The Mingrelian (28 page)

“Good.”

“The real fighting going on now is between the Revolutionary Guards and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran. They’re killing each other by the thousands in all parts of Iran. This is the big one for them. Israel is forgotten all of a sudden.”

“Things sure change fast.”

“OK. Hold on.” Ferguson breaks away for a few moments. Boyd winks at Ekaterina, still holding the tarp with Emmet.

“OK, an update,” Ferguson says. “We could drop some Air Force PJs(pararescue jumpers)
into your location with snowmobiles to get your wounded and the Ayatollah out, but there aren’t any snowmobiles in Afghanistan. The Mountain Division has pulled out with the drawdown, and they took their equipment with them. It’ll take two days to get snowmobiles.”

“Two miles, you say,” Boyd looks down the mountain to the northwest. “I think I can see that flat spot from here. Let me see what we can find to get this done. Keep working the snowmobiles, though.”

Chapter 51:
Penjwin,Iraq

raqi border guards bristle when two truckloads of paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, some vans of government officials, and a shiny black limousine approach the border from Iran. Their officer stands in the roadway behind the barrier, which is closed. He motions for his guards to deploy to their tactical positions, and they scurry into bunkers and along the sides of the road. The border is in a saddle between two hillsides, and a few dozen stone steps lead up from the road on both sides to redoubts, each containing a single old American 105 mm howitzer, pointed off in the distance.

Dabney St. Clair is seated in the back seat of the limousine, her coat folded neatly in her lap. Cable ties bind her wrists tightly together. Her ankles are bound. A cable tie is fixed around her waist, and another cable tie is attached to it behind her and runs down between her buttocks to meet the wrist and ankle cable ties from the front. This is hidden beneath the coat. She has consumed the contents of Farhad Shirazi’s flask and is near stupor from alcohol.

Farhad Shirazi leaves the limousine and approaches the officer at the gate.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he says in Farsi.

There is no response.

He repeats it in English, and Russian.

There is no response.

He calls to the bodyguard, who speaks Arabic. He translates.

“Good afternoon, sir. The American diplomat, Mrs. St. Clair, requests to enter Iraq with her companions, who are under the protection of the government of the United States of America.”

“What documentation do you have?”

Shirazi produces the passports. “It is a routine matter,” he says nonchalantly and looks off in the distance as if bored with these formalities.

The officer takes the passports and looks at them, then turns and walks back to the guardhouse.

Behind the gatehouse stands the senior noncommissioned officer border guard, a paunchy 50-ish
Kurd named Sirwan who has worked here since he was a young man. He knows this is the Supreme Leader of Iran making a run for it. He knows that his young officer, an Arab, was sent to this remote border crossing as punishment for some infraction involving politics in Baghdad. Counting the days until he can return to Baghdad, the young officer will take no chances in confronting an armed column of paramilitary militia outnumbering his border guards 5-to-1.

“Sir, there are two truckloads of Revolutionary Guard soldiers from Iran and a black limousine. They say they are American diplomats,” the young officer is speaking into a telephone.

Sirwan walks away from the guardhouse; his counsel will not be wanted here. He lights a cigarette and walks up the stone steps.

This is Kurdistan, the man thinks, puffing his cigarette and taking the steps slowly. Kurds are Sunni Muslims; Iranians are Shiites. These Persians care nothing for Kurds, nor do the Arabs in Baghdad. As proof of that, he recalls the Iran/Iraq war in 1979, when the Iranian army counterattacked through this border crossing and his father and uncle were killed defending their
homeland. The war went on for a decade with both sides drafting young Kurds from both sides of the border to fight further south on the plain near the oil fields of Basrah. Most never returned.

“I must see your Mrs. St. Clair,” the young officer says, returning from his phone call to superiors.

“Certainly,” Farhad says, leading the way as the young officer steps around the barrier into Iran and follows him. He eyes the soldiers in the lead truck suspiciously.

