Drone Strike: A Dreamland Thriller (Dale Brown's Dreamland) (21 page)

5

Washington, D.C.

O
NCE UPON A T
IME,
M
ARK
S
TONER HAD BEEN A
CIA
paramilitary officer. He had been a good one. Even exceptional. Paras, as they were often called, were
all
highly accomplished, but Stoner stood out as a man of great skill, courage, and flexibility. He had worked with some of the best operators in the Agency’s clandestine service, and in other agencies as well, including the secret Air Force units that operated out of Dreamland.

Stoner had no memory of any of that. He had seen all of the records of his missions, scant as they were; none were familiar. On the bad days he could feel the echo of long-ago wounds he’d suffered. But he could make no link between the aches and pains and whatever had caused them.

His mind was a blank when it came to his past. He had no retained memory of anything beyond the past few months. He couldn’t remember his elementary school days, his high school years, college. He didn’t know the names of his teachers or the faces of his best friends. He could close his eyes and think of his childhood home and it wouldn’t be there. He couldn’t remember the faces of his mother and father—long dead, he was told—not even with the help of photographs.

The doctors who treated him sometimes said it would be better that way.

Stoner had been through an extremely rough time. Captured after a horrendous crash in Eastern Europe, he had become a human experiment. Designer drugs and steroids were pumped into his body to rebuild his muscles and erase his will. He’d been made into an assassin, controlled by a criminal organization in the dark recesses of the old Soviet empire.

Better not to know, said the doctors. Even his friend Zen Stockard agreed.

Stoner didn’t have an opinion, particularly. Opinions belonged to a realm beyond him, housed in a metaphysical building some towns away. The only thing he cared about now were his present surroundings—a gym on a quiet campus of a federal prison. Stoner wasn’t a prisoner, exactly; he just had no other place to go, at least not where the government could keep an eye on him.

For his own protection, the doctors said.

Stoner looked at the boxing gloves on his hands, checking the tape. Then he began hitting the weighted bag. It gave slightly with each punch, though never so much that he felt as if he were a superman.

Jab-jab-punch. He danced left, jabbed some more, then moved right. He wasn’t a boxer. He could box, but he wasn’t a boxer. He just hit the bag for something to do.

“Hey, Mark. How’s it going?”

Stoner stopped in mid-jab and looked behind him. Danny Freah was standing near the door next to two of Stoner’s doctors—Dr. Peralso and Dr. Rosen. Rosen was the case doctor; Peralso was the head of the psychiatric section responsible for him.

Both men were afraid of Stoner. It was obvious from the way their eyes darted when he approached.

Danny wasn’t afraid. He was a friend. But his eyes betrayed a different emotion: pity.

Stoner greatly preferred fear.

“Danny, hi.” He turned back and began pounding the bag again.

As he continued to wail away, he heard the three men walking across the large gymnasium floor toward him. His senses of hearing and sight were greatly improved, thanks to the ordeal he couldn’t remember. Or so the doctors said.

Stoner slammed his fists against the thick canvas. It didn’t really feel good, but it didn’t feel bad. It just was.

Finally, he turned toward Danny.

“Business?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Danny nodded. “A couple of weeks ago you told me you wanted something to do. Well I have something. It’s not easy. Actually, the odds are against success.”

Stoner shrugged. “Sounds good.”

D
ANNY FOLLOWED
S
TONE
R AND THE DOCTORS DOWN
the long hallway. His friend’s reaction was exactly what he had expected. There’d be no joy or disappointment, no excitement, and no fear. He wondered if Stoner really understood.

The doctors, though they didn’t know the actual outlines of the mission, clearly suspected it was suicidal, because they began peppering Stoner with objections from the moment he agreed. They were still at it now, talking about “treatment modalities” and “long-term rest.”

Stoner ignored them, continuing to his room. He pressed his index finger against the reader at the lock, then raised his head so the laser reader embedded above the door could measure his face. The biometric check took only a few seconds. The door snapped open as the security system recognized him.

The room was as spare as a Buddhist monk’s. A bed covered with a single sheet sat in the middle of the room. There were no blankets, no pillows. An orange vinyl chair sat in the corner. Stoner’s clothes, the few he had, were closeted behind a set of folding doors opposite the bed. Having removed his gloves while walking down the hall, he pulled the last bit of tape from them and dropped it in a nearby wastepaper basket. He put the gloves on one of the shelves, then started to change.

“Do you want privacy?” Danny asked.

“Why?”

