Drone Strike: A Dreamland Thriller (Dale Brown's Dreamland) (23 page)

11

Iran

T
URK HAD TO
STAND NEAR THE ENTR
ANCE TO THE CAVE
for the sat phone to work. He was just punching the quick-dial to connect with Breanna when he heard a plane approaching from the north.

“I may have to cut this short,” he said as soon as the connection went through. “There’s a plane nearby.”

“Turk, are you OK?” asked Breanna. He heard concern, even fear, in her voice.

“I’m good. I don’t want to take the chance of being seen. The Iranians have been sending airplanes through the region.” He leaned back against the side of the cave. The plane wasn’t getting any closer. “It should be dark soon. Do we have a target?”

“We have two.”

“You still have two? I thought—”

“I have a coordinate for the area we think is safest for you to operate from,” she said, cutting him off. “The procedure you’re going to have to follow is different than the first strike.”

“How different?”

“They’re still working on things. It’ll be more hands on and you may be making the attack in the morning, near or after sunrise.”

“In the day?”

“Possibly. Probably, I should say.”

Turk looked out across the valley in front of him, letting the words sink in. They were still figuring out exactly what to do—that wasn’t a good sign.

“Turk?”

“Yeah, OK. Those coordinates?”

“I’m sending them via the text system now.”

His satcom beeped, signaling that the information had been sent.

“Call when you’ve arrived. We need you in place by 2200 hours,” Breanna added, using the military term for 10:00
P.M.
“So we can download everything to your unit before clearing the launch. We’re going to use the first orbiter as a relay station; some of your programming has to be changed. There’s only a small window to do the download.”

“Understood.”

“T
HEY’
RE INSANE IF THEY WA
NT US TO GET TO THIS
point.” Gorud shook his head. “We’ll have to pass two barracks and an antiaircraft site. They’re crazy. God.”

The CIA officer got up and started pacing. He folded his arms over his chest and began scratching his left bicep frenetically, as if he wanted to tear through the cloth and dig past the skin to the muscle and bones.

Grease glanced at Turk and gave him a look that said,
He’s losing it.
Then he took out the paper map of the area that had been stored there and examined it. Turk looked over his shoulder.

The topo map showed a trail they could take from the road toward a narrow hillside ledge, but it ended about a half mile before reaching that point. The topo lines squeezed together, showing a sharp rise. It would be a difficult climb.

Grease studied the area.

“If we could go through this air base, we’d have an easy time,” he said, pointing at the map. “Otherwise the nearest road is ten miles here. Then we have to go out this way and back.”

“Unless we go through the desert,” said Turk.

“We can’t—this is the salt lake. It’s water out here. There may be patrols on the road.”

“There’ll be patrols inside the base.”

“Not as many as you’d think. Remember the place we hit the other day? Security is something you do at the perimeter, if there.”

“Those are barbed-wire fences, I’ll bet.” Turk pointed to the parallel fence line on the map. “And they’re not going to let us through the gate.”

“We can cut through the fences. That’s not a problem.” Grease studied the map some more. “We’d have to scout it, obviously. A satellite image would be convenient.”

“Yeah,” said Turk. They weren’t likely to get one; the data download was due to take place after they arrived.

“We could take one of their trucks and get right out the front gate. Be less likely to attract attention than ours.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Gorud. “What the hell are you thinking?”

The CIA officer started waving his good arm in the air. He seemed dangerously close to losing control—maybe he already had.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “They’ve given us a suicide mission—”

He stopped speaking. Turk stared at him for another second, then looked at the map again. Grease had already turned his attention back to it.

“We can leave the truck about a mile away and walk through this ravine,” Grease told Turk. “We get past the fence here, then it’s a straight jog to the administrative buildings.”

“What if there are no vehicles?” asked Turk.

“It’ll work, don’t worry,” said Grease. “Worst case, we go back. But we won’t have to.”

“You’re crazy!” shouted Gorud. “Both of you! Crazy! We have to leave now! We have to leave now—now! We have to get out!”

Gorud turned and ran toward the deep black of the cave’s interior. Frozen for a moment, Turk finally got moving only after Grease jumped to his feet.