Sirwan has reached the redoubt and stands with three other Kurds stationed there. He looks down as the young officer approaches the limousine and looks into the back window.

The electric window opens and cool air blows into Dabney St. Clair’s face, awaking her from slumber.

“She is very tired,” Shirazi says.

The young Iraqi officer bends down and looks into the back seat. The smell of alcohol is strong.

“Infidels,” he thinks, “and their alcohol.”

Across the back seat he sees the face of a clean-shaven man in a dark business suit. He does not recognize it.

Sirwan knows there is a revolution going on in Iran and that these people are trying to get away from it. He knows his young officer will hesitate to admit this whole armed caravan, and if they aren’t admitted they will try to shoot their way in.

“Open the lock,” he says, handing a key ring to the surprised young Kurd border guard leaning over the stone redoubt.

The young guard isolates the right key and opens a padlock on the storage building behind them. He pulls the door open to reveal a dozen howitzer rounds stored there.

This confrontation building below them can have very bad consequences when the shooting starts.

“Load the gun,” Sirwan says, eyes on the young officer, who has just stood up from looking into the back seat of the limousine.

Two young guards rush into the building and pick up one of the howitzer rounds and carry it to the cannon. Sirwan pulls the lever to open the breech and they load the shell. They have done this only occasionally in drills before. They have never fired this or any other cannon. Sirwan cranks elevation down to 5 degrees below horizontal, but it still points off in the distance, way above the drama playing out below.

“Sir,” Dabney says to the officer with authority

The officer steps back to the window to address the American diplomat.

She vomits out the car window.

The young officer retreats from the cascade of alcohol laden vomit.

“I must call my supervisor,” he says, and walks back across the border.

“Wait!” Shirazi says, following behind him. He motions to the officer in the truck to dismount his troops. They begin to climb out of the trucks.

“Get the jack,” Sirwan tells the young guards. They rush into the storage building and return with a lowboy jack, used to lift the tail of the howitzer to attach it to a limber, a two wheeled cart that can carry the tail of the howitzer for transport. He traverses the howitzer to a point over the limousine.

“Fool,” Shirazi says, returning to the limousine. He walks to the other side and gets in next to the Supreme Leader. They converse rapidly in Farsi.

Dabney, awake now, is restrained tightly in a sitting position by the cable ties around her wrists and ankles and between her legs. She looks out at the border crossing and the Revolutionary Guard militia deploying along the road. Then she looks up the hill at the redoubt, but all she can see from below is the muzzle of the howitzer pointed off in the distance. It begins to turn in her direction. Odd, she thinks, that it would just move by itself like that. Then the end of the howitzer seems to nod a bit, then again, and again. Curious, she watches as the rhythmic nodding of the muzzle of the old cannon brings it down and down and down until it looks directly at her, like an owl perched on a branch.

“Twelver Shiites,” Sirwan says, “always making trouble.”

He pulls the lanyard and fires the howitzer. A mighty blast shakes the redoubt and the cannon leaps back 2 feet. The air fills with smoke. The projectile, containing 33 pounds of amatol, a TNT and ammonium nitrate mixture, hits the limousine. The vehicle disappears in a bright red fireball that is quickly eclipsed by thick black smoke. Pieces of the limousine fly into the air and rain down many yards in all directions. The blast blows the front truck filled with dismounting troops end over end into the closed border barrier. A van parked behind the limo evaporates with it. The driver of the truck behind the van throws his truck into reverse and spins wheels leaving the scene. He runs over several soldiers exiting the back.

“Reload,” Sirwan says.

Chapter 52: Mount Damavand

hey look like kids playing in the snow, but it isn’t fun. In the radiant midday sun, Boyd is harnessed to a seven-man life raft by control cables scavenged from the C-130, and one of the Marines is strapped onto it, simulating one of the wounded soldiers unable to ski. Straining, he pulls the raft across the steep hill, then turns down the hill and picks up speed before turning back across the hill. Just as he turns back across the hill the life raft overtakes him and slides down the mountain behind him.

