“Sitting here is not a good idea,” said the Israeli.

They studied the GPS and the paper map. They were roughly two hundred miles from the target area, and that was if they went on a straight line. Even the best roads would add another hundred miles.

“Maybe the best thing to do is split up,” Gorud suggested to Granderson. “Take the pilot west for the mission. You wait until dark, then take the truck and go north to the escape route. Route 81 is nearby.”

“We’re not leaving without you,” said Turk.

“Gorud is right,” suggested the Israeli.

“It’s not going to happen,” said Turk. He glanced at Grease. The soldier’s stone face offered no hint about what he should say or do. “What if we wait until nightfall?” he asked. “Then we slip into the city and take what we need.”

“Not with wounded,” said Granderson.

“What other cities are there along the way?” Turk asked. “We could go a little distance, stretch it a little bit, then steal something.”

That seemed promising, until they examined the map. The desert west of Jandagh was mostly dunes; the car probably wouldn’t make it and the pickup might not either. So the only route possible was north, where about eighty miles of travel would take them to a cluster of hill cities and oases. If the truck made it that far, it could go the entire way.

Before they could make a decision, Turk heard helicopters in the distance. As they scrambled back to the vehicles, he had an idea.

“We’ll go back up the hill,” he yelled. “We’ll make it look like we’re investigating what happened.”

He spotted the helicopters a few minutes after the car pulled onto the road. There were two, both Shabaviz 2-75s, Iranian reverse-engineered variants of Bell’s ubiquitous Huey series. They looked like Bell 214s, with a thick, rectangular-shaped engine box above the cabin. Dressed in drab green paint, they were definitely military aircraft. They flew from the north, arcing over the sand in the general direction of the gunfight, though about two miles from it.

“They going to be close enough to see what happened there?” Turk asked as they drove back up the road. They were going as slow as the Israeli could manage without stalling the car.

“Absolutely,” said Grease.

The helicopters continued southward for a half minute, then turned in a circle and headed toward the vehicles. Grease radioed a warning to the others but got no response, even though they were within a few hundred yards of each other.

Turk fingered his rifle as the helicopters approached. They appeared unarmed, but someone inside the back cabin with a machine gun could do a hell of a lot of damage.

On the other hand, if the choppers did land, the crews might be overpowered.

Turk didn’t know how to fly a helicopter, but he certainly had every incentive to try.

The helicopters skipped low near the side of the mountain, passing near the vehicles. They flew over the car and the small caravan and promptly banked away, back in their original direction.

The sound of the rotors grew steadily softer. The Israeli continued for a short while and found a place to turn around. They passed the pickup as it started into a three-point turn.

The troop truck wheezed up the road, then just stopped as they drew near. Granderson got out and started to climb underneath. As he did, the truck lurched backward. Granderson froze, then looked underneath gingerly as Dome pressed hard on the brake.

“Oil case is dinked all to hell,” the captain told them. “There’s mud all across the top of the chassis. Must be from the fluid leaking.”

“We can back it down to the spot where we were,” suggested Turk.

There wasn’t too much question now. They needed another vehicle. They were going into Jandagh.

14

Jandagh, Iran

IF THEY WEREN’T GOING TO WAIT UNTIL NIGHTFALL, Gorud suggested, then the best approach would be to drive straight in and attempt to buy—or steal—an extra vehicle. And in that case, the most likely candidates were Gorud and the Israeli, since they both spoke the language well and were reasonably familiar with the country. But Gorud was wounded and wouldn’t be much in a fight, so Turk suggested that he go in his place, which would have the advantage of leaving behind a guide in case something went wrong. Grease, his shadow, would go with him.

No one else liked the idea, but it didn’t take long for them to see it was the most practical alternative if they weren’t going to wait until night. They worked out a cover story on the way—they were Russians, one of their vehicles had broken down, and they wanted to buy or lease another to make it across the desert to the town where they were supposed to meet an official from the oil ministry.

Jandagh, like many Iranian cities, had a broad but only lightly used main street. It was anchored by two roundabouts on the southern end. Trees lined both sides of the road, though their short branches provided little shade. Beyond them to the west, wind blew the loose sand off the dunes, driving it toward the white walls of the houses. It hadn’t been exactly cool in the hills, but now the heat built oppressively, overwhelming the car’s air conditioner and drawing so much sweat from Turk that his white button-down shirt soaked through, graying with the flying grit.

They saw no one on the street until they neared the second traffic circle. Two children were standing in the shade of a doorstep, staring at the car. Farther on, a small knot of men sat on some boxes and leaned against the facade of a building that looked to Turk like an old-fashioned candy shop. A police car sat opposite the end of the circle, its lone occupant watching from behind closed windows.

They passed it slowly, then continued along the road, which was divided by a center island of trees, these in slightly better condition than the others. Turk guessed that there might be a dozen people walking or standing in front of the buildings on either side of the next quarter mile of road. On the right side the buildings were separated by long alleys in a perfect if small grid; from above they would look like a maze for learning disabled rats. The buildings on the other side were larger and more randomly arranged. Most met the public with plain walls of stuccoed stone.

“See anything worth taking?” Grease asked the Israeli.

“Nothing.”

Another large intersection marked the end of the quarter-mile main street. The Israeli passed through it cautiously. The buildings surrounding them were residential, and there were more vehicles on the side of the street—many more, including several vans that Turk thought they might take.

“Easy enough to find once the sun goes down,” said the Israeli. “There are too many people around to try it now.”

They avoided the old city and fort area on the hill, turning left and heading toward the highway. Here, there were more vehicles, including several tractor trailers parked around a large open space at the side of the highway. An array of small shops stood at the city end of the space; they were family-run restaurants. Men stood in most of the doorways, bored touts who perked up as soon as they saw the car, but then slouched back when it became obvious it wasn’t stopping.

“There was a junkyard just where we first turned,” said Grease when the road opened up. “There were some cars and a pickup or two. We might try there.”

The Israeli turned around.

The junkyard was actually a garage, the finest not only in Jandagh but the best in any desert in the world, according to the gap-toothed man in his seventies who ambled over to greet them when they got out of the car. The Israeli gave him a brief version of the cover story, but the old man didn’t seem too interested in why they were there. He had several vehicles they would be interested in, he said, urging them toward a group parked in front of the ramshackle buildings on the lot.