Текст книги "Drone Strike"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

10

Iran

COLONEL KHORASANI GOT OUT OF HIS COMMAND VEHICLE slowly. The old building reminded him of his mother’s parents’ house in Gezir.

Lovely days. Parties every evening with the neighbors and relatives. Iran was a different place. Some of the neighbors were Sunni, and there would occasionally be long arguments about religion, but with no one thinking of taking some sort of revenge or turning the others in.

“The truck is in the back, Colonel,” said Sergeant Karim.

“The place is abandoned?” asked Khorasani as he walked with his sergeant.

“For years now. We are checking the local records.”

The four-door Toyota had been tucked close to the house, invisible from the road and much of the surrounding area, though not from the air. The pilot who had spotted it had been over the area the morning after the “earthquake,” and swore he had not seen the vehicle.

A very similar pickup was seen on the road near the farm truck that had been destroyed; it was clear in the video from the aircraft. That truck had a dent in the top rail; this one had an identical mark. The first character in the registration plate—all that could be seen—was identical.

But this was entirely the wrong place for the pickup truck to be located. It was closer to the lab, not farther away.

Maybe they were tasked with seeing what had happened. The colonel turned south, gazing in the direction of Fordow, which had a high security plant. There were dozens of others scattered between there and Qom farther south. The precincts were off limits to all but the workers and scientists involved in the bomb’s development. Khorasani himself didn’t even know the location of all of them.

But perhaps the most obvious explanation for the truck was that it wasn’t related at all. Smugglers would use a house such as this to stash their wares. It was empty, but perhaps the airplane had driven them off.

The structure had been abandoned years ago. Part of the wall was missing. Khorasani stepped through, entering what was once a bedroom. All of the furniture was long gone, but there were old photographs tacked to the wall: a family picnic lost now to memory.

The colonel walked through the rooms. Dust was thick everywhere.

Khorasani stood in the middle of what had been the kitchen and stared at the weathered pipes in the wall. He had no other leads. The more work he and his investigators did, the more he came to believe that the “incident,” as he called it, was actually an accidental blast caused by the scientists themselves.

That was unlikely to be admitted.

The truck must be linked somehow. Parking here—maybe they were smugglers, but what if they were spies? What if there were more commandos, eyeing another attack?

Khorasani strode outside. Sergeant Karim was waiting.

“Colonel, it is the captain coordinating the Twelfth Guard unit,” said the sergeant, holding the satellite phone out. “He wishes to take his men off alert. They’re worried about their families.”

“They can worry later,” Khorasani snapped. “Tell him the entire area is to stay on alert. Tell him—tell him we are looking for commandos who stole this truck.”

“Uh—”

“Sergeant Karim, follow orders,” he said, returning to his command vehicle.

11

Iran

TURK HAD TO STAND NEAR THE ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE for the sat phone to work. He was just punching the quick-dial to connect with Breanna when he heard a plane approaching from the north.

“I may have to cut this short,” he said as soon as the connection went through. “There’s a plane nearby.”

“Turk, are you OK?” asked Breanna. He heard concern, even fear, in her voice.

“I’m good. I don’t want to take the chance of being seen. The Iranians have been sending airplanes through the region.” He leaned back against the side of the cave. The plane wasn’t getting any closer. “It should be dark soon. Do we have a target?”

“We have two.”

“You still have two? I thought—”

“I have a coordinate for the area we think is safest for you to operate from,” she said, cutting him off. “The procedure you’re going to have to follow is different than the first strike.”

“How different?”

“They’re still working on things. It’ll be more hands on and you may be making the attack in the morning, near or after sunrise.”

“In the day?”

“Possibly. Probably, I should say.”

Turk looked out across the valley in front of him, letting the words sink in. They were still figuring out exactly what to do—that wasn’t a good sign.

“Turk?”

“Yeah, OK. Those coordinates?”

“I’m sending them via the text system now.”