They caught the CIA officer at the edge of the underground lake. Turk, whose eyes seemed to have adjusted better to the dark than Grease’s, grabbed the back of his shirt and started to pull. Gorud swung around, trying to hit him. Instead they both fell. Grease leapt on Gorud, pinning him to the damp, uneven floor.

Gorud yelled and screamed in pain. Grease leaned against his neck with his forearm while pulling the flashlight from his pocket as the other man squirmed harder.

“Get him a styrette,” said Grease. “Morphine.”

“God, he’s burning up,” said Turk. “He’s hotter than hell. He’s got some sort of fever. His wound must be infected.”

“Get the morphine.”

Turk stumbled back to the medical kit for one of the morphine setups. When he returned, Grease had spun Gorud over on his stomach and was holding him down with his knee. The CIA officer continued to scream until the moment Turk touched the morphine needle to his rump. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, Gorud looked at him with large, puzzled eyes, shuddered, and began to breathe calmly.

Turk pushed the plunger home.

“I’m going to give you an antibiotic,” he said. “And aspirin. You have a fever.”

Gorud said nothing. Turk took that as an assent and went back for the drugs. Gorud didn’t talk as he plunged the second needle home. He swallowed the aspirin wordlessly, without taking the water Turk offered.

“Don’t give us any more trouble, spook,” Grease told Gorud before letting him go.

Gorud curled up defensively.

“It’s all right,” Turk said, reaching to help him up. “We’ll get out of here.”

Gorud stared but didn’t take his hand.

“We need to get back to the mouth of the cave,” said Grease. “And we have to be quiet.” He spun the flashlight around. “Come on. You, too, Gorud. Let’s go. And don’t do anything weird.”

Turk reached out to help Gorud, but he refused to be touched. He got up on his own.

“We’ll be OK,” Turk told him. “We’ll be OK.”

12

Iran

A
BOUT A HALF HOUR B
EFORE THEY PLANNED T
O
leave, an Iranian military vehicle drove down the hard-packed road near the cave. It was a Neynava, a new vehicle with a squared cab in front of a panel-sided open bed, the local equivalent of a U.S. Army Light Military Tactical Vehicle, or M1078.

The sun had just gone down, but there was still plenty of light, more than enough to see the lingering dust cloud after the vehicle passed. The rear was empty; the man in the driver’s seat concentrated on the road.

A few minutes later it came back up, moving a little slower this time. Turk decided it must have gone to the small hamlet about a mile south and then returned for some reason. It wasn’t until the truck came down the road again, this time moving at a snail’s pace, that he became concerned. He called Grease over from the pickup, which he’d been loading.

“He’s gone back and forth twice now,” he said. “The back of the bed is empty.”

“Mmmm,” said Grease. “Probably moving troops around.”

“I don’t see any.”

“Not yet.”

Grease took the binoculars. Turk checked the AK-47, making sure it was ready to fire. He had an extra magazine taped to the one in the gun, and two more in easy reach. Suddenly, they didn’t feel like enough.

“If they come up at us,” he said to Grease, “do we fight, or try to sneak out the back?”

“I don’t know. Depends.”

“On?”

“How many there are?” Grease continued to survey the area below. “I see two guys patrolling. They’re just walking, though. Heads down. They don’t have anything definite.” Grease crouched down and moved to his right, angling for a better view. “They’re just assigned to check the road. BS stuff, that’s what they’re thinking . . . It’d be best to sneak out, but then we have to walk. It’s a long way.”

He didn’t say that they’d have to leave Gorud, but Turk knew they would.

“We can wait a while,” said Turk.

“Yeah.”

Grease moved away, toward the mouth of the cave. Turk stayed near Gorud, who was propped against the cave wall, sleeping.

Leaving Gorud would condemn him to death, he was sure. But maybe he was already doomed.

Leaving him alive here was too risky, Turk realized. They’d have to kill him.

He knew he faced death himself. He didn’t think about it, didn’t even consider the many times he had, to one degree or another, cheated it. But killing someone else, someone on
your
side, to complete a mission—that was very different.

“I saw two more guys coming down the road,” said Grease, returning. “The truck went back up.”

“What do you think?”

“I think they’re just looking along the road for anything out of place, then they’ll leave.”

“Are they going to come up this far?”

“The mouth of the cave blends into the rocks. They can’t see it. These guys don’t look too ambitious.”

