by Dale Brown
“We’ll ride together,” Nuri told Flash. “You drive. I need to figure something out. All right?”
“I’ll try.”
Nuri checked in with Danny as soon as they got into the vehicle. Danny and Hera were on their way to the van, planning to follow one of the trucks.
“Stay with Bani Aberhadji,” Nuri told Danny. “He’s the main target right now. They’re scrambling because of the attack on the weapons plant. He may lead you to other parts of the network.”
“If they uncrate what they’ve got, we’ll never be able to find them,” said Danny. “And we only marked half of the boxes. We don’t even know what’s in them. At least one was big enough for a warhead—”
“Don’t worry about all that right now,” said Nuri. “Just trust that we can find them again. Stick with Aberhadji.”
Nuri suspected that Danny was thinking about striking the trucks. He was a military man, and thought like one. But it was too impractical; if they failed, they’d lose everything.
“Subject Tarid is exiting the hotel,” said the Voice.
“Danny, I’ll check back with you in a few minutes,” Nuri said. “We’re going to follow Tarid. We may end up picking him up if it looks like they’re going to kill him.”
“How?”
“That’s a problem for the future.”
67
Over northern Ethiopia
Breanna realized the Israeli attack on the Sudan weapons material factory would complicate the operation in Iran. Even if the government wasn’t responsible for the program there, the high-ranking people who were might make things difficult for foreigners, either as a smoke screen or simply for revenge. Iran had an ugly history on that score.
She immediately began working out the details for an evac mission. Fortunately, she had some of the key ingredients close at hand — a pair of Ospreys, and the rest of the Whiplash crew.
“The closer you can get us to the border, the easier it’ll be,” said Boston when she reviewed the situation with him using a map display on her console. “Easiest thing to do is let them come out the way they planned: They get into their speedboats and go out to sea. Then we have the Ospreys meet them and pick them up.”
“But what if they can’t get to the speedboats?” asked Breanna. “That’s what I’m worried about. They can’t get the speedboats and they can’t get out through the airports, because they’re shut down or being watched.”
“Then you either send a new set of speedboats to make a pickup, or we have the Ospreys grab them. Another thing,” Boston added, “would be to have them sneak over the border into northern Iraq. Trouble is, the Iraqis are kinda on guard there. The smuggling’s not as bad as it is down south, but you’d still have patrols to dodge.”
“We could work something out there with the government,” said Breanna. “It’d be just a question of going through channels.”
“I’ll tell you right now, you want to avoid as many channels as possible where the Iraqis are concerned. The command structure’s a sieve. Anything they know in Baghdad is known in Tehran inside an hour, as a general rule.”
He was exaggerating, though not by much.
“We’re going to land in Turkey and refuel in a few minutes,” Breanna told him. “Tell me what sort of reinforcements you’d need for a rescue operation. I’ll get them lined up.”
“Hell, I’d take whatever we can get. Battalion of soldiers. Company of Rangers.” Boston smiled. “Or a squad of Marines. Same difference.”
68
Northern Iran
Danny watched the small screen as three men left the warehouse. It was impossible to tell who was who on the small screen, but the Voice had no trouble identifying one of the men as Bani Aberhadji.
He got into the cab of one of the trucks with the two men. The truck did not contain one of the marked crates. In fact, the box it carried was rather small. The truck took up its spot at the rear of the convoy, following the other trucks as they headed down the narrow farm lane with its tight cutback to the dirt road and then south toward the village.
There was no way of knowing where the trucks were going in advance, but Danny guessed that they would pick one of the bases in the Great Salt Desert. Most of Iraq’s special weapons programs had been located there before the treaty agreement, and a network of underground bunkers and other facilities remained where the material could be protected. While inspections of the known and announced sites were conducted on a random basis, there were still plenty of places where the material might be hidden.
So he wasn’t surprised when the first vehicle, which had one of the marked crates, turned toward the southeast. He directed the Voice to keep the Owl over it. Then he started the van and did a U-turn in the deserted roadway. The convoy was roughly two miles away; he figured that was a good distance.
Once it reached good roads, the convoy began stretching out. The lead driver had something of a lead foot, and in less than a minute the Owl could no longer catch the train of trucks in one image.
“Circle back so you can see the entire convoy on a regular basis,” said Danny. “Fly in a surveillance pattern above them.”
“Confirmed.”
“Are all the trucks together?”
“Truck One, Truck Two, Truck Three, Truck Five, Truck Six, and Truck Seven are on local route 31.”
“Where are the rest?”
“Truck Four and Truck Eight are on local route 2. Truck Nine is on local route 25. Truck Ten is on an unmarked road heading west. About to exit range of Owl.”
Truck Ten was the vehicle with Bani Aberhadji.
“Display a map,” he told the Voice. “And locate the trucks.”
The map popped into the screen. Truck Ten was nearly parallel to them, on a small road to the north that snaked through the mountain. Danny stared at the screen, trying to guess where Aberhadji was headed.
“Danny!” said Hera.
