The Enemy Within

CHAPTER 2 THE VEIL

SwissAir Flight 640 rolled ponderously into its final approach to Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport. The huge DC-10 shuddered as it lost altitude, buffeted by columns of hot air rising off the sunbaked sand and silt below. Outside the jetliner, the clear blue sky faded abruptly into an ugly brown murk. Sited nearly a mile above sea level, Iran’s sprawling capital city lay buried under a perpetual sea of smog.

Lieutenant Colonel Peter Thorn caught the first acrid, oily whiff of the polluted outside air slipping through the aircraft cabin’s filters. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He frowned slightly, irritated at himself. The smell was unpleasant, but he knew his reaction was evidence of growing tension, not of a refined sensibility. The closer he got to Iran, the more the animal instincts buried below layers of intellect and training came to the fore, silently screaming out a warning to fight or flee.

Thorn shrugged inwardly, forcing himself to relax. In this case, his instincts could be right on target. Few Westerners would view a stay in the Islamic Republic calmly no matter what combination of profit or curiosity drove them. The Revolutionary government was still too unpredictable and too arbitrary in its enforcement of the harsh Islamic code. The slightest slip in speech or action could land even an ordinary tourist in hot water. Three months after U.S. cruise missiles blew the hell out of Tehran and other Iranian targets, the stakes were far higher for an American soldier especially for a high-ranking officer in the Army’s counterterrorist Delta Force. Even for one carrying a safe-conduct pass personally signed by General Amir Taleh, the head of Iran’s regular armed forces.

Taleh claimed he wanted to end Iran’s undeclared war against the United States and its allies. The safe-conduct pass and the invitation to use it were intended as proof of his sincerity.

Discreet invitation or no invitation, there were plenty of high-ranking people in the Pentagon and the State Department who believed this mission’s timing was an act of total insanity. Despite Taleh’s cautious overtures through a CIA source, normal diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States were still nonexistent. Certainly, no U.S. analyst had an accurate read on the Islamic Republic’s chaotic internal politics. Under those conditions, the naysayers argued, sending one of America’s top commandos to Tehran was like handing Iranian extremists a gift-wrapped package for torture, interrogation, and ransom.

As the designated package, Thorn hoped like hell the naysayers were wrong. Neither he nor his boss, Major General Sam Farrell, the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, put much faith in secret messages and diplomatic feelers. Words didn’t mean much when your life and freedom were on the line. Pictures and telecommunications intercepts were another story.

U.S. spy satellites were picking up solid evidence that Tehran was reducing its support for international Islamic terrorism. Transcripts of NSA-monitored signals between terrorist training camps in Iran and their headquarters in Lebanon, Syria, and Libya were full of complaints about Iranian refusals to pay them or provide promised weapons. The latest satellite photos were also significant. Some of the camps run by smaller organisations now stood abandoned, apparently unable to operate without assured Iranian backing. But the larger, more self-sufficient groups the HizbAIlah, for one were very much in business. Their facilities were still bustling, crowded with terrorists recruited from around the globe.

Those camps were the reason Amir Taleh said he wanted Western military observers on the ground inside Iran itself.

Hydraulics whined as the Swiss DC-10 slowly banked left and then levered off, lining up with the unseen runway. Thorn felt a series of heavy thumps through the cabin floor beneath his feet. The landing gear was coming down.

He glanced out the window to his left. The smog pall cut so much sunlight that he could see a faint reflection of himself. Green eyes stared steadily back at him out of a lean, sun-darkened face. The face looked boyish, but he knew that was a measure of the reflection, not reality. He was thirty-eight and there were already a few strands of grey in the light brown hair he wore longer than Army regulations usually allowed. There were also tiny crow’s-feet around his eyes fine lines worn into the skin by wind, weather, and the pressures of command.

Thorn looked out past his own mirrored image, matching the countryside below to the memories of his youth. On the surface, nothing much seemed to have changed in the twenty-two years since he’d last seen Iran.

