As for Reguiba, even a short time spent in his presence had convinced the Iranian that the man was godless and evil. This was suspected in Qom, but the Supreme Council argued that it was fitting to set him on the godless infidels and their lackeys. Sassani had not been so sure of the wisdom of that argument, and he was even less convinced now. Reguiba and his crew were devils. Devils!
Worse, they had failed to get results.
The action against the Zionists had been a disaster. Its failure was what had convinced the Supreme Council to send Sassani and Shamzeri to take a close look at how their money was being spent.
Sassani had not been to Egypt, and so he had no way to form an intelligent opinion on that action's chances of success. But even the short time he had spent in Al Khobaiq convinced him that serious problems afflicted this operation.
That was bad, since it was the Al Khobaiq mission that concerned the Iranians most. A number of divisions of Iranian "freedom fighters" stood ready to invade the emirate at the slightest sign of a popular uprising. Sassani had the uneasy feeling that the troops would be waiting a long, long time.
The hustle and bustle of activity in the compound failed to inspire him. He had a terrible vision of all those expensive weapons going into the hands of ambitious petty chiefs who would use them not in the cause of the Faith, but to carry on their own private wars.
Shamzeri shared these misgivings, and so the two Iranians determined to have a word with Reguiba on that score. Sassani suspected that the North African was turning a tidy personal profit on the arms distribution.
Sassani was an intense young man with wavy hair, a wiry body, and eyes like two black olives. Shamzeri was short, stocky, his eyes huge behind the thick lenses of wire-rimmed glasses.
Catching sight of Reguiba and his crew making their way toward the hangar, Sassani and Shamzeri intercepted them. Reguiba tried to brush them off, but the two were not so easily gotten rid of, as the man in black had already discovered to his irritation.
"Calm yourself," Reguiba said after listening to as much of the pair's complaints as he could stomach. The loss of Hodler had left him in a vile mood. "Your fears are groundless. All goes according to plan. Success is assured."
As usual, Mansour made with the flattery. "You dare to doubt the master, the perfect marvel of the age? Only Reguiba could have set so cunning a plan into control! He is the flaming sword of Islam!"
Carried away by his own rhetoric, Mansour stepped forward to press the point, sealing his own death.
For at that very instant, the Killmaster's finger tightened on the trigger of his high-powered rifle.
There was nothing wrong with Carter's aim; it was perfect. But the expansively gesturing Mansour chose that second to step in front of Reguiba.
Sassani heard a sound like a pickax thudding into a carcass of beef. It was the splat of the slug, taking Mansour square in the chest.
Mansour toppled backward, into Reguiba's arms. The crack of fifty rifles boomed out. The slaughter was on.
Reguiba saw the red crater gaping in Mansour's chest. His follower was dead weight, but still useful to the master. Reguiba used Mansour to shield him as he backed into the hangar. Lotah, Idir, and the Came! followed.
Sassani and Shamzeri didn't know what to do, so they ran into the hangar too. Outside, each passing heartbeat measured a further decimation of the ranks.
They ran deep into the building's interior, out of the line of fire for a moment.
"Success? Is that what you call this? You bungler! Fool!" Sassani shouted.
Reguiba wasted no time. He sought the way out. The far end of the hangar was a solid wall, unbroken by a door or even a window.
But standing in the hangar were some pieces of heavy equipment: a crane, a pipe-layer, a bulldozer.
The bulldozer!
Reguiba snapped out instructions to his men. Sassani and Shamzeri followed at his heels, shrieking abuse at him.
Idir and Lotah collected explosives and weapons, stacking them on the bulldozer. The Camel would drive; he'd once done forced labor on a road-building project during a term of confinement and knew heavy equipment tolerably well.
Auto theft he knew even better. True, the bulldozer was no auto, but the principle was the same. The Camel needed no key to start up the engine.
He pulled out some wires from the ignition, stripped their insulation, and touched the bare ends. Blue sparks sizzled.
Sassani said, "The great Reguiba — hah! The great blunderer! Is this, too, part of your cunning 'plan'?"
Reguiba seemed not to hear him. He looped bandoliers over his arms, dumped them on the bulldozer, then grabbed a half-dozen rifles and added them to the pile.
The Camel succeeded in hot-wiring the ignition. The mighty diesel engine sputtered, jerked, shook, then shuddered into life. Not even the torrent of gunfire could subdue the roar of the engine kicking over into full-bodied power, vibrating the concrete apron below its treads.
"What shall we do, Sadegh?" Shamzeri wailed. He seemed not to remember his oft-stated zeal to die for the Faith.
Reguiba and his aides clambered up on the bulldozer, huddling behind, around, and under its blocky projections.
Sassani grabbed Shamzeri by the arm, half dragging him over to the bulldozer. "Help us up!"
Suddenly the Iranians were looking down the bore of one of Reguiba's big.45s.
"Here's a message for your holy masters in Qom," Reguiba said. He shot down Sassani and Shamzeri, and then, for the first time that day, he smiled.
But there was no time to gloat. Slugs were zipping deep into the hangar, pinging off heavy equipment, punching holes in the walls.
A few militants who managed to keep their wits about them realized what Reguiba was doing, and tried to hitch a ride on the bulldozer. He shot them down too.
Obeying his master's instructions, the Camel threw the controls that lifted the machine's great curved blade so it was high enough to protect the riders in the open-top cab.
The Camel bounced around in the driver's bucket seat, throwing switches, yanking levers, engaging the gears, and opening the throttle. With a crushing grinding noise as the treads rolled over the concrete apron, the bulldozer jerked forward.
Idir and Lotah rigged a.50-caliber machine gun to cover their rear. Lotah manned the gun, while Idir worked the ammo feed, keeping it from fouling or tangling.
The bulldozer chugged toward the hangar's rear wall, treads ponderously clanking, blade raised. Black smoke puffed from the stacks.
The blade battered the wall. The wall bulged outward, prefabricated panels popping loose from beams, corrugated sheet metal squealing like a thousand nails on a blackboard.
Vertical uprights snapped. The hangar rocked on its foundations. Somebody not on the bulldozer screamed that the roof was going to fall in on them.
The leading edge of the treads chewed up panels and beams. Night and space showed through a wrecked wall.
An instant of resistance, and then the bulldozer busted loose, plowing through the wall to the outside.
The somebody who screamed was right. The roof did fall in. Likewise, the rest of the hangar.
The slaughter fell off for a moment as the amazed sharpshooters watched the spectacle of the hangar collapsing.
Big as a tank, the bulldozer flattened a few fences and more than a few soldiers of the Home Guard who failed to get out of the way. A swath of destruction tracked its progress through Field 89.
A minute passed, then two.
Carter was not at all surprised by the tremendous explosion that lit up the sky. By now, he had a pretty good idea of the way Reguiba's mind worked. The man was a believer, all right. A believer in overkill.