His satcom beeped, signaling that the information had been sent.

“Call when you’ve arrived. We need you in place by 2200 hours,” Breanna added, using the military term for 10:00 P.M. “So we can download everything to your unit before clearing the launch. We’re going to use the first orbiter as a relay station; some of your programming has to be changed. There’s only a small window to do the download.”

“Understood.”

“THEY’RE INSANE IF THEY WANT US TO GET TO THIS point.” Gorud shook his head. “We’ll have to pass two barracks and an antiaircraft site. They’re crazy. God.”

The CIA officer got up and started pacing. He folded his arms over his chest and began scratching his left bicep frenetically, as if he wanted to tear through the cloth and dig past the skin to the muscle and bones.

Grease glanced at Turk and gave him a look that said, He’s losing it. Then he took out the paper map of the area that had been stored there and examined it. Turk looked over his shoulder.

The topo map showed a trail they could take from the road toward a narrow hillside ledge, but it ended about a half mile before reaching that point. The topo lines squeezed together, showing a sharp rise. It would be a difficult climb.

Grease studied the area.

“If we could go through this air base, we’d have an easy time,” he said, pointing at the map. “Otherwise the nearest road is ten miles here. Then we have to go out this way and back.”

“Unless we go through the desert,” said Turk.

“We can’t—this is the salt lake. It’s water out here. There may be patrols on the road.”

“There’ll be patrols inside the base.”

“Not as many as you’d think. Remember the place we hit the other day? Security is something you do at the perimeter, if there.”

“Those are barbed-wire fences, I’ll bet.” Turk pointed to the parallel fence line on the map. “And they’re not going to let us through the gate.”

“We can cut through the fences. That’s not a problem.” Grease studied the map some more. “We’d have to scout it, obviously. A satellite image would be convenient.”

“Yeah,” said Turk. They weren’t likely to get one; the data download was due to take place after they arrived.

“We could take one of their trucks and get right out the front gate. Be less likely to attract attention than ours.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Gorud. “What the hell are you thinking?”

The CIA officer started waving his good arm in the air. He seemed dangerously close to losing control—maybe he already had.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “They’ve given us a suicide mission—”

He stopped speaking. Turk stared at him for another second, then looked at the map again. Grease had already turned his attention back to it.

“We can leave the truck about a mile away and walk through this ravine,” Grease told Turk. “We get past the fence here, then it’s a straight jog to the administrative buildings.”

“What if there are no vehicles?” asked Turk.

“It’ll work, don’t worry,” said Grease. “Worst case, we go back. But we won’t have to.”

“You’re crazy!” shouted Gorud. “Both of you! Crazy! We have to leave now! We have to leave now—now! We have to get out!”

Gorud turned and ran toward the deep black of the cave’s interior. Frozen for a moment, Turk finally got moving only after Grease jumped to his feet.

They caught the CIA officer at the edge of the underground lake. Turk, whose eyes seemed to have adjusted better to the dark than Grease’s, grabbed the back of his shirt and started to pull. Gorud swung around, trying to hit him. Instead they both fell. Grease leapt on Gorud, pinning him to the damp, uneven floor.

Gorud yelled and screamed in pain. Grease leaned against his neck with his forearm while pulling the flashlight from his pocket as the other man squirmed harder.

“Get him a styrette,” said Grease. “Morphine.”

“God, he’s burning up,” said Turk. “He’s hotter than hell. He’s got some sort of fever. His wound must be infected.”

“Get the morphine.”

Turk stumbled back to the medical kit for one of the morphine setups. When he returned, Grease had spun Gorud over on his stomach and was holding him down with his knee. The CIA officer continued to scream until the moment Turk touched the morphine needle to his rump. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, Gorud looked at him with large, puzzled eyes, shuddered, and began to breathe calmly.

Turk pushed the plunger home.

“I’m going to give you an antibiotic,” he said. “And aspirin. You have a fever.”

