Teheran Wipeout

by Don Pendleton

  "Tell me, Mezhabi," Bolan commanded brusquely.

  The dying man's body spasmed.

  Bolan leaned close to pain-racked features distorting into a hideous rictus. He heard a whisper soft as a baby's sigh riding Mezhabi's last expelled breath.

  "Lavizan... tomorrow..."

  Mezhabi's rigid sitting position relaxed.

  12

  Grimaldi watched the dead man topple sideways.

  "No tomorrow for that dude, whoever we have to thank."

  Aswadi said, "Allah is to thank, the instruments of His will of no further consequence to us." He turned to Bolan. "What did Mezhabi whisper to you as he died? Where is the woman?"

  "Mezhabi said 'Lavizan,'" said Bolan, "and the word 'tomorrow.' I assume since he spoke in English, Lavizan is the name of a person or place."

  "Barracks in northeastern Teheran for the shah's troops," Aswadi answered thoughtfully. "Dissidents were interrogated, tortured there before the revolution. After Khomeini took power, the walls of Lavizan glistened with the lifeblood of government Javidan guards killed during the takeover."

  "Why would Mezhabi refer to it?"

  "I am uncertain." The guerrilla leader frowned. "At first the buildings were used to detain and eliminate people following the overthrow but it has been some years since the mass purges. Lavizan has fallen into disuse, most of Khomeini's forces and expenditure channeled into the Iraq problem. There may be a skeletal guard and nothing more."

  Bolan stood from beside the body, having formulated a few ideas of his own.

  "I'd say there could be a whole lot at Lavizan, but not for long."

  "Clarify, please."

  "The other things Mezhabi said," Grimaldi put in, " 'Khomeini' and 'they know.' Think he meant the real Ayatollah, or another double?"

  "Let's piece it together," Bolan suggested. "Mezhabi dies trying to get a message to the woman, the same message he gave us."

  "Unless the guy checked out a real pro," said Grimaldi, "and everything he told you is mucho crapola."

  "The woman," Aswadi barked. "You have not explained her absence."

  "She can be explained when we have the time," replied Bolan icily. "If Mezhabi's 'tomorrow' means anything, we don't have a second to spare."

  "Do not dismiss the matter," Aswadi insisted. "I have warned you..."

  "Tanya is the only one who needs to worry about where she is right now, not us." Bolan severed Aswadi's sentence like a blade. "There is no Soviet ground presence in the area or you'd know about it, and we'd already be gone. I know that much about you and your men. There being no enemy ground force in the area, the only ones she's likely to run into out there are bandits, unless tomorrow's heat and no water get her first."

  Aswadi studied the American.

  "Your concern for the woman is genuine."

  "And there's not a damn thing I can do for her," growled Bolan. "Are we friends, Karim, or must I continue alone?"

  "If she causes the death of one of my men..."

  "We've been through that. We've got no options open to us except to fight this one on the heartbeat with what we've got. We lose time wasting words."

  Aswadi nodded.

  "We understand each other. I honestly hope, my friend, that you have not erred in your judgment, that I will not be compelled to kill you."

  Grimaldi considered the corpse.

  "If what Mezhabi had was important enough to risk his life to tell the woman, I'd put bucks on it having everything to do with what happened in Teheran this afternoon."

  "Or more precisely," said Aswadi, "the possibility of there being more than one Khomeini; a dispiriting notion but probably true."

  "If we accept what Mezhabi died saying," said Bolan, "and the idea of a systematic deception with one or more Khomeini doubles, a highly organized operation, the 'they' Mezhabi spoke of has to be the crew Khomeini has running the operation the way they did at the pavilion today. It has to be top secret. The whole idea is to keep the old bird safe from the public and those who wield power with him. He can't afford to trust anyone."

  "If Mezhabi knew about the doubles," said Grimaldi, "that means the Russians know."

  "And if Khomeini's impostors do in fact operate from the Lavizan barracks," Aswadi asked Bolan, "can you surmise why Mahmoud has not attacked? If the Russians know, they would have certainly ordered Mahmoud to strike. They, too, wish the Ayatollah destroyed."

  "Your plans for the takeover of the government after the assassination," said Bolan. "What's the status of your people?"

