The Enemy Within

CHAPTER 25 NEMESIS

Lit red by the setting sun, November One-Zero, the lead C17 Globemaster assigned to NEMESIS, flew eastward toward Iran at twenty thousand feet, drawing jet fuel down a boom from the giant KC-10 aerial tanker just above and ahead. The formation’s two other C-17s, November TwoZero and Three-Zero, were in position to the rear right and left, each tanking from their own dedicated KC-10.

“We’re nearly full up, Mack,” November One-Zero’s copilot reported.

“Roger,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Thomas McPherson replied. He spoke to the tanker’s boom operator. “Ready to disconnect, Foxtrot Alpha.”

“Understood, One-Zero. Pumping stopped.” The operator aboard the KC-10 paused briefly and then announced, “Released.”

White vapor puffed into the darkening sky as the jet fuel boom popped out. McPherson slid his throttles back a tiny bit and watched the KC-10 pull further ahead.

Within seconds the two other C-17s finished gassing up and broke away from their own tankers. November TwoZero slid into position behind McPherson’s plane, while the third Globemaster, brought this far as a spare in case one of the first broke down, slotted itself into the KC-10 formation.

“Coming up on Point Echo,” One-Zero’s copilot warned. They were nearing the coordinates preselected for their covert entry into Iranian airspace.

McPherson nodded. “Got it. Here we go.” He drew a breath, steeling himself for the difficult flying ahead. “Navigation lights off.”

“Nav lights off,” his copilot confirmed, flicking switches that shut down the blinking lights on the C-17’s fuselage, tail, and wingtips.

“FLIR on. TFR on standby,” McPherson said. His wide-angled, heads-up display HUD came on, showing the dark, rugged landscape ahead and below them in clear, black-and white detail. To allow them to fly below Iranian radar and through the middle of the jagged mountains around Tehran, Air Force technicians had specially modified each of the C17s assigned to NEMESIS. The LANTIRN-type pod installed in each aircraft’s starboard fuselage cheek contained both a FLIR, a forward-looking infrared sensor, and a terrain-following radar.

He spoke into the intercom system. “We’re starting the E-ticket ride, Pete. Have your guys strap in.”

Colonel Peter Thorn’s unruffled voice came back through his headset.

“We’re all set, Mack. Let her rip.”

McPherson pulled November One-Zero into a tight, diving turn to the right, angling east-southeast toward the Iranian border. He kept his eyes fixed on the altitude indicator winding down on the right side of his HUD. Trailing one thousand feet behind, the second C-17 followed him down with its own navigation lights off.

Now ten thousand feet above and several miles behind them, the three KC-10s and the spare transport cumed right in a gentle, sweeping turn that would take them back toward Incirlik.

McPherson levered off just three hundred feet above the sharp-edged, snow-covered ridges that separated Turkey from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The two American aircraft crossed the border in total darkness, flying low at nearly four hundred knots over the great salt lake of Orumiyeh and on over an arid, sparsely populated plateau.

Fourteen minutes after entering Iran, he began throttling back, slowing the C-17 to two hundred and fifty knots. The ground ahead was rising steeply, thrusting skyward to become the boulder-crowned foothills of the Zagros Mountains.

With his eyes locked to the HUD and his hands to the controls, McPherson linked suddenly hard right, lining up with a narrow, winding valley that cut east and south through the mountains. Sheer rock walls rose above the C-17 on either side, sometimes crowding in so close that a fiery, rolling impact seemed inevitable.

The tall, lanky lieutenant colonel grinned tightly as he nimbly maneuvered the large, four-engine aircraft through box canyons and over rugged escarpments. He’d like to see some hot-shit fighter jock try following in his wake tonight. Hell, this was real flying.

Back in the C-17’s troop compartment, Thorn nearly let go of his map case when another abrupt bank threw him forward against his seat straps.

“Crap,” he muttered.

Diaz heard him. A broad smile spread across the sergeant major’s face.

“You want a puke bag, Pete?” he asked helpfully. “I guess the ride’s a little rough after all those cushy Pentagon executive flights, huh?”

Oh, very nice, Thorn thought wryly.

“No thanks, Tow.” He shook his head and then nodded solemnly toward the two forty-foot-long shapes tied down in the middle of the troop compartment. “I was just hoping the guys who loaded those birds knew what they were doing.”

The “birds” were UH-1N Hucys painted in Iranian camouflage and markings. Even with their rotors off, each weighed nearly two tons. If the chains and guy ropes holding them in place gave way under the stress and strain of the aircraft’s repeated sharp turns, the helicopters would first crush the soldiers seated against the side and then smash straight through the C-17’s fuselage.

“Oh, man,” Diaz chuckled. “You’re just full of cheerful thoughts tonight, aren’t you?” He raised his voice loud enough to carry over the steady roar of the engines. “How about you, Mike? You checked your lottery ticket, yet?”

“Sure thing, Tow! You’re looking at the first Delta Force millionaire.”

Thorn listened to the banter passing back and forth, keeping his own growing worries to himself. The Duke of Wellington’s advice to his officers at Waterloo seemed apt: “Anything that wastes time, indulge it.” He and his troops were still at least two hundred and fifty miles from the landing zone. During this hair-raising, low-level flight, none of their hard-earned skills would make one damn bit of difference to whether they lived or died.

Hamir Pahesh kept a close eye on his companions around the campfire. Even his friend Agdas was growing more nervous as the minutes and hours ticked past. The others, those who had less reason to trust him, were now openly suspicious. Mohammed was the worst of all.

“These friends of yours are very late, Pahesh,” the big, bearded man rumbled slowly. He scratched his stomach idly, a movement that kept his hand very near the pistol stuffed into his waistband.

“Our business does not always run on a timetable,” Pahesh reminded him sharply. “You should know that.” “Perhaps they have trouble,” another man said. His gaze kept darting off into the darkness beyond the fire at the slightest change in the sound of the wind.

“Or perhaps they are leading the Komite here to catch us all sitting on our asses,” Mohammed snarled, still irked at being cut short so rudely.

