“They don’t look half asleep,” Talley noted to Nolan.

  He shook his head. “They’re obviously rattled by what went during the night. Damn, they should’ve been half asleep.”

  And then the distant sound of truck engines reached them. Nolan used his scope and examined the road that led out of Goldiz in the opposite direction. Four trucks, loaded with troops, were heading into the village to reinforce the garrison. Meir appeared beside them.

  “That takes care of your plan, gentlemen. You’re fucked, and you know it. Totally fucked.”

  They stood and watched the vehicles, laden with infantry, heading in to reinforce their target.

  Chapter Seven

  Meir tried to go on, but Nolan shook his head and took him by the arm. Meir looked angry as Nolan spelt it out for him. “We’re trying to fight our way through this, and the Boss is thinking. Leave him be.”

  Talley overheard. “It’s okay, Chief, I think we can still pull this off. They’ve sent in reinforcements to Goldiz, in case we stage an attack. But they don’t know where we are. If the attack came at Mashhad, what would they do with these troops?”

  Nolan nodded. “They’d send them off to the big city, but we’re not attacking Mashhad.”

  “We have a Reaper on standby. I reckon it could create enough smoke and noise to make them think there’s a brigade hitting the town.”

  Will had been looking around, using night vision binoculars. He came over to join them.

  “It’s a tough one, Boss. We have to get all of those troop reinforcements moving out mighty fast. What’ve we got, a couple of hours before dawn? We ain’t gonna make it. It’ll be a daylight exfiltration.”

  Talley shook his head. “We can’t do it. They’ll hit us with everything they have before we reach the border.”

  Will stared at him. “In that case, we need to think of something different, otherwise they’ll fry our asses when we pull out of there.”

  “Troops heading our way.”

  They spun around. Brad was staring back up the road, the way they’d come in. A cordon of Iranian soldiers was walking in their direction, sweeping the ground. There were perhaps twenty of them, a platoon. Fortunately, they were not equipped with night vision goggles. But they were less than a half-mile away, and their line would take them on a collision course with the Seals. Talley glanced at the oncoming men, and back at the village, then at the troops coming in from the other side.

  “There’re too many of them. We can’t let these guys join up with the other soldiers. The odds are stacking up too high. We’ll have to take ‘em. But silently, not a sound.”

  “We may be able to use their uniforms for the exfiltration. They could come in useful if we have to move in daylight,” Nolan suggested.

  “Yeah, good idea, that’s a possible. We’ll dig into the sand and hit them when they’ve gone past, and try to keep those uniforms clean. Get moving. You know what to do. Vince, Chief, you two snipers, get out on the flanks a couple of hundred yards each side, and take out any leakers. This has to be quick, clean, and silent. And stay on the net; we need to keep this tight and coordinated. You’re designated Bravo Two, Vince is Bravo Three. Get moving.”

  Both men moved off, one on either side. Nolan found a slight depression in the desert floor where he could watch the coming action. The six Seals and two Israelis were rapidly burrowing into shallow depressions in the sand and covering themselves over. It was flimsy camouflage, and in daylight wouldn’t have held up inside of a couple of hundred yards. But at night, against an enemy not equipped with night vision goggles, it should be enough. Had to be enough.

  The soldiers came closer to where the Seals were hidden. Eight men, six Seals and the two Israelis, against twenty fully armed and prepared Iranians. Their uniforms were different to the ones they’d encountered earlier. Pasdaran, Iranian Revolutionary Guards. They were armed with the folding butt AKMs, assault rifles that fired the heavy caliber 7.62mm rounds. Yet the real enemy wouldn’t be any bullets they fired, or the Pasdaran themselves. Noise would destroy them. One single shot fired in accident or anger, and the men would come pouring out of Goldiz to overwhelm them. An officer walked behind the men. He clutched a pistol in one hand and a swagger stick in the other. He occasionally shouted commands to his men, keeping them in a straight, coordinated line. They looked eager enough, for none tried to linger at the back.

