“I’m sorry, but I don’t leave my people behind. I can’t do that.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion, Nichols,” Kranemeyer replied, his voice flat, unequivocal. “You can. And you will. Pack them up and move ‘em out.”
Harry took a deep breath, recognizing against the flood tide of his emotions the rationale behind the director’s words. The mission came first. Now, as always. Before family, before friendship, before anything else. It was the harsh truth of his life. And he knew an order when he heard one. When he spoke again, it was in tones as emotionless as the desert wind. “Alpha Team is moving out.”
Chapter Six
Ron Carter exchanged a glance with the DCS as he disengaged the uplink. “Think he’ll do it?”
Bernard Kranemeyer nodded. “He’s a good man.”
A snort. “They’re
Carter turned to his computer, tapping quickly through the database of CIA personnel. He shook his head. “His father’s dead, his mother lives out in California with her husband. Last reported contact between them was four years ago at his step-sister’s wedding.”
Kranemeyer let out a weary sigh. “Their relationship doesn’t matter. Make sure she’s notified.”
“EAGLE SIX to GUNHAND. Take SWITCHBLADE and destroy the fuel tankers parked behind the trailers. Use up our det cord if you have to. But make sure they go up in flames.”
“Roger that, EAGLE SIX.”
Hossein snarled an angry curse into the empty night, listening to it echo among the rocks, mocking his impotence. How the radio had survived the crash, he had no idea, but it remained in his shirt pocket, informing him of events moment by moment, things he could do nothing about, had no power to stop. The gunfire had moved away, as his men chased their attacker across the rugged mountainside. But none of that mattered, not now. In a few moments, the Americans would have destroyed his transportation, his means of pursuing them.
A footstep crunched into the rocky ground beside his ear and he glanced up, into the eyes of an Iranian soldier. “Help me!” he hissed angrily.
The soldier started up, looking again as if to see if his major was still alive, then he lifted up his voice. “Come! Come and help me with this cursed truck!”
Tex moved quickly toward the back of the base camp, stepping over the corpses strewn across the desert sand. Davood’s form appeared at his side and the Texan dug into his backpack, dividing his supply of detonation cord.
“Take the two tankers to the right,” he ordered, his words terse and quick. “I’ll take the two this side of the main road.”
The Iranian agent nodded. “Timed detonation or command?”
“Command. Separate charges. That’ll get us well clear.”
“Understood.”
They separated there, and Tex hurried to his tankers. The fuel trucks had been moved in within the last few days, according to the satellite imagery they had been shown before loading onto the Huey. Apparently the Iranians had planned on settling in.
The Texan bent down on one knee by the rear of the first tanker, unwinding the det cord from his backpack. The thin rope was impregnated with plastic explosives, and was usually intended to connect a charge to its detonator. But it made a fine explosive in and of itself.
He still remembered an ambush in the mountains of Afghanistan. He and his Force Recon squad had been assigned to take out a Taliban strongman. They had laid in wait for him along a mountain trail. When their trap was sprung, the terrorist and his surviving bodyguards dove for the rocks to one side of the trail, intending to take cover there. In their hurry, they never noticed the rope laced into the rocks. And at that moment, Tex had pressed the detonator…
He tossed one end of the rope up over the tanker and pulled it down the other side, twisting the cord into a knot. Placed at that point, the explosion would split the fuel tank apart, igniting the gasoline inside. Testing the knot to make sure it was secure, he attached the detonator. As a hurried
Harry pushed open the door of the trailer cautiously, following his gun barrel into the room. Hamid was on guard outside.
A strong smell of antiseptic was the first thing that struck his nose, followed by another, equally recognizable. The smell of death.
His eyes swept the room, taking in the scene. The inside of the trailer was like a hospital room. His mind flitted back to the schematics they had been shown back at Langley. The computer simulations the photoanalysts had made of the Russian bio-war trailers.
He was standing inside one. For once the spooks had gotten it right.
A body was hermetically sealed inside a container on the far side of the room. Harry stepped closer, peering into the-
At first he thought the night vision goggles were distorting his sight, but then he looked closer. The man was naked, lying on his back a few inches beneath the clear, air-tight plastic. White, Caucasian. Probably one of the archaeologists he had come to rescue.
He was no longer recognizable, every vein of his body puffed out and outlined in black. Harry had never seen anything like it. In his fifteen years of service for the Agency, he had seen bodies in every stage of death and decomposition, but never anything like this.
Harry reached down and unstrapped the TACSAT from his ankle. Phone home…
“Kranemeyer here. Speak.”
“Director, this is Nichols. I’ve found another one of the archaeologists.”
“Who?”
Irritation showed through in the voice that responded. “I don’t have the time to run around identifying corpses, sir. I’ll leave that to the desk jockeys.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes, and his body’s in worse shape than anything I’ve ever seen.” Kranemeyer exchanged a sharp glance with Ron Carter. Coming from the man on the other end of the line, that meant something.
But Harry was still talking. “I’ve taken a photo with the TACSAT’s camera. Uploading to the Agency intranet as we speak. See if you can get an ID on what killed him.”
