A hand tugged on Ali's rubber suit, and he turned around to look. The third Zodiac in line was signaling that its engine was dead, probably flooded by a wave. The fourth boat, which should have moved up to tow it, had already passed by, oblivious to the signaling. Ali pounded on the inflated rubber skin of the Zodiac in frustration. Now all three boats would have to circle about to get the disabled one, and that meant moving back across the path of the waves as they turned. The maneuver was very dangerous in such small craft.
He gave his coxswain the signal to turn and added a shouted threat to be careful. In the middle of the turn, the Zodiac hit a wave and began to flip over. The Guards saved themselves by instinctively throwing all their weight to the side that was rising out of the water. Ali's prayers were answered when the other boats made their turns successfully. As the lead boat cut across the path of the disabled Zodiac, they threw out a line and took it under tow. The other two followed close behind.
Fifteen minutes later they all managed to cross the surf line safely. The two boats that were able to maneuver swung even with the lead boat so they could all land on line.
When the bows hit the sand, the Guards exploded from the boats. All the anxiety of landing in an enemy country was gone in the relief of finally reaching dry land. They cut loose the straps holding the torpedo-shaped containers of arms and ammunition and lifted them free. A few paused to offer the coxswains obscene gestures before collapsing onto the sand. The boats pulled away and headed back to the ship.
Two large darkened beach houses lay before them. Ali could see the Guards' faces turn as they started at the opulence. A solitary figure trudged down from the dunes and moved carefully toward the men on the beach, obviously aware that many weapons were trained on him.
"Red," Hafiz called softly in Farsi.
"Thunder," Ali replied. "Is the beach clear?"
"All clear, and welcome," said Hafiz. He walked forward to embrace Ali but was held off by an outstretched hand.
"I want to get out of here immediately," Ali said. "Where are your vehicles?"
Hafiz was flustered. He had been expecting words of gratitude and congratulation. "One truck is on the other side of these dunes," he stuttered. "Three others are a distance away; I will have to call them by radio."
"Very well," Ali said curtly, striding toward the dunes and waving for the Guards to fall in behind him.
Now sweating in their rubber suits, the Guards carried the containers over and down the dunes toward the truck. It was a full-sized Ford four-wheel-drive pickup, with a plastic shell covering the bed. On a walkie-talkie radio Hafiz told the other three trucks to come up.
Ali quickly took stock of the situation. "Put the containers in the back of the truck until the vehicles come," he ordered the Guards, who had been standing immobile with their loads, waiting for guidance. "Where is the Sergeant Major?" Ali called out.
"Here," came a voice in the darkness.
"Get these people out of the road and into the dunes. Get the suits off and put security out. And make sure we have everyone." There were muffled orders and the Guards trudged back up the dunes.
Hafiz was walking over to tell Ali the other pickups were coming when a loud "Yai!" rang out from the dunes.
Ali dived behind a mound of sand when he saw the blue lights of a police car come into view. Hafiz stood frozen next to the truck, his mouth open in disbelief.
Ali sprang to his feet, grabbed Hafiz and pulled him down. They were caught in the headlights. Unslinging his Kalashnikov, Ali leaned across the mound and fired a burst into the police car. His first magazine was loaded with all green tracers, and they made it easy to guide the path of the bullets into the car. Once he opened fire, the rest of the Guards joined in, and the top of the dunes lit up with the muzzle flashes. The lines of green light from the tracers gave the illusion of stretching out and slowly floating toward the police car.
Driving up from Surf City, the North Carolina Highway Patrolman had decided that the Topsail convenience store was the best place to pick up a pack of Marlboros. When he saw the pickup, he decided to pull over. Fishermen and kids were always parking on the narrow shoulder, even though there were no-parking signs everywhere and a parking area a quarter mile down the road. He was about to tap the license into his computer when the first rounds came through the dashboard. The laptop screen was blown to splinters, along with three of the fingers on his right hand. The trooper reflexively stepped on the brake. He stared unbelievingly at his hand. Then the windshield exploded, and he threw himself out the door. The cruiser seemed to be coming apart.