Danny backed out of the room anyway. The doctors stayed. He guessed they were continuing to argue with Stoner about not going.

Danny didn’t mind. Part of him agreed with them.

Stoner emerged from the room, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt.

“Is that all you’re taking?” Danny asked.

“Do I need anything else?”

“No. I guess not.”

Stoner glanced at the two doctors, who had fallen silent.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he told them.

They walked together to Danny’s car, neither man talking. Danny got in, but hesitated before turning the key to the ignition.

“This may be a suicide mission,” he said, staring straight out the front window. “Assuming it’s authorized, you’ll be dropped into Iran. It’s doubtful they’d keep you alive if you are captured.”

“OK.”

“You have to locate someone,” added Danny. “An American. He may be in custody by the time the mission is approved. If so, the mission will continue.”

“OK.”

“He can’t be allowed to tell the Iranians anything.”

“OK.”

Danny turned to look at Stoner. The former CIA officer was looking straight ahead, as if he were watching a movie. It would have to be a boring movie, as his face was expressionless.

“You’ll have to leave promptly.”

“Sure.”

“Immediately.”

“Yes.”

“You can say no,” Danny told him.

“Understood. Let’s go.”

6

Iran

T
HEY HID THE CAR AB
OUT THREE MILES FROM
THE CAVE
that would be their sanctuary, parking it behind a ramshackle cottage off Highway 81 that the advance team had scouted a few weeks before. Grease arranged some threads on the seat as markers to tell them if it had been disturbed—the last of their surveillance devices had been destroyed with the truck—and then ran to join Turk and Gorud in the pickup. Grease suggested he’d drive, but Gorud insisted on staying at the wheel. He was better with the language.

Turk, exhausted, slumped in the middle, giving way to fatigue. He drifted into a vague sleep. Li was there, walking with him, talking. They were in Sicily, though not anywhere that he could remember being, even though it felt very familiar.

The beach was made of rocks rather than sand. Surf frothed up, running over their shoes and pants—he was in his dress uniform; Li was wearing shorts and a T-shirt that clung between her breasts.

A truck careened down on the beach. It was the military vehicle the team had been driving when they first met.

Dread was at the wheel, eyes fixed on some destination beyond them, in the water. When the truck drew near, Grease leapt from the back. The truck burst into flames as it reached the water’s edge.

It exploded. Li ran. Turk turned and saw Grease coming at him, an AK-47 aimed at his skull—

“Hey, come on. You’re too damn heavy to carry.”

Turk bolted from the dream back into reality. Grease was standing outside the truck, leaning in and shaking him. They were in the cave.

Turk shook his head, as if that might shake off the horrible image that lingered.

“You’re drooling,” said Grease. “I hope she was worth it.”

Turk wiped his mouth as he got out. There was a faint bluish glow to his right. He walked toward it, cautious at first, worried that he was still in the dream.

He found a turn and was nearly blinded by the flood of late afternoon sun. Gorud, an AK-47 cradled in his arms, knelt on one knee behind some rocks ahead. The mouth of the cave was another fifty feet away, up a gentle slope.

“How long did I sleep?” Turk asked the CIA officer.

“A bit.”

“I don’t remember getting here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“This place is bigger than I thought it would be.”

Gorud said nothing. A pair of binoculars sat on the rock right in front of him.

“Mind if I take a look?” asked Turk, reaching for them. Gorud didn’t stop him.

From their vantage point they had a good view of the countryside, speckled with more green than the area they were in the day before. A wide expanse of concrete sat in the distance; he focused the binoculars, moved them around, then finally satisfied himself that he was looking at a runway. He couldn’t see any planes, except for the glowing white carcasses of two old trainers—Texans, he thought, though from this distance it was impossible to tell.

“That’s an airport?” he asked Gorud.

“Was. They only use it to fly equipment and VIPs in and out now,” said the CIA officer.

“We could use it to get out.”

“There are no planes there. The standing orders direct that any air force plane attempting to land there be shot down. If the pilot survives, he’s to be shot summarily. We thought of using it,” added Gorud. “Too risky getting in with anything smaller than two full companies. Didn’t work.”

Turk nodded, though he continued to stare at the runway. It was long, in perfect shape except for a patched wedge at one side.

“How are you feeling?” Gorud asked.

“I’m good.”

“You should get some sleep,” Grease said from the shadows behind them. Even after all this time, the fact that he was hovering nearby surprised Turk.

