Oath of Office

64

Atash Yazdani was bouncing in place when Dovzhenko pulled into the parking lot near Akbar Children’s Hospital. His son Ibrahim stood beside him, looking small and drawn. Arm around the boy’s shoulders, the Iranian bent down and stuck his head in the Toyota’s window. He showed his teeth in the first smile since they’d met him.

“There has been an attack at the missile site west of the city,” he said. “Your plan has worked. The missiles are destroyed. You can now keep your end of the bargain and take my son out.”

His face fell when he noticed the mood in the truck. “What has happened?” He put a hand on top of his head and looked skyward. “Do not tell me there is yet another delay.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “But only one missile was destroyed. There is still one at large.”

“That does not matter anymore,” Yazdani said, almost in tears. “I have done what you asked. I can do no more.” He turned to his son. “Ibrahim, get in the truck. These people are taking us to get you medicine.”

“And we will,” Jack said. “You have my word—”

“Your word will get us all killed!”

The boy began to cough, hacking until his face turned red. Yazdani pounded on his back and he was finally able to gain control.

“We are still going to help,” Jack said again. “But we have to find that second missile.”

Yazdani stared daggers at him, then threw up his hands. “There are some caves approximately ten kilometers south of the test site. It is possible they took one of the erector launchers there.”

Dovzhenko passed him a map. “Show me on this.”

Yazdani pointed out a spot to the west of the city, on a narrow goat track of a road past the village of Noghondar. He took out a pen and drew an X. “The caves are here,” he said. “I know they are large enough, but that does not mean the missile is there.”

“We’ve got to try,” Ryan said, scrawling instructions on a scrap of paper. “Taybad is just a few kilometers from the Afghan border. Take your son and wait there. If you do not hear from us in four hours, then call this number.”

“I have no choice,” Yazdani said.

Ryan shrugged. “None of us do,” he said.

It seemed that virtually every military and militia vehicle was racing out of Mashhad toward the scene of explosions. Dovzhenko fell in with the parade, speeding west with the group. Ysabel translated the radio broadcasts as they drove.

The official stand was that Israel had fired a salvo of missiles at an Iranian school, killing hundreds of innocent children. That did not explain the massive secondary explosion some were reporting, but the media, accustomed to toeing the government line, made no attempt to explain much of anything.

“Turn here,” Ryan said, navigating while Dovzhenko drove.

The Russian left the convoy to head south into a wooded valley when they were close enough to see the glow of flames in the distance. A mile down the road he slowed and turned off his headlights, running on parking lights alone. Continuing toward Yazdani’s X, they were gratified to see the glow of bright construction lights in the distance.

“Way to go, Atash!” Ryan said. He rolled down his window, letting in the cool air of the mountain valley. “Hear that?”

“What?” Ysabel asked. “I hear the sound of a stream running along the road.”

“A generator,” Dovzhenko said. “I’ll go a little farther, then we should walk up.”

Ryan checked the AKs, consolidating all the ammo into four twenty-round magazines. Eighty rounds sounded like a lot — until you were getting shot at.

Dovzhenko parked in the trees, and they each slung a rifle, easing their doors shut to hide any noise of their approach. They crept forward on their hands and knees until they reached the edge of the clearing.

The stark construction lighting, powered by the humming generator, illuminated the area beyond the trees like a stage. A rocky mountain lay beyond the pool of light. The same gravel road on which they now walked led into a black hole in the side of the mountain, while a secondary road forked to the west, continuing down into a dry wadi and then over an adjacent hill. More light spilled from the interior of a squat stone building to the right of the cave.

Three uniformed guards were posted outside — one beside the building, two at the edge of the light nearer the cave entrance.

“I don’t like it,” Ysabel said. “We don’t know how many more are inside.”

“True,” Dovzhenko said. “We should watch for a—”

Jack put a hand on his arm to get his attention. “Look,” he said, a whisper.

Ysabel gasped. “Reza Kazem.”

“And Tabrizi,” Ryan said.

They exited the cave at the same time, Tabrizi carrying a clipboard, while Kazem carried a satchel over his shoulder. They walked to the stone building and went inside.

“I can’t be sure,” Ysabel said, “but I think that was Ayatollah Ghorbani in there. And he is bound hand and foot.”

“He must not be part of the conspiracy,” Dovzhenko said.

“Not all of it, anyway,” Ryan said. A plan was already forming in his mind.

Ysabel saw his face. “What?” she asked. “I know that look.”

Ryan took the satellite phone out of his pocket and unfolded the antenna, relieved when he got a signal. “First things first. We need to call in another strike.”

“Oh, no,” Dovzhenko said. “We are much too close. Your bombs will kill us all.”

Ryan shook his head. “I’m not suicidal. As soon as we know for sure the missile is here, we haul ass down the road.”

There was no time for anything but a direct call, so he punched in the number for the prepaid he knew Foley had with her as an added layer of security for these conversations. She answered immediately, then passed the phone to his father. It was good to hear the old man’s voice, but Jack refrained from calling him “Dad” in front of the Russian. He told him his plan, and then read him the GPS coordinates he got from the borrowed cell phone. “We’re moving forward to do a little recon,” he said. “I’ll call back in ten and give you a sitrep. If you don’t hear from me in fifteen, you should go ahead and send it.”

He thought he heard the old man choke up a little, so he added. “You’ll hear from me. I promise.”

Ryan ended the call and folded the antenna down at the same time Kazem and Tabrizi came out of the stone building. They were leading a man with his hands tied in front of him. He had a long white beard and wore the robes and turban of a cleric. Ysabel was right. It was Ayatollah Ghorbani.

Instead of returning to the cave and driving the launch truck outside in the open, Kazem pushed the cleric to a wooden table at the base of the light tree. Ghorbani railed at him, but the generator made it impossible to hear what he was saying. In any case, both Kazem and Tabrizi ignored him. Kazem set the leather case on the table and then opened the flap. All of them recognized it as the launch-control device.

“What is he doing?” Ysabel said. “He can’t launch from inside the cave.”

Tabrizi was staring at a phone in her open palm. She raised her free hand, held it there for a moment, and then, still focused on the phone, suddenly let it fall.

Jack looked at the road that disappeared over the next hill and realized too late what was happening. He raised his rifle and fired, killing Reza Kazem at the same moment he finished entering the code into the launch controller.

A searing light flashed in the adjacent valley. The Russian Gorgon streaked upward through the night sky in a bloom of orange and black. The guards, momentarily startled by the gunfire and the missile blast, regained their senses enough to return fire. Dovzhenko and Ysabel fired while Jack rolled onto his back and yanked the cell phone out of his pocket. He’d started a silent count the moment the missile fired and now justified the time with the passing seconds.

Rolling to his gun, he joined the fight, shooting one of the guards at the mouth of the cave as rounds snapped and cracked overhead. Dovzhenko shot Tabrizi as she picked up one of the fallen rifles. The other guard near the opening of the cave was already dead. The third fell a moment later, brought down by Ysabel. Jack had learned long ago that protracted gunfights were rare. This one ended quickly — and badly for the untrained guards. The sound of the humming generator settled across the valley along with the odor of burned metal from the rocket.

Ghorbani stood alone, blinking under the bright construction lights.

No other shooters ran from the cave, but Dovzhenko moved laterally, ordering the Ayatollah to walk toward him just in case.

Ryan moved the other way, keeping to the trees as he pulled the sat phone from his pocket. Ghorbani didn’t need to know he’d ever been there.

Foley picked up immediately.

“Missile launch at 12:06:32 Iran time,” Jack said. “We couldn’t stop it.”