Women.
‘Right. Just repeat the address for me, please. Good, OK. Now, are you definitely alone?’
‘Yes, even my maid has gone.’
‘And where’s Gazul?’
‘I told you, I don’t know! He never tells me anything.’
As the jets flew overhead, Dima struggled to listen.
‘Okay, Amara, thank you. We’ll be there in forty minutes.’
He chucked the phone on to the car seat.
‘She’s either genuinely in fear of her life or there’s something she’s not telling us.’
24
Camp Firefly, Outskirts of Tehran
From a distance the hill rising on Tehran’s southwest flank would have looked just as it should, nothing out of the ordinary, which was how it needed to look right now. Hidden under camouflage netting was Black’s platoon, trying to take five after the long charge east, deep into quake-blasted Iran.
A rest? Fat chance: over the city, gunships were doing battle with the AA guns on the ground, filling the air with crashes, thumps and the shrieks of rockets. The air was still so thick with dust from the quake they could constantly taste it.
Campo stuffed what was left of an energy bar into his mouth.
‘The fly boys putting on a nice firework display there. Just like Independence Day.’
Matkovic lay on his back, gloved hands cradling his head.
‘Whadya Mom tell ya? Don’t talk with your mouth full, dude.’
Montes was fiddling with his night-vision goggles, which were malfunctioning. ‘Don’t think anyone in Tehran’s feeling too independent right now.’
‘Button it, Montes. Just try and do the job, all right?’
All the way along the main drag westwards from the border they had seen giant posters of Al Bashir pasted on to billboards.
‘Should be keeping them off the streets and in their bunkers.’
‘Trouble with quakes, brings everybody out the buildings.’
‘Cole says the satellite images are showing a big exodus north. Should just be us chickens.’
‘Yeah, real cosy: just us and the PLR high command.’
Closer to their position, on the edge of town, PLR loudspeakers were pumping out the voice of Al Bashir, intermittent bursts of Farsi penetrating the barrage over the city.
‘. . we will claim back. . with swords we will strike down the invader. .’
Black nudged Matkovic, who also knew a bit of Farsi.
‘He’s gonna need a lot more than swords when we ride into town.’
Matkovic twitched.
‘He don’t shut the fuck up I’m gonna stick it right up his loudspeaker, man.’
In front of them at the bottom of the hill, on the other side of an overpass, was an apartment building. On the upper floors, the PLR were setting up a machine-gun nest.
Black stiffened, pointing into the darkness down the hill.
‘You see that?’
‘Fuck these NVGs.’ Montes threw his goggles on the ground. ‘Preparing to strike Tehran and we’re fresh out of batteries.’
‘Gun trucks coming in.’
Matkovic stood up and peered at where Blackburn was pointing. ‘The fuck did they come from? We’re not even in overwatch position.’
A convoy of five Humvees were headed on the western approach into the city. Cole slid under the camo and snatched up the radio. ‘Haymaker actual, this is Misfit actual, we do not have target secured. Say again, target not secured. Hold your position, over.’
Silence from the radio. Cole’s temperature was rising.
‘Come the fuck on, Brady.’
Hearing the name, Blackburn and Montes exchanged looks.
‘The Brady Bunch are rolling into town! We’re saved.’
Loved and loathed by equal numbers, Lieutenant Brady had a reputation for pushing his men hard, a habit of putting his own interpretation on orders — and if there was any glory going, grabbing it for himself. A tank-shaped thirty-two-year-old who seemed to have been in the army since he could walk, Brady was the opposite in every way of the wiry, cerebral Cole.
When the answer finally came, Brady’s voice was distorted with interference and full of impatience. ‘Misfit 2, we are not stopping. So you better get your ass in position and cover our advance, out.’
‘This is so fucked up.’ Cole shook his head and got back on the radio. ‘All call signs Misfit, we are mission launch, repeat we are mission launch. Hold your position, out.’
The hill came alive as forty plus marines erupted from under the camo net and moved downhill towards the overpass. In Black’s group, Montes and Matkovic led the way, Campo coming up behind with the mortar. As soon as the squad reached the cover of the overpass, Cole was on the radio.
‘We need illumination rounds in the air like now, needed down range now.’
Before he had finished speaking the first enemy round came in. Blackburn jumped forward into the scrum of men erecting the mortar, grabbing the tube and angling it.
Campo had the carry case. He slid out the white round with black markings. ‘Direct lay. One round illumination. Half load. Elevation one zero niner.’
‘Round up!’