As soon as Danny heard the gunshots, he began running down the road, sure Hera was in trouble. By the time he reached the access road, he was out of breath — spent not just by running, but by the past two weeks. His legs felt as if they’d been pummeled, and his arms hung almost limp from his body. His fingers barely gripped his rifle.
He stopped and crouched by the side of the road. It was hard to accept, but this was the best he could do.
A few minutes later he heard something coming. He went to one knee, steadying himself to fire.
He nearly pressed the trigger when the vehicle came into view. At the last moment he realized it was their van; a second later he saw Hera at the wheel.
He rose. She jerked on the brakes. Worried that someone was holding her hostage, he pointed his gun at her.
“Hey, don’t shoot!” she yelled, leaning over to the passenger side. “It’s just me.”
“What happened?”
“Two army guys saw the van. They’re dead.”
“Where’s their truck?”
“Back at the road. We should get it.”
“Yeah,” said Danny.
“What’s the matter?”
“What do you figure they were doing up here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Somebody probably heard the explosion,” he said. “I don’t know how long we’ve got.”
The sat phone rang. It was Nuri.
“Freah.”
“Glad to hear you’re OK,” said Nuri, who’d just been talking to Breanna. “Listen, the Iranians have mobilized. Their president thinks the Guard is revolting against him. Which is a pretty good assumption.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“They’ve started blocking off the roads. We just barely turned away from one before we would have been caught. I don’t think I can get to the boat, so I’m going to come up to the field.”
“All right.”
“We’re forty-five minutes away. Maybe less, if Flash keeps us on the roadway.”
“Be careful. Hera just picked off two soldiers on patrol. What kind of shape are you guys in?”
“Shape? You mean wounded? Both of us are OK. I have Tarid with me. His leg is shot up. Why?”
“You have experience moving nuclear weapons?”
“You mean the warhead?”
“Yeah.”
“No experience. I’ve seen pictures of them exploding. That was back in high school.”
“All right. Get here as soon as you can.”
“We’re on our way.”
“What are you thinking?” Hera asked when he put down the phone.
“I think if we wait for Delta, we’ll be dead when they get here.” He punched Breanna’s number into the sat phone.
81
The aborted attempt on the president of Iran had sent the country into high alert. Army troops were moving on Revolutionary Guard installations around the country; half a dozen were already fighting pitched battles. Two Iranian warships were having a gun battle with Guard raiders — essentially speedboats with guns — in the Persian Gulf, and the air force had scrambled all of its aircraft.
The U.S. Air Force strike package tasked to hit the missile base was being held on the ground; the plan now was for the group to follow up and hit the base once the warhead had been removed.
A second group of fighters, along with AWACS, a tanker, and other support units was being readied to act as escorts for the Ospreys. Rather than accompanying the transports, the flight group would operate over the Iraqi border, just close enough to come to the rescue if something happened. The idea was that any activity would alert the Iranians that something was going on. If they didn’t know something was up, the Ospreys would be able to scoot over and back without being detected.
That was the theory anyway.
“Danny, everything’s moving on schedule,” Breanna told him as soon as he called. “We’ll have you out in a few hours.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to be quick enough.” He explained what had happened.
“Get out of there and find a quiet place to hide,” Breanna told him. “Change the rendezvous with Nuri.”
“If we do that, they’ll end up with the warhead,” Danny said. “I have a better idea. You’re in an MC-17, right?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you can land on the strip here. It’s hard-packed.”
Breanna brought it up on the screen and looked at the specs. It was just long enough for the C-17.
And it was less than an hour away. They could land and be back over the Iraq border as the sun was rising.
She turned to the pilot. “Do you think we could get in and out of Iraq in one piece?”
“Colonel, I thought you’d never ask.”
“Danny,” said Breanna, “We’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”
82
Several army vehicles passed Nuri and Flash as they made their way to the field. Nuri ducked a little lower in the seat each time. A fatalism had settled over him; he was sure they were going to die now, apprehended probably by chance. He’d run his streak of luck too far into the ground for the result to be anything else.
Flash was too busy paying attention to the road to feel optimistic or pessimistic about anything.
“There,” said Nuri, pointing to the turnoff. “Stop in front of the gate. I’ll put some video bugs to cover the road before we go up.”
Danny and Hera had left the gate open when they retrieved the Iranian army vehicle. Nuri and Flash found them next to the van at the end of the airstrip.
“Put the car back on the other side, opposite the missile storage building,” Danny told him. “The army Jeep is there, along with a couple of others that were here.”
“What building?” asked Flash.
Danny pointed to the wreckage. “Leave the lights off.”
“Help me with Tarid,” Nuri told him. “He’s a bit heavy.”
“How’d you knock him out?”
“Morphine, and lots of it. He’s probably due for another hit. He took a bullet in his leg, but I don’t think it’s too bad.”
They carried him to the van, where the Iranian they’d helped earlier was still clinging to life.
“How long before the C-17 gets here?” Nuri asked.
“Ten minutes now,” said Danny. “A little more.”
“You sure they can land here?”
