Hints, only. Subtly.
If it was a ground attack, he had to capture the men who were responsible. If someone else captured them, they would be tortured and admit what they had done. They might even brag about it.
Americans surely would brag.
5
Iran
THE DEEP BASS OF THE JET’S THRUST SHOOK THE FLOOR of the desert as it dove toward the vehicle parked on the slope. A cannon thumped, the sound more like a runaway sewing machine than a gun. There was an explosion, then a sharp, loud crack.
Three thrp-thrp-thrps followed. The two men who had been guarding the vehicles on the road fell to the ground.
“Go!” hissed Grease.
Turk jumped to his feet as Grease ran toward the nearest truck. The aircraft was turning north, lining up for a second run. Iranian soldiers were some fifty or sixty yards away, beyond the farthest vehicle and close to the hill. The rest of the troops were strung out along the road and hillside, waiting for the jets to complete their attack.
Turk ran up along the passenger side of the vehicles. The straps on the rucksack with the control unit had loosened, and the pack bounced against his back. Its metal base punched his kidneys in an unsteady rhythm, a drunken boxer who knew where his mark was but couldn’t quite find a steady pace for his hooks.
Suddenly the cab in front of him opened. Turk couldn’t believe it—there wasn’t supposed to be anyone here, and if there was anyone, surely Grease would have killed him.
The man had a gun.
He fired.
So did Turk.
The man fell. Turk kept running. When he reached the cab, he pushed the AK-47 inside, fired a burst, then looked in. The truck was empty.
“Go, go, go,” hissed Grease, running from the head of the column. He’d killed the other guards.
Turk jumped behind the driver’s side.
“It’s running,” he said, starting to back into a three point turn.
“Yeah. Just go.”
Turk saw the fighter pull up beyond the hill. Its wingmate was above, circling out of sight, though he could hear it.
“I just killed someone,” he said as he finished the turn.
Grease didn’t answer. He was leaning out the window, making sure they weren’t followed. The sound of the jets flashing overhead had muffled the gunshots.
Was it really that easy to kill someone, Turk wondered, so easy that he didn’t even have to think about it?
Yes, it certainly was. It was easy to live.
WHEN THEY’D GONE A MILE, GREASE INSISTED THEY change places. He took the wheel and headed south. They were doing over a hundred kilometers an hour by the time they reached the highway, dirt furling behind them.
“We’re headed toward Qom,” said Turk as they turned onto the well-paved and marked road.
“No shit.”
“You think that’s a good idea?”
“I’ll turn west as soon as I can. We have another safe house out in Lorestan. We should be there before morning, if we don’t get stopped.”
HIGH ABOVE QOM, VAHID CHECKED HIS INSTRUMENTS and got ready to return to base. He, too, was now low on fuel.
The truck had been completely destroyed; not even dust remained.
“Shahin One, are you reading us?” It was the ground unit they had just assisted.
“This is Shahin One.”
“One of our vehicles has been stolen. We require your assistance.”
“What the hell?” snapped Kayvan on the squadron frequency. “What are these idiots doing?”
“Silence,” commanded Vahid. The ground unit gave the description of the vehicle—one of their small tactical utility trucks, a Kaviran. They had seen it heading south.
Vahid acknowledged and tucked his wing, rolling downward toward the dark earth. They were nearly twenty kilometers south of the truck he had just destroyed.
“I am on your six,” said Kayvan, sounding chastised. “I am low on fuel. Ten minutes, maybe.”
“See anything?”
“I have the highway—Freeway 7. I can see it clearly.”
“Traffic?”
“No traffic.”
Freeway 7, also known as the Persian Gulf Highway, was on Vahid’s right.
“I have a car,” said Kayvan.
“Not a target,” said Vahid. “Keep looking.”
“Something ahead.”
“We’ll go past and then sweep back around,” Vahid told his wingman, realizing he was moving too fast to get a good look at the vehicle or shoot at it. “Stay with me.”
“THE PLANES ARE OUT OF BOMBS,” SAID TURK AS THE aircraft passed. “Probably out of ammo, too. They don’t carry much.”
“They’ll be spotting for the ground units,” said Grease. “Dig out the map. We’ll have to look for another route.”
Turk dug the map and GPS out from Grease’s pack, on the floor between them.
“So what’s the general plan?” he asked.
“Get the hell out of here. Go to Lorestan.”
“Then what?”
“North to the Caspian.”
“Five or six hundred kilometers.”
“There’s fuel at Lorestan. We can get there in two hours.”
“In broad daylight?”
“You got a better plan, I’m all ears.”
Grease’s sharp retort felt like a slap across the face.
“We’ll figure it out at Lorestan,” said Grease, his voice softer. “Do you have to check in?”
“They’ll have picked up the rumble. From here it’s silent coms, unless we get into trouble,” said Turk.
“Yeah. Unless.”
“IT’S A KAVIRAN,” SAID KAYVAN. “DEFINITELY.”
“You didn’t see anything else north?” Vahid asked.
“Nothing.”
“How’s your fuel?”
“Well, I have to land soon.”
So did Vahid. “We’ll use the Pasdaran airfield,” he told his wingmate.
“Even so—maybe five minutes?” Kayvan’s voice made it clear that he was being extremely optimistic, and even at five minutes, his fuel stores would be even lower than Vahid’s.
“Let’s do this quickly,” replied Vahid. “Take a run and head toward the base. Stand by while I talk to the ground unit.”
The commander of the Pasdaran unit was in his own truck, coming south. Worried that he had mistaken the vehicle, Vahid told him to pull off the road immediately and fire a flare. He hunted around in the air for several seconds before he found the signal well to the north.
“Stay where you are until we clear,” Vahid told him. “We’re making our run now.”
TURK HEARD A LOUD SCREECH, THE SOUND OF METAL ripping, then nothing; the world had gone silent. The truck disintegrated around him, whirling him into the darkness at the side of the road. The next few moments were lost in a cloud of metal haze and fire. He crawled across the dirt, a black cowl around his head. He choked. His eyes burned. Finally he got to his feet and took a few tentative steps, moving toward clear air.
Grease—where was Grease?
Turk turned back toward the expanding fist of smoke that marked the road. He still didn’t comprehend what had happened. They’d hit a bomb or something.
“Grease!” he yelled, starting forward. “Grease!”
The putrid air drove him to the left. He crossed the road and saw the front end of the truck sitting a few yards away. It looked as if it had been sawed in half, then quartered. The cab was nearly intact, propped on one end by the wheel.
Grease was still inside. Turk ran to the door, grabbed his shirt and pushed it between his fingers and the handle to act as an insulator if the metal was hot. But the latch was cool, as was the rest of the cab; it was the back of the truck that was on fire.
Turk pulled the door open. Grease was slumped forward against his restraints, hanging a few inches from the steering wheel. Turk undid the belt, fingers fumbling. He pulled at Grease, and though the sergeant’s eyes were closed, somehow expected that he would follow him from the truck. Instead, his companion and protector sprawled out the door, face first against the ground, his feet wedged under the damaged dashboard.