  "Ready to implement at the moment of the Ayatollah's demise. We have units in the outlying regions and towns, fully prepared for the necessary show of force, but years of careful preparation should accomplish our ends in the confusion that will follow Khomeini's death."

  "Why not let Mahmoud attack the Lavizan barracks and maybe hit the real Ayatollah," Grimaldi suggested, "then implement the mujahedeen takeover? Can the death of one man matter all that much if everything else is ready to roll?"

  "If the man is Khomeini," the Iranian assured Grimaldi, "it means everything. The madman has cast a spell over this country to the brink of ruin. When the spell-caster is destroyed, the spell will be broken."

  "The Russians are working their schedule, not ours," Bolan told them. "If we accept Mezhabi's 'they know' and piece it with the dying, 'tomorrow,' we could already be too late."

  "The Khomeini punks handling the impostor deal know the Russians and Mahmoud are hip to the Lavizan setup," Grimaldi explained. "Mezhabi learned Khomeini's operation plans to git before anyone tries to hit."

  "We have to assume Mahmoud and the Russians have more than one source of information," Bolan concluded, "and will have learned from another source what Mezhabi wanted to tell them. Karim, we should arrange protection for our women and children and be on the move back into Teheran at once. If Mahmoud knows Khomeini's crew is planning to relocate tomorrow, he'll strike tonight, and that means a military takeover."

  Aswadi responded, not to Bolan but to al-Hakim and the others of his command, orders in Farsi that sent al-Hakim and the men snapping salutes and scurrying off toward the concentration of fighters.

  Aswadi said in English to the two Americans, "We begin immediately for Teheran."

  "Transportation?" Grimaldi asked.

  "There is a refugee camp unknown to the army, several kilometers from here," Karim explained. "They have vehicles and offer us use of them when necessary. We will be in Teheran no later than midnight."

  They headed toward the guerrilla unit already dispersing in the gloom.

  "We can use your five best men," said Bolan. "Fewer men will be a damn sight easier to gel into Teheran."

  Grimaldi snorted.

  "We stand a good chance if their checkpoints are as shabby as they were today. This time of night they'll be worse."

  "There will be much killing if we encounter General Mahmoud," Aswadi said. "We chance the ending of our lives, you and I, Bolan, guided by the disjointed ramblings of a dying traitor and sheer conjecture. We must consider the possibility of the true Ayatollah Khomeini being nowhere near the old barracks in Teheran."

  "And I hate to point this out," Grimaldi said, "but how would we know the real Ayatollah if we find one and what if we find more than one?"

  "If we don't find His Royal Madness at Lavizan, we will learn his exact whereabouts. We'll hit him tonight, also. Then you can implement your takeover, Karim. If it's what we expect, the crew at Lavizan has to know where Khomeini is at every minute, even if no one else does, for the logistics to run as smoothly as they did today."

  They reached a spot where Aswadi stopped to hoist his sleeping bag and field pack across his back.

  Bolan noted nearly half the guerrilla force already gone, vanished into the night with all their gear, blending soundlessly with murky, rugged terrain in the short time since Karim had issued the command to pull out.

  Bolan saw al-Hakim pause in organizing and preparation of the dependents fo
r their march to the refugee camp for transportation. Aswadi's second-in-command was engrossed in an animated exchange with someone, the staticky reception of the two-way radio he held indiscernible to Bolan. Then al-Hakim ran toward them, shouting in Farsi. His voice was drowned out before he reached them, cut off by a roaring man-made thunder bursting from the Stygian gloom.

  In the instinctive scramble of everyone on the ground to the nearest cover, Bolan tagged the ruction as incoming gunships. He saw the death birds heavy with 40mm cannons and machine guns the instant the in-zooming choppers opened up.

  Explosions and shrieks of pain shattered the night as hellfire whistled in, blowing men apart, bursts of the firestorm tracking directly at Bolan, Aswadi and Grimaldi.

  13

  Bolan, Aswadi and Grimaldi fanned out in separate directions to escape the lethal hail of bullets from the Huey gunships. They swooped in low overhead, each chopper strafing the camp as mujahedeen fighters sought cover.

