Tehran Decree (23 page)

The bar tender picked up Jansen’s empty beer glass
and mumbled something in a thick accent indicating a refill. Jansen
shook his head and turned towards his men.

It was time for action and the simple pleasures of
life would now be put aside.

A hand signal indicated ‘move-out’ as he headed
towards the car park followed by his team. Jansen inspected the two
government station wagons and sudan, he tossed the keys in the air
and smiled profusely. They had got it right, all the vehicles were
white, of recent vintage, and seemed to be in good condition. In
the absence of a correctly camouflaged vehicle, white was as good
as anything in dessert surrounds, it reflected the heat and could
be camouflaged with camel dung if necessary.

He removed a pair of army issue binoculars from his
back pack and surveyed the surrounding hilly terrain. Looking
intensely at the colour variations in the sand dunes and mountain
scenery. He averaged out the predominant colour which turned out to
be an earthy yellow leaning towards plain khaki. It was pleasing,
since the cotton fatigues he’d chosen for his men almost matched
the surroundings, so far there had been several good omens if one
believed in such mindsets.

Studying photo albums of colour shots of the
Sultanate of Oman and the Muscat surrounds had been useful after
all. There was only one thing that worried him and that was the
winding dirt roads into the Muscat hinterland. Lots of precarious
twists and turns around the hills and mountains, which not only
seemed dangerous for a driving point of view, but also, were ambush
death traps for unwary infidels.

SAS Sergeant Fred Worsley removed a larger map from
his thigh pocket and spread on the bonnet of the sudan. He squinted
hard at the map, then at Jansen. Some sort of cover for a
paramilitary team, be it terrain or buildings, was virtually
essential once the action started.

‘There’s not a lot to go on sir unless you like sand,
sea and air,’ Jansen smiled sardonically.

‘Well, the less the complexity the greater the
ease.’

‘Lets hope so sir, but we still need some sort of
terrestrial guidance,' Jansen nodded and peered hard at the
Australian and Oman government issue map, looking for a publication
date or some vintage sign.

‘I don't think we can give this map too much credence
sergeant. Probably the best thing to do is to ignore the graphic
distractions and follow our own inclinations.

Jensen felt at ease with Sergeant Worsely he was
clearly a military man who had spent most of his life with the
army. Such experience came over in his actions, body language, and
verbal syntax, the man lived and breathed the armed services. Built
like a Centurion tank with a powerful torso and robust musculature
to back it up -- he was every mans idea of the archetypal army
sergeant. He didn’t need to be repeatedly told what to do -- his
actions automatically kicked-in for the occasion at hand -- Jansen
was grateful for this and allowed him significant leeway. The men
were in place in double quick time and the convoy carefully made
its way out of Muscat using the basic map coordinates and GSP
readings. Worsely peered intently at the side of the road.

‘There is one thing sir.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Booby traps! I think we should be very cautious sir.
I don’t want to cause undue alarm but a high percentage of
fatalities in Afghanistan have been cause by road side bombs and
the like.’

‘I take your point sergeant ...we’ll proceed slowly,’
this gave Jansen an even greater measure of comfort knowing that
Worsely had first hand experience of dissident techniques -- it was
good to have a man who could read the eastern mind.

The almost total lack of scenery, and the ever
present sea of white sand, was both debilitating and depressing. It
seemed to go on forever and Jansen found himself comparing it with
the Australian outback, but even the worst of Aussie environs could
not keep pace with the utter vacuity of continuous white sand. At
least Australia had salt bush and various other hardy plants which
broke up monotonous scenery.

Several times he began to nod off, and each time he
woke he looked directly at Worsely, wondering if the monotonous
conditions were also affecting his driving ability. The man was as
alert as ever which drew even greater admiration from Jansen.

Two hours later the vehicles pulled in behind a
string of sand dunes. Jansen lifted the pair of binoculars from his
pack and focused them on a large brown building at the end of an
unsealed road.

