The Enemy Within

“Got one point, One Alpha,” Finney said calmly. “My birds don’t have the gas to loiter over the city. We’re gonna have to turn back and refuel. That will put us at least another ninety minutes out. Think you and your boys can hang on that long?”

“Affirmative, Five Echo,” Thorn said, praying that he was right. “We’ll be there waiting for you.”

Auxiliary Command Post Three, inside the old U.S. Embassy, Tehran General Amir Taleh sat up on his cot when Kazemi came through the door to his quarters. The young captain looked distinctly worried. “What is it, Farhad?”

“We’ve lost contact with the main headquarters and with all elements of the SCIMITAR assault force, sir.”

What? Frowning, Taleh swung himself around, stamped his feet into his combat boots, and began lacing them up. Except for his boots, he was already fully dressed. “Are there any power outages in the city? Any other unexplained communications failures?”

Kazemi shook his head. “NO, sir. Everything else seems normal. There have been no reports of disturbances. But all our secure phone and telex links routed through the main building are down.”

Taleh reached for the sidearm on a footlocker beside his cot and buckled it on. He looked up at his aide. “Order the Komite to send a patrol to Khorasan Square. I want a full report. Prepare a repair detail at the same time. If our communications have been knocked out somehow, I want them back up in short order!”

“Yes, sir.”

“In the meantime, place the headquarters force on full alert. Post the troops yourself, Farhad. I want nothing left to chance, is that understood?”

The captain nodded again. “Yes, sir.” He hesitated. “Should we break radio silence to contact the assault division HQs directly?”

Taleh pondered that briefly. The final preparations for SCIMITAR were entering a critical stage. Without secure links to his far-flung units, the odds of catastrophic confusion or delay multiplied greatly. On the other hand, a sudden surge in military radio traffic now was bound to draw unwelcome attention from the American and Saudi intelligence services.

NO, he decided, he would not act prematurely. He would not be goaded into a mistake by ignorance. He shook his head. “Not yet, Farhad. I need more information first. Send out those patrols!”

NEMESIS force, near central Tehran Thorn hung on tight as Pahesh threw the big truck around another corner at high speed, narrowly missing a black 4x4 tearing past in the opposite direction. He caught a momentary glimpse of bearded men wearing green fatigues when their headlights swept across the other vehicle. “Who were those guys?”

“Komite,” the Afghan answered grimly.

Thorn nodded. The Iranian authorities were starting to wake up. He checked his watch. “How much further?” he asked.

“Not far. Perhaps two kilometers.”

An enormous flash lit the night sky ahead of them to the west, out near the Mehrabad International Airport. “What…” Pahesh started to ask. A rolling thunderclap silenced him.

“Our missiles,” Thorn shouted into his ear. The leading edge of the Navy’s Tomahawk strike had arrived.

There were more flashes now, spreading across the horizon and marching closer and closer to the center of the city. Tehran’s antiaircraft batteries suddenly cut loose, spewing shimmering curtains of fire into the air. Pieces of steel shrapnel from the shells they were firing began clattering down across roofs and streets. Amid the din, Thorn could barely make out a high-pitched rising and falling wail. The city’s air-raid sirens were going off.

Followed closely by the other four trucks, Pahesh turned left onto a wider street. Five hundred meters ahead, the road opened up into a large public square. On the south edge of the square, the satellite towers soaring above a building surrounded by barbed wire identified the main Tehran telegraph Office.

Oh, shit, Thorn thought, that’s on the target list. He leaned toward the Afghan…

Hit squarely by a Tomahawk carrying a thousand-pound warhead, the telegraph office vanished in a searing white flash. Shattered chunks of concrete and mangled pieces of metal flew outward from the center of the blast, crashing down across the square and smashing into the other buildings nearby. The ground rocked wildly under the impact.

Pahesh slammed on the brakes.

Mounds of rubble from damaged apartment houses and hotels blocked most of the street. Many of the buildings around the square were already ablaze and the fires were growing fed by ruptured natural gas lines.

The Afghan leaned out through his open window, already reversing as he waved the other trucks back toward a narrow side street leading north.