He scowled inwardly as he caught sight of a number of men in army uniforms, marching through the streets in a show of force. The Iranian Army was, in theory, behind the Mullahs; in practice, no one knew what would happen if the Mullahs ordered the soldiers to fire into the crowds. Behind them, fanatical revolutionary guardsmen followed, watching the soldiers for any sign of disloyalty. If the soldiers balked, the guardsmen would fire on them, starting a civil war. Rumour — which flew through Tehran faster than the hot desert wind — suggested that much of the Army had been recalled to barracks, keeping them locked down in case the public turned on their masters. Albert hadn’t seen any reason to doubt it, although rumours could never be trusted. Another one claimed that the aliens were nothing more than a CIA trick. The CIA seemed to be blamed for everything in the Middle East.
“Bastards,” Sergeant Philip Bainbridge muttered, beside him. He nodded towards a woman wearing a headscarf. She was being berated by two burly religious policemen, who seemed offended that she hadn’t been wearing a full veil. Albert ground his teeth in silent rage as one of the policemen slapped the woman to the ground, before kicking her in the ribs. It was evil like that that needed to be stopped, yet if he killed them both he would blow the mission. “Filthy fucking bastards.”
The woman crawled away, blood dripping from her mouth. Her tormentors laughed and headed off, seemingly unaware of the cold anger being directed at them from the crowd. One day, perhaps soon, they would find themselves on the receiving end as the population turned on them, but until then no one would hold them to account. Albert shook his head in disgust and led the way through the streets to their vantage point. It had cost nearly two hundred American Dollars to hire the room and he didn’t want to lose it. Without it, completing their mission would be much more dangerous.
They slipped through the crowd, ignoring the press from men and women alike, until they reached their building. The owner appeared to be in negotiations with another man, but he broke off long enough to wave the two Americans through the door and up the stairs. Albert suspected that he thought that the two men were homosexual — which was punished by death in Iran — but he didn’t care. As long as he thought that, he wouldn’t wonder why they wanted a room with an excellent view of the alien landing site. Shaking his head, Albert opened the bag and produced the Dragunov sniper rifle. Designed in Russia, it had become the weapon of choice for terrorists, not least because there were so many of them washing around the world that it was impossible to trace them back to a single source. Iraq had produced thousands of them and an unknown number had fallen into the hands of terrorists. Albert had lost buddies to snipers using similar weapons.
There’d been some debate on just what kind of bullet to use. One theory had been that the aliens would use personal force fields, ensuring that they couldn’t be harmed at all by anything humanity could throw at them. Albert personally doubted that possibility, not when there was no evidence to suggest that the aliens were that advanced. A second problem was that no one knew anything about alien biology. They might have looked humanoid, but their brains might not be in their heads. A shot through the head would be lethal to a human, yet there was no way of knowing if it would kill an alien, or if it would merely be a cosmetic wound. Eventually, they’d settled on explosive bullets, even though soldiers tended to distrust them. They would inflict maximum damage on the alien body.
Albert quickly field-stripped the rifle and reassembled it, testing it carefully to be sure that it worked. Many of the terrorists he’d faced in the early years of operating in Iraq hadn’t bothered to keep their weapons in working order, something that had probably accounted for how few Americans had died under their fire. Others — the smarter, deadlier terrorists — had learned, often surviving long enough to pass on the lesson to newer terrorists. And some of the insurgents they’d faced in Afghanistan were deadly. Behind him, Bainbridge pulled out both AK-47s and pistols, checking and rechecking them both to ensure that they were usable. If they had to fight their way out, they were ready, although Albert knew that the odds were vastly against them. They’d done the best they could to ensure that Iranian security forces would be diverted, but there was no way of knowing how well it would work until they actually tried it. And then it would be too late to make adjustments.
“Here they come,” Bainbridge commented. “Beats a chopper any day.”
Albert could only agree. The boxy alien landing craft had appeared over the city, escorted by a flight of Iranian fighter jets. They had never been particularly good at maintaining the fighters they’d inherited from Saddam Hussein or the Shah, but they’d definitely worked hard to ensure that they had a working force to escort the aliens. Albert doubted that the aliens were impressed. Whatever the Iranians did, they couldn’t match the feat of travelling across the galaxy; to the aliens, the Iranian fighters probably appeared primitive, almost laughable. But then, the United States had had to learn that primitive weapons could be deadly, in the right circumstances. The aliens would have to learn the same lesson too.
Down below, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was going to work, pushing back the crowds from the landing site. Much of the demonstration had been organised as a show of public opinion, Albert suspected, although there was no way of knowing if the aliens would be impressed. Why should they care about a bunch of humans shouting abuse at them? It wasn’t as if Iran could actually strike at the alien starships, high overhead, let alone reach the alien homeworlds. They could exterminate the entire Iranian population without exerting much effort at all.
The alien craft started to lower itself to the ground as soon as there was a space big enough to hold it. Down below, the Iranian President had come into view, protected by his own squad of heavies. The Mullahs who actually ran Iran were still inside the government buildings, forcing the alien to come to them. In some ways, they reminded Albert of Imperial China, where the Emperors had expected the Westerners to prostrate themselves in front of China’s glory. They had no real conception of the power of Western weapons, nor of the fact that the only thing preventing them from Western wrath was Western unwillingness to use their weapons. Destroying Iran would be easy, but immoral. One day, the Mullahs would go too far and discover that the first rule of morality was survival.
He picked up the rifle as the alien craft touched down. The racket of the crowd grew louder as the hatch opened, revealing the alien representative. Some of the crowd seemed to want to back away, others seemed intent on pushing forward. Albert saw fights breaking out below between various groups, with policemen and soldiers trying to separate them without using their weapons. The whole scene was rapidly becoming a nightmare. If the aliens noticed, they gave no sign. Their representative walked down the ramp, showing commendable nerve, and stepped up to the President. The Iranian President stared at the alien, as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes, and then held out a hand. The alien took the hand and shook it with icy dignity.
Albert took the rifle and pointed it down at the alien. He’d earned his badge in sniper school, but he hadn’t had as long to learn to use the Russian-designed rifle than he would have liked. The alien’s face appeared in the scope, a green scaly mass with eerie red eyes. Albert took aim, tightened his finger on the trigger and fired a single shot. The alien staggered as the shot embedded itself in his neck, and then exploded as the bullet detonated. A moment later, there was a second, much larger explosion. Albert found himself blown across the room by the blast.