The incendiary devices blew up at nine-forty-five pm. The high-heat fire caught on and spread, fueled by the ready availability of oxygen and a light breeze.
The few students and professors in the university ran to the exit, screaming in panic as windows shattered, curtains blazed and wood smoldered and broke into fire.
Nazer wasn’t worried. The lab was well-insulated and had been designed to withstand earthquakes and natural disasters. Only bombs could damage it.
Nevertheless, he followed protocol. He messaged Mostofi.
The Quds boss was rising from his chair to go to the lectern for his speech when Salim approached him.
He read Nassour’s message about the fire. Nothing to worry about, his aide told him. The professor and his team are safe.
Send the fire department.
They should be on their way, but the guards say the trucks might have to wait. For the intensity to die out.
Habib’s on it, Mostofi returned the phone to Salim. It was a fire. Nothing more.
He went to the lectern, sipped from a glass of water and basked in the welcoming applause.
Nargess’s phone buzzed. ‘Not now,’ Meghan muttered when she glanced at the screen.
‘Take it,’ Zeb suggested. ‘Yasaman doesn’t know how we work.’
‘Yes?’ the older sister answered the call. ‘It’s nothing. Keep watching on your TV. I won’t be taking calls for some time.’
‘She was crying,’ she relayed when she ended the call, ‘in joy. Thanking us. Was hoping the fire would bring down the entire university.’
‘That’s not what we planned,’ Bear caressed his MP5.
‘Yeah. She’ll know later tonight, what exactly went down.’
The chopper tipped as Rubin headed to the IICC.
‘Stealth mode,’ he announced and flicked on a switch. ‘You won’t feel any difference inside, except for the sound.’
Several operatives took off their headphones and nodded at the vastly-reduced noise of the turbines.
‘Rotor profiles changed in-flight,’ Rubin commented. ‘Other muffling technology, both physical as well as electronic, that dissipates acoustic waves.’
Zeb and Bear removed their belts and went to the cargo door and opened it. Broker and Meghan opened the opposite one. The chopper didn’t wobble despite the inrush of air.
He’s good, the large operative mouthed as he jerked his head at Rubin.
Yeah, Zeb lipped back. IICC beneath them. Well-lit. No other event but the award ceremony. Soldiers and the shapes of the armored vehicles. Cars still approaching the venue.
He turned away and slid out the Fast Rope Insertion Extraction System, FRIES bar and attached one end of a fast rope to it.
Checked his gloves and the bandages beneath them. Got Bear to attach the harness over him. Gripped the rope and turned to face his team. Beth’s hands just over his. Bear and Chloe at the other door, in similar positions.
Meghan and Broker, prone position, cupping their HKs, their legs hooked around foldable hooks to anchor them, well away from them with clear firing view to the rooftop.
Rubin hovered high over the glass dome of the main conference hall. ‘No enemy radar.’
‘Eight snipers on the roof,’ the older twin called out.
‘I see the same. No one’s looking up.’
Hundred feet high. No lights. Someone will spot us soon, however.
‘Take them out.’ Zeb positioned himself, tightened his grip on the rope as flat cracks, muffled by his headphones, filled the chopper.
‘All down,’ Meghan announced.
‘Hold tight.’ Rubin dropped twenty-five feet.
‘GO!’ the elder twin yelled, her eye still to her scope.
Zeb kicked out and dropped down the rope. Seventy-five feet to the roof. Eyes down, hands burning even through the thick gloves and the bandages beneath. Feet slowing down his descent. He didn’t worry about the snipers or the ground soldiers. Meghan and Broker would take care of any shooters and Rubin had yet to use his weapons.
He landed perfectly on the center of the roof, stepped back to help Beth. Bear and Chloe down the other rope.
No lateral wind. That helped us. He removed his gloves, stuffed them in a pocket, when the unexpected happened.
Roger had driven to Emam Ali Highway, to their designated firing area they had scoped out. A turnoff which was nothing more than a dirty track at the side of the road. It probably had some use at one time but there was nothing but hard ground, empty bottles and food wrapping. A makeshift comfort stop for vehicles.
It was on top of a gentle rise and gave them the perfect firing view.
At Meghan’s GO! they jumped out of the van, opened the rear.
Bwana climbed in and returned with the missile.
Mounted it to his shoulder. Sighted MUT and the lab’s building in the Command Launch Unit. Switched to Narrow Field of View to refine his aim. Pressed the trigger to switch to Seeker Field of View, which told the missile guidance system where to go and when Roger gave him a thumbs-up, pressed the second trigger.
The Javelin locked on the target and flew out of its tube at one thousand three hundred miles per hour.
