Maybe next op.

  Next, he chose several M67 fragmentation hand grenades to keep him company in the event he had to lob them at some unwanted trailers following him out of the Esfahan facility. The grenades weren’t mind-blowing but they did the trick and he had always found them easy to carry, quick to unleash, and deadly.

  Last, but by no means least, Blaze packed the Glock 18. He accessorized his G18 with the requisite suppressor and extended mags that always proved useful in times of need. When it came time to choose the ammunition for his beloved G18, he sided with the Buckingham variety; incendiary ammo had always impressed Blaze and he never tired of employing it.

  As he carefully assembled the G18 and its companion accessories for portability and concealment, he was hit with a flood of memories. He had been in a multitude of situations in the early part of his service as a Marine in which he was forced to kill with this firearm. Lately he’d only used the G18 while playing Call of Duty on his son Shane’s XBOX. While playing, he often wished he could jump inside the screen and take charge himself.

  By all measures, Blaze was ready to stand up and be counted. T’s were crossed, I’s were dotted, and the blood in his veins was pumping with an intense patriotic ferocity. The overwhelming sense of undeniable purpose that surged inside him would yield to nothing but a driven, destined satiation of his truly calling. Iran’s bomb be damned. America’s favorite Mick was on the job.

  The morning of the op broke like that of any other day in Iran. At Esfahan, workman picked up their tasks and projects right where they had left off the night before. There was no unusual tension in the air. It was with this favorable backdrop that Blaze drove the makeshift delivery truck up the long, guarded gate of the factory of Esfahan.

  Blaze had felt a cool, deliberate confidence fall over him shortly after he lifted up the mission quietly and silently in prayer. His disguise had worked out unusually well and he was satisfied with its effects. This helped add to his confidence.

  In the distance, he could see several guards smoking cigarettes, talking, and laughing. It was a tad after 6:00 am in Iran and Blaze was counting on encountering employees who were still in the slack mindset of wishing the morning alarm did not come so soon. As Blaze began rolling closer to the gate he could hear the high volume of the chatter between the security guards. They barely acknowledged his truck. The guards may have been soldiers of Allah at heart, but at the gate of Esfahan, they were mere soldiers of the time clock.

  As Blaze reached the gate, the guard motioned him towards the electronic ID scanner. Blaze swiped the ID as if he’d done it a thousand times before. Nothing happened. No beep.

  One guard looked at the other and then back at Blaze. He told him in Farsi to swipe the card again. Blaze swiped the card as he was asked, this time slower. His heart began to beat quite a bit faster. The machine beeped. Blaze nodded his head, holding back the smile inside, and was permitted to pass through the gate.

  As soon as the rear wheels of the truck passed through the gate, Blaze quickly reached his encrypted sat phone and send a text to Gallagher. “I’m in.”

  Gallagher’s reply came quickly. “Watching.”

  Aerial back up was lying in the wait in nearby Iraq to facilitate an extraction should things get hot.

  Blaze did a quick visual sweep of the area. He quickly noted all pathways, windows, and high concentration points of vehicles and personnel. Then, swiftly, he catalogued in his mind the low vertical thresholds of which he would be able to scale if needed.

  He then took a second, slower look around while his truck crept towards the wing of the facility that housed the raw materials he was purportedly delivering. Everything fit with the schematics and aerial photos.

  Blaze backed the truck into the bay for unloading. He heard the shuffle and hustle of the crates being unloaded and he could see the men methodically doing their job from the side view mirror of the truck. He waived casually as workers walked by the truck. Blaze sat in the truck with the engine running for precisely twenty-two minutes until the unloading was finished. The C-4 had been burrowed within the second row of crates that were pulled from the back of the truck. The C-4 crates, were by now, nestled perfectly within the rest of the truckload inside the bay of the raw materials storage warehouse.

  Blaze began to pull away from the truck when, suddenly, he saw one of the warehouse workers running out of the bay towards his truck. He was urgently waiving his arms for Blaze to stop, as if he had forgotten something. Blaze wasn’t sure if he should stop, but he decided that it was best to see what the guy wanted to avoid any suspicion.

  The man walked to the side window of Blaze’s truck and launched into some kind of diatribe in a regional dialect of Farsi that threw Blaze off for a minute. He felt as if he was being interrogated.

  Blaze was seized by a wave of panic. He froze. Blaze had taken some precautionary crash courses in Farsi before the op, but maybe he brushed through them too quickly. He was way more focused on other aspects of the op. Note to self: don’t cut corners on foreign language reviews. Particularly basic Farsi prep. Gonna take Rosetta Stone a bit more seriously next time.