The trooper was left-handed, he was angry, and he wasn't feeling any pain yet. With the glare of the headlights in their eyes, the Iranians didn't see him come out the door. He jerked his Beretta Tomcat from its holster, laid it across the window frame, and fired three quick rounds in the direction of the pickup—the only clear target he could see. He didn't fire any more, because the Guards saw the muzzle flash and concentrated their fire on it. Forty large, high-velocity slugs punched effortlessly through the door and killed him.
Two of the trooper's pistol rounds sailed over the truck and down the road. But one .357 SIG flew through the open rear hatch, punched a hole in one of the fiberglass containers, and struck the detonator of a 60mm mortar bomb.
The mortar bomb exploded, and what resulted is known as a sympathetic detonation. The bomb exploded the other grenades, rockets, bombs, explosives, and ammunition in the container; which detonated the other two containers; which detonated the gas tank of the pickup truck.
Ali was just lifting his head to check on the police car when the first muffled explosion made him pull it down. Half a second later the pickup exploded in an enormous deafening blast. Rockets sailed through the air; ammunition sparked like fireflies.
Fortunately for Ali and Hafiz, the sand mound they took cover behind was between them and the truck The initial explosion buried them in sand, saving them from the gasoline fireball. Behind the dunes, the Guards were shielded from the blast. They burrowed in the sand to protect themselves from the shower of red-hot metal that was falling all around.
Running out of air, Ali pushed himself out from under the sand. Feeling Hafiz next to him, he grabbed the spy by the collar and yanked him out. Heavily stunned, Hafiz had just brushed the sand from his eyes when the engine block of the truck fell back to earth and landed with a thump ten feet away. After instinctively recoiling, it took Hafiz a moment to recognize what the object was.
Ali got to his feet, felt unsteady, and promptly sat back down. Musa and Karim charged down the dunes, expecting to find him dead.
"Are you wounded, Colonel?" Karim shouted. Musa began checking Ali's body for injuries and broken bones.
"I am all right," Ali said shakily.
"He has no wounds," Musa confirmed, his voice showing his disbelief. "Praise be to God," he added quietly.
"What will we do now?" Karim shouted.
By force of will, Ali rose from the sand. He was about to speak when Musa shouted, "Headlights! Get down!" They threw themselves to the ground; Ali remained standing.
Hafiz looked up. "No, no," he shouted. "Don't shoot, those are the other trucks!"
"Hold fire!" Musa screamed up at the dunes.
"Understood," a voice shouted down.
Karim ran out into the road to flag down the trucks. Seeing the destruction, they had stopped a hundred meters away. When they noticed Karim waving, they slowly drove toward him, dodging the chunks of metal that littered the road.
"God is great!" Ali exclaimed, as the trucks pulled up. He walked over to where the first truck had been. In the glare of the other trucks' headlights, he saw that the engine block and two tires were all that remained. The ground was littered with pieces of weapons, cartridges, and unexploded grenades. He felt nauseated and sat back down. After taking a moment to collect himself, he called Musa, Karim, and Hafiz over to where he sat.
"We have to get out of here—quickly," Ali said.
He motioned toward the shot-up cruiser. "Check that car." Musa shouted the order, and two Guards trotted over cautiously. One glance at the shattered body in the road told them there was no need to finish the job. The tracers had ignited the upholstery, and the interior of the car was starting to smolder.
"Now listen carefully," Ali continued. "Have all the men run down to the beach, away from where we landed. Leave two Kalashnikovs near the water. Then have them walk through the water to where we came ashore, and come up the same path we took to the dunes." For a moment they did not move, staring at him with perplexed expressions.
"Just do it!" Ali shouted. "And get the men into the trucks. Make sure they bring their rubber suits. Every one. Go, go!" Musa and Karim ran off. Ali pointed to Hafiz. "Be sure the trucks are ready." The spy nodded and staggered off.
