A week after the biological weapons lab was destroyed, Major Khan stood outside General Tehrani’s office. He studied the lobby for signs of an ambush. The destruction of the lab wasn’t his fault, but he was the ranking officer at the Russian roulette game where Captain Rapviz decorated his game room with his brains. The penalty for such lapses in judgment often meant death. Of course Major Khan didn’t fear death itself, but he did fear dying on someone else’s terms, and he would fight to die on his own terms, even if it meant killing the general.
The general’s assistant asked, “Are you carrying any weapons?”
Major Khan was armed, but he wasn’t about to disarm himself. He stared through the assistant.
“Please remove any weapons before entering the general’s office.”
Major Khan stood still.
The assistant seemed uncomfortable but persisted. “Are you carrying any weapons, sir?”
“Do you see any?” Khan asked.
“No, sir.”
Major Khan cracked his knuckles with impatience.
“General Tehrani will see you now,” the assistant said.
Major Khan entered the general’s office.
General Tehrani finished up a call on his black cell phone before putting it away. “Sit down,” Tehrani said to Major Khan.
Seated to the right of the general was Lieutenant First Class Saeed Saeedi, Major Khan’s friend—the hothead who started the Russian roulette game in the first place. The irony that Lieutenant Saeedi was sitting next to the general instead of standing in front of him wasn’t lost on Major Khan.
To General Tehrani’s left sat the other friend who was present at the Russian roulette game, Pistachio. When the general wanted to get rid of a commando, he used the commando’s closest friends to snuff him. Both of Major Khan’s best friends were here now. Major Khan knew he could take Pistachio and Lieutenant Saeedi separately, but he didn’t think he could beat both at the same time.
“What’s wrong, Major Khan?” Lieutenant Saeedi said with his chest puffed out. “The general offered you a seat.”
Major Khan didn’t like the disrespectful tone of Lieutenant Saeedi’s voice. Sitting would give them more of an advantage if this was an ambush, but they were all seated, and maybe General Tehrani was simply being polite.
“Maybe you’re afraid we’re here to, oh, how do the Americans say it—terminate your command?” Pistachio said with a chuckle.
Major Khan remained standing. Pistachio’s probe for a weakness—fear—irritated Major Khan even more, and he thought he would like to kill Pistachio first.
Lieutenant Saeedi chuckled. “That’s a good one. Terminate his command.”
“Please, sit down,” General Tehrani said. “We’re all family here. No one, save perhaps me, is in danger of losing his command.”
Major Khan felt like he didn’t have a choice. He sat down, but he didn’t let his guard down.
“Major Khan, you owe me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I was the ranking officer when the Russian roulette game took place, and I was responsible for the senseless death of Captain Rapviz.” Major Khan’s gaze shifted to Lieutenant Saeedi. Lieutenant Saeedi lowered his head and stared at his shoe tips.
“Do you realize how much money goes into training a man like Captain Rapviz?” General Tehrani asked.
“More than a billion rial.”
“Yes. Now I am going to tell you how you’re going to repay me,” the general said. “Someone destroyed our secondary biological weapons lab, and I want you to obliterate the bastards who did it. They think they can act with impunity against us, but they are wrong. The Supreme Leader wants this. I hope you understand how important that is. So I want you to find them and cut them into little pieces so we can feed them to their mothers. I have called in your two best friends here so we can get to the cutting soon. I know you three have had successes together in the past, and this will be your next success.”
Major Khan took it as an insult: The general is telling me that I don’t have what it takes to finish the job by myself. What would the general say if I rejected his plan? Maybe Pistachio and Lieutenant Saeedi will try to kill me right here and now. I’d like to see them try.
“With all due respect, sir, I think I can handle this alone,” Major Khan said.
Pistachio and Lieutenant Saeedi shifted uneasily in their seats.
“Are you questioning me, son?” General Tehrani asked.
Pistachio tried to mediate. “I think Major Khan understands what a great addition we would be to the Team, sir.”
“Shut up!” General Tehrani shouted.
The four men sat in silence for a moment.
“Was it the Zionists?” Major Khan asked.
“Them, or their American Satanist overlords,” the general said. “In the village of Abadi Abad, three basiji were found murdered just before the biological weapons plant was destroyed. You will hopefully find some answers there.”
“Is a helicopter available, sir?”
“I can have a helicopter fly you to Abadi Abad right now.”
“Then, if it pleases the general, I’ll take Pistachio and Lieutenant Saeedi to Abadi Abad and we’ll find whoever bombed our biological weapons plant, sir. Then we will cut them into little pieces.”
“You’re damn right,” General Tehrani said. “The Supreme Leader and I are counting on your success.”
Major Khan exited the room as quickly as he could. He wasn’t afraid, he was angry, and it took every bit of his willpower to not kill Pistachio and Saeedi. Instead, the three men boarded the waiting helicopter and flew to Abadi Abad. The helo landed just outside the village, where a fat police chief met them. The police chief escorted them to his police car and drove. Pistachio held a plastic cup in one hand and with his other put pistachios in his mouth.
“Do you need something to eat?” the police chief asked.
“I don’t think he needs anything to eat,” Lieutenant Saeedi said, utterly tickled with himself.
“Were you talking to me?” the police chief asked.
“No,” Major Khan said. “We’ve already eaten.”
Pistachio spit pistachio shells into a plastic cup.
The police chief explained about the three murdered basiji. Next, he told them about the stolen black Mercedes law enforcement SUV and the shots fired at a police officer’s vehicle.
“Didn’t anyone try to follow them?” Khan asked.
“At the time, we thought they were government agents, so we let them go.”
“You pursued them because they were government agents. They shot at you. Then you stopped pursuing them because they were government agents. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“We tried to follow the tracks, but by then the wind had blown them away,” the chief said.
The man is a disgrace. “And now you’re insulting my intelligence.”
Like lightning, Lieutenant Saeedi punched the police chief in the side of the head and knocked him out. The chief fell over like a frozen block of ice. Lieutenant Saeedi kicked him on the ground. “Hey, fatso. Wake up. Wake up!” He kicked him again.
The police chief stirred on the ground.
“Don’t insult Major Khan,” Lieutenant Saeedi warned.
“You said they were heading south?” Major Khan asked.
“Yes,” the police chief said, groaning as he regained consciousness.
Major Khan surveyed the area. “Whoever did this wasn’t an amateur.”
“Who do you think it was?” Pistachio asked.
“The Israelis,” Major Khan said. “America wouldn’t be so bold. This looks like the work of the Mossad.”
Pistachio cracked a pistachio shell with his teeth. “Where do you think they went?”
“No telling. Just because they drove south out of here doesn’t mean they drove south all the way. There’s nothing south of here unless they rendezvoused with an aircraft or went farther south and got picked up at sea. I don’t think they’d find many friends in Pakistan, so they could’ve driven to Afghanistan.”
Lieutenant Saeedi became impatient. “We need to start searching south or toward Afghanistan before they get away.”
“We can search where they went and hope to catch up, or we can think about where they’ll strike next,” Major Khan said.
“Where do you think they’ll strike next?” Pistachio asked.
“One of the scientists got appendicitis and was flown out to a hospital in Tehran before the biological weapons compound exploded. If I were the Mossad, I’d go to Tehran.”