by Greig Beck
Irish wrenched himself free from Hex and swung around to face the darkened desert. He pulled his gun free and shot three quick, silent rounds into the night, then reholstered his gun before turning back to the group.
‘You okay?’ Hex said.
Irish nodded and looked away as if slightly bored. Adira shrugged and went on with her information.
‘There are small squads around the ruins, and also some four-man teams spotted in other regions. My men will gather more information and report back to us.’
Hex looked again at Irish. ‘We can deal with the Iranians if need be, but we can’t afford to get pinned down in a firefight. They’ve got the home-team advantage and a lot of backup.’
‘I agree; they can afford to stand and fight. We can’t,’ Adira said with a flat stare at O’Riordan.
Hex could swear she gave him the hint of a smile.
He called in the information about their position and the Mossad intelligence about the Takavaran, then ordered his team to join up with the Blue team, now less than a mile to the south of the ruins. Adira volunteered to bring up the rear. She obviously isn’t ready to let the big redheaded HAWC get behind her just yet, Hex thought with a grin.
EIGHTEEN
Alex, Sam and Adira lay hidden among a tumble of rocks surrounding the ancient Persepolis ruins and scanned the dry plain before them.
Even at this distance, Alex marvelled at the size of the ancient edifices – nearly a mile in length and half that again in depth. Adira had told him it had taken over 150 years to build the palaces that had once been the centre of both the Persian nation and the entire known world. Its construction had taken six generations, and in its day it would have been the Taj Mahal, Buckingham Palace and the White House all rolled into one.
Alex blinked some grit from his eyes and studied the magnificent structures – even after 2500 years the towering walls, with stairways now leading to empty sky, inspired awe. Massive ornate columns like giant petrified trees and colossal faceless lions still stood guard over the Iranian desert. He squinted – carved into one mighty wall was a massive raised relief of a snarling beast bringing down a bull. The face was dark and polished, perhaps by the oils of a thousand hands that had touched its visage for luck.
Alex exhaled slowly and looked beyond the ruins at the immense plain surrounded by mauve cliffs with sharp, broken edges. He found it hard to believe this had once been a fertile valley – now all that remained was dust, scrubby bushes and a scorching breeze that reddened the eyes.
‘No cover except for those pine plantings a couple of hundred feet out,’ said Sam. ‘Not gonna be easy if someone’s looking out for us. Looks like a few tourists still hanging around as well.’
Sam was right about the cover – the dry Marv Dasht plain provided few opportunities for concealment. Thousands of years before, the rulers had commanded the plain be levelled and planted with lush gardens, with ponds for visiting desert caravans. That beauty and abundance had been destroyed by thousands of years of searing summer heat and freezing winter nights, and now only wind-blasted walls and broken columns stood in the dusty basin.
‘Not tourists – Takavaran,’ Adira said, nodding towards some men near the ruins. A small group dressed in casual clothing were lounging near a broken-down car, while another group was wandering around taking photographs. ‘Our networks told us that Persepolis has been closed to the public since the accident. My bet is that the entrance is under that canopy – probably via a tunnel dug beneath the foundations of the Apadana. It’s the most solid standing structure in the ruins – used to be King Darius’s reception hall.’
Alex took one last look around the desert basin floor. ‘I agree. Okay, we go tonight. First prize: we enter with minimal noise and heat and leave without a trace. Second prize: full engagement with lethal prejudice, and we still leave without a trace.’
Sam nodded. ‘Go in fast and come out smiling.’
The trio agreed on a route up to the Apadana structure, then slithered backwards from their concealment point to rejoin the team and finalise the plan.
‘Are we safe, me’at achi?’ Adira asked Zachariah, who was reading some numbers from a small silver device he held in his hands. He smiled at her use of the term ‘little brother’. Adira wasn’t much older than he but obviously regarded herself as being years beyond him in maturity. Sure, she was bossy, but he couldn’t help liking her. She was like a cross between a protective older sister and a strict hall monitor.
‘Of course, ima,’ he replied.
