“Another day or two. If there’s no contact by then, I will go to Cairo. Most likely that is where the Pharaoh will make contact. What about you?”
“I will stick around London visiting Jeff and Pat for a few days, then go back to Washington.” He put down his fork and leaned across the table. “I’ll keep an eye on you from afar. If there’s trouble, send up a flare, and I’ll do my damnedest to help.”
“Oooh. You’ll ride to the rescue like the famous 7th Cavalry?” The wine and food and excitement of the day were brightening her mood.
“Not exactly. That was General Custer, and he was slaughtered. I don’t get slaughtered.”
At military airfields surrounding Tehran, a sky train was being assembled. Hundreds of soldiers of the Iranian Army of the Guardians were nervous in the night. They had moved to the airfields in trucks from their training sites, and officers had gathered the men assigned to each plane and personally inspected them. As with any army, the infantrymen settled down to wait. They smoked cigarettes and wrote letters to loved ones, aware they were facing the biggest challenge of their lives. Each wondered whether he would survive as a hero, die as a brave martyr, or perish in deserved shame if he proved to be a coward.
Cargo was loaded first, the ammunition, food, and minimum equipment to sustain them until aerial and maritime supply routes could be firmly established. While loading crews lashed down the crates and a few vehicles, mechanics and flight engineers combed the planes to be sure they were ready for the long flight ahead. Finally, the commander of each company stood before his men and announced the mission: Egypt had officially requested assistance to put down counterrevolutionary forces within that country’s army. They were reminded of the annihilation of the Iranian national soccer team and of how only yesterday an Iranian naval utility vessel — not even a ship of war — had been sunk in the Red Sea in an unprovoked assault by Egyptian missiles. The Guardsmen were chosen to stop that aggression.
Iran had assigned fifteen jet airliners and cargo planes to the task, including huge Boeing 707s and 747s, and there would be about two hundred soldiers with their equipment on each aircraft. It was to be a long and perilous journey out of the country and through the airspace above Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, with the permission of those Muslim governments. They would not fly over Israel. Finally, the planes would form up in one long line and fly down the Suez Canal to the target, the airport outside of the coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
It was after midnight, but Kyle Swanson could not fall asleep. Normally, he could order his body to shut down and grab a rest period whenever he wanted. Even in fierce battle situations, sleep discipline was important. He lay on the king-sized bed, between soft 1,200-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, and stared up at the ceiling for an hour. He turned on the light to read a paperback murder mystery but found it impossible to concentrate. The television set offered a menu of movies guaranteed not to hold his interest. From his window, he could see the reddish orange glow that marked where the tanker Llewellyn still burned fiercely. Within a few days, the pristine coastline would be slick and sticky as oil rode in with every wave. He wished he had not yet given most of his guns to Omar. Throwing those two duffel bags into the trunk of the Mercedes felt like tossing his own child over a cliff. Omar could retrieve the MI6 weapons shipment at the airport on his own.
He thought of knocking on the door of the connecting suites to see if Tianha was awake, too. No. Don’t even go there. One o’clock. Two o’clock. Every sense he possessed tingled with the ominous feeling that something just wasn’t right, although there was absolutely nothing going on. Hell with it. I can sleep when I get to London.
He got up, dressed in a comfortable black sweat suit, laced up his gray Nikes, tucked his personal weapon, the Colt .45, in a belt clip holster beneath the shirt, pocketed the cell phone, and headed out for a run along the beaches of Hotel Row. The Blue Neptune was strangely active for so early in the morning, as the hired help was preparing to handle the expected morning rush of departing guests.
Kyle did not stop the elevator at the lobby level but descended to the parking area and walked the aisles until he found Omar’s white Mercedes parked nose-out and tight against a wall as an extra precaution to keep its cargo safe. Swanson patted the car affectionately, then set off at an easy lope along the main traffic route, heading into the stillness, hoping to do five miles.
The town of about thirty-five thousand inhabitants was mostly asleep as he trotted along, staying within the sphere of illumination from the hotels on his right to avoid tripping over some obstacle along the unfamiliar road. He soon settled into an eight-minute-mile pace and felt the start of the familiar burn as his body shook off the fatigue and the muscles stretched. No one bothered him. With plenty of time and breathing easily, he decided to increase the distance to three miles out, then three miles back. Twenty-five minutes from the Blue Neptune, he found a traffic circle that could serve nicely as a halfway point, ran around it, and headed back, changing his route to rack in some running on the hard sand of the beach.
Then something clicked in his brain, a familiar sound that should not be there, the distant rumble of multiple outboard motors. He took a few more steps, slowed, and stopped and stared out at the water. Already the sound seemed closer. Why would motorboats be out there in the middle of the night? There were the usual warning lights on ships in the channel, and the distant fire on the Llewellyn, but that was all, other than the new, ominous humming. It could mean only one thing, and Swanson was too experienced a Marine not to recognize the opening phase of an amphibious assault. Boats were coming in. He ran to an outcropping of rocks and ducked into the darkest shadow he could find, pulled his pistol, and waited.
Swanson got the telephone out of his pocket and hit the speed dial button for the number of Tianha Bialy. It rang three times before her sleepy voice answered, “Hello? Kyle?” She had checked the voice ID. “What—”
“Tianha, listen up. I’m down on the beach, and big trouble is brewing. It looks like an attack is about to begin.”
“Hunh? An attack?”
“You’ve got to get out of there right now. Call Omar and get him up, and meet me at his car. We need to get out of this area as fast as possible.”
“Kyle, are you sure?” A yawn.
“Dammit, Tianha. You don’t have any time to waste. There’s going to be a lot of shooting soon.”
“Kyle, I’m standing at the window of my room now, and I don’t see anything unusual.”
“Stand there much longer and you might be a dead woman. Get out while you can. I’ll meet you both in the underground garage.” Kyle folded the phone to cut the connection. Whether she did the right thing was now up to her, because the motors were louder and closer. If they were inflatables, commandos would be clinging to handholds with all of their strength as the boats reared out of the water for the final dash to shore. He leapt from the shadows and ran for his life.
In her room, Tianha turned from the window. She was naked. “Kyle says we should get out, Omar. Something about an assault. I don’t see anything, though.”
Omar Eissa crawled out of bed and went to stand behind her, wrapping her in his arms and holding her close. He turned her loose, stepped to one side, and slid the big window open to the chill of the night air, instantly hearing the shrill screams of approaching outboard motors. At the same time, they saw the crests of white foam at the bows of speeding boats that were otherwise still invisible in the darkness. “He’s right, Tianha,” he snapped. “I think the Iranians are here.”