“You got your targets marked, Bravo One. We don’t. We hold until I can get—”
But Zalinsky cut in before David could finish his thought. “Alpha One, this is Home Plate; do you read?”
“Roger that, Home Plate,” David said, shifting gears. “Go ahead.”
“You’re about to get company, son. We’ve just intercepted a call to the target. He was told his ride is on the way. Now we’re tracking a three-vehicle convoy about to enter the perimeter. Bravo One is right. You need to move now and move fast.”
“Negative, Home Plate. We need to find and mark our target. Then we’ll move.”
An argument was brewing. But before it could escalate, David heard footsteps in the stairwell. Someone was coming down from the sixth floor. David pulled the snake out of the hallway and back to himself, then turned just in time to see an armed Revolutionary Guard Corps officer coming down the stairs. Their eyes met at the same moment. Clearly stunned by the sight of two masked men, the officer raised his AK-47 to fire, but David raised his pistol faster and double-tapped the man to his forehead.
David knew silencers weren’t truly silent. They were really sound suppressors, but even the top-of-the-line model on David’s pistol couldn’t completely eliminate the sound of a 9mm pistol being fired at close range, especially inside a concrete stairwell. David’s two shots, muffled though they were, echoed up and down the building. And nothing could silence the sound of an Iranian man collapsing to the floor, falling down half a flight of stairs, and smashing against the wall. His own heart racing, David didn’t waste time checking the officer’s pulse. There was no question he was dead. But he and Fox would be too if they didn’t move fast.
“Go, go, go,” David shouted into his microphone as he sprang forward. “We found the guard and took him out. Now moving into the hallway—go, go, go!”
David flipped the switch on the little black box, instantly jamming all communications on the floor and thus neutralizing mobile phones, landlines, and security cameras. Then he pulled open the door and turned left with Fox, his wingman, a few yards behind him. He moved hard and fast, weaving through the crowded hallway and occasionally pushing aside those startled doctors, nurses, and visitors who wouldn’t or couldn’t get out of his way fast enough.
The building was a large rectangle, and as he came around the first corner, he saw a guard none of their recon had identified. The guard was clearly stunned and terrified, but he reacted quickly. He opened fire with his AK-47, spraying bullets everywhere, felling a nurse who happened to get caught in the line of fire. She was dead before she hit the floor, and everyone else in the hallway was now screaming.
In the pandemonium, David dove into a room on the right. Fox dove into a room on the left. But it was Fox who recovered fastest. A moment later, he popped his head out of the doorway and returned fire. Unfortunately his shots went high. The guard was not running toward them. He was now flattened on the ground on his stomach and unleashed a burst of fire at Fox’s head. David feared for his colleague’s life, certain he was going to see Fox’s head explode. But the SEAL’s reflexes were lightning quick; he pulled back into the room and out of harm’s way just in time.
David seized the moment. He pivoted out from his doorway and fired three shots. At least one hit its mark. The guard shrieked in pain as David moved in and fired two more shots into him, ending his screams.
“Alpha Two, clear—let’s go,” he shouted, then holstered the pistol and grabbed the MP5 off his back.
He came around the corner and found Torres and Crenshaw in an intense firefight. Three guards were down, writhing and bleeding. But at least two that David could see were returning fire. He unleashed two short bursts and felled one of them. The second—apparently stunned by hearing gunfire behind him—dropped to the floor and was about to fire when Fox roared past David and pumped two bullets into the man’s forehead. Suddenly the guns went silent, though people everywhere were shouting and screaming and running for the exits.
David was less than ten yards from Javad Nouri’s room and was about to make a break for it when he heard Torres’s voice in his headset.
“Alpha One, hold, hold,” Torres yelled. “There’s another guard out here somewhere. Do you see him?”
Both David and Fox scanned the hallway from side to side. Neither saw the guard, and they were about to begin clearing rooms one by one. But now it was Zalinsky’s voice in their ears.
“Alpha One, the final guard is in the target’s room,” he said. “I repeat, he’s in the target’s room.”
