Black Operations- the Spec-Ops Action Pack

by Eric Meyer

Preston looked around casually and nodded a greeting.

  "What I'm doing is uncovering the identity of the guy who's trying to turn the world into a nuclear-armed terror camp."

  "You can't do it like this. I'm sorry, Miles but that kind of torture is excessive. There has to be a better way to get him to talk."

  "There's no need. I think I got what I wanted out of him. He just needed that final incentive to give me a name. That last little bit of encouragement.”

  "You mean you know who it is?" They all stared at him. It seemed incredible that he’d had been holding back all along.

  "Yeah, I think so. He didn't give me a name, but I got enough loose data to put it all together."

  They waited, but he was determined to have his moment of drama, and they were going to have to ask for it.

  "So who is it?" Anika asked.

  "Your boss. Jeffrey Petersen."

  Chapter Nine

  She stared at him in utter astonishment. "Jeffrey?" She shook her head, "No, it's impossible. Is this some kind of a joke?"

  "It's no joke. I put it together from the pieces and bits of information I did get from him."

  "Yeah, we heard you getting that information out of him," Talley said grimly.

  Preston shrugged. "I was almost finished anyway. If he didn't want to get hurt, he shouldn't have held out on me. He’s been singing like a canary for the past hour."

  "So what brought you to the idea that it's the MI6 Head of Station, Tehran?" Anika questioned him. "Frankly, Miles, you'd better have some solid evidence for making that accusation."

  "Have you seen your boss lately?" he asked.

  "No, not recently, but that's not unusual."

  "Maybe not, but plotting to import nukes from Pakistan is unusual."

  His expression challenged her to refute what he was saying.

  "So Majidi did identify him?"

  "Not by name, no, but the description tallied. There’s no doubt, look at some of the evidence. First off, we know that this guy, this Arash, is a keen student of Persian classical history. Otherwise, why would he have chosen the name Arash, one of their ancient warrior heroes?"

  Talley wanted to say there were any of a score of reasons for him choosing that particular name, but he waited for more.

  "CIA has been worried about leaks of information over the past year, and we suspected someone inside the intelligence community was passing information to the Iranians, specifically the Pasdaran, the Revolutionary Guard. One of our chief suspects was Jeffrey Petersen, and he sure was in a position to pass on details of your mission to prevent the Pasdaran obtaining the nukes."

  Anika shot him an irritated glance, "And how many others had that information?"

  He inclined his head in agreement. "That's true. There were maybe four or five people who had the entire package. Except for the one piece of information, the location of that abandoned cinema opposite the Pasdaran Barracks. I've checked to make sure, because I knew nothing about it when I heard your guys had been captured. I spoke to Jeffrey, and he mentioned the old cinema and said you'd been caught inside. Of course, only three of your guys were taken, but he didn't know that at the time. He told me your entire unit was ambushed and taken prisoner by the Pasdaran. How did he know that?"

  Anika was shaking her head. “I still don't believe it," she murmured. "I've always admired Jeffrey. He’s one of the old school, the professionals who are a legend in the MI6 community in London."

  "Like Kim Philby," Preston sneered. "You know as well as I do, the one thing MI6 is famous for is the number of leaks that have occurred over the years."

  Kim Philby, the infamous traitor who betrayed MI6 before escaping to Moscow.

  "Did Majidi describe Jeffrey Petersen in detail?” Talley pressed him. “You’re certain it was him?"

  "Oh, yeah. I showed him a photo I've been carrying of Jeffrey Petersen. At the time, we thought he may have been giving secrets to the enemy, but we didn’t know he was Arash himself. I showed the picture to our friendly Ayatollah, and he clammed up completely. That's when I piled on the pressure. He didn’t know the name but confirmed the man in the picture is Arash. Something else you may not be aware of, not only is he fascinated by everything Iranian, but his wife was killed recently. She was Iranian, and with connections to some of the senior guys in their military, so you can imagine the potential there for a nice flow of information. Unfortunately for us," he smiled ruefully, "the information was flowing from the UK, the US, and NATO into Iran, not the other way as we thought."

