Dark Rising

NINETEEN

Chief Commander Bhakazarri of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard pushed another ghotaab cake into his mouth. The fried pastry dipped in honey made his fingers sticky, so he sucked them noisily even though his nails were dark with dirt. Without looking up from his paperwork, he extended his hand to find another glistening, nut-filled treat. He could relax now as his deployment selections were complete. He was confident his commandos could handle anything they encountered.

His IRG was a separate entity from the regular Iranian Army. Feared for their brutality and fanaticism, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard were initially created by the Ayatollah to maintain internal security. However, the IRG had grown well beyond this role and branched out into assassination, torture and the training of jihad fighters.

Like many military forces around the world, the IRG had their elite unit – the Takavaran. Bhakazarri oversaw the selection and training of the men in his Takavaran units; they reported to him and him alone.

The Takavaran commandos were the equivalent of the US Special Forces, and none were more feared in the Middle East than the Takavaran Zolfaghar – the wolves. They believed they carried the souls of the ancient Persian Immortals within them and were better trained, better equipped and more fanatical than any other Middle Eastern unit. Bhakazarri knew even the Metsada would avoid them if they could; the best outcome the Israeli agents could hope for when encountering one of these brutal fanatics face to face was mutual destruction.

It was too late to defend the Jamshid I facility at Persepolis – it had already been erased by the accident. Bhakazarri had spread two dozen men loosely in and around the ruin’s perimeter in the Marv Dasht desert, more as a trap than a defensive force. It was Jamshid II at Arak that needed to be protected. Here he had deployed his best men in two mission profiles. The first was a contingent of fifty stationed in the facility itself. If an enemy infiltration team actually managed to find and enter the hidden laboratory, they would be cut down before the first security door was breached. The second mission deployment was another forty Takavaran dressed in the robes and shawls of desert traders and spread in ten four-man units throughout the countryside. Their humble tents would conceal ground radar, nightscope equipment and all the necessary firepower required to obliterate any foreigner that set foot on Iranian soil.

Bhakazarri had ordered at least one of the infiltrators to be brought to him alive, especially if they turned out to be Americans. The humiliation of the Great Satan would be extreme if Iran could parade captured US spies to the international media.

He pushed another cake into his mouth and snorted. Although he had given the order, Bhakazarri wasn’t counting on any living captives being brought to him. His Takavaran rarely left anything behind but body parts. Ah, well, he thought, you send in wolves and someone gets savaged. It didn’t matter; the Americans would still pay to get the bodies back, no matter what their condition.

Alex and Sam were checking their weapons when Adira and Zach joined them. As standard equipment, the HAWCs used the Heckler amp; Koch USP45CT pistol, or CT for short. Smooth and matt black, it was a powerful sidearm made of a moulded polymer with recoil reduction and a ‘hostile environment’ nitride finish giving maximum corrosion resistance.

‘H amp;K,’ said Adira. ‘Big and slow, I remember. Hope your targets stay at walking pace for you tonight.’

Sam chuckled.

Alex clicked the firing mechanism into place and sighted along the barrel. He liked the feel in his hand. ‘Not anymore,’ he told Adira. ‘This CT has a variant trigger – pull and discharge in a single smooth split-second motion. Maybe not the fastest handgun, but certainly faster than a standard Israeli Barak.’ He smiled at her.

‘What makes you think these are standard, Captain? Besides, sometimes speed is determined by what’s behind the gun. When this is over, we’ll have to see who is faster, yes?’

Sam stifled another laugh as he finished screwing on his sound suppressor and twirled the elongated gun in his hand. Most silencers suppressed sound through muffling; the upgraded CT used frequency shifting – it didn’t so much muffle the sound as shift it beyond the range of human hearing. Sam slid the weapon into its holster, which was strapped down into a special pocket in his suit.

Alex looked at his watch: 10.45 pm. ‘Get ’em together, Uncle.’

Hex came in first. He crouched down, holding the Klystron laser across his thighs. With his grey eyes, white-blond cropped hair and futuristic weaponry, he looked like a warrior from a time still to come. Alex could tell he was itching to fire the laser and pitied Hex’s first target – he wouldn’t miss.

Rocky and Irish came in next.

Alex spoke directly to Hex. ‘We can’t allow ourselves to be trapped in those ruins. If the Iranians attempt to enter the facility in force, move into ambush positions, or engage. You are unilaterally authorised to remove any and all perimeter threats.’

Hex simply nodded.

Alex took the lead on the insertion team. He was the only member of the four-person unit who was without nightscope equipment – his own enhanced vision gave him all the light amplification he needed.

The evening was clear but moonless, making the basin floor appear impenetrable in the darkness. The air temperature was cold, just a few degrees above zero, but still dry enough to suck the moisture from their eyes and mouths. The slow going would have a dual benefit: besides drawing less attention to them, it minimised exhaustion and therefore caused fewer exhalations – which would show on any watching thermal scopes as orange mist plumes.

It was just after midnight when they reached the tent covering the entrance to the tunnels. Sam and Zach moved forward to the steel door, Sam holding a small steel device he intended to use to bypass the digital security and Zach with his radiation meter. Out on the desert floor, Alex could see the slight movement of two of the Takavaran teams. One team was near an old truck, half the men asleep underneath it. The other team was closer to the ruins, the men lying with their backs against the stone, obviously drawing on the warmth stored there during the day.

‘It’s already open,’ Sam whispered. He coiled some wires around the small device and jammed it back into its sleeve. He drew his gun and crouched beside the door.

Adira pushed the metal panel slightly and went down on one knee on the opposite side to Sam. As the door swung inwards, they both pointed their weapons into the black tunnel beyond.

Zach held up the Geiger counter to check the radiation levels. ‘All clear,’ he said, and resheathed the device and fell in behind Adira.

Alex put his hand flat against the stone wall. Suddenly he felt a stab of pain in the back of his head. It turned to agony as the pressure built and shifted in his skull, as if there were tectonic plates in there grinding against each other, adjusting to make room for something. Not now, he thought. Not more change, not now. He closed his eyes for an instant and inhaled deeply. A rippling sensation passed through his head and down his spine and the pressure unwound slightly.

His hand tingled against the stone and he realised he could sense vibration – some kind of life presence inside the ancient structure. It was a swirling, chaotic storm of emotions – the lingering remnants of human pain and suffering. The living had been rapidly extinguished here, but he couldn’t tell if it was by violent death or by some other force.

The pain behind his eyes subsided and he removed his fingers from the stone, curling his hand briefly into a fist as if it had been burnt. He turned to the group, pointed at himself with one finger, at Sam with two, then Adira with three and at Zach, four. Then he pushed open the steel door and silently disappeared into the darkness, his small team following in the order he’d indicated.