  As he flung himself away from the path of a fire-spewing Huey, Bolan glimpsed one of the fast-sequenced detonations of impacting rockets evaporate the running figure of al-Hakim, Aswadi's right-hand man.

  The closest gunship soared past Bolan directly overhead, its incoming fire plowing the earth where Bolan and Grimaldi and Aswadi had stood moments ago.

  Bolan came out of his roll, rifle tracking around toward the death birds that were blitzing the night everywhere around him.

  Grimaldi and Aswadi picked themselves up from the ground several hundred feet from Bolan, both men swinging their weapons around.

  Another death-dealing rocket leaped from a speeding Iranian air force gunship as the Hueys completed their first pass before rotoring out of range of the riflemen on the ground.

  Bolan saw the trajectory of the parting shot with no time to shout a warning, his insides shuddering when the 40mm-round burst between Bolan and where Grimaldi and Karim stood, too near to Jack.

  Aswadi dived for cover.

  Jack started to.

  The blast flung Grimaldi into the air, arms and legs outflung, his rifle flying from his fingers.

  No, Bolan's mind screamed silently.

  He triggered a burst from the AK-47 appropriated during the clashes with bandits earlier that night, ceasing fire when he realized venting blind rage did not change the fact that the gunships had already buzzed well beyond rifle range.

  He turned and hurried to the spot where an unmoving Grimaldi lay sprawled. Bolan and Karim reached him together. He saw Jack's left leg twisted unnaturally underneath the right leg and carefully turned him over.

  The surviving guerrillas also held their fire on the choppers.

  Shadowy figures filtered among the fallen, the survivors regrouping, hauling the wounded to cover.

  The gunships, without flight lights, broke formation, their rumble of racing rotors and engines withdrawing.

  The Hueys banked against the black sea of stars, circling, coming in again in a high-speed, three-across battle formation, seconds from another assault on the scattering ground force.

  Grimaldi groaned, semiconscious.

  The surge of relief Bolan felt at the sound of his buddy's voice died when he saw the blood-soaked mess of Jack's unbroken leg.

  Bolan gingerly locked his arms beneath Jack's knees.

  "Grab him," he shouted to Aswadi above the advancing thunder.

  The guerrilla leader helped lift the wounded American, the two men hustling low, carrying Jack with them toward an inky clump of boulders five yards away.

  The incoming choppers opened fire, cannons and mini-guns wide open.

  Sequenced explosions delivered destruction around Bolan, Aswadi and the man they toted.

  Twin streams of automatic fire erupted from the middle chopper, and geysering lines of 5.56mm slammers rippled in, too late for evasive or defensive maneuvers without Bolan and Karim having to drop the seriously injured man.

  The mujahedeen on the ground vainly returned fire from their positions of concealment.

  Bolan noted two grenade launchers among the guerrillas firing without luck.

  One fighter saw the predicament of Aswadi and the two Americans. The man raised one of the launchers, triggering a grenade at the gunship tracking in on the duo and their human cargo.

  The splattering geysers of autofire eating up the distance stopped abruptly less than ten feet from the three men, who were caught in the open.

  Bolan and Aswadi crouched behind the cover offered by a cluster of rocks, hurriedly but carefully lowering Grimaldi on his back.

  The Hueys slammed by overhead, the choppers to either end of the formation raining steady blankets of bullets and explosions down upon the mujahedeen, but with less accuracy than before.

  The center Huey maintained its buzzing course at nearly rooftop level for two or three seconds without resuming fire. At a distance of a quarter mile the chopper suddenly blossomed into a blinding fireball explosion that dwarfed the other sounds of war, the flame ball diving sharply. The secondary explosion of its crashing impact into the ground flared a moment later.

  The fighter with the grenade launcher caught a pulping double hit from a gunner in one of the remaining two choppers.

  The gunships banked off to circle for another of what Bolan knew would be continuous strafe runs until the dead bodies of all these men dotted this hillside.

  Guerrillas shouted to one another in Farsi through the dark as the rotor and engine racket of the Hueys diminished again, the freedom fighters taking to higher ground, slowed by carrying their wounded, double-checking men felled, the scene illuminated by flickering flames of the downed chopper.

