Drone Strike: A Dreamland Thriller (Dale Brown's Dreamland) (9 page)

5

Iran

B
Y NINE O’CLO
CK
T
URK HAD GIVEN UP ALL ATTEMPTS
at sleeping and lay on his back, eyes open, staring at the ceiling of the cave they were huddled in. He was ready for the mission, ready to succeed. But time moved as if it were a man crawling across the desert inch by inch.

He got up and left Grease sleeping to see what the others were doing outside. Dread, the medic who had looked him over, was pulling a radio watch, manning the communications gear with Gorud, the CIA officer.

“How we doing?” Turk asked Dread. The main com gear was a surprisingly small handheld satellite radio-phone that allowed the team to communicate with Whiplash and its parent command. Dread also had a separate device to talk to other team members who were working in Iran, including two-man teams watching the target. There was a backup radio, much larger, in a pack.

“We’re all good,” answered Dread. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“Can’t.”

“I have some sleeping pills. Like Ambien, but stronger.”

“I heard that stuff will make you sleepwalk.”

“Not this. Puts you down and out.”

“Then I might not get up. You got any coffee?”

Dread shook his head. “Can’t cook here. Might see the smoke or the flame. Or maybe smell the coffee. If we had any.”

“None?”

“Got something that’s basically Red Bull. You want it?”

“No, maybe not.”

“Caffeine pills?”

“Maybe I’ll try to sleep again in a little while.” Turk sat down next to him, legs crossed on the ground. “Any sign that we were followed?”

“No. That house hadn’t been lived in for at least three months,” added Dread. “Don’t know what they were up to. Came to buy it or maybe have sex. Two guys, though.”

“Weird, being in somebody else’s country.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just—nothing. They don’t seem to know it’s a war.”

“It’s not a war. We don’t want one. That’s why we’re here, right?”

“Are you ready to do your job?” asked Gorud. His voice sounded hoarse.

“Yeah,” answered Turk.

“Then worry about that.”

“I don’t have to worry about that. I can do it,” added Turk, feeling challenged.

Turk stayed away as the Delta team traded shifts. Around noon he had something to eat—a cold MRE—then tried once more to sleep. This time he was successful; nodding off after nearly an hour, he slid into a dull blackness.

The next thing he knew, Grease was shaking his leg back and forth.

“Time to get up,” said the sergeant.

Turk rolled over from his back and pushed up to his knees. His neck was stiff.

“We’re leaving in five,” said Grease.

“Got it.”

“We’ll get food at the airport.”

“OK.” Turk unzipped the control backpack and checked it, more out of superstition than fear that it had been taken or compromised. Satisfied, he secured the pack and put it on his back.

It was three o’clock. He wished it was much later.

“Car’s here,” said someone outside.

Turk was surprised to see the civilian Toyota from the night before making its way up the rock-strewn trail. He thought they’d gotten rid of it.

“The three of us will use the car to get to the airport,” said Grease. “We’ll be less conspicuous. The rest of the team will be in the troop truck a short distance away. Put the backpack in the trunk.”

“I don’t want the control unit out of my sight.”

“You’re not going to leave the car.”

“It stays with me.” Turk’s only concession was to take it off his back and put it on the floor between his legs.

“If we are stopped at a checkpoint, you are Russians,” said Gorud after Turk and Grease climbed into the backseat. Gorud was at the wheel and a Delta soldier named Silver took the front passenger seat; his accent was old New York, so thick it could have been a put on.

“We are all Russians,” repeated Gorud, making sure they knew their cover. “We are looking for new oil fields and business opportunities.”

“Right,” said Turk.

“You all speak Russian,” answered Gorud.

“Da,”
said Silver.

“Yeah,” said Grease, who then added a phrase that translated to the effect that Gorud could perform several unnatural acts if he had any question of the sergeant’s abilities.

Gorud scowled but turned to Turk. “Captain?”

“Ya govoryu na russkim dostatochno khorosho?”
answered Turk.

“Tell me that you’re an engineer.”

“I don’t know the word.”

“Inzhenr.”

