No! He refused to think of the venereal filth, the corruption on earth. He must direct his thoughts only to destruction, to the rain of doom on the creatures of Satan.

The Americans would be there when the rockets fell, the scented women in their revealing gowns, their breasts hot, rising and falling with every trembling breath as they watched their foul President of America taking his oath of depravity and dominion over the people of the earth.

Destroy them! With explosives, with white phosphorus, with the nerve gases! Rain down the fire of death on them, rip their flesh and let their polluted blood drain into the polluted earth of satanic America. Cleanse the earth of their sin and evil!

Hallucinations of sex and death flashing against the swirling snow, Rouhani ran down the long ramp to the underground factory. Inside, he stared around, his eyes still focused on the erotic visions generated within his mind as his men crowded up to him.

"Leader! The trucks are ready..." one shouted.

"Have you cleared the sentries from the gates?" Rouhani asked.

"Leader... are you wounded?"

Rouhani shoved away the Guards attempting to help him. He brought his thoughts back to the immediate moment. Striding past his men, he surveyed the workshop.

Set deep under the abandoned fields of the village, protected from Israeli or American air strikes by steel-reinforced concrete, the factory contained rows of machines. Diesel trucks were parked in the center aisle. Steel gurneys, straining under the load of 240mm rockets, stood alongside workbenches, where the Syrian technicians had left them. At the far side of the concrete cavern, more racks of the BM-24 Soviet artillery rockets stood against the walls.

"Why not those rockets?" he demanded of his Guards. "Why do we leave them?"

"They are not modified, Leader. Today Dastgerdi talked with all the Syrians. They talked about what rockets were ready and what ones were not. We put only the finished rockets in the trucks."

"How can you be sure they are ready?"

"The Syrians marked the rockets."

"How many?"

"Almost a hundred. Four launchers, ninety-six rockets."

"And the transmitters? And the warheads? Are the rockets prepared with explosives and poisons?"

"Yes! The Syrians were very proud. They bragged of their quick work."

Rouhani laughed. "Start the trucks!"

The convoy of diesel trucks and cars drove through the night, north to Baalbek, then northeast toward Lebanon's coast city of Tripoli. Papers forged by the Libyans identified the Iranians as PLO reinforcements for the city. The documents declared the cargo as weapons for PLO and Syrian armies stationed around the city.

But before they reached the city, Rouhani directed the convoy off the highway. The cars and trucks bumped over a frozen, rutted road to an improvised airstrip. There, PLO agents hired by the Libyans transmitted a signal to the approaching cargo plane.

"Where is First Secretary Baesho?" Rouhani asked the Palestinians.

"He is delayed."

"By what?"

"There has been much fighting in Beirut. The telephones do not work. We could not speak with the embassy."

"But what of the plane? Does this..."

"We continue. We have our instructions, the plane will come as scheduled."

"When? There can be no delays now."

"It is off the coast. It waited for our signal."

"But we must be out of Lebanon today!"

"Be patient. It will be only a few minutes."

Rouhani stared into the sky. The eastern horizon grayed with dawn, the irregular line of the eastern mountains black as the storm-darkened sky. Rouhani knew that if he and his Guards did not leave Lebanon today, they risked the revenge of Syrians. Syrian troops occupied all of northern Lebanon. Thousands of Syrian soldiers surrounded Tripoli. Syrian units patrolled the coast to the west and the borders to the north and east. Syrian forces manned the emplacements to the south.

One radio message could mean the extermination of Rouhani and his Guards.

The noise of the engines of the cargo liner stopped his fears.

Before daylight, the Iranians loaded the plane with the rockets and launchers.

Then they flew west. To destroy the President of the satanic empire of America.

From the warmth and luxury of his armored limousine, Dastgerdi watched the Sahel Mountains blur past. He considered the reports.

Repeated radio messages to the base in the Bekaa had not been answered.

Syrian units manning roadblocks had reported two trucks and trailer loads of rockets in transit to Tripoli.

A radar station in Tripoli had reported the intrusion of an aircraft of unknown nationality. The aircraft crossed the coast, disappeared into the foothills, then reappeared after less than an hour, flying due west. Radar tracked the aircraft over the Mediterranean until it passed out of range.

Then came the reports from the Syrian Defense Ministry. The radio operators speculated that the failure of communications during the night had perhaps been caused by the storm. But the reports from the checkpoints and the radar station had been confirmed.

The slowing of the limousine interrupted his thoughts. His Syrian-army chauffeur turned from the highway to the narrow road leading to the ruined village. Snow covered the familiar landscape. Beyond the abandoned fields and pastures, storm clouds hid the peaks of the mountains.

How had the night's storm affected his project? Had the hate-crazed Rouhani seized the opportunity of the holiday and the breakdown in communications? What would Dastgerdi find at the village?

The insanity of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard captain threatened the greatest project of Dastgerdi's career. Had he correctly predicted the actions of the Iranian lunatic? Had his informers in the gangs of the Islamic Amal correctly reported the Libyan efforts to subvert the project and seize leadership?

And what of the KGB? Had they somehow learned of the operation? In the chaos of hatred and insanity and nationalistic fervor, had one of the outsiders sold information about his project to the KGB?

Doubts tore at Dastgerdi. Any one of the foreigners involved in his project — the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Libyan diplomats, the fanatic Shias of Islamic Amal, the mercenaries — might betray him. Though he had compartmentalized the duties and commands, one breakdown might lead to another and another and finally to the end.

When he saw the gates to the village standing open, unguarded, he knew.

At the sentry shack, he stepped out of the limousine and went into the corrugated steel shelter of the sentries. The frozen corpses of the Syrian soldiers sprawled beside the ashes of the fire, their blood a red ice on the mud.

Dastgerdi ran outside. He wanted the chauffeur to see his alarm and confusion. He looked fifty meters away to the other sentry positions on the perimeter. Nothing moved.

His greatcoat flapping, he ran back to the limousine. His voice trembled as he commanded the chauffeur:

"To the factory!"

"Is there a problem, Colonel?"

"Don't question! Go!"

The driver spun the tires, accelerating through the snow. As they raced through the shellfire-shattered village, Dastgerdi saw nothing — no Syrian soldiers, no smoke from fires, no bored Iranians milling about. Near the entrance to the underground workshops, Dastgerdi shouted, "Park here! At the top of the ramp — wait."

"Colonel, it could be dangerous."

"That is my worry!"

Dastgerdi ran down to the entrance. The rolling steel doors stood open. Snow had settled on the concrete floor of the cavernous underground complex.

A quick look told him that four launchers and ninety-six rockets had disappeared. Truck tires had marked the concrete floor with wide lines of mud and frozen slush. The forklifts had left other lines. A confusion of footprints indicated where the Iranians had crowded around the diesel trucks.