Clusters of drab, flat-roofed buildings were visible through the haze now, stretching along the straight line of the Tabriz-Tehran highway. Trucks, buses, and passenger cars crowded the wide, paved road, weaving in and out without apparent regard for traffic rules or safety. Mountains loomed in the distance, dark against the barren, treeless plain.

As a teenager, Thorn had come to Tehran to live with his father, a highly decorated U.S. Special Forces NCO assigned to help train the Shah’s Army. Three years of his life had passed in a whirlwind of learning and adventure as he’d explored the maze of Tehran’s narrow back streets and hiked through the rugged countryside outside the city. Along the way he’d acquired enough Farsi to mingle easily with every element of Iranian society all the way from the ruling elites down to the poorest porters in the bazaars.

He had also made a number of friends. Some were American and British, the sons and daughters of businessmen and diplomats working in Iran. But chief among all his friends had been a young Iranian named Amir Taleh.

Taleh, four years older and already an officer cadet, had taken Thorn under his wing, showing him a side of Iran few Westerners ever saw and yanking him out of trouble whenever that proved necessary. Their personalities and interests were so similar that some of their fellows had begun referring to them teasingly as brothers. Neither of them had fought hard against the notion. Their friendship had seemed a great constant in a changing world. They had stayed in touch even after Thorn went home and while Taleh went through Ranger School in the United States.

Then Iran’s Islamic Revolution shattered all normal ties between their two countries. Caught in the turmoil surrounding the rise of the radical mullahs, Taleh vanished seemingly without a trace. Only in recent years had Thorn begun seeing references to his old friend in foreign military journals and intelligence reports. From then on, he had followed the Iranian’s rapid rise through the ranks, greatly relieved to note that Taleh had avoided involvement in the terrorist schemes fomented by his nation’s fundamentalist government.

He shook his head. After the Shah fell, the Iran he had loved so much as a boy had changed almost beyond recognition. Ironically, most of his professional life had been spent training to foil or avenge terror attacks sponsored by the Islamic Republic. Now it somehow seemed wrong to come back to this country unarmed and in daylight, flying in on a neutral airline.

Iran had been the site for Delta Force’s first mission and its greatest failure. When the aborted Iranian hostage-rescue mission came to its fiery end at Desert One, Peter Thorn had been just another second lieutenant, fresh out of West Point, green as grass, and fighting hard to survive Ranger School without being recycled. But even then he’d known he wanted more than any regular Army command could offer him more challenge, more action, and more responsibility. Several years spent shepherding conventional troops through the dull grind of drill and paperwork only confirmed that. He’d jumped at the chance for a Delta Force slot like a drowning man grabbing for a rope. He’d never looked back.

Buoyed by the self-confidence and selfdiscipline instilled by his Green Beret father, he’d made it through a rigorous physical and psychological selection process designed to weed out all but the best. Those tests had been followed by six months of around-the-clock instruction in commando tactics and covert operations. Since then he’d climbed steadily from a captain commanding a twenty-man troop to a lieutenant colonel leading one of Delta’s three assault squadrons.

Thorn rubbed his nose absentmindedly, feeling the thin, almost invisible scar that ran across its bridge and down under his right eye. The scar and a couple of metal pins in his right cheekbone were the only real reminders of a long ago helicopter crash that could have been a lot worse.

He grinned suddenly. It was ironic. He’d been shot at in Panama, hunted through the Iraqi desert, and ambushed during a brief, nightmarish tour in Somalia all without getting so much as a scratch. His only serious injury in sixteen years of active-duty service had come from an accident during a routine, peacetime training exercise. Not surprising, really.

Delta Force operated under a single constant admonition: Train hard, fight easy.

“Seat backs and tray tables up, please. We will be landing soon.” The flight attendant’s pleasant, German-accented voice brought Thorn back to the present. The slender, goodlooking brunette leaned across the empty seat next to him and deftly snagged the plastic cup of mineral water he’d been nursing for the last thousand air miles or so.

