“Will, that machine gun, they’re going to use it against us!”

  The big black man looked at him solemnly. “Not without this, they ain’t.”

  He held up the cranked firing lever.

  Nolan nodded. “At least someone was thinking.”

  Will grinned. “Someone has to. We going straight out the gate? We’re gonna find it hard without our commo.”

  The commo! Dear God, without that we’ll be blind, cut off from support from the air, reconnaissance, and exfiltration. He remembered they’d put their gear in the Toyota SUV.

  “We’ll have to go fetch it. Keep their heads down, Will. This just got interesting.”

  He ducked back through the curtain. Talley had climbed into the cab, and he looked at Nolan.

  “All okay back there?”

  “They’re doing good. Boss, we need our gear, the commo, some of the other stuff. It’s in the Toyota.”

  Nolan looked across at a group of trucks and cars midway between the front gate and the administration block. There was the Landcruiser, parked right next to an armored fighting vehicle. Talley saw it at the same moment.

  “Christ, what’s that? They’ve got an armored car!”

  Nolan recognized the type, A Soviet built BMP-2. Although thinly armored, it was more than enough to devastate lightly armed and armored Special Forces with its 30mm automatic cannon mounted in the turret. Even its secondary weapon, a 7.62mm PKT machine gun would enable them to stand off and destroy the Seals as the crew sheltered behind their armor-plated hull.

  “We have to destroy that vehicle,” Nolan shouted. “A couple of grenades should do it.”

  “We don’t have any grenades,” Talley pointed out. “And these AKMs are running low on ammo.”

  “We have to retrieve the Land Cruiser. Our gear’s all in there.”

  Talley nodded. “And we have grenades. Mullah Kareem, we have to have that truck!”

  He pointed to the Toyota. Kareem was aghast. “Unless we get out of here now, they’ll call up more men, and we’ll never get out.”

  “We don’t have a choice. Steer that way.”

  Kareem threw the steering wheel over, and the truck lurched up onto two wheels. He headed for the administration building and at the last minute, slewed to an angry stop.

  “I don’t need to tell you that we ran out of time about two minutes ago, Lieutenant.”

  Talley grinned. “I know. Don’t worry, Mr. Kareem, we’ll make it.”

  Kareem’s expression darkened. “I am Mullah Kareem.”

  “No worries.”

  The men had spilled out of the truck. Zeke Murray, their communications specialist, had the hood of the Toyota open. He shouted to Brad Rose, who was in the driver’s seat, “Hit it!”

  The engine spluttered and roared into life. Brad threw the vehicle into drive and gunned it a few yards from the BMP. Kareem was backing the truck away and swinging it around in a wide arc. Already, the incoming fire had intensified. The enemy had deployed behind a wall of sandbags, and short bursts of automatic rifle fire began to ping off the bodywork of the vehicles. Nolan knew they’d start to take casualties. The seconds had run out, and the Iranians were regrouping fast. The Seals were dragging their weapons out of the Toyota, and he saw Vince pick up his SWS; the sniper rifle that could do more damage with a single clip than a whole belt of machine gun rounds.

  “Vince, you have to slow down that incoming fire. We’re in trouble here.”

  The sniper ratcheted a round into the weapon, flipped down the bipod underneath the front of the barrel, and lay down in the prone position.

  “You’re not shitting me, Chief. I’ll whittle them down apiece, but I could do with some covering fire if you can fix it.”

  Nolan was a sniper too, and their normal MO was to fire from concealment. The soldiers they targeted hated snipers. As soon as the Iranians saw their comrades going down to Vince’s sniper fire, they’d be all over him like flies on a turd.

  “You got it. Now finish those bastards.”

  The bullets started to spit out of the long rifle. The semi-auto 7.62 weapon was firing at short range, and in the hands of an expert was death to those who fell in front its sights. And Vince Merano was an expert.

  “Dan, Dave, get a couple more men and lay down covering fire for Vince. We’re running short on time here. We’ve got about twenty seconds, and then we get the hell out of Dodge!”