The Hebrew term for ‘mother’ made her laugh as she held her hand over the little box to shield the screen from the sunlight so she could read the numbers.
He liked her laugh as well, but he was still wary of her. She was iron hard in her beliefs. Perhaps she has to be to do the work she does, he thought.
Zach hadn’t had any contact with the military once his compulsory service period had ended, and certainly no connection with Mossad. He remembered the words spoken by the general who had awarded his father a posthumous Medal of Valor. ‘Without sacrifice, there is no freedom. Without freedom, there is no life. God bless those who give their all for us.’ Zach hadn’t understood it at the time. All he’d understood was that this small, shiny piece of metal was meant to be a trade for his father’s death, and his mother’s too.
The bomber had been trying to get into a wedding party apparently; his father had probably saved dozens of lives. But all Zach had felt at the time was anger – with the bomber, and also with his parents. Then, gradually, he became proud of them, awed by their courage, their readiness to die to save others.
Adira would be like that, he thought as he looked up at her.
Zach thought he probably loved Israel as much as she did; he just didn’t have the same ingrained hatred and anger she had. Even after losing his parents to the bomb blast, he had quickly moved from that initial anger to a sense of sorrow for the desperation that drove some men and women to the ultimate act of murder – or sacrifice, depending on your perspective or geographical location.
He blinked as he realised he was still staring at Adira, and turned back to look at the small screen in his hands.
A large shadow fell across him. ‘What’ve you got there?’ Sam Reid asked.
‘High-sensitivity field Geiger,’ Zach replied. ‘Fully miniaturised, stainless-steel housing, halogen filled with mica end-window. Measures alpha, beta, gamma and X-radiation in the macro and micro range – and right now it’s telling us… yep, just as I knew it would – the atmosphere is benign. It’s in the nanosievert range, just above daily normal. That’s good, I suppose, but strange considering we read a macro burst of gamma from here only a few days ago.’
Zach held out the device so Sam could see the small screen for himself. Sam took it and rubbed it with his thumb, then turned it over, feeling the weight.
‘Nice. You’ll have to tell me where I can get one of these.’
Zach cleared his throat and took the box back, breaking into a toothy smile. ‘Nowhere, I’m afraid, I built it myself.’ His face became serious again. ‘You know, if I hadn’t witnessed that immense radiation spike myself, I may never have believed it ever occurred. It confirms what we’ve been thinking – this is more like a gravitational burst from dark matter. Terrestrial radiation just doesn’t act like this. I’ve got to find out what happened in there.’
Zach strode up to Alex, brandishing the small Geiger counter. Alex took it from him, looked at the screen, pressed a few buttons, shrugged and handed it back.
Zach scowled and wiped the small screen on his sleeve. ‘Captain Hunter, I really need to get in there at ground zero to ascertain the effects of the -’
‘I agree, Dr Shomron,’ Alex cut in. We’ll need your expertise. You’ll be accompanying Ms Senesh, Lieutenant Reid and myself. We go in after dark. Will there be anything else?’
‘Ah, no… Okay, that’s great… I think.’
Zach suddenly realised that he’d gotte
n what he wanted, but that meant entering a hostile guarded perimeter and possibly being shot on sight. He suddenly wished he were back in his lab drinking his Aunt Dodah’s hot chocolate to calm his nerves.
*
The day crawled past with agonising slowness; the team had nothing to do but rest through the late afternoon heat.
Alex took the opportunity to show Hex how to use the KBELT laser. ‘Remember, if you need to use it, narrow-beam shots only. I don’t want broad pulses lighting up the valley floor – there may be high-altitude surveillance.’
Hex’s hands flexed in the air, willing it out of Alex’s grip so he could hold it. Alex handed it over. ‘Twenty shots and then it’ll need to recharge.’
‘I won’t need anything like twenty,’ Hex said, and headed over to a low rock to sit down and practise sighting along the bulb-like barrel.
The setting sun threw long sharp shadows across the vast ancient ruins, and Alex watched as its last rays crawled across the stone, briefly illuminating the crevices and recesses of the decaying buildings. With the disappearance of the sun, the air temperature dropped rapidly. The heat would continue to be radiated up from the sand and rock, but in another few hours they could expect it to be close to zero.
