“Report, Lieutenant. Has there been any sign of trouble?” the colonel asked, as if he were expecting bad news.
“All quiet here, sir. We’ve seen moderate traffic from both directions. They’ve all stopped and nobody has matched the names or descriptions of the fugitives.”
“Any trucks?”
“Yes, sir. We searched them with no results.”
The signal was clear enough so he could hear the colonel sigh. “There’s been another incident just north of Bandar Charak. Four soldiers and a security agent were killed, and there’s no sign that any of the fugitives were hurt. Headquarters says they may have accomplices, and are heavily armed. And an army truck is missing.” The colonel read off a license number.
Sistani had been holding the handset so that Zahedi, standing next to him, could hear as well. He saw Zahedi’s eyes widen, and knew his expression must be similar. The sergeant pointed to his watch, and Sistani nodded.
“When was this, sir?”
“About 1830, an hour ago.”
“Which means if they’re heading southeast on the highway, they could be here at any time.”
“Exactly,” answered the colonel.
“Do we know they’re heading southeast?”
“Not for certain, but that’s the direction they’ve been going.”
“Understood, sir, I’ll take every precaution.”
Sistani turned to the two noncoms. “You heard?”
Both nodded.
He ordered, “Make sure every man is awake and alert. There are to stay hidden at all times. Zahedi and I will check each position every half hour. Afshar, stay by the radio. If you hear firing, report immediately. Do not wait for my order. I don’t know what’s coming, but they won’t catch us off guard.”
They’d been back on the highway for ten minutes, just long enough for Jerry to get comfortable. He was dozing when Lapointe called out, “Roadblock ahead. Ten klicks.”
Ramey shook off his fatigue and opened his eyes. He turned to look at the screen, while Jerry leaned forward to see.
A barrier lay across both lanes of the highway. The foreshortened figure of a man stood next to it. Lapointe was noting the coordinates. He switched to an area map and marked the spot.
Ramey checked his watch, then called forward to the cab. “Another roadblock in ten klicks. Pointy’s working on a bypass.”
Fazel responded, “Right, I’ll slow to sixty to give him a little more time.” They’d been traveling at up to eighty kph on the highway when they could.
Lapointe was still fiddling with the map, zooming in and out, shifting to different sections. The light from the screen lit his face from below. His expression showed he wasn’t pleased. “Boss, XO, we got a problem. There’s no bypass this time.”
“What? Nothing?” Ramey said, unbelieving. They’d used dirt roads, even gone overland once to get around checkpoints.
“No roads at all. This is the boonies, even for southern Iran. I even looked at using streambeds, but they don’t run anywhere useful. Here’s the problem.” He pointed to some rough terrain on the map. “A little over a klick to the north of the highway is a bunch of steep hills, real rough country. It completely blocks travel on the north side of the highway.”
“And if we head south, we get wet really fast. The beach isn’t even five hundred meters away. A natural bottleneck… All right. How far do we have to backtrack?” Ramey sounded resigned.
“We’d have to pick up a side road at Baverdan.” He slid the map northwest. “See? Almost all the way back to Charak. Then we go east and north to Lavaran, then Armak. That keeps us on the north side of the hills, but the road net only goes to Berkeh Jangal. We can get to Bandar Lengeh and the airfield from there, but it will be from the north and east. And we’ll lose our UAV coverage if we go that far inland.”
Ramey frowned. “The really long way around. How many roadblocks will we hit while we take the scenic route? And without our advance scout, we’d have to run them blind.” The platoon leader rubbed his jaw; his options were between bad and worse. “Show me the UAV image of the checkpoint again.”
Lapointe brought up the picture, a thermal image in false colors. Jerry could easily make out the bright figure leaning against the barrier. One of the man’s arms was bent as if he was holding a cigarette.
“It’s just the one guy,” Lapointe observed.
“He’s gotta have friends,” Ramey countered. “It makes no sense for him to be alone. What else can you see off the UAV feed?”
Lapointe called up several other images, small-scale ones of the highway on either side and one with a larger field of view. He then transitioned over to the live streaming video, watching a pan of the area around the lonely sentry. “Nothing. It’s only four kilometers from the checkpoint to either of these two small towns. Maybe the garrison there is just sending this one man out.”
“Boss? Any word on when to turn?” Harry’s voice sounded calm, but time was passing, and they were closing on the roadblock at sixty kilometers an hour.
Ramey looked at the image of the roadblock for another few seconds, then answered, “We’re not turning. We have to run this one.”
“That’ll save us some time,” Phillips observed. “Is there room to go around on the shoulder?”
“Some, but the shoulder could be mined. We go right through. They can bill us for it.” Ramey knocked on the partition between the cab and the back. “Harry? Did you get that?”
“Understood, Boss, were crashing the barrier.”
“The airfield is only fifteen klicks away. We’ll be there before they can react.”
“What about the sentry?” Jerry asked.
“Harry will have to take him,” Ramey decided.
“Hey, Boss! I know I’m good, but I’m driving, remember? Yousef is on that side.”
“Yousef,” Ramey called. “Can you take out the sentry?”
Shirin, awakened by the conversation, answered for him. “Yes. He says his rifle is in the cab and it has a folding stock, so he will use that. Harry should tell him when to shoot.”
Ramey said, “Start to slow down, but don’t let your speed get below thirty. When you get about a hundred feet from the barrier, have Yousef shoot, then floor it.”
“Understood, Boss. Slow to thirty, shoot at a hundred feet from the barrier, then punch it.”
Lapointe announced, “We’re five klicks away.”
“Let’s get ready, just in case,” Ramey ordered.
There wasn’t a lot to do, but Jerry made sure his rifle was at hand. They piled everyone’s packs in the back, since any shots would most likely come from that direction.
Shirin had heard the resignation in Yousef’s voice. He had tried to avoid harming his countrymen. Now he had little choice. He’d have to kill so they could live. Yousef prepared his rifle, but held it out of view, in his lap. Harry’s was in back. There was no room for it in the cab.
The moon wasn’t up, so the only visible parts of the landscape were the pools of illuminated highway that preceded the truck. Everything else was a featureless black. She watched the truck’s odometer, figuring the distance to the roadblock.
Ahead, the horizon could only be seen as an absence of starlight, but a bright spot appeared directly in front of them.
Harry knocked on the back of the cab. “Boss? Tallyho.”
“We’re ready,” came Ramey’s answer. “Do it.”
“Think pure thoughts,” Harry said in Farsi. He held his speed for as long as possible, then gradually slowed
