Warning Light

by David Ricciardi

  One of the soldiers motioned with his rifle for Zac to get to his feet. Everything hurt as he raised himself off the floor. The two soldiers regarded him coldly as he regained his balance.

  “The farangi still has some life in him,” said the first one.

  “That will change soon enough,” said the other.

  The three men left the room. In keeping with Middle Eastern tradition, the barrel of an AK-47 showed the way. With one soldier in front, and the one with the rifle behind him, Zac was guided down a long, windowless hallway. They might have been taking him for another interrogation or maybe his execution, but one thing was certain—they weren’t about to release him. Sooner or later he would die in Iran and no one would know for sure what had happened. His family and friends would believe whatever scheme the Iranians had invented, and Zac would get a star on the Memorial Wall back at Langley.

  Among all of the unknowns, there were two things that were perfectly clear. Zac’s country needed him to survive; and if he wanted his freedom, he was going to have to take it.

  * * *

  • • •

  HIS MIND-SET CHANGED as he walked along the dusty floor. He noticed the physical security around him and considered how he might defeat it. His hands were still cuffed, but they were in front of his body, where he could use them. The building wasn’t a jail. It looked more like a warehouse and it was mostly deserted. They’d passed only one other person as they walked, another soldier. Doors lined the hall, but most were hollow with light-duty hardware. Interior doors. The lead guard had handcuffs and a pistol on his belt, but the most immediate danger was from the rifle carried by the guard walking behind Zac. He would have to get control of it if he wanted to survive any escape attempt. He’d only fired an AK-47 once before at The Farm, but he had grown up hunting. If he could get his hands on the rifle, he knew enough to use it.

  They walked until Zac noticed a door down a side hall. It was wide and metal, with a well-worn push bar for a handle and the familiar graphic of an Exit sign above. A way out. A plan began to take shape. He visualized it in his mind a few times. It was risky, but he didn’t know how long he had to live. It was time to act.

  Zac spun to his left and faced the guard behind him. With his cuffed hands, he yanked the barrel of the rifle until the muzzle was past his hip. The soldier yelled for help and held on to his weapon, but Zac gripped the barrel tightly and rammed his knee into the man’s groin. The soldier instinctively pulled the trigger, sending several rounds into the lead guard just as he was reaching for Zac. The dying man fell to the ground. Zac continued to wrestle with the rifle, repeatedly driving his knee between the soldier’s legs. The soldier finally moved his hands to protect his crotch and released his grip on the AK. Zac flipped the rifle around and, with both hands on the pistol grip, sprayed several rounds into the soldier’s chest.

  Zac found the handcuff keys on the lead guard’s belt and unlocked himself. He stuffed the pistol in his pants, grabbed the rifle, and ran. The bright desert sun blinded him the instant he opened the outside door. He heard men shouting inside the building and the unmistakable sound of running boots.

  Zac stepped back inside and closed the door. He dropped to one knee and aimed the rifle toward the sound of the approaching men. Two soldiers ran around the corner with their own AK-47s. Zac fired late, missing with the first few rounds but making contact with the next several. Both men collapsed on the ground. Zac grabbed a fresh magazine from one of the wounded soldiers, took the boots from the other, and bolted for the exit.

  He opened the door a second time. This time it was the heat that stunned him, but he kept going. There were several small industrial buildings in the area, but no people. To the left was a dirt road and some railroad tracks. Ahead was a steep mountain range covered with scrub brush and rock, and down in the valley was a small town. The airport was nowhere in sight.

  A small sedan and a dusty Toyota Land Cruiser were parked in front of the building he’d just left. The truck would be the perfect escape vehicle if only he knew where he was or where to go. Plus, the road led to town and right now survival meant staying away from people. He needed time to make a plan. The mountains were steep and inhospitable. They were in the opposite direction from civilization; away from food, water, and transportation. Surviving up there would be difficult if not impossible. The mountains were his only chance.

  He walked briskly to the next building. It was deserted. There were no vehicles and no signs of activity. Most of the buildings looked like warehouses. It was a strange place to keep a prisoner. Maybe they were planning to execute him here or they just wanted to get him away from Sirjan. Had someone betrayed his mission or blown his cover? His mind was moving in a hundred different directions.

  FOCUS, dammit. None of that matters if you’re dead.

  He darted into the scrub brush. His body hurt from the beatings. Only adrenaline and his will to survive kept him moving. His first priority was to put some distance between himself and the four dead soldiers. It was just a matter of time until one of them failed to report in, or a phone went unanswered, or a wife called headquarters wondering why her husband wasn’t home.

  The dusty and rock-strewn ground required his constant attention as he ascended into the mountains. Twisting an ankle or breaking a leg out here could be fatal, but the severe terrain and sheer enormity of the desert also gave him a fighting chance to escape. He hiked for a few hours until the mountainside became so steep that he could barely step toe to heel. There was little vegetation at the higher altitude and the land around him turned from shades of desert tan and sage green to a rocky gray. Snowcaps dotted the horizon and scree fields littered the ground. Movement over the loose rocks was perilous, and Zac slung the rifle across his back to use his hands for climbing. The ridges and valleys of the mountain range soon took him out of sight of the warehouse.

