Pandora's Grave (16 page)

The archaeologist looked away. Gideon waited a moment, then repeated the question.

“I will tell you nothing.”

“Okay, I’ll call the general,” Gideon said finally, rising.

“It will do you no good,” Tal said, his words arresting the lieutenant. “I will tell him nothing either.”

Worry flickered through Gideon’s eyes. This man was a trained operative of the Mossad. He had only been in captivity a few days. Stockholm syndrome couldn’t have set in yet—could it have? He sat back down, determined to handle the situation as delicately as possible. “Why, Dr. Tal?”

Moshe lifted his head slowly, looking the young lieutenant in the eye for the first time. “You abandoned my team…”

5:56 A.M. Tehran Time

LZ OSCAR

It took the team just under an hour and a half to reach the secondary extraction zone, their progress slowed by the archaeologists. Harry had provided rear security for the entire trip, his AK trained on their backtrail. There was no one there, not yet. There would be. Soon enough.

He knew the moment they reached OSCAR that something had gone wrong. They were behind schedule. The pick-up helo should have already arrived. It should have been waiting for them.

Daylight was coming on fast, the faint glow of an unwelcome sun already appearing far to the east.
For they have loved darkness, rather than light
. It was a sentiment he concurred with.

“Spread out, establish a security perimeter,” he ordered crisply. “Hamid, you guard the hostages. Tex and Davood, establish defensive positions. I’m contacting Langley.”

He pulled the TACSAT from its holster, kneeling there against the mountain earth as he hit speed-dial. Harry’s eyes flickered north to the mountains overshadowing them. He didn’t like it. They weren’t in possession of the high ground. But that wouldn’t matter if they could extract before daylight.

9:01 P.M. Eastern Time

CIA Headquarters

Langley, Virginia

Kranemeyer glanced at the brightly lit screen of the phone he held in his hand. It was Nichols. It had been two hours since last contact. The call he had been secretly dreading.

“Kranemeyer here.”

“Director, this is Nichols. We’ve arrived at the alternate extraction zone with the rescued archaeologists. Where’s the Pave Low?” The voice on the other end was clipped, abrupt. As though the instincts that had kept the officer alive through fifteen years of field operations were now warning him of impending trouble.

The DCS took a deep breath, looking at the last sat coverage of the field team’s position. They were vulnerable. And he could do nothing about it.

“I’m sorry, Nichols. JSOC can’t get a helo in and out before daylight. You’ll have to take up defensive positions, hold out until nightfall.”

Dead silence filled the line for the space of forty seconds. “We’re sitting ducks here, boss. LZ OSCAR is
not
the high ground.”

“I know it. The general refuses to move his assets into place. Sit tight until nightfall and we’ll get you out.”

“Roger,” came the grudging reply. “Any contact with Parker?”

“No, we’ve not heard a thing. You?”

“Negative, sir.” Harry paused, then added, “Have the Pave Low bring out some body bags. We’ll need them by nightfall. Nichols out.”

Kranemeyer started to respond, but the phone was dead in his hand. He shook his head wearily, leaning back in his chair. He had been there once himself, back in his Delta Force days, a small team running cross-border interdiction in the Hindu Kush. The chopper that had never come.

He swore bitterly and stood, wincing as he did so. Pain was flickering through his right leg, phantom pain from a leg that was no longer there. Placing a hand on the desk for support, he reached down to rub his knee, biting his tongue as fingers slid over the flesh of the knee to the prosthesis below it. An IED had put a permanent end to his spec-ops career. Oh, yes, he’d been there. Done that…

Harry replaced the phone in its holster and strode back to the small group, his Kalishnikov held loosely in one hand. Hamid was keeping an eye on the rescued hostages and looked up at his approach.

“Let’s pack it up and move it out,” Harry ordered, his tones clipped, his face a mask. The Iraqi looked at him, his eyes shadowed by worry.

“What’s the matter, boss?”

“We’re too exposed here,” Harry stated flatly, feeling everyone’s eyes on him. “We need to get atop that ridge,” he continued, his index finger indicating an elevation perhaps another ninety feet higher than where they were standing and a quarter-mile off. “It’s better for defense. Tex, how’s your shoulder?”

“It went back in place,” the big man replied, massaging the muscle with his free hand. “I can use it.”

Harry acknowledged him with a nod. “Good. I want you to take up overlook on the southern bluff. Take binoculars and your rifle. Dig a hide and keep me advised of anything that happens. Hamid, Davood, you and the archaeologists are coming with me to the ridge. We’ll dig another hide there, wait this out.”

“The chopper’s not coming.” This from Tex, his usual economy of words showing itself in the statement.

Harry nodded. “Not ‘til evening. Let’s move them out.”

5:03 A.M. Local Time

Mossad Headquarters

Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

“Did he say why?” General Shoham asked, a cool wind fluttering at the corners of his jacket as he stood atop the roof of the headquarters building. The rain had stopped and now a raw breeze blew in off the Mediterranean, raising the hair on the back of the old veteran’s neck.