“Danke schon. He brought his seat back upright. The flight attendant smiled at him and moved off to check on the rest of the main cabin, swaying in time with the increased turbulence. She glanced back once to see if he was still watching and smiled again.

Down, boy, Thorn told himself. Duty before pleasure. Uncle Sam wasn’t paying the airfare for this jaunt so he could make a pass at a Swiss stewardess. Besides, she was probably more curious about him than seriously interested.

Even wearing a fashionable grey suit, button-down shirt, and conservative tie, he didn’t look much like his fellow passengers. Most of them were older and heavier solid-looking Swiss, German, and Iranian businessmen who were either still bent over paperwork or sacked out under airline issue blankets. There were more than he’d expected. America’s cruise missile strikes and the political upheaval they’d sparked had been bad for business. But now, as the first rumors of changed Iranian government attitudes began filtering out, commercial travelers were starting to return.

The DC-10 thundered low over the airport’s inner beacon line and dropped heavily onto the runway, braking hard after one jarring bounce that rattled teeth and shook a few overhead compartments open.

Thorn kept his eyes locked on the landscape sliding past the decelerating jetliner. Mehrabad International was busy crowded with jets and turboprops in the colors of Iran’s two national airlines and those of the major European carriers. Fuel trucks and baggage carts rumbled across the tarmac, crisscrossing between taxiing planes.

At first glance, it could have passed for any major airport anywhere in the industrialised world. A closer look dispelled that impression. Two camouflaged, twin-tailed interceptors were parked just off the runway. Ultramodern MiG-29s on strip alert, he realized kept ready to take off at five minutes’ warning. Further out, near the perimeter fence, there were sandbagged emplacements for antiaircraft guns and SAM launchers. Taleh might be making overtures to the West, but the forces he commanded weren’t letting their guard down.

Still bouncing slightly as it rolled across the rough, often patched tarmac, the SwissAir jet turned off the runway and slowly taxied toward Mehrabad’s single terminal building. The steady roar of the DC-10’s engines faded to a high pitched whine and then to silence. A bell chimed through the cabin loudspeakers. They had arrived.

Thorn sat motionless for a moment, breathing steadily to relax nerves and reflexes that were now on full alert. Then he unbuckled his seat belt, pulled a soft-sided bag out from under the seat in front of him, and stood up, leaning forward to keep from smashing his head into the baggage compartment above. Even though he stood an inch under six feet tall, his height exceeded the design specs for a window seat.

He ignored the standard announcements crackling through the intercom in German, French, Italian, English, and Farsi. If his old friend didn’t really have enough power to protect him from Iran’s radical Islamic fundamentalists, a knowledge of customs regulations and the local weather wasn’t going to matter one damn bit.

Thorn suddenly missed the comforting weight of a pistol at his side. Cheer up, Daniel, he told himself, it’s time to poke your head into the den and find out whether or not the lions really are friendly. He stepped out into the aisle and joined the other passengers already streaming toward the forward cabin door.

A lone Iranian Army officer in a neatly pressed dress uniform stood waiting at the end of the jetway. Thorn headed toward him, eyeing the tall young man’s unfamiliar rank and unit insignia.

“You are Colonel Thorn?” The Iranian soldier’s English was good, though heavily accented.

Thorn nodded. “That’s right.” He offered his passport and safe-conduct letter in proof. “Here are my credentials.”

The Iranian shook his head. “That won’t be necessary, sir.” He smiled.

“I am Captain Farhad Kazemi, General Taleh’s military aide. Welcome to Iran, Colonel.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Thorn shook Kazemi’s outstretched hand, trying to conceal his surprise. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this casual, matter-of-fact reception.

“If you will follow me, sir.” The Iranian captain nodded toward the main terminal area. “I have a staff car waiting to take you to your quarters.”