  Bolan worked fast using a special length of rope, intended for silent killing, which he yanked from one of the pockets in his jacket.

  He tied the short rope tightly around the upper thigh of Grimaldi's blood-soaked leg, which glinted black in the moonlight like spilled oil.

  Aswadi snapped a branch from a nearby tree. The Iranian looped the rope, twisting the branch quickly into a tourniquet to stem the pulsing spurts of blood from shrapnel wounds.

  The rotoring clamor of the approaching choppers came in with less bluster and speed this time, the crews reacting to the loss of one of their own with some caution but not much, tilting in low like scavengers buzzing the earth for food.

  Grimaldi lightly touched Bolan's shoulder.

  "Thanks, big guy... but I think maybe I bought it... this time..."

  "Shut up, Jack. Keep your head down."

  Aswadi moved to withdraw from the rock shield that concealed them from the choppers already firing on straggling mujahedeen unable to reach cover, the night splitting apart with more slaughter.

  "I will bring our medic."

  Bolan stopped him with a restraining motion.

  "Let the choppers pass. They're sighting with infrared. We don't need you and Jack both down."

  Grimaldi cursed in rapid Italian.

  The gunships flew in closer, turret-mounted miniguns yammering only sporadically now, but Bolan could see shredded corpses of guerrillas toppling as strobelike flashes of devastation cracked the night. A smattering of ineffectual rifle fire returned from the ground.

  Aswadi remained, the fever to fight blazing in his eyes.

  "We are defenseless!" he shouted above the deafening symphony of destruction almost upon them.

  "Maybe not," growled Bolan.

  He darted from cover, calculating the approach of the nearest chopper in its hovering, roving manhunt. The death bird's weapons were temporarily silent, the crew's attention still focused on a point away from Bolan, where the chopper had shredded two mujahedeen guerrillas shouldering a wounded fighter from the killground.

  The dust was clearing where blitzing cannot fire and riced the men into tiny pieces. The Huey banked around in search of more game, then hovered into a position Bolan had been waiting for.

  He quick-footed to a grenade launcher that lay near the shattered, unrecognizable remains of the
mujahedeen fighter responsible for taking out the enemy chopper moments earlier. The man had had enough time to prime the launcher before cannon fire ripped him apart, the tote-bag ammo pack with additional grenades on the ground near the discarded launcher.

  Bolan raised the riflelike launcher, tracking toward the nearest Huey, steadying himself, feet planted wide, calculating windage and range as his finger curved around the trigger. He bucked into the recoil, the report lost beneath the cacophony of destruction around him.

  He retrieved the tote pack, glanced inside and saw two remaining grenades at the instant another fireball flared in the night sky. He looked up from fitting another grenade into the launcher.

  The fiery remains of a gunship plummeted down, well away from the surviving guerrillas, the blazing pieces of the shattered helicopter hurtling to earth and illuminating the desert night.

  Bolan heard a spontaneous cheer go up from the freedom fighters, then he saw Karim Aswadi dash from the rocks and Jack, in search of medical help.

  Bolan fought the impulse to return and check on his wounded buddy. The Executioner knew that would draw fire from the final Huey chopper banking around for a strafing run specifically aimed at him, the flames of the downed gunships making him an easy target.

  He crouched low, ready.

  The Huey was closing in from several hundred yards out, miniguns pounding on full-auto at the weaving, loose-limbed human target who suddenly dived beyond the streaming geysers of rapid-fire ricochets.

  The evasive maneuver of the dark-clad figure surprised the pilot of the government chopper at the last possible instant as whamming projectiles spanged across the rocky ground fractions of an inch from the big man's heels.

  Captain Baqir, the pilot at the controls of the Huey, ceased firing when his target's extraordinary dive from oncoming death took him momentarily out of the line of vision.

  Baqir tugged the joystick between his legs in the cockpit.

  The gunship responded with a sharp tilt, tossing some of the crew behind Baqir off balance. They stumbled and cursed the pilot, but the tactic saved the gunship when the man triggered his grenade launcher, the explosive narrowly missing the Plexiglas bubble through which Baqir again caught sight of the gunner on the ground.