He threw the spent tube to one side and got to his feet. He and Diaz and the five other Delta Force soldiers who’d escaped the fusillade unhurt hurried toward the shelter offered by the brick wall, dragging their wounded with them. They left four men dead in the middle of the street.
More assault teams tried to cross the avenue and were driven back by Iranian rifle and machine-gun fire this time coming from around the soccer stadium and from the upper floors of the chancery building. Several Americans fell writhing to the ground.
“Hell!” Thorn swore out loud. His men were being cut to pieces by a dug-in enemy ready and waiting for them. Taleh’s security troops had cross-fires laid on every approach to the embassy and they were showing perfect fire discipline never shooting wildly, always waiting for the Americans to show themselves.
He glanced quickly right and left. Two of the men who’d made it safely across with him were busy administering first aid to the wounded. Diaz and the other three were already busy slapping breaching charges against the wall, but the seven of them were not going to be enough to clear that vast compound. He needed more firepower.
Thorn keyed his radio mike. “Four Charlie, this is One Alpha. I need you to suppress those people in the chancery. Now!”
“Roger, One Alpha.” Doug Lindsay’s voice crackled through his earphones. “We’ll do our best.”
Thorn contacted Witt next. “John, use half our guys to lay down a base of fire on those bastards in the stadium. I need the rest here on the double! Got it?”
“Got it, Pete!” the major acknowledged briskly.
Thorn heard the first distinctive, high-pitched cracks made by the Barrett Light Fifties. His snipers were going into action, picking off Iranian marksmen and weapons teams sited inside the embassy compound.
The Delta Force troops deployed near the intersection cut loose, methodically shooting toward half-hidden enemy positions. Grenade launchers thumped, lobbing fragmentation and smoke grenades toward the soccer stadium to suppress and blind the Iranian defenders there.
A grey haze drifted across the street, building steadily in size and thickness as more and more grenades went off. Moving in pairs, another twelve American soldiers dashed across Taleghani Avenue. One man went down shot through the temple and killed instantly but the rest made it safely. The Iranians were still firing, but they were firing randomly now, unable to see their intended targets.
Thorn grabbed his team commanders as they each reached the wall and snapped out his orders for the attack in a few, terse sentences. “Here’s the drill. Three breaches. Three teams. After we blow the charges, nobody goes in until we use the AT-4s to blow the shit out of the chancery building’s ground floors. Clear?”
Strained faces nodded.
“Good.” Thorn checked to make sure the wounded had been moved far enough down the wall to be safe then nodded toward Diaz. “When you’re ready, Tow!”
The sergeant major gave him a thumbs-up signal and bellowed out a warning, “Fire in the hole!”
WHAMMM. WHAMMM. WHAMMM. The three breaching charges went off in rapid succession, blowing huge gaps in the brick wall. And the Iranian troops defending the embassy compound itself immediately opened up, firing from concealed positions inside the chancery. Hundreds of steel jacketed rounds came whizzing and tumbling through the empty breaches.
Thorn grinned to himself. You just made your first big mistake, you bastards, he thought grimly. He keyed his mike. “You see them, Four Charlie?”
“Yeah,” the sniper commander answered coolly. “Ground floor. From right to left. One MG in the third window. Riflemen in the next two. Another MG…” He methodically detailed the exact location of each of the newly revealed enemy positions.
The guns gradually fell silent as the Iranians realized they were shooting into thin air.
At Thorn’s signal, the six men carrying AT-4s popped up and fired their 84mm rockets into the chancery. Explosions tore across the front of the building, smashing through walls, doors, and windows and spraying deadly shards across the rooms behind them.
“Move! Move! Move!” Thorn shouted. He and Diaz were the first ones through the right-hand breach, scrambling and slipping across a mound of smoking, shattered bricks. He had his submachine up and at his shoulder as he ran, firing bursts at anything moving ahead of him.
His assault teams flooded through the breaches behind him. One six-man team peeled off through the rising smoke and dust to dear the old embassy residence used by the ambassador. The rest followed him inside the chancery.
Thorn burst in through a blown-open door. He swiveled left and right, scanning for enemies. There. Three Iranian soldiers were sprawled near a twisted machine gun. They were dead. He moved deeper into the building. Diaz and four of his men were right behind him.
They came out into a long corridor running the width of the chancery. Gunfire echoed in all directions as his troops began the ugly business of clearing the building room by room. Now where?
The sergeant major pointed to a painted sign in Farsi on the corridor wall. “The CP’s downstairs! Go left!”
Thorn nodded. It made perfect sense for Taleh and his top staff to set up shop in the building’s reinforced basement. Their primary concern would have been an American air raid not a commando attack.
Weapons ready, they moved down the corridor, looking for stairs leading down.
“Sir!”
Amir Taleh looked up from the maps he’d been studying and saw Kazemi’s agonized face. “Yes, Captain?”
“The Americans have broken through my defences. They are inside the building.” The young aide swallowed hard. “You and the others must leave this place before it is too late!”
“Agreed.” Taleh nodded, still staggered by the speed of the American attack. Who could have dreamed that they would demonstrate such audacity? Still, all was not yet lost. He could regain control over his invasion forces at another of the alternate command posts. He turned to his deputy. “Assemble the senior staff, Hashemi.”
Most were already prepared, clutching briefcases stuffed full of hastily gathered maps and documents. Surrounded by Taleh’s personal bodyguards, the group hurried toward the nearest staircase.
Thorn crouched at the top of the stairs, watching Diaz get set. They’d heard the clatter of boots and the metallic clink of weapons drawing closer for the last several seconds. Whoever was coming up had almost reached the bend in the stairs.
He nodded sharply and his lips formed the unspoken command, “Now!”
The sergeant major yanked the pin out of the fragmentation grenade he was holding and tossed it down the stairwell.
Taleh heard something clattering down the stairs from above and froze. A small cylindrical shape bounced into view, rolling toward them. His eyes widened in shocked recognition.
Without hesitation, Captain Farhad Kazemi threw himself forward onto the grenade just before it went off.
WHUMMP. Thorn felt concussion punch into his lungs, and buried his face against his arms to shield his eyes from the smoke and debris billowing up out of the stairwell. Then he was on his feet, charging downward with Diaz at his side.
They rounded the bend.
Iranian officers and enlisted men jammed the staircase in a tangled knot. Some were bleeding. All of them were dazed. Only one, though, was dead the victim of his own sacrifice.
Thorn opened fire with his submachine gun, sweeping from left to right. Diaz took the other side. Each burst sent one or more Iranians tumbling down the stairs. It was a methodical, mechanical slaughter. Those who were armed were too closely crowded together to use their own weapons effectively.
He felt a single bullet tear a burning gash across his upper left arm and shot the man who’d winged him. His finger eased on the trigger. He couldn’t see any more targets any more men to kill.
Then Thorn spotted movement near Diaz out of the corner of his eye. He started to spin in that direction. He was too late. He was too slow.
