Whiplash (25 page)

“Where are you taking me?” he asked Hera.

“Outta of this crap,” she said.

“You’re with the American CIA?”

“There’s a laugh,” she said. She switched to Greek, telling him he was an ignorant jerk. Then she switched over to English.

“Are you CIA?” she asked. “Is that why Kirk rescues you?”

“Me?”

“You are pretending to be Iranian. That’s not true, is it?”

“I am Colonel Zsar’s lieutenant,” Tarid insisted, going back to Arabic.

They reached the end of the minefield. Two other prisoners were sitting nearby. Hera let Tarid slip to the ground. The field was littered with prisoners, some wounded, others too scared to move or unsure where to go.

McGowan was supposed to be out with the prisoners, directing them to run south while waiting for Tarid. They were going to help him get farther away, then play it by ear.

She couldn’t see the other trooper. She’d been assigned to hold by the perimeter fence in case there was a counterattack. If she wasn’t there, the others would be trapped inside.

“Mac?” she yelled, turning around. There was no answer. She yelled again and called for him in Greek.

Tarid collapsed to the ground. With his wounded leg, he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Wait here, you,” Hera told him in English. “I return soon.”

D
ANNY MADE HIS WAY BACK ALONG THE PERIMETER FENCE
.

“Where’s Tarid?” he asked the Voice.

“Beyond the minefield.” The computer gave him the GPS coordinates.

“Flash, Hera, we’re out of here.”

“I’m coming out,” said Flash.

“Hera?”

“I’m at the perimeter fence. I’m holding.”

“Good. Copy. Boston, get to the rendezvous point.”

“On it, Chief.”

“Nuri?”

“We’ll keep them occupied,” said Nuri. “See you soon.”

“Copy that,” said Danny.

Their mission was accomplished, but Danny had one more thing to do. He asked the computer to locate Tilia.

She was still inside.

“Is she alive?” he asked the computer.

“Unknown,” said the Voice.

The computer could locate people, and make judgments based on their movements, but it didn’t have the power to diagnose life or death. She hadn’t moved in several minutes, adding to its uncertainty.

“Lead me to her,” Danny told it.

B
OSTON LED HIS THREE MERCENARIES BACK FROM THE
rocks and trees where they’d taken shelter. Though the brush had been torn to pulp, no one was hurt. They jogged back to the truck, got in, and drove south and then back west, circling around the camp across the fallow fields before meeting Flash at the rendezvous point on the road west of the camp.

“Where’s McGowan?” asked Boston. He was supposed to be there, too.

Flash shrugged. “I don’t know. He should’ve been at the fence when we came out. I got out late and thought I’d find him back here, but I don’t see him. I haven’t heard him on the radio the entire operation.”

Neither had Boston.

“Hey, Colonel, you know where McGowan is?” he asked over the radio.

“He’s with me,” said Danny.

T
ARID LAY ON THE GROUND, TRYING TO WILL AWAY THE PAIN
of the bullet crease on his leg. He saw the vehicle down by the road, perhaps twenty yards away, and knew it must be Kirk’s.

So Kirk expected to be paid for helping him escape? Was it a reward or a ransom?

Whatever it was, he wasn’t getting it.

Tarid turned to the two men sitting nearby. They were staring into the distance, shell-shocked but unhurt.

“You two—come with me,” he said as he struggled to his feet.

Neither man moved.

“There’s a village north of here. Two kilometers,” said Tarid. “Saad Reth. I have a friend there who can help us. Come with me.”

One of the men blinked. That was the only acknowledgment that they had heard him.

“If you help me get to Saad Reth,” said Tarid slowly, pacing his Arabic, “I will make sure you are rewarded. One hundred euros apiece.”

The offer of more money than either man had handled in a lifetime stirred them to action. The man who had blinked was the first to rise. He helped his companion up, and together they started following Tarid, who was limping but moving along quickly.

“We have to stay away from the people who blew up the camp,” he told them. “Go, before they pay attention to us.”

“Saad Reth is a long walk from here,” said one of the men, noticing his limp.