Gorud said nothing. Turk took that as an assent and went back for the drugs. Gorud didn’t talk as he plunged the second needle home. He swallowed the aspirin wordlessly, without taking the water Turk offered.

“Don’t give us any more trouble, spook,” Grease told Gorud before letting him go.

Gorud curled up defensively.

“It’s all right,” Turk said, reaching to help him up. “We’ll get out of here.”

Gorud stared but didn’t take his hand.

“We need to get back to the mouth of the cave,” said Grease. “And we have to be quiet.” He spun the flashlight around. “Come on. You, too, Gorud. Let’s go. And don’t do anything weird.”

Turk reached out to help Gorud, but he refused to be touched. He got up on his own.

“We’ll be OK,” Turk told him. “We’ll be OK.”

12

Iran

ABOUT A HALF HOUR BEFORE THEY PLANNED TO leave, an Iranian military vehicle drove down the hard-packed road near the cave. It was a Neynava, a new vehicle with a squared cab in front of a panel-sided open bed, the local equivalent of a U.S. Army Light Military Tactical Vehicle, or M1078.

The sun had just gone down, but there was still plenty of light, more than enough to see the lingering dust cloud after the vehicle passed. The rear was empty; the man in the driver’s seat concentrated on the road.

A few minutes later it came back up, moving a little slower this time. Turk decided it must have gone to the small hamlet about a mile south and then returned for some reason. It wasn’t until the truck came down the road again, this time moving at a snail’s pace, that he became concerned. He called Grease over from the pickup, which he’d been loading.

“He’s gone back and forth twice now,” he said. “The back of the bed is empty.”

“Mmmm,” said Grease. “Probably moving troops around.”

“I don’t see any.”

“Not yet.”

Grease took the binoculars. Turk checked the AK-47, making sure it was ready to fire. He had an extra magazine taped to the one in the gun, and two more in easy reach. Suddenly, they didn’t feel like enough.

“If they come up at us,” he said to Grease, “do we fight, or try to sneak out the back?”

“I don’t know. Depends.”

“On?”

“How many there are?” Grease continued to survey the area below. “I see two guys patrolling. They’re just walking, though. Heads down. They don’t have anything definite.” Grease crouched down and moved to his right, angling for a better view. “They’re just assigned to check the road. BS stuff, that’s what they’re thinking . . . It’d be best to sneak out, but then we have to walk. It’s a long way.”

He didn’t say that they’d have to leave Gorud, but Turk knew they would.

“We can wait a while,” said Turk.

“Yeah.”

Grease moved away, toward the mouth of the cave. Turk stayed near Gorud, who was propped against the cave wall, sleeping.

Leaving Gorud would condemn him to death, he was sure. But maybe he was already doomed.

Leaving him alive here was too risky, Turk realized. They’d have to kill him.

He knew he faced death himself. He didn’t think about it, didn’t even consider the many times he had, to one degree or another, cheated it. But killing someone else, someone on your side, to complete a mission—that was very different.

“I saw two more guys coming down the road,” said Grease, returning. “The truck went back up.”

“What do you think?”

“I think they’re just looking along the road for anything out of place, then they’ll leave.”

“Are they going to come up this far?”

“The mouth of the cave blends into the rocks. They can’t see it. These guys don’t look too ambitious.”

“So we chance it.”

“I guess.”

They waited another half hour. Night had fallen by then; Turk heard insects but no vehicles.

“We’re going to have go down and see if they’ve left,” said Grease finally. “Otherwise we won’t know if it’s safe.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“One of us has to stay with Gorud. I’ll be fine. You’re the better scout.”

Grease said nothing.

“I’ll be OK,” Turk insisted. “You don’t have to look over my shoulder the whole time.”

“It’s my job.”

“One of us scouting is less likely to be seen,” said Turk. “And it makes sense that you’re the one to do it. You’re going to have to trust me.”

