Pandora's grave

A half-starved, mangy dog scavenged in an overturned basket of rubbish as the team moved down the street, gliding like vengeful ghosts in the twilight. He whimpered at the sight of the strangers and ran off with his tail tucked between his legs.

The stock of the Galil assault rifle fully extended against his shoulder, Harry crept forward, using the growing shadows to his advantage.

Achmed Asefi was at his shoulder, covered from the rear by Tex’s rifle. Their only safety was going to be in a quick, surgical strike. Take out the terrorists, secure the bio-agent, and get out of Dodge.

It was no surprise to Harry that the safehouse had been identified years before by Agency assets on the ground. It stood out. The courtyard was surrounded by a high wall, maybe eleven or twelve feet in height, surmounted by razor wire and security cameras. There went the quick part of their plan.

He motioned to Tex and together the three men dropped to the ground, working their way along behind the parked cars.

From behind the walls of the courtyard they could hear a vehicle engine idling. Maybe more than one. Time was short.

Lying on his belly under a parked truck, Harry rubbed a hand across his eyes, scanning the perimeter for weaknesses-for the proverbial chink in the armor.

At length, he nudged Tex with an elbow. “There’s a gap in the coverage of the security cameras. If we time it right, I can get in close to the gate before the camera turns back this way.”

“You up to a sprint?”

Harry grinned, forcing himself to ignore his tired muscles. “Don’t have that much choice, now do I?”

“You got that right,” the big man replied simply. “Go with God.”

One, two, three-four! Harry was up and moving, his feet pounding across the street, toward the looming shelter of the courtyard wall. Unbidden, his mind flickered back to his childhood Little League, sliding for his first base at the age of seven. The euphoric adrenaline flowing through his body.

Sliding for home plate.

The stakes here defied comparison. The security camera started to swivel back toward him. And with one final desperate burst of energy, he hurled himself toward the wall, sliding across the rough asphalt.

He rolled onto his back in the shadow of the wall, gasping for breath, the assault rifle clutched in his skinned hands.

Now voices added themselves to the cacophony of engine noise, barely intelligible amidst the racket. It sounded like Farsi, he realized after another moment’s reflection. Orders barked back and forth.

Then footsteps, boots thudding against asphalt on the other side of the reinforced metal gate. The rattle of a padlock.

Shifting his rifle to his left hand, Harry drew the suppressed.45 from his jacket, aiming it at the opening.

The gate swung outward as though in slow motion. The man that emerged was dressed in the traditional garb of a Palestinian fellah. An AK-47 was cradled in his arms as he pulled the gate fully open, his back turned toward the CIA men.

Harry didn’t wait for him to turn around. This wasn’t a Western movie. There were no white hats. No honor in this. His arm came up, the big Colt an extension of his hand. A part of him.

Asefi’s breath caught as the fellah’s face turned toward him, and in the gathering twilight he recognized the man. One of the Ayatollah’s young scholars from Qom. They had been lovers once, in a better day. A beautiful boy.

He tried to rise, tried to scream out a warning, but the words turned to dust in his throat. He saw the gun rise in the American’s hand, a terrible certainty.

The sound of the suppressed.45 was more like that of a nail driver than a gun and so it was. A nail in his coffin.

The bullet struck the young man in the back of the head and an anguished scream broke from Asefi’s lips as his lover crumpled to the ground, a shattered wreck.

Dead. He felt as though his heart had been torn out. Time itself seemed to slow down as he rose, evading the big man’s hand by only inches. Tears ran down his face as he ran forward, his vision reduced to nothing but the American in front of him.

Asefi saw him look up, saw the surprise on his face. Surprise quickly melting away to resolution as the gun came up.

He wasn’t going to make it. He knew that when he saw the pistol aimed at his chest. Deep down he had known it before he even started running. Cold as fate.

Two.45-caliber hollowpointed slugs tore into his chest, piercing a lung and mushrooming into his body.

Falling. He threw out a hand to catch himself as the asphalt came rushing up to meet him, but his body was no longer responding to the dictates of his mind.

Darkness…

Hossein heard the muffled shot, recognized it for what it was. He saw the body of the young scholar crumple into the street.

They were here.

“Fall back!” he bellowed, grasping the situation in a trice. There were too many unknowns to risk pitched battle.