Force of Eagles Read online

  The brigadier general running the outfit was a no-nonsense type, and Stansell snapped a salute when he was shown into his office. A prominent autographed photo of Eichler on the wall caught his attention.

  “Sorry to hear about The Brigadier,” Stansell said.

  A quizzical look on the one-star’s face told him that the Center had not yet heard.

  “He died Sunday evening, I’m told. Probably right after I talked to him—”

  “You talked to him?”

  “Yes, sir. About rescuing the POWs. He was very weak but entirely lucid.”

  “That would be just like Messy.” The general picked up the phone and relayed the news to his executive officer. “Thanks for telling us. The Brigadier was special around here.” He rolled a pencil in his fingers, studying Stansell. “What can you tell me about your conversation?”

  Stansell recounted the visit and the reason behind it.

  “You mentioned Simon Mado.”

  “He’s my boss, sir. General Cunningham has made him the task force commander.”

  “Mado is an asshole, but a damn competent one. Well, The Brigadier was right, intelligence is the key. You’re going to need all the help you can get. A beautifully planned and executed mission can go bust without up-to-date accurate intel. The Son Tay raid to free sixty-one POWs in North Vietnam in 1970 was a textbook example. Perfect, except when they got there the POWs were gone. An old-fashioned operative on the ground would have prevented that. The Center isn’t allowed to run foreign operatives any more but we can do other things for you.”

  The general hit his intercom. “Dewa, can you please come in?” For the first time the general smiled. “Just one of our civilian intelligence specialists. Fluent in Farsi.”

  The woman who entered the office stood five feet three in high heels and seemed a direct descendant of the women who inspired the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Black shoulder-length hair framed her dark eyes and fair complexion. The general introduced Stansell to Dewa Rahimi.

  She extended her hand. “My pleasure, Colonel. I’ve read about you and what happened at Ras Assanya.” There was no trace of a foreign accent.

  “Colonel Stansell is working on a mission to get the POWs out of Kermanshah. I want the Center to give him all the help we can. He’s going to need an operative on the ground, which we don’t have. You’ve debriefed quite a few Iranians. Let’s see if we can pull someone out who would be willing to work for him and go back inside. I want you to be his contact with us. Give him whatever he needs.”

  Dewa played it with a straight face.

  “Colonel, if you like, I’ll detail Dewa to you on temporary duty for your intelligence section. Besides speaking Farsi, she’s a computer whiz. But we want her back.”

  Stansell caught himself from expressing excessive gratitude. “Thank you, general, that would be most fine. I can’t think of anything else for now. Thanks for your support. Much more, I might say, than I got from the CIA.”

  Rahimi spoke up as he was about to leave. “Colonel Stansell, I need your number.”

  Stansell stared.

  “I need to know who to call so I can report to work.”

  The general smiled. Dewa did have that effect.

  *

  The Zagros Mountains, Iran

  The blow ricocheted off Carroll’s shoulder before hitting his head. But the boy had swung the rifle butt with enough force to knock him out of his seat. Carroll was vaguely aware of a woman’s shrill voice—“Kill him…”

  The driver pulled the bus to the side of the road and turned off the headlights. Carroll could hear the brakes groaning through the floorboards. A sour smell assaulted his senses. Was it the tattered rubber floor matting? He pretended unconsciousness, trying to push away the fuzz swirling through his head. All the passengers were awake, jabbering and shouting, undecided and confused.

  “Kill him.” It was the same woman’s voice. No one seemed to be listening to her.

  “Move him,” a male voice said. “He’s blocking the aisle.” Four hands picked him up and shoved him into a seat.

  Carroll didn’t move, his chin on his chest. The fuzz was shredding, leaving a splitting headache. He could feel the right side of his head throb. What the hell had happened? He could hear most of the passengers clambering off the bus, anxious to get away and not be involved. The padding under him shifted—he was in the same seat. The side of his head didn’t feel warm or moist, apparently he wasn’t bleeding. Only the woman’s voice dominated the conversation around him and no one seemed to be listening to her repeated demands to kill him. There was no one in charge. He listened for traffic, tried to figure a way to escape. Now he was sure they were on a deserted part of the highway. But what had given him away? He derided to risk a groan.