  “Copy that, Chief.”

  Bullets had started to buzz around the sniper, and they closed in around Vince’s position as sent a deadly stream of fire towards the enemy. The incoming fire ceased as the combination of assault rifle and sniper fire sent the enemy scurrying for cover. Nolan grabbed his pack from the Toyota bed and extracted two grenades. He made a last check around for any immediate threat, and then he vaulted onto the hull of the BMP-2. He was in luck. The hatch was open, and in seconds, he’d primed the two grenades and lobbed them inside. Then he jumped back down.

  “We’re done here. Let’s move, move!”

  He ran for the truck and men piled into the back. Four men ran for the Toyota, and Kareem didn’t wait for orders. He just slammed the truck into gear and stormed toward the main gate, making as much smoke as a destroyer. Zeke followed in the Toyota while the men kept up a heavy rate of fire on the defenders. Nolan saw Colonel Parviz run out of the administration block, shouting orders to someone still inside. Two soldiers followed him out of the door, and he shouted over to Talley.

  “Problems, Boss. Those guys’ve got a launcher. RPG-7, I’d guess.”

  Talley glanced across and saw the threat. “Yeah, it’s an RPG. Christ, if they hit us or the Toyota, we’re finished.”

  He leaned through the curtain and warned the men in the back. “Direct everything you have on that RPG. We can’t take a hit from one of those.”

  They shouted an acknowledgment and poured fire towards the missile shooter. But the man was savvy enough to know he’d be a target, and he’d taken cover behind a pile of sandbags. That had been Nolan knew that they were finished. Unless he was the worst shooter in the world, that one missile would destroy the truck and everyone inside it. And then Vince Merano finally got the range. He fired round after round at the missileer, and finally they saw the Iranian soldier slump as at least one of the bullets hit him. But they weren’t finished. Colonel Parviz was evidently no coward. He saw his man go down and ran to scoop up the missile. He brought it up into the firing position and didn’t even flinch, as the first of Vince’s rounds ripped pieces of sandbag next to where he stood. And then he flinched and jerked.

  “He’s hit,” Brad shouted from the back. “That’s good shooting, partner.”

  Nolan listened to the praise for Vince’s shooting kills as they drove out through the gates, but he was too busy pouring fire onto the defenders to comment. The men in the Toyota were busy too, and the two vehicles hurtling out of the barracks were like two medieval galleons, spitting out deadly broadsides on the enemy. And then they were clear, out onto the main highway that led back into the city of Mashhad. A few shots whistled after them, but Kareem steered the truck around a sharp bend, and they’d left the barracks behind. Nolan made a conscious effort to relax as he began to check the load in his AKM. There was one round left in the clip. He’d need to retrieve his sniper rifle from the Toyota as soon as they stopped. Talley glanced at him and then spoke to Kareem.

  “We owe you a lot, Mullah Kareem. Thank you for coming for us.”

  The man nodded but made no reply as he guided the old truck through the narrow street that threaded through the city. Washing hung across the road, and they could see faces peering out at them through ornate, carved wooden screens. They’d left the barracks’ smell behind them, the stench of oil and grease, of perspiration, and expended ammunition. Their nostrils were assailed by new smells, civilian smells, and the odors of the east. Spices, fragrances, overlaid by the ever-present taint of dry, ancient dust. Yes, they were Iranian smells.

  “We’ll need somewhere to hide,” Talley continued. “Have you given it any thought?”

  “I have, yes. We are going to a building where we can hide the vehicles and keep you out of sight.”

  “That’s good, what kind of place is this, an old warehouse?”

  “It is a mosque, Lieutenant Talley.”

  “A mosque? You’ll be hiding us in a mosque?”

  “It is my mosque, and you will be quite safe.” He grinned. “You may even be fortunate enough to hear one of my talks to the faithful. Perhaps you would find it interesting.”

