“Peggy, will you ask Joe Rossini to see me as soon as he comes in? I just had a call we need to discuss.”
Thorn pulled his head back inside before she could reply and sat down again at his keyboard. Hesitantly at first and then with increasing speed, he began typing in the commands needed to pull up the latest files on Iraq and its Ba’thist regime.
General Amir Taleh turned away from his desk to find nix, military aide watching him intently.
“Do they know, General?” Kazemi asked quietly.
Taleh shook his head firmly. “No.” He shrugged. “As we thought, Farhad, the Americans have heard whispers in the wind. Nothing more. He thought for a moment longer, pondering what Thorn had told him. Abruptly, he made a decision. “Nonetheless, the risks of our Bosnian enterprise are no longer worth the reward. We already have the men we need. Instruct General Sa’idi to close down our operations there immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
Taleh nodded to himself. The agents he had commissioned to find recruits had been cautious, using cutouts and false papers to shield their true identities. Even if Thorn kept “probing,” there should be no direct trail for the American to follow back to Iran. He looked up. Kazemi was still watching him.
“Do you think the American colonel believed what you told him, General?”
“For now.” Taleh smiled thinly at his subordinate. “Peter Thorn is a very determined, very intelligent man, Farhad. But he has one fatal weakness. He is an honest man who sees his own virtues in others. He does not understand that candor is a luxury for the strong. The weak cannot afford such nobility.”
Kazemi nodded.
“My old friend also puts too much faith in the common bond between soldiers.” Taleh frowned slightly. “There is such a bond, but there are ties which are stronger those of blood and those to the one, true God. One may respect an enemy and yet remain committed to his destruction. After all, even the great Saladin and Richard the Lion-Hearted broke bread together and spoke as friends. But either would gladly have slashed the other out of the saddle on a battlefield.”
He dismissed the whole question with an impatient wave. “We have more urgent matters to deal with than one American colonel, Farhad. Speak to Sa’idi and then bring me the latest personnel reports from the Masegarh training camp. I want to go over the composition of the strike teams again.”
“Yes, sir.” Kazemi hurried out to obey his orders.
Taleh moved closer to a large-scale map pinned to one of his office walls. He studied it for a few moments, weighing and rejecting alternate plans. Convinced again that his original strategic concepts were still valid, he turned his gaze toward the calendar posted beside the map. No, he thought in satisfaction, Thorn and his compatriots would not pierce the veil he had drawn across their eyes not in the time left to them.
Colonel Peter Thorn glanced at his team as they crouched to either side of a locked door. Like him, each man was clad from head to toe in dark-colored clothing and body armor. Black Kevlar helmets, shatterproof goggles, and flame-resistant Nomex balaclavas protected their heads. Their assault vests and leg pouches held an arsenal of grenades, spare pistol and SMG magazines, and other gear. Each of the four men held a German-made Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun in his gloved hands.
“Sniper One, ready. No target.”
“Sniper Two, ready. No target.”
Thorn tensed as the whispered reports from the two-man sniper teams he’d posted outside sounded in his earphones. They confirmed what he’d suspected from the moment his assault force infiltrated this compound. All the terrorists and hostages were inside the room in front of him. And the bad guys were being very, very careful. They were staying well away from the windows and any exposure to his long-range firepower.
Great. This was going to be a bitch.
He pointed to the door and held up two fingers, signaling the type of breaching charge he wanted.
Staff Sergeant Callaway, the team’s demolitions expert, nodded sharply, eyes bright behind his thick goggles. The tall, broad-shouldered noncom laid his weapon aside, yanked open the Velcro tab on one of his assault vest’s gadget pouches, and carefully extracted a thin sheet of explosive rolled into a cylinder. Moving slowly and surely, he straightened up, unrolling the demo charge at the same time.
Thorn spoke softly into the radio mike taped to his throat. “Team Lead. Five seconds.” He tightened his grip on his MP5 and tugged a beer-can-shaped flash/bang grenade out of his left leg pouch. “Four. Three…”
Callaway slapped the paper-thin sheet of explosive onto the door, triggered the detonator, and whirled away.
“One.”
WHUMMP! The door blew inward and slammed down onto the floor. Special timers had detonated the top of the demo charge a split second ahead of the bottom, directing the blast downward.
Without waiting, Thorn rolled out, lobbed his grenade through the smoke, and rolled back against the wall. “Grenade! Go! Go!”
His number two man glided through the doorway and moved left just as the flash/bang went off in a rippling, blinding, deafening series of flashes and staccato explosions that would confuse and disorient anyone inside the room.
Thorn followed him into the smoke, sliding to the right with his submachine gun at shoulder level, ready to fire. He kept moving along the wall, his eyes scanning back and forth through the arc he’d assigned himself The adrenaline pouring into his system seemed to be stretching time itself. Every dazzling flash from the exploding grenade lit the room like a giant, slow-motion strobe light.
Motion tugged at the corner of his left eye. He spun in that direction, aiming, centering the target coming at him in his rear sights. A woman wearing a jacket and skirt loomed out of the smoke. His finger relaxed minutely on the trigger.
Her hands were full.
Thorn’s trained instincts took over. He squeezed off a three-round burst that knocked the halfseen figure backward to the floor. He spun right, still moving forward, hunting new enemies in the grey haze. Submachine guns stuttered briefly off to his left as other members of the team engaged targets of their own.
He edged past an overturned desk. There! More movement off to his right. He whirled that way, seeing a man rising to his knees. His MP5 came up and centered on the man’s chest.
Thorn fought off the urge to fire. The kneeling man was unarmed. He barked out a command. “You! Down! Now!” He emphasised the order with the muzzle of his submachine gun.
The man dropped facedown and lay still.
Thorn scanned through his arc again, searching for further signs of movement. Any movement. Nothing. He looked again, even harder this time. Still nothing. His pulse began slowing, falling toward normal. “Team Lead. Right side is clear.”
His backup man echoed his assessment. “Number Three. Confirmed. Right side is clear.”
More voices flooded through his earphones as the rest of the assault team checked in.
“This is Two. Left side is clear.”
“Number Four. Confirmed.”
Thorn waited for a final report from his snipers before allowing himself to relax. They had good news. None of the terrorists had escaped the room during the assault team’s attack. He spoke into his throat mike. “Control, this is Team Lead. Exercise complete.”
A laconic voice answered. “Roger, Lead. Exercise complete. Weapons safe.”
Thorn and the others snapped their safety catches on and stood easy.
Recessed overhead lights came on suddenly, illuminating the shooting room. High-speed fans kicked in with a low, vibrating hum, clearing the smoke still hanging in the air.
Thorn glanced around at the assault team’s handiwork. Mannequins and pop-up targets the hostages and terrorists were scattered through the make-believe office. Those shown carrying weapons were bullet-riddled. Those that were unarmed looked intact.