  He paused atop a long scree field. Even in the mountains it was close to one hundred degrees and the heat seared his lungs as he struggled to catch his breath. His legs were sore, his ribs ached from the beating, and he hadn’t seen any water. He sat atop the loose rocks and wondered how he would make it out of Iran alive.

  THIRTEEN

  TED GRAVES SAT in his office reviewing the overnight intelligence bulletins. As CIA’s London chief of operations, he supervised the local officers who were part of the Directorate of Operations, the field personnel most people envisioned when they thought of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  It seemed to Graves as if most of the fundamentalist religious groups wreaking havoc around the world these days were nothing more than anarchists looking for an excuse to return the world to the Middle Ages. Sometimes he was tempted to just let them fight it out among themselves; then the Agency could kill the last man standing and be done with it.

  But the terrorists had too much money, too many weapons, and enough barbaric ideas to be a real problem. They weren’t content to blame the West for the failed ideologies that had destroyed their own countries; they wanted to destroy the West too, and Ted’s job was to make sure that didn’t happen. His frustration level was already high when Peter Clements walked into his office.

  “Good morning, Ted. Have we heard anything on SNAPSHOT?”

  “No. Miller never made the uplink or the check-in. I had Kirby call his mobile and e-mail him but there was no response. I also checked with the aircrew. They said Miller was on the flight out of Sirjan, and the hotel in Singapore said he checked into his room.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I think you never should have sent him.”

  “I’m aware of that. What do you think we should do now?”

  “Peter, if this were one of my men, he would have had a plan, language skills . . .”

  “Ted, I get it, but the fact is we have an officer out in the field and we don’t know if he’s all right or in trouble. Tell Kirby to look wider and dig de
eper.”

  Graves nodded and picked up the phone as Clements walked out of his office.

  “I need you up here now,” Graves said into the phone.

  * * *

  • • •

  TWO MINUTES LATER, the West Point graduate and former helicopter pilot walked through his door.

  “What’s got you so excited?” she said as she pulled up a chair and shook out her strawberry-blond hair.

  When they’d first started working together, Christine Kirby’s physical attractiveness and fondness for speaking in double entendres had distracted Graves to no end, but now that he knew her little game, it only sidelined him for a few seconds. He motioned for her to close the door.

  “Anything back from Miller?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “OK. Then we’re going to have to look a little harder. As of now, I’m reading you in on Operation SNAPSHOT. Zac Miller was performing surface-level reconnaissance on an objective inside Iran, then departing on a commercial airliner for Singapore. Right now his status is unknown.”

  “I thought Miller was an analyst.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then why was he performing surface recon inside Iran?”

  “Great question. Why don’t you ask Peter Clements?”

  Kirby grinned. “No, thanks. I like my job.”

  “What we know is that Miller flew into and out of Iran, but he missed a satellite uplink on the ground and never checked in from Singapore. This has taken on extra urgency. I want you to work with NSA to verify his immigration status in Singapore. When did he enter? Did he exit? Get someone over to the hotel posing as his mother to find out if anyone actually saw him. Give the legal attaché at the embassy a list of twenty names with Miller’s on it and see if anything hits with the local police. You know the drill. SNAPSHOT is a high-profile mission within the Agency.”

  “They should have called it Operation SNAFU.”

  “I wouldn’t mention that again if you really do like your job.”

  “Roger that.” Kirby stood to leave. “Should I keep Peter in the loop on this too?”

  “Let’s keep it between the two of us until we figure out what the hell is going on.”

  Kirby nodded, then turned toward the door.

  “Wait,” Graves said. “There is one more thing. Assemble a four-man security team in Singapore. If we get a lead on Miller’s location, I want him brought in.”

  “What if he refuses?”

  “That’s not his call.”

  FOURTEEN

  BEFORE ZAC HAD left London, he’d asked the operations staff about his options if he were to find himself in the situation he was in now. A former Army Special Forces officer had told him to forget about Afghanistan or Pakistan. His chances of survival as an American in either of those countries might be worse than if he stayed in Iran. His only possible escape would be to hike through the mountains of southeastern Iran to the Persian Gulf. Coastlines were notoriously hard to guard. Maybe he could stow away on a ship or steal a boat.

  Zac watched the sun move lower in the sky as afternoon approached.

  If the sun is over there, then that must be west.

  He realized that he’d been traveling northeast; away from the Persian Gulf. It was unfortunate, but it had been his only choice at the time. Heading south would have brought him near the neighboring town and all of the dangers it would have entailed. Like never before he craved the arrival of darkness and the concealment it would bring. He resolved to head east until nightfall before turning south.

  Zac found a stretch of level ground along the side of a ridge and made good time as he wound his way through the widely spaced scrub brush. At the end of the ridge the ground descended steeply into a valley. A road lay at the bottom. Crossing the pavement would take just a few seconds, but traversing the valley walls would leave him exposed for several minutes.

