Better to put the phone away and do this on his own. Or die, if that was the option. Because the only one he could really count on was himself, not them, not even Breanna.
He understood Grease now. From the very beginning Grease had tried to maintain distance. He was trying to avoid forming a bond, to make it easier to kill him. But they’d bonded anyway. It was impossible not to, in war.
That was what Grease was trying to say at the end. He thought it was a failing, a fatal weakness.
It doesn’t negate who you were, Grease. You were still a hero.
My hero.
I’m going to get out of here. On my own.
Turk slid over to the corner of the ruined building, leaning against the walls. Without trying to, he fell fast asleep.
HE WAS IN OLD GIRL, PUSHING THE STICK AROUND. IT was his last mission back at Dreamland, flying with the admiral.
Except it wasn’t. He was lower, treetop level, looking for something.
Trees, not the open terrain of Dreamland.
There was someone with him in the backseat, though he wasn’t sure who.
Grease.
They were doing a recee, looking for the rest of the patrol. He saw the bus, moving along the highway. He pressed his mike to tell Grease.
It didn’t work. He turned his head and could see him staring from the backseat, no helmet on, dressed in the Iranian fatigues they’d worn.
It was a dream, a dream! I am dreaming!
A sense of horror came over him as he stared into Grease’s face.
Grease!
You abandoned me!
But you were going to kill me!
You abandoned me!
Turk jerked his head up, fully awake, back in the cellar of the ruins. Something loud passed overhead.
An airplane. Two airplanes.
He got up and went to the open window at the rear of the building. The planes were nearby.
They were Phantoms, their smoky contrails lingering as they climbed about three-quarters of a mile to the north.
Phantoms?
The sun was still fairly low in the sky—nine o’clock, he calculated. When he looked at his watch, it was 0921. He’d slept for a little under two hours.
The jets took another pass, this one from the north, riding down the railroad tracks. They were Phantoms, all right, not U.S. planes but Iranian, vintage craft held together by duct tape and ingenuity, as the saying went. Turk saw a reconnaissance pod hanging off the nearest plane. It had air-to-air missiles as well, but no bombs. Dressed in a tan, brown, and green camo scheme that reminded Turk of the Vietnam War era, the planes flew south, staying with the tracks for several miles, vanishing in the distance.
He heard them coming back and waited, pressed against the wall in their direction. They passed almost directly overhead and he watched them stride into the distance, then bank into a circling turn. As they came around north of him, he saw their landing gear beginning to deploy.
They were landing.
For a moment he was confused—why land in the sand? Then he realized they must be using the air base where he and Grease had stolen the vehicle the night before.
Turk stared into the haze until the planes were well out of his sight. He slipped back to the corner then, sliding his back against the ancient stones, intending to sleep some more. But he’d no sooner hit the dirt than he heard vehicles nearby.
“Damn,” he muttered, grabbing the assault rifle. “Damn.”
10
Iran
STONER FOUND NO VEHICLE WORTH TAKING IN THE hamlet of a dozen houses near where he had landed, and the only thing with four wheels in the next town was a farm truck so old and rusted he doubted it would last more than a mile. He ran for a while instead, moving through the foothills and skirting the village of Saveh, since he was making decent time and there was no need to risk being seen. He checked on Turk’s location every half hour, using a radio device that tapped into the Iranian cell phone network and from there a Web site where Whiplash was relaying the data. While the Web site could be found and his cell phone intercepted, as a practical matter he was following the theory behind Poe’s famous Purloined Letter—hide in plain sight, and no one will see you.
Some nine miles east of Saveh, Stoner came to the outskirts of another village, this one large enough, he reasoned, to have a good choice of vehicles. It had taken nearly three hours for him to get this far; he reckoned that it would take another two to get to Turk. Taking the vehicle now was insurance against needing one later; getting away from the area after dispatching Turk would be best done quickly.
The place wasn’t particularly large, and with a few key exceptions—one being the lack of pavement on the streets, another the two minarets—it looked like a rural hamlet in the southwestern United States might have looked in the late 1940s. As Stoner got closer, he noticed a curious set of low-slung brown structures near the older houses.
He stopped. Focusing his eyes—his augmented vision let him see about as well as a good pair of field glasses—he examined the huts. At first he thought they were barracks and that the village had been turned into a military town, something not unheard of in Iran. But as he watched, he saw people emerging. After a few minutes of observation, he realized the structures were hovels constructed for the poor by the government, or some local charity. The town was filled with them. Many of their occupants worked at the small factories on either end of the village or tilling the fields that surrounded it.
Stone moved around the outskirts of the village cautiously, staying just beyond the edge of the cultivated fields. His smart helmet was slung over the top of his narrow rucksack; his gun was over his shoulder. The dark green jumpsuit he wore was patterned after clothes Pasdaran mechanics used. If he went into town, he would stash his gear and keep his mouth shut, hoping that between the coveralls and his frown he would look both sufficiently ornery and ordinary to be left alone.
Stoner found a group of fallow fields separated by a narrow, weed-strewn lane. He walked down the lane, trying to see beyond the farms at the village boundaries. There weren’t many people on the streets; most people were either at work or school this early in the morning.
A pair of cars were parked in the courtyard beyond the fields. He walked toward them, considering which of the two would be easier to steal. He had just decided on the car on the left—it looked like a ’70s Fiat knockoff—when he spotted something more enticing leaning against the barn walclass="underline" a small motorcycle, twenty years old at least, but with inflated tires and a clean engine.
Stoner walked to the bike. Everything in his manner suggested he was the proper owner. He put on his helmet—rare in Iran, especially in the countryside, but appropriate—then reached to fiddle with the ignition assembly.
He didn’t have to. A pair of wires hung down from the keyed ignition, already used as a makeshift hot wire. He connected them, then launched the kick start.
He kicked the metal spur so hard it stayed down for a moment. The bike caught in a fit of blue smoke and a backfire. He eased it toward the dirt road that separated the fallow and productive fields, gradually picking up speed. He didn’t look back.
THE MOTORBIKE STONER FOUND WAS IN NEED OF A tune-up; its clutch stuck and the brakes grabbed only on whim. But these were considerations rather than impediments as far as Stoner was concerned. He nursed the vehicle north through a series of low hills, occasionally cutting back to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He’d gotten clean away. No one was following him.