Gorud worked him through a few different phrases. Turk couldn’t remember much—it had been years since he’d spoken much Russian, and then it was mixed with English as he spoke with his aunt and grandmother. But any Iranians they met were very unlikely to speak any themselves, and in any event, the CIA officer had told him he shouldn’t talk at all.

“For once we agree,” said Turk.

“Use a
Ruuushan
accent with your
Enggg-lish
,” said Gorud, demonstrating. “You speak like this.”

“I’ll try.”

“Say ‘I will’ instead of ‘I’ll.’ Do not use slang. You are not a native speaker. You don’t use so many contrac-
shuns
. Draw some syllables out. Like Russian.”

Turk imagined he heard the voices of his relatives and their friends speaking in another room, then tried to emulate them. “I will try to remember this,” he said.

“Hmmph,” answered Gorud, still disappointed.

Turk folded his arms, leaning back in the seat. The CIA officer passed out passports and other papers that identified them as Russians, along with visas that declared they had been in the country for three days, having landed in Tehran. Among his other documents was a letter from a high ranking official in the Revolutionary Guard, directing that he be admitted to an oil field for inspection; the letter of course was bogus and the oil field far away, but it would undoubtedly impress any low ranking police officer or soldier who was “accidentally” given it to read.

The euros they were all carrying would impress him even more. Or so Turk believed.

He felt the vaguest sense of panic as a car approached from the opposite lane. It eased slightly as the car passed, then snuck back despite the open road ahead. It was hours before dusk; Gorud was vague about how long it would take to get to the airport, and not knowing bothered Turk.

Gorud’s attitude bothered him more—the CIA operative ought by all rights to be treating him with respect, and as a coequal: without him, there was no mission.

A pair of white pickup trucks sparked Turk’s anxiety; similar trucks were used throughout the Middle East and much of Africa by armies and militias. But these were simply pickups, with a single driver in each. Turk closed his eyes after they were gone.

“Just get me to the damn helicopter,” he muttered.

“What?” asked Grease.

“I just want to get on with it. You know?”

“It’ll be here soon enough. Don’t wish yourself into trouble.”

The rugged terrain around them was mostly empty, though occasionally a small orchard or farm sat in a sheltered arm of a hill along the highway. They passed a small village to the west, then passed through a larger collection of battered buildings, metal and masonry. Sand blew across the lot, furling and then collapsing on a line of concrete barriers, which were half covered in sand dunes.

“Old military barracks,” said Silver. “Abandoned a couple of years ago.”

“Glad they’re empty,” said Turk.

Gorud raised his head and stared out the window as they came around a curve at a high pass in the hills. The city lay ahead, but he was looking to his left, past the driver. Turk followed his gaze. He could see a rail line in the distance and tracks in the rumpled sand. What looked like several revetments lay a little farther up the hills. A large dump truck sat in the distance, the setting sun turning its yellow skin white. There were more beyond it.

“What’s going on here?” Silver asked.

“Good question,” said Gorud. “There are mines—but . . .” His voice trailed off.

“But?”

“Missiles, maybe,” he said. “Or something else.”

A reminder, thought Turk, that the problem they were dealing with was vast, and might not—would not—end with this operation.

The airport appeared ahead, a crooked T of tarmac in the light red dirt and lighter sand. They turned with the road, skimming around an empty traffic circle and then toward the terminal complex, driving down an access road four lanes wide. It was as empty as the highway they’d come down on. An unmanned gate stood ahead, its long arm raised forlornly. They passed through quickly.

The troop truck with the rest of their team continued on the highway, driving around to the south of the airport. They were on their own now; any contingency would have to be handled by Gorud, by Silver, by Grease, by himself—he touched the butt of his rifle under the front seat with the toe of his boot, reassuring himself that he was ready.

