After another forty-five minutes of screwing around, the kids piled back into the car and sped out of the quarry trailing a cloud of dust, leaving Gil free to scramble up the embankment and make his way across the desert landscape. He skirted a dry lake bed, part of the sprawling Hamun Lake system, once a thriving commercial zone for many water-based businesses and activities, and now nothing but a wasteland, dotted with dilapidated buildings and boats left high and dry, appearing entirely alien in this increasingly arid wilderness.
A few hundred yards from the quarry, he realized that he was being dogged by a bony canine looking to mooch a meal. He hissed at the unfortunate wretch and tossed a stone, sending it skittering off into the night. Taking advantage of the brief stop, he donned the NVGs long enough for a quick 360-degree scan of the terrain, and then double-checked the GPS to be sure of his orientation. He found the road that Al-Nazari and his party would be driving the following morning and traveled parallel to it at 50 yards. He covered 1,800 meters before stopping again to survey the terrain through the NVGs.
He was looking for an ancient one-lane stone bridge over a dry creek bed cutting the road from east to west. Two hundred yards south of that bridge, he would find an even more ancient stone ruin, the perfect place for a sniper’s nest. Three more clicks south of the ruin along the same road was a fenced-in group of rundown military buildings whose original purpose had been to house a garrison of Iranian border guards. According to intelligence reports, the buildings were now being used to house Al-Nazari’s bomb-making activities. Satellite surveillance indicated that three or four different sentries provided round-the-clock security for the facility, driving government vehicles and wearing Iranian police uniforms.
These sentries were of no concern to Gil. He would bypass the facility the following night during his egress, moving south toward the Afghan border under cover of darkness to link up with his extraction team another thirty clicks beyond, far out into the wasteland where no one would hear the rotors of the Night Stalker helos as they flew in snake and nape across the Afghan border.
He spotted the bridge a hundred yards ahead and moved out. The sound of a helicopter to the southwest caused him a few minutes of concern, but the rotors faded and he was back on the move. The helo was likely flying a drug interdiction mission north of Zahedan. The capital city of Sistan-Baluchistan Province was only some twenty miles from the Afghan border. It stood as the preeminent staging area for international heroin smuggling. From Zahedan, the Afghan heroin made its way to Tehran. From Tehran into Turkey, and from there to the rest of the world. The smuggling didn’t stop at drugs, either. Everything was smuggled from weapons to illegal Afghani immigrants. Iran had pretty much lost its war on drugs by the early twenty-first century, and its police forces were now so corrupt as to make even the Mexican police look like Boy Scouts.
Gil covered the distance to the ruin in good time, donning the NVGs and scanning carefully as he approached. This region was lightly scattered with different ancient ruins from the pre-Islamic period, some of them having once stood as temples or monuments to the god Zoroaster. He made sure the ruin was deserted and then went to stand looking at it from the road. Yes, even at a distance, the fallen stone walls appeared the perfect haven for a sniper.
That was why he crossed to the opposite side of the road, where he began to dig in with a Russian entrenching tool.
CHAPTER 16
Agent Ray Chou was in the hangar talking with Steelyard and Lt. Commander Perez about the possibility of Sandra Brux being held in the village of Waigal. The Night Stalker crews were there, too, having arrived the hour before to begin prepping their aircraft for a possible rescue mission.
Captain Crosswhite pulled up in a Humvee and got out, stalking up to the three men with an almost casual salute to Commander Perez, whom he normally didn’t care for. “So, are we on or what?” he wanted to know.
Steelyard shrugged. “We don’t know yet. That’s what we’re discussing.”
Crosswhite glanced around. “Where are your SEALs?”
“In the back breaking into their cruise boxes. Where’s your gear?”
Crosswhite thumbed over his shoulder at the Humvee. “I packed light. Your people can hook me up with whatever else I need, right?”
Steelyard nodded. “Why don’t you head back there?” Crosswhite walked off and the chief turned back to Perez. “Like I was telling you, Commander. I think it’s better if this operation stays at the noncom level on the DEVGRU side. If word reaches the Head Shed about what we’re up to, they’ll yank the plug on us. I’ve assembled enough noncoms to pull this operation off, good men who aren’t afraid of the consequences.”
Perez was in a quandary because he was very much afraid of the consequences. At first, he’d been all for the idea of going in after Sandra Brux without orders, enjoying the heroic feel of the rhetoric around the hangar, but now that there was actionable intelligence to work with, he was getting cold feet.
Steelyard had expected this from Perez, knowing him for the rear echelon — type motherfucker that he was. So he had selected six seasoned noncoms and two enlisted men that he trusted implicitly for the rescue operation, knowing that Perez didn’t possess enough spine to stand up to that many chevrons. Dan Crosswhite had already volunteered to lead the op, giving them the only officer they would need. What Steelyard was hoping for now was for Perez to go back to the Head Shed and keep his fat trap shut.
He took the cigar from his mouth. “Look, you know how solid these men are, Commander. If the mission goes bad, nobody’s going to mention that you knew anything about it. There’s no reason for you to risk being around here now.”
Chou was watching Perez very carefully, knowing the man had the power to shut it all down with one call, and he could see that Perez was about to make that very decision. “Listen,” he said casually, cutting Perez off before he could open his mouth. “It’s not like you could have done anything to prevent SOAR showing up here with all those fucking helicopters. And it’s not like you could have prevented the men from viewing the rape video.”
Perez stared at him, understanding the implication of Chou’s words. Perez had not only failed to prevent the men from watching the video, he had watched it with them, knowing very well that it was classified material. What Chou was saying, just as plain as day, was that if Perez backed out now, and the rest of them wound up with their tits in the wringer, Perez was going to wind up under the proverbial bus for not going to the Head Shed the second he realized classified information had been leaked to the rank and file.
Chou was a civilian with NCIS, and was therefore in no way subordinate to Perez. He didn’t care if the guy liked him or not, and he sure as shit wasn’t afraid of him. The potential consequences of the risks he had taken went far beyond any heat that Perez could bring.
Steelyard cleared his throat. “And we’re going to need a man on the inside back at the Head Shed,” he added, realizing they had Perez by the nuts. “Someone to run interference if anybody starts asking questions.”