Bwana moved instantly after firing the weapon. He ran to the edge of the turn-off and threw the tube assembly as far as he could, down the rise. Roger returned from the van carrying the case and that went down the hill, too.
Moments later, they were in the van, heading to the rendezvous point which was another turn-off a mile away.
Neither of them bothered to look at the university. They knew what a Javelin, with that kind of payload, did to buildings.
The lab was rubble. The virus destroyed in the extreme heat. Nazer and his assistants, the Quds guards, dead.
The unexpected was two guards who didn’t weren’t killed by the sniper bullets. One of them reared up from the rooftop, shouting inarticulately, reaching for his weapon.
Zeb fired from a standing run, his silenced Glock’s rounds smashing into the soldier. Chloe’s HK burst took out the second guard and she, with Beth providing cover, checked that the other guards were out.
Thuds on the roof as Meghan and Broker dropped their wingsuits from the chopper.
Bear was attaching shaped charges to the dome when Zeb reached him, helped him place the last of the explosives and then fix the blast-resistant clamps of the harness to the metal casing on the concrete from which the dome rose.
‘We seem to be made,’ Rubin announced cheerfully. ‘Those shots have drawn attention.’
‘Safe hunting,’ Meghan called out.
Zeb didn’t look up. He and Bear didn’t pause. They stepped several feet back and triggered the charges and their explosion coincided with the streak that shot out from the Black Hawk, the Hellfire. Another streak from the chopper and it disappeared into the darkness without attracting a single round of enemy fire.
Zeb climbed onto the concrete mounting and took one look inside. Smoke, light from far down below, which reflected off thousands of tiny glass particles.
‘Move!’ Bear urged him.
Zeb jumped through the opening.
Mostofi was thundering about America, drawing waves of ovation, when the building seemed to shake. He looked around. Before he could react, a blast sounded from above.
He instinctively crouched behind the lectern. Looked up and his jaw dropped as some kind of monster dropped through the smoke and fragments of glass.
The harness was like an enormous rubber catapult. The clamps held the frame while the tension in the sling could be adjusted remotely. Bear held the control and dialed it to zero when Zeb landed as Beth and Chloe patrolled the roof.
The Hellfires had put two armored vehicles out of commission. A third missile had destroyed the empty buildings by Chamran Highway, providing further distraction to the military and security personnel at IICC.
‘Mount up in your wingsuits,’ Meghan spoke in their earpieces, orchestrating every move from the chopper.
Zeb knew how he looked, with his combat gear and helmeted appearance. Cables extending from his back and going up the hole in the roof.
He landed lightly on his feet Mostofi to his left and hiding behind the lectern on stage.
One second to fire a long burst over the heads of the audience which was screaming in panic.
He turned towards the Quds leader when a figure moved. A man lunged at him from the side of the stage, his mouth open in a silent scream, a gun in his hand.
Zeb threw himself to the floor as bullets flew over his head, his HK rising, chattering as the arc of rounds swept across the ceiling. Something slammed into his chest. He grunted. He kept triggering until the first round caught the attacker, spun him around and then more from a fresh magazine slapped into the weapon in a sight-blurring fast-change.
Mostofi!
The Quds boss was scurrying away on all fours. He got to his feet even as Zeb roared in fury. Zeb dove at his legs as the Iranian kicked and struggled to get free.
Got to move. No time to lose.
With an oath, he grabbed Mostofi’s hair, gritted his teeth against the punches, moved up the man’s body to smother him and smashed his head against the floor, knocking him out.
He got his right arm around the man’s chest and dragged him beneath the hole.
‘EXTRACT!’ he panted into his mic.
The cables tightened, just as he threw his HK away to hold on to his captive with both hands and as he was yanked upwards, the lights went out.
That’s Meg, with the EMP blasts.
Bear caught him as he shot out of the shattered dome. Held him while he got his breath while Beth and Chloe, looking like something from a sci-fi movie, in their wingsuits, in the night light, removed his harness, wrapped belts around him and Mostofi to secure the prisoner and helped him with his wingsuit.
They guided him to the rear of the roof as firing burst out from the front. Blind shooting, voices of command mingled with them.
Beth and Chloe ran to the edge of the roof and base-jumped off into the night. Zeb, powered by Bear’s massive hand at his back, followed them and then he too was flying, the powerful suit spread around him, comfortably taking the weight of two people.
‘Bear?’ he called out. No response. He craned his neck to see the dark shape behind him. Got a hand wave.
That EMP blast has taken out our comms. It must have affected the chopper too. He worried about it for a moment and gave up. Meghan will have planned for it.
