The engine ground twice, then the third time until enough fuel had worked through the inlet pipes and through the filter to get to the engine. It fired, caught, and purred contentedly.
In the half-light, they had to drive slowly, carefully. They traded off driving every half hour. Just before 2300, they came to what looked like the end of the road.
They had moved deeply into the barren hills that now rose higher and higher around them. The small valley they had been in came to an end suddenly against a mountain. To the left they saw a scratched-out road that seemed to climb the side of the hill and vanish.
Douglas did a scouting run on the road, and was back in twenty minutes.
"Looks like it keeps going to the right. We need about five or six miles that direction. Let's give it a try."
They had trouble on the first incline. Douglas rolled rocks out of the way, and they scraped through. Then the slant down was so great that Franklin used the brakes all the way. At the bottom of the grade, the mountains seemed to close in around them. In the shadows they could see no road or even a trail.
"Better wait for some daylight," Douglas decided. They took out the camouflaged brown canvas and staked it down over the car, stretching it out ten feet on each side. From a couple of thousand feet the little car should be invisible.
They rolled out their blankets on the ground, put their small submachine guns at their sides, and tried to get some sleep.
It was daylight when Douglas awoke at 0510. He lay perfectly still. Something had disturbed his sleep. What? He looked around without moving his head. At once he saw a man at the side of the car. He had just pulled out one of the five-gallon cans of water.
In one swift move, Douglas whipped back the blanket, jumped to his feet, and leveled the sub-gun at the thief.
Franklin came up a second later, his gun trained on the man as well.
"No, no, don't shoot!" the man pleaded in Farsi.
Franklin moved forward quickly, pushed the man away from the car, and told him in Farsi to sit down on the ground.
He sat and began talking so fast, and with such emotion, that Franklin had a hard time keeping up with him.
Douglas stared at him, then waved to Franklin. He came back and whispered.
"Says he's just a prospector like us, but not as well set up. He's a poor man who owes everyone in town, and he can get no supplies. He has to steal what he needs."
"Ask him where his car is, and how far this road goes."
Franklin sat down across from the man, who had lost some of his fear since he hadn't been shot. Franklin talked to him gently in Farsi, and gradually learned the rest of his story.
Franklin relayed the story, now speaking in English openly. "Says his car broke down, engine blew up. He ran out of oil. He was going to steal what he could from us and hide it, and come back for it later."
"Ask him how well he knows these hills."
Franklin nodded at the answer. "Says like his own backyard. He's been prospecting for chromium up here for ten years."
Franklin nodded to himself, and asked the man if he knew where the big construction site was where the big trucks went.
His eyes grew wide, and he nodded. "Yes, but it is a bad place to go. The soldiers shoot at anything that moves. The helicopters fly out and shoot at anyone they see. Very bad place to go."
"How far from here?"
"Oh, twenty kilometers, maybe thirty. Long ways."
They all heard the sound of a plane about the same time. It was a propeller aircraft, moving slowly. All three ran under the tent part of the camouflage canvas. Franklin had forgotten his blanket. He dashed out and pulled it under the tarp just as the small plane came in sight over one of the mountains. It was a high-wing spotter-type aircraft.
"Looks like a Piper Cub," Franklin said. "He's at least four thousand feet over us. If we don't move, he'll never see a thing out of the ordinary down here. One nice thing about these hills. They keep the spotters up high."
"Unless they decide to scoot and shoot down through the valleys," Douglas said.
They held their places as the plane vanished to the north, and the sound slowly faded.
"Can you take us where we can see this huge plant that the soldiers guard?" Franklin asked the man in Farsi.
"Why would I do that?"
Franklin showed him six 10,000-rial notes. The man leaned forward and had to hold himself back from reaching out.
"We have money," Franklin told him. "Could you lead us to where we could see the place?"
"I might. You have food, could we eat while I think about it?"
"He's hooked," Franklin said. "With some persuasion, and some cash, he'll take us through this maze of roads, trails, and hills to the damn nuke site."
"Good, let's eat. We feed him, we watch him, we tie him up every night so he doesn't steal our car, and all our gear. Then maybe he'll do what he says he can."
They ate fruit and bread for breakfast.
"How far is the plant?" Franklin asked.
"Far, maybe thirty kilometers, maybe twenty. Roads go up to about, maybe… oh eight kilometers. Walk from there."
"Six miles from the end of the road," Franklin told Douglas.
"Can we trust him?" Douglas asked.
"Hell yes, as far as I can spit. We watch him every minute. We make him take us to his stash, and see what he has. Then maybe we let him lead us toward the place. Shouldn't take more than two days. We could even promise to give him our prospector's rig if he gets us there without any problems."
Douglas grinned. "Now, there is a payoff this guy would love to get. Talk with him."
The two talked for an hour in the shade of the tent. They drank water, and ate figs, and at last shook hands.
An hour later, the man, whose name they learned was Nard, a Persian name meaning the game of chess, led them toward his supplies. They were only half a mile away, in the start of a tunnel someone had dug six feet into a mountain before giving up.
From his gear, and his lack of food, they decided he must be who he said he was. A bargain was struck. They would pay him well to take them as close to the big plant as was possible.
The rest of the daylight hours they slept. One of the SEALs was always awake to watch Nard. He made no move to leave. He had his sights set on the car, and all of the supplies. Douglas was sure the man would kill both of them to get it.
When dusk came, they took down the canvas, stowed it, and moved forward to pick up Nard's gear, then he angled them down another track deeper into the mountains, north and east.
All three of them rode in the front seat of the car as it edged along slowly in the dim light. Twice they stopped to move rocks from the trail, and once they almost slid off the track into a ditch.
The hills loomed over them.
They drove until midnight, then stopped and let Nard look over the land. The full moon was still out, and he nodded.
"More to the east," he told Franklin, and they swung down another small gully between the brown, dead hills.
"He could be leading us into a trap," Franklin said.
Douglas didn't agree. "Why would he? He's got nothing to gain by killing us now. He can take us where we want to go, and then bargain with us for the rig. He gets paid either way. It isn't like he's going to run into a dozen buddies at the next gully who will mow us down with shotguns."
They came to a fork in the road about 0400 and decided to call it a night. Before they sacked out, they covered the Citroen with the camouflage canvas, stretching it out on both sides.
Then Franklin explained to Nard why they had to tie him up. He agreed, and let them tie his hands and feet.
Douglas awoke the next morning when the sun blasted into his eyes. He rolled over, then came up in a rush. It was 1006. Franklin snored softly. He looked where they had left Nard, The Iranian prospector was gone. The ropes they tied him with were in a neat stack.