Damascus Countdown (45 page)

For a moment, the Syrian police officers were transfixed—as was David—by the massive wreck in front of them. Fire and smoke. Burning rubber. Flying shards of glass and metal. And blood everywhere. But then one of the officers came to. Without warning, he swung back around, his pistol aimed at Torres, and Torres had no time to react. The officer pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession. One of the bullets went wide, shattering what was left of the front windshield of their SUV. But the other two hit Torres in the chest, sending him crashing to the pavement.

David couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Nor could the officer beside him. David saw his chance. He ducked down and reached for
the MP5 on the backseat. Then he popped up again and took out the officer closest to him. He pivoted quickly and fired two short bursts at the officer on the other side of the car—the officer who had shot Torres—killing him instantly. David now scrambled around the front of the car. He got to Torres’s side, but it was already too late. His friend was dead, his eyes still open. Though he knew it was pointless, David checked for a pulse, but there was none to be found. This was it. He was gone. And David was enraged.

He began sprinting for the center ambulance, the one with the warhead. Several IRGC officers were beginning to crawl out of the mangled vehicle when they saw David coming at them. He was moving quickly and firing the MP5 in short bursts. Two of the Iranians—the two closest to him—went down. But the two on the other side of the ambulance got away, one breaking to the left, the other to the right.

David reached the ambulance. He could see a casket-like box in the back and wanted to confirm that was the warhead. But fires were raging all around him. The heat was unbearable, and the thick, acrid smoke made his eyes sting and water. He tried to wipe them clean, but doing so seemed to irritate them more. Then, out of the corner of his right eye, he saw one of the Iranian officers he’d shot reaching for his pistol and preparing to take aim. David unleashed another burst from the machine gun, and the man died instantly.

Suddenly David heard gunfire behind him. Ducking down, he scrambled for cover behind the ambulance. This was not the plan. This was not the operational concept that he and Torres had sketched out or that Zalinsky had approved. That plan had been much more subtle. They would jackknife the semi at the intersection, creating a roadblock. But the rest of the team would take up positions that would enable them to ambush the convoy when it arrived. Fox was supposed to have parked along Highway 4 in such a way that when the convoy arrived and was blocked by the semi, he could pull in behind them and cut off their exit route. At that point, they were going to open fire with machine guns, sniper rifles, and even an RPG. The objective was to kill or wound every Revolutionary Guard with the convoy, get to the warhead, and dismantle it, rendering it completely inoperative,
no matter what it took. David had been clear with his men: destroying the warhead was the objective. Nothing else mattered. Nothing could distract. No matter who on the team was wounded or who was killed, the survivors—or survivor—had to keep to the objective. Whoever got to the warhead first, it was his responsibility. A million souls depended on their commitment to achieving their objective at all costs.

Now that plan was shot. The scene was absolutely chaotic. The semi was nearly completely consumed by flames. The lead police car was a molten shell. Torres was dead. David had no idea of the whereabouts or condition of Fox or Crenshaw. He desperately scanned in every direction, looking for them and for hostiles. At the moment, he saw no one he knew and no one threatening.

Just then there was an enormous explosion to his right. The van Fox had been driving was flying through the air amid a gigantic spray of flames and smoke. Had Fox escaped? Was he okay? Where was he? David was flooded with questions, but more shooting erupted. It was coming from the other side of the semi. His thoughts turned to Crenshaw. Was his teammate in trouble?

David agonized. He knew his orders. He knew what Zalinsky expected, and he knew everyone in the Global Ops Center and the White House Situation Room was watching. But as much as he needed to get into the ambulance, identify the warhead, and begin dismantling it, he couldn’t help himself. He had to make sure Crenshaw was okay. The gunfire on the other side of the semi was rapidly intensifying. Was it a diversion? Was it a trap? David knew he shouldn’t go. He had a job to do. He had a mission to accomplish, and he wasn’t supposed to be diverted. The future of Israel hung in the balance. But at that moment, he could only think of saving the life of Nick Crenshaw.

David gripped the MP5 tightly. He could hear sirens coming from every direction and suddenly had the strongest sensation of déjà vu. He had a flashback of his escape from Tehran with Najjar Malik, but now the stakes were so much higher. He wasn’t after a nuclear scientist. He was after a nuclear bomb. Indeed, he’d found it. It was right beside him. Why then was he moving away from it?

DAMASCUS, SYRIA

Esfahani’s phone rang.

“Hello?”

“This is Commander Asgari. I need to speak to General Jazini.”

“He is meeting with Imam al-Mahdi just now,” Esfahani replied. “But I can have him call you back.”

“No, I must talk to him immediately,” Asgari demanded. “His son is dead. I believe an Israeli or American hit team is coming to assassinate the Mahdi at this very hour. And I believe they know about the warheads in Damascus.”

