The Enemy Within

CHAPTER 3 SHARPENING THE STEEL

The camouflaged UH-1H-Huey helicopter clattered west, following the trace of a winding valley deeper into Iran’s Zagros Mountains.

Seated right behind the pilot and copilot, General Amir Taleh found the view beautiful but daunting. Razor-edged mountains soared high above the helicopter, some three or four thousand meters high. The peaks were brown, tan, dun every earth-colored shade imaginable. Naked to the harsh sun beating down out of a cloudless sky, every sheer rock wall and jumbled boulder field radiated heat.

He glanced down. The narrow valley they were flying over was also a stark unrelieved grey and brown, the color of rock and bare earth. Nothing green seemed to grow along the banks of a bone-dry stream bed that filled only during the region’s short winter.

The Huey bucked up and down suddenly, rocked by strong gusts that clawed at the fragile craft. The deeper into the mountains they flew, the more turbulent the air became.

“Masegarh Base, this is Tango One-Four. Request permission to land. Over.”

Taleh could hear the strain in his pilot’s voice. Safe flying this far up in the Zagros required total concentration and pinpoint precision. Only the most skilled professionals in the Iranian Air Force were allowed to fly this mountainous route. Mistakes were too costly in lives and, more important, in valuable machines.

He leaned forward slightly, craning his neck to see through the cockpit canopy. Several kilometers ahead, the valley widened, opening onto a broad natural amphitheater surrounded on all sides by jagged mountains. A dirt road snaked out of the valley and across the plain, visible from the air only where it cut through isolated clumps of weathered rock and withered brush. The road ended at a cluster of low buildings shimmering in the heat.

“Tango One-Four, this is Masegarh. You are cleared to land through Air Defense Corridor One. Winds are from the east at twenty-five kilometers an hour, with occasional gusts up to sixty kilometers.”

“Roger.”

Slowing now, the helicopter flew out of the valley and out across the barren plain, heading for a small cleared square of ground outside the Masegarh camp. A fuel truck and several jeeps were parked off to one side of the helipad. A Cobra gunship in Iranian Air Force markings sat nearby under camouflage netting. Needle-nosed shapes poking out from under more camouflage netting further away betrayed the presence of a SAM battery.

Engine whining, the Huey slid over the pad, flared out, and settled heavily onto the ground. Sand and small pebbles kicked up by the rotor downwash rattled off the helicopter’s fuselage and skids.

Taleh could see a uniformed reception committee waiting beyond the arc of the Huey’s slowing rotor. Ducking beneath the blades, one officer ran forward and slid the side door back.

Bracing himself against the heat, Taleh jumped down. Kazemi followed right behind him. They walked slowly over to the waiting officers.

One immediately stepped forward, came to attention, and saluted.

“Welcome to the Masegarh Special Forces camp, sir.”

“Colonel Basardan.” Taleh returned the salute, eyeing the other man with approval. He’d handpicked Basardan for this assignment. During the war with Iraq, the colonel had proved himself a good soldier and a superb organiser, but he’d been letting himself go at a Defense Ministry desk job in Tehran. Now the incipient paunch and double chin were gone. Evidently, the mountains and the harsh training routine agreed with him.

“I believe you already know my senior officers?” Basardan asked.

Taleh nodded. He’d personally selected each and every man above the rank of lieutenant stationed at Masegarh.

The weapons, tactics, demolitions, and language instructors assigned to this training camp were among the best in the Iranian armed forces. They represented a sizable percentage of his country’s relatively small pool of professional soldiers. In fact, the whole facility represented an enormous investment in precious time, scarce resources, and even scarcer military skills. Had they known anything about it, Taleh’s surviving opponents inside the government would have been sure to decry the whole effort as an inexcusable waste. Others might argue that the officers based here would be better employed teaching their specialised skills to the broader mass of Iran’s Regular Army.

He would have ignored them all. The elite commando teams being trained and hardened at Masegarh were vital to his future plans.

Taleh was suddenly impatient. Written reports meant nothing. He wanted to measure the progress being made here with his own eyes. He caught Basardan’s eye and nodded toward the waiting Russian-made GAZ jeeps.

“Let’s proceed, Colonel. You can brief me on the way.”

“Yes, sir.” The commandant turned away, signaling his officers into their vehicles. “We have an exercise or two under way that I think you will find most interesting.”

With Taleh, Basardan, and Kazemi in the lead jeep, the small convoy swung off the helipad, heading down the lone dirt road toward the base.

The sentries manning a checkpoint outside the main gate saluted and waved them through. Taleh noted with interest that none of them were Iranian.

Basardan saw his look and nodded, pitching his voice to carry over the sound of the jeep’s motor. “They are trainees, General. We expect them to perform a wide range of routine duties everything from manning our guard posts to working in the maintenance pool.”

“Very good.” Taleh was pleased. These men would have to function efficiently deep in enemy territory for several weeks and even months. Anything that enhanced their selfdiscipline and self-sufficiency was a welcome addition to the course.