‘That looks like a strong possibility, its sitting
dead on our coordinates,' Worsely took his own glasses and closely
scanned the front of the building. It was the only significant
building in the vicinity, apart from a collection of dilapidated
mud houses scattered along the road side.

‘It’s hard to miss sir -- what do you think -- go in
now, or wait till nightfall?’

‘We’ll have to go in now, that place will be
virtually invisible in the dark, there’s no street lights or any
other lighting around the place, and we’ve got no night vision
equipment. We’ll be shooting each other in the blackness, and I
don’t fancy spending the night here.’

Jansen hadn’t considered a confrontation in the dark
-- especially a planned one. It was the folly of follies, the
military and undercover work were full of major disasters that had
occurred in dark places. The US Iranian disaster involving
helicopter carriers and troops preparing for a hostage siege during
president Carter’s watch came easily to mind. It was a terrible
disaster killing a large portion of the undercover team. And the
worst part was that the whole ruddy world knew about it -- it was
in every major newspaper and on every TV station on the planet. It
was abundantly clear that poor visibility in the dark was the main
culprit. However good soldiers were, and however well trained, they
simply weren’t supermen, and didn’t have infra red eyes in the back
of their heads.

The incident undoubtedly sullied Carter’s presidency
and destroyed any hopes he had of a second term in office His
standing with the American public was never to be the same. It
served to remind them that voting a peanut farmer into the White
House may not have been such a good thing after all.

Jansen’s thoughts shifted closer to home, with the
deaths of several crack Australian SAS personnel in a two
helicopter gun-ship collision, also in the dark during a training
exercise. Action and pitch blackness just didn’t go together, and
as obvious as this statement was, some commanders actually seemed
to think the two were mutually compatible.

It was this sort of thinking which killed men and
added to the enemy’s chances of winning. Success on the battle
field demanded a clear down to earth grasp on reality and yet --
many battles were actually won by taking risks which contradicted
reality.

Jansen was adamant about battle conditions, and if
any fighting were to be done, it would have to be in broad
daylight, and preferable on his own terms.

Chapter Forty-five

The Large brown building looked innocent enough,
stuck in the middle of no where, which seemed to be an Arab trait
when it came to wholesale business premises. Periodic buzzing and
clanking noises came from the centre of the building suggesting a
possible workshop site. Jansen nodded at Worsely and signaled with
his hands for a closer recognisance.

Sergeant Worsely did his best SAS low level crawl up
to the side of the building and then skirted the entire premises,
checking windows and entry doors. He touched his blue tooth
earpiece and whispered into it.

‘No obvious visible activity, there are eight small
windows and three entry doors. The east side door is flanked by a
large roll up door and loading bay. This is possibly the easiest
and quickest way in. There are periodic noises from inside...no
apparent guards,’

Jansen replied, ‘okay, you and I will take the side
door adjacent to the roller door. The rest of us will fan out into
two groups and take the other two side doors.’ Jansen gave the
signal to advance and the SAS team closed in on the warehouse
stealthily jockeying for the best positions of entry.

Jansen went through the side door and nestled below
the bonnet of an old car -- Worsely quickly joined him. It was
obviously a large automotive repair shop judging by the number of
vehicles occupying the whole ground floor of the building.

A group of men stood behind the grimy windows of an
internal office in the corner of the building; they seemed to be
arguing in Arabic and gesticulating to a man sitting on a
couch.

Jansen raised his hand directing Worsely to cover the
side of the building, then crouched and moved quickly to the
office, he stood to one side, and Worsely readied himself to
gate-crash the office door.

Suddenly a burst of machine gun fire echoed from the
far side of the warehouse; the team had finally made contact with
the BIB guards. The men in the office stopped arguing and stared
into the warehouse gloom, Jansen fired a high burst from his MAC10
SMG smashing the glass and kicking in the door.

Worsely brought up the rear leveling his SMG at the
surprised BIB leadership; caught entirely off guard they
reluctantly raised their hands. Jansen new the hand raising was
only a show and the slightest error on his part would instantly be
taken advantage of.