“Hush!” Pahesh held up a hand for silence. He cocked his head, listening. He could hear the sound of jet engines whining somewhere off to the south, drawing nearer at a rapid clip. “There! You hear them? The planes?”

They all nodded.

The sound faded abruptly.

“Pain! So where did these friends of yours go now…” Mohammed began belligerently.

He was drowned out by the rippling, piercing howl of jet engines at full thrust. All four men looked up in stunned surprise as a huge aircraft popped up over the low ridge and banked sharply to circle back around for a landing. Another plane followed the first only seconds later.

“Come!” Pahesh led the other four men toward the top of the ridge at a stumbling run.

They arrived in time to see the first C-17 dive, flare out suddenly, and touch down near the end of the fire-marked dirt road. Thrust reversers kicked in with an ungodly roar as the enormous camouflaged jet rolled past them, trailing a billowing cloud of dust, sand, and gravel. It braked to a complete stop only a thousand meters from where its wheels first kissed the ground.

Bearded soldiers wearing Iranian Army uniforms were charging down the aircraft’s rear cargo ramp even before the second C-17 came to rest.

NEMESIS command team Flanked by Diaz and a five-man team, Colonel Peter Thorn jogged up the ridge to meet their CIA contact. He slowed down near the crest, studying the scruffy, dirty-faced men waiting for them. They looked more like brigands than truck drivers, he thought grimly.

He mentally crossed his fingers. Dealing with local talent on a covert op was always chancy. You never knew how far you could trust them.

The oldest of those waiting for him, a scarred, thinbearded man with a hooked nose, stepped forward and smiled. He bobbed his head and spoke in understandable, though heavily accented, English. “Peace be upon you, my friends. My name is Hamir Pahesh. The code name given to me by your CIA is Stone.”

Thorn introduced himself and looked at the other man’s fidgeting companions. Most still seemed stunned at the sight of so many troops pouring out of his grounded aircraft. One, taller than the rest by half a head, looked blackly furious.

Diaz caught his nod in that direction and slipped off to the side.

Thorn turned back to Pahesh. “These men are the drivers we asked for?”

The Afghan nodded. “Yes.” He rattled off their names in quick succession and then asked shyly, “You have the money I have promised them?”

Thorn touched the backpack he had slung over one shoulder. “I have it, Mr. Pahesh. Twenty thousand American dollars apiece. Five thousand now. Fifteen thousand more after we reach Tehran safely.”

The big man, the one called Mohammed, reared back. “You are a crazy man, Pahesh!” he sputtered in rough, broken English. “I do not put my head on the chopping block to carry spies into the city. Not for thousand of dollars. Not for million of dollars!”

Mohammed fumbled for the weapon stuck in his trousers and then froze suddenly, his eyes wide, as Diaz ground the muzzle of an M16 rifle into his ear.

“Slowly, pal. Very slowly,” the sergeant major said softly. “I’d sure hate to mess up my nice new uniform with your tiny little brains.”

Diaz held his weapon on target until another Delta trooper stepped in and relieved the big trucker of his pistol. Without pausing, a third member of the command team bound Mohammed’s wrists behind his back and marched him away to-ward the parked C-17s.

Thorn turned back to the dumbfounded Afghans. His eyes sought out those of Pahesh. “It seems that Mr. Mohammed will not be joining us this evening after all. Do any of your other associates feel a burning desire to go on strike?”

The older man shrugged, amusement plain in his own expression. “I will ask them, Colonel Thorn. But I suspect they will see reason and profit in doing as you ask.”

A hasty, whispered conference in Pushtu confirmed Pahesh’s assessment. None of the other Afghans looked very happy at this unexpected turn of events, but none of them seemed unhappy enough to prove treacherous.

Nonetheless, Thorn planned to take out a little insurance of his own. He glanced at Diaz. “Tow, please tell Major win I want one of our Farsi speakers riding shotgun in each truck cab. And have these gentlemen taken back to their vehicles.”

“Sure thing, Pete.” Still holding his M16 at the ready, the sergeant major trotted off into the darkness. Escorted by other Delta Force soldiers, the three remaining truck drivers followed him at a discreet distance.

Thorn turned back to the older Afghan. “Now, Mr. Pahesh, if you’ll come with me, I’ll tell you where we need to go and what we plan to do.” He led the way back down the ridge, pleased by all the activity he could see around the parked aircraft.

Nobody was wasting any time. The sixty men he was taking into Tehran were carting their weapons and equipment toward the waiting trucks. A fourth twenty-man troop would remain behind to provide security here. They were busy deploying machine guns, antitank guided missiles, Stinger SAM teams, and sniper teams to cover all avenues of approach to the improvised landing strip. Aided by some of the C-17 crewmen, Scott Finney’s helicopter crews were already beginning to assemble their birds four lJH-1N Hueys and a tiny AH-6 gunship.

Now that they all were safely on the ground inside Iran, NEMESIS was starting to take its final shape.

Three hours after leaving the isolated desert landing strip, the five canvas-sided trucks pulled off to the side of a quiet Tehran street and parked. Their long trip northward had been uneventful. The forged travel orders supplied by Pahesh got them through the checkpoints without much trouble. After all the military hubbub of the past several days, trucks full of Iranian soldiers no longer drew much attention. Even the most curious citizens and police had been sated by the sight of so many weapons and olive-drab vehicles moving through their streets. In any case, it was past midnight and few lights were on anywhere in the sprawling, sleeping city.

Thorn dropped out of the back of the lead truck and went forward to speak to Hamir Pahesh. The Afghan slid out from behind the wheel and joined him on the pavement.

The older man pointed down the road. “The headquarters is three blocks further up this avenue, Colonel. You know the building?”

Thorn nodded once. He’d spent so many hours studying the blueprints and satellite photographs he felt sure he could practically find his way blindfolded through Taleh’s lair.

He glanced up at the apartment houses on either side of this street. None of the plain concrete five-and six-story, flat-roofed buildings would have won any architectural prizes for elegance or style, but he was not interested in esthetics. They were important because they were the tallest buildings in this poor, rundown neighborhood and because they offered a clear line of sight to the roof of the Khorasan Square military headquarters.