He followed Beth and Chloe through the night, towards Caton’s tower as Quds soldiers appeared to gather themselves and started firing.
But it was too late.
Zeb landed on the roof, lost his balance and only Bear’s grip stopped him from falling. He shrugged out of the suit with their help. Meghan was there, removing his belt, leading Mostofi to the chopper.
Beth and Chloe hustled him to the Black Hawk which rose the moment they climbed in. Rubin turned to him momentarily and gave him a thumbs-up and then they were high in the air.
‘Just to keep them occupied,’ the pilot said through the headphones which someone had jammed over Zeb’s head.
He didn’t know what Rubin said until three Hellfires streaked towards IICC.
The pilot didn’t linger to watch the results. He flew low, hugging rooftops, until he got to Emam Ali Highway, following the ribbon of road briefly.
Bear and Broker got to the cargo door and dropped a rope ladder that swept the top of concrete where Bwana and Roger were waiting.
He slowed the chopper long enough for the men to grab it, turned it around to face a string of red and blue lights, cop and military vehicles that were racing to the site of the missile launch.
Another Hellfire shot out from the chopper and slammed into the highway raising giant clouds of dust and debris.
‘Enough damage,’ he said and set a route that skirted the edge of Tehran and across the country.
‘It worked,’ Bwana nodded at Mostofi when he entered. Their prisoner was bound to his seat, his mouth gagged, unconscious.
Zeb winced when his friend hugged him.
‘What’s up?’
‘Something hit me. There was a guard on the stage. He fired.’ He removed his armor and lifted his top. Felt the angry welt on his ribs. ‘No bleeding.’
‘You got lucky.’
Zeb looked at him and at his friends. All of them grinning, Broker chuckling.
‘We all got lucky.’
Scott Rubin flew to the south of the country, undetected, and he turned off stealth when they were over the Gulf of Oman. By then, the news had exploded over all the Iranian and international channels.
A cowardly attack by our enemies, Iranian media declared. The reports were sketchy, they stated. Some missiles had exploded around the IICC, and Brigadier General Mostofi was missing. In what seemed to be a related attack, Malek-Ashtar University had been destroyed and all its research capabilities had been wiped out. A big blow to the country. On top of that, a stray missile had destroyed a vacant building, they reported.
‘The university’s still standing,’ Bwana snorted. ‘It’s the lab that’s gone.’
‘They can’t admit that,’ Roger reasoned. ‘That would expose them.’
A daring attack, Western media called it. But they didn’t carry many details, either.
The first call came when they were fueling in Riyadh, at a military base that Clare had arranged for.
‘Tell me he’s with you?’ Avichai Levin demanded.
Zeb grinned and turned on his phone’s camera and showed the Mossad Director, Mostofi’s still-unconscious body.
The ramsad sighed. ‘You know how much I have longed for such an event.’
‘I know.’
‘You got away safe?’
‘Yes.’
‘Injuries?’
‘A bruise.’
‘How?’ Levin exclaimed. ‘How did you execute this?’
‘Admit it that the Agency is better than Mossad!’ Beth crowed in the phone.
‘Never!’ the Mossad Director retorted. ‘Maybe in some missions,’ he grudgingly admitted. ‘But overall,’ he spoke over their triumphant yells, ‘we are way ahead of you.’
The second video call came to Nargess.
‘Khanom,’ Reza Zarhagi appeared on screen, Yasaman and Syed flanking him. The warrior looked like he hadn’t slept all night but his eyes were bright.
‘So, that’s how you look like,’ he smiled as he saw them without their disguises for the first time.
‘Was that your doing?’
‘Yes,’ Meghan admitted.
‘They say Mostofi is missing.’
‘He is here,’ the elder twin turned the camera to show their captive.
‘He’ll face trial?’
‘Yes, in America. He’ll be serving a very long sentence.’
‘Why did you destroy that building in the university?’ Yasaman asked.
Meghan looked at Zeb who nodded. No harm in their knowing.
‘You’ll have to keep this to yourself for a few days,’ the older twin warned.
‘We will,’ Syed promised.
‘Nazer had created a virus that would kill millions. One of Mostofi’s men was carrying it to America. He was to infect it today. That’s why we needed Dariush. The man he replaced was the killer.’
‘You were wrong, agha,’ Zarhagi said softly. He waved away Zeb’s protest at the respectful form of address. ‘Yes, nothing much will change for us. Sure, there will be more soldiers on the street and some of us might even be captured. However, someone else will replace Mostofi and life will go on.’
What’s he leading to? What was I wrong about?
The rebel leader answered his unvoiced question. ‘Hope, agha. That’s what you were wrong about. You have given us hope.’