Sam brushed sand from his pants as he got to one knee. ‘We’ve picked up twelve men in proximity, operating in two squads of six. I agree with Ms Senesh that they’re Iranian Special Forces. Their randomness is too practised – they’re too good at looking ordinary. I expect they’ll have night vision and possibly even heat-enhancement scopes. Our suits will mask the body-warmth signatures, and we can follow the old tree line until we’re just half a mile out. Also, there’s the remains of a perimeter structure – little more than a shallow ditch – that we can belly-crawl along. We’ll have to move as a single line, head to boot to head, so we don’t present a human shape or register too much movement for any potential motion scanners. Going to take a bit longer, but it’ll be quieter.’
‘They’re Takavaran – we should kill them all immediately,’ Adira said.
Zach looked at her with a mix of horror and disbelief on his face.
Alex shook his head. ‘No – we don’t know for sure yet who they are, or how many are in the ruins. We go with Sam’s plan. Once inside, Dr Shomron will collect the necessary information to allow us to ascertain exactly what the Iranians have been up to. We should be inside for no more than sixty minutes.’
‘Question. The plan is to ghost in and out. What happens if the Iranians wanna make some noise?’ Irish spoke directly to Sam, but Alex responded.
‘Full engagement, maximum lethality. We can’t afford to have the whole Iranian Army tracking us. If they detect us and attempt to wage war, they must be quickly neutralised. No messages can get out.’
The team nodded.
‘Hex, you organise and deploy the perimeter defences,’ Alex ordered. ‘We’ll commence the operation at 1100 hours. Any more questions?’
There were none.
Alex looked around the group. Adira seemed quietly indifferent; Zachariah sat with round eyes, twitching and pale; and the HAWCs were smiling grimly or resolute. All was as he expected.
NINETEEN
Chief Commander Bhakazarri of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard pushed another ghotaab cake into his mouth. The fried pastry dipped in honey made his fingers sticky, so he sucked them noisily even though his nails were dark with dirt. Without looking up from his paperwork, he extended his hand to find another glistening, nut-filled treat. He could relax now as his deployment selections were complete. He was confident his commandos could handle anything they encountered.
His IRG was a separate entity from the regular Iranian Army. Feared for their brutality and fanaticism, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard were initially created by the Ayatollah to maintain internal security. However, the IRG had grown well beyond this role and branched out into assassination, torture and the training of jihad fighters.
Like many military forces around the world, the IRG had their elite unit – the Takavaran. Bhakazarri oversaw the selection and training of the men in his Takavaran units; they reported to him and him alone.
The Takavaran commandos were the equivalent of the US Special Forces, and none were more feared in the Middle East than the Takavaran Zolfaghar – the wolves. They believed they carried the souls of the ancient Persian Immortals within them and were better trained, better equipped and more fanatical than any other Middle Eastern unit. Bhakazarri knew even the Metsada would avoid them if they could; the best outcome the Israeli agents could hope for when encountering one of these brutal fanatics face to face was mutual destruction.
It was too late to defend the Jamshid I facility at Persepolis – it had already been erased by the accident. Bhakazarri had spread two dozen men loosely in and around the ruin’s perimeter in the Marv Dasht desert, more as a trap than a defensive force. It was Jamshid II at Arak that needed to be protected. Here he had deployed his best men in two mission profiles. The first was a contingent of fifty stationed in the facility itself. If an enemy infiltration team actually managed to find and enter the hidden laboratory, they would be cut down before the first security door was breached. The second mission deployment was another forty Takavaran dressed in the robes and shawls of desert traders and spread in ten four-man units throughout the countryside. Their humble tents would conceal ground radar, nightscope equipment and all the necessary firepower required to obliterate any foreigner that set foot on Iranian soil.
Bhakazarri had ordered at least one of the infiltrators to be brought to him alive, especially if they turned out to be Americans. The humiliation of the Great Satan would be extreme if Iran could parade captured US spies to the international media.
