The Enemy Within

Now the port’s main business came from the Iranian Navy. During the war, Pasdaran Boghammer speedboats had used Bushehr as a base for raids on Iraqi and Kuwaiti shipping with some success. Since then, the Regular Navy had begun moving some of its activities northward from its crowded main base at Bandar-e Abbas.

Kazemi felt himself start to relax only when their wellarmed convoy of staff cars and troop carriers passed through the military checkpoint marking the logistics base perimeter. This was now friendly ground.

One week before, contingents of Iranian Army troops had occupied the old warehouse district adjoining the Bushehr naval base. They’d repaired and erected fences and barbedwire entanglements around the area, boarded up warehouse windows, and set up a ring of bristling sentry posts to keep the curious out and some of Taleh’s secrets in.

Military equipment and supplies of all kinds were pouring into Bushehr. Convoys of trucks piled high with tank, artillery, and small-arms ammunition had begun arriving from the north mostly at night and always under heavy guard. Other materiel arrived at the airfield, flown directly from overseas arms dealers.

Taleh had handpicked a trusted officer, one renowned as a master logistician, to manage the all-important buildup here. Now it was time to see if he was doing his job properly.

Surrounded by a small cluster of his own aides, General Shahrough Akhavi was waiting for Taleh in front of the headquarters building, an old commercial shipping office taken over by the Army. He was a short, solidly built man, but his wire-rimmed glasses and full beard gave him a bookish air, like a university professor or a bookstore proprietor. He wasn’t one of Taleh’s inner circle, but the general had marked him as a fine officer, another man with Western training who had suffered at the hands of the Revolutionary Guards.

Taleh emerged from the car, and the two generals greeted each other warmly. Kazemi ignored them and concentrated instead on rechecking his security arrangements. What he saw pleased him. The Special Forces detachments were in place, ubiquitous but unobtrusive. There were no signs of trouble in any of the surrounding buildings. Good.

The captain turned back to his superiors.

Akhavi was introducing his staff to Taleh. As each man stepped up and saluted, Kazemi studied them closely. He always found it interesting to watch the faces of junior officers when they first met the Chief of Staff of their nation’s armed forces. Fear was common, as was awe, and sometimes open admiration. He was possessive enough about his commander to take something of a proprietary interest in their reactions.

One man, a tall, scarred major, seemed to keep his emotions very carefully under control when he met Taleh. But as he turned away, a flash of some strong emotion rippled across his features. He looked as though he’d smelled something bad or seen something disgusting. The expression was gone as quickly as it had come, but seeing it raised the hairs on the back of Kazemi’s neck.

A bad attitude like that was not conducive to a smoothly running operation, and this was too important a post to let the matter pass. The captain resolved to discuss Akhavi’s staff with Taleh at the next available opportunity.

The group, led by the two generals, started up the steps into the headquarters building. Kazemi hung back as was his habit, to make sure the security people were keeping up.

There was the tall major again, he noticed, moving quickly, maneuvering through the crowd of officers to approach Taleh from behind. The man’s right hand was held tight and flat over his pistol holster, slowly lifting the flap.

For an instant, Kazemi froze. The major was not simply a disgruntled staff officer. He was an assassin.

The captain started moving, racing up the steps without calling out. The security detail was too far away and the would-be assassin too close for an outcry to do Taleh any good. He could see the man’s pistol slowly coming clear of the holster. No!

Desperate now, Kazemi shoved a fat colonel out of his way and lunged up the last few steps. Still moving full tilt, he crashed into the assassin from behind, knocking him to the ground in a tangle of flailing arms and kicking legs. The pistol skittered away, unfired.

Shouts of surprise echoed above him, and Kazemi caught fleeting glimpses of men running, some away from the struggle, others toward it. He felt the other man attempting to rise and slammed an elbow into the back of his neck hard enough to stun him. In seconds it was over.

A pair of hard-faced Special Forces troops arrived at a run and yanked the would-be murderer to his feet, pinioning him between them. Another retrieved the cocked automatic and held it out for all to see. That was all the indictment required. At Taleh’s curt nod, the guards hustled the dazed assassin away for interrogation.