It seemed as though every eye in the camp was suddenly focused on him, the Kurds frozen in place, waiting for an order from their leader.
Finally, at a nod from Badir, Sirvan advanced to take the rifle from Thomas’s hands. “We have our friends in Europe, Mr. Patterson.”
“It’s a good weapon,” Thomas observed objectively. “I used one of them in Latin America a few years back. Who’s your sniper?”
“I am,” a voice announced before either man could respond. Thomas’s head swivelled to the left to see Estere standing there, tucking her long black hair beneath the camouflage ball cap she wore.
“Then may I compliment you on having such a fine weapon,” Thomas replied, adroitly concealing his surprise.
“You may,” she retorted, crossing the camp to take the rifle from Sirvan’s hands, “so long as you leave it alone. You might break it.”
Cradling the M-85 in her arms like one might a child, she turned her back on the men and went back to kneel beside her bedroll.
Thomas turned to find Azad Badir regarding him with an amused smile. “We march in ten minutes, Mr. Patterson. Don’t wander off.”
“Time?” The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Yousef Mohaymen Isfahani, asked, turning to the attendant at his side.
“Fifteen minutes until noon,” the man replied, bowing deeply. Isfahani acknowledged his words with a nod, looking northward from the portico as though fancying he could see the approaching helicopter.
Failing in that, he turned away, placing both hands on the balustrade as he glanced into the courtyard beneath him. So much had changed in the last few years. And the world had barely noticed.
Gone was the theocracy that had ruled Iran for over three decades. Not truly gone, perhaps, but gutted of all true power. Men might still call him the Supreme Leader, but he was a figurehead, little more.
This meeting had the potential to change all that. A chill ran through his aging body, despite the pounding heat of the noonday sun. It was a terrible risk.
He smiled with a grim humor. The West was too consumed with its worsening economic troubles to keep track of events in Iran. And outwardly, little had changed in the years since a military cabal had seized power in Tehran. Led by then-general Mahmoud F’Azel Shirazi, the conspirators had succeeded in corrupting large numbers of the Revolutionary Guard and regular army to their cause. The revolt had been sudden and swift, leaving the ayatollahs with no time to react.
Those few Western press agencies that had taken notice had hailed the end of Iran’s theocracy in terms of the demise of radical Islam in Iran.
The Ayatollah’s lip curled upward in a sneer of disdain at the memory. The
The twelfth imam. To some Iranians the concept was more figurative than literal, just as some in the Christian world regarded the revelations of John to be allegorical in nature.
Others saw him as their messiah, who would return in the midst of apocalypse to save true believers. And still others believed that they must bring about that apocalypse to usher in his return…
Isfahani sighed at the reflection. It was a theological debate that traced its roots back to the very foundations of the Islamic faith. The world of Islam had begun to fracture before the body of its Prophet had even cooled.
On the one hand, there were those who believed that in the absence of a directly appointed successor, one should be elected from among their ranks. Their name, Sunni, clearly indicated that they felt they had chosen the “Right Path”.
On the other hand, however, a minority faction of Mohammed’s close followers and kin put forth the idea that a close relative of the Prophet should succeed him and named Hazrat Ali, a cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, as successor.
Looking back, the ayatollah thought, the debate seemed trite, but it had split Islam in two. In the midst of a bloody civil war, Hazrat Ali, the “Lion of God”, had been slain by Sunni assassins, who then replaced him with one of their own luminaries. The partisans of Ali withdrew in defeat, to become a persecuted minority, known as the Shiah, a name taken from the Arabic word for
But they had kept the bloodline pure, through the ravages of war, persecution, and assassination. Over the following two centuries, eleven men carried the title of imam in the Shiite world. Eleven men-warriors, scholars, and theologians. Descendants of Hazrat Ali and pure of both blood and faith.
And then there were twelve.
What mark this twelfth imam might have left on the world was unknown-or rather, as Shirazi and his followers believed, yet to be seen.
He had been a lad of four years old when he disappeared down a well in the year A.D. 874, never to be seen again. But what might have been written off as a tragic accident took a different shape in the Shiite mind. The twelfth, and last, of the imams had not fallen to his death. Nay, rather, he had been occultated or hidden away by Allah until his return at the end of the world, when he would return in a flaming vengeance to cleanse the earth of unbelievers.
He heard the helicopter before he saw it, the steady drumbeat of the rotor intruding itself upon his thoughts.
The old man’s eyes brightened. “That should be Major Hossein now,” he said, turning to his attendant. “Bring him to me as soon as he lands.”
The small knot of men in Air Force uniforms near the back of the Starlifter’s cargo hold bore no resemblance to the men that had just spent two days deep inside hostile territory.
Hostile territory, Harry mused, running a hand over his smooth-shaven chin. Completing the job had been necessary to once again pass himself off as an Air Force colonel, despite the lack of time.
With Rebecca Petras in the picture, he very much fancied himself still in hostile territory. Or at least less than friendly.
From the looks on the faces of his fellow team members, he knew they were thinking the same thing. Such was the world of an operator. Caught on the knife’s edge between the cold, hard facts of life in the field and the political maneuvering of bureaucratic desk jockeys more interested in advancing their own careers than protecting their country’s interests.
Not that it mattered in the end. Going in, they had known the score. They had done the job they had been given to do. Now the trick was to survive the fallout.
“What’s our play, boss?” Hamid asked.
Harry smiled. It was sometimes difficult to imagine the football-crazed Zakiri as a kid growing up in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. As with most of those who’ve learned English as a second language, Hamid’s speech was very proper and correct, but when slang slipped in, it was invariably sports-related.
The question remained. “Keep our mouths shut,” Harry replied, answering it. “Answer everything they ask- volunteer nothing more.”
“It’s our duty to help them in any way we can,” Davood blurted out, a look of surprise on his face as he glanced up. “We’re all on the same side.”