“The distance doesn’t matter.” Tarid pushed himself forward. “The army will be after Kirk, and we’ll be long gone. Come. As fast as you can.”

D
ANNY FOUND
T
ILIA HUNCHED AGAINST THE FENCE
. H
ER
fists were clenched and propped against the side of her head, arms crossed at the wrists. He knelt down and touched her shoulder.

“Tilia?”

Her body heaved but she didn’t raise her head or talk.

“Come on then,” said Danny. He scooped her up. She was light, incredibly light.

Nuri was still firing at the machine-gun posts on the north side of the camp, but there was only sporadic return fire. The Sudanese army officers were regrouping their men, mustering for a counterattack. The battle had seemed to last for an eternity, but barely ten minutes had passed since the Catbirds initiated the onslaught.

Hera was waiting at the fence when Danny arrived.

“Did you send Tarid through?” Danny asked.

“Yes. Where’s McGowan?”

“I know where he is. You think you can carry her?”

“Is she coming with us?”

“Yeah. We’ll drop her off along the way.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I don’t care what you think. Take her.”

Danny deposited Tilia on Hera’s shoulder. Hera didn’t say anything, turning and carrying her from the compound.

Danny went to the trench. He didn’t see McGowan. His heart leapt: He thought he’d been wrong about him being killed.

But the only mistake was where he had left him. A moment later Danny spotted him a little farther on in the trench.

As gently as he could, he picked up the battered body and double-timed it through the disabled portion of the minefield.

“Skipper, we got problems here,” said Boston over the radio. “Every one of these bastards wants to come with us. And I can’t find Tarid.”

Danny asked the Voice where Tarid was. It found him moving a quarter mile away, on the road west.

“It’s OK,” said Danny. “He’s escaping. Better that he gets away on his own.” Much better, he thought. “Hera’s bringing Tilia, Uncle Dpap’s translator.”

“Yeah, here she comes now.”

“I’m sixty seconds away.”

“What do I do with these people?”

“Tell them to run.”

Danny saw the small crowd ahead of him. Boston fired another burst, then pushed the prisoners away. They were angry and scared, but they were also depleted from the day spent without food. They began walking away from the camp, some north, some west.

“Jesus, is that McGowan?” said Boston as Danny put him in the SUV.

“Let’s go, Boston.”

“Shit.”

“I said, go.”

“Yeah, all right, Cap. I’m sorry.”

Boston climbed in. The mercenaries squeezed into the back.

“Go south two miles and stop,” Danny said. “I want to make sure Tarid’s OK.”

The truck’s rattle settled after a minute, and they rode in relative silence across the empty land. The rain had started to let up.

“Everybody out,” said Danny when they stopped. He was being crushed by two of the mercenaries, who’d crowded next to him.

He went around to the back and got a blanket from the wheel well. He wrapped McGowan’s body in it and set him down in the back.

Tarid, meanwhile, had continued to the northwest. The Voice located him near a village named Saad Reth.

“Nuri, what’s in Saad Reth?” Danny asked.

“Not much. Little village.”

“You think Tarid can find transportation there?”

“Maybe. If he has friends there. Hard to say.”

“Colonel, your lady friend wants to talk to you,” said Hera.

“She’s not my lady friend,” said Danny, annoyed.

“Whatever. She wants to talk to you.”

Hera needed a serious attitude adjustment, but now wasn’t the time. Danny walked over to Tilia, who sat cross-legged on the ground.

“Am I your prisoner now?” she asked.

“You’re not our prisoner. We just rescued you.”

“Who are you?”

“Kirk.”

“They were calling you colonel.”

“I was once. I was a lot of things.”

Tilia stared at him. She wanted desperately to believe in something—she wanted to believe in him. But whatever world he belonged to, it was too far removed from hers. And hers had just imploded.

“We’ll get you back to your village,” said Danny.

“No.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“I can’t just leave you here. Come on. You can come with me.”

Tilia straightened. One of the Sudanese medics had bandaged the bullet wounds in her shoulder. Her pelvis and abdomen were on fire, but the pain did not prevent her from walking.

“I have to pee,” she told him defiantly.

“All right.” Danny put his hand out to help her up.

