by Dale Brown
The footage showed rows of demolished houses. He stared at them for a few moments, amazed at the damage, wondering if it was real.
“That’s Badroud,” said Gorud, coming into the room behind him. “They didn’t know they were sitting on an atomic bomb. Excuse me.” After gently pushing Turk aside, he took the mouse and started fiddling with the browser, first checking the history and then opening the Favorites folder.
“You can read this?” Turk asked him.
“You think I’d be here if I couldn’t?” Gorud frowned at him. “I want to make sure they didn’t get an alert out,” he added, his voice less antagonistic. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“Do they know what happened?” Turk asked.
“The news, at least, believes it’s an earthquake.” Gorud straightened. “Or that’s what they say. Come on. We gotta go.”
He pulled the wires from the back without turning the machine off. Granderson and the others were already outside. They’d found plasma and were treating Tiny. Turk peeked into the back and saw the soldier lying comatose, his skin so pale it looked like a sheet of paper. He was about to ask if the man would make it but thought better of it.
“We better get moving,” said Granderson, hopping off the back. “Let’s go.”
The pickup went first, driving out of the compound and back to the helicopter rendezvous point. There, some of them changed out of their uniforms, with Turk and Grease putting on a set of civilian clothes that had been found in one of the rooms. They were tight on Grease, loose on Turk. Then the team rearranged themselves in the vehicles—the Israeli in the car with Grease and Turk, who went back to posing as Russians; the captain and Green in the pickup, with their hired bodyguards, Gorud, and the others in the truck, in theory their Iranian escort.
“How you doing back there?” asked Grease from the front seat.
“I’m good.” Turk was alone in the back.
“You’re so quiet, I thought you were sleeping.”
“No.”
“You might try. You’re going to be awake all night. And you have to be alert.”
“I’ll be all right. This area we’re driving through,” he said to the Israeli, “what are the people here like?”
“Iranians.”
Grease scoffed.
“That much I knew,” said Turk.
“They live at the edge of the desert. They scrape by,” said the Israeli. “If you think too much about them, you’ll have trouble doing your job.”
The comment effectively ended Turk’s try at conversation. He slumped back in the seat.
How many people had died in the nuclear explosion, or been buried by the resulting tremors? It was the Iranian leaders’ fault, he told himself, not theirs, and certainly not his. If anything, he had saved thousands, millions. Destroying the weapon meant it couldn’t be used, and even the crudest math would easily show that the damage here was far less than if the weapon had been.
But though he didn’t feel guilt, exactly, Turk felt unsettled. He was uneasy—uneasy with the way the world was, unsettled by reality. In a perfect world, no one would kill, no one would threaten to exterminate a race. It was disappointing to be reminded that the world was far less than perfect.
“Farmers,” muttered Grease. “Right side.”
Turk leaned back against the seat, watching from the lower corner of the window as they passed. Two men were doing something to a tractor; they didn’t look up as the trucks passed.
A few miles later they turned westward, following a road that was little more than a trail down the side of a ridge. Probably flooded with water during the rainy season, he thought, when the rare but heavy rain washed through the area, the road now dry and wide. Its surface consisted almost entirely of small stones and pebbles, but the dirt below was soft.
Before long they started bogging down. The Israeli tried to compensate by building his momentum, but the car refused to cooperate, sliding to one side and then the other as he struggled to keep it under control. Then they spun around in a 360, jerking to a stop when the front wheels slid into a deep layer of soft sand.
The Israeli began cursing in Russian. Turk, a little dizzy, got out and fell to the ground, tripping in the loose dirt. Grease pulled him up.
The pickup stopped a short distance away, the troop truck stopping right behind it.
“We’re going to have to push it out,” said Grease as Granderson and Gorud ran up. “Going to have to push it this way.”
“If it will come loose,” said the Israeli.
“The question is whether we can get it any farther,” said Granderson, looking down the path in the direction they were to take. “Nothing that way looks much better than this stretch.”
Most of the men had gotten out of the truck to stretch their legs. Turk walked over and leaned in the back. “How’s Tiny?” he asked.
Dread looked at him but said nothing.
Turk understood what that meant. He put his lips together. “How’s your shoulder?” he asked.
“It’s OK.”
“We’ll get home soon,” offered Turk.
“Yeah.”
A few awkward moments passed. Turk felt as if he should be able to offer something to the others, consolation or something. He felt responsible for Tiny. He’d been killed protecting him, after all. But there was nothing to say, nothing that wouldn’t sound bizarrely stupid.
He asked Dread for water, but the trooper was listening to something else.
“Truck,” he said, grabbing his pistol with his good hand. “Couple of them.”
A funnel of dust appeared down the ridge.
Grease was staring at the vehicles when Turk reached him.
“Three Kaviran tactical vehicles, and a pair of two-and-a-half-ton trucks,” Grease told him. The Kaviran were Iranian Land Rover knockoffs. “Two miles off, maybe a little more. They’re coming right up this way.”
