The Ares Decision

84

Avass came into view as they crested a small rise, and Mehrak Omidi examined the ancient buildings lining a maze of poorly maintained streets. The terrain steepened precipitously at the edges of the village, asphalt giving way to cobblestones worn down by a thousand years of foot traffic.

“There!” he said, tapping his driver on the shoulder and pointing to four cars idling by the side of the road. A police vehicle and a pickup full of armed men pulled out in front of them, accelerating to match their speed. Omidi looked in the side mirror as they passed the remaining two vehicles, watching them fall in to protect their flank. According to Khamenei, they were to be escorted to the city center and deposited at the police station, a building that had been heavily fortified over the last few hours.

It was another ten minutes before they penetrated Avass, and Omidi held the briefcase tightly to his chest as his eyes shifted from the buildings hanging over them to the pedestrians rushing to get out of their way. Farrokh’s traitors were everywhere — watching, waiting, plotting. No one was above suspicion. Not anymore.

They passed a crowded market with vendors lined up in front of a stone building hung with antique rugs. Through the windows he could see booths selling jewelry and spices, as well as the Western conveniences that his people had become so addicted to.

At the northern edge of the market, two men dressed in slacks and wool sweaters were struggling to get a large wooden crate to the curb while a woman on a cell phone watched disinterestedly.

As the motorcade closed, the men gave up and started toward an alley, their gait slightly unnatural, as though they were struggling to hold themselves back from running. The woman broke off, too, threading herself through the people on the street and into the market building.

“Stop!” Omidi shouted, and his driver slammed on the truck’s brakes, locking up the wheels just before they were hit by one of their chase cars. The sound of the impact, though, was completely obscured by the roar of an explosion.

The device in the crate had been surrounded by nails, and the pickup in front of them was enveloped in a deadly cloud of fire and shrapnel. The police car swerved right, running down a group of fleeing shoppers before crashing into the stone archways of a pharmacy.

Gunfire erupted a moment later, seemingly from everywhere — the narrow alleys leading off the main road, the rooftops, the open windows of shops and private homes.

“Go!” he yelled, sliding to the floorboards. “Get us out of here!”

When the truck just idled slowly forward, he looked up and saw his driver slumped over the wheel. The machine gun in back started but went silent again when the gunner’s body bounced off the rear window and toppled into the street.

Bullets hissing overhead kept him pinned down, and steam billowing from the radiator surrounded him in a hot, blinding cloud. He wouldn’t last much longer — one lucky shot or well-placed grenade and he would die along with Iran’s only hope of survival.

The door was jerked open and he shrank back, trying to push the briefcase behind him for protection.

Instead of shooting, though, the man held out a hand. “Come! Hurry!”

Omidi followed, running crouched toward the pharmacy building as others loyal to the republic closed around him, firing wildly in every direction.

The man in front of him and the one to his right fell in rapid succession, causing the cohesiveness of his human shield to fail. Omidi abandoned them, sprinting toward the arches protecting the front of the pharmacy. He was only a few meters away when something impacted his back and threw him toward a table stacked with oil lamps. He toppled over it, hitting the ground before a powerful hand lifted him and dragged him through the pharmacy’s doors.

He managed to keep hold of the case, but it was becoming slick with his own blood. The man released him and went to one of the broken windows, pressing his back against the wall as bullets streamed through, pulverizing the items neatly lining the store’s shelves.

Omidi managed to get to his knees, crawling unsteadily toward the shoppers huddled beneath a row of tables. When he got within a few meters, two men came out and pulled him to safety.

“Are you all right?” one said. “I think you’re shot!”

He tried to examine the wound, but Omidi slapped his hand away. The sensation in his legs was already beginning to fade, as was the sharpness of his mind. Farrokh’s force was too large and well prepared for the men Khamenei had recruited. They would gain access to the pharmacy before the military could arrive.

“Do you work here?” he said to the woman next to him, trying to give his weakening voice authority.

She shook her head and pointed to a white-haired man cowering in the corner. Omidi struggled over to him, dragging the briefcase with numb fingers.

“You! Are you the pharmacist?”

“Yes,” he said, eyes wide as he watched splinters fly off a wooden display case that two policemen were pushing against a shattered window. “I am Muhammad Vahdat.”

“I am Mehrak Omidi, the director of the Ministry of Intelligence.”

The man’s face went blank for a moment, but then registered recognition. “Yes…Yes, of course. I have seen you—”

“Listen to me now,” Omidi said, but then lost his train of thought as blood loss starved his mind. What needed to be done? The parasite! He had to concentrate. To think clearly for just a little longer.

“The men outside are Farrokh’s soldiers. They’ve developed a biological weapon and we received reports that they were going to test it on your city.”

The man went from looking terrified to looking as though he was going to pass out. “Here? But we’re just a—”

“You’re perfect. Small, isolated, and devout,” Omidi said, patting his case with a hand dripping blood. “I have the antidote here — I brought it personally the moment we learned of his target. I need syringes. Enough for everyone. Do you have them?”

“Yes. Of course. Behind the counter.”

“You have to get them so I can begin inoculations.”

“But they’re all the way—”

“You would rather die slowly of a disease that eats you from the inside?”

The pharmacist considered the question for a moment and then dropped to his stomach, slithering across the floor toward the back of the building.

Omidi watched him go, falling against the wall and fighting to remain conscious.

They had experimented extensively with the dose-response relationship and found it to be extremely strong. He had enough in his case to give everyone in the building a parasitic load many times greater than they would get from the normal mode of transmission. Based on the tables his scientists had developed, full symptoms would occur in less than two hours.

It was the only way. The fate of the parasite and the fate of Iran were now one and the same. He could not allow them to be destroyed or to fall into the hands of traitors. They had to survive.