Shahriar, Iran
The four vehicles circled the enormous compound. None of them indicated they were part of a convoy or were in a group. They were merged with other traffic, trucks, vehicles, buses on Shahidan Inanlu Boulevard, each one of them going to their end destinations.
The four cars didn’t seem to have any particular end point. The flashers on each one blinked when they reached Shora Boulevard and cut over to Allameh Tabatabaee Boulevard and joined it. Aroose Shekhari Garden fell behind as the road turned right and at Farmandari Square, they joined Kalhor Boulevard.
Left again on Modarres Boulevard which turned into Shahidan Inanlu Boulevard at the park that split the double carriageway.
The enormous loop circled the town of Shahriar, in the province of Tehran, forty kilometers to the west of the country’s capital. Population of three hundred twenty-eight thousand.
The city had made the wrong kind of news in recent times.
More than two hundred protesters had been killed several months ago by police and military as people rioted against gas prices. A Ukrainian airplane had been mistakenly shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, near the city. All one hundred seventy-six passengers and crew killed.
The IRGC was initially formed to preserve the Islamic way of life in the country. It had grown beyond its ideological origins and with over a hundred thousand troops, had become a military force that prevented foreign interference, clamped down on dissenters and answered only to the Supreme Leader. Bringing down the aircraft was another in a long list of callous acts.
The four vehicles weren’t circling Shahriar for its recent notoriety or for the aircraft’s crash.
Their occupants were interested in the Shahriar Garrison. Training base for the Quds Force, a division of the IRGC that focused on unconventional warfare and extra-territorial military operations.
A covert outfit so powerful that it had become more famous than its parent body. It had over thirty thousand soldiers and its chief reported independently to the Supreme Leader.
Intelligence agencies around the world knew Quds Force for what it really was.
An outfit that supported terrorists around the world. Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Yemeni Houthis, the Quds Force trained those outfits, provided them with arms and intel and helped them fight their causes.
The Iranian agency didn’t limit its activities to the Middle East. It was long suspected of helping North Korea in its cyberwarfare and nuclear ambitions.
Shahriar Garrison was one of the many Iranian bases the Quds Force had. The outfit trained Afghan fighters, mercenaries from all the over the world, and sent them to Syria and various hotspots in the region.
Ten Iranian suicidal terrorists had come out of the camp and had come close to pulling off the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States.
‘Not much to see here,’ a driver in one of the vehicles spoke aloud. She wore a hijab, a head scarf, that loosely covered her hair. Mandatory for women in Iran.
Meghan Petersen. Alert eyes surveying the compound wall of the garrison, hands resting loosely on the wheel, guiding the Toyota through traffic. Broker, the man next to her, leaned back and stretched his legs out. Crossed his arms over his chest and chewed gum as he watched the camp go past.
‘That place’s impenetrable,’ Beth Petersen, in another vehicle, exclaimed. ‘Look at those cameras on the walls. Those will be the obvious ones. They’ll have drones, biometric sensors, more guards than we can imagine.’ She snatched a look at her passenger, Zeb Carter, who seemed to be dozing, unconcerned. ‘There are just the eight of us. You’ve got a plan?’
He didn’t reply.
‘Hope,’ Chloe, driving another vehicle, said solemnly. ‘He’s hoping, thinking hard and the power of his thought waves will breach those gates.’
Bear, her partner and seated alongside her, chuckled just as the entry to the camp flashed by.
Cross barrier, security guard hut, armed soldiers, similar setup to thousands of camps around the world.
‘Hope and Zeb!’ Bwana, the driver of the fourth car, snorted. ‘You got something, bud?’
‘He’s probably sleeping,’ Roger drawled from the passenger seat. ‘This going around in circles is very relaxing.’
Beth risked another look when she had overtaken a bus, frowned when Zeb’s head lolled. Punched him on the forearm. ‘You’re really sleeping?’ she yelled.
‘A man can’t even rest,’ he grumbled as he straightened. ‘Yeah, I’ve got a plan.’
‘Take your time,’ Meghan said encouragingly when he didn’t speak for several moments. ‘Don’t be in a hurry. I mean, what’s there to worry us? Those soldiers, those drones which might be identifying us as we drive, pshaw!’ she scoffed.
Zeb grinned. The twins, they had a way about them.
‘We’ll use missiles,’ he said.