12
Washington, D.C.
ZEN STARED AT THE NUMBER ON HIS BLACKBERRY phone. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it or the name above: DR. GROD.
He looked up from his seat in the stadium box. The National Anthem was still about five minutes off.
What the hell.
“Excuse me,” he told his guests, a pair of junior congressmen from Florida who had supported one of his bills in the House. “I guess I should take this. It’s on my personal line.”
He wheeled himself back a few feet and hit the talk button.
“This is Zen.”
“Senator Stockard?”
“This is Zen. What can I do for you?”
“It’s Gerry Rodriguez from the Vegas clinic. Remember me from Dreamland? I know it’s been a while.”
“Gerry.” Zen closed his eyes, trying to associate the name with Dreamland.
“I had interviewed you as a follow-up to the experiments that followed, well, what the press ended up calling the ‘nerve center experiments.’ The cell regeneration group.”
“Right, right, right.” The experiments he remembered; Gerry he didn’t.
“You asked if I ever came up with anything . . . about regenerating the spinal tissue. If there was a project—”
“Sure.” Zen glanced toward the front of his box. The two congressmen were rising; the National Anthem was about to begin.
“I’m going to be in Washington tomorrow, as it happens. And I’d like to talk to you. If, uh, we could arrange it. I know your schedule is pretty tight, but—”
Zen got requests like this all the time: scientists looking for direction on how to get funding—and often specifically handouts. Standard Operating Procedure was to fend them off to one of his aides.
“Come around to the office and we can discuss it then,” he told his caller.
“Um, when?”
“Whenever
. I don’t have my appointments handy. Tomorrow, the next day. See Cheryl. She’ll take care of you.”
“Great. I—”
“Listen, I’m sorry. I have to go.” Zen hit the end call button and rolled toward the front of the box just as the music began.
13
Iran
THE IRANIAN MILITARY COLUMN WAS TOO CLOSE FOR them to simply avoid. Granderson decided their best bet was simply to play through—keep moving along the road, moving with purpose, and hope to pass the column without hassle.
It almost worked.
With the car in the lead, the American caravan quickly set out, moving along the scratch road as quickly as it could. As they approached the lead Kaviran, the Israeli tucked as far to the side as he dared, the wheels of the car edging into the soft dirt. The Kaviran kept going. Turk, who had his head back against the car seat, caught a glimpse of the driver, eyes fixed on the road ahead, worried about getting past the pickup and truck. The next Kaviran thumped by. Turk saw the passenger in the front of the third Kaviran turn toward them, craning his neck to see inside.
“Faster,” muttered Grease.
But the Israeli was struggling to keep the vehicle simply moving. The two troop trucks hogged the road, and the only way to pass them was to swerve onto the loose gravel at the side. The Israeli waited until the last possible moment, then pitched the car to the right, drifting precariously toward a drop-off on the other side. They held the road, though just barely. Turk grabbed the handle of the door next to him as the car slipped around, the back wheels sliding free on the gravel.
Clear of the last truck, they had just started to accelerate when Turk heard a loud pop behind them. It sounded a little like a firecracker or a backfire, not a bullet, and he at first couldn’t make sense of it. In the next second, Grease barked at the Israeli to keep going and get the hell out of there. Turk turned around, trying to see what was going on, but all he saw was dust swirling everywhere, a massive tornado of yellow edged with brown. Reaching to the floor, he retrieved his rifle. By the time he got it, Grease had leaned over from the front and was pushing down on his shoulders, yelling at him to stay down.
“We have to help them,” protested Turk.
“Just stay the hell down.”
The next few minutes passed in a blur, the Israeli going as fast as he could up the road, Grease holding Turk down while he tried to get the rest of the team on the radio. The jagged hills played havoc with the low-intercept; he kept calling to the others without a response. Turk struggled to free himself even as he realized there was little he could do.
By the time Grease let go, the Israeli had started braking. They came around a curve in the mountain, swerving into a descent and two switchbacks until finally coming to a flat piece of land. He pulled over behind a tumble of rocks.
“Where are our guys?” demanded Turk.
“Easy,” said Grease, letting him go. “You’re more important than all of us combined. We’ll sort it out.”
Turk’s legs shook when they first touched the dirt. He took a few steps toward the road before Grease caught him, the Delta trooper’s thick fingers clamping hard into his arm.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Grease demanded.
Turk spun toward him. Their faces were bare inches apart. “I’m not going to stay back while our guys are getting pounded.”
“Our job isn’t to save them.”
“Screw that.”
“No,” said Grease firmly. “Your mission is more important than their lives. Much more important. If you fail—they fail. They don’t want you hurt.”
Flustered, Turk opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t.
“Listen,” said the Israeli. “Something’s coming.”
They ran back to the rocks, Grease dragging Turk with him. Turk took a knee and peered out, trying to sort his feelings. Grease was absolutely right—and yet he felt responsible for the others. In his gut he knew he had to help them, no matter the cost.