For a moment, David froze. If he’d darted in there as planned, he would have been killed instantly. Fox would have been too, if he’d stayed at his side. He was grateful for his team’s presence of mind to keep a careful count of the bad guys. But then another thought flashed through David’s mind. What if the guard had orders to kill Nouri should anything like this ever happen? He had to do something quickly, but what?
David flattened himself against one wall, aiming his MP5 at the door to Nouri’s room. Fox, meanwhile, flattened himself against the opposite wall, aiming his MP5 the other direction, lest they be ambushed from behind. That was, after all, increasingly likely. They were jamming communications on this floor, but what about the others? All this gunfire could certainly be heard throughout the building. IRGC backups had to be on the way, and the transport team could be here any second.
“Home Plate, can you jam communications throughout the whole building?” David asked.
“Already done,” Zalinsky said. “But you’ve got reinforcements coming up the elevators and up your stairwell. You need to get your target and get out of there—now.”
Just then, the elevator doors opened down the hall. David turned, but Torres and Crenshaw were on it. They opened fire and dropped three Revolutionary Guards before they even knew what had happened. More screams and sobbing erupted amid the renewed gunfire. David decided to use the cacophony to make his move. He reached into his flak jacket, pulled out an M84 stun grenade, yanked the pin, tossed it into room 503, and shouted, “Fire in the hole!”
A blinding flash and deafening roar consumed Nouri’s room. While his colleagues watched his back, David moved immediately. He raced for Nouri’s door, crouched down, and pivoted inside, his MP5 leading the way. Through the lingering smoke, he spotted the guard in the corner. Instinctively David squeezed the trigger once, paused a split second, then fired again. The man crumpled in a bloody heap, having never even gotten off a shot.
25
“Room secure,” David shouted, then turned his attention to Javad Nouri.
The man was terrified and balled up in a fetal position, hands over his ears, which were dripping with blood. David felt little sympathy for this man who was trying to help unleash genocide on the Israelis and perhaps on the United States as well. He began pulling tubes and IV lines and various wires out of and off of Nouri’s body, causing the Iranian to shriek in pain. Then he pulled a syringe from his pocket, flicked off the plastic tip, tapped it to clear out any remaining bubbles, and jammed the needle into Nouri’s neck. The serum took only seconds to activate, and Nouri’s body went limp almost immediately. Not taking any chances, David quickly cuffed Nouri’s hands and feet and put a strip of duct tape over his mouth, grateful for all the tools Torres and his team had brought with them from the States. He also checked the closet and looked through several drawers and found Nouri’s satphone and wallet, which he stuffed into his pockets.
“Target secure and acquired,” David said into his microphone, his heart and mind racing. “Alpha One ready for extraction on your signal, Bravo One.”
“Roger that—Bravo One, clear,” said Torres, his MP5 trained on the elevators for any new reinforcements.
“Bravo Two, clear,” said Crenshaw, hunkered down at the nearest stairwell and maintaining their escape route.
“Alpha Two, clear,” Fox said last, now repositioned farther up the hallway to watch David’s back and keep an eye on the st
airwell they’d come up.
“Okay, let’s move,” Torres said.
David reengaged the safety on his MP5, grabbed a radio out of the hands of the dead guard in the corner, and then proceeded to hoist Nouri and sling him over his shoulder. He made his way out of room 503 quickly and turned left, past trembling doctors, nurses, and patients, up to Crenshaw, who moved into the stairwell to take the lead. Torres pulled back to secure the stairwell door and ordered Fox to hightail it to his position. David tossed the IRGC soldier’s radio to Torres so he could monitor the latest traffic, and sixteen seconds later, in a tight formation, they were making their way down five flights of stairs.
“We’ve got a problem,” said Torres, listening to the radio chatter. “The IRGC commander hasn’t been able to call out for reinforcements, but he’s ordering his men to take up sniper positions aiming at every ground floor exit.”
Crenshaw cursed, but David kept his cool.
