They’d left the van about a half mile up from the entrance road. She trotted past the chained fence, still holding a good pace, and started along the shoulder of the road. After thirty yards she heard a car coming.

Hera leapt off the road and ducked into the ditch. She crawled to the side, watching in the direction of the entrance to the airfield.

She had no way to warn Danny; he had her phone.

She’d ambush whoever it was when they stopped to open the gate.

Hera began moving in that direction, then froze as the headlights came into view.

It was an Iranian army command Jeep. It passed right by the entrance, continuing up the road, passing Hera. As soon as it was gone, Hera began running along the ditch. Her wind started to fail after a hundred yards; she slowed, but kept moving, worried that whoever had passed would find the van even though they’d left it off the road.

THE TWO SOLDIERS IN THE JEEP WOULD HAVE DRIVEN RIGHT by it, had the headlights of the Jeep not reflected off a bottle on the shoulder of the road about twenty yards away from the turnoff for the farm.

The lieutenant in the passenger seat couldn’t tell what it was at first, and told his companion to back up. It was only as they started in reverse that they saw the van in the field up at the right.

The two men got out cautiously, pistols drawn.

Though the missile launcher had exploded only a half hour before, neither man had seen or heard the explosion. The base was so isolated that, while it was spectacular, no one had been close enough to witness what was happening. A few night owls in the distance had seen flares, but they dismissed them when they died down, too far away to realize what was going on. The soldiers in the Jeep had been playing cards with the rest of their unit at a small post about fifteen miles away. A phone call had woken them, alerting them to the attempted coup and placing the unit on high alert.

Told that the Revolutionary Guard might have weapons caches in the hills, the unit immediately organized scouting parties. Literally hundreds of other small units were conducting similar surveys all across the country, while much larger units were rushing to keep the Guard in its barracks.

The van was the most interesting thing they had spotted since setting out. The locks were only a nuisance—the lieutenant fired through the keyhole on the driver’s side door. When that failed to release it—the bullet severed the connection to the rod, leaving it closed—he fired three more shots through the window, then broke it with the butt of his gun.

Hera heard the shots, and knew that the men had found the van. She slipped into the woods and climbed the slight rise to the woods behind the old farm field. She came out to the right of the van, parallel to the rear fender.

The soldiers, meanwhile, had pulled out the suitcases with the Whiplash gear. They hauled the cases next to the van, opening the passenger side door for light. The light framed them perfectly.

Six bullets later, both men were dead.

AS SOON AS DANNY HEARD THE GUNSHOTS, HE BEGAN running down the road, sure Hera was in trouble. By the time he reached the access road, he was out of breath—spent not just by running, but by the past two weeks. His legs felt as if they’d been pummeled, and his arms hung almost limp from his body. His fingers barely gripped his rifle.

He stopped and crouched by the side of the road. It was hard to accept, but this was the best he could do.

A few minutes later he heard something coming. He went to one knee, steadying himself to fire.

He nearly pressed the trigger when the vehicle came into view. At the last moment he realized it was their van; a second later he saw Hera at the wheel.

He rose. She jerked on the brakes. Worried that someone was holding her hostage, he pointed his gun at her.

“Hey, don’t shoot!” she yelled, leaning over to the passenger side. “It’s just me.”

“What happened?”

“Two army guys saw the van. They’re dead.”

“Where’s their truck?”

“Back at the road. We should get it.”

“Yeah,” said Danny.

“What’s the matter?”

“What do you figure they were doing up here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Somebody probably heard the explosion,” he said. “I don’t know how long we’ve got.”

The sat phone rang. It was Nuri.

“Freah.”

“Glad to hear you’re OK,” said Nuri, who’d just been talking to Breanna. “Listen, the Iranians have mobilized. Their president thinks the Guard is revolting against him. Which is a pretty good assumption.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“They’ve started blocking off the roads. We just barely turned away from one before we would have been caught. I don’t think I can get to the boat, so I’m going to come up to the field.”

“All right.”

“We’re forty-five minutes away. Maybe less, if Flash keeps us on the roadway.”

“Be careful. Hera just picked off two soldiers on patrol. What kind of shape are you guys in?”

“Shape? You mean wounded? Both of us are OK. I have Tarid with me. His leg is shot up. Why?”

“You have experience moving nuclear weapons?”

“You mean the warhead?”

“Yeah.”

“No experience. I’ve seen pictures of them exploding. That was back in high school.”

“All right. Get here as soon as you can.”

“We’re on our way.”

“What are you thinking?” Hera asked when he put down the phone.

“I think if we wait for Delta, we’ll be dead when they get here.” He punched Breanna’s number into the sat phone.

81

Over Iraq

THE ABORTED ATTEMPT ON THE PRESIDENT OF IRAN HAD sent the country into high alert. Army troops were moving on Revolutionary Guard installations around the country; half a dozen were already fighting pitched battles. Two Iranian warships were having a gun battle with Guard raiders—essentially speedboats with guns—in the Persian Gulf, and the air force had scrambled all of its aircraft.

The U.S. Air Force strike package tasked to hit the missile base was being held on the ground; the plan now was for the group to follow up and hit the base once the warhead had been removed.

A second group of fighters, along with AWACS, a tanker, and other support units was being readied to act as escorts for the Ospreys. Rather than accompanying the transports, the flight group would operate over the Iraqi border, just close enough to come to the rescue if something happened. The idea was that any activity would alert the Iranians that something was going on. If they didn’t know something was up, the Ospreys would be able to scoot over and back without being detected.

That was the theory anyway.

“Danny, everything’s moving on schedule,” Breanna told him as soon as he called. “We’ll have you out in a few hours.”

“I’m not sure that’s going to be quick enough.” He explained what had happened.

“Get out of there and find a quiet place to hide,” Breanna told him. “Change the rendezvous with Nuri.”

“If we do that, they’ll end up with the warhead,” Danny said. “I have a better idea. You’re in an MC-17, right?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you can land on the strip here. It’s hard-packed.”

Breanna brought it up on the screen and looked at the specs. It was just long enough for the C-17.

And it was less than an hour away. They could land and be back over the Iraq border as the sun was rising.

She turned to the pilot. “Do you think we could get in and out of Iraq in one piece?”

“Colonel, I thought you’d never ask.”

“Danny,” said Breanna, “We’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”