He took a quick slanted look at the man on the couch
-- was this disheveled heap of rag and bones really the US
president? His face was pure white and shriveled, like that of a
dead man, a condition he attributed to BIB treatment.

Jansen’s internal viscera reacted and an involuntary
peristalsis ran the length of his gastro intestinal tract. The
feeling was never very pleasant and his primordial instincts begged
him to open fire, it was the safest way to relieve such
unpleasantness. At that moment his mobile buzzed, and he ripped it
from his top pocket.

‘Jansen here,’he eye balled the four Arabs as he held
the mobile close to his ear.

‘Hayes speaking...get the hell out of there now!’ The
message came over the line like an electric shock...the defence
minister had shouted it down the line causing Jansen to pull his
mobile sharply away from his ear. Hayes continued speaking loudly
in an urgent voice.

‘The hostage they have is not president Garner, he is
a secret service stand-in and he is dying from plutonium
poisoning,’ Jansen spun round and took another look at the
presidential stand-in. He was certainly dying and was probably
already dead, and come to think of it, he didn’t look very much
like the US president either.

‘You’ve got to get out of there now...the US airforce
has homed a MOAB weapon on your coordinates -- you’ve got about
five minutes to run 150 yards,’ Jansen’s brain latched onto the
acronym, MOAB it signified Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb, it was
the biggest conventional bomb in the world. He looked at Worsely in
a state of panic and yelled.

‘Lets get out of here now,’ he turned and bolted
through the door, yelling at the top of his voice to his men, as he
exited the warehouse. His team followed within striking distance of
his rear end.

Kazeni stared at Sharazi, then Garner, who was now
completely laid out on the couch, saliva dribbling from his open
mouth -- the rigidity was obvious -- he was undeniably dead.

‘Why have the infidels run away, what are they afraid
of...does the president have the pox?’

The older man reiterated his earlier remarks.

‘He is not the president...I know, I have been within
several feet of the man in the flesh,’ Kazeni gazed into
space...‘how could this be? The man was extracted straight from the
presidential limousine in the Sydney cross city tunnel, a switch
was all but impossible.’

‘You said it was all but impossible -- that means it
may have been possible...they could have switched the president
earlier before you got to the presidential limousine.' The older
man suddenly brightened and pulled a video cassette from a back
shelf of the office.

‘This my friends was recorded from CBS TV only six
weeks ago during a presidential address,’ he inserted the tape into
an old video player and turned on a diminutive black and white TV;
streaks of white electronic noise filled the screen accompanied by
an intermittent hiss which drowned out any coherent audio.

A panoramic view of reporters and media personal
suddenly appeared with Garner’s voice in the back ground. The
camera panned to the speaker standing at the rostrum and went in
for a close up. Garner’s face filled the screen. The old man
screeched shaking his arms in the air.

‘There I told you...how can that lump of shit on the
couch be the president. There was a vague resemblance but the close
up features were clearly not those of Garner.

Kazeni pondering a little longer...was this why the
pursuit team had run away...because they had just received a call
which told them Garner was not the real president, or were the
reasons for their sudden departure more insidious?

Sharazi’s eyes suddenly lit-up in terror as his brain
sifted through possible alternatives.

‘We should get out of here...I think we’re going to
be bombed,’ Kazeni grabbed him by the arm. ‘It may be too late to
run, we’ll have to protect ourselves here,’ he dropped dramatically
onto one knee feeling with his fingers along the dirt encrusted
floor, and grappled with a wooden slab, lifting a trapdoor in the
floor. A shaft ran into the ground and both men quickly disappeared
below floor level. The two other insurgents watched in amusement.
The older man put his finger to his head and turned it like a
corkscrew, he laughed, and spoke to his companion in Farsi.
‘They’re all crazy...even Americans are not stupid enough to bomb a
worthless warehouse. I think we should...’his words were instantly
erased, and his body vapourised as the MOAB exploded directly over
the building.