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  “Not too late to turn around,” Ann said.

  “In four seconds it will be,” Boomer said. “Suborbital burn commencing in three…two…one…” Seconds later the airspeed indicator clicked past Mach four, and the three remaining LPDRS engines kicked on.

  “Warning, warning, warning, unidentified aircraft approaching Omsk, you are in violation of Russian sovereign airspace,” the warning messages on all of the emergency channels declared. “Turn right and reverse course immediately or you will be fired upon without further warning. Acknowledge on any emergency frequency. Over.” The messages continued in Russian and Chinese, then repeated.

  Moments later the threat warning receiver announced, “Warning, warning, air defense search radar locked on, three o’clock, one hundred miles, SA-12…warning, warning, missile tracking detected, SA-12, four o’clock, eighty miles…warning, warning, missile launch, SA-12, five o’clock, seventy-five miles…”

  “Pedal to the metal, Boomer,” Ann Page said.

  “Eat my exhaust, Russkies,” Boomer said confidently—but he did keep a close watch on both the airspeed readouts and the threat display.

  “We’re right on the edge of its envelope,” Ann Page said. “We should be able to fly away from it here in a second.”

  Sure enough, a few moments later: “Warning, warning, missile tracking, SA-12, six o’clock, eighty miles…warning, missile tracking, SA-12, one hundred miles…” Finally, as the Black Stallion continued its climb and gradual acceleration, the warning indications went away.

  “Never outran a Russian SAM before!” Boomer exclaimed. “Incredible!”

  “The hotline is already heating up,” Patrick McLanahan radioed a few minutes later. “Russia is already complaining about your overflight.”

  “Do we care today, sir?” Boomer asked.

  “Not particularly.”

  Boomer took the spaceplane right up to three hundred and sixty thousand feet, above most of the atmosphere, then throttled back and stabilized the airspeed at Mach nine. “We’ll start the descent in eighty-three minutes, everyone,” he said. “Check your oxygen, check your buddy, and report in when the station check’s done.”

  “Everyone’s good back here,” Hal Briggs said from inside the passenger module. “We had to wake ‘the Kid’ up to do his safety check—the guy can sleep in the middle of a typhoon. The Kid,” U.S. Army First Lieutenant Russ Marz, was the Battle Force ground ops team’s newest and youngest member, and Hal had taken “The Kid” under his wing—probably, Patrick had surmised, because he was very much like Hal himself when he was twenty years younger.

  The time went quickly. In less than an hour they had crossed the entire width of Russia and the Arctic Ocean, and the coast of North America was in sight a few minutes later. “The computer has started the pre-descent checklist, everyone,” Boomer announced. “We’re going to do a one point five G descent profile this time instead of three so NORAD won’t think we’re another Russian cruise missile sneak attack, and I’d like to keep the belly cool in case we have to do a quick-turn and launch again. Keep ahead of the plane and G-forces and sing out in case you’re having any problems. I’d like you all to…”

  Suddenly the threat warning receiver blared, “Warning, warning, target tracking radar, two o’clock, one thousand three hundred fifty miles.”

  “What did it say?” Boomer remarked. “I’ve never heard of any radar tracking at that kind of…”

  “Warning, warning, warning, laser spike, laser spike…warning, warning, warning, emergency cooling circuit activated…warning, spot hull temperature increasing, station three hundred…warning, spot hull temperature increasing, station three-eighty…warning, warning, warning, hull temperature reaching critical, station four-twenty…”

  “What in heck is going on?” Ann Page asked.

  “I don’t know, but we’re going to melt here in a second,” Boomer said. He immediately disconnected the autopilot and rolled the Black Stallion hard left using the control thrusters.

  “What are you doing, Boomer?”

  “We’re getting a sudden uneven heating of a small section of the fuselage,” he replied. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I need to expose a different part of the fuselage to whatever that heat source is and give the emergency cooling system a chance to bring the temps down, or it’ll fail. General, are you reading this?”

