Pandora's grave

It took him a moment to place what was wrong, his eyes adjusting to their new surroundings. Then it hit him with the force of a thunderbolt. The lower end of the motor pool. One of the tankers was still intact.

Tex appeared at his shoulder, the detonator still clutched in his big hand. “Wires must’ve got crossed down there, boss,” he stated tersely, thumbing the button once again as if to assure his own mind of the grim truth.

“Who set the charges for that tanker?” Harry asked, turning to look his old teammate in the eyes, assured of the truth of the answer.

“Davood,” the Texan replied, his gaze never wavering.

A flicker of movement entering the circle of light caught Harry’s eye and he turned. Men were crossing the ridge to their south, men with rifles in their hands. IRGC soldiers, flooding back toward their base camp.

The young Iranian-American agent came up to them at that moment, worry lining his face. Tex turned on him.

“What went wrong?” he demanded.

“I don’t know. It was dark-maybe the wires got crossed, I don’t know. The one blew properly,” the Iranian finished defensively.

“One’s not good enough,” Tex exclaimed, the words escaping from clenched teeth. “You were taught to set explosives blindfolded, for heaven’s sake! Now they still have fuel.”

“Leave it!” Harry ordered, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We don’t have time for this.” His index finger stabbed downhill at the soldiers fanning out, moving in on the base camp.

“We need to extract before they realize we’re gone.”

After another sharp glance in Davood’s direction, the big man nodded. Harry turned away, gesturing to Hamid. “You take point. Lead us to LZ OSCAR.”

A grim smile flashed across the Iraqi’s face. “Roger that, boss. Alpha Team, move it out.”

“Tex, you take responsibility for the old man and Eliot,” Harry continued, giving his marching orders. “Keep them at your side. Davood, take Mullins.”

“Wait a minute!” the college student cried out, jerking away as Davood put a hand on his arm. “How do you know our names?”

Harry ignored the question and dropped to the back of the line, his eyes flickering to the rear as he edged up the side of the mountain. It wouldn’t be long. The men below would be coming after them. And now their pursuers had fuel…

4:22 A.M.

The base camp

Major Hossein stood in the ruins of his camp, smiling ruefully. The Americans had been thorough. Or at least they had tried to be. Only one of his fleet of fuel tankers was left, standing all alone, its paint scorched by the heat of the flames that had fanned across it. He knelt down by the back of the truck, noted how the det cord was looped uselessly around the tank. Uselessly, because of one oversight. One of the wires attaching cord and detonator had never been connected…

Oversight? Rather a gift from one of Allah’s faithful. And the major smiled once again, his dark countenance lit by the still-flickering fires. BEHDIN had come through for him…

6:23 P.M. Central Time

Joint Special Operations Command(JSOC)

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

“A call for you, commander. It’s the DCIA over at Langley.”

General Charles Benet turned, his eyebrows going up. “David Lay? What does that old sonuvagun want with me?”

The aide shrugged, handing the mobile phone to the JSOC commander. “Joint Special Operations Command, General Benet speaking.”

“General, this is David Lay.”

“So my aide tells me. Good thing you caught me, director. I was just leaving for the night.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to put that on hold, general. We’ve all got a long night ahead of us.”

“What’s going on?” Benet asked, a distinct note of hostility in his voice. He didn’t like the CIA director, and didn’t pretend to.

“You mean no one’s briefed you?”

“Stop circling the field, director. What’s going on?”

“Operation TALON went down the tubes two and a half hours ago. Our team was ambushed at insertion, the Huey blown out of the sky. We have four survivors on the ground, in need of extraction. You have a Pave Low squadron on temporary deployment at Q-West in northern Iraq.”

“So I take it you want me to send a helo in after your boys?”

“Precisely. Before daybreak, if possible.”

General Benet glanced quickly at his watch, pushing back the sleeve of his uniform utilities. “Can’t be done.”

“General, the SA-15 Gauntlet that destroyed the Huey has been taken off-line by my team. It poses no further risk.”

“Director Lay, I don’t ask you to assure me that my boys will be safe,” Benet replied, heat in his voice. “If I needed that assurance, my crews would be sitting on their thumbs in the barracks all day. However, there is not enough time for the orders to go through. My men would be caught in Iranian airspace in broad daylight. Classic recipe for a war. Perhaps that shouldn’t bother me, though. Sounds like you’ve already started one.”

“Then I’ll have to find another way.”