He looked up, then turned the wheel sharply, veering the van back onto the highway. He’d drifted all the way to the opposite shoulder.
“Sorry.”
“Why don’t you let me look at that?” she asked.
“It won’t interact with you.”
“I can lean over and look at the goddamn map,” she told him.
She unsnapped her seat belt and moved closer. Danny held it out to her.
“That’s the truck with Aberhadji,” he told her. “Where do you think he’s going?”
“The computer didn’t tell you?”
“It’s not omniscient.”
“It must be to another hiding place. Why disperse the crates?”
“It would help if we knew what was in them,” said Danny.
“You were right to check the place out and have it ready for us to leave first,” said Hera. “They would have caught us in the middle.”
“I know. I’m going to turn around and follow Aberhadji,” he said, slowing and looking for a place to do just that.
* * *
Bani Aberhadji ran his fingers down both sides of his Adam’s apple as they drove, contemplating what would happen after he unleashed the weapon on Israel.
The Israelis would attack Iran. Of that there could be no doubt. The suffering would be great. But in the aftermath, the Guard could reassert itself. Following a period of great hardship, Islam would begin to rebuild itself. Purity of belief, and as always Allah’s help, would provide the victory.
The most critical period would come in the weeks following the retaliation. Muslims would rally to Iran’s side, but what would the rest of the world do? The Americans were particularly unpredictable. It was very likely they would try and seek him out, make him and other brothers in the Guard scapegoats for the attacks.
He would stand defiantly. He would pray for a trial where his views could be heard.
Or he could drive to Tehran after the missile was launched and wait for the expected counterblow. Becoming a martyr was a welcome prospect. He felt tired, and daunted by the enormity o
f the next steps he would have to take.
“No, not here,” he told the driver as the man prepared to pull into the Guard base. “Keep going straight.”
“I’m sorry, Imam. I thought—”
“It’s not your fault. We are going to a base at Tajevil that I use,” explained Aberhadji. “It is only a little way further. Be careful in your driving. Our cargo is precious.”
* * *
The roads were sparse in this corner of Iran, and Danny had to drive nearly five miles north before finding one that would take him back toward the area where Aberhadji had headed. By that time, the truck had stopped at a small air base in the mountains near Tajevil. According to the Voice, the strip was long but only made of packed dirt.
“There are no aircraft on the ground,” said the Voice. “Database indicates strip has not been used within past decade. Runway length estimated at 3,310.7 meters, not counting apron area and—”
“Get me Breanna Stockard,” said Danny.
Breanna, en route to Turkey, answered from the C-17.
“Someone must be on their way to meet him at this airstrip,” he told her. “We have to track the aircraft.”
“I’ll get back to you,” she said.
“Computer, examine the defenses around the airstrip,” said Danny.
“Facility is surrounded on three sides by barbed-wire fence. There are two guard posts at the entrance, and one lookout. There are two barracks buildings. One building is not presently heated. Conclusion: building is unoccupied.”
“Are there flak guns?”
“Antiaircraft weaponry not detected.”
“How many people are at the base?”
“Impossible to determine.”
“Estimate.”
“One to two dozen, based on typical security measures for Iranian air force facilities.”
The computer was scaling down its estimate from actual bases, which might or might not be a good method.
“Ask it what’s in the building on the north side,” said Hera, examining the image. “There are a couple of trailers and a long, narrow building beyond the runway area, set off behind another set of fences.”
“Are any of them airplane hangars?” Danny asked.
“They’re too small. There are some antennas nearby.”
MY-PID IDed the facility as part of a Russian-made SA-6 antiaircraft installation, though it was missing several key parts, most significantly the missiles. The long, narrow building was IDed as a storage facility for backup missiles, which, at an operating base, would be moved onto nearby erectors after the first set were fired.
A search of Agency records revealed that the site had been prepared for American Hawk missiles during the Shah’s time. These had never been installed. Though conversion had been started for Russian weapons, they too had never arrived, and it had been delisted as a possible antiaircraft installation a few years before.
Breanna broke into the Voice’s briefing.
“Danny, we have an AWACS in Iraq that we’re going to get up to track the plane,” she said. “Can you get close enough to get a visual ID of whatever it is in the meantime? Is that doable?”
“We’ll try.”
* * *
Aberhadji practically leapt out of the cab, striding quickly toward the missile storage building. He was met halfway by Abas Jafari, the son of a man whom he’d served with during the war with Iraq. Tall and gaunt, Abas had his father’s eyes and voice, and in the darkness Aberhadji could easily have confused the two.
“Imam, we are ready to store the weapon as you directed,” Abas said.
“There has been a change of plans,” said Aberhadji. “Move the missile from the storage area and prepare it. Give me some men to take the warhead from the truck. The Israelis have already struck,” he added. “You must move as quickly as you can.”
Abas blinked in disbelief.
“We will be ready within the hour,” he said.
69
South of Tehran
The cab driver was a talkative sort, babbling on to Tarid about his horrible in-laws. The father was a swine and the mother ten times worse. The man had loaned the driver money twice during the early days of his marriage, and though the loans had been repaid long ago, he still acted as if his son-in-law was a money-grubbing leech. His mother-in-law never washed, and filled every place she went with an unbearable stench.