  “Just keep turning, Boomer,” Patrick McLanahan radioed. “Don’t stop maneuvering. We’re analyzing the information now.” And then they heard him say under his breath, “My God, I don’t believe it. They couldn’t possibly have done it…”

  “Warning, warning, laser spike, laser spike…warning, warning, spot hull temperature rising, station…warning, warning, hull temperature reaching critical, station one-forty…”

  “Boomer! Keep rolling!” Patrick radioed frantically. “As hard as you can! Don’t worry about depleting thruster fuel now! Move!” Boomer rolled the spaceplane hard to the right, nearly going inverted…

  …and then he saw it—a bright orange-blue dot on the horizon with the familiar shimmering three-dimensional texture of collimated laser light. “We’re being hit by a laser—a big mother laser hot enough to almost burn through our heat shields!” he shouted. At that instant, it winked out. “Did you see that, Ann?”

  “No—I was too busy praying we wouldn’t turn into a shooting star.”

  “We saw it down here, Boomer,” Patrick said. “It’s something I prayed we’d never see again…but it’s back, and it’s operational.”

  CHAPTER 3

  QOM, IRAN

  LATER THAT DAY

  A flight of three Mi-35 attack helicopters swooped in from the west in perfect formation. As two helicopters hovered and took up a protective position, the third landed just a hundred meters from the outer wall of the Ruhollah Khomeini Library and shut down its engines. A general officer and three bodyguards stepped out moments later. They carefully surveyed the outer walls of the library compound; then, one of the bodyguards made a radio call, and the two hovering attack helicopters moved away and out of sight.

  As the general waited, a captured armored personnel carrier emerged from the library compound and drove out to him. The general’s bodyguards had assault rifles and grenade launchers at the ready, but the general did not try to take cover, standing defiantly, almost impatiently, fists on his hips.

  Hesarak al-Kan Buzhazi emerged from the APC with Mansour Sattari and three bodyguards of his own surrounding him. He saluted the newcomer, and the general returned the salute. Both men were silent for a few long moments; then General Hoseyn Yassini, chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, said, “Well well, Hesarak, it seems you have been quite busy lately.” Buzhazi said nothing. The officer looked at the men assembled behind Buzhazi, nodding to Sattari. “Hello, Mansour. Quite the daring raid you pulled at Doshan Tappeh. That’ll teach the Pasdaran not to be so cocksure next time, eh? Think you taught them a little lesson?”

  “I hope so, sir,” Sattari said, nodding respectfully.

  “Unfortunately you didn’t use the opportunity to get out of the country with your hides intact,” Yassini said. “Instead, you decided to throw in with the general’s plan to…” He turned to Buzhazi: “What, Hesarak? What’s the plan? Where do you go from here?”

  Buzhazi took a thick packet of files from Sattari and handed them to Yassini. “Copies of the evidence we’ve gathered from Orumiyeh,” he said, “proving that Badi ordered the conspiracy to attack the base and kill Iranian soldiers with Pasdaran forces disguised as Kurdish rebels in order to discredit the Internal Defense Force and further his own political ambitions.”

  Yassini took the files but didn’t look at them. Keeping his eyes on Buzhazi, he dropped the files to the ground beside him. “You are too funny, Hesarak,” he said, shaking his head with a wry smile. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. Are you seriously trying to tell me all this is just you wanting to get back at that worthless piece of walking crap Muhammad
Badi for concocting that ridiculous plan to discredit your precious Basij? It was obvious to everyone with half a brain in Tehran what happened in Orumiyeh. Do you expect what’s in that folder to make one bit of difference for what you’ve done in the past few days?”

  He shook his head. “Hesarak, you magnificent idiot, if you had just stopped with killing Badi and escaping from Doshan Tappeh, you’d have become a legend in the Iranian military,” he said. “Hundreds of very powerful and influential men would have silently cheered for you, including some who could have pardoned you after a short stay in Anzali Prison. Badi got too powerful and pried into too many personal affairs—you just saved some other poor bastard from having to do the job. You could have even escaped to Syria or Yemen—hell, man, I probably would’ve helped you get out of the country! You’d be living like a prince in charge of some sheikh’s personal security detail.” He looked at the walls of the Khomeini Library compound. “But then you did…this. Strategically clever, I must say. If you were going for maximum shock value to the clerics in Tehran, you couldn’t have picked a better spot. Foolhardy, but clever.”