  They’ll soon have their hands full when the action starts, and maybe they won’t be quite so eager when the sniper bullets start to chop them to pieces, and the combat knives cut down their comrades as right next to where them.

  “This is Bravo One, how are we looking out there?”

  Nolan gaged distances carefully before replying. “Estimate one minute before they’re up with you. Bravo Three, we’ll start shooting ten seconds before they’re over the Platoon. We don’t want any accidents. Bravo One, do you copy that?”

  “Copy that, Bravo Two.”

  “Bravo Three, I copy that.”

  Nolan couldn’t see Vince’s position, which was as it should be. A visible sniper was not a sniper who’d last for very long. He kept watching. One of the soldiers tripped and fell on a small rock, swearing and shouting in pain. The officer ran up and beat him over the head with his stick, cursing him loudly. The officer restored order, and the stalled platoon moved forward once more. Nolan had fixed a point, marked by a low bush, ten yards before where Talley’s men lay hidden. He calculated the sniper fire would force the Iranians to run onto the hidden killers. They drew abreast with the bush and stepped past it.

  “Fire!”

  They were a line of green men, green uniforms, green berets, green weapons, and green skin. He hit the officer first and saw him tossed to the ground, like a useless piece of garbage. At the end of the line furthest from him, a sergeant followed him, victim to Vince Merano’s first bullet. They were close enough to find the targets a breeze, and also close enough to go for headshots. The men were unimportant, but the uniforms had to be kept intact. They started working along the line, clipping off the stragglers as a couple of men ran back the way they’d come. But the rest ran on, toward the illusory safety of their friends and families inside Goldiz. Then Talley’s men erupted out of the sand, and the panic became sheer terror. Men ran every which way, most tossed aside their rifles in their haste to escape the devils that had materialized from the sand. Several cooler heads prepared to fire, but as the Seals combat knives rose and fell on their panicked comrades, so the more determined men were thrown to the ground by the heavy sniper bullets, as Nolan and Merano went about their deadly work.

  “Vince, one breaking towards you. He’s looking for a target.”

  “I’m on it, Bravo Two.”

  ‘Phut’, the eerie sound of the sound suppressed shots contrasted with the choked off cries of the Iranians, as one by one they fell to the devastating attack.

  “Bravo One, on your six, gun.”

  Talley whirled. He switched grips on his combat knife, positioned his target, and threw. The Iranian’s eyes opened wide with incredulity as the knife lodged in his throat, and he went down. His hands uselessly pulled at the knife as he tried to breathe in air that would not come through the ruined windpipe. Nolan sighted on another man. He’d thrown away his rifle and had dived behind some rocks, where he recovered some of his wits and pulled out a small automatic. He was a microsecond from pulling the trigger when the heavy sniper bullet smashed through his head and exited the other side. For long seconds, he stayed in position. His body swayed and then toppled. He was already dead.

  “This is Bravo One. It looks like we’re clear.”

  “Bravo Three, no targets in sight.”

  “Bravo Two, no targets. They’re all dead, Boss.”

  “Yeah, well done. Come on in, Chief, and you Vince. We need to move on.”

  When Nolan rejoined the men, Talley was already on the satcom, calling in the Reaper strike.

  “Do you have the coordinates for the military barracks in Mashhad?” he heard Talley ask the Helmand controller.

  “We have two barracks in Mashhad, Bravo One, regular military and Pasdaran. Which one is your target?”

  Talley only thought for a few moments. “Hit the Pasdaran. The guys here look like Pasdaran. They’re more likely to go to their friends’ aid.”

  “You’ve got it, Bravo One.”

  “Do you have the release for the Tomahawks?”

  There was a slight hesitation. “We’re working on it, Bravo One. We’ll let you know.”

  Talley was quiet and as Nolan watched, his face changed from puzzlement to hot anger. “What the fuck are you talking about, Helmand? Without those missiles, this mission is dead in the water.”

  “We’re sorry, Bravo One. Our hands are tied here. It’s politics. We’re waiting to hear back from the Pentagon. Or even higher.”