He pushed another cake into his mouth and snorted. Although he had given the order, Bhakazarri wasn’t counting on any living captives being brought to him. His Takavaran rarely left anything behind but body parts. Ah, well, he thought, you send in wolves and someone gets savaged. It didn’t matter; the Americans would still pay to get the bodies back, no matter what their condition.
Alex and Sam were checking their weapons when Adira and Zach joined them. As standard equipment, the HAWCs used the Heckler amp; Koch USP45CT pistol, or CT for short. Smooth and matt black, it was a powerful sidearm made of a moulded polymer with recoil reduction and a ‘hostile environment’ nitride finish giving maximum corrosion resistance.
‘H amp;K,’ said Adira. ‘Big and slow, I remember. Hope your targets stay at walking pace for you tonight.’
Sam chuckled.
Alex clicked the firing mechanism into place and sighted along the barrel. He liked the feel in his hand. ‘Not anymore,’ he told Adira. ‘This CT has a variant trigger – pull and discharge in a single smooth split-second motion. Maybe not the fastest handgun, but certainly faster than a standard Israeli Barak.’ He smiled at her.
‘What makes you think these are standard, Captain? Besides, sometimes speed is determined by what’s behind the gun. When this is over, we’ll have to see who is faster, yes?’
Sam stifled another laugh as he finished screwing on his sound suppressor and twirled the elongated gun in his hand. Most silencers suppressed sound through muffling; the upgraded CT used frequency shifting – it didn’t so much muffle the sound as shift it beyond the range of human hearing. Sam slid the weapon into its holster, which was strapped down into a special pocket in his suit.
Alex looked at his watch: 10.45 pm. ‘Get ’em together, Uncle.’
Hex came in first. He crouched down, holding the Klystron laser across his thighs. With his grey eyes, white-blond cropped hair and futuristic weaponry, he looked like a warrior from a time still to come. Alex could tell he was itching to fire the laser and pitied Hex’s first target – he wouldn’t miss.
Rocky and Irish came in next.
Alex spoke directly to Hex. ‘We can’t allow ourselves to be trapped in those ruins. If the Iranians attempt to enter the facility in force,
move into ambush positions, or engage. You are unilaterally authorised to remove any and all perimeter threats.’
Hex simply nodded.
Alex took the lead on the insertion team. He was the only member of the four-person unit who was without nightscope equipment – his own enhanced vision gave him all the light amplification he needed.
The evening was clear but moonless, making the basin floor appear impenetrable in the darkness. The air temperature was cold, just a few degrees above zero, but still dry enough to suck the moisture from their eyes and mouths. The slow going would have a dual benefit: besides drawing less attention to them, it minimised exhaustion and therefore caused fewer exhalations – which would show on any watching thermal scopes as orange mist plumes.
It was just after midnight when they reached the tent covering the entrance to the tunnels. Sam and Zach moved forward to the steel door, Sam holding a small steel device he intended to use to bypass the digital security and Zach with his radiation meter. Out on the desert floor, Alex could see the slight movement of two of the Takavaran teams. One team was near an old truck, half the men asleep underneath it. The other team was closer to the ruins, the men lying with their backs against the stone, obviously drawing on the warmth stored there during the day.
‘It’s already open,’ Sam whispered. He coiled some wires around the small device and jammed it back into its sleeve. He drew his gun and crouched beside the door.
Adira pushed the metal panel slightly and went down on one knee on the opposite side to Sam. As the door swung inwards, they both pointed their weapons into the black tunnel beyond.
Zach held up the Geiger counter to check the radiation levels. ‘All clear,’ he said, and resheathed the device and fell in behind Adira.
Alex put his hand flat against the stone wall. Suddenly he felt a stab of pain in the back of his head. It turned to agony as the pressure built and shifted in his skull, as if there were tectonic plates in there grinding against each other, adjusting to make room for something. Not now, he thought. Not more change, not now. He closed his eyes for an instant and inhaled deeply. A rippling sensation passed through his head and down his spine and the pressure unwound slightly.
