‘How bad?’
‘Bad-bad. Bashir’s taking full advantage of the chaos caused by the quake to consolidate his position. Parts of the south and east have been declared PLR territory. And in Tehran, no one’s in charge.’
‘You’re kidding.’
He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘No definitive confirmation yet, but there’s shit flying around that Al Bashir has a nuclear capability. If it’s true, we’re in a whole ’nother game now.’
Cole fixed Blackburn with another glare. Blackburn had been there before. He respected his commanding officer. Beyond that, he wasn’t sure. There was a coldness in him that meant he was either just that — cold — or he kept his inner self well-defended.
Cole nodded. ‘You did good yesterday, neutralising that IED. We got the casualties from Carter’s unit out and had your guys cleared. That wouldn’t have happened if it had blown.’
‘Just doing my job, Sir.’
‘Yeah, well, doing it that well means it doesn’t let up for you. It’s business as usual.’
‘I wasn’t expecting it to, Sir.’
Black felt stung. The last thing on his mind was some kind of reward. That was Cole all over. Pat on the back with one hand, slap on the face with the other. Cole stood up and grabbed the laptop.
‘Stick around. Briefing at 1300.’
They sat in two rows of folding chairs. The makeshift briefing room, fashioned out of a pair of refrigerated containers and inevitably nicknamed ‘the cooler’, was very far from cool. Cole stood, legs apart, beside a wall map of Tehran, tapping it with a pointer.
‘We got intel that Al Bashir is in the north sector of the city. His people have seized the Interior Ministry; that’s now effectively their HQ in the capital. Gentlemen, this one is ours. Our information is that the quake has downed their radar and entire sections of the country are without power. We are going in and we’re going to cut this thing off at the head and finish it before he gets dug in. But Al Bashir must, repeat must, be taken alive. The mission will go down as follows. .’
Cole tapped the map emphatically with his stick. The tension rose in the room.
‘PLR forces concentrated in the north will be kept occupied by ongoing air strikes. Assault element, call sign Misfit 2–1, will be flown in by Osprey to this location. They will have a sniper element consisting of Blackburn and Campo, call sign Misfit 3–1 as overwatch security. Designated LZ is a quarter mile from the Ministry. Once on the ground the assault team will proceed to the target building.’
Cole turned to another more detailed map of the area surrounding the bank. ‘Along the way, Black’s team will provide overwatch from these positions. Extraction will be by Osprey. Roger?’
The audience responded. ‘Roger.’
Campo grinned at Black. ‘This is cool shit, man. Like we Navy Seals all of a sudden.’
Cole slapped the map where the Ministry was. ‘I consider it our privilege to be handed this mission. So let’s make it good.’
16
Bazargan, Northern Iran
They all stared at the carnage. Vladimir spoke first, to Gregorin.
‘Well at least you downed the hangmen.’
‘And it didn’t rain.’
No situation had ever been too bad for Vladimir to extract some sliver of humour from, however grim. But it failed to raise so much as a smile. Eventually all eyes settled on Dima. He was rigid with silent rage.
‘Do what you can. Let’s get down there. I’m going after Shenk’s scanner.’
The smoke swirled around them, an acrid mixture of burnt fuel, rubber and flesh. The high walls had trapped the inferno, containing and concentrating the heat like a coffee pot. For several seconds, as the flames found the ammunition that hadn’t erupted, there were smaller explosions and blasts of flame.
Dima’s first thought, one that came to him all too often, was: How can it ever be claimed that these men did not die in vain? Those who died defending Moscow from Hitler, they did not die in vain, nor did those who fell in the battle for Berlin. The Soviet troops in Afghanistan? When he was too old to do this any more, he promised himself he would write a book analysing Russian military disasters great and small. Better get on with it, Kroll had said. It could take you some time to get through them all.