  “‘Shock value’ had nothing to do with it, Hoseyn,” Buzhazi said. “Are you blind, or just preferring to act the obedient, brainless soldier? Don’t you see what the clerical regime has done to our country? The Pasdaran is out of control. There are Pasdaran troops stationed in dozens of countries from Morocco to Malaysia, and they are running al-Quds death squads in every corner of the globe. The Pasdaran has nuclear weapons, long-range ballistic missiles, submarines, and long-range bombers. For what? Some dead cleric’s idea of a global Persian empire? The return of the caliphate? This is the twenty-first century, for God’s sake.”

  “Listen to you, Hesarak—fretting about empire and caliphates and political intrigue.” Yassini laughed. “Twelve years ago you were the clerics’ toughest supporter. You were ready to take on the United States of America in the Persian Gulf in support of the government—the very same government we have today!”

  “I was blind and stupid back then,” Buzhazi said.

  “Perhaps—but when they took the opportunity to get support from China, they abandoned your grand plan. That’s what you’re angry about, isn’t it? So which is it, Hesarak—do you truly feel the government is headed in the wrong direction, or do you just want revenge on them?” He waited for an answer; when one wasn’t forthcoming, he went on: “Do you think you’ve changed anything, Hesarak? There’s an interim government already in place, and I guarantee they’ll be tougher and more bloodthirsty than the current ones. I’ve already spoken to the acting president and defense ministers, and they want action.”

  “We’ll see what kind of stomach they have for fighting.”

  “You’re insane, Hesarak, insane,” Yassini chuckled. “Look, my friend, I think you’ve made your point here. The best thing you can do now is to get out and survive. I don’t know if what you’ve begun will lead to the downfall of the clerics, but alive and in exile in some other country will be better for your supporters and your cause than being dead and forgotten. Take your impressive victories and get out, while you can.”

  “What is it you want, Hoseyn?”

  “Simple: I want the hostages,” Yassini said.

  “Because then you’ll be the hero, their savior, right?”

  “What the hell do you care, Hesarak?” Yassini asked perturbedly. He shrugged, then said, “Their precious Pasdaran couldn’t save them—maybe if I lead them out of there and back to Tehran, they’ll think more of the regular armed forces and less of their ideological goon squads, and restore the military to its proper role.”

  “So you do believe the Pasdaran is misguided and out of control.”

  “I believe in me, Hesarak, and the forces under my command,” Yassini snapped. “Exacting your revenge on the Pasdaran is your battle, not mine. I’m here to protect my country and my government from all enemies, and right now that includes you. If the Pasdaran can’t stop you, it’s my duty to make sure the job gets done.”

  Buzhazi nodded, falling silent. The two men looked at each other carefully, sizing up each other’s words and mannerisms. Then Buzhazi said, “Let’s get down to it, Hoseyn.”

  “Whatever you say, Hesarak,” Yassini said. “This deal is between you and me. Tehran thinks I’m coming down here tomorrow morning to take personal command of the forces that will pry you out of Qom, dead or alive. I’m here early and without the interim Supreme Defense Council’s notice or authority as a colleague, a fellow soldier of Iran, and someone who has learned and studied under you and now has the opportunity to repay you for your dedicated years of service to our country.

  “Let us speak like men and warriors, Hesarak,” Yassini went on, pointing to his right eye, a symbol that he was pledging to tell the truth. “The Pasdaran number approximately one hundred and fifty thousand. You have taken perhaps three percent of that number out of action—an impressive feat, but not nearly enough for your mission to succeed. You and I both know this to be true.

  “You may get some regular army soldiers and perhaps even some Pasdaran to join you, but how many? Five thousand? Ten thousand at the very most? Even if you get fifteen thousand to join you, you are still outnumbered almost ten to one. You cannot hope to win, my friend. It is a simple numbers game. The Pasdaran may not be the best infantry fighters in the world, but they don’t have to be—the numbers are against you. You could be the greatest battlefield commander on Iranian soil since Alexander the Great, but even he had a massive army and access to all the supplies his forces needed. You have neither.