“Whoa!” The raft yanks him backward off his feet.

The raft pulls Boyd down the mountain on his back for several yards before the Marine can roll off of it and jam his feet into the snow for an anchor and grab the rescue ropes along the side. Boyd rolls into the raft and stops.

“Scratch that idea,” he says, rolling into a sitting position and looking back up the hill at the rest of the group trying restrain their laughter.

An hour later they are back. Now Boyd is harnessed to the front of the life raft with the largest of the remaining healthy Marines behind. Rick Shands is strapped in for ballast. Boyd skis across the hill and turns downhill, the raft loses traction and begins to slide, but the burley Marine is able to hold it by digging his ski poles into the snow. They traverse the hillside and turn downhill again. This time Boyd hits a patch of ice; just a crust formed by the sun melting surface snow and then refreezing at
night. He and the raft and the Marine slide down 200 yards. It takes an hour to climb back to the C-130.

Two hours later, in the fading light a strange contraption emerges from the back of the C-130. Two skis are strapped to Boyd’s waist, their tips to the rear and resting on the snow. A harness between them allows Rick Shands to sit, balancing himself with ski poles, but bearing no weight on his legs. Ahead of Boyd are the other three Marines on skis, breaking trail and creating parallel tracks in the snow, which Boyd and the trailing skis holding up Rick stay within. They traverse the hill, turn downhill, traverse back and traverse it again. The deep tracks created by the first skiers give traction to the heavier towed skier. It works.

*****

“If we leave here, and get halfway down that hill, and can’t get to the rescue plane; we’re toast. So, we need to be sure this is something we can all do.” It is late when Boyd explains to the assembled group the decision they must make. They have built four of the harness seats and determined that their three invalids can ride with no trouble, and that everyone can ski at least enough to stay within the tracks made by the trailbreakers. The fourth set of harness is for a sled that will transport their two dead comrades, the Ayatollah’s secretary and Raybon Clive, now frozen solid. Practicing, they have tracked the hill around the C-130 above and below it until it looks like a ski resort in high season. Now they have to decide.

*****

“PECOS to JUBA.”

Emmet jerks awake inside one of the alpine tents and fumbles for the radio.

“JUBA.” It is hours later, and they’ve all been asleep.

“Been outside?”

“JUBA to PECOS, just a minute, over.”

Rick Shands is already out of his sleeping bag and struggling out of the tent he has shared with Boyd and Ekaterina. Boyd is right behind. They pull back the tarps at the back of the aircraft. A howling wind coming up the mountain from the Caspian Sea only 30 miles away has deposited a drift of snow halfway up the high side of the aircraft. It is still dark, but when they shine a puny flashlight out it doesn’t penetrate more than 10 feet. Whiteout.

“JUBA to PECOS, got some snow here, over.”

“PECOS to JUBA, looks like it, over.”

They had planned to set out at dawn and try to get down the mountain by noon so the MV-22 Osprey could pick them up.

“JUBA to PECOS, what’s the weather outlook, over.”

“Socked in all the way to Kazakhstan. Gonna snow all day, over.”

“Tell him to scratch the pick-up,” Boyd says, returning from the back while Rick ties the tarp back down. “We’ll wait for the snowmobiles.”

He turns to see expectant faces peering out of sleeping bags and tents. He shrugs.

*****

Low clouds obscure any chance of seeing vapor trails of the combat air patrol that Boyd knows is circling up at 35,000 feet. It is a comforting feeling knowing they’re there. He puts his vigil on hold for a moment as he remembers what it’s like to be up there in the sun, strapped in with helmet and G-suit, on oxygen, maintaining radio silence but listening to the AWACS vector any potential targets, watching your wingmen, the clouds, the mountains, ready to pounce on any interlopers rising up to threaten whoever you were protecting on the ground. Now, he’s here on
the ground. It is the following day and the snow has stopped. They’ve been on the mountain for nearly a week.

The C-130J Combat Talon with the six blade props appears at the bottom of the hill, higher today than the previous drop.