The camp’s “Main Street” was two rows of plain concrete barracks, an administration building, classrooms, an armory, and an elaborate obstacle course all the trappings of a regulation Army training facility. There was only one unmilitary touch. The minaret of a small mosque built just beyond the compound stood as a constant reminder of God’s dominion.

Masegarh had once been used as a Pasdaran camp for training foreign “freedom fighters.” Taleh was having dozens of such places dismantled, but he had ordered this installation kept in operation and even upgraded slightly. But only slightly.

One had to be careful. The location of this place was certainly known to Western reconnaissance satellites. Still, he believed it would attract less attention to use an established base than to build a new one. Taleh’s mind conjured up the English phrase that most closely captured his intention: to hide in plain sight.

He scanned the camp as they roared through it at high speed. Everywhere, he saw groups of hard-working men jogging in formation, with an Iranian noncommissioned officer always close on their heels. Others scrambled under and over the obstacle course’s maze of barbed wire, pits, walls, and ropes all under a steady barrage of shouted criticism from unsmiling, eagle-eyed instructors.

More trainees were busy on firing ranges outside the base perimeter, honing their combat skills with a wide array of different weapons. The periodic crack of high-powered sniper rifles being zeroed in blended with the steady rattle of automatic-weapons fire. Other men clustered around Iranian Special Forces officers demonstrating rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortars, plastic explosives, and shoulder fired SAMs.

The convoy kept moving, accelerating down the road and out into the countryside. They drove for fifteen minutes before pulling up to a stone cairn by the roadside the only landmark visible in the whole bleak landscape. Another GAZ jeep and two senior noncoms with clipboards waited near the cairn, occasionally consulting their watches.

Taleh turned to Basardan for an explanation.

“I sent a-platoon of twenty men out on a twenty-kilometer hike this morning. They have three hours to complete the march.” The camp commandant nodded toward the cairn. “That is the finish line.” Taleh waited. The glint in Basardan’s eye told him there was more to this exercise than a simple road march.

“Each man carries a rucksack filled with thirty kilograms of rocks.”

Taleh could hear Kazemi suppress a soft, astonished whis tie. He understood his aide’s amazement. The grueling march the colonel had outlined surpassed anything in the standard Iranian Army regimen.

Kazemi leaned forward from the back of the jeep. “And if they do not finish within the three-hour deadline, Colonel?”

“They fail the course,” Basardan said flatly. “Permanently.”

The young captain sat back, silent, while Taleh exchanged glances with the colonel. The trainees did not know it, but there were no return-trip tickets from Masegarh. His orders dictated the most extreme measures to maintain absolute secrecy.

Taleh saw the leading group of marchers first. He pointed down the road. “There they are, Colonel.”

The four men were still several hundred meters away, tiny in the distance and barely visible through the shimmering heat waves. All wore the same olive-drab fatigues and reeled under the weight of the bulging rucksacks slung from their shoulders. As they came steadily closer, Taleh could hear their hoarse voices egging each other on.

He nodded. That was good. Very good. Even in pain and near the edge of utter exhaustion, these men were still a group not a pack of lone wolves.

At last, half carrying one man who’d stumbled and nearly gone down, they trotted the final hundred meters to the cairn and collapsed panting on the ground. Taleh studied the four men with interest. One looked like an Arab, probably a Palestinian. Another might be a Turk or a native of one of the former Soviet republics. Two were Bosnian Muslims one dark-haired, the other fair. All in all, a mix typical of the camp’s population.

One of the noncoms who had been waiting checked their names off on his clipboard. The other stalked forward to the middle of the huddle of gasping trainees. “Congratulations, little children. You made it.” He paused. “Trucks are waiting to take you back to the camp.”

Still too breathless to speak, they looked up with smiles that were faint on worn faces. One by one they levered themselves off the ground and staggered painfully to their feet. Slowly the smiles faded. There were no trucks in sight.

The Iranian sergeant nodded pleasantly. “The trucks are eight kilometers that way.” He pointed back down the road. Away from Masegarh.

All of them stared back at him, mouths hanging open in shock and despair. The dark-haired Bosnian shook his head wordlessly, moaned, and collapsed like a puppet with all its strings cut. The Turk simply sat down, numbly staring at the ground between his feet.

“Impossible. Impossible,” the Palestinian gasped. He pointed a shaking finger at the stone cairn. “That is the end mark. The finish. You told us that.”

“Yes, that is true,” the Iranian Special Forces sergeant agreed patiently. His tone hardened. “But circumstances change. Plans change. You must expect the unexpected.”

The fourth man, one of the Bosnians, silently nodded. His fair hair and pale blue eyes made him stand out from his darker companions. His actions were even more different. He turned to the others and began pulling them back to their feet, all the while urging them on. “Come on, Selim! To your feet, Ahmad! Up, Khalil! You want to rest? We’ll rest at the trucks!” His voice, though hoarse, still carried a note of utter conviction and confidence.

Stooping, he slung his arm around the other Bosnian and moved off at a tired, weaving half-trot. The others followed him.

Taleh and Basardan looked at each other and nodded somberly. The attrition rate at the Masegarh camp was three out of four. It was easy to see which of these men would survive.

“What is his name?” Taleh asked as the trainees staggered off into the distance. -

“Sefer Halovic.”

