"If she can travel," Blancanales cautioned. "She could be hurt in ways she doesn't even realize. I hope she has the intelligence to listen to the doctor if he wants to hospitalize her."
"I know her type," Powell said, laughing. "She won't listen to anyone. Akbar, look at this one. Think you could pass?" Powell flipped a passport to his Shia friend.
Akbar wiped off his hands and studied the passport's photograph. "Am I that ugly?"
"It's that joker's beard. You'll have to say you shaved, but the forehead and eyes match."
"You're sending him to Mexico City?" Blancanales asked. "If the contact's gotten word of the killings..."
Lyons nodded. "Yeah, they'll try to hit him. Either way, you make the connection."
"I don't like that idea!" Akbar protested.
"We'll be there," Lyons told him. "We'll back you up."
Akbar's elderly manservant ushered in Anne Desmarais. She had put on makeup to cover her bruises. Though she walked stiffly, painfully, she carried a suitcase. "When do we leave?"
Powell looked to the others. "Any minute now, if..."
"We'll make our own plans," Lyons interrupted. He looked to his partners.
They nodded their agreement.
11
Via satellite-relayed long-distance telephone, Blancanales talked with Captain Soto of the army of Mexico. In the months since Able Team aided by then-Lieutenant Soto attacked the forces of the Fascist International, politics had played a central role in the life of Soto. The officer mentioned arrest and imprisonment followed by reinstatement and promotion to captain. But he held no bitterness for the North Americans. He laughed at the difficulties caused by Able Team's previous visit to Mexico.
"I am now famous. A hero," Soto declared. "I will tell you many stories when you visit."
"And we will tell you a story. Perhaps you will have a role to play."
"Oh? You come on business?"
"Important business. Can you meet us at the airport?"
"Certainly! Of course. It will be my pleasure to..."
"Can you meet us beforewe go through Customs?"
"Oh, I understand... I will think of something. Leave the plane last. Do not follow the crowd into the terminal."
"We will see you. If there is a delay or if we must change flights, we'll call again."
"Good. I look forward to your visit."
After breaking the connection, Blancanales paid the desk clerk in dollars. He received his change in Greek currency. He did not bother to count the change. Able Team would be on Cyprus only another hour.
Gadgets and Lyons waited outside the tourist hotel in a limousine. Blancanales hurried through the freezing rain and joined his partners in the warmth of the idling Mercedes.
"You talked to him?" Lyons asked.
"He said he can help us..."
"Great." Lyons signaled the driver to continue to the airport.
"But you know," Blancanales continued. "He's had serious problems since we were there."
"He still in the service?" Gadgets asked.
"He was in prison. Now he's back in the service. With a promotion to captain."
Lyons laughed. "After this, maybe he'll hit major."
12
Knives flashed in the firelight. Choking on their own blood, the Syrian soldiers kicked and struggled in the grip of the Iranians. Rouhani watched the Syrians die, then motioned his Revolutionary Guards on to the next sentry position. Two of his men stayed in the sheet-metal shack to dispose of the bodies and stand watch.
The others ran through the gray pall of falling snow. The mercury-arc floodlights spaced along the perimeter guided the Iranians to the next entry shack. They approached slowly, listening to the Syrians inside talking around the fire. Rouhani signaled two of his Guards to go inside. He and the others waited outside, like shadows in the swirling snow, their knives ready.
Greeting the Syrians like friends, the two Revolutionary Guards stepped up to the fire and warmed their hands. One Guard took American cigarettes from his coat. He offered the cigarettes to the Syrians and the soldiers each took one. As the two sentries leaned down to the fire to light the cigarettes, the other Iranians rushed in with their knives.
Again, the Syrians died quickly.
Rouhani left his Guards at the post. Alone with his thoughts, he walked into the gray swirl of blowing snow to the village. His heart hammered with exultation. Tonight he finally took command of the strike against the satanic Americans. No longer would the Syrians control the rockets.
He had never believed the Syrians would actually kill the American President. They hid behind diplomacy and foreign relations and negotiations. Cowards! How can a believernegotiate with Satan?
Had not the Syrians waited at their nation's frontiers for years, facing the Jews but never attacking? Did not the Syrians tolerate for years the Americans in Lebanon? Did not the Syrians possess the Soviet missile systems, only for the missiles to stand unused, never launched against the Jew enemy or the Americans or the other enemies of the Faith?
Now the Syrians made rockets to attack America. But would they ever launch the rockets?
Rouhani would not wait for the answer. Tonight, under the cover of this storm sent by Allah, while the Syrian officers and technicians holidayed in Damascus, he took the weapons of doom from the Syrians.
On the streets of the village, his Guards saluted him from doorways. His men held the offices and workshops. Rouhani did not know what holiday took the Syrians back to their capital. He did not care. He honored only the holidays ordained by the Prophet or declared by the Ayatollah. Let the Syrians celebrate their orgies of alcohol and sensuality the thought sickened him. The video machines of pornography, the American and European films in the theaters, the imported luxuries, the Syrian women in tight pants and shimmering fashions, their bodies scented with exotic perfumes, their faces painted, their lips red and pouting, like a promise of paradise...
No! He refused to think of the venereal filth, the corruption on earth. He must direct his thoughts only to destruction, to the rain of doom on the creatures of Satan.
The Americans would be there when the rockets fell, the scented women in their revealing gowns, their breasts hot, rising and falling with every trembling breath as they watched their foul President of America taking his oath of depravity and dominion over the people of the earth.
Destroy them! With explosives, with white phosphorus, with the nerve gases! Rain down the fire of death on them, rip their flesh and let their polluted blood drain into the polluted earth of satanic America. Cleanse the earth of their sin and evil!
Hallucinations of sex and death flashing against the swirling snow, Rouhani ran down the long ramp to the underground factory. Inside, he stared around, his eyes still focused on the erotic visions generated within his mind as his men crowded up to him.
"Leader! The trucks are ready..." one shouted.
"Have you cleared the sentries from the gates?" Rouhani asked.
"Leader... are you wounded?"
Rouhani shoved away the Guards attempting to help him. He brought his thoughts back to the immediate moment. Striding past his men, he surveyed the workshop.
Set deep under the abandoned fields of the village, protected from Israeli or American air strikes by steel-reinforced concrete, the factory contained rows of machines. Diesel trucks were parked in the center aisle. Steel gurneys, straining under the load of 240mm rockets, stood alongside workbenches, where the Syrian technicians had left them. At the far side of the concrete cavern, more racks of the BM-24 Soviet artillery rockets stood against the walls.
"Why not those rockets?" he demanded of his Guards. "Why do we leave them?"