Thorn turned back to the Afghan. “Will your friends obey my orders, Mr. Pahesh? You know this will be very dangerous.” “They will obey you,” Pahesh said firmly. “All of us have seen war before, Colonel.”

“Fine.” Thorn spun on his heel and strode to the last truck in line.

Captain Doug Lindsay peered down at him through a half open flap. With his flaming-red hair and mustache dyed black, the commander of the NEMESIS force sniper teams looked alien, almost unrecognisable.

“You ready for us, Pete?” the younger man asked.

Thorn nodded. “You know the drill, Doug. You’ve got five minutes to move your people into position. Then, when I give you the word, you do your stuff. Clear?”

“Clear.” Lindsay swung away from the opened flap. “Everybody out. Shaw takes the building on the left. I’ll take the building on the right. Let’s move!”

Thorn watched the heavily laden soldiers scramble out over the truck’s tailgate before heading back to his own vehicle. Without further orders from Lindsay, the snipers formed up on the street and then split apart. Four two-man teams crossed over to the other side and entered the tallest apartment building on the block. Four more teams disappeared inside the nearest tenement.

Breathing normally even under the weight of his weapon and other gear, Captain Doug Lindsay took the narrow, dimly lit stairs to the roof two at a time. Boots rang on concrete as his troops followed him up.

Farsi-speaking soldiers stopped long enough on every landing to yell stern warnings at any sleepy Iranian civilians who poked their heads out of apartments to see what was going on. “Everyone inside! This is Army business!”

Doors slammed shut again as the building’s inhabitants obeyed their shouted orders. No one who lived this close to General Amir Taleh’s headquarters wanted trouble with the Army.

Five flights up, Lindsay pushed open an unlocked metal door and came out onto the tenement’s flat roof. It was deserted. He nodded to himself, noticing his breath steaming in the cold night air. In the summer they would have found people camped out here driven out of their tiny, crowded apartments by the heat. Now, this close to the winter, temperatures were already dropping fast toward freezing once the sun went down.

Followed by the sergeant who would serve as his spotter and backup, the Delta Force captain moved closer to the edge of the roof He dropped prone and started setting up his weapon, conscious of the faint rustle of clothing and scrape of metal on either side. The rest of his teams were moving into place.

Lindsay slid an eleven-round magazine into his Barrett Light Fifty sniper rifle. Nearly five feet long and weighing in at thirty-five pounds, the M82A1 Light Fifty was badly misnamed, but it had several features that made it perfect for special operations use. First, it was a simple, rugged, semiautomatic weapon accurate out to twelve hundred meters. Second, it fired the same enormous.50-inch Browning round used in the U.S. Army’s heavy machine gun. More than three times the size of the 5.56mm bullets used by most modern assault rifles, the.50-inch round had enormous penetration and lethality. To handle the recoil, the Barrett Light Fifty was equipped with a muzzle brake and a thick butt pad. A biped mounted near the muzzle helped steady the rifle.

With practiced ease, the Delta Force officer attached an ITT-made optical sight to his weapon and peered through the scope. Two AA batteries powered an image intensifier that turned the night into day. He flicked to 8x magnification and shifted his aim to one of the emplacements on top of the squat, drab building roughly four hundred meters away. His crosshairs settled on an Iranian soldier seated behind a twmbarreled ZU-23 light antiaircraft gun. The man looked tired and bored.

Lindsay held his aim steady. The ZU-23 was virtually useless against modern attack aircraft, but its rapid fire could murder infantry caught out in the open. He frowned. Something seemed odd. Fewer than half the defensive positions atop the enemy headquarters were manned. Maybe this guy Taleh wasn’t so thorough after all.

One by one, his teams reported that they were in position.

Lindsay contacted Thorn and confirmed their readiness. “November One Alpha, this is Sierra Four Charlie. We’re dialed in. Standing by.”

“Understood, Four Charlie. We’re moving now.”

The sniper focused all his attention on the bored Iranian antiaircraft gunner, waiting for the single command that would open the attack. He could hear motors revving up on the street below. NEMESIS was under way.

Three trucks crammed with Delta Force soldiers rolled down the Avenue of the 17th of Shahrivar, heading for Khorasan Square. A fourth truck veered right, peeling off to come in behind the main entrance to the headquarters building. The men it carried would seal off a rear exit, killing anyone who tried to escape outside when the rest of the attack force went in.

Peter Thorn rode up front now. A staff sergeant who spoke Farsi fluently sat wedged in between Pahesh and him. The sergeant, an olive-skinned man named Alberi, wore Iranian Army insignia identifying him as a captain.

Alberi also held a 9mm pistol outfitted with a Knight noise suppressor in his lap. Although the device made it impossible to fire more than a single shot without working the slide to manually feed another round into the pistol’s breech, it reduced the sound of firing to that of a child’s air rifle.

Thorn carried a Heckler & Koch MP2000 submachine gun. The weapon, an advance over the similar MP5, had a silencing system built in. Holes in the barrel allowed some of the propellant gases to bleed away, slowing the rounds being fired to below supersonic speed and cutting the noise they made dramatically. For open combat, the gas bleed holes could be closed. Right now, he had the weapon set for silent fighting.

They turned into the square and rumbled straight toward the headquarter’s main gate. The truck’s headlights flashed across a guard post that barred direct access to an open courtyard visible beyond the gate. When they were within fifty meters, an Iranian soldier came forward, signaling them to stop. Four more sentries manned a sandbag redoubt built adjacent to the entrance. Two were talking to each other, arguing cheerfully about something. The others leaned against the piled-up sandbags near a light machine gun sited to sweep the square. One of them had a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

Pahesh stopped right in front of the gate and cranked his window open.

The soldier who had flagged them down walked right up to the truck cab, yawning slightly. The guards here must be very used to comings and goings at irregular hours, Thorn decided, vaguely surprised by their nonchalance. He had expected somewhat tighter security.

