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Tehran, Iran

The irony that they were fighting to protect supporters and party officials belonging to the hard-line tyrant now holding Iran’s presidency was not lost on David McCarter. The strange complication of the surveillance equipment, unaccounted for, worried him a great deal, but there was nothing to be done about that now. They would have to play out the hand they had been dealt. It would do no good to concern themselves with factors whose import was not discernible yet.

The small cafeteria hall that was the site of the first rally boasted a crowd of a few hundred people. Phoenix Force, at Ahmadi’s urging, insinuated themselves into the crowd toward the back. There were a few token security personnel here and there, from what they could tell. These men wore no uniforms and, while they carried wireless radios, did not appear to be armed.

The front of the cafeteria hall had been decorated with banners bearing Magham’s photograph and some sort of slogan. None of McCarter’s team would have been able to understand it even if they could read the writing, but of course that was irrelevant. A podium had been erected, and one of several speakers who Ahmadi had said was a minor party functionary was now going on in Persian. He sounded boring even in an incomprehensible language, McCarter thought, and it didn’t surprise him that politics was dull no matter what the cultural environment.

The plan, inasmuch as they were able to create one, was simply to stay among the crowd unless and until a terrorist hit was enacted. It was a stopgap measure; McCarter would much have preferred to go directly to the heart of the matter but, as Brognola had said, there were certain political concerns. The big Fed would not come right out and say it in so many words in the briefing, but they all understood that there were certain political exigencies at stake. It wasn’t enough to destroy Ovan or to smash Magham. The men involved had to be exposed so that the world would know why such men had been destroyed and smashed. Thus the weight of public opinion would not be thrown too hard against those few industrialized nations still willing to combat terror in the world.

The real difficulty here would be in pulling off armed resistance to the attack without ending up in the hands of the Iranian authorities. At the thought, McCarter realized it was odd that this rally, supporting as it did the current government’s regime, boasted no Iranian Internal Security agents. He edged closer to Ahmadi, who now wore a radio just as did Phoenix Force’s members. Their conversation would be inaudible to anyone not wearing such an earpiece.

“Ghaem, lad,” McCarter said softly. “Where is the IIS in all this?”

“It is indeed curious,” Ahmadi said. “Usually, Magham’s operatives travel with them in plentiful number.”

“Not that I’m complaining, mate,” McCarter said, “but just how do you suppose we would pull this off if the place were crawling with IIS men?”

“I assumed you would think of something.” Ahmadi managed to sound sheepish, even whispering. “You came highly recommended.”

“Can’t argue that,” McCarter said with a mental shrug.

The audience began to close in around the podium as the speaker made as if to wrap up his comments. Apparently he was some sort of preliminary figure, for the crowd perked up considerably when the next man strode to the podium. He began without apparent preamble, making sweeping gestures with his arms, doing his best to animate the crowd. For the most part, they responded, and the men of Phoenix Force played along, shouting when the crowd shouted, waving when the crowd waved.

McCarter was starting to feel silly when he saw the first of the killers.

He would not have been able to explain, if asked, what first drew his attention to the man. It was something in his body language, a quality visible to a soldier with years of battlefield experience. The man who stood in the midst of the crowd, playing along as McCarter was doing, was focused entirely too much on everyone but the speaker at the podium. He kept brushing his hand across his shirt just above his waistline, too, a dead giveaway. It was a tell that he was carrying a firearm or some other weapon there.

“David,” Encizo said in his ear. “I have a possible shooter.”

“Describe him,” McCarter said. He listened. It was clear that Encizo was describing an entirely different person.

“I’ve got another,” James said. “He’s just to my left, in a black shirt and tan pants.”

“Me, too,” Manning said. “In fact, I see two, close to the podium on the far right.”

“I’ve got one, as well,” Hawkins drawled.

McCarter worked his way farther to the rear of the hall. He looked out over the assembled group and, with the positions of his team still fixed in his mind, ran down the approximate positions of the potential shooters. “Calvin,” he said, “I need you to take the two closest to you. That’s yours and the one Rafe spotted.” He ran down assignments for Manning and Hawkins, too. “That leaves one for me. Get ready.”

Ahmadi had assumed McCarter and his men would think of something.

McCarter reached the rear of the cafeteria and pulled the fire alarm.

The response was immediate. Most of the crowd began filing out of the room, conditioned as were most people to respond to a fire alarm. But in that moment when most people stop and look up in reaction to such an alarm, the possible shooters had looked, not to the alarm, but to their target at the podium. McCarter knew what they were thinking; it was what he would be thinking in their place. They were wondering how to complete their mission.

Well, they wouldn’t be. He and Phoenix Force would make certain of that.

“Now!” McCarter ordered.

The Phoenix Force commandos drew their weapons and leveled them at the would-be gunmen. The shooters went for their own weapons, but they weren’t fast enough. The pops of pistols were almost anticlimactic in the seconds that followed. Phoenix Force moved in on their targets, crouching low, moving smoothly, confident in their ability to engage enemies in close-quarters handgun exchanges and come out the winner.

As soon as the battle had begun, it was over, and the members of Phoenix Force stood over a dozen dead bodies.

Someone screamed.

The few people who had not responded to the fire alarm began to flee from the cafeteria. The speaker at the podium and the political operatives with him looked around in dismay. Some of them fled and some of them didn’t; the ones who remained looked confused or frozen.

It was time to go, before they met more resistance.

“Go, go, go, go,” McCarter urged. The team backed away, leaving the stunned speaker still at his podium. “Do we have anyone else?”

“No one that I can see,” Encizo reported. There were calls of assent from the other team members.

“Let’s fade, lads,” McCarter said. “Ghaem?”

“Meet me at the rear entrance, please,” Ahmadi reported. “I have secured alternate transportation.” The foghorn sirens of Iranian Internal Security were closing in. Ahmadi could hear them better than he could, McCarter was certain.

He stepped over one of the corpses—and it grabbed him. The terrorist was not yet dead, and he was determined to take someone with him. McCarter went down and suddenly found himself wrestling for possession of his Browning with a man possessed. The strength of adrenaline, fear and imminent death made the man’s hands iron as he clawed at the Briton.

“Keep going!” McCarter yelled. He slammed a palm heel up under his adversary’s chin. “Don’t wait for me! Go!”

The sirens were more insistent now; they sounded as if they were immediately outside. This was what Mc Carter had feared: doing their jobs only to end up handing themselves to the Iranian security forces. To be prisoners under those circumstances would be a fate worse than death. The Farm would have to disavow knowledge of them, and the Iranians, realizing they had high-value military personnel from the United States, would never let them go. They would probably use their captives for whatever propaganda value they could get, first torturing each member of Phoenix Force to break them.

Everyone could be broken. Many times McCarter and the men of Phoenix had found themselves in the clutches of determined enemies, and at times those experiences had been decidedly unpleasant. They had remained strong through them, but he had no illusions. The members of Phoenix Force were human, not super-men, and they could be broken by persistent torture as could virtually anyone else. It could take years of privation and steady mistreatment…or it could take hours of brutal, maiming torture, depending on the methods used.