  “Here is what I propose, Hesarak, and if you were smart and truly cared for the soldiers in that compound, you would accept immediately,” Yassini went on. “You must release the clerics and politicians you hold hostage. That is nonnegotiable. I trust you have not harmed them—they are politicians and may be your ideological adversaries, but they are not combatants. You are too honorable of a soldier to harm unarmed noncombatants.”

  “And the second step?”

  “There is no second step today, Hesarak,” Yassini said. “Release the hostages to me. As you can see, I have no army behind me—yet. In twelve hours I’ll have one special ops brigade ready to go, with another on the way. By dawn I will present my assault plan to the interim Supreme Defense Council for approval, and shortly after that I will begin to retake the Khomeini Library by force. If you or anyone else still in that compound tries to resist when I come in, I’ll slaughter every last one of you.”

  “What about the Pasdaran in Qom?”

  “My plan only involves the regular army and air force, not the Pasdaran,” Yassini said. “I think after their earlier debacle they’ll be happy to turn over this operation to the army. They’ll stay away from this part of the province—I can guarantee it.”

  “So you don’t like the Pasdaran either,” Buzhazi observed. “You think they’re corrupt and ineffectual, as I do.”

  “The Pasdaran will fall because of their own mistakes and blind ideological allegiances, not because I’m fighting them,” Yassini said. “As incompetent as I think they are, I’m not stupid enough to take them on directly, like you.”

  “So you’ll simply let us escape?”

  “I have no idea what you are doing or where you go, Hesarak, because officially I’m not here,” Yassini said. “All I know is that any of your forces still in that compound by tomorrow afternoon will be either dead or my prisoner.”

  Buzhazi was silent for a few moments, then nodded his head. “I understand, Hoseyn,” he said. “I thank you for your fairness and honesty.”

  “Don’t thank me, General—just get the hell out of here. Go to France; go to South America; go to Indonesia, I don’t care, but just go. Don’t ever come back. You’re an old man—let the younger men fight. Become their inspirational leader from the comfort of a secure hideout someplace where the Pasdaran or their death squads can’t reach you, or at least you can see them coming. Just don’t set foot in
Iran ever again, because if I’m still in charge of the armed forces—which I fully intend to be—I’ll bury your bullet-ridden body so deeply in the desert that it’ll take scientists a millennia to find your bones.”

  “I understand your warning, Hoseyn.”

  “You’d better do more than that, Hesarak.”

  “And I have a word of warning for you, my friend: keep the gates of your bases locked and guarded, and don’t let anyone in—especially Pasdaran,” Buzhazi said. “Don’t go back to Tehran or the Ministry of Defense—I suggest the alternate command center at Mashhad or someplace where Pasdaran forces aren’t heavily concentrated. Whether I’m dead or alive, whoever is in charge of the regular army will be blamed for everything I’ve done. Protect yourselves at all times. Trust no one.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, General—worry about yourself. Get out while you still can. This is my final warning.”

  Buzhazi nodded again, then saluted. Yassini shook his head, puzzled and amused by the older officer’s weird schizophrenic personality swings between seemingly sociopathic mania and by-the-book military bearing, but he returned the salute. As Buzhazi turned and started walking to his armored car, he added, “And Hesarak? Remember, don’t harm one hair on those old men’s heads, or all bets are off.” His voice got louder and more strident as Buzhazi continued to walk away. “Understand me, Hesarak? Not one hair mussed up, or they’ll be after both our skins.” But Buzhazi and Sattari returned to their vehicle with their bodyguards and were gone without saying another word.

  “Sorry son of a bitch,” Yassini mused. “It’ll be too bad to see that proud old neck stretched at the end of a rope, but that’s what he’s destined for.” He waved for his bodyguards to return to the helicopter. He chased the pilot out of his seat and strapped himself in, preferring not to think of the meeting with Buzhazi but to concentrate on something else for a while—time enough to think about how he was going to get those clerics and politicians out of the Khomeini Library alive once he got back to Mehrabad. Flying was always a good way to help him clear his mind before making tough decisions.