Thorn moved off beside the younger man, striding easily through the men and chador-clad women waiting to board other flights. A few stared back at them, openly curious at the sight of an Iranian soldier escorting an obvious Westerner. He ignored them, more interested in getting an answer to the question uppermost in his mind. “And when do I meet with General Taleh?”

Kazemi turned his head. “Tomorrow morning, Colonel. After you have had a chance to rest from your journey.”

The Manzarieh Park camp sprawled across several acres in Tehran’s fashionable northern quarter. Surrounded on all sides by pleasant, suburban homes belonging to wealthy businessmen and government officials, the camp contained barracks, classrooms, armories, and firing ranges. Shade trees lined the wide, well-paved streets and open grounds inside the walled compound. At its peak, Manzarieh Park had housed nearly a thousand terrorist trainees from around the world.

Now it was on fire.

Clad in a set of unmarked Iranian Army battle fatigues, a bulky flak jacket, and a steel helmet, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Thorn double-timed across a broad avenue, heading for a bullet-riddled, burning gatehouse that marked the main entrance to the camp. Tough-looking Special Forces troopers formed a protective ring around him, their assault rifles at the ready.

Black smoke swirled across the street, billowing from the wrecked gatehouse. The smell of cordite lingered in the air. Corpses littered the pavement HizbAllah guards gunned down when Amir Taleh’s assault force smashed its way through into the training complex.

The leader of his escort force, a short, swarthy sergeant, peered around one corner of the burning building and then motioned Thorn forward. “Safe! Safe! All ended.” He pointed toward the sprawled bodies and drew one grimy thumb across his throat. “Understand?”

Thorn nodded. He loped through the gate with his escorts in tow.

The camp itself was a scene straight out of Dante’s Inferno. At least half the barracks and other buildings were ablaze, gutted by rocket-propelled grenades, satchel charges, and cannon fire. Bodies dotted the streets and lawns. Most wore the shapeless fatigues or civilian clothes preferred by the HizbAllah. A few, very few, wore the olive-drab uniforms and green berets of Iran’s Special Forces.

Soldiers combed through the burning compound, hunting for surviving terrorists with a care and precision that Thorn admired. Those moving were always covered by other teams prone and ready to fire. T-72 tanks and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles sat at key vantage points, turrets swiveling as the gunners scanned their surroundings for potential threats and new targets. Still trotting forward behind the sergeant, Thorn whistled softly to himself. He’d read many reports on the Islamic Republic’s armed forces. None gave them credit for the kind of professionalism he saw displayed here. Striking at first light, Taleh’s handpicked troops had ripped through Manzarieh like a tornado through a Kansas trailer park.

“Come!” The Iranian sergeant pointed toward a small band of officers and NCOs clustered near one of the T-72s. Radio antennas and open map cases signaled the presence of a senior command group.

Thorn easily pinpointed Farhad Kazemi in the gathering. The young captain stood several inches above his companions. His gaze shifted to the shorter, bearded man issuing a rapid-fire string of orders to the assembled officers. At one final word of command they scattered, moving off to rejoin their units. Only Kazemi and the man he’d been watching were left, heads bowed together as they conferred over a map.

His memories jumped more than twenty years into the past in the blink of an eye. Amir Taleh looked older, more care worn, and more serious, but there were still a few visible traces of the young cadet who had befriended an American teenager adrift in a foreign land.

The two Iranians turned at his approach.

Briefly unsure of how to proceed, Thorn fell back on formal military courtesy. He came to attention and snapped off a crisp salute.

Taleh returned his salute just as crisply. Then he broke the tension by smiling and holding out his hand. “Peter! Welcome! It has been too long far too long, my friend! You look well. Soldiering must agree with you.”

Thorn smiled back. Circumstances had changed. Amir Taleh had not. “You don’t look so bad yourself.” He nodded toward the general’s stars on the other man’s shoulders. “Soldiering seems to agree with you even more!”