The Iranian looked in through the open driver’s-side window. “Show me your orders ”

Phut. Sergeant Alberi leaned across the Afghan truck driver and shot the astonished guard in the head. The man toppled backward without a sound.

Thorn popped open the door on his side and dropped onto the street before the other stunned guards could even begin to react. His submachine gun stuttered, kicking against his grip as he walked three-round bursts across the top of the redoubt.

Sand sprayed out of torn sandbags. Blood sprayed out of torn men.

Thorn stopped firing. Nothing moved near the gate. Now for the enemy soldiers posted on the roof. He spoke softly into his throat mike. “Take ‘em out, Four Charlie.”

Eight sniper rifles cracked suddenly, firing so close together in time that it almost sounded like one long, tearing shot. A few more scattered shots followed as Lindsay’s snipers engaged new targets. Then the Barrett Light Fifties fell silent.

“One Alpha, this is Four Charlie,” the sniper reported. “The roof is clear. Go on in.”

Thorn scrambled back into the truck and waved Pahesh forward. Grinning like a madman, the Afghan threw the vehicle in gear and drove through the open gate. The other trucks followed them into the interior courtyard.

Delta Force assault teams piled out of the trucks while they were still moving, fanning out across the courtyard to cover every door and window leading into the headquarters building.

Thorn snapped a fresh magazine into his submachine gun and followed them inside.

Twenty minutes later, the smoke from flashbang grenades and burning papers and furniture still eddied through the bullet-riddled headquarters. Large numbers of dead Iranian soldiers and staff officers scattered through the corridors and in several of the offices. But there were too few corpses wearing the right kind of rank insignia.

The top commanders of the NEMESIS force were meeting inside an empty office on the building’s second floor. None of them were pleased. When he heard his secondin-command’s first report, Thorn had to fight an impulse to smash his fist into the nearest wall in frustration. Instead he asked again, “You’re sure, John?”

Major John Witt nodded flatly. “Dead sure, Pete. I went over the bodies myself. There’s not a high-ranking officer among ‘em.” He rubbed a hand wearily across his shaved head and then continued his report. “We got plenty of majors, captains, lieutenants, and enlisted guys. But nobody else. And there’s no sign of Taleh.”

Christ, what a fuckup, Thorn thought in despair. At first, he’d thought their attack had gone off without a hitch at the cost of only two Delta Force soldiers lightly wounded. They’d even secured the headquarters complex without alerting anyone outside the area. Now, though, it was dear that their intelligence had been wildly off the mark. Neither Taleh nor his top-level invasion command staff had been inside the Khorasan Square building. He and his troops had hit the wrong damned target!

His eye fell on the two troopers setting up a SATCOM radio near an open window. Once they had a clear signal, he was going to have to report the failure of their mission to Washington.

Diaz stuck his head into the office. “I have something I think you should see, Pete.” “Where?” Thorn asked tightly.

“The HQ comm center. I think we may be able to draw a bead on our Iranian friend.”

“Show me.” Thorn grabbed his weapon and followed the sergeant major down three flights of stairs into the basement.

On the way they passed Delta Force troopers checking bodies for identity cards. Major Witt believed in being thorough.

The communications center was a large room just off the staircase. Banks of high-frequency radios, telephone switchboards, and teletype machines lined three of the walls. The fourth held a large street map of Tehran with various locations marked. Most of the equipment was old 1970s and 1980s vintage but there were a few newer computers and fax machines on a group of desks cluttered in the center of the room. There were more corpses huddled on the floor or sprawled across the desks. The comm center at least had been fully manned.

Diaz led him straight across the room to where a Delta Force trooper, Master Sergeant Vaughn, stood tracing circuits and switches on one of the telephone switchboards. “Show the colonel what you found, Tony.”

Thinner than most of the men who made it through the Delta selection course, Tony Vaughn was one of the outfit’s top technical specialists and linguists. He pointed to a set of panels. “See these?”

Thorn nodded.

“They’re patch panels to several remote sites. Phone calls come in here to the main center and this gear reroutes them elsewhere automatically,” Vaughn explained. “Now, what’s interesting in all of this spaghetti wire is that I’ve found a series of switches that show that several primary circuits are being routed to one site but not to any of the others.”

“They’re tied into an auxiliary command post,” Thorn realized suddenly.

Vaughn nodded. “Exactly.” He led the way back to the desks in the middle of the room and hefted a pile of loose-leaf binders. “So that’s when I started looking through their latest comm logs.”

The noncom flipped the top log open to a page near the end. “And this is where I hit pay dirt.” He tapped an entry. “Here’s what the chief watch officer noted for 1210 hours, 13 December: ‘MAGI Prime transferred to Aux Site Three. Command circuit, staff phones, emergency circuit routed to Aux Site Three.’ ”

Thorn swung toward the wall map of Tehran. A walled compound near the intersection of two major avenues was clearly marked as Auxiliary Site Three. A soccer stadium lay to the east just across the street. The location was painfully familiar to any Delta Force officer with a knowledge of his own unit’s history. His jaw tightened. “I’ll be damned! The son of a bitch has set up his new command post smack-dab in the middle of our old embassy!”

He shook his head, angry at himself for underestimating Amir Taleh’s cunning yet again. With the clock counting down toward a major military move, transferring his headquarters was a reasonable precaution for the Iranian general to take. He suspected it would also give the man a twisted sense of pleasure to issue the orders that would emasculate America’s economy from inside the embassy buildings Iranian militants had used in 1979 and 1980 as a prison for their hostages.

Thorn and Diaz took the stairs back up at a dead run.

Witt and the others were still waiting for them inside the second-floor office. “We’re in contact with the CAC,” the major said.

Thorn went straight to the SATCOM, slipped on the headset offered to him by one of his soldiers, and picked up the microphone. “Nemesis Lead.”

“This is Centurion,” Farrell’s voice answered. To oversee the mission, the general had flown down to the Special Operations Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base. SOCOM’s Crisis Action Center had secure computer, phone, fax, and satellite links to the Pentagon, the CIA, the White House, and every major U.S. military headquarters around the world.