By late afternoon, Taleh had seen enough to know that Colonel Basardan and his officers had grasped his vision for the special units he expected them to train. Using many of the same techniques employed by the American Rangers, the British SAS, and the Russian Spetznaz, they were melding a cadre of fierce, disciplined commandos men schooled in the arts of intelligence-gathering, sabotage, and killing. Men who would act as his own “smart weapons” deep in the heart of an enemy homeland.

He had no illusions. Those who survived Masegarh would not be supermen. The time allotted was too short. But they were already infinitely superior to any forces the HizbAllah or the Pasdaran had ever managed to field.

“Trainee Sergeant Halovic is here, sir.” Captain Farhad Kazemi stuck his head through the door of the office Taleh had commandeered for a series of interviews. He needed to know more about these men than he could glean from typed dossiers or from watching them maneuver through a series of set-piece exercises. Would they be able to do what he asked of them? Were they tough enough? Intelligent enough? Ruthless enough?

“Send him in, Farhad.”

The Bosnian came into the office, obviously fatigued but still standing straight and reporting correctly. Taleh studied him quietly for a few moments.

Halovic had a lean, hungry look that the Iranian suspected had been there long before he began his training at Masegarh. His face was thin, almost gaunt. Even his hands were long and slender a surgeon’s hands. That was appropriate. According to his file, the Bosnian had once been a medical student at the university in Sarajevo. Clean-shaven and of average height, he appeared to be somewhere in his late twenties.

Halovic was also a quiet man, as might be expected under the circumstances. He met Taleh’s probing gaze without blinking or looking away. Like any soldier, he’d apparently learned that meetings with superiors were usually a time to keep your mouth shut, your ears open, and to say what they wanted to hear.

Taleh finally broke the silence. Speaking in English, the lingua franca of the camp, he pointed to a chair. “Sit down, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir.” The Bosnian sat down easily, almost gracefully. Even off his feet he gave the impression of a hunter set to strike, of a predator poised to kill.

For a moment, Taleh felt as though he were staring into a mirror. He shook himself mentally and went on. “You look like a man who has seen hard times, Sergeant.”

Halovic thought for half a beat before replying. “Everything in Bosnia is hard, General.”

Taleh nodded. He indicated the file folder open on the desk in front of him. “You have seen much fighting.” It was not a question. Combat experience was one of the basic preconditions for admission to the Masegarh training course.

“Yes, sir,” Halovic said quietly, firmly.

Before war tore his homeland apart, the Bosnian had been content to continue his studies in Sarajevo. The idea of being a soldier had been the furthest thing from his mind. Even when the killing and atrocities began, he’d only seen the need for another doctor. He had fully intended to serve his people as a healer.

But then Serb irregulars butchered his family, along with dozens of others in his home village. And something had died inside Sefer Halovic died along with his elderly parents, his sisters, and his younger brother.

He had abandoned his medical training. It was pointless to heal the sick and wounded while the men with guns were free to act again to slaughter at will. Coldly determined to kill as many Serbs as possible, Halovic had gone to war. The selfdiscipline, intelligence, and imagination that would have made him a brilliant doctor had instead made him an effective killer and a superb guerrilla leader.

At Taleh’s prompting, the Bosnian outlined several different engagements, including ambushes, assassinations, and carefully planned assaults. His voice was calm, dispassionate almost as though he were talking about someone else’s actions. Only when he described his most spectacular exploit a massive car bomb attack on the street outside the Yugoslav Defense Ministry itself did any hint of satisfaction creep into his voice.

“The Serbs were still counting their mangled dead weeks later.” He showed his teeth. “I believe that was when they truly began to know fear.”

Halovic’s face tightened. “Then the cease-fire came. The precious ‘peace’ imposed by the U.N. and by the Christian powers. The surrender that will strangle my people while the Serbs grow stronger on our stolen lands.” His eyes were ice cold now, full of remembered rage. “But I did not sign that surrender. I have not abandoned the struggle. And that is why I came here, General.”

Taleh nodded, satisfied. It was a chilling tale, but one he knew was repeated many times all over the camp. Of the five hundred or so men at Masegarh, most were Bosnians, recruited out of the wreckage and despair in Sarajevo and the other butchered Muslim cities and villages. Others were exPLO fighters, African guerrillas, or Muslims from the former Soviet republics. There were thousands, tens of thousands, of such angry, dispossessed men all over the world. They were fertile ground for his recruiters.

He leaned forward. “I have one more question, Sergeant.”

Halovic looked up at him, under full control again. “Yes, sir?”

“Those men today? Your comrades on the march? What would you do if they faltered the same way on a mission?”

Halovic’s answer came swiftly, without even a moment’s hesitation. “I would kill them, General.”

After Kazemi ushered the Bosnian back to his squad, Taleh turned to Basardan. “How many are there like him, Colonel?” he asked softly.

The camp commandant shook his head. “Not many, sir. Oh, the rest are good,” he reassured Taleh, “but Halovic is something special.”

“Yes.” Taleh’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Keep me informed of his progress. I believe we will have work worthy of this young man.”