Warriors of God

by William Christie

  "Their cover is blown," said Hafiz. "What can they do now? As soon as I talk with their commander, we will straighten this out."

  "Why is it," Mahmoud asked angrily, "that their lowest soldier knows every detail of this plan, all the things we have not been told yet?" Mehdi and Ghulam nodded in agreement.

  "How dare you talk to me that way," Hafiz said. "I am still the one in charge here, and I decide when you will be briefed." No one replied. Hafiz realized he needed to strike a conciliatory note. "What happened last night was a terrible shame. We all wanted to see the operation come off. After all, we worked very hard to make it a success. But now it is blown, there is nothing we can do about it. I am sure the FBI is investigating even as we speak. We are in great danger, and if we are to get out of this we must stick together. They are excellent soldiers," he said, lowering his voice. "But they know nothing about this type of situation. We are the experts, and we have to show them the way. It is our responsibility to get them out of the country safely so they may fight again. Perhaps in the future the operation can be remounted." Hafiz scanned their faces. They were coming around.

  "I suppose you are right," Ghulam said glumly.

  Mahmoud nodded. "It was our job to get them here safely," he said. "And we failed. So we certainly have the obligation to get them out." Hafiz refused to rise to the barb. Mehdi stared at him and said nothing.

  The spies had just begun to sound out the Guards to determine their escape plans when the Sergeant Major appeared and abruptly told them to mind their own damned business. No one was escaping yet. And in the future, he informed them, they would come to him before they bothered his men. Chastened, the spies went back and reported this to Hafiz.

  Hafiz next tried to get past Karim to talk to Ali.

  "The commander is not to be disturbed," Karim said, standing in front of the door with his arms across his chest, as if guarding a bank vault.

  "You do not understand," Hafiz said. "I am the head agent here, and I must talk to him about your escape plans."

  "The commander is planning how we will continue our mission," Karim said flatly, giving Hafiz a look of scorn.

  "Look here," Hafiz said, in his most reasonable voice. "After what happened last night, the American police services will be up in arms. You must make your escape now. Believe me," he said in a patronizing tone—the mature, experienced agent lecturing the hot-blooded young boy. "I know my job as well as you know yours. You simply do not understand."

  "I understand," Karim said. "I understand that if you had done your job, we would not be in this situation."

  Here it is, Hafiz told himself. You knew they would blame you. "I cannot tell the police cars where to go," he said quickly. He had vowed not to get into an argument with them but couldn't help it; it was a matter of justice.

  "You should have picked a spot the police do not go," Karim responded, as Hafiz knew he would.

  "I do not want to argue with you," Hafiz said, realizing they were both shouting. He gazed about, and saw they had attracted a group of curious onlookers. "Now I must speak with your commander. Every minute you remain here endangers you even more."

  The door to the sewing room opened, and Ali walked out. "What is all this noise?" he asked.

  Hafiz managed to speak before Karim. "I must talk with you at once," he said. "It is extremely urgent."

  Ali looked Hafiz up and down, as if examining him anew in the light of day. "I will speak to my men first." He turned to Karim. "Have the Sergeant Major assemble everyone."

  "At once," said Karim.

  "If we could just talk for a moment before you do that?" Hafiz asked.

  Ali seemed to be looking past him. "Assemble your men also," he said.

  The Guards and agents packed into the living room. They all watched carefully as Ali entered, their soldier's antennae trying to pick up some indication of what was to come. Ali swaggered into the room with the confidence of a lion tamer entering the cage. Except for the streaks of dirt on his face and the sand on his clothes, he had thrown off the effects of the previous night. He did not have to call for silence.

  "Did everyone get some sleep last night?" he asked in a loud voice. There were nods around the room. "Good. I am glad someone did." He got a quick burst of the pent-up laughter of men who had lately found little to laugh about.

  "The first thing I want to do," Ali said, "is thank these intelligence officers for their work last night. It was a bad situation, but it would have been much worse if they had not kept their heads. After all, we did make it here safely." He gave a slight bow to the spies. Mehdi, Ghulam, and Mahmoud beamed with relief. They had been prepared for bitter accusations. Hafiz sat stone-faced, fuming inside, watching his efforts unraveling.