  Anika went to interrupt. Talley was surprised to see her face had reddened, and she seemed angry, very angry. Preston stopped the interruption and held up his hand.

  "If you need anything more to go on. I told you his wife was killed, but it's the circumstances of her death that are interesting. She was visiting her relations in Pakistan, traveling to Islamabad cross-country and supposed to be a sightseeing trip. It was just one of those bad coincidences. A US drone sighted the SUV she was in, identified is as hostile, and destroyed it. We were all sorry for him, but we didn’t know it turned him in that way."

  Anika nodded. "He was devastated. It changed him completely."

  "He may have been helping out the Iranians already,” Preston pointed out. “Given his pro-Persian views, it made them more extreme, and he looked for a way to get revenge. Using his contacts inside Iran, as well as his wife's family in Pakistan who were just as intent on revenge, it wouldn't have been difficult to set up the operation."

  Anika was shaking her head, near to tears.

  “I still don’t believe it, not Jeffrey.”

  Talley looked at her closely.

  What is it that's stuck in the corner of my mind? Something about her, something about the way she looked and the things she said is making me suspicious. I'll have to put it aside for now, but there’ll be questions to ask after.

  He looked away from her.

  "I've heard enough. I'm convinced, so let's go find this bastard and stop him."

  “No, please, let me find him and talk to him,” Anika exclaimed.

  They all stared at her. Talley shook his head.

  “The time for talking is over. We have to take the bastard down.” He stared at Preston. "You know so much about this, maybe you can tell us where we can look for him."

  Preston smiled. "I may be able to do better than that. I know he keeps a sizeable yacht moored in the Gulf. Apparently, he’s a keen sailor and diver. The boat is called the Rostam, and she's fitted out as a diving and research vessel. We believe he's been using her to hunt for underwater ruins and relics of ancient Persian civilizations. The boat even has an underwater hatch. They call it a moon tank that can be accessed from inside the hull, so divers can leave and re-enter the boat in bad weather. We had a report that she sailed recently down through the Gulf and out into the Indian Ocean. I’d bet the ranch that’s where he went."

  "Pakistan," Guy exclaimed, "it had to be his destination. So the bastard is bringing them in by sea, when all the time we figured they would come overland."

  “I understand his boat left the harbor in Pakistan late last night,” Miles informed them. “She is due to make landfall back in Iran in forty-eight hours."

  Talley thought fast.

  Everything's falling into place. Even the timescale corresponds to the intelligence we received. It's only the means of transportation that's a surprise, and the man behind it. Arash, the Archer, Petersen, that’s incredible! Except the mythical Arash never wielded arrows with the power of the nuclear weapons that Petersen has under his control.

  "What about Ahmadinejad? Is he behind any of this?"

  "Absolutely not," Preston replied emphatically. "In fact, I can tell you that Ahmadinejad is totally opposed to this lunatic's game."

  "How do you know that?" Talley asked him suspiciously.

  The CIA man spread his hands wide and grinned. "Because I've been talking to him."

  They all stared at him, astonished. Guy
started forward angrily and snatched hold of his collar. "You're telling us that you have been collaborating with that little fucker all this time?"

  Preston was unmoved. "I took my orders from the Director of Central Intelligence, and he took his orders from the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States. And I can tell you, buddy, when he says jump, us foot soldiers on the ground have to jump."

  Talley put his hand on Guy's arm. "Let him go, Guy. We need to hear what he has to say."

  The SAS man removed his hand from Preston's collar. The CIA man moved to straighten his shirt. "We knew there was a leak of information coming from somewhere, and we knew it wasn't CIA. Therefore, it had to be either NATO itself or one of the NATO partners. Our President contacted Ahmadinejad directly and talked to him about the whole scheme, threatened him with the fires of hell if he carried it through. As you may imagine, he's keen for his country to get hold of nuclear technology, but this if different. But Ahmadinejad said it was news to him, and the idea of a rogue branch of the militia possessing nuclear weapons worries him almost as much as it does us in the West. So the two Presidents agreed to cooperate to try and put a stop to it. Obviously, Ahmadinejad can't come out openly and say he's against it because that would fly in the face of what he tells his voters. Neither could he admit he was cooperating with the US, the Great Satan. So they kept it all under wraps."