  “Kill him—” the woman said again—“my sons, my husband, martyred, and now this foreign devil lives, filth on the earth—”

  “His name is Javad Khalian,” the man who had been sharing the seat with Carroll said. “He is a sergeant in the commandos of the Revolutionary Guard. He is one of the elite.”

  “You believe him? He is the man the Council of Guardians is looking for…”

  “And how many suspects have they already hung?” another voice said.

  Carroll decided it was time to become a player before someone with a clue took charge. He moved and groaned again, opening his eyes. A black-shrouded figure hovered in front of him. He blinked at the woman and she jumped back. A twelve-year-old boy held his AK-47, the muzzle pointed directly at him. Was he the one who had knocked him down? “Point it at the ground,” he told the boy. “Only raise it when you intend to kill in the name of Allah.”

  “Kill him now,” the woman carried on.

  The boy did as Carroll said.

  “The devil speaks English in his sleep. What more proof do you need?” the woman said.

  At least she had given Carroll his answer.

  Slowly Carroll raised his hands, looking at the boy like they were playing a game. “My papers are in my shirt pocket.” He pointed at his left pocket with his chin. The boy propped the AK-47 against a seat and reached for his pocket. “No,” Carroll ordered, “you are the guard. Hold the rifle ready to use if I make a wrong move. Order someone else to search me.”

  The boy grabbed the rifle and pointed it at Carroll before he remembered to drop the muzzle. A man made his way through the small crowd and pushed Carroll back against the window, ripping the identification papers out of Carroll’s pocket.

  “Now search me,” Carroll ordered. He shouldered the man back as he stood up, testing the newcomer. The man pushed back but not hard enough to make him sit down. “I said search me.”

  The man awkwardly patted him down. “I will be the one to pull the trigger,” he told Carroll.

  Carroll shrugged the man’s hands off before they reached the knife taped to the inside of his calf or the coiled wire in his thigh pocket. “This is the way to search,” he said, and pulled off his camouflaged shirt. He pointed to the long scar on his stomach that was a reminder of a bicycle accident in the sixth grade. “I was wounded four years ago in front of Basra.” He pointed to a burn scar on his right shoulder, the result of brushing against a hot exhaust pipe when he was working under his first car. “From a phosphorus shell. Now show me your scars.”

  Even the woman was silent as Carroll established control.

  “Enough of this, let’s finish it. You have my papers. Where is the nearest unit of the Guards? Which of you is going to call Abbas Gharazi of the Saltanatabad Revolutionary Committee in Tehran? He will describe me to you.”

  The crowd was silent—Gharazi was well known as a dedicated butcher.

  “No,” Carroll said, “you do not walk away from this. You knock me to the ground”—he could see the boy wince—“and you demand my death. You say you will pull the trigger”—he stared at the man who had searched him—“and I say enough, where are the Guards headquartered around here?”

  The bu
s driver, standing at the rear of the crowd, wanted nothing to do with this angry commando. “Sixteen kilometers behind us.”

  “Good. We will delay you no longer. This brave man and woman who only bear imaginary scars in their heads will take me to them.” He gestured at the two. “We will walk or commandeer a passing car—”

  “But he speaks English in his sleep,” the woman persisted.

  “I am an interpreter and I also speak Arabic and French. I must have been dreaming. In which language was I speaking?”

  No one was really sure. They only knew he had been speaking a foreign language that sounded like English. The woman seemed momentarily subdued but hardly convinced.

  “You,”—Carroll nodded at the boy—“must make a decision. Either give my rifle to this heap of shit”—he nodded at the man who had searched him—“or keep it. It has served me well in the holy wars against our enemies. It will serve you well. Or you can turn it in when you reach home and explain to the authorities how you got it.

  The bus driver had returned to his seat and started the engine, urging them to get off his bus and let him escape this business.