“I just slept. You go.” He looked at Gorud. “Where are we?”

“Within ten miles of both possible targets,” said Gorud. “Site Two is that way. One is a little farther away, on the left, down.”

Turk looked in the direction of the second site. “There’s a village.”

“It’s about a mile farther on.”

“People.” He couldn’t see past the village. The uneven ground blocked his view. “It’s probably not the right one.”

“They say it’s more likely.”

“What kind of idiots would put a plant so close to people?”

Grease snorted in derision; to him the answer was obvious: that was exactly where they would put it to make the Americans less likely to attack.

Turk put the glasses down and walked back into the cave to the pickup. The space was about three times as wide as the vehicle was long, though it narrowed the deeper he went. The top and the side on his right were jagged, but straight lines ran down the wall on the left. He guessed they were left from drilling and explosives; the cave had clearly been widened before it was abandoned.

If that was so, he soon found a possible reason: he could hear the sound of water dripping in the distance. He walked toward it, gradually losing the light until he had to reach to the wall to make sure of where he was.

“Careful,” said Grease when he stumbled. The Delta sergeant flicked on a small light. “There’s a pool of water ahead.”

The beam caught the edge.

“Salty in here,” said Turk. “Like being at the sea.”

“Must’ve been part of the ocean a couple of million years ago.” Grease shone the light to the right. “There’s a passage up around the water. Come on.”

He led Turk to a narrow, slippery ledge. As they started to walk, Turk slipped. Grease grabbed him and pushed him hard against the rocks to keep him from falling in.

“Easy,” said Turk. “I can swim.”

“We’re not sure how deep it is,” said Grease. “But it’s more than a hundred feet.”

“Really?”

“This was originally cut for a bunker.”

Sobered, Turk clung to the wall but kept going. The path extended another thirty feet or so. After that, the ledge became more of a walkway, wide enough for two people. Twenty feet farther, it widened into a large hall. Grease led Turk to a pile of rocks, playing the light on it. There were packs and boxes just beyond them.

“Backup gear,” he said. “MREs, ammo, more guns. Spare radios.”

“Damn, I forgot to check in,” said Turk.

“I did it.”

“You did it?”

“You were sleeping. I didn’t want them worrying.”

“You should’ve woken me up. Did they say anything?”

Grease shook his head.

“Did you ask about extraction?” asked Turk.

“No.”

“Did they say anything?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“They’re not going to come for us. The reaction team. The SEALs were pulled back.” Grease knew as much. Turk was just telling himself, needed to state reality so it was clear to him. “If something screws up, they’re not going to come for us. We’re on our own.”

“Something did screw up,” said Grease. “The mission changed. Come on with me this way. I’ll show you the back exit. There are some rocks that have to be taken out of the way so it can be used.”

7

Omidiyeh, Iran

T
IRED AFTER HIS LO
NG SORTIE,
V
AHID SKI
PPED DINNER
and headed straight for his quarters, a room on the second floor of the squadron dormitory. He lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling; within moments he was asleep.

The next thing he knew, someone was banging on his door.

“Go away,” he muttered. “Go.”

“Up,” said a stern voice next to him.

Vahid opened his eyes and saw two soldiers. One was pointing a rifle in his face.

“How did you get in?” he demanded.

“Captain, it is not a good idea to make Colonel Khorasani wait,” said a sergeant near the door. “Get dressed and come with us. You should not be sleeping.”

“I was flying. The mission was long and trying.”

“That is immaterial. The three of us have worked around the clock to deal with this situation. No one should rest while the Revolution’s enemies are free.”

T
EN MIN
UTES LATER
V
AHID SAT
IN THE SMALL ROOM
where General Shirazi had found him the day after the attack. He recognized the name of the man he was supposed to see, Colonel Khorasani. It was the investigator who had ordered him to blow up the truck.

While he didn’t like the fact that he had been woken from a sound sleep, he did want to talk to the colonel—he wanted to make sure the men he had killed in the truck were in fact enemy commandos, and not simply Iranian farmers.

But the colonel hadn’t come to talk about the truck. After he strode in alone, he got right to the point: “When you saw the airplane the night of the earthquake, what did you think it was doing?”

“I didn’t see very much at all,” Vahid said, rising. “Is that why you’ve come?”

“Answer the question fully. What was it doing?”

“I don’t know. It was flying south at first, then turned eastward. Maybe it had been off course. I never got very close. I had a brief shadow on radar, then later my IR detected it. I could see there was something there.”

