Then something grabbed his good leg. He was dragged out from under the car.
The man who’d held the flashlight when he picked up the bomb was standing over him, grinning. He had a pistol in his hand.
Smiling, the man raised the gun to fire.
THE IRANIAN ASSASSIN WAS SO CONSUMED WITH HIS PREY that he didn’t hear Flash and Nuri running into the lot behind him. Nuri went to the left, Flash to the right.
Flash saw him down the aisle, raising his gun to fire.
Flash clamped his left hand to his right, leaning forward slightly—there was no time to think, or even consciously aim; he pointed the gun and fired.
The bullet hit square in the back of the assassin’s head.
Flash ran forward. He gave a double tap of the trigger into the already dead man’s skull, taking no chances.
Nuri raced from the other side of the lot. He slid on one knee next to Tarid.
“They’re going to kill you,” he told him in Farsi. “We will help you escape. Come with us.”
Tarid was in no position to argue. “Allah be praised,” he said, half delirious from the pain and shock.
74
Approaching Saudi Arabia
BREANNA LEANED BACK IN THE COPILOT’S SEAT AND PULLED off her headset. Then she pressed the Receive button on the satellite phone and held it to her ear.
“Stockard.”
“The President wants to recover the warhead after the bombers hit,” said Jonathon Reid. “She wants Danny to help recover it.”
“How?”
“The bomb material should be intact. The rest of the warhead will be mangled, of course. They’re pulling together a team of Delta people and a few other experts. I know Danny has done this sort of thing before.”
“Jonathon, I don’t know—”
“This is exactly the sort of mission Whiplash was conceived for,” said Reid. “Adjusting on the fly.”
There were adjustments, and then there were adjustments. Physically picking up a warhead wasn’t the problem. The mission would require them not only to stay in Iran after the bombing, but to stay near the site.
She worried about losing them. She worried about them dying. Whatever danger they were in now would be multiplied tenfold.
Her father had told her about the fear he felt over losing people before he left Dreamland. Ordering an op might be the right thing to do, but that didn’t salve his conscience. He was always haunted by the cost.
“The Delta people are about two hours away from Baghdad,” Reid said. “They’ll hook up with some Agency people in Azerbaijan who just finished helping some of the inspection teams in Iran. They want to use your Ospreys to get in and out. Do you want to talk to the commanders?”
THE HEAD OF THE TASK FORCE IN AZERBAIJAN WAS A former Delta Force colonel named Tom Dolan. He was under contract to the U.S. government as a “consultant”—a nifty way of denying direct responsibility for him if things went south on an operation. Dolan told Breanna that his team would be ready to go in roughly two hours.
She sketched a plan to pick up the Delta combat team in Baghdad at the airport, then fly the MC-17 up to Azerbaijan. There, the two Ospreys she was carrying would be off-loaded and used by the task force and Delta to get to the Iraq site. Boston and Sugar would go as well.
Danny was silent as Breanna explained the plan.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“We’re talking forty troops?” he asked.
“I didn’t ask the actual count. Not enough?”
“Depends on what happens.”
“There’s a Marine combat team.”
“Get them.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Danny hesitated. “Yeah, it’ll be enough,” he said finally. “Don’t worry. Once the bombers hit, there won’t be anyone left here. And we’re pretty far from their forces.”
“If you need something, tell me.”
“I’m fine, Bree. I’ve done this before, remember?”
“So have I,” she said.
“Auld acquaintance be forgot…”
75
Northern Iran
“SO WE’RE SUPPOSED TO SIT HERE AND WATCH THEM launch the missile?” asked Hera after Danny told her what was going on. “What if the bombers don’t get here in time?”
Danny ignored her, examining the missile site. There were a dozen men working on the weapon, pumping fuel from underground tanks and making adjustments to the warhead and engine mechanisms. They clearly didn’t think they were in any danger: There were no guards on the runway, and the only sentries the Voice had seen were near the rocket, alternately helping and standing guard.
“So what if the bombers don’t get here?” Hera asked again. “Then what?”
“They’ll get here. The question is where we want to be when they do.”
“And?”
“The other side of this ridge. The hill will absorb or deflect most of the blast.”
“It’s not going to explode?”
“You mean, go nuclear?”
“Hell yeah.”
“No. The warhead may even end up intact. If not, it won’t be a big deal.”
“We won’t get fried?”
“Nah.”
“You’ve done this before, right?” Hera’s voice betrayed more concern than she would have liked.
“Don’t worry,” said Danny. “I’ve done it before.”
In fact he had done it before; once, when he’d disarmed a warhead a few seconds before it went off. The scientists analyzing the bomb later confided they’d guessed about which of the wires he should cut as time ran down.
Then they’d tried reassuring him that the weapon hadn’t been made particularly well, and rather than yielding the twelve megatons it was designed for, would probably only have delivered six or seven.
“Which means it would have only blown up everything within six miles, right?” he had answered. “Rather then twenty.”
They didn’t get the joke.
He’d never been around when a nuke had been bombed. Nor had he pulled one out of a fire. And even if he had—those things were past.
If he had to defuse the bomb now, could he? He remembered getting the instructions over the radio. It had been nerve-wracking.
It would be worse now, ten times worse. A hundred times worse. He’d lost something. He wasn’t a hero—wasn’t the hero he’d been.
He was thinking too much. He used to hear people say that about other commanders, about guys who, to him, seemed to have lost a step, gotten older and more cautious. It wasn’t age maybe, not directly—just experience.
Thinking too much. About what? The cost.
“Looks like they’re finished with the fuel,” said Hera.
Danny looked up, surprised. “Already?”
“Look.”
“No, it’s the oxidizer,” he said. “Shit.”
The fuel and oxidizer were loaded separately, but it took roughly the same amount of time to load each one. They must be nearly done, Danny realized. The missile crew was moving quickly, much more quickly than he would have thought possible.
The men swarmed over the erector, getting ready to raise the missile.
“The bombers aren’t going to make it,” said Danny, jumping up.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, they’re going to launch that sucker any minute. Come on.”
76
Washington, D.C.
THE PRESIDENT HAD JUST REACHED THE OVAL OFFICE WHEN her assistant chief of staff told her Jonathon Reid needed to talk to her immediately. She picked up the phone as she sat down, tapping her finger hard on the button to connect.