“What is your status, Nemesis?” Farrell asked.

“Not good. We’ve missed the primary target, Centurion,” Thorn reported quietly. He quickly filled the other man in on what they had learned and then said, “I recommend we delay our evac, move the force, and immediately attack Taleh’s alternate HQ.”

“No way, Pete,” Farrell replied. “Look on the bright side. You’ve shot the hell out of Taleh’s lower-echelon staff. That alone should throw his operations for a loop. Going for anything more now is too dangerous.

“The embassy compound is nearly eight klicks from your current location. You don’t have time to drive there, set up for a new assault, and go in. Finney’s birds are only twenty minutes out right now. Hell, the Navy’s first Tomahawks are already on the way. You’re going to have cruise missiles raining down around your ears in less than thirty minutes.” “I know that, sir,” Thorn said stubbornly. “But I do not believe we have an alternative. Taleh is not going to let himself be sidetracked by one lousy commando raid and a missile strike. This is our only chance to nail the bastard. None of our missiles are going to hit anywhere close to him. We either kill the son of a bitch now, or he will launch his invasion and then we’re screwed.” “Wait one,” Farrell said finally. The satellite link went silent.

Thorn turned toward Diaz and Witt. “Start rounding the teams up. I want everybody packed and ready to move in ten minutes.”

Both men exchanged startled glances. Delta Force doctrine frowned on attacking without surprise. Of course, Delta Force doctrine also frowned on suicide. They hesitated.

Thorn stared hard at them. He didn’t have the time or inclination to conduct a council of war. Not right in the heart of an enemy capital.

“You heard me, gentlemen. Move!”

“Yes, sir.” Diaz and Witt sped off to fulfill his orders.

After several agonisingly long minutes, Farrell’s voice came back over the SATCOM. “It’s a no-go, Pete. I took your request all the way up to Satrap.” Satrap was the code name assigned to the President for the duration of NEMESIS. “He believes the risks of continuing are too high, so he’s ordered us to abort the mission. Between the damage you’ve already done and the inbound Tomahawk strike, he believes we’ll knock the Iranian timetable off kilter enough to win any war.”

“Then he’s wrong,” Thorn said heatedly.

Farrell’s voice bristled. “What you or I think doesn’t matter a damn, Colonel. Point is: That’s the President’s decision. So you’re going to pull your people together and get out of there as per the plan! Is that clear?”

Thorn did not answer right away. Conflicting thoughts were tumbling through his mind one after another at great speed.

He understood the President’s desire to take a small victory and bring the Delta Force home unbloodied rather than chance more lives in a high-stakes gamble. It was a desire he shared a duty he owed his own men. he knew every soldier on this mission better than most men knew their own brothers. The NEMESIS assault force had been lucky so far. Its luck could not last. Pushing deeper into Tehran after Taleh meant accepting casualties maybe a lot of them.

There was more. He had devoted his whole adult life to the military. He had sworn an oath to obey all legal orders from his superiors. But did his career mean more to him than doing what was right? Should his oath stop him from taking action that would right a great wrong and prevent an even greater evil?

The chaos sparked by General Amir Taleh’s terrorists had already cost thousands of American lives. The war the Iranian planned in Saudi Arabia might easily kill thousands more. Could he fly away and let that happen? Could he leave the man responsible for Helen’s wounds alive and free to plot again?

He could not. Taleh’s campaign had demonstrated America’s vulnerability to organised terrorism. Other fanatics and despots around the world would eagerly follow his lead unless the United States showed plainly that it would exact a terrible price from them. That there would be no negotiations, no comfortable pensions, no forgiveness nothing but a bullet in the head or a bayonet in the guts.

Thorn made his decision. “Centurion, this is Nemesis Lead. Regret unable to comply with your last. Mission proceeds, out.” He knew those words would force any court-martial panel to convict him out of hand, but right now nothing else seemed important.

Farrell was aghast. “Jesus, Pete! Don’t do this! You can’t ”

Thorn switched the SATCOM off and changed frequencies on his tactical radio, shifting to the channel reserved for the NEMESIS helicopter force. “Hotel Five Echo, this is November One Alpha. This is a wave-off. I repeat, a wave-off. Primary target has shifted to a new location. Standby for the data.”

“Roger, One Alpha.” Captain Scott Finney’s laconic voice came up over the circuit. The rotor noise in the background made it clear that Finney’s Huey transport ships and the AH-6 gunship were airborne and closing rapidly on Tehran from the south.

Thorn flipped open his map case, hurriedly scanning for the grid coordinates of the old U.S. Embassy. “On my signal, new exflltration point will be…” He rattled off the coordinates and listened carefully while the helicopter pilot read them back to him.

“Got one point, One Alpha,” Finney said calmly. “My birds don’t have the gas to loiter over the city. We’re gonna have to turn back and refuel. That will put us at least another ninety minutes out. Think you and your boys can hang on that long?”

“Affirmative, Five Echo,” Thorn said, praying that he was right. “We’ll be there waiting for you.”

Auxiliary Command Post Three, inside the old U.S. Embassy, Tehran General Amir Taleh sat up on his cot when Kazemi came through the door to his quarters. The young captain looked distinctly worried. “What is it, Farhad?”

“We’ve lost contact with the main headquarters and with all elements of the SCIMITAR assault force, sir.”

What? Frowning, Taleh swung himself around, stamped his feet into his combat boots, and began lacing them up. Except for his boots, he was already fully dressed. “Are there any power outages in the city? Any other unexplained communications failures?”

Kazemi shook his head. “NO, sir. Everything else seems normal. There have been no reports of disturbances. But all our secure phone and telex links routed through the main building are down.”

Taleh reached for the sidearm on a footlocker beside his cot and buckled it on. He looked up at his aide. “Order the Komite to send a patrol to Khorasan Square. I want a full report. Prepare a repair detail at the same time. If our communications have been knocked out somehow, I want them back up in short order!”

“Yes, sir.”

“In the meantime, place the headquarters force on full alert. Post the troops yourself, Farhad. I want nothing left to chance, is that understood?”

