Yosef spoke slowly. “You must move on. You cannot stay here.”
“This is our tea stand. This is our living. We cannot leave.” The tea hut was a family business. Family members took turns manning the location. It was very late in the season, but the family expected traffic the coming weekend and the two men were there to make the last bit of money before the winter hiatus. “Why do you ask us to leave? Who are you?”
“Border Guard,” responded Yosef. “Kurdish rebels are in the area. It is not safe. You must move on.”
“We are from Kermanshah. We cannot leave. The drive is too long. This is our livelihood.”
“I am telling you to go now. I will not tell you again.”
“You have no authority. Go tell the truck driver to leave. This is our business. We do not leave.” Kurds were famous for two things: a hatred of authority and the stubbornness to back that hatred. Yosef understood these two foundational facts only too well.
Behind the rock Yoni Ben Zeev could not hear the discussion and would not be able to understand even if he could. Yosef was the only Kurdish speaker on the team. The captain expected the car to start up and leave any moment. The fact that it had not made him nervous. Daylight was approaching rapidly and with daylight came traffic. No one could witness the team boarding the truck. What is taking so… The captain’s Generation III intensifier tube included technology to protect him at moments like this. Two bright flashes lit the parking area for brief instants in quick succession. The technology in the advanced night vision monocle cut the intensification within several nanoseconds in response to the intense flashes of light, sparing the vision of Ben Zeev and each of his team watching the car at that moment.
The captain instantly realized what he had just witnessed. “Everyone advance,” he yelled to his team, leading the way down from their perch above the parking area.
It took Ben Zeev only half a minute to reach the car. Yosef was already inside the vehicle looking for phones or any other communication devices. In the front seats were two dead Iranian Kurds from Kermanshah, each with a single bullet hole just on the left edge of their sternums. The men had died instantly within a second of each other, a single 9-millimeter round piercing each heart. Yosef emerged out of the car with each man’s wallet and the single cell phone he had found on the driver. “Manu, check the back seat for phones or radios.” He then spoke to his commander. “No choice, boss. They weren’t going to leave.” He simultaneously leaned down to pull up the trunk release latch.
Ben Zeev did not want this, but the decision had been made and the results could not be changed. “Push that car down the road and off the end of that hair pin down there. Don’t start it up, we don’t need an explosion right now. In fact, wait until we are ready. The car will be the last thing we do. Yosef, you continue searching the car. Benny will help you. Manu, you come with us.” The captain directed the rest of his team toward the truck, issuing orders to empty just enough cartons of Charmin from the back to get eleven men in the rear of the trailer. They had to carry the cartons up the mountain a small distance to dump them behind a rock formation. His men got to work as Yoni Ben Zeev turned back to Yosef. “Put those wallets back and take the battery out of any cell phones you find. I want to make it as hard as possible to find these guys… assuming we avoid a bon fire.”
“Ahead of you, boss,” replied Yosef. He checked each wallet to make sure these men were who they said they were. In the driver’s wallet, a family photo of the man, his wife and four children stared back at the Israeli commando from Erbil. “You dumb bastard,” he murmured under his breath before returning the wallets to each man’s pockets. While Benny looked through the trunk, Yosef removed the battery from the only cell phone they could find. He tossed the phone, the battery and its displaced cover into the rear seat.
Captain Ben Zeev walked over to the tractor, opened the passenger door and got in to greet a now very frightened Hamak Arsadian.
“What just happened?” asked the Armenian, his voice trembling noticeably. He knew the answer but somehow expected a reassuring response.
“We had no choice, Hamak.” The captain reached across the center console of the cab to hold the Armenian’s upper arm in an effort to calm the man. “It is great to see you. How are you?” Yoni retrieved his left hand and extended his right hand to the truck driver.
Arsadian shook the captain’s hand. “I was okay.” He took a deep breath. “Now I don’t know.”
“You will be fine. What happened to you?”
“The Iranians set up a roadblock in Dezli. I was stuck there until an hour ago along with a bunch of others.”
“Well, we are all where we need to be now. We can get going in a minute.” The captain looked around in the cab. “I have to change. Send the three two one code.” As Ben Zeev stepped back out of the cab, Arsadian reached over and went through the same process of pushing buttons on his navigation system that he had done when he cleared customs the prior morning. At Olympus, which could track the truck and already knew that it had reached Point Kabob II, the simple code meant that the team and the driver were united and proceeding forward with the mission.
Captain Ben Zeev leaned into the tractor and opened a compartment behind the passenger seat. He pulled out a coverall and winter jacket. He removed his Iranian uniform and put on the clothes of a driver’s helper, the ubiquitous assistant who accompanies truck drivers the world over, working for short wages and small tips. On the bottom of the small storage compartment was a rubber mat that kept items from rolling around. The Israeli officer lifted up the pad and removed an Iranian driver’s license that featured his photograph. He was now a day laborer named Younis Mohammed who had been picked up by Arsadian in Tabriz to help unload the truck at its destination in Ahvaz.
As the captain changed, Yosef pushed the deceased body of the Kurdish tea stand operator to the side and wedged his small body into the left half of the driver seat. He started the Corolla, turned it around and drove it down the road to the first switchback where he pulled off the road. Benny ran down the road after him and quickly arrived by the car, the pair now waiting for their host vehicle to arrive before pushing the small Corolla over the edge of the mountain in front of them.
It took only a few minutes until the truck arrived and came to a stop on the downside leg of this particular switchback curve. The rear doors of the trailer were open, inviting the two remaining commandos to safety. Yosef got back in the driver seat and turned the key enough to allow him to place the shifter into neutral. He then turned the key back off and stepped out, closing the driver door behind him. “Okay,” he said to Benny. The two men pushed the Corolla a few feet and it quickly gathered momentum. They turned toward the trailer, running to hop into the back. The Toyota gained speed and, after travelling ten more feet, the earth beneath it rapidly transitioned to a very steep downward pitch. The car began to careen down the mountain, travelling about 250 feet before smashing into a rock formation that instantly arrested its motion. Thankfully for the team, the car did not explode. Ben Zeev was grateful for the quality of Japanese engineering.
The captain, now acting as Arsadian’s helper, was waiting for Yosef and Benny at the back of the trailer. He handed his AKM and backpack, which now contained his border guard uniform and night vision equipment, up to his men and closed the trailer doors. He then ran up the side of the truck to take the passenger seat in the cab.