The Enemy Within

“Yes, sir.” Thorn hurriedly collected his wandering thoughts and followed his commander into the elevator. Without talking they rode down to the car waiting to take them back to Andrews Air Force Base. He and Sam Farrell had been friends for more than ten years and the older man knew when to let him simmer.

But as soon as the staff car pulled out of the curving State Department drive and turned onto a busy, traffic-choked street, Farrell broke the silence. “Everything set for your change-of-command ceremony next month, Pete?”

“Yes, sir. And Bill Henderson’s ready and raring to take charge.” Thorn could hear the reluctance and regret in his own voice. He had commanded Delta’s A Squadron for two years now two of the happiest, most fulfilling years of his life. He’d relished every minute spent leading the officers and men widely regarded as the finest troops in the U.S. Army.

Nothing lasted forever, though especially not in the Army. His command tour was up and it was time to hand the outfit over to his deputy. Time to take on a new assignment. Although that was long-hallowed Army routine, he knew that not even the colonel’s silver eagles he’d be pinning on at his new post would ease his sense of loss.

Giving up command of the squadron was bad. Giving it up for a staff job was worse. And giving it up for a staff job at the Pentagon was awful beyond all measure.

On the strength of his successful covert mission to Iran, Farrell had wangled him a new post as the head of a special intelligence liaison unit, an outfit charged with tracking and evaluating terrorist groups that might become JSOC targets. It was just the kind of ticket he needed to punch to climb higher in the military hierarchy. Somehow that wasn’t much comfort. Like many officers who saw themselves as “warriors” first and career professionals second, Thorn regarded an assignment to the Pentagon with sheer, unadulterated loathing. The massive building was a maze of interservice politics, petty backbiting, paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork.

He frowned, aware that Farrell was watching him with just the faintest hint of mingled sympathy and amusement. Oh, he’d ride the desk he’d been assigned and he’d do his best, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Thorn shook his head in frustration. Cut loose by Iran, the HizbAllah and the other radical Islamic factions were on the run. They were vulnerable. And now, no matter how he looked at it, he was left with the disquieting feeling that he had been shunted off to the sidelines right when all hell was breaking loose for the terrorist bastards he’d been preparing to fight all his life.

CHAPTER 3 SHARPENING THE STEEL

MAY 22

In Iran, west of Shiraz.

(D-DAY MINUS 207)

The camouflaged UH-1H-Huey helicopter clattered west, following the trace of a winding valley deeper into Iran’s Zagros Mountains.

Seated right behind the pilot and copilot, General Amir Taleh found the view beautiful but daunting. Razor-edged mountains soared high above the helicopter, some three or four thousand meters high. The peaks were brown, tan, dun every earth-colored shade imaginable. Naked to the harsh sun beating down out of a cloudless sky, every sheer rock wall and jumbled boulder field radiated heat.

He glanced down. The narrow valley they were flying over was also a stark unrelieved grey and brown, the color of rock and bare earth. Nothing green seemed to grow along the banks of a bone-dry stream bed that filled only during the region’s short winter.

The Huey bucked up and down suddenly, rocked by strong gusts that clawed at the fragile craft. The deeper into the mountains they flew, the more turbulent the air became.

“Masegarh Base, this is Tango One-Four. Request permission to land. Over.”

Taleh could hear the strain in his pilot’s voice. Safe flying this far up in the Zagros required total concentration and pinpoint precision. Only the most skilled professionals in the Iranian Air Force were allowed to fly this mountainous route. Mistakes were too costly in lives and, more important, in valuable machines.

He leaned forward slightly, craning his neck to see through the cockpit canopy. Several kilometers ahead, the valley widened, opening onto a broad natural amphitheater surrounded on all sides by jagged mountains. A dirt road snaked out of the valley and across the plain, visible from the air only where it cut through isolated clumps of weathered rock and withered brush. The road ended at a cluster of low buildings shimmering in the heat.

“Tango One-Four, this is Masegarh. You are cleared to land through Air Defense Corridor One. Winds are from the east at twenty-five kilometers an hour, with occasional gusts up to sixty kilometers.”

“Roger.”