“It’s not a matter of trust.”

“I haven’t done anything stupid yet,” said Turk. “Except get involved in this.”

Grease helped Turk put Gorud into the cab of the pickup. The CIA operative was still running a fever, though he didn’t feel quite as hot as he had before. It was dark in the cave now, too dark for Turk to see anything more than Grease’s shadow as he backed out of the truck and closed the door.

“Stay by the mouth of the cave,” Grease told him. “Just stay there. No matter what happens.”

“Agreed.”

“I’ll come back and we’ll drive out. Or we’ll go the back way.”

“Got it.”

It was hard waiting. The darkness made it impossible to see. Turk was anxious. For the first time since the mission began he felt very alone—more alone than he had ever felt in his life.

He started thinking about what he would do if Grease didn’t come back.

He heard a vehicle in the distance, driving in his direction. He waited, saw the faint arc of the headlamps.

They disappeared. The night fell quiet again.

Ten minutes later he heard someone scrambling across the rocks to his right. He went down on his right knee, brought the rifle up and moved his finger to the trigger, ready to shoot.

“Me,” hissed Grease, still unseen outside.

“Come.”

“There’s a patrol down there,” said Grease when he was closer. “They have a checkpoint on the road. My guess is there’s another one on the north side that we can’t see.”

“Can we take them?”

“Going Rambo’s not going to help us complete our mission.” Grease moved past him to the pickup.

“What are you doing?”

“Watch the mouth of the cave.”

Turk hesitated for a moment, then started after him. He didn’t catch up to Grease until he’d reached the truck.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Grease ignored him, working inside the pickup. Turk peered over his back as he jabbed Gorud’s side.

“What are you doing?” said Turk again. “Hey.”

“Shut up,” snapped Grease.

Turk tried pulling him away, but the sergeant was built like a bear and wouldn’t be moved. He jabbed twice more.

“Grease, what the hell?” he demanded.

“He’s not going to make it.”

“You’re giving him morphine? Why?”

Grease remained in the truck. Turk pulled at him.

“Just get back,” said Grease, voice shaky. He turned and shoved Turk with his free hand. Caught off guard, Turk stumbled back and fell down. He felt powerless for a moment, then gathered his energy and leapt back to his feet.

There was a muffled gunshot. Grease closed the pickup door.

“Get your stuff,” he told Turk. “We gotta walk.”

13

Iran

COLONEL KHORASANI STUDIED THE MAP. HE HAD made the mistake of reporting the vehicle to General Arfa, the political commander who in ordinary times was his boss. Arfa had immediately seized on the theory that it belonged to saboteurs—defectors, rather than commandos or smugglers—and demanded that Khorasani find them. Khorasani knew he had only himself to blame.

“It is getting rather dark,” said Sergeant Karim.

“I’m quite aware of the time, Sergeant,” said Khorasani.

“Every house and farm within five kilometers has been searched. The roads are being patrolled. But some of the troops—”

“What about this block here?” asked Khorasani. “These mines. Were they checked?”

“The search area didn’t go down that low. And, the map says—”

“I know what it says.” The legend declared the hills a special reserve area—in other words, a place owned by the nuclear research projects, though as far as Khorasani knew, there were no labs there.

Mines would be a good place to hide.

“Get Captain Jalol back on the radio. Tell him to have his men begin searching the hills north of the Exclusion Zone, in this area here. There are old mines—check each one. Look for caves in the hills. Each one to be checked. No excuses! And I want a house-by-house search in Saveh. And it’s to start now, no waiting for morning. If there are questions, have them speak to me.”

“There’ll be no questions, Colonel,” said the aide, gesturing to the communications man.

14

Iran

MOVING THE ROCKS THAT BLOCKED THE BACK ENTRANCE of the cave was easier than Turk expected, and within minutes they were outside, walking along a narrow ridge and trying not to fall off the side or start a small avalanche of dirt.