  “I’ll need the rifle to guard him,” the searcher said, reaching for the AK-47. The boy shook his head and backed up, clutching the assault rifle.

  “Here, take this,” another passenger said, shoving an old pistol at the man, eager to be rid of him and the commando.

  “My bag,” Carroll said, and reached under the seat. He threw the shoulder bag at the woman and led the way off the bus, putting his shirt back on. The woman started to protest but the other passengers shoved her out and threw her suitcase after her. The man picked up his bag and followed, hurried along by shouts.

  “I will use your rifle well,” the boy called from the bus.

  “Insh’ Allah,” Carroll replied.

  The bus driver snapped the door close as he ground away, kicking up a cloud of dust, leaving the three standing beside the road in the dark.

  “Kill him now, before it is too late,” the woman said. “He is trouble—”

  “But what if you’re right?” Carroll said. “Ten thousand dollars in gold?” Greed lit up in the man’s eyes. The three sat down and waited for a car. After a few minutes Carroll stretched out, waiting for his headache to ease its pounding. He even fell asleep.

  *

  Alamogordo, New Mexico

  “Ray, you smell.” Louie set a mug of beer on the bar in front of the sergeant. “Don’t you ever take a shower?”

  “Get off my back. Take showers all the time.” Staff Sergeant Raymond Byers was the only customer in Piccolo Pete’s Pizza Palace in Alamogordo, New Mexico. He had worked a late shift at Hollo-man Air Force Base getting his F-15 ready for an early morning flight and had stopped for a beer on his way home. Byers had dogged Hydraulics until they fixed the leaking speed brake actuator to his satisfaction. As usual he had spent another half hour cleaning up their mess after the technician had signed off the maintenance forms. He kept the best jet in the wing.

  Lorrie leaned across the bar and sniffed, letting him look down her blouse. “Not today, you didn’t. Who knows, I might be a little interested if you didn’t always smell like a grease pit.” She flipped the flap of his unbuttoned shirt pocket.

  “Okay, I’ll be sure to take a shower and smell like a baby next time before I come here.”

  She flounced away, cleaning up the bar and getting ready to close.

  Byers turned and leaned against the bar, stretching his lanky frame out. He was working on his second mug of beer. He liked watching Lorrie move.

  Lorrie started turning off lights. “Finish your beer, I need a ride home.”

  “No shower?”

  “Shut up. I’m talking about a ride.”

  He waited by the door while she finished locking up. They walked out to his waiting Jeep, and the girl admired the immaculate 1974 customized CJ5.

  “This have a top? It’s cold tonight.”

  Byers handed her the fatigue jacket he wore on the flight line. She zipped it up and settled into the custom seat. He helped her with the shoulder harness as she strapped in. The big V-8 engine came to life on the first blip of the starter and he wheeled out of the parking lot. After his F-15, the Jeep was the most important thing in his life.

  A dark Thunderbird shot by them, its headlights off.

  “Assholes,” Byers said, “barely saw the son of a bitch…”

  The Thunderbird cut hard to the left and skidded to a halt, blocking the road. Byers jammed at the brakes and dragged the Jeep to a stop. The doors of the Thunderbird swung open and two men got out.

  “You dumb—” One of the men had reached inside his coat and pulled out a gun. Byers hit reverse and accelerated backward, throwing Lorrie against her shoulder harness. He jerked the wheel back and forth as two shots hit the Jeep, one ricocheting off the winch on the front bumper, the other slamming through the wind-shield. He spun the wheel, skidding the Jeep around.

  The two men jumped into the Thunderbird and backed around, coming after the Jeep. Byers, seeing the Thunderbird turn after them, floored the accelerator and the Jeep leaped forward, the speedometer touching a hundred miles an hour. He headed south, looking for open country. They were on the outskirts of town when Byers slammed on the brakes and turned off the road, heading cross-country, fighting the wheel as they bounced into an arroyo. He drove two hundred yards down the dry stream bed and stopped.