  “Well get onto those people and tell them, without those Tomahawks, it’s all for nothing. And you can tell them that when I visit the families of the men who died, I’ll tell them it was all for nothing, and I’ll tell the why.”

  “Bravo One, Lieutenant, you can’t…”

  “I can and I fucking will. That’s a promise, buster. Don’t try calling me on it because you’ll lose. Get those fucking missiles ready to launch.”

  “I’ll do my best, Bravo One.”

  “Yeah, you better, buddy, or maybe the next time we’re looking for a target, we’ll be checking out somewhere closer to home.”

  Talley clicked off before the man could choke out a further objection.

  “You were a bit tough on him,” Nolan smiled.

  “Not as tough as these Iranians will be if they get this new weapon deployed. What about the uniforms, are they any use?”

  The men were busy stripping off the uniforms from the dead Iranians. Nolan glanced at them. “I guess they will be at a pinch. But none of us speak the local dialect, so we’d only pass at a distance.”

  “We’ll have to make do, Chief.”

  “Yeah, we always do, Boss.”

  * * *

  They watched, and they waited. The men hid the dead bodies in a shallow recess behind the shepherd’s hut. It looked as if it had seen use as some kind of a sheep dip. In the bottom was a pool of filthy water, a couple of feet deep, but it was enough. If they came looking for their men before the Seals were long gone, they’d be finished anyway. They piled the uniforms inside the stinking, ruined hut.

  “Shouldn’t be long now,” Talley muttered, as much to himself as to anyone else. They had an hour before dawn. If the reinforcements didn’t pull out soon, it would be too late. Nolan checked his watch. Fifty-five minutes until dawn.

  “Where the fuck is the Reaper?” Brad grumbled.

  No one replied. The prospect of the coming dawn finding them stuck out there with open desert one way, and a heavily defended village the other, was not something to discuss. If it happened, they’d be dead.

  “Did you hear that? Someone is shooting.”

  They looked at Abdul. He was looking in the direction of Mashhad.

  “You sure?” Talley asked him.

  “Yes, I’m certain. I can hear gunfire.”

  They all looked in the direction of Mashhad, and then they saw it. The Iranians were putting up an intense triple-A barrage. At the last moment, their air defense radars had detected the incoming MQ9-Reaper. The sky to the west was lit up with the fireflies of tracer rounds as they hammered up, seeking out the incoming UAV. They all missed.

  The roar of explosions reached them, as a pair of AGM-114 Hellfire II laser guide missiles bored in at a speed of Mach 1.3 and detonated their twenty pounds warheads into the Pasdaran barracks. Then two more, and two more hit. Even at a distance of several miles, the noise was incredible, the hammering of he anti-aircraft fire, the explosions of the Hellfires, flames leaping into the air.

  “Jesus Christ, it’s like a fucking war’s broken out,” Will murmured. “If they don’t go for that, they can’t be human.”

  The Reaper controller, working from a cozy office in Creech Air Force base in the Nevada desert, knew their business. He or she spaced out the missiles to create the maximum panic and disruption. It took the Pasdaran commander in Goldiz little more than five minutes to make up his mind.

  “They’re moving out!” Vince shouted gleefully, as a convoy of trucks moved out of Goldiz and picked up speed to drive past their position, heading for Mashhad.

  “We’re almost out of time,” Meir pointed out, his face grim. We have less than twenty minutes before it starts to get light. And that village is defended by a strong force of Pasdaran. It’s all for nothing. That attack’s a waste of time. We need to get out of here before they come back.”

  A silence descended on the group of Seals. Talley stared at the Israeli.

  “Mister, I don’t know what your problem is, but when you’re a Seal, twenty minutes is as good as a lifetime. Saddle up, men, we’re going in. Mr. Meir, if you want out, I’d suggest you start walking.” He pointed to the west. “Israel is that way.” He looked around for Nolan. “Chief, get Vince out on point, we’re going in hard and fast. Let’s go, people.”

