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?"
"They are not modified, Leader. Today Dastgerdi talked with all the Syrians. They talked about what rockets were ready and what ones were not. We put only the finished rockets in the trucks."
"How can you be sure they are ready?"
"The Syrians marked the rockets."
"How many?"
"Almost a hundred. Four launchers, ninety-six rockets."
"And the transmitters? And the warheads? Are the rockets prepared with explosives and poisons?"
"Yes! The Syrians were very proud. They bragged of their quick work."
Rouhani laughed. "Start the trucks!"
The convoy of diesel trucks and cars drove through the night, north to Baalbek, then northeast toward Lebanon's coast city of Tripoli. Papers forged by the Libyans identified the Iranians as PLO reinforcements for the city. The documents declared the cargo as weapons for PLO and Syrian armies stationed around the city.
But before they reached the city, Rouhani directed the convoy off the highway. The cars and trucks bumped over a frozen, rutted road to an improvised airstrip. There, PLO agents hired by the Libyans transmitted a signal to the approaching cargo plane.
"Where is First Secretary Baesho?" Rouhani asked the Palestinians.
"He is delayed."
"By what?"
"There has been much fighting in Beirut. The telephones do not work. We could not speak with the embassy."
"But what of the plane? Does this..."
"We continue. We have our instructions, the plane will come as scheduled."
"When? There can be no delays now."
"It is off the coast. It waited for our signal."
"But we must be out of Lebanon today!"
"Be patient. It will be only a few minutes."
Rouhani stared into the sky. The eastern horizon grayed with dawn, the irregular line of the eastern mountains black as the storm-darkened sky. Rouhani knew that if he and his Guards did not leave Lebanon today, they risked the revenge of Syrians. Syrian troops occupied all of northern Lebanon. Thousands of Syrian soldiers surrounded Tripoli. Syrian units patrolled the coast to the west and the borders to the north and east. Syrian forces manned the emplacements to the south.
One radio message could mean the extermination of Rouhani and his Guards.
The noise of the engines of the cargo liner stopped his fears.
Before daylight, the Iranians loaded the plane with the rockets and launchers.
Then they flew west. To destroy the President of the satanic empire of America.
From the warmth and luxury of his armored limousine, Dastgerdi watched the Sahel Mountains blur past. He considered the reports.
Repeated radio messages to the base in the Bekaa had not been answered.
Syrian units manning roadblocks had reported two trucks and trailer loads of rockets in transit to Tripoli.
A radar station in Tripoli had reported the intrusion of an aircraft of unknown nationality. The aircraft crossed the coast, disappeared into the foothills, then reappeared after less than an hour, flying due west. Radar tracked the aircraft over the Mediterranean until it passed out of range.
Then came the reports from the Syrian Defense Ministry. The radio operators speculated that the failure of communications during the night had perhaps been caused by the storm. But the reports from the checkpoints and the radar station had been confirmed.
The slowing of the limousine interrupted his thoughts. His Syrian-army chauffeur turned from the highway to the narrow road leading to the ruined village. Snow covered the familiar landscape. Beyond the abandoned fields and pastures, storm clouds hid the peaks of the mountains.