The captain nodded again. “Yes, sir.” He hesitated. “Should we break radio silence to contact the assault division HQs directly?”

Taleh pondered that briefly. The final preparations for SCIMITAR were entering a critical stage. Without secure links to his far-flung units, the odds of catastrophic confusion or delay multiplied greatly. On the other hand, a sudden surge in military radio traffic now was bound to draw unwelcome attention from the American and Saudi intelligence services.

NO, he decided, he would not act prematurely. He would not be goaded into a mistake by ignorance. He shook his head. “Not yet, Farhad. I need more information first. Send out those patrols!”

NEMESIS force, near central Tehran Thorn hung on tight as Pahesh threw the big truck around another corner at high speed, narrowly missing a black 4x4 tearing past in the opposite direction. He caught a momentary glimpse of bearded men wearing green fatigues when their headlights swept across the other vehicle. “Who were those guys?”

“Komite,” the Afghan answered grimly.

Thorn nodded. The Iranian authorities were starting to wake up. He checked his watch. “How much further?” he asked.

“Not far. Perhaps two kilometers.”

An enormous flash lit the night sky ahead of them to the west, out near the Mehrabad International Airport. “What…” Pahesh started to ask. A rolling thunderclap silenced him.

“Our missiles,” Thorn shouted into his ear. The leading edge of the Navy’s Tomahawk strike had arrived.

There were more flashes now, spreading across the horizon and marching closer and closer to the center of the city. Tehran’s antiaircraft batteries suddenly cut loose, spewing shimmering curtains of fire into the air. Pieces of steel shrapnel from the shells they were firing began clattering down across roofs and streets. Amid the din, Thorn could barely make out a high-pitched rising and falling wail. The city’s air-raid sirens were going off.

Followed closely by the other four trucks, Pahesh turned left onto a wider street. Five hundred meters ahead, the road opened up into a large public square. On the south edge of the square, the satellite towers soaring above a building surrounded by barbed wire identified the main Tehran telegraph Office.

Oh, shit, Thorn thought, that’s on the target list. He leaned toward the Afghan…

Hit squarely by a Tomahawk carrying a thousand-pound warhead, the telegraph office vanished in a searing white flash. Shattered chunks of concrete and mangled pieces of metal flew outward from the center of the blast, crashing down across the square and smashing into the other buildings nearby. The ground rocked wildly under the impact.

Pahesh slammed on the brakes.

Mounds of rubble from damaged apartment houses and hotels blocked most of the street. Many of the buildings around the square were already ablaze and the fires were growing fed by ruptured natural gas lines.

The Afghan leaned out through his open window, already reversing as he waved the other trucks back toward a narrow side street leading north.

Five minutes after the last Tomahawk cruise missile detonated over Tehran, Delta Force teams were advancing cautiously up both sides of the wide north-south thoroughfare locals still called Roosevelt Avenue. They were leapfrogging forward in pairs, using doorways and parked cars for cover. Two hundred meters behind the first assault teams, Hamir Pahesh’s trucks ground forward slowly with their headlights off. More U.S. soldiers advanced beside the vehicles ready to act as a reserve or to block any Iranians coming up from the rear.

Thorn turned his head when Diaz ducked into the doorway behind him.

“Still no reaction?” the noncom asked quietly.

“Not a peep.” Thorn scanned the area ahead again through his night vision goggles. He could make out a large part of the embassy now. Barbed wire laced the top of the brick wall that surrounded the compound. There were no lights showing behind any of the windows in the upper floors of the chancery building. The Amjedeih soccer stadium bulked to the east, right across from the embassy complex.

He frowned. It was too damned quiet.

His lead teams were drawing close to Taleghani Avenue an east-west road that intersected Roosevelt and formed the embassy compound’s southern border. He planned to blow straight through the wall there, attacking north to clear the complex from bottom to top. Time constraints robbed the NEMESIS force of any hope for further tactical subtlety. The more time they spent driving around through Tehran’s awakening streets, the more time the men inside Taleh’s headquarters had to prepare their defences.

“One Alpha, this is Tango Seven Bravo. Movement on the wall, near the southeast corner,” one of the forward teams reported over the radio.

Rifle shots rang out suddenly, joined a second later by the staccato chatter of a light machine gun. A parachute flare soared high overhead and burst into incandescent splendor with a soft pop, spilling light across the area.

Thorn and Diaz dove for cover. Machine-gun rounds ripped down Roosevelt Avenue, blowing shop and car windows inward in a hail of flying glass. Someone behind them starting screaming.

The sound of gunfire rose in volume. Delta Force troops armed with M16s and HK21 light machine guns were shooting back now, aiming at the muzzle flashes winking from atop the embassy’s brick wall. An M203 launcher mounted under an M16 went off with a hollow thump, propelling a fragmentation grenade toward the Iranian defensive position.

It exploded right on target, throwing deadly fragments through a wide circle. The Iranian guns fell silent.

Thorn jumped to his feet, waving his troops forward. They had to do this fast. Delay only aided the enemy. “Move out!”

He and Diaz led twelve men in a rush across Taleghani Avenue toward the wall. When they were halfway across, another Iranian machine gun opened up, firing from a position near the embassy’s main gate.

“Christ!” Thorn felt a slug rip past his face. He threw himself forward onto the pavement. Men all around him were falling hit and badly wounded or dead. Diaz dropped prone beside him, calmly hunting for targets through the scope attached to his M16. Another heavy machine gun burst hammered the street and sidewalk, gouging fist-sized holes out of the concrete and asphalt.

“Can’t stay here, Pete!” the sergeant major yelled to him. “We get pinned down… we get killed!”

Thorn nodded. He craned his neck to look behind them. Doug Lindsay’s sniper teams were smashing their way into the shops and homes fronting Taleghani, but it would take them time to set up and provide covering fire. The same went for Major Witt and the reserve teams he’d stationed back by Pahesh’s trucks. Wonderful.