The curve of the hills muffled the noise at first, and it wasn’t until the pickup appeared that Turk was sure the vehicles were theirs, and only theirs.
Granderson leaned out the passenger-side window of the troop truck. The truck had been battered, the windshield and side window completely blown out, and half the front fender hung down. “What the hell are you stopped for?” he yelled. “Go! Go!”
“Are you OK?” Turk shouted.
“Just get the hell out of here!” yelled the Delta captain. “Just go, go go! Damn. Grease! Get the hell out of here.”
“We’re going,” he said, practically throwing Turk into the car.
THEY STOPPED A HALF HOUR LATER, IN THE SHADOW OF the foothills, within sight of Jandagh, a small city that commanded one of the north-south valleys at the edge of the desert. Old archeological digs, long abandoned, sat nearby. Windswept sand pushed across low piles of rocks; the outlines of forgotten pits spread before them in an intricate geometric pattern, disturbed by an occasional outlier.
The troopers had blown up the two trucks with grenade launchers they’d taken from the barracks but were still badly mauled; the only one in the truck who hadn’t been hit by bullets or shrapnel was Granderson, who miraculously survived without a scratch. Green was the worst; he’d taken shots in both legs and lost considerable blood. It was small consolation, but they’d killed all of the Iranians.
The back of their stolen troop truck had been turned into a makeshift rolling clinic. Turk climbed up, talking to the men as Grease watched from below. Dread tried to make a joke about seeing the “beautiful Iranian outback,” but it fell flat. The canvas top had been punctured by bullets, but the air inside still hung heavy and fetid, smelling of blood and cordite.
Granderson came back from the pickup to get Turk and figure out what to do next. Turk had been lingering with Green. It seemed impossible that the solid old warrior could be wounded, as if his body was made of steel and concrete, yet his legs and fresh green uniform blouse were covered with blood.
“I’m good, Pilot,” he kept muttering. “I’ll be all right.”
There was nothing Turk could do for Green, or any of them. He slipped out and walked around the side with Granderson, who was explaining what had happened.
“The passenger in the front of the first troop truck jumped out with a handgun and tried to wave down the pickup,” Granderson told him. “We didn’t stop. When he started to fire, Gorud and the troop truck ran him down, but the second truck swerved to block us. We fought it out.”
It hadn’t taken too long—three minutes, five—but Granderson was worried that they got off a call for help; one of the command vehicles had disappeared before they could fire at it.
“Hills are so bad Grease couldn’t even hear your radios,” said Turk. “Probably, they couldn’t get anything out.”
“Maybe.” Granderson turned and pointed to the troop truck. “We won’t get far with this. It’s pounded to crap. And the pickup’s not too much better. We’ll have to steal something from Jandagh.”
It was just visible in the distance, off to the right. Turk rubbed the sand off his face and looked at the dunes scattered between them and the small city. Yellow buildings floated below a wavy haze. Patches of green appeared like bunting amid the parched landscape and distant bricks.
“We’ll never get a truck out of there during the day without being seen,” said Gorud, walking over with the Israeli. His left arm was wrapped in a thick bandage. “Assuming we find one.”
“Sitting here is not a good idea,” said the Israeli.
They studied the GPS and the paper map. They were roughly two hundred miles from the target area, and that was if they went on a straight line. Even the best roads would add another hundred miles.
“Maybe the best thing to do is split up,” Gorud suggested to Granderson. “Take the pilot west for the mission.
You wait until dark, then take the truck and go north to the escape route. Route 81 is nearby.”
“We’re not leaving without you,” said Turk.
“Gorud is right,” suggested the Israeli.
“It’s not going to happen,” said Turk. He glanced at Grease. The soldier’s stone face offered no hint about what he should say or do. “What if we wait until nightfall?” he asked. “Then we slip into the city and take what we need.”
“Not with wounded,” said Granderson.
“What other cities are there along the way?” Turk asked. “We could go a little distance, stretch it a little bit, then steal something.”
That seemed promising, until they examined the map. The desert west of Jandagh was mostly dunes; the car probably wouldn’t make it and the pickup might not either. So the only route possible was north, where about eighty miles of travel would take them to a cluster of hill cities and oases. If the truck made it that far, it could go the entire way.
Before they could make a decision, Turk heard helicopters in the distance. As they scrambled back to the vehicles, he had an idea.
“We’ll go back up the hill,” he yelled. “We’ll make it look like we’re investigating what happened.”
He spotted the helicopters a few minutes after the car pulled onto the road. There were two, both Shabaviz 2-75s, Iranian reverse-engineered variants of Bell’s ubiquitous Huey series. They looked like Bell 214s, with a thick, rectangular-shaped engine box above the cabin. Dressed in drab green paint, they were definitely military aircraft. They flew from the north, arcing over the sand in the general direction of the gunfight, though about two miles from it.
“They going to be close enough to see what happened there?” Turk asked as they drove back up the road. They were going as slow as the Israeli could manage without stalling the car.