  “I don’t know,” said Blaze in Farsi. Every time the man paused, Blaze repeated the phrase. It was all he could think to do. He tried to act as the annoyed, indifferent delivery guy.

 
The crates had real raw materials in them, and if they had pried open any one of them, they would have discovered the real deal. What could this guy be freaking out about? Blaze tried to listen more closely to pick up on some of the man’s words this time, as the guy reiterated his apparent grievances. But this time, he spoke even quicker, and with an increasing sense of frustration, and anger. Blaze suspected his clear lack of understanding of the man’s Farsi gave him away. The guy was on to him.

  Amidst the yelling, Blaze finally recognized some of the words being shouted. The man was demanding Blaze’s name and reason for being at Esfahan. Although the intensity and fragility of the moment would naturally call for a serious and calculated response, Blaze instead reacted instinctively by harkening Fletch-era Chevy Chase wise-assery. “The name is Simmons. Gene Simmons. Here to rock ‘n’ roll all night and party every day.”

  And with that, the party had begun.

  The man angrily turned to waive over several more guards. The back up guards started toward the front of Blaze’s truck at a jog—which was fortunately pointed outwards towards the exit of the facility. Then they began to run vigorously.

  The yelling man’s head was still turned, as he focused on recruiting back up. In the flash of an instant, a knife was jammed with full extension into the side of his neck, killing him instantly. Blaze yanked the knife application of his G.R.A.D. from the man’s pulsating neck and watched his entire body unwind and flop to the ground, like a slinky falling off a balcony.

  Now he had the back up guards to contend with. The party never ends.

  Several dudes got within a few feet of him and were trying to apprehend him. Blaze could see the fear and confusion in their eyes. As they reached out to grab him, his hand-to-hand combat skills manifested with ease and success. The two men were quickly subdued and eating concrete.

  Blaze look up and saw four more men quickly gaining ground towards him. A bit more alarming was the swarm of guards and speeding forklift trucks trailing close behind the four grunts. Blaze quickly drew his Glock 18 and shot two of the four men in the torso without effort. He reached into his backpack and grappled for an M67 frag grenade. Once he was able to get his paws securely around one, he pulled the pin and threw it about one hundred feet out. It landed within ten feet of the forklift trucks and the charging men. Bye-bye fruits. Blaze wiped the sweat off his brow in a brief expression of relief.

  Before he could turn to begin heading back towards the truck, he felt a strong arm curl around his neck. Damn it, I thought I got them all. A guard had him in a strong headlock. Always a straggler.

  Blaze herked and jerked and tried to get loose to no avail as he wrestled with the straggler. Sweat and blood smeared the two men as they struggled about with neither getting a clear upper hand. Finally, the guard gained leverage and hurled Blaze off his feet and smashed him to the ground. Blaze blocked the fall with his right arm, saving his head from some serious damage.

  The man pinned him down, Blaze’s hands now behind his back. Vulnerable. Bound. No play in sight.

  The guard pulled Blaze’s hair to yank his head back and sideways, as Blaze lay on his stomach. Blaze managed to speak. “So this is how you party in Esfahan, uh? I can only imagine the gig we could have if we unleashed those centrifuges.” With a swelling, bleeding face, Blaze smiled big for his new captor.

  And then with the thud of a gun butt hitting a hard, stubborn Irish head, everything went black.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  THE MCINTYRE RESIDENCE, ROMEO, MICHIGAN

  Instead of Blaze’s face being the last thing Diem saw before she hit the sack, it was the 9 mm Beretta on her nightstand. The pistol didn’t give her quite the same comfort as her man by her side, but it was the next best thing in his absence. She didn’t always keep it out and loaded, but she had a premonition and was feeling particularly vulnerable. The whole day had seemed draped in heavy malaise and she felt a gnawing, irrational sense of pending terror since morning. She would lock the door before lying down to sleep. She didn’t want the boys to be able to get in with the loaded gun lying out in the open.

  Diem felt a chill to her bone. Outside her window, the wind was roaring and the trees were blowing. She sipped some hot chamomile tea. It warmed her body but did nothing for her soul. She stared at the gun. She hated the thought of having to use the gun, but yet that is all she found herself thinking about. Diem was a good shot—Blaze made sure of that. But she was prepared only out of necessity. Her mind was reeling.

  Is this what I’m in for again? A cold piece of steel keeping me safe at night instead of the warm flesh and blood of my husband? Lord, why did I let him go back in? I should’ve fought him. I should’ve stood my ground. I should’ve trusted my instincts. Why did I let him convince me? Why am I supporting this? I’m alone. Again. Diem tried to shake her doubts. The wind blew stronger. She glanced at her iPhone on her nightstand to check the time. 11:21 pm. Will I ever get any sleep tonight?

