“Quite the contrary,” Angel said. “It really will be up to you what to do next. Only you know the person who is behind the worst part of this.”
Smitz just shook his head in bafflement. None of this made sense to him.
That was when Angel walked over to him and pulled a small, computer-generated photograph from his flight suit pocket.
“This is a picture of the guy who started it all,” he told Smitz. “He’s the guy who set you up and nearly got you killed. You sure you want to see it?”
Smitz nodded, though timidly. “Yes…” he replied.
Angel held the photo up to eye level.
“Do you recognize this man?” he asked Smitz.
Smitz stared at the photo for a very long time. His face turned several shades of red. His eyes almost teared up in disbelief. Then his teeth clenched. Then his hands rolled into fists.
Then it all sunk in.
“Yeah, I know the bastard,” Smitz said, his voice guttural, deep, sounding like something from a horror movie.
“Well, he’s your boy,” Angel said. “The guy who has been doing the dirty work. Playing both sides. Collecting a ton of dough for his trouble too.”
That was enough for Smitz. He began walking very quickly back down the hill towards the choppers.
“Hey, Smitty!” Delaney called after him. “Where the hell you going, man?”
Smitz turned around. He was absolutely on fire now.
“I’m going to personally kill that son of a bitch,” he said. “Even if I have to fly one of those fucking choppers and do it myself.”
Chapter 30
The mountain on which Zim’s palace sat had three layers of defense.
The road leading up to it was about a half mile long, and it was covered with motion sensors, remote-controlled mines, and automatic-machine-gun nests. All of this was watched by an umbrella of hidden TV cameras that left no part of the winding mountain passage uncovered.
Anyone intending on getting to the palace without using this road would have to scale the sheer rock face that led up to Zim’s lair via the western side of the peak. Even a military alpine unit would have a tough time climbing this hazardous 2,500 feet.
But to make it even more unapproachable, Zim’s defensive specialists had installed a variety of bizarre but effective weapons up and down the rock face. Many of these Zim’s people had bought at bargain-basement prices from various warring factions in central Africa. Most were of homemade design but ingenious. Most prevalent was an exploding glass bomb, a devious device that when set off by a trip wire, sprayed up to five hundred shards of glass in a depressed 45-degree conical sphere. This was enough to shred anyone within fifteen feet. There were nearly two hundred of these mines hidden among the steep rocks.
There were also five remotely controlled gun emplacements tucked away in the cliffs, each one packing a 30-mm cannon. These guns had a full range of fire at anyone coming up the mountain’s west side. They were worked by an operator stationed up above, using a fire-control system taken off an Iranian destroyer and sold lock, stock, and barrel to Zim.
The third and final line of Zim’s defense protected the palace’s east side. This had not cost Zim a thing. Rather this barrier came courtesy of a massive land shift eons ago that left a peak soaring about 750 feet above the highest point on Zim’s domain. No mines were laid on this enormous, jagged piece of rock. No automatic guns or TV cameras watched over its approaches. There was no need to. The peak was absolutely impossible to scale.
Or so everyone thought.
The 150 mercenaries guarding the interior of Zim’s palace were broken up into four squads, each with approximately three dozen members.
The so-called Red Squad was responsible for patrolling the high outer walls of the compound. Specialists within this group also operated and maintained the Rapier antiaircraft systems found in the palace’s four minarets. Most of the Red Squad soldiers were white South Africans, veterans of many African conflicts.
Yellow Squad patrolled the interior of the compound itself. They were like the local police force. They responded to anything from a broken door lock to complaints of rowdy guests inside the “Hotel.” Like Red Squad, they were mostly South Africans, and carried Uzis or elderly but effective Bren guns.
Green Squad was responsible for protecting the grounds outside the palace. They maintained the weapons imbedded in the roadway and on the cliff face. They frequently patrolled all the way down the mountain, to the flat desert valley beyond. They were a mix of former East German and Swiss mercs.
The fourth squad was called Black Squad, and they could usually be found lounging in their luxurious barracks located near the rear of Zim’s main residence and hard up against the 750-foot peak that looked out over them all. Black Squad did not walk patrol or maintain weapons. Black Squad did only special ops. Favors for Zim, the orders for which came from his lips alone.
The people in Black Squad were all Muslim fighters, veterans from various wars, arrogant with power, and usually disparaging of the other mercenaries on-site. They were, however, the toughest of the bunch and the highest paid, simply because they had no qualms about doing the dirtiest jobs for Zim. In fact they enjoyed many of them.
Black Squad also functioned as Zim’s personal body-guards. It was they who stood watch over the doors leading into his chamber, they who stood guard outside his bedroom, his kitchen, his bathroom, his sauna, wherever he was at any given moment. All of Black Squad carried AK-47’s and long Sherpa knives usually honed to a razor-sharp edge.
There was not a red alert per se that could be called inside Zim’s palace.
If an emergency arose, which had never happened, Zim’s orders would filter down to Black Squad, who in turn would inform the other three squads of the situation and then instruct them what to do about it. But because the palace was deemed impregnable and since no enemies had ever dared come near, there had never been any drills or any rehearsals, not even a lengthy discussion about what to do should an adversary approach the compound in force.
That was why even though Zim had given the order for the compound to prepare for attack, no one among his security forces really knew what that meant. Usually in times like this, the squads would have looked to Major Qank, the intelligence chief, for guidance. But it was well known by now that Major Qank was not among them anymore.
So for what was about to happen, the mercs were on their own.
The first sign that things were not right came just before midnight.
There was a shift change on the outer parapets among the Red Squad members. Those soldiers charged with watching the Rapier radar-acquisition screens had spotted two dots out on the very fringe of their missile system’s operational range.
This was not unusual. Iraq aircraft could be seen on their radar screens occasionally—Iranian aircraft too. But these two blips were acting very strangely.
They were moving back and forth, on the edge of the screen—appearing here, disappearing there, then reappearing way over there. The Rapier’s electronics told the operators the blips were not airplanes. No, the way they were flying, they could only be one thing: helicopters.
Again, to see Iraqi military helicopters passing by the Qom-el-Zarz palace was no big deal. But these helicopters were not acting like typical Iraqis. Their pilots must have known they were being painted by the Rapier long-range radar system, this the first step in being shot down by the highly accurate SAM system. Even friendly airplanes were always reluctant to get tangled up inside their own SAM webs. Accidents happened, and Rapiers rarely missed their targets.