The Iranian shrugged casually. “God has willed it.” It was the expression his countrymen always used to turn away the bad luck believed to be inherent in a compliment. “Thank you for accepting my invitation, Peter. I know it took courage to make this journey.”

Thorn fought down sudden embarrassment. His earlier concerns about this mission paled in comparison to the very real risks Taleh and his men had just run to smash the Manzarieh training camp. They’d just killed more terrorists in half an hour than Delta Force had taken out in its entire history. “Not much courage. I’ve often wanted to come back to your country.” He glanced down at the Iranian battle dress he wore and smiled ruefully. “I just never thought I’d do it while wearing this uniform.”

Taleh laughed softly. “Well said.” He waved a hand at the shattered, burning compound around them. “Tell me, Peter, what do you think of my little demonstration?” “I’m impressed,” Thorn said flatly. He hesitated only a moment before going on. If Taleh had wanted to meet a smooth-talking diplomat, the Iranian wouldn’t have asked for him. “But frankly, I’m also surprised. Cutting off supplies to the HizbAllah is one thing. Declaring open war on them is another.”

He nodded toward the dead terrorists strewn in every direction. “What you’ve done here can’t be undone. After today, the HizbAllah and the other radical groups will want your head on a pike. No matter what happens between our two countries, you’ve put yourself and your troops awfully far out on a very slender limb.”

“True.” Taleh seemed unworried. “And that is exactly why I wanted you to see this operation. I wanted you to see how deadly serious I am about ending Iran’s connection with these extremists.”

The Iranian shrugged. “Of course, I will not deny that I have my own reasons for destroying the HizbAllah and the others like them. Although I am a good Muslim, the terrorists and their supporters in the Pasdaran and the Parliament have often been my foes. Crushing them strengthens my own position.”

Thorn nodded. That squared with what little U.S. analysts knew about the current state of Iranian politics. “Sounds like classic economy of force.” He smiled. “I suspect old ‘Gut ‘Em’ Duszinski would be pleased.” Taleh’s dark eyes lit up in amused recollection. He had gone through the Ranger School a few years ahead of Thorn, and Sergeant Major Duszinski was a legend in the U.S. trained special warfare fraternity. After surviving six tours in Vietnam, the hard-nosed veteran had come home to teach ambush tactics at the Ranger School. Generations of soldiers since then had grown to cordially hate the man’s guts. But none of them had forgotten the common sense lessons he’d pounded into their aching brains.

The Iranian leaned forward and tapped Thorn on the shoulder. “You understand me. This is why I asked your superiors to send you, a friend and a soldier a fighting soldier as their representative. I will be honest. I do not trust your country’s politicians or your diplomats.”

Taleh smiled briefly. “For that matter, I do not trust my own politicians or diplomats. None of them, American or Iranian, will tell the plain truth if they believe a lie will suffice.”

Thorn nodded. Taleh’s wry sense of humor was still intact.

He glanced again at the shattered terrorist training compound. In less than an hour, the soldiers commanded by his boyhood friend had crushed a powerful nest of terrorists who had haunted the United States for years. Both the magnitude of Taleh’s operation and the size of the gamble the other man was taking overwhelmed and chilled him. In one fell, bloody swoop, Taleh had severed the Iranian military’sties to Islam’s crazed extremists. It was astounding almost unbelievable. But seeing was believing. Dead terrorists did not lie, and those Taleh’s troops had gunned down were men who had tormented the West for decades.

Suddenly impatient at the prospect of further diplomatic sparring, Thorn turned back to the Iranian. By openly attacking the HizbAllah, his friend had performed a valuable service for America. Taleh had also put his own life and career on the line. That kind of commitment deserved plain talk. “I guess the question is: Where do we go from here? You know my country will be grateful for your actions today. But what do you want from us in return?”

“What do I want? I want many things, Peter.” Taleh shrugged again. “But I do not expect too much too soon. Iran and the United States have a long history together an unfortunate history in recent years. True?”

Thorn nodded silently, thinking of the long, sorry string of hostage crises, bombings, murders, and retaliatory strikes.

