Buzhazi loaded a high-explosive grenade into his “blooper” and fired at the first armored vehicle he saw, a Russian-made BMP infantry combat vehicle — with the driver and vehicle commander sitting up in their seats, heads poking out of their hatches, watching the gunfight like a couple of spectators! Buzhazi fired his grenade launcher. The round struck the steeply angled front deck of the APC, deflected upward off the engine compartment exhaust louvers, and exploded on the 73-millimeter smooth-bore cannon barrel, killing the crew instantly and starting a small fire atop the engine compartment. Moments later, hatches opened up on the second APC, and the crew jumped out and ran off.
Allah be praised, Buzhazi rejoiced to himself as he loaded another HE round in his grenade launcher, the damn plan might actually work! “First Company, move out and take those BMPs!” Buzhazi shouted over his shoulder to his men in the bank. “Let’s go, let’s…!”
He heard a roar of rotor blades behind him and turned, raising the blooper…but it was too late. Before he could fire, an Mi-24 attack helicopter raced in from the south, stopped just south of the avenue a few hundred meters away, then unleashed its entire load of one hundred and twenty-eight 57-millimeter rockets point-blank on the bank building before any of his men could get out. The entire building and both buildings on either side of it disappeared in a terrific cloud of fire, smoke, and debris. Buzhazi ducked behind the cars clogging the avenue just before the shock wave, searing heat, and hurricane-force blast of flying stone, steel, and glass plowed into him.
“Don’t move!” he heard above him. A Revolutionary Guards soldier was aiming his rifle at him. The air was thick with dust, debris, and smoke, and Buzhazi found it difficult to catch his breath. He could hardly hear because the roar of the Mi-24 hovering less than a hundred meters away was deafening. Buzhazi raised his left hand, trying to hide the “blooper” in his right hand, and another soldier yanked him up by it, nearly breaking his fingers in the process. “Allah akbar, it is him! It’s Buzhazi!” the first soldier shouted gleefully. “The old man himself led this raid! The general will be very pleased.” His sidearm, ammo, and grenade launcher were stripped away from him. “Take him to…”
The soldier was interrupted by the crash of some small object against the windshield of a nearby car. Buzhazi hardly noticed it in all the other confusion of sounds and smells around them, but the Pasdaran soldiers were suddenly distracted. When Buzhazi could see clearly, he saw a very loud crowd of citizens marching up Setam-Gari Avenue toward them, less than a block away now. He couldn’t hear what they were shouting, but they didn’t look one bit happy.
“Take him!” the first Pasdaran soldier shouted, and the second soldier pinned Buzhazi’s arms behind him. The first soldier lifted his AK-74 rifle and fired two shots over the crowd’s head, waving at them to get back. No dice — the crowd, at least a couple hundred people and growing larger by the second, kept coming. More rocks, bottles, and pieces of blown-apart buildings started to rain down on them. Fear filling his eyes, the first soldier fumbled for his portable radio. “Susmar air unit, Susmar air unit, this is Gavasn Seven-One, I am at your ten o’clock position, approximately one hundred meters. I have General Buzhazi in custody. Requesting fire support on that mob heading toward me! We are outnumbered! Acknowledge!”
“Acknowledged, Gavasn,” the reply came. “We have you in sight. Stay where you are.” The big helicopter gunship pedal-turned to the left, hovering just a few dozen meters in the air near the air base boundary fence across the avenue. The 12.7-millimeter cannon slewed downward, zeroing in on the advancing crowd, and then…
…a laser-straight streak of orange-yellow fire zipped across the sky directly on, then directly through the gunship’s engine compartment. Buzhazi at first thought he had imagined it, because the gunship didn’t seem to be affected at all, even though he thought the fire had hit the helicopter. But seconds later the entire engine compartment ripped apart like an overfilled balloon and exploded in a cloud of fire, and the stricken helicopter — minus its entire engine compartment, main rotor, and most of the top of its fuselage — simply dropped straight down out of the sky and exploded in a brilliant burst of flames, showering them with still more smoke and burning debris.
Buzhazi remembered seeing those exact same streaks of light at Qom and knew who his unseen benefactors were. “The angel of death has come to Doshan Tappeh, my friends,” he told the horrified Pasdaran soldiers holding him. “Better get out while you still can.” He found he didn’t have to break the Pasdaran soldier’s grip — he and his comrade were already running off toward Doshan Tappeh Air Base as fast as they could negotiate the stranded cars and burning debris all around them. The crowd cheered as the soldiers ran off.
About a hundred eager hands steadied him as the crowd surrounded him, thumping his back happily. “Who are you people?” Buzhazi shouted. “Where did you come from?” But he couldn’t make himself understood from the cheering and celebrating. “Everyone, get out of here, now!” he yelled. “There are more Pasdaran troops on the way! They’ll mow everyone down if you don’t get away now!”
And just as he shouted that warning, he looked south toward the airbase and saw exactly what he feared — all of the Revolutionary Guards that had been waiting for his battalion to try to escape to the south were now streaming north across the double runways of Doshan Tappeh Air Base right toward them! There were at least four companies of infantry heading his way, probably less than two kilometers away now, along with scores of armored vehicles. Farther to the east, he could see three more Mi-24 helicopter gunships flying in echelon formation, slowly advancing toward them as well. They were sending over a thousand troops out to mop up what was left of Buzhazi’s insurgents, and they would undoubtedly cut down these protesters too because they had helped him. There was going to be another bloodbath…
…or worse. As he scanned the area farther east, he could see three tiny fast-moving dots on the horizon, rolling in and lining up right down the middle of Setam-Gari Avenue — Pasdaran attack jets! They looked like Russian-made Sukhoi-24 close air-support bombers, laden with bombs on both wings. The bastard Zolqadr was actually going to bomb the city from fast-movers! There would be nothing left of this entire avenue for the Pasdaran infantry to clean up after this attack was over! He looked to the west and saw another attack formation, this time of two more Su-24 bombers. “Run!” Buzhazi shouted. “Get out! Get away from here! The Pasdaran will attack any moment…!”
Seconds later, the jets attacked…but not on Setam-Gari Avenue. At the last second the jets peeled away, banking hard…and lining up on the advancing Pasdaran forces.
The jets to the east attacked first, launching radar-guided air-to-air missiles on the helicopters and shooting them down nearly simultaneously before peeling away. In a precisely coordinated attack which left almost no time for the men on the ground to react, seconds later the jets to the west swept over the Pasdaran infantry formations, dropping anti-personnel clusterbomb canisters. It appeared the entire air base lit up with thousands of flashbulbs, but Buzhazi knew that each “flashbulb” was a half-kilogram explosive charge that sent metal fragments out in all directions, killing or maiming anyone within ten meters.
“Hoseyn, you bastard,” Buzhazi said aloud as he watched in relieved fascination at the scene of destruction right before him, “you finally got off your ass and decided to do something.”
Just as quickly as it began, it was over. The airbase was obscured with thick smoke from the clusterbomb explosions, exploding vehicles, and from the burning wreckage of the attack choppers. Soon the terrifying sounds of injured and dying soldiers reached the crowd’s ears, and they turned away and started to quickly leave the area.