“Bravo Three, you safe?” he asked, making contact with Mays in the parking lot.
“I’m good,” said Matty. “They’re evacuating the building. There are hundreds of people pouring out. A lot of them are heading to their cars, so they haven’t picked up on me yet.”
“Can you see the snipers?”
“No—there’s too many people.”
“Can you move the van to the door and give us some cover?”
“I can try,” Mays said. “But they may start shooting for the tires, or worse.”
“Actually, you’ve got a new problem,” said Zalinsky.
“What’s that?” David asked as they passed the third floor and headed down to the second.
“We’ve got a helicopter inbound from the south.”
“An air ambulance?” David asked, though he knew that was too much to hope for.
“’Fraid not—we’re monitoring police radio traffic,” Zalinsky said. “It’s part of a SWAT team.”
“How did they get the word out?”
“I don’t know, but if one helicopter’s coming, you can bet more will be coming soon if we don’t get you out of there fast.”
David and his team hit the ground floor. They entered the maintenance area and, to their shock, found themselves surrounded by about a dozen hospital staff members, janitors, and mechanics trying to evacuate the building. The staff was just as shocked to see them, and David, thinking quickly, seized their fear and used it to his advantage. He ordered them all to stop immediately and to be quiet. Then he assured them that no one would be hurt so long as they formed a human barricade around the team and got them to their van.
“We’re all going out on the count of three,” David told the hospital workers. “If you run, you die.”
Terrified, all of them agreed to the plan, and Mays and Zalinsky heard everything over the radio.
“Bravo Three, move into position,” David said.
“Bravo Three, on the move,” Mays replied.
“Home Plate, we need a diversion,” David said.
“Like what?” Zalinsky asked.
“Where’s the closet police car?”
“One just pulled up. It’ll be about thirty yards to your left when you come out that back exit.”
“How many officers?”
“Two.”
“Armed?”
“One has a shotgun; the other is brandishing a pistol,” Zalinsky said.
“Can you take it out?”
“With what?”
“A Hellfire,” David said.
And all went quiet.
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
All eyes in the Global Operations Center were on Zalinsky. They had all been there a few days earlier when Zephyr had asked Eva Fischer to launch a Hellfire missile to save his life. They had all, therefore, seen the price Agent Fischer had paid for saying yes. True, Eva had been released. True, she was now working for the NSA. But none of them knew the details, and now they were once again at a moment of truth.
Zalinsky looked to Murray.
“It’s your call, Jack,” Murray said. “It’s your op.”
TEHRAN, IRAN
“Home Plate?” David asked.
But there was still radio silence from Langley.
“Home Plate, I need an answer fast, before we come out this door.”
David couldn’t believe this. He was doing everything Zalinsky had told him to do, and now his own mentor wasn’t giving him the cover he needed to make this op a success. How badly did the Agency want Javad Nouri to live and divulge information about the warheads and anything else he knew?
Then again, how much did Langley want David and his team to live through the next five minutes?
Mays knew they had only a matter of seconds to succeed and survive . . . or fail and die. Taking matters into his own hands, he pulled the van out of the parking lot, carefully weaving through the throng of people emerging from the hospital. Then, rather than return past the guard station, he took a right on a service road and was able to double back around the entire building. It took a few moments, but soon he had nearly come full circle, which meant he was coming up behind the two officers crouching behind their police cruiser, guns drawn, waiting for David and his team to emerge from the building and get shot down like Bonnie and Clyde. Mays slowed to a halt, trying one more time to assess the situation.
Craning his neck, Mays turned and looked behind him. For the moment, at least, he saw no more policemen or IRGC officers. But he could hear the faint sound of sirens approaching in the distance. He looked to the left, then to the right. He saw no other armed men, and the crowd ahead of him was beginning to thin as one of the policemen shouted at them to move away from the building quickly and find cover.
“Alpha One, this is Bravo Three—you ready to come out?”
“Hold radio traffic, Bravo Three,” David responded. “We’re waiting for Home Plate.”