  Talley nodded politely. “I’m sure we would, Sir.”

  Nolan had been walking a tightrope for so long, worrying about his blackouts and how they could effect or even destroy the mission. He prayed that if one did come on while they were in the mosque, it would be during Mullah Kareem’s preaching to the faithful.

  They stopped outside the wooden gates of a dilapidated yard. Nolan sent two men to jump down from the truck and open up. He’d checked with Kareem first.

  “There’s no lock on those gates?”

  “It was stolen three years ago. There was no point in replacing it. Besides, if anyone wishes to enter, the gates are almost falling down with woodworm and dry rot.”

  While the men swung the gates open, Nolan looked around. The street was quiet, and as far as he could see, the few stores and buildings were totally abandoned. It gave it an eerie feeling, as if the inhabitants had been spirited away in one, giant cataclysm.

  They were at the rear entrance to the mosque. The two men stood aside, and Kareem drove the truck through. The Toyota followed, and they closed the gates, screening vehicles and men from the road. The Mullah shut down the engine, Zeke followed suit with the Toyota, and the morning fell silent. The yard was a picture of squalor and decay. The stonework was broken in many places, threatening to collapse close to the main building where a huge, jagged crack ran upward to the top of the perimeter wall.

  “What happed to the people out there?” Nolan asked Kareem as they climbed down. “Why is the street deserted?”

  The Mullah pulled a face, and the deep lines that furrowed his skin seemed to stretch and deepen. “It was a plague that visited itself on my people.”

  “A plague! Shit, is there any danger now?”

  Talley had joined them when he heard the ominous word. ‘Plague’. The fear that had terrorized Europe during medieval times, and which still devastated vast regions of the Third World when it took hold.

  “No, there is no danger. You should understand that I spoke in a metaphorical sense. I did not intend for my words to be taken literally. But it is what we call it in this part of the town. The plague.

  Talley and Nolan were both puzzled, and Kareem hastened to explain.

  “They came from Teheran, several years ago. There were vast lines of trucks, building equipment excavators, and thousands and thousands of people. They disappeared into the desert, beyond the nearby mountain range. There is a pass that is just large enough for transport to pass through. The word was that they were building a laboratory of some kind. We were not allowed to enquire about the purpose of this place, and we forgot about it. And then they came and rounded up people from the houses and stores you see abandoned outside. They were needed ‘for a couple of days’ to help with an important government project, and they were promised huge rewards. You can imagine there was no shortage of volunteers.”

  “They never got paid?” Talley asked, intrigued by the tale.

  Kareem grimaced. “We afterwards found out they were killed. There were almost three hundred of them. The laboratory was used to make poison gas. There’d been a leak, and they needed people to work on clearing the ground around where the gas had leaked out. They gave them no protective clothing, no drugs, nothing. They worked for two days, and then they fell ill and died.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them but one, Lieutenant. She was a young woman, and a soldier had taken her to his quarters to rape her. He said she was too pretty to die. So she avoided the poison gas and later, she managed to escape and come back here.”

  Talley looked indignant. “That’s a terrible story. Did you report it? You’re their Mullah, isn’t it your responsibility?”

  Kareem smiled. “Lieutenant, you are in Iran now. If I had reported what she told me, they would have killed both her and me. The government wishes to keep its dirty laundry hidden, and they are prepared to kill as many of the people as necessary to keep their secrets.”

  “What happened to the girl?” Nolan asked.

  Kareem thought for a moment and then nodded. “There is no reason for you not to know. She is my daughter. She lives here in the mosque and helps me to keep it in order. Her mother is dead. She was one of the people killed by the poison gas. Her name is Mitra.”

  Talley and Nolan looked around the shabby and broken yard, as if she was about to step out into the open. But there was nothing other than the Seals and the Israelis, unloading the Toyota and checking out their weapons and equipment. Kareem saw their glance.

  “Come, I will show you where you can stay out of sight. I have some large tarpaulins we can use to cover the vehicles. What is your next move?”