“It will take time and much hard work to dissolve the enmities built up over so many years,” Taleh said quietly. “But in the short term, I would like to offer my cooperation in the fight against these terrorists. My forces will deny them further safe haven inside Iran. And I can offer documents, pin lures, and other records that your intelligence services will find invaluable. In return I want assurances against renewed missile strikes or other hostile actions aimed at my forces.”

“And later?”

“Later I hope that our two nations can work more closely on a number of fronts.” The Iranian studied him closely. “We both know that Iran is a poor country. This mindless, uncoordinated campaign of terror has cost us dearly. We have been isolated politically and economically for far too long. I am hoping that your leaders will help me change that.”

“I see.” Thorn did see. He was enough of a strategist to know what Taleh’s offer of closer ties with Iran might mean for the United States and the whole Middle East. Ever since the Shah’s fall from power, the U.S. and its Western allies had been searching for a way to stabilise the vital region. Their first choice, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, had proved itself an untrustworthy ally and an incompetent foe. The current alternative, Saudi Arabis, was a weak reesparsely populated, corrupt, and cordially loathed by most of its neighbors. If there truly was a chance that Iran could be lured back into the community of civilised nations, he knew the White House and the State Department would jump at it.

Shots cracked nearby. Thorn’s head lifted in surprise.

Squads of Iranian Special Forces troops were walking slowly through the compound, methodically firing into each of the bodies littering Manzarieh Park’s streets and bloodsoaked lawns.

Taleh saw the question on his face and nodded somberly. “Yes. My troops are killing any terrorists who may only have been wounded.”

He held up a hand to forestall any protest Thorn might make. “I know what your codes of military justice say about such things, but you must understand our position here. As you pointed out, we are now at war with the HizbAllah. Since they will show me no mercy if I fail, I will show them none now. In any case, every fanatic we take alive is only another prisoner the others will try to free a constant irritant, perhaps even a danger to us again someday. Dead, they may become martyrs, but martyrs cannot hold a rifle or turn a detonator key.”

He was right, Thorn knew. The UCMJ contained specific procedures for dealing with prisoners procedures laid out with lawyerly precision. But very few of the rules written for an antiseptic courtroom were easily applied under combat conditions. And by its very nature counterterrorism was a murky field one full of moral ambiguity and cruel necessity. Very few people outside the tight-knit organisations dedicated to fighting the shadowy war against terrorism understood that. Look at the public furor that had erupted several years before when a British SAS team ambushed several IRA guerrillas in Gibraltar and shot them down without warning or mercy.

He looked up. Taleh was still waiting for his response. The hardships of the Revolution and the Iran-lraq war had made his friend far more ruthless than he remembered. But this was the other man’s fight and his home ground. Second guessing his decisions now would serve no useful purpose. He nodded his reluctant understanding.

The Iranian seemed satisfied. “Good.” He glanced at his watch and signaled Captain Kazemi over with a quick gesture. “Farhad will escort you back to your quarters for now, Peter. I will join you there after my prayers.”

Taleh clapped him on the shoulder again. “Then we can eat together and discuss these matters at greater length. We can also talk of the old days the better days of our youth.” He swept his eyes over the smoldering ruins of the Manzarieh camp. “And in considerably more pleasant surroundings.”

Twenty-four hours and seven thousand grueling air miles after leaving Iran, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Thorn finished debriefing the last set of self-proclaimed State Department experts on the results of his mission. He gritted his teeth as the door to the conference room swung shut behind him and turned to the senior officer at his side. “I swear to God, sir, I’ve never seen such a group of pompous, arrogant…”

“Calmly, Pete. Calmly.” Major General Sam Farrell steered him away from the room and down a tiled corridor toward an elevator. He pressed the down button and stood back. “Our current lords and masters of the Foggy Bottom may be pompous. They are arrogant. But they most certainly are not deaf.”