He belly-crawled over to one of the bodies sprawled on the street. The dead soldier had been carrying an AT-4, a one-shot disposable recoilless rifle, slung across his back. Basically just a fifteen-pound tube with a cone-shaped flare on the back end and a ridged muzzle, the AT-4 was a Swedish-made weapon designed to knock out light armored vehicles and bunkers. It fired an 84mm round that could penetrate up to 420mm of armor. Two men in every assault team carried one.

Working furiously, Thorn tugged the weapon off over the dead man’s shoulder and peered through the night vision scope attached to it, sighting toward the main gate. Come on, you bastards, he thought grimly, let me see you.

The Iranian heavy machine gun fired again, sending a stream of bullets slashing right over his head. A trooper behind him moaned and then fell silent hit several times.

Thorn shifted his aim to the center of the dazzling flashes and squeezed the AT-4’s trigger.

WHUMMP. The enemy fighting position vanished in a cloud of flame and smoke.

He threw the spent tube to one side and got to his feet. He and Diaz and the five other Delta Force soldiers who’d escaped the fusillade unhurt hurried toward the shelter offered by the brick wall, dragging their wounded with them. They left four men dead in the middle of the street.

More assault teams tried to cross the avenue and were driven back by Iranian rifle and machine-gun fire this time coming from around the soccer stadium and from the upper floors of the chancery building. Several Americans fell writhing to the ground.

“Hell!” Thorn swore out loud. His men were being cut to pieces by a dug-in enemy ready and waiting for them. Taleh’s security troops had cross-fires laid on every approach to the embassy and they were showing perfect fire discipline never shooting wildly, always waiting for the Americans to show themselves.

He glanced quickly right and left. Two of the men who’d made it safely across with him were busy administering first aid to the wounded. Diaz and the other three were already busy slapping breaching charges against the wall, but the seven of them were not going to be enough to clear that vast compound. He needed more firepower.

Thorn keyed his radio mike. “Four Charlie, this is One Alpha. I need you to suppress those people in the chancery. Now!”

“Roger, One Alpha.” Doug Lindsay’s voice crackled through his earphones. “We’ll do our best.”

Thorn contacted Witt next. “John, use half our guys to lay down a base of fire on those bastards in the stadium. I need the rest here on the double! Got it?”

“Got it, Pete!” the major acknowledged briskly.

Thorn heard the first distinctive, high-pitched cracks made by the Barrett Light Fifties. His snipers were going into action, picking off Iranian marksmen and weapons teams sited inside the embassy compound.

The Delta Force troops deployed near the intersection cut loose, methodically shooting toward half-hidden enemy positions. Grenade launchers thumped, lobbing fragmentation and smoke grenades toward the soccer stadium to suppress and blind the Iranian defenders there.

A grey haze drifted across the street, building steadily in size and thickness as more and more grenades went off. Moving in pairs, another twelve American soldiers dashed across Taleghani Avenue. One man went down shot through the temple and killed instantly but the rest made it safely. The Iranians were still firing, but they were firing randomly now, unable to see their intended targets.

Thorn grabbed his team commanders as they each reached the wall and snapped out his orders for the attack in a few, terse sentences. “Here’s the drill. Three breaches. Three teams. After we blow the charges, nobody goes in until we use the AT-4s to blow the shit out of the chancery building’s ground floors. Clear?”

Strained faces nodded.

“Good.” Thorn checked to make sure the wounded had been moved far enough down the wall to be safe then nodded toward Diaz. “When you’re ready, Tow!”

The sergeant major gave him a thumbs-up signal and bellowed out a warning, “Fire in the hole!”

WHAMMM. WHAMMM. WHAMMM. The three breaching charges went off in rapid succession, blowing huge gaps in the brick wall. And the Iranian troops defending the embassy compound itself immediately opened up, firing from concealed positions inside the chancery. Hundreds of steel jacketed rounds came whizzing and tumbling through the empty breaches.

Thorn grinned to himself. You just made your first big mistake, you bastards, he thought grimly. He keyed his mike. “You see them, Four Charlie?”

“Yeah,” the sniper commander answered coolly. “Ground floor. From right to left. One MG in the third window. Riflemen in the next two. Another MG…” He methodically detailed the exact location of each of the newly revealed enemy positions.

The guns gradually fell silent as the Iranians realized they were shooting into thin air.

At Thorn’s signal, the six men carrying AT-4s popped up and fired their 84mm rockets into the chancery. Explosions tore across the front of the building, smashing through walls, doors, and windows and spraying deadly shards across the rooms behind them.

“Move! Move! Move!” Thorn shouted. He and Diaz were the first ones through the right-hand breach, scrambling and slipping across a mound of smoking, shattered bricks. He had his submachine up and at his shoulder as he ran, firing bursts at anything moving ahead of him.

His assault teams flooded through the breaches behind him. One six-man team peeled off through the rising smoke and dust to dear the old embassy residence used by the ambassador. The rest followed him inside the chancery.

Thorn burst in through a blown-open door. He swiveled left and right, scanning for enemies. There. Three Iranian soldiers were sprawled near a twisted machine gun. They were dead. He moved deeper into the building. Diaz and four of his men were right behind him.

They came out into a long corridor running the width of the chancery. Gunfire echoed in all directions as his troops began the ugly business of clearing the building room by room. Now where?

The sergeant major pointed to a painted sign in Farsi on the corridor wall. “The CP’s downstairs! Go left!”

Thorn nodded. It made perfect sense for Taleh and his top staff to set up shop in the building’s reinforced basement. Their primary concern would have been an American air raid not a commando attack.

Weapons ready, they moved down the corridor, looking for stairs leading down.

“Sir!”

Amir Taleh looked up from the maps he’d been studying and saw Kazemi’s agonized face. “Yes, Captain?”

“The Americans have broken through my defences. They are inside the building.” The young aide swallowed hard. “You and the others must leave this place before it is too late!”

“Agreed.” Taleh nodded, still staggered by the speed of the American attack. Who could have dreamed that they would demonstrate such audacity? Still, all was not yet lost. He could regain control over his invasion forces at another of the alternate command posts. He turned to his deputy. “Assemble the senior staff, Hashemi.”