  Talley looked at his watch. “It’s 1100 now. We’ll get everything out of sight, and I’ll call in. Our controllers have set up shop in Helmand, and they’re on the same time zone.” He walked across to the men and told them to cover the vehicles and get out of sight as soon as possible, then returned. “Show us the way, Mullah Kareem. The Chief will come back for the others as soon as we’ve taken a look at where we’re going.”

  He nodded and walked across the open yard and through a doorway that was empty of any door, just a three foot gap in he wall. They went along a dark corridor until they reached a carved oak door that was totally out of sync with the rest of the building.

  “It is the mosque,” Kareem murmured. “It is best if you do not go in there, but if you do feel the need, please remember to remove your shoes.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  They went up a flight of stairs and through a door into a long, low room that extended over the whole width of the building. There were narrow, ornamental windows set in the walls, in the Arabic style. And they also offered a good view of the surrounding area.

  “You may stay here until it is time for you to leave. I must go now. It is time for me to prepare for the faithful. I will send Mitra with cool drinks for all of you.”

  Talley thanked him and he left. He grinned at Nolan.

  “There are a lot worse places than this to lay low in, Chief. Better than a pile of rocks in the desert.”

  “It looks easy enough to defend too, Boss.”

  “Yeah, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to a firefight, we don’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves. It’s only until tonight.”

  “Provided the NSA guys have a target for us. Otherwise, we could be waiting here for some time.”

  Or until the Iranians come for us, if Kareem is the traitor. But he can’t be, can he? He came to rescue us from the Army barracks. Unless he’s with the Pasdaran, and it was some sort of crazy scheme. And what if he isn’t the traitor? Someone killed Moshe, who was it? I’d sure like to get my hands around his throat.

  He found the men finishing off spreading the canvas over the two vehicles. They’d pulled on their weapons and equipment, except for the body armor, and once more looked like Seals again in their MARPAT camouflage, small arms, and tactical webbing. Will was checking out the ropes that would stop it flying off if the wind picked up.

  “We’ve got a place to rest, Will. Through that door and up the stairs. The Boss is up there, and Kareem’s organized his daughter to bring cold drinks.”

  “His daughter? What’s she like?”

  Nolan smiled. There was nothing like heavy action to fire up a Seal’s adrenaline.

  “She’s Kareem’s daughter. I’d watch out if I were you. They’d chop off your nuts for making a pass at the Mullah’s family.”

  He laughed. “Not a problem, I’ll admire her from a distance. Besides, don’t they all cover themselves with burqas in these backwoods places?”

  Nolan nodded. “I’d guess you’re right there. The closest you’ll get is to admire the embroidery on her face veil.”

  Will made a final check on the tarpaulins and called the men to him. He led them up the stairs and Nolan, after a last look around the yard, followed. He was walking past the ornate oak door when it opened, and Kareem looked out.

  “Mr. Nolan, have you ever seen the inside of a mosque?”

  He wanted to say yes he had, but that particular building had been bombed and shelled to dust, so it might not have been helpful.

  “I haven’t, Sir, no.”

  “Come, please. Take a look inside.”

  Nolan frantically tried to find a good reason to decline. It felt like he was being asked to visit the headquarters of Al Qaeda. Kareem sensed his discomfiture.

  “Please, Mr. Nolan. It is a beautiful building.”

  He nodded. “Okay, I’ll take a look.”

  “Please take off your shoes first.”

  Inside, the main room of the mosque was certainly interesting, and in much better shape than the rest of the place. The floor was covered with a shabby carpet, and the paintwork on the walls was peeling. There were no chairs, for Muslims worshipped either standing up or prostrating themselves on the floor. The only decorations were several framed parchments on the wall, with Arabic script. He presumed they were extracts from the Koran.

  “I wanted to talk to you, Mr. Nolan.”

  He spun around. He’d been so engrossed in looking around the room that he’d forgotten Kareem stood beside him.