Artillery! Panic seized Desmarais. She ran from the shelter of the North Korean gate.
Then the next salvo of rockets rained down.
Terror descended on the Iranians. Roaring flames and shock waves tore apart the embassy and the grounds, the explosions coming too quickly to count or differentiate; the upper floor of the old French neo-roccoco mansion disintegrated; limousines in the curving drive disappeared in storms of light and spinning scrap metal; a group of running Guards melted in the blast; all this in the first strike of twenty-four rockets.
Twisted metal fell from the sky as sections of trucks and limousines crashed onto the pavement. Wood and plaster hammered the embassy and the grounds. Thousands of bits of unidentifiable debris rained down in the long second after the chain of explosions.
The mullahs in their blood-crimson robes stared at the anatomical displays sprayed on still-standing walls and trees, only detached arms and legs and intestines and raw pink meat remaining of those who had been closest to the explosions. Revolutionary Guards, in shock, attempted to rise from the floor to fulfill their responsibilities, only to discover their legs gone, or their skulls opened, or sections of lumber protruding from their chests.
A chemical odor overwhelmed the stink of blood and excrement and explosives. The yellow gas swirled through the ceiling and walls, drifted across the wreckage and corpses and wounded on the stately lawns.
The remains of limousines flamed. Chemical fire blazed. Points of white phosphorous glowed on corpses. Stunned wounded thrashed at the white fire burning their bodies. White phosphorous sparkled in the boughs of the trees like stars, burning through leaves and twigs to drop to other branches.
The shattered mansion creaked and sagged, floors and ceilings falling, walls tottering, crystal smashing and silver ringing as cabinets fell. Ammunition popped in the flaming hulks of the limousines and trucks.
As the debris settled, an instant of silence followed. Those who still lived heard ragged breathing. Having suffered the traumatic amputation of a hand, a Guard reached for his Kalashnikov, the twin jagged bones of his forearm scratching across the stamped-steel receiver of the autorifle. Then footsteps and prayers broke the silence as survivors scrambled through the wreckage and gore, attempting to escape the horror.
Sprawled on the asphalt of the drive, the flames from the burning vehicles scorching his face, Colonel Dastgerdi stared at the destruction around him.
The Syrians had gone insane! Dastgerdi raged. Shelling an embassy! Even if Iran had conspired against the regime, even if they provided sanctuary for the defeated fanatics of the Muslim Brotherhood...
He saw his suitcase of electronics a few steps away. The hand and arm of Jean Pierre Giraud, still in the sleeve of his tailored jacket, held the handle. Dastgerdi saw only the hand and arm. Giraud had disappeared.
Dastgerdi tried to rise. Pain stopped him. Clawing at the asphalt, he reached the suitcase and threw away the dead hand. He tried to crawl away with the suitcase, but he could not. Only one leg responded; the other was numb. He looked down and saw a piece of steel protruding from it.
The barrel-and-piston assembly of a Kalashnikov had impaled his leg: not a fatal wound. He could continue. Determined to survive, determined to forward the transmitters to the United States where the units would become props in the elaborate national media trial and condemnation of Iran, Dastgerdi crawled away from the flames.
Yellow mist enveloped him: he smelled dichlorethyl sulphide and clamped his jaw. A breath would draw the blistering poison mist, otherwise known as mustard gas, into his lungs. Struggling not to panic, not to breathe, Dastgerdi flailed at the asphalt, trying to somehow drag himself and the precious transmitter units away.
Then he looked up and saw his rain of doom.
In an instant of stopped-time vision, he saw the converging rockets descending. The 240mm rockets, traveling at five hundred meters a second, appeared to float for the instant of recognition.
Dastgerdi realized the truth: his own rockets fell from the gray sky, the transmitters in the suitcase he held guiding them and their deadly warheads to the place where he lay wounded and immobile and exposed on the driveway pavement.
The vision passed and then came the rockets. Shrapnel ripped over him, severing an ear, taking away a leg, throwing him through the mist. Finally he screamed and, drawing another breath, filled his lungs with chemical death. He screamed again and again, his one voice of terror lost in the roar.
Zhgenti knew the sound of Katyushas. Throwing the Zil into gear, he floored the accelerator. But the heavy limousine seemed to move no faster than a walk, the acceleration taking him away from the curb but not gaining the speed his desperation needed. His plight reminded him of a dreadful scene in a nightmare; he could not escape the barrage.
Debris showered the Zil, clanging on the hood and roof, tumbling away. Zhgenti kept the accelerator to the floor.
Far ahead, Desmarais ran from the gateway. What role did she have in this attack, this strike by rockets? Zhgenti knew she had some devious involvement. She would not escape. He aimed the limousine at the journalist who had served the Soviet Union, using the five-pointed star of the hood ornament to sight on her body.
"No more tricks, my little Canadian!"
Explosions flashed as another rain of rockets fell on the Iranian embassy. Window glass sprayed the interior of the Zil. The shock slammed Zhgenti, and he felt his ears ringing with agony. But he did not lose control of the limousine.
Focusing his eyes, he saw Desmarais. Camera in hand, her lustrous hair flagging in the wind, she sat on the hood of the Zil.
Zhgenti laughed. Desmarais did not sit. What remained of her was in front of him, impaled on the unseen hood ornament.
"You did not escape, not this time..."
Flame and silence. Desmarais felt the blast lift her above the street. She floated for an infinite moment the dawn sky wheeling, the flashes of high-explosive flame spinning past, noise coming and receding then fell. Something struck her and she ran.
She did not feel her legs pumping, but she knew she sprinted because the asphalt of the avenue blurred and scenes of destruction flashed past. The thunder of the blasts continued, but in an instant she left the explosions behind.
She realized she still had her camera in her hands. Secured by the strap around her neck and gripped tightly in both hands, the camera had not been lost. She turned so effortlessly, so quickly to take a photo of the destruction behind her.
Zhgenti was mocking her. Through a shattered windshield, she saw his thick features sneering and laughing. She saw the steering wheel in his hands. Zhgenti was driving the limousine.
But I am running, she thought. I am escaping... I will be free of Zhgenti and the Soviet monsters...
How could I be running? The explosion threw me onto the hood of the car. That is why I'm moving so fast... Will Zhgenti take me to safety? Why is Zhgenti laughing?
Finally looking down, she saw the answer. Her body ended at her waist. Replacing her pelvis and legs, she saw the polished black hood of the Zil limousine.
Streams of blood showed at the union between her body and the gleaming metal of the Soviet limousine.
Her throat constricted to scream, her diaphragm contracted to expel that scream but instead released a vast gush of blood from her transected abdomen and she lost consciousness, her vision of the dawn going black.
Eyes fluttering, her face up to the sky, her hair flagging back, the young woman raced away from the maelstrom of death on the polished black enamel of the Soviet limousine. Even in the final rushing moments of her life, her dark hair and pale features graced the obsolete mechanical contradictory symbol of Soviet luxury As a hood ornament.