Ali lay down in the sand and vomited. Then he sat up and tried to shake off the effects of being blown up; Why did it have to happen again? The Guards came running back from the water. After they had loaded themselves in the trucks, Musa and Karim helped Ali up and into a pickup. "We are in your hands now," Ali said to Mehdi, who was driving. The spy nodded grimly, swung the truck past the shot-up cruiser, and stepped on the gas. The other two trucks followed close behind.
As the three vehicles moved north on Route 6, two Onslow County Sheriff's Department cruisers sped by with lights flashing and sirens screaming, heading south toward Topsail Island.
PART THREE
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
— Oscar Wilde
CHAPTER 12
The road at Topsail Island was carpeted with rifle and machinegun cartridges. As Richard Welsh made his way across the sand shoulder, they crunched underfoot; there was no way to avoid all the debris. His identification had gotten him past the North Carolina Highway Patrol roadblock, but the crush of law enforcement vehicles made it impossible to continue. He parked his car a quarter mile down the road and walked the rest of the way.
Since there was only the single road on the island, one lane had to be left open for the inhabitants. The rest was blocked off with yellow crime-scene tape barriers.
As he walked past the shattered Highway Patrol cruiser, Welsh whistled softly at the number of bullet holes. The remnants of the explosion were even more impressive. Only the engine block sitting forlornly off to one side gave the clue that the blackened spot on the sand had been a vehicle. It reminded him of the aftereffects of a demolition class at Quantico. Marveling at the devastation, Welsh followed a line of policemen over the top of the dunes. Watching them struggle in the sand, he was glad he'd decided to wear jeans, sneakers, and a parka to keep out the wind.
The amount of metal on the beach was amazing. FBI specialists were marking the locations of the biggest pieces on maps and placing them in plastic bags. Others had taped off lines of footprints and were making plaster casts. There were explosive-ordnance disposal flags all around, marking unexploded grenades and mortar bombs. Welsh bent down and picked up a rifle cartridge at his feet. It provoked a look of disapproval from one of the technicians, but Welsh ignored him—there were thousands scattered about. He recognized the stubby cartridge as his old friend the Russian 7.62 x 39mm, the mate for the Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Standing conspicuously apart from the uniformed police and the FBI agents in their prominently marked windbreakers was a short, stocky man with dark red hair, dressed in a well-tailored dark blue suit with a red tie. The man had a definite air of authority and a face that seemed to expect the worst of everyone. He appeared annoyed at the toll the beach was taking on his wardrobe.
Welsh walked quietly up behind him. When he was close enough, he said in a loud voice, "Hey, don't you know beach sand'll knock the shine right off those Italian loafers?"
The man was obviously unused to insubordination. He whirled about quickly, an angry look on his face. It changed to a grimace when he saw Welsh.
"I heard you were coming down," said Special Agent James MacNeil. He didn't bother to disguise the lack of enthusiasm in his voice.
Welsh sighed. He'd been afraid it would be like this. MacNeil was an FBI counterterrorism specialist based in Washington. These days nearly every branch of the government had some sort of anti-terrorist role, but the FBI had the biggest domestic slice of the pie. Welsh dealt with them in the course of normal business, making sure liaison was smooth between the FBI and Special Operations Command. Obviously MacNeil believed he had come down to butt in and was worried about versions of events other than the Bureau's getting back to Washington. Welsh thought he ought to clear the air.
"My boss ordered me down to see what happened," he said, trying out a disarming smile. "I'm just here to get briefed." There was no response, so Welsh decided to abandon subtlety. "I didn't come to drop dimes on anyone."
MacNeil's face took on an expression of either mild amusement or relief, though he did not seem entirely convinced. "You're here pretty quick," he said. "How did you get down?"
"My car," said Welsh. "That'll give you an idea of my priority. Two minutes after I got in the office, they told me to get my ass down here. Couldn't get a commercial flight, so I drove straight through."