His bodyguard replied with a shake of the head, his tall form burrowed into the folds of a poncho. “ETA is three minutes. We should know soon.”

Shoham nodded, pulling the jacket closer to him. Dawn was still a good hour away. The night was cold, made colder still by the news he had just received.

In heaven’s name, what was wrong with Dr. Tal? The general’s mind flickered back to the early days of their relationship. He had recruited Tal personally, their joint interest in archaeology drawing them together, their joint patriotism keeping them there.

When the Iran mission had come up, Tal had been the first to volunteer, his liaison with the Ayatollah Isfahani forming the basis of their success.

And now all that was gone. The commandos of Sayeret Matkal had risked their lives to rescue him and he was refusing to help them in return. Somehow–some way, the Iranians had turned him. And Shoham didn’t know how.

The twisting, rhythmic
thwap-thwap
of approaching rotors caught his attention and he swiveled toward the sound, his eyes straining to pierce the enveloping darkness. Another few moments and the helicopter appeared, invisible until it was almost on top of the two men, its downwash tearing at their clothes.

It settled down upon the helipad and the side door flew open almost the minute the wheels touched down. Lieutenant Gideon Laner emerged first, his face tired and dirty in the harsh glare of the helipad lights. A Galil assault rifle was cradled loosely in the crook of his arm.

Shoham could feel his bodyguard stiffen, the man’s body instantly at attention at the sight of the weapon. Another occasion and it would have been a cause for humor. But the night was far too grim.

The rest of the Sayeret Matkal team exited the chopper behind him, and the general could recognize Dr. Tal flanked by Sergeant Eiland and Corporal Gur. Each of them had a purchase on one of his arms. It was price he paid for not cooperating. They had to be prepared for anything now.

“Moshe,” Shoham greeted familiarly, striding onto the platform and sticking out a hand from the folds of his poncho. The soldiers released their captive, leaving him standing in front of the Mossad chief.

“It’s good to have you home again, my dear friend,” Avi ben Shoham said, painfully aware of the reproachful look in Tal’s eyes. His hand hung there awkwardly, unaccepted. “We can take you in and start the debrief, if you so desire.”

There was no response, the only sound the helicopter’s engine shutting down, a dull roar in the background. Shoham could barely hear it as he focused in on his old friend’s face, the world shrinking to the two of them. Everything faded away as he searched for the man he had once known. He was gone, leaving a stranger standing before him.

“I am sorry, Moshe. We should have never used you. Others would have been more expendable.”

“Like those you abandoned tonight!” the archaeologist flared, anger flashing in his eyes before he fell silent once more. Smoldering.

Bewildered, Shoham turned toward Lieutenant Laner as though expecting an explanation. Dr. Tal provided it without him even asking, his cold glare piercing to the soul. “I will tell you nothing—you abandoned my people. You left them to die…”

6:32 A.M. Tehran Time

The ridge overlooking LZ Oscar

Sun had not yet dawned when the hides were finished. They had dug not one, but three, about twenty meters apart, laid out with interlocking fields of fire. Each one was just large enough for two people, overlooking the landing zone below. A gently sloping, grassy plateau, there was hardly an inch of cover anywhere within range of their rifles. Harry laid his entrenching tool to the side and stretched. “Digging doesn’t agree with my constitution, I’m afraid.”

Hamid grinned, his white teeth visible in the darkness. “Running around the mountains all night doesn’t agree with mine, either.”

Davood and the archaeologists just stood there looking on, as though not knowing what to make of the old friends’ jest. Harry cast another look at the horizon and all traces of good humor vanished without a trace.

“Let’s get under cover,” he said tersely. “Davood, take Professor Peterson. Hamid, Mullins. You’ll come with me, Miss Eliot.”

He could feel his friend grinning at him through the darkness, but he ignored it. It was quite simply the most logical arrangement.

He motioned for the girl to walk ahead of him, the twenty meters back to the southern hide. Arriving, he eased himself cautiously into the pit, then extended a hand to help her down. She took it wordlessly, watching as he reached back upward to camouflage the hide. When he was done, they were completely covered, a carefully camouflaged slit in the front providing their only view of the outside world. He propped his Kalishnikov against the front of the hide and aimed his binoculars down-range. Daylight would be coming soon.

He could feel her eyes on him, as though she was trying to assess him in the darkness. She hadn’t spoken since they had plucked her from the Iranian cell. Shock. Fear. He had seen it before.

No matter. His first priority was getting through the next twenty-four hours so that he could deliver her back to civilization in one piece. She could visit a shrink later.

“You speak English,” she announced, as though stating the most obvious fact she knew about him.

He nodded without hesitation. “Arabic, if you’d prefer. Half a dozen or so others. My hobby.”

“Who are you?”

“Colonel Smith, US Army Rangers,” he lied glibly. “Joshua Smith.”

“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 & 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.