  "You seem to know everything, Preston, so where is that vessel right at this moment?"

  The American grinned. "I wondered if you’d ask. While you were out bringing back your people, I used my satphone to call Langley and give them the heads up on Petersen, and his boat. There’s a US submarine in the Gulf, and they tasked the Pentagon to give the order for it to locate and shadow Petersen’s boat. The Rostam is apparently heading for its home port of Bushehr.”

  "So why don't you just instruct your submarine to sink her? Then we can all go home."

  "Because we can't be a hundred percent certain the nukes are on board. The only way to be sure is to get on the boat to check it out. While I was making the call, they looked up the latest satellite images. She has an escort of ten Revolutionary Guard fast patrol boats. It'll need someone with expertise of clandestine search and destroy missions."

  Talley nodded. He could see where it was going. "I get the feeling we've been used as puppets all along, hung out to dry while people like you play your wiseass games. You want us to finish this."

  "Don't be bitter, Talley, but yeah, as it happens, I do have a plan for getting you out there."

  Miles Preston made a half dozen calls with his satphone, and within a few minutes, a tourist bus arrived at the factory gate.

  Almost as if it had been preplanned? But how?

  "That's your transport. It'll take you to Tehran International Airport, and you'll find a chartered aircraft waiting for you there. It'll carry you to Kuwait City. From there, you will find arrangements for the next stage of your journey."

  Talley stared at the CIA man in disbelief. How he’d put it altogether was astonishing, except he’d forgotten one important factor.

  "Preston, you know as well as I do that half the cops in Tehran are hunting for my unit. We'll be stopped and arrested before we get even halfway to the airport."

  "It won't happen. Take it from me, Lieutenant, it's all arranged. You have a clear run all the way through the city and out to the airport. No one is going to stop you."

  How can CIA arrange to hold off the Iranian police after the shitstorm we've kicked up? There's only one possibility. Ahmadinejad!

  He walked out to the gate where the bus waited. It was a modern, air-conditioned vehicle that would have been used to transport tourists around the historical sites of the city. He squinted as he saw movement in the distance.

  Shit!

  Two police cruisers were approaching, but they braked to a halt a hundred meters away and sat waiting. The cops stayed put. He turned to Miles Preston.

  "I thought you said it was all arranged? There are two cruisers out there. For all we know, there could be a whole heap more waiting out of sight. It has all the makings of an ambush."

  Preston smiled. "There are no more cops waiting around the corner, Talley. The cruisers are there to escort you to the airport, and to make sure you don't have any problems on the way."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all. You have my word on it."

  I wonder how much the word of a CIA agent is worth? There's no answer to that. One thing's for sure, the Iranian cops know exactly where we are, so if there's going to be an ambush, there's nothing we can do to stop it happening. Our best and only chance is to go along with the CIA plan.

  "You say that Ahmadinejad is in on this?"

  "Yep, he sure is. I know it looks crazy, but from an intelligence perspective, he has nothing to gain and everything to lose by allowing the Pasdaran to acquire nuclear weapons. The politics of this country are incomprehensible to us, but as much as we don't like Ahmadinejad, if he falls and the Pasdaran takes over, it will be only weeks or even days before the missiles start hitting Israel. You know the old saying, the enemy of your enemy is your friend?"

  Talley nodded. "I've heard it, yeah. I don’t always believe it."

  "Well, believe this, the real enemy here is the Pasdaran, and they are Ahmadinejad's enemy too, which I guess makes him our friend."

  "For now," Talley murmured. He turned to Guy. "It seems we don't have a choice. You'd better get the men aboard that bus, Guy. We're going on a trip."

  He nodded and gave the order. Talley turned to the CIA man before he left.

  "Preston, just a word before we go. If this is some kind of a CIA setup, I'll come back, I'll find you, and I'll kill you. And then I'll go find Ahmadinejad, and he gets a bullet too. Clear?"

  "Yeah, no worries, but there's no setup. This is a straight deal, all the way down the line."