  "Well, now," Ali continued, "I do not have to tell you our present situation. We were given our country's most important mission, but we have lost surprise. Worse, the plan is now useless because our weapons are gone.

  "Last night I tried to find some clue to our predicament. I confess that I fell asleep without the answer." He had the Guards' complete attention; every eye was on him as he circled the room. "Then, early this morning, I woke up and looked at the pages before me. And the answer was right before my eyes!" he shouted. Then his voice dropped. "Because I asked myself, should you give up and go home? Never!" he shouted. The Guards jumped. Ali's voice reverberated through the room. "After being singled out for this task, should we slink home with our tails between our legs? Never! With the finest soldiers in the world, our rifles still in our hands, and our force still intact? Never! Not as long as we have only one cartridge left." He had them now. The men were practically bouncing in their seats.

  "But the question remained," he said, his voice dropping again. "How will you do it? How will you replace that beautiful plan everyone knew perfectly? Then it came to me. We sit next to the American Marines' training base. We have good intelligence on all their activities. We need machineguns, grenades, and rockets. Why not take theirs?" Mouths dropped open all over the room.

  "I know what you are thinking," he said quickly. "Is he mad? Does he not know how many Marines are there? Yes, he knows. But these Marines are at their peacetime base, so safe. Their weapons are filled with blank ammunition." The faces were skeptical.

  Ali began drawing on the white wall with a pencil. "Move in closer," he said to his men, "and I will tell you all about the base, and exactly how we will do this."

  When he finished, the reaction was electric. He could see it; they knew it could be done. Now the real test. He asked for questions. A Guard stood up and asked about the mission timetable.

  "It will depend," Ali said. "Careful preparation is required. All the conditions have to be right. First we must wait for the reaction to last night. Depending on what the Americans do, we could go to Phase 2 very quickly. Or we may have to hide until their security precautions are relaxed. But I will keep you informed." The Guard sat down. There were no other questions. We are going to do it, Ali thought in exultation. He struggled to hold his emotions in. Only the Sergeant Major saw Ali's fists clenched at his side as he began to walk from the room.

  Hafiz sat stunned. He could not believe it. They were going ahead after all. Without thinking, he leaped from the chair. "Wait!" he called out. Ali stopped in the doorway.

  Hafiz walked up to him quickly. "You cannot be serious about this," he said in a low voice.

  "Is that what you wanted to talk about?" Ali asked.

  "Yes. You must realize your mission is blown. You have to activate your escape plans at once."

  "There is nothing more to discuss," Ali said coldly. "The decision has been made." He began to walk away.

  "Wait right there!" Hafiz shouted. He couldn't believe it, he was surrounded by madmen. His head was aching again.

  Ali turned, a cruel smile on his face. None of the Guards had moved.

  "This is madness," Hafiz shouted. "Can you not see that?" He seemed to be appealing to the room.

  "I tol
d you the decision was made," Ali said, trying to make this babbling idiot realize he should shut up. He did not want a scene now that he had the men convinced. And he did not want a split with the spies; he still needed them.

  "I am in charge of this part of the operation," Hafiz said desperately.

  Ali shook his head. "You are mistaken," he said, slowly and clearly. His normal tone of voice made the effect even more cutting. "The second I set foot on the beach, I commanded every man in this operation. My decisions are final."

  The Sergeant Major sat off to one side, disgusted. As if we did not have enough problems, he thought. This spy had to be a fool to challenge a man's authority in front of his subordinates. He showed the confidence of someone who had never lost a fight; looking him over, Musa decided it was because he had never been in one. Obviously the spy thought his position gave him leverage. He was about to be proved wrong, and Musa hoped Ali would not be too drastic.

  "My orders are specific," Hafiz shouted, his voice shrill. Ali said nothing, trying to hold his anger in check.

  "I will send a signal to Teheran," Hafiz continued. "They will decide."