“I want some privacy,” she said.

“Sure.”

He went back to the truck. Tilia began walking toward one of the mercenaries, who smiled when he saw her coming. Even with her wounds, even in the dark and the rain, she was a beauty.

The look in his eyes revolted her, but she continued toward him. The young man smiled nervously, unsure what she was doing. She put her hand gently on his arm, then leaned up, lips pursed as if to kiss him.

He couldn’t believe his luck—he bent forward to return the kiss.

As he did, Tilia grabbed the rifle from his hand. She spun it around, put her thumb on the trigger, and blew a hole through her head.

North central Iran

B
ANI
A
BERHADJI COULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT HE WAS HEARING
. The president of Iran, Darab Kasra, was traveling to America—
the Satan Incarnate
—in a few days’ time.

Treason.

Blasphemy.

“We can’t allow this,” Aberhadji said. “We cannot.”

General Taher Banhnnjunni stared at him. He, too, had only just heard.

“How could he make such a decision without consulting the Revolutionary Guard?” continued Aberhadji. “Did this come from the ayatollahs?”

“He must have spoken to them,” said Banhnnjunni. He was stunned. The decision to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability, though a terrible one, at least had some logic to it when balanced against the West’s concessions. But this—this could not be explained at all.

“You are the head of the Guard, and the council,” said Aberhadji. “You weren’t consulted?”

“No.”

“That is an insult. An insult to all of us. They feel—they think we are worms to be disregarded.”

Aberhadji’s anger consumed him. He stalked back and forth across the general’s office, as if some of it might dissipate.

But it didn’t.

“We can shoot him this morning, this afternoon. Blow up his house. Blow up his car, his plane,” said Aberhadji.

Banhnnjunni took hold of himself. “You’re raving,” he told Aberhadji. “Calm down.”

“Calm down? Our country is being led by a traitor and blasphemer. We are being led back to the days of the Shah!”

“The black robes are still in charge.”

“Do you think they authorized this?
This
?”

Aberhadji could not fathom that it was possible. Banhnnjunni, on the other hand, was not so sure. He had seen the Guard decline greatly in position over the past year. His own status was also in doubt.

He struggled to think logically.

“The president will have no support when he comes back,” said the general. “This will end him with the people.”

Aberhadji felt as if his brain was unraveling. He had never been guided by emotion—and yet his feelings now were overwhelming. There was no way to be calm before such a gross provocation.

“He’ll remain in office. And he has the army,” said Aberhadji. “Better to strike then, kill him there.”

“Make him a martyr?”

“It would be ironic. His death would surely serve a purpose. We could use it to rally the country. To return to purity, as we have always proposed.”

Banhnnjunni hated the president as much as Aberhadji did. But murdering him was a complicated undertaking.

“The plane would be the best place to strike,” said Aberhadji. “It would be easy, and it would be a symbol. Or we could
arrange it so it appeared that the Americans did it. Perhaps that would be better.”

“What if they retaliate?”

“They wouldn’t dare. How? What would they do? Invade? Then we use the warhead.”

Banhnnjunni felt a second blow, this one even harder.

“You told me the project was several months to completion, if not a year,” said the general.

“It is very close. It can be pushed closer,” said Aberhadji. “And—I will make contingencies.”

Aberhadji had, in fact, already prepared a contingency, and had a full warhead, though as Banhnnjunni said, he had told the small group on the council who knew of the project that they were still a distance away from completing it. This was not technically a lie—they could not yet strike the massive blow they intended. But they could do great damage. And would, if necessary.

“You lied to me?” said Banhnnjunni.

“Of course not. We can strike if necessary. Just not in the exact way, in the best way, we planned. I will rush everything—we will be ready for the Americans, once we kill their bastard.”

“We will not kill our president,” said the general.

“We must.”

“I have to think about this,” said General Banhnnjunni. “I have to talk to others. To the black robes. In the meantime, you will do nothing.”

“We can’t let this sin stain our nation.”

“Take the long view, Bani,” said the general. “Compromise at the moment may be the right way.”

“My long view ends in Paradise,” countered Aberhadji. “Where does yours end?”