Strike Force

“They have a large number of guards, sir,” Khordad said, “but they look to me like children. It’s as if they emptied out the conscripts’ training centers before they barely began, gave them a weapon and uniform, and put them to work guarding these warehouses.”

“I agree,” Sattari said. “Where are the front-line Pasdaran forces, Babak?”

“We do have reports stating that the Pasdaran is concentrating forces in the capital,” Khordad said. “Maybe the new government is pulling in all the well-trained troops to protect them at home.”

“Maybe,” Sattari mused.

“If you don’t feel right about this one, sir, let’s pull everyone out,” Khordad said. “If it smells like a trap, it probably is.”

“But we’ve got two hundred men surrounding this area checking in every three minutes, and no one has spotted any sign of the front-line Pasdaran forces,” Sattari said. “Not even one helicopter in the past hour. From where we are now, we could completely empty three warehouses and be on the rail line heading into the system before the outer perimeter scouts spotted anything.”

“I don’t know, sir,” Khordad said. “I still say, let’s withdraw and continue monitoring.”

“Our intel says the Pasdaran is going to start emptying these warehouses in the next two days,” Sattari said. “They have the trucks and locomotives waiting — it’s going to happen soon. So far our intel has been spot-on. Besides, we’re running low on everything back at the base. We’ve got to do this tonight or it’ll be too late.”

“That’s when it’s the worst time to do something, sir,” Khordad said.

Sattari peered through his low-light binoculars again, scanning for any sign of a trap, but he saw and heard absolutely nothing. He had to press on. With a dozen heavy cargo trucks filled, they had enough supplies to keep their insurgency going for another month. That could spell the difference between success and failure.

But the “little father” was worried — there was danger here. Why couldn’t he see it? “Maybe the Pasdaran has suffered so many losses, captures, and defections that soft targets like these warehouses were being lightly guarded?” he suggested. “Maybe they really are afraid of lingering chemical weapons effects…”

“They know as well as we do what the persistence time of those chemical agents are, sir,” Khordad said. “And their detection equipment is better than ours. If it was safe, they’d be here. Something’s happening that we don’t know about.”

“Could the warehouses be booby-trapped?”

“Very likely, sir, although we saw a lot of those guards going in and out rather freely,” Khordad said. “It’s usually dangerous to turn initiators on and off whenever someone walks in and out like that — you’ll soon forget if you shut it off or not.”

Sattari swore to himself, then picked up his radio. “Spider to Wolf.”

“Go,” General Hesarak al-Kan Buzhazi responded.

“We’ve arrived at point ‘Kangaroo.’ ‘Bedroom’ in sight, but I’m recommending we head back to the ‘nursery.’ Our ‘album’ is incomplete. Over.”

“Understood. Bring it on back. We’ll take better pictures later. Wolf out.”

“Okay, Master Sergeant,” Sattari said, putting away his command radio, “let’s set up the patrols and position for exfiltration before…”

“Shit, what is he doing?” Khordad swore. Sattari lifted his night-vision binoculars. A squad of men had broken from cover and had bolted for their assigned warehouse, while another squad was commandeering trucks.

“Call them back, damnit!”

Khordad was already raising his radio to his lips: “Shark, Shark, this is Spider, get back! We’re heading back to ‘nursery.’ Acknowledge right now.”

“Spider, we’re in, we’re in!” came the reply. “It’s all here, Spider, lined up and ready to load. We can have a truck loaded in two minutes.”

“I said get out of there!” Khordad growled through clenched teeth, trying to communicate the urgency without raising his voice. “Acknowledge!”

“Spider, this is Bear,” another squad leader radioed. “We’re in too. We’ve started loading two carriages already and the others are moving inside. We’ve already filled our baby bottles all the way. Recommend we proceed. Over.”

“Sir?” Khordad asked.

“Let’s get out of here, Babak,” Sattari said. “There will be other targets. This one looks poisonous. Bring them out now.”

“Negative! Negative! Withdraw!” Khordad radioed. “Spider’s orders. All squads, acknowledge!”

“Spider, this is Pony, we’re in too,” yet another squad leader radioed. “Let us play for just a few minutes more. This is the real party, and we want to stay for the cake.”

Sattari grabbed Khordad’s radio and mashed the mike button: “All squads, this is Spider, I ordered you to withdraw, and that means right now! Get your asses moving and report at point Parlor. Do not acknowledge, just move out!” He tossed the radio back to Khordad and began scrambling out of their hiding place toward the perimeter fence. “Damn them! What a time for a discipline breakdown! I know they’re hungry and running low on everything, but they should know better than to…”