  Talley boarded the bus. The men were quiet and tense. All of them had unslung their weapons, and he heard the clicks of clips being checked and snapped in ready to fire. The driver, an elderly Arab man looked around fearfully. Clearly, he wasn't used to having his bus loaded with armed troops who looked mean enough to shoot him at the least provocation.

  "Is it all right to leave now?" he asked, his voice betraying a slight tremor.

  Talley looked around.

  We're as ready as we can be, short of smashing out the windows front and rear, and mounting the Minimis ready to fight off an attack. Not a good idea. Not yet, anyway.

  He nodded to the driver. The man closed the door and drove the bus away. One of the cop cars went ahead of them, and the other waited until they had passed and fell in behind. Guy raised an eyebrow.

  "Anything you want us to do about them, Boss?"

  He shook his head. "Best leave them alone. If this is an ambush, they'll hit us with more than two squad cars. We have to hope Miles Preston hasn't set us up."

  His number two shrugged and sat down, clearly uncomfortable with the enemy so near. Anika sat next to him but said nothing. Her face was pale, and she was clearly as unhappy about the arrangement as the rest of them. Talley sensed there was much more she was upset about.

  Whatever it is, no doubt she’ll level with me later.

  The bus took them through the derelict and rusting factories, passing shabby housing estates that littered the outskirts of Tehran. Gradually, the quality of the buildings improved as they neared the airport. There were a few luxury villas with pools, multi-story office blocks, and a general air of prosperity surrounding the wealthier area. They tensed as they reached the airport security barrier, which was manned by half a dozen cops. Parked close by, Talley could see several trucks loaded with Iranian infantry. It may have been they were normally stationed near the airport, but he doubted it. He gripped the butt of his MP7 and waited for the ambush, and for a tank or an armored vehicle to suddenly block the road. They’d be faced with a score of heavy weapons pointed directly at them. But to his astonishment, the barri
er rose, and the bus driver drove straight through and out toward the apron. He parked at the foot of the boarding steps of a charter jet, a twin engine Canadair CRJ-200. He recalled they carried around fifty passengers and were commonly used for hopping between city airports. The bus driver opened the door and gestured at the aircraft stairs. Talley mentally shrugged.

  If this is an ambush, it's a peculiarly complex and expensive way of doing it.

  "We may as well get aboard," he called to Guy. "It looks as if Preston may have been on the up and up."

  "Unless they worked out another way to get rid of us, Boss. Maybe they've put a bomb on board the aircraft."

  Talley smiled. "It's possible, but I don't think so. Everything about this operation stinks. I bet if we check the charter on this aircraft, we'd find it was signed before we even arrived in Iran."

  "How do you figure that?"

  He'd been thinking of nothing else ever since they returned to the derelict factory and found Miles Preston waiting for them. Incredibly, he'd come to the conclusion they'd been left blind by their bosses, right from the moment the operation began. There were too many questions that couldn't be answered, too many coincidences that weren't coincidences at all, and too many escapes that were a little too easy. He looked back at Guy.

  "I haven't worked it all out yet, but I think I know someone who does have some of the answers."

  "Who is that? I'd sure like to talk to him."

  Talley looked at Anika, and then back at Guy.

  "Ask her, I reckon she can fill in some of the blanks for us."

  He noticed the way she paled as she looked back at them.

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "I think you do. You have a lot of explaining to do later."

  "I can't tell you everything, but I'll tell you what I can,” she said slowly, “when it's all over."

  I wish I could believe her.

  They strapped into their seats, the engines fired up, and the stewardess closed the door. Then she came to check on her passengers, giving them the regulation airline smile of welcome. There were no objections. She was a trim young girl, probably in her mid-twenties, with a row of bright, white teeth and huge moist eyes that were almost an invitation to ravish her. Talley had little doubt if he had any questions about the mile high club, she'd be well placed to answer them. The Canadair picked up speed and roared off the tarmac and up into the clear blue skies of Iran. The pilot immediately set course for Kuwait City, a thousand kilometers due west. The stewardess wheeled a trolley along the aisle laden with sandwiches and soft drinks, and the men were able to relax and eat a meal for the first time in days. When they'd been in the air for half an hour, Anika stood up.