Tarid was too concerned with his own worries to pay more than passing attention. Aberhadji wanted him to go to an industrial park several miles south of the city. He couldn’t imagine what sort of package would be there, especially at this hour of night.
Half of him was sure it was some sort of trap. The other half argued that if Aberhadji had wanted to kill him, he’d have done it that afternoon, when it would have been easier. He thought of telling the driver to take him to the airport instead. But instead he leaned forward from the backseat, head against the neck rest.
“I brought a fare here two years ago,” said the driver as they neared the turn off the highway. “He was a very respectable man from Egypt. Ordinarily, I do not like Egyptians. But this man was an exception.”
“Mmmmm,” muttered Tarid.
“He used a very nice soap. A very nice scent.”
Tarid wondered what he himself smelled like. Fear, most likely. And resignation.
The cab driver continued down a long block, flanked on both sides by large apartment complexes. The lights on the poles cast the buildings a dim yellow, and turned the dull gray bricks brown. They came to an intersection and turned right, passing a pair of service stations before the land on both sides of the road cleared entirely. As the light faded behind them, Tarid felt as if they had entered the desert, though in fact they were many miles from it.
“Which building were we going to?” asked the cab driver. It was only luck that he knew of the complex, due to the fare he had told Tarid about. While the names of the roads within it were predictable — there would always be a Victory Drive, an Imam Khomeini Boulevard, and a Triumph Way — the layout was a pretzel. He would have to hunt around for his passenger’s destination.
Past experience told the driver that the best tips came if he pretended to know precisely the place, however, so he tried not to reveal his ignorance.
“The building is number ten,” said Tarid.
“The one on Victory Drive?” asked the driver.
“I don’t know the street. Just that the building is number ten. I assume it is the only number ten in the complex.”
Tarid’s admission made things easier, since the driver could now pretend to have been confused by vague directions. He saw the sign for the complex and turned, feeling triumphant that the place was exactly as he remembered it. Then, too, he had come in the dark, though not this late.
There were no numbers on the first two buildings he saw. A plaque on the sand in front of the third declared it was 209.
“It will be in the back,” said Tarid, guessing.
“Toward the back, yes,” said the driver. “I thought so.”
* * *
Nuri and Flash knew exactly where the building was, thanks to the Voice. But Nuri had not been able to get a lead on the taxi driver, and decided he’d have to hang back as the cab drove into the complex. He passed by the entrance as the taxi turned in, then he drove down the block looking for an easy place to turn around. There were none, and so he pulled all the way over to the shoulder, made a U-turn and went back.
Nuri turned into the complex, then took an immediate right — a shortcut suggested by the Voice.
Number ten was at the very end of the street.
“Where is subject?” he asked the Voice.
“Two hundred meters to the west.”
“He’s behind me? South?”
“Affirmative. Subject is heading north.”
The cab driver was lost. Or Tarid knew he was bugged and had slipped him written instructions.
“Let’s see if we can get to that building
before he does,” Nuri told Flash. “His driver is wandering around on the other side of the complex.”
“Go for it.”
Nuri continued down the street. The complex was used mostly by small manufacturers, companies that made items from iron and wood. The larger buildings at the front were all warehouses, and most were empty. A row of empty lots separated number ten from the rest of the buildings on the block.
Nuri slowed down, looking at the building carefully as he approached. It was a large two-story structure, with a well-lit lobby. There wouldn’t be much opportunity to interfere if they decided to kill Tarid inside somewhere.
“Somebody in that SUV,” warned Flash, pointing to a black Mercedes M-class at the side of the road ahead.
The door to the SUV opened. Out of the corner of his eye Nuri saw someone stepping from the shadows on his left. He had a rifle in his hand.
“Shit,” muttered Flash.
“Relax,” said Nuri. “Just play cool.”
The man with the rifle stepped in front of the car, waving at him to stop. Flash had his pistol ready, under his jacket.
“We’re just lost,” Nuri whispered to Flash. “Keep quiet. Keep the gun out of sight. Ignore theirs. We’ll just smooth-talk this. They’ll want to get rid of us quick.”
Flash’s inclination was to step on the gas, but he wasn’t in the driver’s seat.
The man who’d gotten out of the SUV shone a flashlight at them as they stopped. Nuri rolled down the window.
“Who are you?” demanded the man with the rifle.
“Please, we are looking for number three-one-two,” said Nuri in Arabic. “Do you know it?”
“Who are you looking for?” said the man, still using Farsi.
“Three-one-two.”
The man with the flashlight came around to Nuri’s side. The two Iranians debated whether they should help him or not.
“Do you know where three-one-two is?” repeated Nuri. “I have an appointment. We were late coming from Mehrabad Airport but I hoped—”
“Three twelve is back the other way,” said the man with the flashlight. His Arabic had an Egyptian accent, similar to Nuri’s. “Turn your car around, take a right, then a left at the far end and circle back down. You will find it.”