“You radioed him?”

“I attempted contact, but there was no answer. By the time I closed in, I was already under orders.”

Vahid began describing how the radar would have been blocked by the ground clutter, or even the peaks between them. Khorasani held up his hand.

“It was a civilian plane that you shot down? A Cessna?”

“I believe so.”

“The air force has Cessnas?”

“We have a few,” admitted Vahid. “But they would have answered the radio or we would have known about it, the command would have known.”

“If it wasn’t the air force, it must have been flown by a spy. Or it was the air force, and it was a traitor. It may have very well been the air force, since all of the civilian planes in the area have been accounted for.”

Khorasani stepped closer to Vahid. He was not a tall man; in fact, he was several centimeters shorter than Vahid, who himself was not very tall. He wore a brown sport coat and an open white shirt, with gray trousers that strained slightly at the waist. He was in his thirties, with a soft face and large hands, and his fingernails were at least a week from a good clipping. But intensity was the colonel’s defining characteristic: he leaned forward, his body coiled as he fired his questions, his mouth a cannon more potent than the one on Vahid’s MiG. “How would this plane be fitted with a bomb?”

“It wouldn’t,” said Vahid.

“How would it be done, Captain?”

“You can’t put a bomb on a Cessna, or any light plane,” said Vahid. “I mean—you couldn’t put much of a bomb on it.”

“Why not?”

“It can’t carry much. A five hundred pound bomb—that would be as much weight as the plane could carry, depending on the weight of the passengers and fuel it needed. And a five hundred pound bomb would do
nothing
to Natanz.”

“How do you know how much damage would be done?”

“You’re trying to trick me,” snapped Vahid.

“How do you know the target was Natanz?”

“I don’t know anything. There was an earthquake near Natanz. Or an accident. That’s what I know. Why is the Pasdaran interested?”

That was a foolish question; nuclear program aside, the Guard felt entitled to know about everything that affected Iran in the slightest way.

“How about your plane, Captain?” asked Khorasani. “Could you attack the laboratories near Natanz?”

“How? By bombing them?”

“You tell me.”

“They’re impervious to attack. And—who would bomb their own country? It was an accident, and you don’t want to admit it. You don’t want to admit failure.”

The colonel said nothing. Vahid stared into his face; Khorasani stared back. Only when Vahid looked down toward the floor did Khorasani turn and leave the room.

T
HE THEORY HAD NOT
FORMED ITSELF UNTIL HE WAS
speaking with the pilot, but now Khorasani wondered if that was what really happened: had the air force sabotaged the program themselves?

They were extremely clever. Rather than setting things up to point the finger at the Israelis or the Americans, they had gone about things subtly—a private plane in the vicinity, stolen vehicles. They made it seem as if there were saboteurs on the loose. The clues were a false trail, something for himself and the other investigators to chase. In the meantime the air force said nothing.

And the decoy truck: what a lucky break to be ordered to destroy it. They had provided the perfect villains, unable to defend themselves from any accusation. The destruction had been complete, with no clues to their identities.

Captain Vahid had been the
same pilot
involved in both incidents. That was too much luck for one man.

Or proof that it wasn’t a plot. Because no one would have been so obvious.

Khorasani worked the problem over in his head as he walked down the corridor. If the air force was involved—he reminded himself he must keep it theoretical, it was just a wild theory—then General Ari Shirazi, the air force chief, would surely be behind it.

The motives were simple: the air force was jealous of the Pasdaran, and had been from the very beginning of the Revolution.

Would they go so far as to destroy the bomb? That seemed unlikely.

Sergeant Karim met him in the hall.

“Colonel, I have compiled the data we have gathered, including the interviews with the people in Jandagh and at the junkyard. I believe there was a car involved that may have gotten away. I have a description. I’ve issued an alert to all police departments.”

“Good.”

“An air search might be useful as well. Even if it were abandoned, the vehicle might have evidence.”

“True.”

“The squadron commander volunteered earlier that he would help you.”

“No. I don’t want their help. No one from the air force. The spotter planes that we used yesterday. Are those still available?”

The planes belonged to the Basiij Resistance Force—the Guard-sponsored militia. They were ancient, but the men could be relied on.

“I believe I can arrange it.”

“Do so.”

“Jets—”

“Move quickly.”

Sergeant Karim knew better than to question his commander further. Still, his raised eyebrow betrayed him.

“It is nothing more than routine security,” said Khorasani. “Just routine.”

“I’ll send the order immediately.”