“So we chance it.”

“I guess.”

They waited another half hour. Night had fallen by then; Turk heard insects but no vehicles.

“We’re going to have go down and see if they’ve left,” said Grease finally. “Otherwise we won’t know if it’s safe.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“One of us has to stay with Gorud. I’ll be fine. You’re the better scout.”

Grease said nothing.

“I’ll be OK,” Turk insisted. “You don’t have to look over my shoulder the whole time.”

“It’s my job.”

“One of us scouting is less likely to be seen,” said Turk. “And it makes sense that you’re the one to do it. You’re going to have to trust me.”

“It’s not a matter of trust.”

“I haven’t done anything stupid yet,” said Turk. “Except get involved in this.”

Grease helped Turk put Gorud into the cab of the pickup. The CIA operative was still running a fever, though he didn’t feel quite as hot as he had before. It was dark in the cave now, too dark for Turk to see anything more than Grease’s shadow as he backed out of the truck and closed the door.

“Stay by the mouth of the cave,” Grease told him. “Just stay there. No matter what happens.”

“Agreed.”

“I’ll come back and we’ll drive out. Or we’ll go the back way.”

“Got it.”

It was hard waiting. The darkness made it impossible to see. Turk was anxious. For the first time since the mission began he felt very alone—more alone than he had ever felt in his life.

He started thinking about what he would do if Grease didn’t come back.

He heard a vehicle in the distance, driving in his direction. He waited, saw the faint arc of the headlamps.

They disappeared. The night fell quiet again.

Ten minutes later he heard someone scrambling across the rocks to his right. He went down on his right knee, brought the rifle up and moved his finger to the trigger, ready to shoot.

“Me,” hissed Grease, still unseen outside.

“Come.”

“There’s a patrol down there,” said Grease when he was closer. “They have a checkpoint on the road. My guess is there’s another one on the north side that we can’t see.”

“Can we take them?”

“Going Rambo’s not going to help us complete our mission.” Grease moved past him to the pickup.

“What are you doing?”

“Watch the mouth of the cave.”

Turk hesitated for a moment, then started after him. He didn’t catch up to Grease until he’d reached the truck.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Grease ignored him, working inside the pickup. Turk peered over his back as he jabbed Gorud’s side.

“What are you doing?” said Turk again. “Hey.”

“Shut up,” snapped Grease.

Turk tried pulling him away, but the sergeant was built like a bear and wouldn’t be moved. He jabbed twice more.

“Grease, what the hell?” he demanded.

“He’s not going to make it.”

“You’re giving him morphine? Why?”

Grease remained in the truck. Turk pulled at him.

“Just get back,” said Grease, voice shaky. He turned and shoved Turk with his free hand. Caught off guard, Turk stumbled back and fell down. He felt powerless for a moment, then gathered his energy and leapt back to his feet.

There was a muffled gunshot. Grease closed the pickup door.

“Get your stuff,” he told Turk. “We gotta walk.”

13

Iran

C
OLONEL
K
HORASANI STUDIED THE MAP.
H
E HAD
made the mistake of reporting the vehicle to General Arfa, the political commander who in ordinary times was his boss. Arfa had immediately seized on the theory that it belonged to saboteurs—defectors, rather than commandos or smugglers—and demanded that Khorasani find them. Khorasani knew he had only himself to blame.

“It is getting rather dark,” said Sergeant Karim.

“I’m quite aware of the time, Sergeant,” said Khorasani.

“Every house and farm within five kilometers has been searched. The roads are being patrolled. But some of the troops—”

“What about this block here?” asked Khorasani. “These mines. Were they checked?”

“The search area didn’t go down that low. And, the map says—”

“I know what it says.” The legend declared the hills a special reserve area—in other words, a place owned by the nuclear research projects, though as far as Khorasani knew, there were no labs there.

Mines would be a good place to hide.

“Get Captain Jalol back on the radio. Tell him to have his men begin searching the hills north of the Exclusion Zone, in this area here. There are old mines—check each one. Look for caves in the hills. Each one to be checked. No excuses! And I want a house-by-house search in Saveh. And it’s to start
now
, no waiting for morning. If there are questions, have them speak to me.”

“There’ll be no questions, Colonel,” said the aide, gesturing to the communications man.