Turk was tense and tired, his nerves raw. He felt as if his colon had twisted itself into a rat’s tail of knots on both sides of his abdomen. The fresh air, though, was a relief, a blast of oxygen blowing away a hangover.

They were on the far side of the hills, away from the patrol. As the path widened the walking got easy. Turk felt as if they had escaped into a different country, free of the men who would kill them on sight. But he soon heard more troop trucks.

They’d made the right decision, even though he hated it with all his soul.

The gentle slope they walked out to had been farmed many years before, and in the twilight provided by the sliver of moon and the twinkling stars, he could see not only the outlines of a dirt road but a network of drainage ditches long since filled in by blowing dirt and neglect. The land here must surely be among the most difficult in the country to cultivate, excepting the absolute desert, and yet people had tried, apparently with quite an effort.

“Don’t lag,” said Grease.

“I’m moving.”

“We have two hours to go eight miles,” said Grease. “Come on.”

Past the ridge, they were about three-quarters of a mile from the paved road they needed to take south. They angled westward as they walked, gradually getting closer. Turk saw the lights of one of the checkpoints: headlights from a truck, and a barrel filled with burning wood or other material. Shadows flickered in front. Turk counted two men; Grease said there were three.

Rather than taking the road, they walked along a very shallow ravine that paralleled it. Roughly a quarter mile from the road, the ravine had been formed ages ago by downpours during the rainy months. It was wide and easy to walk along, and at first Turk felt his pace quicken. But gradually the weight of the control pack seemed to grow, and he slowed against his will. Grease at first adjusted his pace, then fell into a pattern of walking ahead and waiting. He was carrying his own ruck, filled with ammunition and medical gear, water, and some odds and ends they might need. They’d changed back into fatigues similar to those the Iranian Guard used, and decided not to take spare clothes. Even so, Grease’s pack was heavier than Turk’s, and though he offered to take the control unit, Turk refused.

“Pick up the pace, then,” muttered Grease. He repeated that every few minutes, and it became a mantra; before long Turk was saying it himself, almost humming it as he trudged. His knees ached and his left calf muscle began to cramp. He pushed on.

After they had walked for about an hour, Turk heard the sound of an aircraft in the distance.

“Jet,” he said, without bothering to look.

“Will they see us?” Grease asked.

“Nah. They don’t have the gear.”

Turk listened as they trudged onward. The plane was low—no more than 2,500 feet above the ground.

“You sure he couldn’t see us?” asked Grease after it passed.

“Nah,” insisted Turk, though he was no longer sure. How good were Iranian infrared sensors? He didn’t remember—had he ever even known?

After about fifteen minutes Grease spotted some buildings that hadn’t been on the map. Making sure of their position with the GPS unit, they walked into the open field to the east of the settlement. The area looked to Turk as if it had been soil-mined; mounds of dirt sat on a long, gradual slope southward. They reached the western end and climbed up an uncut hill, then walked along the edge and continued south for about a half mile.

Something glowed in the distance: lights at the shuttered airfield and military base they were aiming for.

“Down,” hissed Grease suddenly, punctuating the command with a tug on Turk’s shoulder that nearly threw him to the ground.

A set of headlights swept up on the left. They were closer to the highway than they’d thought.

After the vehicle passed, Grease took out his GPS. “That’s the base.”

“That’s good.”

“We’re behind schedule. It’s almost 2100 hours. We’ll have to hustle to make the rendezvous point by 2200. If there’s no vehicle here, we won’t.”

“We’ll try.”

Grease propped himself up on his elbows and looked in the direction of the glow with his binoculars. He studied it for so long that Turk decided he’d given up on that plan and was trying to think of an alternative. Finally, Grease handed the glasses to him.

“There’s a dark spot on the far side there,” he said, pointing. “We can get past the gate there, get across the runway and then get the vehicle.”

“All right.”

“It’s going to take a while. You better check in.”