DAYR AZ-ZAWR, SYRIA

David moved steadily to his right, aiming for the front of the semi but continually glancing from side to side and behind him lest he get caught off guard. For a moment, he brushed up against the truck’s engine. It was blazing hot.

He looked up and saw dark black smoke pouring from the shattered window of the cab. Then he noticed a red streak on the cab, coming from the window. He looked down and saw blood on the ground, mixed with a thousand bits of glass. Crenshaw was alive. Or at least he had been when he jumped out of the truck. Was he still? Did he have a weapon with him?

A machine gun fired, and David heard pings of metal as bullets
ricocheted off the truck next to him. Instinctively he dropped to a crouch and wheeled around, only to find a Revolutionary Guard officer racing toward him with an AK-47. David aimed his MP5 and pulled the trigger, cutting the officer down but emptying his magazine in the process. Scanning for other hostiles, he ejected one magazine and popped in another. Then he began moving toward the gravely wounded officer, who was squirming in his own blood.

The man was not dead. Indeed, a first glance suggested he could still live, but there was nothing David could do for him now. He had to find Crenshaw and Fox. So David took the officer’s pistol, shoved it into his own belt, then slung the man’s machine gun over his shoulder and moved quickly back to the front of the cab.

David reached for his satphone. He needed to call Zalinsky. He needed help. But he couldn’t find it. He checked both front pockets and both back pockets. But the phone was gone. It must have fallen out somewhere between the SUV and here, David concluded. His stomach tightened as the sobering thought dawned on him that he had no way to contact either Langley or his men. He had no air support, and he had precious little time to disable the warhead.

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Zalinsky was screaming at the video monitors, shouting at David to get back to the ambulance and unable to fathom why his key operative on the ground was letting himself be drawn away from the warhead.

But now he saw new threats rapidly materializing. Two armored personnel carriers were coming up Highway 4 from the air base, no doubt filled with Syrian special forces. That wasn’t all, however. Murray noted that a tactical unit from the local police department, the Syrian equivalent of a SWAT team, was approaching from the other direction. Zalinsky’s heart sank. There was no way David, much less Fox or Crenshaw—if those two were still alive—were going to make it out of this in one piece, much less have time to disable that warhead, unless they got help from above and quickly.

Zalinsky knew the answer, and he knew it was going to be no. He knew because that was his answer when he’d had Eva Fischer arrested for doing the exact same thing. What’s more, he knew just the act of asking was going to hammer the last nail in his coffin after this disastrous operation. Yet he did it anyway. He’d recruited David Shirazi for this mission. He’d trained him. He’d deployed him. And he’d been David’s handler through it all. Zalinsky couldn’t abandon his man now.

Turning to Roger Allen, he blurted out, “Sir, requesting permission to use all means necessary to defend my men on the ground.”

You could hear a pin drop in the Global Operations Center. Most of the personnel present had been there the day Eva had used a Predator to save Zephyr’s life. They had seen Zalinsky go ballistic, and they could only imagine how the CIA director was about to react. But Allen didn’t hesitate.

“Permission granted,” he said, his eyes glued to the screens.

Zalinsky was stunned. He wasn’t the only one. All eyes were on Zalinsky as he just stood there for a moment, unable to react.

“Well?” said the director, growing impatient.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“What about the president?” Zalinsky asked.

“That’s my problem,” Allen responded. “Not yours. Now get moving before it’s too late.”

“Yes, sir,” Zalinsky said, and he turned and began barking out orders to the Predator operators.

DAYR AZ-ZAWR, SYRIA

The only option was to move forward, David concluded. Aiming the MP5 ahead of him, he moved around the cab. Following the trail of blood, he hoped to find Crenshaw at the other end, but now he could hear a full-blown shoot-out under way on the other side of the semi.

David quickly glanced around the front end of the cab. To his relief, he saw Crenshaw. The man was covered in blood and clearly in great
pain, but he was holding his own. He was crouched behind a pickup truck and using an AK-47 to try to hold back a half-dozen Syrian police officers moving toward him. Never surrender.

David’s first instinct was to run to Crenshaw’s side and fight it out with him to the bitter end. But just as he was about to sprint for the pickup truck, he had another thought. A better one. Rather than rush forward, he pivoted and began to work his way through the flames and searing heat and blinding smoke down the “safe” side of the semi—or what was left of it. Most of the truck had been consumed by the raging fire and had essentially melted in place. But for now, at least, the leaping, licking flames were creating a shield between him and the six Syrian officers.

