Jalaluddin Turabi got out of his sedan. “I am sorry to do this, Master Sergeant Wohl,” he shouted in halting English, looking carefully around him for any sign of trouble, knowing the American could hear him, “but the Iranians were most insistent on keeping custody of the princess and having her reveal her network. But what they would really like is you. Apparently they were impressed by your performance in Qom not long ago, and they wish to inspect your armor technology up close. If you don’t want to see the girl and her bodyguards slaughtered before your eyes, come out here, now.” No response, only the sounds of more Iranian Revolutionary Guards swarming the area. “You have no chance of escape, Master Sergeant. You’ve come an awfully long way just to see the princess die and your missions fail. The Iranians don’t want you — they want your armor, weapons, and aircraft technology. You will be saving lives if you cooperate. I have received their assurances that they will let you and your men, here and at the truck farm, leave the country unharmed if you drop your weapons and remove your armor. Surrender now and…”
At that moment there were three simultaneous explosions right in front of Turabi as the three Iranian armored vehicles blocking the entrance to the parking lot disappeared in massive clouds of fire and smoke. Turabi was knocked off his feet by the triple blasts. After finding himself dazed but unhurt on the ground, he picked himself up and took cover behind his sedan, away from the burning vehicles.
Through the sounds of burning and popping metal, Turabi heard another series of noises, ones he had heard a long time ago but remembered as clearly as yesterday — brief screams, occasional gunshots, followed by a sickening, gory crunching sound and a loud THUD! somewhere off in the distance. He didn’t hesitate, but immediately whirled and started running down the street…
…only to be stopped after just a few strides by what felt and looked like a steel wall that suddenly appeared directly in front of him. Turabi ran headlong into the obstruction and fell flat-out backward, semiconscious.
When he could see straight again, he was staring up at Qagev, Najar, and Saidi looking down at him — and standing beside them was one of the American Tin Men, its helmeted face, smooth armor, and massive tank-killing weapon making it look even more the wraithlike avenger he knew it was. The armored figure knelt beside him. “Kill me, Wohl,” Turabi said, coughing up blood from a smashed nose. “Get it over with.”
“Why, Turabi?” Chris Wohl asked. “Why did you cooperate with the damned Iranians? McLanahan was your friend.”
“‘Friend?’ He abandoned me in this hell-hole, surrounded by thousands of damned Iranians,” Turabi said weakly. “I barely escape one assassination attempt by those bastards every week. Half my government has been paid off by Iran, and the suburbs outside the capital are swarming with Iranian-trained insurgents all waiting to sweep in and take over. The only way I could survive after becoming part of this damned government was to cooperate with them.”
“You told them about us, about the Air Battle Force?”
“I told them you would be rescuing the princess, and they thought they could capture you and your spacecraft,” Turabi said.
“Shit,” Chris swore, rising to his feet. He spoke through the Tin Man battlesuit’s built-in satellite transceiver: “Stud Four.” No response. “Stud Four, how do you copy?” Still no response. He cursed himself for not checking in more often with the XR-A9 Black Stallion crew. “All Stud units, report back to the landing zone on the double and assist Stud Four. Prepare to engage hostile forces.” He received two acknowledgments. He knelt down again and stuck his helmeted face close to the stricken Turkmeni president’s. “Why didn’t you ask for our help, Turabi? The general would have sent an entire army to help you. He would have taken you out of here if that’s what you wanted.”
“I’m an Afghan and a soldier, Wohl, not a charity case,” Turabi said. “The Iranians offered me a life back in Afghanistan — money, weapons, and assistance in raising an army again in my own homeland. All I had to do was help them capture you, then turn over control of the government to their hand-picked Islamist puppet. McLanahan offered me a pat on the head and nothing else except virtual captivity here in this miserable dustbowl.” He spat out another mouthful of blood. “What are you going to offer me now, Master Sergeant?”
“Just this, you fucking coward,” Chris Wohl said darkly…then delivered a single blow to the Afghan’s face that penetrated all the way down hard enough to crack the pavement below his head. Azar and her bodyguards watched as Turabi’s head exploded like a ripe tomato under a sledgehammer. Wohl wiped his left fist off on Turabi’s robes, then stood and faced the three Iranians. “I’ll escort you to the outskirts of the city,” he said, “then I have to see to my troops.”
“No,” Azar said. “Tell us where your forces are, and I will send my people to help.”
Chris thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “Outside an abandoned truck farm fourteen kilometers east of Niyazov Airport,” he said.
“How soon can you get there?” Azar asked.
“Faster than you,” Chris said.
“Then go — do not worry about us,” Azar said. “We will make contact with our network, then dispatch someone to help.”
“My mission was to be sure you got safely out of the country.”
“Your mission has changed, Master Sergeant,” Azar said. “Go.” Chris needed no more convincing. In the blink of an eye he had leaped into the night sky and was gone from view. “Extraordinary,” Azar said to Najar and Saidi. “Whoever neutralized weapon systems such as that much be extremely powerful.”
“The Pasdaran want you very badly, Shahdokht,” Najar said. “We must get out of this city as quickly as possible.”
“Not before we help the Americans,” Azar said. “Contact the network immediately.”
Azar and her bodyguards took Turabi’s sedan, and they encountered absolutely no difficulties traveling through the city — the vehicle was instantly recognized by the police on patrol, who did nothing more than salute the vehicle as it drove past. Ten minutes later, easily negotiating the nearly deserted streets of Ashkhabad, they came to the Niyazov Thirtieth Anniversary Racetrack on the eastern side of the capital, and made their way to the stables, where they met up with dozens of members of the Qagev monarchy’s underground support network.
“Any news of my parents?” Azar asked.
“None, Shahdokht,” the network leader replied. “Some reports said they were intercepted in Paris by the Pasdaran. We simply do not have any first-hand information.”
“We must proceed on our own, assemble the Court and the war council, organize the militia, and prepare to take action should the opportunity present itself,” Azar said. “But first we have a debt to repay.”
They found the truck farm about ten kilometers east of the racetrack. The entire area was deserted, but it did not take long for Azar and her entourage to notice the smell of burning jet fuel, metal…and human bodies. Their vehicles bumped across craters made by high-explosive detonations, and small fires were still burning everywhere. The underground fighters drew their weapons as they approached the worst of the battle-ravaged area. “No,” Azar ordered, sensing danger nearby. “Lower your weapons. The enemy has already left…or has been dispatched.” She got out of the sedan and approached the center of the devastated truck parking lot. “Master Sergeant? Are you here?”