Pandora's grave

“You were sent to rescue us, colonel?” she asked, her voice trembling, surprise not unmixed with relief.

He turned, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. “My friends call me Josh. I would count it an honor if you’d do the same. And, yes,” he continued in the same soothing voice, “I was sent to rescue you.”

“Then who were the others?” she asked, her tone still uncertain.

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know. What did their uniforms look like?”

“I couldn’t see much. They looked the same as your Rangers. And they took Dr. Tal,” she concluded, obviously bewildered. Harry could hardly count that against her. He was hard-pressed to figure it out himself.

“So I was told.” He turned back away from her and picked up the binoculars again. “Another day dawns,” he observed reflectively. “Miss Eliot, I will need you to do everything I tell you for the next twenty-four hours. Follow my orders to the letter.”

“Why?” she asked, the obvious question. “Why should I trust you?”

He looked back at her, only a foot or so separating them in the narrow hide, his eyes locking with hers. “You shouldn’t. But without me, there’s no way you’ll leave these mountains alive. So do as you’re told…”

7:13 A.M. Tehran Time

A mountain overlooking the base camp

Devastation. Sheer, unadulterated destruction. On his approach, Thomas had seen the sun rising in the east, but he couldn’t have told the difference now, clouds of oily black smoke rising from the still-burning tankers below him. The stench of diesel fuel set aflame filling his nostrils.

He hunkered against the side of the slope, watching the smoke ascend, completely blocking out the light of the sun. He still had one of AKs he had stolen from the Iranian soldiers. The other one had been emptied and discarded in the running gun battle of the other night. Yet he had accomplished his purpose.

As his team had theirs.

It was only a supposition, yet the burning tankers below him were stark evidence of one thing, as clear as a neon sign across the mountainside. Nichols amp; Co. had been there.

And if they had been there, they hadn’t left without accomplishing their objective.

Thomas adjusted the binoculars as a team of men emerged from the smoke, laboring at ropes to pull an undamaged tanker farther from the blaze. His eyes narrowed at the sight. One had escaped.

Why?

He shook his head. No sense worrying about it. He was in no position to effect a change in the situation. One had survived, and that was all there was to it. It was time to rejoin the team, back at the primary extraction zone.

Rising to his feet, Thomas grabbed up the AK-47 and began the long climb back up the ridgeline. Toward safety. Homeward bound…

The whirr of rotors warned him of danger and he threw himself to the ground, flattening himself between the boulders as a Mi-8 “Hip” transport helo flew directly overhead, rotor wash blasting pebbles against his exposed face.

Russian-made, the helicopter was weathered and beaten by long years of service in the Iranian military. It looked scarcely serviceable. Thomas kept his head down, peering through the rocks as it circled the base camp once, then twice, finally settling down on the edge of camp. A man in the full uniform of an Iranian army colonel exited, accompanied by two other soldiers. Thomas focused his binoculars in on the tight group, studying each face in turn and wishing desperately for his SV-98…

“Major Hossein! Sir!” Hossein turned, wiping a soot-covered mouth against the torn sleeve of his uniform. He had been battling for hours against the blaze that threatened to engulf his camp, his final fuel tanker, his remaining soldiers. The explosives used to wreck his diesel supply had fed an inferno that had spread onto two of the laboratory trailers, which had gone up in their turn, Dr. Ansari’s stockpile of chemicals only adding to the misery. One of his men had died, screaming, in the flames.

“What is it?” he demanded angrily, handing his end of the tow rope off to a young soldier.

The corporal slid up to him, never saluting. It went unnoticed in the chaos. “Sir, we’ve got company.”

Hossein’s hand went instinctively to the Makarov on his hip. The corporal shook his head, still too breathless to speak. “A helicopter-from Tehran. A colonel to see you, sir.”

“This chaos?” Hossein asked rhetorically, waving a hand at the towering pyre. “This chaos, and they send someone to take over. What in Allah’s name can they be thinking?”

“He wants to see you, sir,” the young man repeated, anxious. Hossein shot him a baleful glance and shook his head. “If we don’t get this tanker moved away from the flames, we’ll all see the devil first. Lend a hand…”

Thomas watched until the colonel and his escort disappeared into the interfering haze of oily smoke. Then he tucked the binoculars back down the front of his shirt and began the trek upward. Toward LZ RUMRUNNER. Day had come. Time was running out. He could only hope to get there before the team was extracted…