  She took some melatonin pills and sipped more tea. She began to feel small, exposed. Her loneliness was creeping with strength. She didn’t feel safe, even with the firearm by her side. She tried to force her mind to focus on pleasant things—cooking, sunny days, nature, and ice cream. She tried this for a few minutes and gave up. The tactic did not work. She wished her life could be simple again, like when Blaze was home. Blaze doesn’t like simple. This contrast had been a barrier in their marriage from day one.

  She decided to change out of her flannel pajamas. She walked to the closet and undressed. She stood in her purple lingerie as she began to reach for her silk robe. The moonlight hit her figure directly. She turned her back towards the window, concerned of how visible she was.

  She heard some shuffling outside her window. She grabbed a flashlight from inside the drawer in her nightstand and walked over to see what it was. She saw nothing. She heard it again—the crackling of sticks, ruffling of leaves and scuffling of dirt and rock. She felt uneasy. Is there someone out there? Is it some terrorist coming after me to get revenge on Blaze? A burglar? She felt silly for having such thoughts, insane really. She brushed off her paranoia. Must’ve been a squirrel or some braches falling.

  Still she felt funny. Is someone from the agency out there? Someone checking up on me? Someone Blaze sent to watch after me? …or is it someone from the agency spying on me for some other reason? Maybe someone at odds with Blaze? Diem didn’t trust the CIA or the federal government. If it wasn’t for her trust in Chuck Gallagher, she doubted she would’ve signed on to Blaze getting back in to the game. Blaze had always stressed to her that they needed to be guarded against the potential malice of the bureaucracy. He’d seen too many strange things happen to colleagues. He knew that the CIA, and the government as a whole, had large pockets of corruption just like any other power structure. He was always watching his back. He knew that moles got in. Diem knew one of Blaze’s biggest fears was that the ultimate enemy would emerge from within the agency. Blaze was known, and usually mocked, by his colleagues for his paranoia about moles in the agency.

  She walked away from the window. Its nothing. Just the wind. I need to get some rest. She got under the covers, turned out the lamp on her nightstand and laid her head on the pillow. As soon as she closed her eyes, she heard a knock on her bedroom door. She quickly rose out of bed and went and unlocked it.

  “Shane! What’s wrong honey? Can’t you sleep?”

  Shane stumbled in the bedroom rubbing his eyes. He was clearly upset. He ran to hug his mother. Diem scooped him up and propped him beside her on the bed, after putting the gun away in the nightstand drawer. Not that the sight of a gun was at all unusual for the McIntyre children.

  “I had a nightmare, mom. There were wolves chasing me. Flying monsters too. I couldn’t get away from them. I was screaming. One of the wolves was just about to eat my leg. Then I woke up.”

  “It’s okay honey, even adults get scared sometime
s. Really. We all do. But it’s okay. We have nothing to be afraid of. We’re safe here. The Lord is watching over us and He’ll give us strength to protect ourselves from any harm. Including your bad dreams.”

  “Thanks mom. That helps, but I wish dad was here.”

  “I know, honey. I do too. We all do. But right now you need to get back to bed. We all need to get some good rest.”

  “Good night, mom.” Shane kissed her on the cheek.

  “Good night, Shane. I love you.”

  Shane went back to bed and Diem did the same. Diem fell asleep quickly, barely getting through half a prayer. She had felt about as safe as she was going to feel for now. Rest could no longer wait.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  ESFAHAN, IRAN

  Blaze shook to it and gained consciousness to the piercing sight of an overhead hot lamp bearing down on him. Temporarily blinded, he could see nothing else, but could hear frantic arguing in Farsi between the two men in the room with him.

  As his vision adjusted and recovered from the hot lamp, he got a visual on the men in the room. One was the prick guard that head locked him and gun butted him. The other looked to be a supervisor of sorts based on his wearing a different uniform. Both looked like they didn’t know what the hell to do about Blaze.

  Blaze felt disoriented and lightheaded from the trauma of the gun butting he endured, as well as the other abuse of the scuffle. He rolled his neck several times to attempt to get his blood flowing and psych himself up for a viable plan to get his ass out of Esfahan. Fuck this. I ain’t gonna die in some two bit, half ass Iranian nuke joint. There’s gotta be a way to jam up these ass clowns trying to hold me here. As he rolled his neck maniacally, he noticed out the window to his right that his truck still sat exactly where he left it. If they ain’t moved the truck, I couldn’t have been knocked out very long. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. The place was clearly on lock down, but they still hadn’t managed to move or quarantine his truck. I bet they’re in the warehouse going through the crates. I gotta get outta here before they find that C4. Blaze peered down at his feet, which remained unbound. His arms were still tied with rope.