  They started walking into the village of Goldiz. Nolan smiled as he heard Meir hurrying to catch up with them and then stopped to listen.

  “Vehicle coming, take cover!”

  They leapt off the road and crouched down in the irrigation ditch at the side. The vehicle went past, a military jeep. And then the road was empty again, and they formed up and marched on. When they arrived at the first of the stone built huts, Nolan began to feel a creeping sense of unease. Even though it was the early hours before dawn, there should have been something. A lamp burning in one of the houses, maybe a local departing early to get out to his field to tend to the sheep. Or goats. But apart from the noise of the Triple-A in the distance, the village was quiet. There was nothing. The villagers, whoever they were, had gone.

  Or maybe it was something worse, Nolan reflected.

  They rounded a corner and ahead of them lay the main square.

  “Stay out of sight. There’s a crowd of soldiers in the square,” Vince whispered over the commo.

  He was on point, fifty yards in front. Talley called for Nolan to join him, and they hurried forward. Vince was sheltering in a dark, festering alley that stank of urine and manure. Peering around the corner, they could see a group of Pasdaran two hundred yards away. A mullah, his hands clasped behind his back, stood outside a two story stone building that looked like some kind of a headquarters. An officer was shouting at him.

  “It looks like and argument. I’d say one of ‘em wants the garrison to help out in Mashhad, and the other wants them to stay,” Vince guessed.

  “You’re probably right. The problem is, who’ll win the argument? Will they leave, or will they stay here? We need to make a decision mighty fast.”

  “Assume they’ll stay,” Nolan suggested. “If anything changes, all well and good. But we have to prepare to take them all out.”

  “Or we could just plant the sitcom and head out,” Vince suggested.

  “And if they find it? All they have to do is switch it off,” Nolan pointed out. “They’re backfooted at the moment, but they’ll recover mighty fast. This is a high security area, so they’re sure to have equipment to sweep for unauthorized transmissions. I’d hate to come this far and miss out on the grand finale.”

  Vince smiled. “I didn’t think of that. It sure ain’t over until the fat lady sings. So we take ‘em all out?”

  Talley nodded, his face grim and serious. “All of them, Vince. We’ll give this place a real Navy Seals makeover. Remember those poor people from Mashhad. The people running this place are guilty of mass murder. It’s time to point out to them the error of their ways.”

  The argument in the square was still going on as they counted heads.

  “I count fifteen Pasdaran troops, including the officer,” Nolan reported. “The Mullah makes sixteen. And we don’t know how many other personnel they have here.”

  Talley nodded. “I hate to do it, but we’ll have to split up. I’ll leave you and Vince with two other men to deal with these guys, and I’ll take the rest of the men to check out the rest of the place. We’ll work our way around the square and hit the laboratories from the other side. We just have to hope that we can take care of the rest of those garrison reinforcements.”

  “We could do with another Reaper strike, if they’ve got the balls for it.”

  Talley stared at him. “They’ll have fired off their missiles when they hit Mashhad, so I doubt they’re in a position to help. But I’ll try them.”

  He switched on the encrypted sitcom. “This is Bravo One. What’s the situation with the Reaper that just hit Mashhad?”

  The reply was immediate. “The aircraft is heading back over the border.”

  The voice sounded puzzled, faintly irritated. Maybe they’d disturbed the guy from his breakfast.

  “Could you check for me?”

  A sigh. “Very well. Give me a few seconds.”

  It took twenty-five seconds. Nolan was counting them. A new voice came over the radio. “This is Ground Control Station, Creech Air Force Base. Go ahead, Bravo One.”

  “What is the ordnance situation with that Reaper you used to attack Mashhad? Do you have any Hellfires left on board?”

  This time the reply was instant. “That’s a negative, Lieutenant. We fired the whole inventory. We thought that was what you wanted. We were told to kick up hell.” Nolan saw the Lieutenant’s shoulders slump.

  Why is it, that every fucking thing that could go wrong, was going wrong on this mission?