  He crouched behind a sagebrush to watch for vehicles, but none came. He considered waiting a few more hours until it was dark, but his gut told him that he needed to spend every second putting more distance between himself and the warehouse. He descended into the valley, watching carefully for any vehicles, and sprinted across the road.

  He’d hiked barely twenty feet up the other side when something made him freeze. There was a noise to his left, and it was coming closer. Zac unslung the rifle and knelt on the ground behind a small boulder. After staring intently at the road, he looked up to see an airliner painting coral-hued contrails across the darkening sky. The sound he’d heard was only the faint noise of a jet, miles above him, its passengers flying safely to their destination. Zac sat there, the breeze in his face, watching the jet fly away.

  He knelt on the hard ground, dejected and deep in thought, and noticed movement in his peripheral vision. He looked carefully but saw nothing. His heart pounded in his chest as he moved the rifle left, then right. After a few seconds, a wild goat emerged from behind some brush about a hundred yards off. It moved slowly uphill as it picked its way along the rocky surface. Zac found the goat in his sights. A hundred yards uphill in poor light was not an easy shot. Though the AK-47 was a reliable rifle, it was not a particularly accurate one.

  He knew he should stalk the goat, but he was hungry and running for his life. He didn’t have time to circle downwind and close in for a perfect shot. He fired. The round struck the hill a foot above the goat and it scampered away. Zac fired again, and a third time, but the goat kept running until it disappeared over the top of the hill.

  He stood staring at the empty hill and listening to the report of the rifle reverberate through the valley. As the sound faded, it was replaced by the noise of a vehicle. Zac turned back to the road to see a truck speeding toward him. It was a Land Cruiser, like the one he’d seen outside the warehouse. The rifle shots had masked its approach and now it was only a few hundred feet away. The late-day sun was lighting him up like a searchlight. The Toyota driver would have to be blind not to see him. Zac bolted up the hill.

  Squealing tires and slamming doors echoed through the valley. Within seconds someone opened up with an automatic weapon and bullets were flying past his head, ripping through the air at supersonic speed. He dove onto his stomach, his knees and elbows crashing onto the rocky ground. The soldiers were below the ridge. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they would come. He turned toward the road and raised his rifle.

  He saw the head of a man coming up the hill, but held his fire. Zac’s senses became hyperalert. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Even his pounding heart seemed to slow. He felt the grains of dry mountain sand on his hands as he held the wooden grips of the AK-47. A second soldier appeared beside the first one. The pair was vigilant, holding their rifles in tight and scanning one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arcs from front to back. Zac slowly moved the iron sights of his own rifle to the chest of the first man, but this wasn’t a defenseless goat. This time Zac waited.

  When the second soldier turned to check his flank, Zac squeezed the trigger.

  The first soldier staggered on his feet, blood leaking from the hole in his side. The two Iranians dropped behind cover before Zac could switch his aim. He crawled sideways, beneath the ridge, and seated his spare magazine in the AK. When he rose to his feet, the soldiers were gone.

  Zac had to stop them before they reached their truck and radioed for reinforcements. A shot rang out, and then another as he ran toward the Land Cruiser. Bullets cracked through the air, smashing into the ridge behind him. Another burst of fire came his way and something stung his left shoulder.

  Son of a bitch!

  But the gunfire also gave away the position of the shooter. Zac saw the two men, fifty yards off, hidden behind some scrub. He dove to the ground and fired several rounds toward the brush. He received several rounds in return, but they all flew over his head. Zac glanced at his left shoulder. It was bleeding, and
it stung like hell, but it was just a surface wound—maybe even a ricochet. When he looked back, the men were gone. Zac rose to his feet and caught a glimpse of one soldier supporting the other before the two Iranians disappeared down the steep grade.

  Zac sprinted along the ridgeline until he could run down to the road without being seen. The soldiers’ truck was parked on the near side, a tall whip antenna mounted to its rear bumper, but the men were nowhere in sight. He crossed to the opposite side of the road and saw them moving tentatively down the hill. It was getting dark in the valley, and Zac was able to crawl unnoticed in the shoulder. He stopped across the road from the Land Cruiser and hid.

  The driver helped the wounded soldier into the backseat, then walked around to open his own door. Zac opened up with a burst of rifle fire. The bullets pinned the driver against the truck. Streaks of blood trailed down the sheet metal as his body slid to the ground.

  Zac rose to his feet and walked toward the Land Cruiser. The wounded man in the backseat searched weakly for his weapon. Zac raised his rifle and fired. Half a dozen bullets punctured the door and shattered the window before finding their target. The dead man slumped in the backseat.

  Zac opened the driver’s side door. He could make good distance behind the wheel, but the Land Cruiser was filled with blood, bullet holes, and broken glass. Any passing motorist would be alarmed by the sight of it and Zac probably had half of the Iranian army looking for him already. He didn’t need to advertise his location. He ransacked the truck. There were fresh magazines for the rifle plus a parka, a canteen, and a knife. He donned the parka and stuffed the rest of the gear in his pockets.

  Zac dragged the driver’s body off the road and trudged halfway up the valley before he paused to look back at the shot-up truck. All he could do was shake his head and curse.