Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Deception

“Grab on!” he shouted, grabbing the bench bracket and holding on for dear life as the truck bounced and rocketed out of control down the slope for what seemed like forever, though it could only have been a half minute or so. All at once, with a sharp jolt that almost turned them over and smashed them against the cab partition, the truck came to a sudden jarring stop.

For a moment, nothing. Then they stirred.

“Everyone all right?” Scorpion asked, pulling himself up. The truck was on an angle but still upright.

“You killed them!” Zahra said. “Vay Khoda!” My God!

Scorpion knelt and felt for a pulse in the neck of the guard whose skull he had cracked.

“No, this one’s still alive,” he said.

“Now what? We’re still locked in,” Ghanbari shouted in Farsi, getting up and turning his back for Scorpion to free his hands. Scorpion took the adhesive tape with the scalpel still stuck to it from Ghanbari’s hand and cut the plastic hand-tie, then did Zahra’s.

“Scale and the others will be here any second,” Zahra said. “What’ll we do?”

“Get out,” Scorpion said, handing Ghanbari the second MPT-9, then searching the pockets of both guards for extra magazines. “I’ll need that tape with the scalpel.”

“You’re going to shoot the lock?” Ghanbari asked, straightening his glasses, which had gotten knocked sideways as they moved to the van’s locked cargo door.

“Impossible. That only works in movies,” Scorpion said, positioning the muzzle about five inches below the door lock, mindful of the sight offset. At extreme close range you had to aim low because the gun’s sights were higher than the bore; also, he wanted to be clear of the lock. “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, shooting makes a lock harder to open, not easier,” he added, then fired a burst into the truck door. The bullets ripped a dozen holes through the metal below the lock. He fired another burst, trying to connect the bullet holes in a circle and punch a single hole in the door big enough for a hand to slip through.

He had made a small hole, about three, four centimeters. Not big enough. He slipped in another magazine and fired the entire magazine to widen the hole, then pulled the lock pick with a flat polymer hook, away from the adhesive tape and handed it to Zahra.

“My hand’s too big,” he told her. “See if you can get your hand through and open the lock with this.”

“I don’t know how to pick a lock,” she said.

“A car or truck door lock only has five tumblers. It’s easy,” he said, giving her the pick. “Just stick your hand through the hole and up till you feel the lock. Then stick the pick with the hook end down into the lock and turn. As you stick it in it’ll rake across the tumblers. That’s half the battle.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said.

“Would you rather die? That’s the choice. Scale will be here any minute,” he said.

“This is crazy,” she said, shaking her head as she stuck her hand through the rough hole made by the bullets, pressing the side of her body against the door. Her face was strained as she twisted her hand up on the outside of the door. “I feel the lock,” she said.

“Good. Now stick it in,” he said, loading a new magazine into his MPT-9.

They waited; only seconds, but it seemed an hour. Every second, Scorpion knew, Scale was getting closer. Unless they got out quickly, there was a good chance they would walk out into a hail of bullets.

“It’s in,” she announced.

“Turn it,” he told her.

“It’s not turning,” she said.

“Jiggle it.”

“How?”

“Not side to side. Up and down. Just a little. Jiggle twice then turn.”

They heard the door lock click.

“Now what?” she said.

“Leave the pick in the lock. Turn your hand down and pull in and up on the bar,” he said.

“I’m trying,” she said, then looked at him. “I can’t. It’s too hard.”

“Scale’s coming any second, damn it! Pull in and up,” he said.

She looked terrified, and a moment later she grunted.

“It moved,” she said, pressing her weight against the back door, her face white with the strain. They heard something move and then the door swung open.

Zahra freed her hand and the three of them jumped out onto a steep rocky slope below the snow line. Scorpion hit the ground laying flat and motioned them down as he looked up the slope.

In the dark it was almost impossible to see. There were shadows, not moving, at the edge of the road high above them. Probably the two sedans, he thought. They had been very lucky their van had come so far down the slope, he thought. If they were close to the road, Scale would have been waiting for them as they exited.

He could hear something moving, the sound far above them, although it was too dark to see clearly. But if he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see him either. It had to be Scale and the other three Revolutionary Guards making their way down the slope toward them.

“What do we do?” Zahra asked. She was crouched beside him. Ghanbari, next to her, cradled the second MPT-9. Scorpion looked around. About four hundred meters below he saw the lights of houses. Probably Darband, a tiny village adjoining the Shemshak ski resort, a little farther down the mountain. He had come through it on his way up. There would be cars there; he could steal one. They had to get into Tehran before a roadblock could be set up.

Options. To stay and fight it out. They were outnumbered and outgunned and had limited ammo. The odds were lousy. Plus, in Begur he had learned not to underestimate Scale.

Or they could go up. Go around Scale and his men coming down in the dark, steal one of the sedans and hightail it for Tehran. On the plus side, it would be unexpected. They would catch Scale by surprise. On the minus side, the slightest sound and they would be caught out in the open in the snow. Sitting ducks for Scale and his trained Revolutionary Guards. And if they did make it to the cars, they would have a lot farther to go down the mountain to reach Shemshak and the road back to Tehran. If Scale made a cell phone call to set up a roadblock before they got into the city, they’d be in Evin Prison within the hour.

Or they could go down the rest of the slope on foot to Darband, grab a car and try to outrun the roadblock. It was the shortest way, but on the minus side, he didn’t know how fast the others could move and at some point they’d be in the open, easy targets if Scale and his men got close enough before they reached the winding village road below.

All the options were bad. Find another one, he told himself, and a thought occurred.

“What stopped us?” he asked out loud and walked around the van. The right front of the vehicle was smashed against a rock outcrop. The hood was buckled in as though hit by a battering ram. He didn’t have to look inside to know the engine had been damaged. He glanced down the slope to the road and the village below. The angle was steep. At least fifty degrees. Still, it might just be possible, he thought, looking up to see moving shadows barely visible near the edge of the snow line. In a minute or less Scale and his men would be within shooting range.

Scorpion opened the cab door and pulled the driver’s body out onto the ground. The key was still in the ignition. He got in behind the wheel and, just to make sure, tried to start the van, but the engine was dead, as he’d suspected. Motioning to the others, he went around and pulled the other body out of the cab.

“Scale’s coming. We have less than a minute to live,” he told them.

“What do you suggest?” Ghanbari asked, swallowing hard.

“Help me push the van back up off this rock outcropping, just maybe ten centimeters. Then you two jump into the back of the van. As far back as you can go for the weight, to keep us from flipping over.”