David flattened himself against one wall, aiming his MP5 at the door to Nouri’s room. Fox, meanwhile, flattened himself against the opposite wall, aiming his MP5 the other direction, lest they be ambushed from behind. That was, after all, increasingly likely. They were jamming communications on this floor, but what about the others? All this gunfire could certainly be heard throughout the building. IRGC backups had to be on the way, and the transport team could be here any second.
“Home Plate, can you jam communications throughout the whole building?” David asked.
“Already done,” Zalinsky said. “But you’ve got reinforcements coming up the elevators and up your stairwell. You need to get your target and get out of there—now.”
Just then, the elevator doors opened down the hall. David turned, but Torres and Crenshaw were on it. They opened fire and dropped three Revolutionary Guards before they even knew what had happened. More screams and sobbing erupted amid the renewed gunfire. David decided to use the cacophony to make his move. He reached into his flak jacket, pulled out an M84 stun grenade, yanked the pin, tossed it into room 503, and shouted, “Fire in the hole!”
A blinding flash and deafening roar consumed Nouri’s room. While his colleagues watched his back, David moved immediately. He raced for Nouri’s door, crouched down, and pivoted inside, his MP5 leading the way. Through the lingering smoke, he spotted the guard in the corner. Instinctively David squeezed the trigger once, paused a split second, then fired again. The man crumpled in a bloody heap, having never even gotten off a shot.
25
“Room secure,” David shouted, then turned his attention to Javad Nouri.
The man was terrified and balled up in a fetal position, hands over his ears, which were dripping with blood. David felt little sympathy for this man who was trying to help unleash genocide on the Israelis and perhaps on the United States as well. He began pulling tubes and IV lines and various wires out of and off of Nouri’s body, causing the Iranian to shriek in pain. Then he pulled a syringe from his pocket, flicked off the plastic tip, tapped it to clear out any remaining bubbles, and jammed the needle into Nouri’s neck. The serum took only seconds to activate, and Nouri’s body went limp almost immediately. Not taking any chances, David quickly cuffed Nouri’s hands and feet and put a strip of duct tape over his mouth, grateful for all the tools Torres and his team had brought with them from the States. He also checked the closet and looked through several drawers and found Nouri’s satphone and wallet, which he stuffed into his pockets.
“Target secure and acquired,” David said into his microphone, his heart and mind racing. “Alpha One ready for extraction on your signal, Bravo One.”
“Roger that — Bravo One, clear,” said Torres, his MP5 trained on the elevators for any new reinforcements.
“Bravo Two, clear,” said Crenshaw, hunkered down at the nearest stairwell and maintaining their escape route.
“Alpha Two, clear,” Fox said last, now repositioned farther up the hallway to watch David’s back and keep an eye on the stairwell they’d come up.
“Okay, let’s move,” Torres said.
David reengaged the safety on his MP5, grabbed a radio out of the hands of the dead guard in the corner, and then proceeded to hoist Nouri and sling him over his shoulder. He made his way out of room 503 quickly and turned left, past trembling doctors, nurses, and patients, up to Crenshaw, who moved into the stairwell to take the lead. Torres pulled back to secure the stairwell door and ordered Fox to hightail it to his position. David tossed the IRGC soldier’s radio to Torres so he could monitor the latest traffic, and sixteen seconds later, in a tight formation, they were making their way down five flights of stairs.
“We’ve got a problem,” said Torres, listening to the radio chatter. “The IRGC commander hasn’t been able to call out for reinforcements, but he’s ordering his men to take up sniper positions aiming at every ground floor exit.”
Crenshaw cursed, but David kept his cool.
“Bravo Three, you safe?” he asked, making contact with Mays in the parking lot.
“I’m good,” said Matty. “They’re evacuating the building. There are hundreds of people pouring out. A lot of them are heading to their cars, so they haven’t picked up on me yet.”
“Can you see the snipers?”
“No — there’s too many people.”
“Can you move the van to the door and give us some cover?”
“I can try,” Mays said. “But they may start shooting for the tires, or worse.”
“Actually, you’ve got a new problem,” said Zalinsky.
“What’s that?” David asked as they passed the third floor and headed down to the second.
“We’ve got a helicopter inbound from the south.”
“An air ambulance?” David asked, though he knew that was too much to hope for.
“’Fraid not — we’re monitoring police radio traffic,” Zalinsky said. “It’s part of a SWAT team.”
“How did they get the word out?”
“I don’t know, but if one helicopter’s coming, you can bet more will be coming soon if we don’t get you out of there fast.”
David and his team hit the ground floor. They entered the maintenance area and, to their shock, found themselves surrounded by about a dozen hospital staff members, janitors, and mechanics trying to evacuate the building. The staff was just as shocked to see them, and David, thinking quickly, seized their fear and used it to his advantage. He ordered them all to stop immediately and to be quiet. Then he assured them that no one would be hurt so long as they formed a human barricade around the team and got them to their van.
“We’re all going out on the count of three,” David told the hospital workers. “If you run, you die.”
Terrified, all of them agreed to the plan, and Mays and Zalinsky heard everything over the radio.
“Bravo Three, move into position,” David said.
“Bravo Three, on the move,” Mays replied.
“Home Plate, we need a diversion,” David said.
“Like what?” Zalinsky asked.
“Where’s the closet police car?”
“One just pulled up. It’ll be about thirty yards to your left when you come out that back exit.”
“How many officers?”
“Two.”
“Armed?”
“One has a shotgun; the other is brandishing a pistol,” Zalinsky said.
“Can you take it out?”
“With what?”
“A Hellfire,” David said.
And all went quiet.
All eyes in the Global Operations Center were on Zalinsky. They had all been there a few days earlier when Zephyr had asked Eva Fischer to launch a Hellfire missile to save his life. They had all, therefore, seen the price Agent Fischer had paid for saying yes. True, Eva had been released. True, she was now working for the NSA. But none of them knew the details, and now they were once again at a moment of truth.
Zalinsky looked to Murray.
“It’s your call, Jack,” Murray said. “It’s your op.”
“Home Plate?” David asked.
But there was still radio silence from Langley.
“Home Plate, I need an answer fast, before we come out this door.”
David couldn’t believe this. He was doing everything Zalinsky had told him to do, and now his own mentor wasn’t giving him the cover he needed to make this op a success. How badly did the Agency want Javad Nouri to live and divulge information about the warheads and anything else he knew?