“I don’t like it, Babak,” Sattari said to his aide, Master Sergeant Babak Khordad, as they received the final report from the scouts. Khordad was an old crusty veteran when Sattari picked him over fifteen years ago to run his staff, and he hadn’t changed much — which was exactly the way the general preferred it. Even his name, which meant “little father” in Farsi, still accurately described him. “The reports were completely accurate: the warehouses are virtually unguarded. That has me worried — rumors and unverified reports from the field are never that accurate, unless they’re planted by the enemy.”
“They have a large number of guards, sir,” Khordad said, “but they look to me like children. It’s as if they emptied out the conscripts’ training centers before they barely began, gave them a weapon and uniform, and put them to work guarding these warehouses.”
“I agree,” Sattari said. “Where are the front-line Pasdaran forces, Babak?”
“We do have reports stating that the Pasdaran is concentrating forces in the capital,” Khordad said. “Maybe the new government is pulling in all the well-trained troops to protect them at home.”
“Maybe,” Sattari mused.
“If you don’t feel right about this one, sir, let’s pull everyone out,” Khordad said. “If it smells like a trap, it probably is.”
“But we’ve got two hundred men surrounding this area checking in every three minutes, and no one has spotted any sign of the front-line Pasdaran forces,” Sattari said. “Not even one helicopter in the past hour. From where we are now, we could completely empty three warehouses and be on the rail line heading into the system before the outer perimeter scouts spotted anything.”
“I don’t know, sir,” Khordad said. “I still say, let’s withdraw and continue monitoring.”
“Our intel says the Pasdaran is going to start emptying these warehouses in the next two days,” Sattari said. “They have the trucks and locomotives waiting — it’s going to happen soon. So far our intel has been spot-on. Besides, we’re running low on everything back at the base. We’ve got to do this tonight or it’ll be too late.”
“That’s when it’s the worst time to do something, sir,” Khordad said.
Sattari peered through his low-light binoculars again, scanning for any sign of a trap, but he saw and heard absolutely nothing. He had to press on. With a dozen heavy cargo trucks filled, they had enough supplies to keep their insurgency going for another month. That could spell the difference between success and failure.
But the “little father” was worried — there was danger here. Why couldn’t he see it? “Maybe the Pasdaran has suffered so many losses, captures, and defections that soft targets like these warehouses were being lightly guarded?” he suggested. “Maybe they really are afraid of lingering chemical weapons effects…”
“They know as well as we do what the persistence time of those chemical agents are, sir,” Khordad said. “And their detection equipment is better than ours. If it was safe, they’d be here. Something’s happening that we don’t know about.”
“Could the warehouses be booby-trapped?”
“Very likely, sir, although we saw a lot of those guards going in and out rather freely,” Khordad said. “It’s usually dangerous to turn initiators on and off whenever someone walks in and out like that — you’ll soon forget if you shut it off or not.”
Sattari swore to himself, then picked up his radio. “Spider to Wolf.”
“Go,” General Hesarak al-Kan Buzhazi responded.
“We’ve arrived at point ‘Kangaroo.’ ‘Bedroom’ in sight, but I’m recommending we head back to the ‘nursery.’ Our ‘album’ is incomplete. Over.”
“Understood. Bring it on back. We’ll take better pictures later. Wolf out.”
“Okay, Master Sergeant,” Sattari said, putting away his command radio, “let’s set up the patrols and position for exfiltration before…”
“Shit, what is he doing?” Khordad swore. Sattari lifted his night-vision binoculars. A squad of men had broken from cover and had bolted for their assigned warehouse, while another squad was commandeering trucks.
“Call them back, damnit!”
Khordad was already raising his radio to his lips: “Shark, Shark, this is Spider, get back! We’re heading back to ‘nursery.’ Acknowledge right now.”
“Spider, we’re in, we’re in!” came the reply. “It’s all here, Spider, lined up and ready to load. We can have a truck loaded in two minutes.”
“I said get out of there!” Khordad growled through clenched teeth, trying to communicate the urgency without raising his voice. “Acknowledge!”
“Spider, this is Bear,” another squad leader radioed. “We’re in too. We’ve started loading two carriages already and the others are moving inside. We’ve already filled our baby bottles all the way. Recommend we proceed. Over.”
“Sir?” Khordad asked.
“Let’s get out of here, Babak,” Sattari said. “There will be other targets. This one looks poisonous. Bring them out now.”
“Negative! Negative! Withdraw!” Khordad radioed. “Spider’s orders. All squads, acknowledge!”
“Spider, this is Pony, we’re in too,” yet another squad leader radioed. “Let us play for just a few minutes more. This is the real party, and we want to stay for the cake.”
Sattari grabbed Khordad’s radio and mashed the mike button: “All squads, this is Spider, I ordered you to withdraw, and that means right now! Get your asses moving and report at point Parlor. Do not acknowledge, just move out!” He tossed the radio back to Khordad and began scrambling out of their hiding place toward the perimeter fence. “Damn them! What a time for a discipline breakdown! I know they’re hungry and running low on everything, but they should know better than to…”
“Sir, wait!” Khordad interrupted, holding his radio close to his ear. “I thought I heard another call.”
Sattari raised his own radio to his ear and listened intently. “Another squad?”
“I think it was one of the scouts, sir…”
And at that moment they heard over their radios: “Spider, Spider, this is Sparrow, reporting in the blind, I say again, warning, warning, lightning storm, lightning storm, call the children in, repeat, call the children in!”
“Ridan!” Sattari cursed. On his radio, he and Khordad both frantically called, “All Spider units, all Spider units, lightning storm, lightning storm, take cover!” Sattari then leaped to his feet, pulling Khordad and their security guard up onto their feet and pushing them toward the hole in the outer perimeter fence about fifty meters away. “Move it, move it!” he shouted. “Shoot anyone that gets in your…!”
Sattari didn’t hear the rest…because the entire warehouse complex erupted in a brilliant tidal wave of fire seconds later.
From a dozen launch sites — some as far as fifteen kilometers away — multiple volleys of artillery, rockets, and guided missiles bombarded the warehouse complex all at once. Not only was every warehouse building individually targeted and completely obliterated, but the entire complex — parking lots, storage bins, loading ramps, fences, barracks, offices, and service buildings — were bracketed. Within two minutes, every square centimeter of the entire twenty-acre complex was hit multiple times.
In moments, it was over — and not one thing was left standing in or around the complex.
After checking in with his supervisors by telephone, commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces General Hoseyn Yassini emerged from his quarters on the campus of the Imam Ali Military Academy in Tehran and began his early evening stroll across the grounds. He immediately identified at least one shadow, a young man dressed as a first-year cadet. He was far too young to be Pasdaran. More likely he was a komiteh officer, a religious-political functionary whose job it was to observe and report on any activities that might be considered a threat to the clerical regime. Like the zampolit political officers in the old Soviet Union, komiteh officers pervaded every level of Iranian life, watching and reporting on everyone from ordinary citizens on the streets to the highest levels of government. They were an abomination in a place like this military academy, but under the theocratic regime their presence was as demoralizing as it was pervasive.
Yassini’s usual evening stroll while on restriction was down the wide sidewalks of the main cluster of buildings to the parade grounds, a couple kilometers of mostly well-lit, open areas. Formerly known as the Shah Reza Pahlavi Military Academy when Yassini attended here, it was changed to the Imam Ali Academy after the