  “Stay here,” he told Lorrie. “I want to get a look at those bastards.” He reached under his seat and fumbled for a moment, pulling out a .357 handgun and running back down the arroyo and scrambling up the bank.

  Lorrie, scared, twisted around when she heard a footfall on the bank above her head and almost screamed before Byers jumped down and hopped inside the Jeep.

  “Ragheads,” he muttered, starting the motor. “They’re gone.”

  “You really know how to show a girl a good time.”

  Chapter 6: D Minus 29

  The Zagros Mountains, Iran

  “A car is coming,” the woman said, gathering her chador around her for warmth. Bill Carroll and the two Iranians had been waiting beside the road for hours; now it was early morning. The man stood and walked into the road to wave down the car. Carroll stood with him and unzipped his pants. As the car slowed, he urinated in full view of the headlights. The driver ignored the frantic waving of the Iranian and sped away, disgusted with the sight.

  The man came back and waved his pistol at Carroll. “You insulted him, I should kill you for that—”

  “If you had let me relieve myself when I asked earlier it would not’ve happened.” Carroll ignored the man and sat back down. “I think we should start walking, it will help keep us warm. Besides, I’m tired of this.”

  The Iranian could not make up his mind. He wished he had ignored the incident like the other passengers on the bus, but the young man had spoken a foreign language in his sleep and there was the promise of a reward…still, the man did seem to be what he claimed, which meant trouble for him and the woman. He cursed his impetuous behavior, and the woman. “Yes, you are right. She will carry the bags.” He waved the pistol at the woman, making her carry Carroll’s bag and the two battered suitcases. “As a soldier of the Jihad you know what we do is necessary.”

  Covering his ass, Carroll thought, hedging his bets. “Yes. I understand your position, I will explain that your conduct was proper and that I would have done the same if I were you.” Carroll could see some of the tension drain from the man.

  It became colder as they trudged up a long grade. It was time to act. He couldn’t afford to carry on this charade any longer. “May we stop? I need to relieve myself again, this time I need to squat.”

  The man agreed and told the woman to put the cases down. She crumpled to the ground, worn out. Carroll walked toward two large boulders a hundred feet away. When he was out of sight he pulled the coiled wire out of his pocket and scrambled in the dirt until he found two smal
l stones of the right size and shape. He wrapped an end of the wire around each stone for handles and tugged the wire tight. Next he crawled to the far end of the rocks, crouched, checking to find the man standing at the place where Carroll had entered behind the boulders, looking the other way. The distance was too great to sneak up on him, so Carroll retreated into the rocks and walked noisily back toward the man, still out of sight. When he estimated he was about twenty feet away he stopped and found a shadowy niche to hide in, took off his shirt, not wanting to get blood on it, scuffled his feet and made a loud grunting sound.

  “What’s the problem?” The Iranian was closer than he thought.

  “My ankle, it’s very dark back here. Can you help me.” Carroll pulled back into the shadows as he heard the man’s approaching footsteps. The Iranian stopped in front of the niche. Carroll was looking at the right side of the man’s head, barely three feet away.

  “Where are you?”

  Carroll swung the garrote over the man’s head and jerked. “Here.” It was too dark to see the surprise in his eyes. Carroll kicked out the back of the man’s right knee and dropped him. The dying sounds were quickly muted…he doubted that the woman could hear them. Four spasms and he was dead.

  Slowly Carroll picked his way back to the road. About thirty feet from where he left the woman he stopped and ripped apart the bandages that held the knife to his calf. Unless a searcher was very careful it could pass for a dressing. When he reached the road, the woman was gone.

  Shivering from the cold, he stood looking up and down the road. The two suitcases were piled with his bag. She must have heard more than he’d thought and panicked. Which way did she run? The gun, who had it? Probably still with the man, but he didn’t have time to search for it now. You were careless, he warned himself.

  He walked along the side of the road, calculating the woman was tired and had run downhill. Every few hundred feet he would stop, listen, look around. A quarter of a mile later he caught the faint sour odor of the woman’s chador, and then it was gone. He sat down and waited, wishing he had put his shirt back on.