The topo map showed a trail they could take from the road toward a narrow hillside ledge, but it ended about a half mile before reaching that point. The topo lines squeezed together, showing a sharp rise. It would be a difficult climb.

Grease studied the area.

“If we could go through this air base, we’d have an easy time,” he said, pointing at the map. “Otherwise the nearest road is ten miles here. Then we have to go out this way and back.”

“Unless we go through the desert,” said Turk.

“We can’t—this is the salt lake. It’s water out here. There may be patrols on the road.”

“There’ll be patrols inside the base.”

“Not as many as you’d think. Remember the place we hit the other day? Security is something you do at the perimeter, if there.”

“Those are barbed-wire fences, I’ll bet.” Turk pointed to the parallel fence line on the map. “And they’re not going to let us through the gate.”

“We can cut through the fences. That’s not a problem.” Grease studied the map some more. “We’d have to scout it, obviously. A satellite image would be convenient.”

“Yeah,” said Turk. They weren’t likely to get one; the data download was due to take place after they arrived.

“We could take one of their trucks and get right out the front gate. Be less likely to attract attention than ours.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Gorud. “What the hell are you thinking?”

The CIA officer started waving his good arm in the air. He seemed dangerously close to losing control—maybe he already had.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “They’ve given us a suicide mission—”

He stopped speaking. Turk stared at him for another second, then looked at the map again. Grease had already turned his attention back to it.

“We can leave the truck about a mile away and walk through this ravine,” Grease told Turk. “We get past the fence here, then it’s a straight jog to the administrative buildings.”

“What if there are no vehicles?” asked Turk.

“It’ll work, don’t worry,” said Grease. “Worst case, we go back. But we won’t have to.”

“You’re crazy!” shouted Gorud. “Both of you! Crazy! We have to leave now! We have to leave now—now! We have to get out!”

Gorud turned and ran toward the deep black of the cave’s interior. Frozen for a moment, Turk finally got moving only after Grease jumped to his feet.

They caught the CIA officer at the edge of the underground lake. Turk, whose eyes seemed to have adjusted better to the dark than Grease’s, grabbed the back of his shirt and started to pull. Gorud swung around, trying to hit him. Instead they both fell. Grease leapt on Gorud, pinning him to the damp, uneven floor.

Gorud yelled and screamed in pain. Grease leaned against his neck with his forearm while pulling the flashlight from his pocket as the other man squirmed harder.

“Get him a styrette,” said Grease. “Morphine.”

“God, he’s burning up,” said Turk. “He’s hotter than hell. He’s got some sort of fever. His wound must be infected.”

“Get the morphine.”

Turk stumbled back to the medical kit for one of the morphine setups. When he returned, Grease had spun Gorud over on his stomach and was holding him down with his knee. The CIA officer continued to scream until the moment Turk touched the morphine needle to his rump. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, Gorud looked at him with large, puzzled eyes, shuddered, and began to breathe calmly.

Turk pushed the plunger home.

“I’m going to give you an antibiotic,” he said. “And aspirin. You have a fever.”

Gorud said nothing. Turk took that as an assent and went back for the drugs. Gorud didn’t talk as he plunged the second needle home. He swallowed the aspirin wordlessly, without taking the water Turk offered.

“Don’t give us any more trouble, spook,” Grease told Gorud before letting him go.

Gorud curled up defensively.

“It’s all right,” Turk said, reaching to help him up. “We’ll get out of here.”

Gorud stared but didn’t take his hand.

“We need to get back to the mouth of the cave,” said Grease. “And we have to be quiet.” He spun the flashlight around. “Come on. You, too, Gorud. Let’s go. And don’t do anything weird.”

Turk reached out to help Gorud, but he refused to be touched. He got up on his own.

“We’ll be OK,” Turk told him. “We’ll be OK.”

12

Iran

ABOUT A HALF HOUR BEFORE THEY PLANNED TO leave, an Iranian military vehicle drove down the hard-packed road near the cave. It was a Neynava, a new vehicle with a squared cab in front of a panel-sided open bed, the local equivalent of a U.S. Army Light Military Tactical Vehicle, or M1078.

The sun had just gone down, but there was still plenty of light, more than enough to see the lingering dust cloud after the vehicle passed. The rear was empty; the man in the driver’s seat concentrated on the road.

A few minutes later it came back up, moving a little slower this time. Turk decided it must have gone to the small hamlet about a mile south and then returned for some reason. It wasn’t until the truck came down the road again, this time moving at a snail’s pace, that he became concerned. He called Grease over from the pickup, which he’d been loading.

“He’s gone back and forth twice now,” he said. “The back of the bed is empty.”

“Mmmm,” said Grease. “Probably moving troops around.”

“I don’t see any.”

“Not yet.”

Grease took the binoculars. Turk checked the AK-47, making sure it was ready to fire. He had an extra magazine taped to the one in the gun, and two more in easy reach. Suddenly, they didn’t feel like enough.

“If they come up at us,” he said to Grease, “do we fight, or try to sneak out the back?”

“I don’t know. Depends.”

“On?”

“How many there are?” Grease continued to survey the area below. “I see two guys patrolling. They’re just walking, though. Heads down. They don’t have anything definite.” Grease crouched down and moved to his right, angling for a better view. “They’re just assigned to check the road. BS stuff, that’s what they’re thinking . . . It’d be best to sneak out, but then we have to walk. It’s a long way.”

He didn’t say that they’d have to leave Gorud, but Turk knew they would.

“We can wait a while,” said Turk.

“Yeah.”

Grease moved away, toward the mouth of the cave. Turk stayed near Gorud, who was propped against the cave wall, sleeping.

Leaving Gorud would condemn him to death, he was sure. But maybe he was already doomed.

Leaving him alive here was too risky, Turk realized. They’d have to kill him.

He knew he faced death himself. He didn’t think about it, didn’t even consider the many times he had, to one degree or another, cheated it. But killing someone else, someone on your side, to complete a mission—that was very different.

“I saw two more guys coming down the road,” said Grease, returning. “The truck went back up.”

“What do you think?”

“I think they’re just looking along the road for anything out of place, then they’ll leave.”

“Are they going to come up this far?”

“The mouth of the cave blends into the rocks. They can’t see it. These guys don’t look too ambitious.”

“So we chance it.”

“I guess.”

They waited another half hour. Night had fallen by then; Turk heard insects but no vehicles.

“We’re going to have go down and see if they’ve left,” said Grease finally. “Otherwise we won’t know if it’s safe.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“One of us has to stay with Gorud. I’ll be fine. You’re the better scout.”

Grease said nothing.

“I’ll be OK,” Turk insisted. “You don’t have to look over my shoulder the whole time.”

“It’s my job.”

“One of us scouting is less likely to be seen,” said Turk. “And it makes sense that you’re the one to do it. You’re going to have to trust me.”