Above the roar of the flames he could hear more sirens. He knew reinforcements were coming. But he had to save Crenshaw. If he could, then together they could get back to the warhead, and he could dismantle it while Crenshaw gave him covering fire. Otherwise, David would be completely exposed while working on the warhead and wouldn’t last two minutes.

David looked down Rue Ash ’Sham It was a snarled traffic jam for a kilometer or more. He could see the flashing lights of police cars trying to weave their way through the mass of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and humanity. He could also see a helicopter gunship. It was about two kilometers out but coming in fast.

Once again he was forced to shift gears. As much as he needed to take out these Syrian officers, he couldn’t leave his team—whatever was left of them—exposed to death from the air. There was no way he could take out the gunship with an MP5 or an AK-47. But seeing the doors of their SUV still open, he had an idea. He made a break for it.

As gunfire erupted all around him, David moved low and fast toward the SUV, zigzagging through the abandoned cars and realizing that this end of the street was completely deserted. Everyone had fled from the war zone it had become. Bullets whizzed over his head, smashing car and store windows and ripping into the brick walls of the apartments around him. Reaching the SUV, he opened the trunk and found the case he needed.

The Russian-built Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship was closing fast.
He could hear the roar of the rotors and knew the Syrian pilot was going to open fire any moment. David ripped open the case with the RPG launcher and started to load it, but there wasn’t time. The helicopter was approaching too quickly. Dropping his weapons, he also dropped to the pavement and did his best to crawl under the hood of the car next to him. And then he heard the gunship’s twin 30mm cannons let loose as the pilot opened fire. The rounds destroyed one car after another as the chopper blazed up the street, barely clearing the rooftops at more than 250 miles an hour. All David could do was press himself to the pavement, cover his head and eyes, and pray.

With a rush of wind that felt and sounded like a tornado, the gunship passed immediately overhead, and in a moment it was gone. David began to breathe again, but he knew he had no time to waste. The pilot would circle around and come back through, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Next time he wouldn’t fire the 30mm cannons, David was certain. He would fire Russian-made antitank missiles, and David would be instantly incinerated.

Quickly scrambling to his feet, his heart pounding, sweat pouring down his face, David heard footsteps approaching fast. He raised the MP5 and was about to fire when he realized he was staring into the eyes of Steve Fox.

“Steve? You’re alive.”

David couldn’t believe it. His colleague’s head was bleeding. The man’s hands were bloody and raw. His face was covered with soot. His IRGC uniform was ripped and covered in dirt. He had no machine gun with him. No pistol. No weapon of any kind. But Fox had fire in his eyes.

“I killed them, sir—all of them,” Fox said without emotion.

“Hand to hand?” David asked.

“Eye to eye.”

“You okay?”

“No, but I’m alive, and I need a gun.”

“Good; take this one,” David said, handing him his MP5. “There’s a box of extra magazines in the backseat. But you’d better move fast. That gunship is coming back.”

As they both looked up, they could see the Mi-24 banking hard to the right and preparing to roar back down Rue Ash ’Sham. Fox went for the extra ammo while David went again for the RPG launcher. He screwed a propelling charge on the end of one of the warheads, then began loading the assembled artillery onto the end of the launcher as Fox turned back to him and asked for new orders.

“I’m good—where do you need me?”

“Go help Nick,” David said. “He’s pinned down behind a pickup truck at two o’clock. Last I saw, there were six Syrian hostiles firing at him. Take them out, get Nick, then join me at the ambulance. We need to disable that warhead.”

Though clearly in tremendous pain, Fox smiled and nodded. “Done, boss. See you soon.”

“Good luck, Steve.”

“You too.”

As Fox ran off, David could see the gunship leveling and beginning its strafing run. He quickly mounted the rocket launcher on his shoulder, looked through the sights, and pulled the trigger. Instantly, the RPG exploded away and streaked into the sky. The Syrian pilot must have seen the flash because he suddenly jerked the chopper to the right, but it was too late. The RPG smashed through the glass of the cockpit and detonated. The chopper exploded in midair as David reloaded and raced to catch up with Fox.

As he came around the corner of a pharmacy at the end of the street, he saw a nightmare unfolding before him. Fox was sprawled out on the ground. He wasn’t dead, but he was bleeding profusely, and the air had erupted in gunfire again. David wanted to stay with Fox and assess his wounds, but he was forced to dive behind the pharmacy for cover. The Syrians started shooting through the shop’s plate-glass windows. David could see that Fox had killed two of them, but four remained. And two armored personnel carriers of additional Syrian troops were already pulling up to the scene.

David wasted no time. He hefted the launcher onto his shoulder again, pivoted around the corner, and squeezed the trigger. Once again the grenade exploded from the tube and streaked toward the Syrian
police officers, who now dove for cover as well. But again it was too late. The grenade exploded, killing all of them.