Immediately past the gate the road narrowed. Tall, thin green trees rose on either side; beyond them were rows of green plants, studded between sprinkler pipes. Two white vans sat in front of the parking lot in front of a cluster of administrative buildings. The buildings themselves looked empty, and there was no traffic on the access road that continued past the largest building and went south. Just beyond the building, they turned and drove through the lot to another road that ran around the perimeter of the airstrips. This took them past a truck parking area on the outside of the complex, beyond a tall chain-link fence. Turk caught a glimpse of their truck moving on the highway, shadowing them.

The access road took them to the front of the civilian passenger terminal, dark and seemingly forgotten. They turned left and drove around the building, directly onto the apron where the aircraft gates were located.

“Nothing here,” said Silver as they turned. “No plane.”

“I see.” Gorud looked left and right.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Keep going.”

“Onto the runway?”

“No. Onto the construction road at the far end. We’ll take it back around.”

“If it’s sand we may get stuck.”

“Chance it. We don’t want to look like we took a wrong turn if we’re being watched. We’re examining the airport—we would fly equipment in through here. We’re all Russian. Remember that.”

“Problem?” asked Grease.

“The Israeli and the helicopter should have been at the terminal,” said Gorud. “I don’t see it.”

“What Israeli?” said Turk. “Is that who is bringing the helicopter?”

Gorud said nothing. He didn’t have to; the expression on his face shouted disdain. Belatedly, Turk realized that “the Israeli” could only be their contact. He also guessed that the man was likely a Mossad agent or officer; the Israeli spy unit would have numerous agents studded around the country, and they would surely cooperate with the U.S. on a mission like this.

But it was also quite possible the man wasn’t Mossad at all. Everything was subterfuge—they were Russian, they were Iranian, they didn’t even exist.

“Place looks abandoned,” said Grease.

“It is,” replied Gorud. “More or less. Most airports outside Tehran look like this with the sanctions. Even if they have an air force unit, which this one doesn’t.”

“There was an aircraft on the left across from the terminal as we came in,” Turk said. “I didn’t get much of a look. Maybe that was it.”

“Was it an Mi-8?”

“I don’t think so. It looked a little small for an Mi-8.”

“We’ll go back.”

“Can you call your contact?” Grease asked.

Gorud shook his head. Turk guessed that he was afraid the missed connection meant that the man on the other end had been apprehended. Calling would only make things worse—for them.

“We can do it by ground if we have to,” Turk said. “If we have to.”

Silver took them across the dirt roads at the side of the terminal. A half-dozen excavations dotted the surrounding fields; all were overrun with dirt and sand that had drifted in. There were construction trucks on the other side of the entrance area, parked neatly in rows. As they drove closer, Turk saw that they were covered with a thick layer of grit. They’d been parked in the unfinished lot for months; work had stalled for a variety of reasons, most likely chief among them the Western economic boycott.

They had just turned back toward the administrative buildings when Turk spotted a light in the sky beyond the main runway.

“Something coming in,” he said.

“Take the right ahead, bring us back to the edge of the terminal apron,” Gorud told Silver.

Turk craned his head to see out the window as they turned and the aircraft approached.

“It’s not a helicopter,” he told them. “Light plane—looks like a Cessna or something similar. No lights.”

“What should I do?” asked Silver.

“Keep going, as I said,” snapped Gorud.

They parked at the edge of the terminal road, across from the gates and close enough to see the runway. The plane was a high-winged civilian aircraft, a Cessna 182 or something similar. The aircraft taxied to the end of the runway, then turned around quickly and came over to the terminal apron.

“Wait here,” said Gorud, getting out.

“Something is fucked up,” muttered Silver as the CIA officer trotted toward the plane.

Turk continued sketching an alternative plan in his head. In some ways it would be easier to work from the ground, he thought. His part would be easier: there’d be no possibility of losing a connection, and he wouldn’t have to worry about the distraction of working in a small aircraft. It’d be harder to escape, of course, but that was what he had the others for.

The key would be getting there. It was a long way off.

Gorud ran back to the car.

“It’s our plane,” he said. “Only two of us will fit. Come on, Captain.”

Grease put his hand on Turk’s shoulder. “I go where he goes.”

“You won’t fit in the aircraft,” said Gorud.

“Then you stay on the ground,” said Grease.