Most were already prepared, clutching briefcases stuffed full of hastily gathered maps and documents. Surrounded by Taleh’s personal bodyguards, the group hurried toward the nearest staircase.

Thorn crouched at the top of the stairs, watching Diaz get set. They’d heard the clatter of boots and the metallic clink of weapons drawing closer for the last several seconds. Whoever was coming up had almost reached the bend in the stairs.

He nodded sharply and his lips formed the unspoken command, “Now!”

The sergeant major yanked the pin out of the fragmentation grenade he was holding and tossed it down the stairwell.

Taleh heard something clattering down the stairs from above and froze. A small cylindrical shape bounced into view, rolling toward them. His eyes widened in shocked recognition.

Without hesitation, Captain Farhad Kazemi threw himself forward onto the grenade just before it went off.

WHUMMP. Thorn felt concussion punch into his lungs, and buried his face against his arms to shield his eyes from the smoke and debris billowing up out of the stairwell. Then he was on his feet, charging downward with Diaz at his side.

They rounded the bend.

Iranian officers and enlisted men jammed the staircase in a tangled knot. Some were bleeding. All of them were dazed. Only one, though, was dead the victim of his own sacrifice.

Thorn opened fire with his submachine gun, sweeping from left to right. Diaz took the other side. Each burst sent one or more Iranians tumbling down the stairs. It was a methodical, mechanical slaughter. Those who were armed were too closely crowded together to use their own weapons effectively.

He felt a single bullet tear a burning gash across his upper left arm and shot the man who’d winged him. His finger eased on the trigger. He couldn’t see any more targets any more men to kill.

Then Thorn spotted movement near Diaz out of the corner of his eye. He started to spin in that direction. He was too late. He was too slow.

A man in a blood-spattered uniform reared up from the stairs and fired a pistol into Roberto Diaz at point-blank range, aiming upward. The bullet caught the short, stocky sergeant major in the throat. He toppled backward with a surprised look frozen forever on his face.

“You son of a bitch!” Thorn squeezed off a burst that slammed the Iranian back against the wall.

“Oh, Jesus.” He knelt beside his friend, fumbling desperately for a field dressing. But TOW Diaz was beyond his help.

“Peter…”

Thorn spun back toward the man he’d shot toward the man who had once been another friend.

General Amir Taleh stared up at him, breathing heavily, bleeding from several wounds in the chest and stomach.

Thorn stared down in contempt. “You bastard! I trusted you. I looked up to you. I thought you were a man of honor not a god damned terrorist who would kill women and children!”

Taleh’s face twisted in sudden pain. “What I did to your country, Peter … You must understand. It was war.” “No, sir,” Thorn said coldly, “it was murder.” He raised his submachine gun, aimed carefully at Taleh’s head, and fired three more shots one after the other.

Four UH-1N Hueys flew low across the Iranian capital, dodging over rooftops and around taller buildings to throw off any ground fire. They were heading south. A tiny, rocketarrned AH-6 gunship paced them, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble.

Aboard the lead helicopter, Colonel Peter Thorn sat silently beside a covered stretcher. Unwilling to leave the Iranians anything to desecrate, the soldiers of the NEMESIS force had brought their dead out with them. He shivered and stared down at his shaking hands.

His casualties had been high far higher than anything he had imagined. Nearly half of his sixty-man assault force had been killed or wounded. Medics were working frantically in the rear of each overcrowded helicopter, trying to keep the worst hurt alive long enough to reach a hospital.

Thorn felt a hand on his shoulder and looked over into Hamir Pahesh’s sympathetic face.

“I am sorry, my friend. I know that many brave men died in this battle,” the Afghan said simply. Then he shrugged. “But you have made your enemies shake in terror. You have thwarted their wickedness. That is worth much.”

Pahesh smiled shyly. “And now we go home, eh?“ The Afghan’s bravery had earned him the right to a new country.

“Yes, now we go home.” Thorn slumped back in his seat, his eyes already closing. Home to America, he thought wearily. Home to Helen Gray.

Behind him, the fires set by Tomahawks lit the night sky.

Helen Gray woke suddenly from a restless, pain-filled sleep, hearing a change in the tone of the television in her room. She’d left it on for company during the long nights. She opened her eyes.

Live satellite pictures showed a burning city. “Reports from the Pentagon now confirm that American Delta Force commandos attacked and destroyed the Tehran headquarters of General Amir Taleh early yesterday morning. Although officials claim the mission achieved its primary objectives, they also admit that casualties were extremely heavy…”

Helen sat rigid. Like her, Peter Thorn led his men from the front. She held her breath for a moment, fighting down her fears for his safety. She might recover. But what about Peter? She blinked away sudden tears. What if he had been killed? How could she live without him?

A wire-service photo of a trim, bearded Iranian flashed onto the screen. “According to U.S. intelligence sources, General Amir Taleh was the man directly responsible for orchestrating the bloody terrorist campaign that has ravaged this country since early November.”

The images shifted to a series of maps and black-and white satellite photos shot from high overhead. “In a related development, White House sources have released intelligence information showing that the Iranian-sponsored terrorist campaign was part of a much larger plan to invade Saudi Arabia and, ultimately, to dominate the entire Persian Gulf. If so, the Delta Force raid has smashed Tehran’s grand imperial design. There are growing reports of bitter factional fighting in Iran’s major cities as various groups struggle for control over the now-leaderless Islamic Republic.”

The television picture cut back to a somber announcer. “The President is expected to address the nation at six P.M., eastern standard time.”

Helen lay in bed, watching the pictures flooding in from halfway around the world desperately eager for more details. She shifted impatiently. If only her foot would stop itching…

She took her eyes off the television and looked down. Her foot itched.

Her damaged nerves might be healing. The doctors had warned her that a full recovery would take months, maybe even years, of rigorous physical therapy, but this was at least a start a promise that she could regain the mobility and freedom she feared had been lost forever.

Helen turned her head as the door to her room opened quietly.

And Peter was there.