The ancient Russian helicopter felt like it was going to rattle apart as it skimmed across the top of the ridge. Smith gripped the rusted instrument panel as the ground fell away and Farrokh dove hard toward the valley below.
He hadn’t been given access to his phone or any other method of communication, and all questions — about the search for Omidi and the parasite, about where Peter Howell had disappeared to, about when the hell they were going to do something — had been politely deflected.
“There,” Farrokh shouted over the sound of the rotors. He pointed toward a group of fifty or so people who were still at the very edge of visibility, some in formations that were obviously military, others moving quickly over what may have been an obstacle course.
“Our newest training ground,” the Iranian explained, tracing a sweeping arc over the men and then setting down in the shadow of a towering cliff. “Before this, we were focused on purely peaceful protest techniques enhanced with technology. But the more successful we are, the more desperate and violent the government becomes.”
“So you’re developing a military arm?”
The Iranian shut down the engine and jumped out with Smith close behind. “It isn’t intended as an offensive force. I believe that if we’re patient, we can win without blood on our hands. Trying to depose the old men entrenched in our government would be a poor strategy.”
“Better to just wait for them to die and quietly replace them.”
“Just so,” Farrokh said. “Overt violence against the government would be a publicity disaster for us. I suspect it’s no different in the United States. No matter how despised the government, any attempt by a group to physically overthrow it would be wildly unpopular. On the other hand, having no capability to protect my followers seemed irresponsible.”
“Hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” Smith said. “It’s a policy that’s always worked for me.”
He shaded his eyes from the sun and watched two men fail to climb a ten-foot obstacle course wall, then scanned right to a line of prone men having mixed success shooting targets at fifty yards. An instructor paced impatiently behind them, occasionally stopping to adjust a poor position or give a piece of advice. His face was shaded by a broad straw hat, but the athletic grace and pent-up energy were unmistakable.
“Will you excuse me for a moment?” Farrokh said, breaking off and heading toward a knot of men studying something rolled out on a collapsible table.
Smith nodded and kept walking, cupping his hands around his mouth as he neared the range. “Peter!”
Howell turned and then barked something at the men on the ground. A moment later, they were running in formation toward a scaffold hung with climbing ropes.
“I was starting to worry about you, old boy,” he said, taking Smith’s hand and shaking it warmly.
“I could say the same. But you don’t look any worse for the wear.”
“A cot and three squares a day. What more can men like us ask for?”
It was an interesting philosophical question, but one better dealt with later. “What have we got?”
“Forty-eight men with a few months of combat training and nine army veterans, two of whom have a special forces background. They’re like me, though — a little long in the tooth.”
“What about the forty-eight? Can they fight?”
Howell frowned. “They’re dedicated and smart as hell. But I’ll bet at least half of them are carrying inhalers, if you take my meaning.”
“You go into battle with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.”
“Indeed. Just make sure you’re behind them when they start shooting.”
75
Jon Smith adjusted his stiff legs into a slightly less uncomfortable position on the hard ground. They were 180 miles northeast of Farrokh’s training camp, and the last quarter of the trip had been done on horseback. Quiet and efficient in the torturous terrain, granted, but a mode of transportation he’d last employed at his fifth-birthday party.
He swept the tripod-mounted night-vision scope slowly, taking in the double chain-link fence, the guard towers, the machine-gun placements. Worse, though, was what he didn’t see: a building. The entire bioweapons lab was underground — deep underground if Farrokh’s intelligence was right.
There was a stone outcropping at the center of the heavily defended perimeter, and he could see a smooth gray section set into it. Steel doors about twenty feet square and of unknown thickness. It was hard to imagine a worse scenario that didn’t actually involve giant alien robots.
“You still haven’t been able to get a schematic of the facility?” he said quietly. They were lying in the rock-strewn sand a mile east of the fence. Getting any closer would demand military skills his companion lacked.
“I’m afraid not,” Farrokh replied.
“Old building permits? Architectural plans? Inspection reports?”
“The information blackout is absolute. In some ways, too absolute. It was the sudden disappearance of all information relating to this place that first led us here.”
The towers and the outer fence looked new and haphazardly constructed of local materials. The apparent shoddiness, though, was an illusion — the result of the Iranians’ trying not to erect structures that would create a pattern that could be identified from above.
Smith adjusted the scope again, focusing on the base of the easternmost of two towers protecting the entrance. Even though he knew exactly where to look, it was an impressive thirty seconds before his eye picked up movement.
Peter Howell and an even older retired Iranian special forces operator had spent the last five hours beneath a dirty piece of canvas, inching their way toward the facility’s outer defenses. They’d finally made it to the top of the low berm that was their objective and Smith heard the vibration of the phone on Farrokh’s hip. The Iranian looked down at it for a moment and then held it out so Smith could read the text on the screen.
Ditch. 2Ms deep 4Ms wide. bridge booB trapped.
He’d suspected as much but had been hoping for a little luck. Any assault that attempted to breach anywhere but the main entrance would get trapped and cut to pieces by the machine guns in the towers.
“So it’s through the front door or not at all,” Farrokh said.
Smith nodded in the darkness but couldn’t help thinking that the most likely scenario was not at all. There was no way for an adequate force to approach without being seen for miles and no way to avoid stopping on the bridge, which was apparently rigged to blow at the first sign of trouble.
Farrokh punched in a brief response and then returned to his spotting scope as Smith rolled onto his back and looked up at a sky full of stars. He wondered if Sarie was still alive. If she was in that bunker.
“What can you bring to the party, Farrokh?”
“Fifty good men willing to die for what they believe in.”
And that was exactly what his green troops would do if they went up against battle-tested soldiers in an entrenched position.
“Artillery?”
“No. We have some explosives, but no way to deliver them other than by hand.”
“What about technology? Can we cut communications to the facility?”
“No, they’re using satellite and there’s no practical way for us to jam the signal.”
“What about power?”
“There are no lines in, so it must be generated on-site.”
Smith let out a long breath. This wasn’t an operation that could be done by half measures. Breaching the security and then not finishing things created the possibility of the parasite escaping. If they got in, the place had to be sterilized. And Sarie van Keuren had to be either retrieved or eliminated.