But Zalinsky still wasn’t saying anything.
“We’re out of time,” Mays said. “I can already hear the sirens of more police approaching. We need to get you out of there now. I’m going in.”
Mays lowered his window, picked up the pistol from the seat beside him, and clicked off the safety. Then he aimed the van for the police cruiser and hit the gas.
The van accelerated instantly and plowed directly into the car. The sound of the violent crash—metal upon metal and glass shattering—stunned everyone within earshot on the hospital grounds. One of the officers was killed on impact while the other dove out of the way. But he was out in the open now. Mays slammed on the brakes, threw the van into park, then pointed his pistol out the window and fired three shots, killing him instantly. Then he jammed the van back into drive and raced to the back door of the hospital.
“Alpha One, targets neutralized,” Mays shouted over the radio. “I’m in position outside the exit. All clear, at least for now. Let’s go!”
David wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, but he trusted Mays implicitly. If the man said it was time to move, it was time to move. He ordered the door opened and everyone to start moving. The hospital staff—more terrified than ever now—immediately complied.
Within seconds they were out in the fresh air again. David told everyone to surround the van, and they did, while Crenshaw pulled the side door of the van open and helped David put Javad Nouri inside. Then David jumped into the front passenger seat while the rest of the team climbed into the back and Mays laid on the horn. Everyone surrounding the van fled, and Mays hit the gas and peeled away just as gunfire erupted behind them, blowing out the rear window and sending glass flying everywhere.
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Zalinsky was stunned. He was watching the entire scene unfold from the satellite feed but couldn’t believe his eyes. Nor could Murray or anyone else in the Global Ops Center. Zalinsky’s hesitation had put the entire mission at risk, and it still could, he realized.
True, David had his man. Javad Nouri had been visited in the hospital by the Twelfth Imam and seemed to be one of h
is most senior advisors. If anyone besides the Mahdi knew the full plan of where the warheads were and how they were going to be used, it could very well be Nouri. But as he watched Mays speeding away from the hospital, he knew he had only a matter of seconds to protect Zephyr and his team from certain death—death from the sky.
TEHRAN, IRAN
“We’ve got a chopper at four o’clock, low and coming in fast,” shouted Crenshaw, who was hunched down in the backseat and trying to get his MP5 into position.
Mays was gaining speed, but it wasn’t helping. He couldn’t possibly outrun a police helicopter, which meant the sniper on board was getting dangerously close. Crenshaw opened fire. A moment later, Fox and Torres were leaning out of their respective windows and firing at the chopper as well.
“We hit them,” Crenshaw shouted. “They’re backing off.”
For now, the team’s return fire seemed to have worked. But it was only a temporary fix. David and the others soon watched as the chopper sped ahead, looped around, and then accelerated. It was coming right for them. The sniper was beginning to lean out from the right-hand side and was preparing to fire.
Mays told everyone to hold on, then slammed on the brakes and took a hard left turn. Again, the maneuver worked. The chopper sailed right past them. But they couldn’t outfox this guy for long, David knew. They needed to find cover, but even then, what good would that do? If they went underground, the pilot would alert every police officer in the city. They would soon be surrounded, and David didn’t dare contemplate their fate in the hands of the Twelfth Imam, especially since they were in possession of one of his advisors.
David craned his neck, hoping to reacquire the helicopter and help Mays plot an evasive route. A moment later, he saw the glint of the rotors in the afternoon sun. The pilot was banking around from the east, about to make another dead run at them. The problem was that Mays had pulled onto a major highway. It was mostly clear. Because of the war, few Tehran residents were on the streets, and Mays was now driving at more than two hundred kilometers an hour. But there were no more side streets. There were no more alleys. There were no more overpasses. This was it. They were out in the open, and the chopper was dead ahead. David could see the sniper getting into position again and aiming his rifle directly for Mays—or for him. Did it really matter which? They were all going to die in the next three seconds, and all their hopes for stopping the Mahdi from launching his last two nuclear warheads would die with them. And there was nothing they could do about it.