  At this Ali's temper snapped. "You will send nothing," he shouted. With a sweep of his boot, he kicked Hafiz's legs out. The spy fell heavily to the floor. Ali's right hand flashed to the small of his back, and when Hafiz looked up he was staring into the muzzle of a pistol. The mouth of the black barrel, aimed directly between his eyes, seemed to Hafiz the most enormous thing he had ever seen in his life. Ali cocked the hammer back with his thumb. As it fell into position with two loud metallic clicks, everyone in the room froze. Hafiz closed his eyes. He could not bear to look into that huge black hole any longer. Karim and most of the Guards seemed to be waiting expectantly. The Sergeant Major shook his head.

  "Open your eyes," Ali commanded. Hafiz did as he was told. "Listen to me very carefully," Ali said. He had everyone's attention. "You make me want to vomit. You and your expensive clothes and your American manner. While you live the rich life over here, safe and warm, we have been bleeding on the battlefield. And when you are finally given something vital to do, you want to run away at the first sign of danger, so you can go back to your rich life."

  The other spies sat mortified under the gaze of the Guards. "It is not true," Mehdi shouted. "For him, perhaps, but not us. We are with you." Mahmoud and Ghulam shouted agreement.

  Ali turned his attention back to Hafiz. "So you see, at least your people have some backbone. Now I will give you a chance to redeem yourself. You have the choice. You can do the job you are supposed to do and come back to Iran with us, alive. Or I can put a bullet in your brain, right now."

  Hafiz looked into Ali's eyes and believed him. "I will help you," he croaked. Ali decocked the pistol, and Hafiz almost passed out at the metallic click. Ali holstered the pistol and walked away, leaving Hafiz sprawled on the floor.

  "What do you think?" Ali asked, when he had Musa and Karim alone in the master bedroom.

  "How did you manage to come up with it?" Karim asked.

  "Teheran sent me the intelligence briefing book on the Marine base," Ali said. He knew exactly what he was saying in putting Teheran's authority behind his plan. "There was a large amount of material on ammunition handling and issuing procedures and Marine operational methods." He turned to the Sergeant Major. "Well?"

  Musa gave him a familiar look, a raising of the eyebrows.

  "Yes," Ali said. "I want to know what you really think."

  "You should have killed him," Musa said. "He could be very dangerous."

  "Not that," Ali said. "My plan."

  Musa shrugged. "It is incredibly dangerous," he said, staring at Ali. The colonel was impassive. "And you know why. First, we will have to split our force. Then we will need exact intelligence, so we will have to send in advance reconnaissance teams. They may be discovered." Musa stopped abruptly, obviously feeling he had made his point.

  "Why do we not attack the White House with what we have?" Karim asked. "One of the spies told me that Kalashnikov ammunition is easy to obtain here in America, in any quantity you wish."

  "I thought of that," Ali said. "I am not convinced we can do the job on the White House with just rifles. If we have to die to accomplish the mission, then we will die. But we will not die for failure."

  "Why not kill the President when he is outside?" Musa suggested. "It will be understood that we could not do everything without all our arms."

  "No," Ali said firmly. "We were given a specific mission, and that is what we are going to do."

  "But I am sure . . ." Karim began. A glance from Musa cut him off.

  "If you are against it," Ali said, showing his first sign of doubt, "then I will reconsider."

  Musa and Karim looked at each other.

  "Do you truly think we can pull this off?" Musa asked.

  Ali did not seem to take offense at the question. "I am positive," he said.

  "Then I am for it," Musa said.

  "And I also," Karim chimed in a moment later. "Now are you sure?" Ali asked them. They both nodded.

  "Then we cannot fail," Ali said, his voice breaking with emotion.

  CHAPTER 14

  "It was the world's most boring briefing," Rich Welsh told Carol Bondurant. "And I say that from long and bitter experience."

  "You old salt, you," Carol said, with friendly sarcasm.

  Welsh had driven back to Washington for a day of meetings. The secretary wasn't available yet, so Welsh was cooling his heels with Carol in the office.