MacNeil allowed himself a faint smile. "We took a helicopter, almost beat the Raleigh office." There was a pause. "Anybody with you?" he asked pointedly.
Welsh shook his head, as if he couldn't quite believe it himself. "I know you'd like me to get the hell out of here, but I just need a quick briefing and I'll stay out of everyone's way." That wasn't entirely true, but he didn't need MacNeil on his ass.
"I'll give you the grand tour," said MacNeil. "I appreciate the sentiment, but your boss sits on the Crisis Committee with my director."
"Thanks," said Welsh, genuinely surprised. Amazed to find himself with some clout, he decided not to tell MacNeil he was only there because the secretary was pissed off at him.
"Sorry I didn't seem happy to see you," MacNeil said as they walked down the beach. "But everyone's coming out of the woodwork on this, and I've been dealing with them all morning. North Carolina Bureau of Investigation, sheriff, the Marines, NCIS. There's even a couple of geeks from the State Department around here somewhere."
"Did you say NCIS?" asked Welsh. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service was responsible for handling major crimes involving naval personnel, including Marines.
"Yeah, but they're gone," said MacNeil. "They tried, but since this took place outside the base and there's no evidence of military involvement, they have no jurisdiction."
"Thank God," said Welsh. The popular TV show notwithstanding, NCIS was renowned in law enforcement and military circles for seriously screwing up practically every major investigation they had ever been involved in.
They stopped at a blocked-off column of footprints. "Whoever it was landed here last night," said MacNeil, pointing to the shoreline. It was low tide, and there was a smooth gap between the ocean and the beginning of the footprints. "Probably rubber boats, since nothing marked up the seabed."
"How many do you think got out?" asked Welsh, writing in his notebook.
"Twenty-five to thirty, but it's hard to tell, they must have been wearing something over their shoes—and the North Carolina cops ran around here like idiots this morning. Our nighttime arrivals were met by what looks like one guy; his shoe prints are pretty clear. The mess on the road is probably his vehicle, a pickup of some kind. Then they moved up over the dunes."
"And they got interrupted," said Welsh.
"State trooper. He must have surprised them. No computer or radio call, but he got three rounds off. You saw what they did to his car. We don't think he got any of them, but something hit the pickup and it went up like a nuke. A citizen down the road called it in, but the scene was abandoned when help finally got here."
"And the truck was full of what they brought ashore."
MacNeil took out his notebook. "Basically small arms; machineguns, antitank rockets, mortars, grenades, plas
tic explosive. Can't give you numbers and types right now, they're still putting the pieces together."
Welsh dug the cartridge out of his pocket and held it up. "AKs, right?"
MacNeil nodded. "Lots of rounds, and empty cases up on the dunes. That's what they used on the deputy. We recovered two intact AKMs from the water."
"What make?" asked Welsh.
"They tell me North Korean, folding stock. That's all we've got right now."
"Well, they sure weren't timid about it. Just dropped off thirty guys and all their hardware on a U.S. beach, easy as you please. Very professional."
MacNeil did not dispute the point.
Welsh closed his notebook and slipped it back into his parka. "Looks like we got lucky again."
"If you want to look at it that way."
"Sure as shit wasn't good intelligence work," said Welsh. "If that trooper hadn't shown up, all this firepower would be on its way somewhere. Any ideas on that?"
"That's the thing," said MacNeil. "The footprints come back off the dunes and head into the water, which is where we found the AKMs."
"You think they hauled ass back to their boats when their truck blew up? Maybe dropped some of their gear in the general panic?"
"Everyone would like that," said MacNeil. "But we really can't afford to depend on it, can we?"
"No," said Welsh, "we can't."
"Right now there's no indication of who did it or what their intentions were, or are. Unless you've seen something?"
"This is way beyond Al Qaeda," said Welsh.
"Agreed."
"Where I work everyone says don't worry about the Iranians. But I look around here and I see a reinforced rifle platoon equivalent with supporting arms. This weapons set is not for running around and causing general mayhem. It's for a direct action mission to hit a hardened target."
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