What had gone wrong here? Everything: starting with Dima having allowed himself to be blackmailed into taking it on and letting Paliov interfere with the design and the execution. Paliov, terrified of failure, had brought about exactly that, by failing to give Dima control of the whole operation. Dima wouldn’t have had Shenk anywhere near the site, a man no doubt competent at dealing with nuclear devices of all kinds in all places — except in the heat of battle. And because time was not on their side, they had only minimum surveillance. It contained a lot of data which appeared to tell them everything but told them almost nothing, especially not the key fact, which was that the compound, far from being a barely populated hideout, was in fact a major PLR base.
He glanced at Gregorin and Zirak, both ashen as they went from corpse to corpse, looking in vain for survivors. They knew most of these men, had taught them all they had learned. They would have good reason to be furious with him for letting this happen.
The carcass of Shenk’s Mil was surrounded by flames, its tail pointing straight in the air. Through the open door he could see Shenk in his seat, hanging from the straps, head on his chest, as if he’d nodded off in the midst of it all. Just the impact would have been enough to end his life. He could see the scanner in its housing on the bulkhead in front of him. A sheet of fresh flames erupted between them. Dima lunged forward through the flames, clambered into the fuselage and grabbed the scanner. It was jammed. He got closer, got both hands round it.
‘Dima, for fuck sake!’ Kroll’s shrill yell was just audible over the roar of the blaze. He gave it one last yank and it was out, sending him spilling out into the flames. He rolled through them and got clear just as the whole machine erupted, cremating Shenk and what was left of his crew.
Dima heard himself addressing his team. ‘Find the guy they were hanging — we need confirmation if he’s Kaffarov. If not, I want it confirmed he was being held against his will. I want it confirmed there are — or were — nuclear devices here. We need this information fast: I don’t care how you get it. Go.’ He passed the scanner to Kroll. ‘Get it working.’
Gregorin and Vladimir had isolated a wounded man. He had rolled off into a space between the structure and the wall, where he had been shielded from both the shooting and the inferno. Lying there bleeding, with three armed Russians standing over him, he had every incentive to talk, but a volley of Farsi invective indicated that his pride was going to be an obstacle.
‘Colourful.’
‘Did your whore of a mother teach you those words?’
Zirak raised a hand, stepped forward and produced a knife. He sliced through the man’s coat and trousers and then his underwear. There was no indication that he was going to stop. The man began to writhe, just like the prisoner he had been dragging to the noose only minutes ago. Zirak took the man’s testicles in his hands and pressed the blade against them.
‘Hungry?’
The man wet himself, pissing all over Zirak’s hands. Zirak squeezed his balls, not quite hard enough to make him pass out. ‘Okay so you can have them with gravy.’
The rage and indignation melted from the man’s face. It was still contorted but he was whimpering now, whispering something to Zirak.
Dima, moving towards them, felt something against his boot. A hand reaching out. He looked down. Whoever he was, he was unrecognisable, his features melted. With his other hand the wounded man found the barrel of Dima’s AK. Wrapping a single remaining finger round the tip, he pulled it towards his head. Dima obliged. One bullet and the man’s agony was over.
Zirak wiped his knife on the man’s sleeve and sheathed it. He turned to Dima. ‘Okay, it’s his version so take it with a pinch of salt, but he says that as of tomorrow this was supposed to be the PLR regional base for the northeast. He reckons the PLR is now in control of the whole country and Al Bashir has been sworn in as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The man they were about to hang was the district commander, who had been mobilising a resistance, and the guys on the trucks were his supporters.’
‘What about Kaffarov?’
‘Didn’t mean anything to him.’
This couldn’t be right.
‘Ask if he saw the Mercedes SUV.’
Dima caught a glint of recognition on the man’s face. He took out his knife, leaned down, placed the tip of the blade just under the man’s left eye. He responded in anxious broken Russian. ‘I no know the name, I never heard, please on the head of my daughter.’ He started nodding frantically. ‘I seen Merc Jeep.’
‘You should be worrying about more than your daughter’s head. Get up.’
Vladimir lifted him.