  "I can't wait to hear what they told you," she said. "Now give me all the latest on the investigation."

  "I'd tell you," Welsh whispered, "but then I'd have to kill you."

  She kicked him hard on the ankle.

  "No, not the high heels," Welsh groaned, rubbing his leg. "I'll talk, I'll talk." He leaned back in the chair and put his feet up on the desk. "The FBI is checking the local real estate offices for a safe house, which to me is wishful thinking. There is one good lead, though. The lab boys found a burned ID plate in the pieces of the pickup truck and brought up the numbers. That'll give us the dealership and, hopefully, the purchaser."

  "Probably a fake license," said Carol.

  Welsh shrugged. "Maybe something will turn up."

  "The Coast Guard found what looks to be the mother ship, two hundred miles off the coast. The Treccano Volturno. Italian."

  "We heard," said Welsh. "On fire; sinking; and no distress call, lifeboats, or survivors in the water. Did they track down her route yet?"

  "Kuala Lumpur through the Panama Canal, overdue three days in Wilmington. But nothing else so far. Did the Bureau forensics people get anything from the pieces of the weapons? That's where I thought we'd get lucky."

  "Oh, they reconstructed them all right," said Welsh. "Russian designed weapons set. North Korean copies of AK's and PKM machineguns. Chinese mortar and ammo. Russian single-shot RPG's. All the countries least likely to give us any help on the serial numbers. The grenades were ours, though, M67 frags and white smoke."

  "There must be something there."

  "You'll love this. The lot numbers are from a foreign military sales shipment to the Lebanese army in 2000."

  "God," said Carol.

  "What goes around, comes around," said Welsh. "Who says the Iranians don't have sense of humor?"

  "So their mission?" said Carol.

  Welsh shrugged. "Something big. But I get the impression that everyone is hoping fervently that the bad guys hopped back in their boats and went home after their ride got blown up."

  "But they obviously weren't planning to move thirty men with weapons in one pickup truck," Carol protested.

  Welsh smiled with obvious pride. "Exactly, Holmes. I should have had you with me to whip some sense into these bureaucrats."

  "Rich, what did you do?"

  "There was a whole table of them," said Welsh. "CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Marines, State Department. Mac
Neil just sat there like he was carved out of stone. The CIA was too busy bitching about FBI leaks to the press—you know, the ones accusing the Company of being caught flatfooted by all this. And everyone was perfectly willing to wait as long as it took for the investigation to run its course. We're just liaisons, they said. Washington makes all the decisions."

  "What did you do?" Carol repeated.

  "Nobody was going to stake out any position and take the risk of being wrong. I just got a little vocal, so they'd have to report what I said, if only to cover their asses in case I turned out to be right. I said I thought they were Iranians or Iranian surrogates, that it was a platoon-sized mission, and that we'd better get up on our goddamned toes. If you can't light a fire from the top," Welsh said triumphantly, "light one from the bottom. I put it all in my report," he tapped a binder on the desk, "and it's a beauty."

  His phone buzzed.

  "I hope the secretary feels that way," said Carol.

  "He will," Welsh replied. "If only because it'll make him look good. And this time I'll buy dinner."

  The secretary sat him in front of the desk again. Welsh was used to it by now. He made himself comfortable, opened his report to the first page, and looked up expectantly.

  The secretary glowered at him for a moment. Welsh fought off the temptation to yawn. After Officer Candidate School that shit just didn't work on you anymore. He decided to take a chance and begin. "Sir, I think you'll be very interested in what I have here."

  The secretary held up a well-manicured hand to stop him. "Richard," he said, "all week I have been taking calls from important people in a number of agencies. And all these calls were complaints about you. About you being abrasive, about you being discourteous, about you being uncooperative." He said all this very calmly, as if Welsh was not important enough to become angry over.

  Welsh blinked twice, bowled over by the unexpected turn in the conversation. Then he began to get angry. "You didn't get any complaints from the FBI," he said, half question and half declaration.

  "They were the only ones who didn't complain," said the secretary.