Stephen England - Pandora's grave

Relief washed over the colonel like a tidal wave. He couldn’t see the face in the darkness, but it must be one of the CIA men. He was saved.

The figure shifted and in that movement, Tancretti could see the gleam of a knife blade. He screamed and tried to roll away, knowing his legs could not move him. Knowing he was going to die. His fingers pressed the trigger reflexively, a single wild shot filling the cave with its echo.

It was too late. It changed nothing. His target moved as he fired, fingers reaching down to grasp the wrist of his gun hand.

The knife swung down in its long, curving arc, slicing across his throat. And it was over. All over…

5:48 A.M. Eastern Time

CIA Headquarters

Langley, Virginia

The walls of the conference room were soundproofed to shut out the sounds of the bustling operations center outside, the windows coated with a thin sheath of Teflon to dampen the vibration of voices against the glass. Even here in the heart of the Agency, the possibility of someone using a laser mic to record conversations could not be ruled out.

Lay looked up as the door opened and his daughter walked in. His may have been a prejudiced appraisal, but she was heart-achingly beautiful, her mother written there in every gesture, every smile, the light in those azure blue eyes. Trisha.

He pushed the vision aside with an effort and forced himself to focus on the task at hand.

“What is shared here,” he began, “stays here for reasons I’m sure I don’t need to explain to either of you. We are facing a crisis. As you both know, we are proceeding under the assumption that Alpha Team has been taken out. They were drawn into a carefully laid trap. Which means somehow, someway, the regime knew they were coming. While we will continue our efforts to reestablish contact with the team, we must move on to the next facet of the problem. How did they learn of our plans? Ron?”

The analyst shook his head. “Nothing, boss. Absolutely nothing. If someone got in, they’re a lot better than I am.”

“Probability?”

Carter smiled sheepishly. “Our security programs are ironclad and I’ve been working with computers since the Commodore. It’s not an impossibility, but it’s sure not probable.”

“Carol?”

“I concur with Ron,” his daughter responded. “The last serious attempt to hack our servers was the Chicom strike in the fall of 2011. We detected them within minutes and were able to repel them before they could reach anything sensitive.”

Lay considered the information for a moment, reviewing the options before him. None could be considered good.

“Well, if we weren’t hacked…” The DCIA hesitated before voicing the other option. It seemed like bad ju-ju, but they already knew what he was going to say.

“Then we’ve got a mole.”

2:49 A.M.

Project RAHAB

Moving north-northeast

Things had changed. The quick approach he had counted on no longer seemed viable. Everything was different.

“Copy that,” Gideon Laner replied into the transmitter. “RAHAB out.”

Nathan Gur looked up from his driving. “What’s going on, chief?”

“See anything of Yossi?”

The young man turned, his eyes scanning the desert as it flashed past under the wheels of their vehicle. “Affirmative. Ahead of us, hundred meters out.”

“Catch him,” Gideon ordered. “Latest orders. Radio transmissions are to be kept to a minimum.”

“Sir?”

“I said, step on it!”

2:50 A.M.

The crash site

“EAGLE SIX, this is FULLBACK.” It was Hamid’s voice over Harry’s headset, tense and out of breath. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Shoot,” Harry ordered tersely.

“Somebody nailed BIRDMASTER before I could get back to him. Slit his throat.” There was anger in the Iraqi’s voice. “He was helpless.”

“A soldier?”

“Looked like it, maybe more than one I heard a gunshot-looks like he got off a shot before they killed him.”

Harry went silent for a moment. If the Iranian soldiers were circling around them, their options were rapidly diminishing. They would have to extract quickly. “Can you rejoin our position, FULLBACK?”

“Roger. I can make it to you, Allah willing.”

“Leave Allah out of it,” Harry snapped, surprised at his own impatience with his old friend. “Can you E amp;E?”

“Affirmative.”

“Good. LONGBOW, I need you to stay behind and cover our retreat. You will extract at my signal. Copy?”

“I read you,” Thomas replied. “Horatius is my middle name.”

“Right now I’d settle for a decent imitation of Carlos Hathcock. EAGLE SIX to Alpha Team, break contact!”

2:54 A.M.

Project RAHAB

Gideon glanced down at his watch, shielding its luminous dial with his hand. The gunfire which had rippled over the Iranian mountainside was quiet now, the echoes slowly fading away. He had no clue what he was running into, but hesitation was suicidal. One thing he knew for certain. Minutes were ticking away toward daybreak, minutes he could ill afford to lose. He turned and tapped Nathan Gur on the shoulder.

“Let’s get moving, corporal. We’ve got ground to cover.”

2:55 A.M.

The crash site

The silence didn’t bother Major Hossein half as much. To him, it served as proof that none of his men were exposing themselves to enemy fire. A good sign.

He looked down at the American radio clipped to his combat vest, and thought for a moment about calling the base camp, ordering the evacuation of the archaeologists. They were surely the commandos’ objective.

It was a hard choice. Should the Americans be able to slip around him and raid the base camp, Tehran would surely sack him, and probably execution would follow. And yet-he dared not jeopardize the experiment by ordering it moved. He could almost picture the interrogation.

“ Major Farshid Hossein?”

“ Yes?”

“ You ordered the experiment to be moved-was this because you believed it was beyond your power to defend it?”

“ No, sir. I only wished to take every precaution that security of the experiment was not in danger.”

“ As it would not have been if you had followed your orders. Major Farshid Hossein, you have disgraced the revolution …”

Hossein shuddered involuntarily. It was a risk he couldn’t take. He had witnessed that scene too many times, from the other side of the bright lights. There was only one option left to him.

Wipe out the commandos.

He reached over and tapped his sergeant on the shoulder. “Take your men and work your way up to that knoll. We’ll flank the sniper.”

They undoubtedly thought they were being clever. The figures glowed bright green in his nightscope as they wound their way around the rocks, keeping low.

It wouldn’t do them any good. Thomas aimed carefully, centering the cross-hairs on the chest of the foremost soldier, a tall bare-headed man with a Kalishnikov in his hands.

The rifle cracked out through the night, its echoes spelling death. The tall man pitched forward, his gun rattling against the stones.

His comrades dove for cover, the darkness exploding as they returned fire at anything that looked like a target…

Thomas worked the bolt, his hands steady as he took aim once again.

His first indication that something had gone wrong was when a bullet whistled past his head, ricocheting off the rocks that sheltered him.

They had flanked him. His location was compromised…

Harry paused for a moment at the top of the bluff. It was far enough. Bound and overwatch. Time to tell Thomas to come on home while they could still provide covering fire.