“Sorry, sir.” Thorn took a deep breath and then released it slowly. Farrell was right. He would gain nothing by losing his temper right in the State Department’s inner sanctum.

He’d never thought debriefing this administration’s coterie of foreign policy experts would be a walk in the park. So why should he kick when they turned out to be as obnoxious as he’d expected?

Oh, they had been polite enough on the surface anyway. They’d listened fairly attentively to his outline of General Taleh’s moves to rid Iran of the HizbAllah and to the recap of his conversations with the Iranian leader. But there had been a dead silence when he’d offered to take questions. More telling still, he and Farrell had been completely ignored during the prolonged discussion that followed his briefing.

In fact, it had become very clear that the band of corporate lawyers and former academics who made up the State Department’s current policy elite were utterly uninterested in the views of those they saw as uniformed robots as simple men suited only to obey orders from their civilian superiors. Instead, Austin Brookes, the elderly, courtly Secretary of State, and his inner circle were a lot more interested in claiming total credit for Iran’s sudden change of heart. Thorn had heard enough abstract nonsense about back-channel diplomacy and geopolitical “levers” in the past two hours to last him a lifetime.

At least Taleh was proving a man of his word.

His troops had pounded two more HizbAllah camps while Thorn was still in Iran. And a preliminary analysis of the data he’d brought back from Taleh showed that many of the dead were terrorists who had been on the U.S. government’s Most Wanted lists for years. In the long run, Thorn thought, that mattered a hell of a lot more than which set of American bureaucrats counted coup for making the Iranians see sweet reason.

One thing more was sure. Taleh was thorough. He played to win at all times. He accepted no excuses not from his subordinates and not from himself. That was something Thorn found familiar. It was the way he’d lived his own life from boyhood on.

“Coming, Pete?”

“Yes, sir.” Thorn hurriedly collected his wandering thoughts and followed his commander into the elevator. Without talking they rode down to the car waiting to take them back to Andrews Air Force Base. He and Sam Farrell had been friends for more than ten years and the older man knew when to let him simmer.

But as soon as the staff car pulled out of the curving State Department drive and turned onto a busy, traffic-choked street, Farrell broke the silence. “Everything set for your change-of-command ceremony next month, Pete?”

“Yes, sir. And Bill Henderson’s ready and raring to take charge.” Thorn could hear the reluctance and regret in his own voice. He had commanded Delta’s A Squadron for two years now two of the happiest, most fulfilling years of his life. He’d relished every minute spent leading the officers and men widely regarded as the finest troops in the U.S. Army.

Nothing lasted forever, though especially not in the Army. His command tour was up and it was time to hand the outfit over to his deputy. Time to take on a new assignment. Although that was long-hallowed Army routine, he knew that not even the colonel’s silver eagles he’d be pinning on at his new post would ease his sense of loss.

Giving up command of the squadron was bad. Giving it up for a staff job was worse. And giving it up for a staff job at the Pentagon was awful beyond all measure.

On the strength of his successful covert mission to Iran, Farrell had wangled him a new post as the head of a special intelligence liaison unit, an outfit charged with tracking and evaluating terrorist groups that might become JSOC targets. It was just the kind of ticket he needed to punch to climb higher in the military hierarchy. Somehow that wasn’t much comfort. Like many officers who saw themselves as “warriors” first and career professionals second, Thorn regarded an assignment to the Pentagon with sheer, unadulterated loathing. The massive building was a maze of interservice politics, petty backbiting, paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork.

He frowned, aware that Farrell was watching him with just the faintest hint of mingled sympathy and amusement. Oh, he’d ride the desk he’d been assigned and he’d do his best, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Thorn shook his head in frustration. Cut loose by Iran, the HizbAllah and the other radical Islamic factions were on the run. They were vulnerable. And now, no matter how he looked at it, he was left with the disquieting feeling that he had been shunted off to the sidelines right when all hell was breaking loose for the terrorist bastards he’d been preparing to fight all his life.